Demons What P 14

GAME: Malorn rolls acrobatics: (16)+11: 27

Serraphine looks around then up and sighs before looking down below the webs. She looks back up to Felicia, grimaces, and murmurs, "Oh well. Not again." And she gives in to the fall with a silent prayer to Serriel as she slides her sword back into the scabbard and hugs the scepter tightly to herself.

Felicia takes a deep breath and just....quietly relaxes. "I agree, Fi. See ya when we thud."

GAME: Lucy rolls athletics: (10)+5: 15

..snap snap twang snap.

You're falling, and you're falling...

Hey, is that the sound of water? Rushing water?

YES. YES IT IS. THE SOUND OF WATER IS BECOMING RAPIDLY APPARENT.

Felicia is fully expecting ground to be underneath of them...but water? She curls into a ball.

Lucy runs to the wall and tries to grab on. If only she'd had time to switch from her rapier to her pick - but then the web snaps and she falls. She barely has time to scream. Because really that's all that seems appropriate in this situation.

A deep breath, a slow exhale from Serraphine and she holds tight to the scepter with one hand. "Serriel, protect us all. With your guidance, I will strike true, with your grace we will survive." She looks down and Serraphine throws whatever loose bits of things she doesn't need in front of herself and the crew to try and hit the water first.

GAME: NeverSleepsPool rolls 2d6: (5): 5

Malorn starts to bounce from wall to all trying to slow his fall as much as he can. He finds purchase, but he's still going quiet fast as he heads to water the water. It's going to hurt, but hopefully not as much as just falling right in.

GAME: NeverSleepsPool rolls 1d6: (4): 4

When that torch is on its way down, Celeste has precisely enough time to sheath her sword; the shield remains securely strapped to her arm, and given its spikey nature, well... woe betide anyone she lands on. She swears loudly as the fall begins, bouning off of things on the way down, to... water? Well, at least it'll be a soft (or at least soft-ish) landing.

SPLASH.

There's a whole lotta splashing going on at the moment. You hit the water (and oh does that sting) with massive splashes and rapidly sink to the bottom. Several of the airship crew are more or less disabled by it. They were already hurt and the stunning impact isn't good for them.

And there's a second problem. This water isn't cold.

IT'S HOT.

THIS IS A HOT SPRING.

GAME: Serraphine rolls perception: (3)+4: 7

GAME: Felicia rolls perception: (10)+3: 13

GAME: Lucy rolls perception: (17)+12: 29

Serraphine splashes down into the water and yells out seeing the crew members sink, "Felicia! Can we save the crew?" She's already trying to get to the nearest edge she can find for the water. Hot water BAD.

Felicia splashes into the water as well....and she's trying to help the crew members too....but it's pretty damned hard with breastplate on. "Ptoo! I've got one, Serraphine!"

GAME: Celeste rolls perception: (6)+7: 13

GAME: Malorn rolls perception: (10)+13: 23

GAME: Malorn rolls athletics: (12)+11: 23

GAME: Felicia rolls athletics: (19)+-3: 16

GAME: Celeste rolls athletics: (13)+8: 21

GAME: Serraphine rolls athletics: (1)+1: 2 (EPIC FAIL)

Lucy splashes in with everyone else, though she bobs to the surface a bit faster than those more heavily laden with gear. Treading water, she seems in shock for a moment. Possibly the fall, the unexpected way the fall ended...or even something she saw along the way. But the coughing of a nearby crewmember brings her back to more immediate concerns. Lucy tries to move towards the crewmember, but soon has to deposit her spear and sword in her haversack where - due to its enchantment - they don't weigh her down any more than if she had discarded them completely. Once she's done as much as she can to lighter her own load she puts a dagger between her teeth - only one edge of the curved blade is sharpened. "Get rid of anything you can!" she says as she grabs two of the crewmen and tries to get them within reach of each other. "Better to lose your weapons, than your lives!" Then she dives underwater.

GAME: Lucy rolls athletics: (12)+5: 17

The crew is traumitized. Airship crash, chased by demons, gorgon trying go turn them to stone, petrified gnomes, kobold traps, kobolds, giant spider...

This has been a bad few days. Even so, they're acting with worthy grit and determination as they set about hauling themselves to the shore. Scading burrns will be a fact of life for all of you for now.

Felicia urrghs loudly as she tries to get to shore.

Serraphine tires to call out to Felicia that it's good she does because this hurts, but instead she inhales a mouthful of scalding water. Spluttering she gets her head back above the water, and struggles toward the shore as she feels the water burning her with every passing moment. She knows she'll be quite the sight of burns by the time she finally gets out, the hot water leaving its mark.

