Dungeon in Dran (Part 2)
GAME: Donna rolls perception: (20)+13: 33
GAME: Delilah rolls perception: (20)+5: 25
The door to the room opens and the first thing you notice is the sound of scritching. The sound of something dry rasping over something dry, but very quietly. You might not have noticed it save how dead silent the dungeon has been thus far. It's almost lost under the sound of your breath. Then the door swings open and sitting in the back corner of the room is a pair of skeletons. They're still armed and armored for a fight, but the equipment is old and dilapidated.
The skeletons are also red.
This unusual quality draws the eye, and you quickly realize that the skeletons are not what's actually red. There's something red on them. Something red and _moving_. Thousands of tiny ants. All of them marching diligently but uselessly over the bones.
The door swings open and the motion of their tiny bodies stops. Antenna quiver. A couple thousand eyes turn toward the open door.
The scritching stops.
The ants don't hesitate. They don't wait or give anyone a chance to close the door on them. They rush across the floor like a flood of red that swarms through the doorway and rapidly up Donna's form. There's more behind the ones on her. Thousands of tiny bodies clinging to the woman in front of her sister, and a thousand more waiting to assist.
GAME: Donna rolls fortitude: (6)+8: 14
And the ants are immediately upon Donna, biting, stinging, and probably looking to turn her into yet another armored skeleton. An enemy lacking a face to punch is a pretty hard counter to most of her abilities.
Fortunately for her, she didn't come alone.
Even more fortunately, her sister is *much* better at widespread havoc than she.
Stumbling into the room, the brawler slaps at her armor and exposed skin, turning and risking *extreme* awful to communicate tactics;
"KILL IT WITH FIRE."
GAME: Delilah casts Grease. Caster Level: 8 DC: 16 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d6: (3): 3 GAME: Donna rolls fortitude: (16)+8: 24
"I've got a better idea!" Delilah declares, fervently hoping that it is indeed a better idea. One never really knows until they try. "One that should hurt you a lot less. If it works." She takes a step back, eyes and brands flaring to a brilliant blue glow as she traces a couple of runes in the air...
And effectively covers Donna in goo. Slippery, slightly icky goo.
And then she takes another step back.
GAME: Donna RAGES!, gaining +2 to melee attack/damage/Will saves and 18 temporary HP GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d6: (1): 1 GAME: Donna rolls 1d20+9+2: (6)+9+2: 17 GAME: Donna casts Resist Energy. Caster Level: 9 DC: 14
"....Okay we tried it your way," Donna says after shaking off the nauseating effect of being bitten by thousands of tiny mouths in thousands of tiny spots. Clapping her hands together with particular savagery, she draws in a deep breath through her nose, then looses an arcane word of power at top volume, Arcane sigils flare into pale blue light in her eyes, and on her exposed arms, and the pale blue fire leaking from them spins around her body, taking on a fiery hue.
"*Now* can we try mine?"
GAME: Delilah casts Fireball. Caster Level: 8 DC: 18 GAME: Donna rolls reflex+2: (8)+8+2: 18 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+5: (2)+5: 7 GAME: Delilah rolls 8d6: (31): 31 GAME: Aftershock rolls 3d6: (14): 14
"Alright, trying it your way!" Delilah takes another step back -- almost like she knew this was how it was going to go. "Hope you're ready for this," she adds, as she traces another set of runes and an arcane design in the air in front of her. The magic coalesces into a bolt of energy that flies into the room, and then explodes into a blast of brilliant blue flame, engulfing the space and everything it it with a high-pitched 'whuff'.
"...You okay in there?!" she calls out afterwards. "Are the ants dead yet?"
GAME: Donna rolls fortitude: (14)+8: 22
The ants, somehow, manage to survive the conflagration. At least some of them. They relentlessly attack Donna, drawn by the scent of food and the promise that their mightier numbers will succeed.
"Not quite!" Donna manages, before the smoke fully clears. And yes indeed, she is still covered in bitey bugs. "Keep it up, though!"
GAME: Delilah casts Fireball. Caster Level: 8 DC: 18
Delilah takes a moment, reviewing the spells she knows to see if there's anything better she can use here. Web won't help, the ants are already all over Donna. Scorching Ray isn't quite... indiscriminate enough. Prismatic Spray? No. Glitterdust? No. Unseen Servant is definitely out.
"Okay, here it comes again!" she shouts, seeing as how that's... really all she's got to offer at the moment. She traces the runes and arcane designs once more, and for a second time blue fire consumes the room and everything in it (aside from Donna who seems to be just fine).
"Okay, how about now?!"