Celeste doesn't abandon a damn thing; the half-orc pulls herself to shore, and only there does she drop her shield, peel off what portion of her armor is easily removed, and wade back into the hotsprings to help others get out. "COME ON!!" she shouts, "Everyone get back to shore." Yes, this is probably going to hurt, but dieing tends to hurt a lot more, and the half-orc is tough besides.

Malorn gets out easy enough, but he pauses to turn back to see who else is still in. He sees some of the crew floundering and without a second thought he jumps back in to start to swim over towards them.

When Serraphine does get close enough that she's not a hinderance to herself, she too wades back in to help the crew to shore. Burns be damned.

GAME: Malorn rolls fort: (15)+6: 21

GAME: Lucy rolls fort+3: (7)+3+3: 13

GAME: Celeste rolls fortitude: (15)+6: 21

GAME: Serraphine rolls fort: (2)+8: 10

GAME: NeverSleepsPool rolls 2d6: (8): 8

GAME: Felicia rolls heal: (14)+10: 24

...slowly, you make progress, though not without painful burns for Serraphine. As the survivors are dragged out of the water, they're either ressuscitated or healed byu FElicia's efforts and it isn't long before Celeste, Lucy, Malorn and Serraphine have managed to get everyone out of the hot spring. It's going to slow you down considerably, but here you are again on shore.

Not dead.

That's teh good news!

The bad news: you're in a cavern. There is no apparent exit.

It's just a big circle with a hot spring against a side.

Malorn gets the last of the crew out before he gets out himself. He tries to brush off as much water as he can before he looks around the cavern that they are in. He hmmms as he starts to slowly move around trying to see if there is an exit they are not seeing right away

Felicia is busying herself keeping the burn pain to a minimum....even to Serraphine.

Serraphine stays in the water as well till she's sure they're all out, tromping back onto land while wearing her fullplate, every step a bit more agony as she feels the blisters and burns. She pulls herself out, the water pouring off and out of the armor and the coolness of the air hits her. She inhales sharply and doubles over. Her hands reaching out toward her legs and where the water touched - but she holds short of grabbing because that would mean grabbing the very hot plate. "Oh Serriel protect me..."

Lucy looks around for somewhere relatively comfortable - or safe - to sit. Failing to find anything promising, and too tired to walk /all the way: over to a wall she just sits down where she is on the shore. Her Ioun torch which has been faithfully circling. above her head all this time, even underwater, continues to float above her. "Can we rest here. With watches," she adds hurriedly. "At least spend some time healing?"

Celeste offers a hand to help Serraphine out of the water. "Come on, you're scalded. No going in the water again for you." She pauses, gritting teeth against tusk. "...Unless we have to. It might be the only way out. Kor damnit."

Serraphine glares at Celeste, not because she's angry at her, more because everything hurts. "Scalded? I've had worse from my instructors at the temple." She doubles back over again, looking up toward Celeste again as she still holds short of touching her legs. "That was a lie. They just yelled." She let out another hiss and her hands shake, all at once wanting to grab at her legs but not able to.

Most of the sailors and their cpatain are flopped on the edge of the water, panting and looking miserable and burnt. Treatmetn aside, this still hurts.

GAME: Malorn rolls perception: (6)+13: 19

Looking through the water is fairly easy. It's crystal clear. There /is/ a gap, but you'd be going against the current that leads into the spring. Moreover, you'd be in fairly scalding water. It's not enough to kill anyone immediatley, but it'd leave them fairly badly burned if it takes a while to get away from the source of the heat.

Either way, this isn't gonna be fun.

Malorn comes back to the group to report what he's found, "There is a gap, but the water is scalding. Unless we find a way to protect ourselves from it we'll be badly burned by the time we get out."

"Well." Celeste scoops Seraphine up and carries her back from the water, to where she can properly lie down. "Don't worry about your legs, you're fine." She looks up, and gestures to see if anyone else can come look at Seraphine's legs, being all scalded as it seems they are. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," she adds, "Is the source of the heat something we can deal with?"

Serraphine lets out a pant of air as she's moved by Celeste, as she's set down she finally can touch the metal again, undoing the greaves and pulling them away from her skin that looks quite boiled. She looks down at it and starts breathing more quickly, a close of her eyes and she slows it down, not opening her eyes as she says calmly, "We have no idea if there's a real way out either. I can only hold my breath so long, and there's no saying that we would get to another air supply in time. It's a way out but - it's a very dangerous one in every respect."

Lucy struggles to her feet and walks over to the edge of the water to peer into the liquid. "No matter what, someone's going to have to go down there and look." She crosses her arms to rub her hands over her upper arms, but immediately stops. Even touching her own scalded skin hurts. "I can go, I'm small and I don't weigh as much. Plus there might be something I recognize. I saw bones down there - gnome bones."