"Now's good!" calls Donna's voice from inside the smoke cloud. The tattoos fade, and the fire leaves her eyes, but the field remains. Which... is probably handy, given their first encounter.
"Swarms. *Great.* So... wonder if there's anything left in here?"
A quick look around proves that the room is... empty. Aside from two VERY baked corpses who's armor and weapons are now melted piles of scrap.
Delilah shrugs her shoulders, as she walks quickly into the room and offers a shoulder to prop Donna up, knowing how taxing the physical feats she pulls off can be. "I dunno," she replies. "I mean, anything that can't survive being burnt, probably not. But I figured I'd rather walk out of here with a sister than loot, so I guess here we are." She glances towards the pile of melted armor, then looks back to Donna. "I doubt there was anything in here of great value. The ants probably ate anything not metal, and any magical metal would've survived."
"Thought so," Donna says, drooping a bit in place. Throwing her head forward, she shakes soot and fried insects from her hair, drawing in a long, deep breath. "...Think we both need to work out some less discriminate tricks, times like this."
"Well..." Delilah shrugs her shoulders, "Yes, probably. I should buy some scrolls when we're next in town. Spending the last few months worrying about getting my head chopped off put a damper on my shopping." She draws her pistol, keeping it at the ready just in case something gribbly rears its gribbly little head and she can deal with it without wasting spells.
"So... shall we give this room a proper once over, just in case there's one of those ever-glorious secret compartments behind the walls, and then move on to the other door? Which hopefully doesn't have hordes of ants?"
"Sounds like a plan," Donna says, moving to the far wall from the door and starting a proper search for raised spots, hollow bits of wall, and whatever else might be in a forest temple for secret passages.
You search the room from top to bottom, but there's no sign of anything unusual or which might lead to a secret door or compartment. Unfortunately. So you move on to the next door to the next room. This door opens as easily as the first two, and you find only one thing inside it. A statue. It's a very life-like replica of a man who looks positively surprised. It's got a layer of dust on it, and otherwise seems perfectly intact. If you were so inclined, it might fetch a fair price due to the detail of it.
Lyme looks at the replica, arms crossing over his body. "That looks too real." Lips press thin, "wonder what made that?"
"...*Real* good question," Donna says, frowning at the statue. "Lifelike, y'might say."
Moving in a half-crouch, she approaches the statue, peering at its base. "But if it ain't some poor bastard, why's it facing the corner? Statues don't often gotta sit an' think about what they done..."
"...I don't like it," Delilah complains. "Clearly, something about this situation is fishy. Donna's right, statues don't need to think about what they did, and people don't usually send them to their room without their supper as a punishment, either." The sorceress moves into the room, and cups her chin as she looks the statue up and down. "People don't usually make statues that look like they saw themselves in a mirror and immediately went 'oh my, I'm a statue, who knew?' either."
Lyme slides in after, looking into the corner it's staring at from an oblique angle. "Thing doesn't have a base, either. That's just a poor bastard."
"Welp, just in case it isn't..." Stretching her neck to one side, then the other, Donna stoops, wrapping her arms around the statue's legs, and slowly scootching it around to point its horror at the one anomaly of the room; the wall running at an angle to those nearest it.
GAME: Lyme rolls survival: (19)+12: 31
Lyme heads over into the corner, staring at the ground, at the walls. Then something catches his attention, and he ends up walking back towards the doorway. "Something slept here, in the corner, but it left by the door we came through. Slept there long enough to wear down the stone."
"...Sorry buddy," Donna says, as the statue does indeed seem to prove out to be a victim, rather than a puzzle. "Had to be sure."
Rising, she dusts off the skirt of her armor, and sighs. "Cockatrice maybe, or basilisk. Either way... greeeeeeat. Who wants to go on, then?"
"Well..." Delilah shrugs her shoulders lightly. "It's what we're paid for." She straightens up the twin lenses floating in front of her eyes. "Could be a gorgon, too? ...And that'd probably get a good price if we sold him, but that... feels... kinda deeply wrong, y'know?" she nods to Lyme, and then looks back to the door. "So whatever it was that did that is probably awake and wandering around in there."
Lyme exhales. "Well, it's loose now. That's a problem. So yeah," he keeps his sword at low guard. "No selling the stone man."
GAME: Lyme rolls perception: (15)+7: 22 GAME: Donna rolls perception: (5)+13: 18 GAME: Delilah rolls perception: (2)+5: 7
Lyme pauses and says, in a low rumble. "Something's in there. Down low." He crouches, pantomiming. Then, he regrips his sword.
While not noticing the presence herself, Donna immediately drops into a crouch at Lyme's behest, signaling for her sister to do the same. "Basilisk, cockatrice, or gorgon?" she murmurs to the orc.
Delilah does as bid, holding her pistol tightly and as she piles in behind the two much tougher adventurers. ...Not that it's likely to be a factor coming up. "Ten silver says it's a Cockatrice," she whispers. "Not... that I have any particular preference between the two. I've never fought anything that could turn me into a shocked looking rock just by looking at me before."
"D, you got a gambling problem," Donna murmurs with a low chuckle, then shuffles forward, as smoothly and quietly as she can, to open the door. Not once does she rise to her feet, just in case.
Donna opens the door, and finds herself rather face-to-face with a creature that looks something like a rabid mole and a wolf had a child. A furless, somewhat spiky child. It blinks at her, clearly surprised that she opened the door, and then it growls.
GAME: Donna RAGES!, gaining +2 to melee attack/damage/Will saves and 18 temporary HP
GAME: Donna rolls finesse+1-2: (15)+13+1+-2: 27 GAME: Donna rolls finesse+1-2: (10)+13+1+-2: 22 GAME: Donna rolls finesse+1-2: (12)+13+1+-2: 24 GAME: Donna rolls finesse+1-2-5: (8)+13+1+-2+-5: 15 GAME: Donna rolls finesse+1-2-5: (1)+13+1+-2+-5: 8 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Donna rolls 1d4+2+2+1d6+1: (4)+2+2+(2)+1: 11 GAME: Donna rolls 1d4+2+2+1: (3)+2+2+1: 8 GAME: Donna rolls 1d4+2+2+1d6+1: (2)+2+2+(2)+1: 9
The creature growls.
Donna has a much different idea of a threat display.
Again her tattoos flare to life, and she lunges forward, outline smearing into a blur as she moves with preternatural speed. Embers and water droplets fill the air as her armored fists land blow after blow. If the last pair miss, it's because the creature had reared back, and the brawler overcorrected.
But she has its attention, to be sure.
GAME: Donna rolls fortitude: (12)+8: 20 GAME: Donna rolls fortitude: (7)+8: 15
The creature shakes itself and glares at Donna, taking a step back so that she must enter the room in order to engage it further. It doesn't seem to have liked being attacked very much. Blood drips from its wounds and onto the floor.
GAME: Delilah casts Scorching Ray. Caster Level: 8 DC: 17 GAME: Delilah rolls 1d20+4: (20)+4: 24 GAME: Delilah rolls 1d20+4: (1)+4: 5 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Delilah rolls 1d20+4: (1)+4: 5 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Delilah rolls 1d20+4: (19)+4: 23 GAME: Delilah rolls 1d20+4: (4)+4: 8 GAME: Delilah rolls 12d6: (53): 53 GAME: Donna rolls reflex: (8)+8: 16
"OH NO YOU DO NOT TURN MY SISTER INTO A STATUE!" The golden sorceress steps in behind Donna, already forming a spell in front of her as she locks her sights onto the horrifying lizard. It would seem Delilah is inclined to take no chances, as she points one finger at the lizard.
"BURN."
A beam of blue flame connects with the basilisk, and immediately the smell of burning flesh is overwhelming. Where it was bleeding out of its nose, now reddish steam is exhaled; its eyes explode, and then the whole creature just... blows up, showering blood and overcooked meat in a gory splatter around it, leaving a skeleton and some internal organs behind.
"...Oh," mumbles Delilah, once it is all finished. "That... that's actually really gross."
Donna picks a glistening bit of something wobbly, and attached to a tube, off her head and out of her face. "...Y'think?"
Lyme, watching the rear, looks over and nods. "Well, you did blow it up with magic. Spatter happens," says the orc who was out of the immediate radius.
"It does," Delilah admits. She steps forwards to the edge of the gore, and leans over it, sticking out one hand and summoning a bit of magic to clean the worst of the mess off her sister. "Sorry Donna. Didn't mean to overdo it, but I mean, better safe than sorry with things that turn people into statues, I figure." She steps back again, and casts a glance in Lyme's direction. "Sorry I didn't, uhm, save you any. You can beat the daylights out of the next monster. Promise."
"You ain't lyin'," Donna says to Lyme, shaking more gore away from her arms, and trying to ignore the screaming wiggins building at the base of her spine. Finish the job, bathe for a week, that's the order. "Happens. Better me than you, s'always how it is. Also, ten silver, D. You said it was gonna be a Cockatrice."
"I did." Delilah fishes out ten silver coins, arranges them into a neat stack, and deposits them into Donna's palm. "And I always pay my gambling debts."
-TBC