You can hear some jeering from above.

Sounds like kobolds.

"COME ON DOWN HERE!" Celeste roars up at the Kobolds, "MY STOMACH GROWLS AND I COULD EAT EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!" She brings one fist up and solidly pounds herself one on the chest. Her lips curl and she snarls loudly, before turning her gaze back down to Lucy, and then slackening off her warlike expression, in that order. "Brave. Don't go any farther than you can manage, learning something isn't any good if you don't live long enough to report it back to us."

A pile of foul smelling glop rains down from above.

It's otyugh feces. Yes, they just threw poop down on you.

Before the poop rains down from above, Serraphine inches back to the water's edge to scoop some of the scalding water into her mess kit bowl and drop in chunks of mushroom people. Now to just wait... Mmm, mushroom soup.

GAME: Malorn rolls 1d20+8: (17)+8: 25

GAME: Baz da Ork rolls 1d20+5: (9)+5: 14

GAME: Malorn rolls 1d8: (5): 5

With a snarl the big Ork brings up his compound bow. The weapon created for a massive level of strength groans under the strain put to it by the armored cleric. Then with a whoosh the arrow sails upwards, arcing to bounce harmlessly off the rock face and fall back down near the Ork himself.

Malorn aims up and he fires at the Kobold. He looks to the others, "If you want to start to climb I can cover you til you get to the top then I'll make my way up. Once you are up toss down a rope and we'll climb out."

As Malorn's crossbow bolt hits a kobold, winging him, there is a shrill cry as it topples and begins falling down the pit and into the water. Blood begins misting to the surface. He's dead for sure after that dive.

Also, the kobolds back away from the edge of the pit for the second time.

Serraphine blows across the top of her soon-to-be soup and then looks out at the water, "Well... Damn. There goes our water supply." She inches back away and sighs. Another look up toward the hole in the ceiling... where did the spiders go anyway? She sips at the mushroom soup.

Celeste watches the kobold plummet with a look of satisfaction writ across her face. "Excellent shot," she comments, as pleasantly as if Malorn had just shot a pheasant. "Now, to the matter at hand; there are two ways out and the demon army catches up more with every minute we delay. So. Climb, or swim?"

The baby spiders were either caught in the flames or are on the walls above... somewhere.

In hiding.

Lurking.

WAITING.

"Where'd the spiders go anyway?" Serraphine asks as she gives another blow across the surface of the soup and then takes another sip, "Maybe they ducked into another exit."

"Swim." Says the big Ork. "Climbing dat wit all dem spidahs and kobolds? We'd nevah make it. Plus we'd just be hump'n it through another endless line o traps and tricks from dez little basturds." The big Ork nods towards the water, even though his armored form will likely be at a disadvantage, maybe even a fatal one. "At least down dere, if we can find pockets of air, dey ain't like ta 'ave trapped it and spidahs don't dive."

"But do we have enough people to give everyone the ability to endure the heat? And what about holding our breath and all that? We would be, effectively, at the mercy of hope." Serraphine says as she looks toward the water's edge, "If we knew that there were pockets of air - and we had the ability to cover /everyone/ with the ability to endure elements - then I'd say we should try it." She sips the liquid again.

Serraphine adds, "If we can cover one person with the ability to endur elements now, we could have them scout ahead. Check the other side of the cavern and - if nothing is found - check the crevice in the bottom of the spring."

Lucy glares up at the sounds of kobold, cementing in her heart a hatred of hhe entire species. Ahem. Peering at the water, she then looks at the healers in the group, and their holy symbols. "That tye of healing, where clerics heal everyone around you. Would thar work underwater?"

"I agree with Baz." Will wonders never cease. Celeste points at the spring, "We swim, let's get on with it. Lucy can go first, if she says it's safe I'll go next, and we can start bringing people over who need help."

Felicia says, "It will burn you if you go without protection....."

A scratch of her chin, and Serraphine nods her head to Lucy. "Lucy, go scout it. Don't die. Can you do that? The other side of the cavern and - if nothing there - down below the water?"

Felicia is busy resting....

GAME: Lucy rolls fort: (19)+3: 22

GAME: Lucy rolls athletics: (15)+6: 21

Serraphine adds, "OH! And take a rope, if you get out, maybe you can tie it off and run it back - would make getting through for everyone else much easier."

Lucy moves back from the water now, moving as far as she can from the other light sources before she turns off her torch and plunging her into darkness - except for those who can see in the dark of course. There's a jungling sound as she shimmies out of the chain shirt she wears under her blouse. Then she wads it up and puts that into her haversack as well. The torch comes on and she also has a loop of rope in her hand, the length and the other end still somewhere in the haversack. "Good idea," she nods at Serraphine and hands the loop to the good airship captain. Then Lucy takes a few steps, experimentally, to ensure that more of the rope emerges from her pack as she moves away from the crew. Finally she's ready. Before she can change her mind she runs for the water and dives in.

She's gone for just long enough to worry before she emerges, breathing hard but not gasping for air as if she'd held her breath the entire time. "There's another cave! It's like this wall splits one big cave in two." She points. "There's a big chamber on that side, with statues - gnome works! Real statues this time, not...you know, people turned into stone. And a waterfall! That's where the water's coming from. I think we can make it!..." she turns and eyes the crew. "It's just that it'll be...hot. Very very hot."

Felicia takes a deep breath. "All right." She then sighs. "I should go first, along with Lucy." She then looks to Fi. "So I can get on your burns as soon as you're out of the water. And Lucy can keep my ass from getting hurt.

Serraphine sighs and looks at Felicia, with a grimace she says, "I'll take off my armor as well, that should help with this." A scowl around and she begins to pull it off a piece at at ime and storing it in her own bag - a bag of holding in her case. "We'll get through this yet." She adds with a grimace and a nod. The chain comes off next, and then the quilted... What? It's plate armor, it's not like it's only sheets of metal.

By the time she finishes she's in a pair of pants and an shirt which has the embroidery of Serriel upon its front and back. A leather belt snugged about her waist with the frog holding her sword still and the shield over her back. The scepter still held in her hand. She's not putting it down for anything.

Malorn puts away his crossbow as he looks back at Lucy and nods, "All right it seems we are going under the water then." He looks around to the crew to see if any look like that won't be able to handle it.

Felicia takes off her armor as well. Of course, she has a tabard over her armor and shirt and pants as well. "This is gonna hurt.

GAME: Serraphine rolls 2d6: (7): 7

GAME: Serraphine rolls Athletics: (3)+6: 9

GAME: Felicia rolls athletics: (1)+0: 1 (EPIC FAIL)

GAME: Serraphine rolls fort: (7)+8: 15

GAME: Felicia rolls fort: (5)+7: 12

GAME: Serraphine rolls 2d6: (8): 8

GAME: Celeste rolls athletics: (14)+8: 22

GAME: Lucy rolls athletics: (8)+6: 14

GAME: Lucy rolls fort: (2)+3: 5

GAME: Malorn rolls athletics: (7)+11: 18

GAME: Malorn rolls fort: (18)+6: 24

...so, it's really slowl.

Way slower than any of you would like, and you get burned a bunch. About halfway through the process, due to the slowness, some of the more injured crewmen have a bit of panic over it, but they get thorugh. Still, it slows you down even FURTHER.

Seeing a trend here/ It's /slow/. And PAINFUL. By the time it's done, and everyone's migrated to the next room, all of you have burns that are just achingly painful and will take up a lot of healing resources to cure, not to mention the poor crewmen.

One-eye in particular is miserable. Shje's glaring at you all rather angrily right now. It's all your fault. YOU AND YOU MAGIC DEMON STICK.

Oh, and of course, that's when the gnomish statues come to life, drawing their ornate blades.

...ain't life grand?

Malorn gets out of the water and he helps others out as well. He is panting softly as he wipes the water from his face. He turns to look over his shoulder as he hears the gnomes statues start to come to life and he takes a deep breath to get ready to fight.

Celeste is one of the first to emerge from the water; stripped to the waist, sopping wet, and scalded like a hard boiled egg, she devotes her time to helping people up out of the water, along with Felicia when she makes it through. If the Captain is angry, well, that's just too damn bad; Celeste just glares back at her, and grunts, as she goes right back to helping people through. When the statues come to life she doesn't waste time; she just snatches up her shield and takes her flail, thus far unused, to hand. "Felicia!" she snaps, "Lucy! We have a problem."

The pain of it all was horrendous, the stop in the middle and the grab at her holy symbol to cast again - cast in hopes that it keeps the crew alive - then she's pulling through once more. A gasp - hard and painful - as she emerges the other side, clutching to the scepter still in one hand. She curls up for a moment, wincing and then slowly uncurls herself and turns around to help others out of the water. Once they're all through it's was time to start putting on her armor again, the layers in reverse. The padded starts off and the chain is just being pulled over when Celeste starts to make her comments. "What?" Serraphine says, looking toward her then... "Well, another day." She stands up, pulling out her sword and tucking the scepter into her frog in its place.