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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Solarious" data-source="post: 2814098" data-attributes="member: 27346">Chapter Three, Part Seven (Reader's edit: Part Eight)Abrina returned to the grand hall with dancing lights and took the second passage near the pool, glancing over her shoulder at the remaining passages with stairs ascending into darkness. Leaving the hall behind, she entered another large room.Four ornate pillars supported the twenty-foot high vaulted ceiling of the room, which was illuminated by lanterns hanging in the corners. Tattered red curtains dangled from iron rods mounted on the walls and pillars. Four rows of ornately carved benches stood in the rectangular area defined by the pillars.Partially set into the south wall was a raised wooden stage with two short staircases leading up to it. Black curtains partially concealed the back wall of the stage, which was painted with an elaborate woodland mural in faded colors.Abrina stepped into the empty theatre, walking down a row between benches, discarding her expired sunrod. Much like the gallery, the theatre had been long abandoned. She traced her fingers along the walls of the chamber as she approached the stage, taking one of the short staircases to the wooden platform. The black curtains creating a small area between the stage and the stone wall behind them disintegrated at her touch. Abrina walked across the stage, staring into the weakly lit audience chamber, when she noticed the outline of a small trapdoor in the floor.Curious, she gently placed her fingers through the hole in the wood, the handhold, and pulled up the door. Beneath was a ladder leading into a three-foot tall, cobweb-filled storage area, lost in flickering shelters from the lights above.The cobwebs were not undisturbed.OOC - Wisdom check +3 against DC 15: rolled 21, success.Abrina loaded the crossbow at her side and silently drew her spear, holding its tip directed into the small area, and prayed to Ninurta to enhance her sight. In the darkness, she saw a shifting figure, limbs far too long and twisted for the creature to be any kind of humanoid. Two narrow eyes stared back.OOC - Casted guidance. Spot check +4 (+4, +1 guidance, -1 10 ft. distance) against DC 19: rolled 23, success.From the darkness a tentacle uncoiled with frightening speed, lashing out for her neck. Abrina reflexively held up her shield, deflecting the rubbery arm at the last moment. She did not see the second tentacle and as she tried to regain her balance a spiny pad wrapped around her neck.Abrina cried out as the pad began to constrict around her windpipe, but she battered at the tentacle with her shield arm as she jerked her head to the side and felt the suction grip loosen. Just in time she dodged another tentacle from the creature beneath the stage. As the tentacles withdrew, Abrina gritting her teeth and launched her spear.Her spear glanced off the creature's hide, clattering against the stone floor below. She cursed her luck, bashing away the tentacles that whipped toward her in response, the dull thuds reverberating up her arm and into her shoulder. Boxes tumbled over as the creature skittered across the small room, diving behind a clothing rack of decaying garments.Abrina drew her crossbow, training the bolt on the rack below. A tentacle appeared from between pieces of clothing and she loosed the bolt. She barely caught a glance of the speeding bolt lodging itself in rotting clothing before the tentacle again found purchase around her neck. Again, she bashed at the tentacle until its grip loosened and Abrina stumbled, raggedly gasping for breath. The other tentacle caught her in the chest, slipping against her chainmail, and Abrina somehow managed to duck another follow-up attack.Abrina stepped away from the trapdoor and tossed the crossbow to the ground, fishing out the small vial that Jenya had handed to her before she had even heard of Jzaridune. She held it to her lips, swallowing the thick fluid in one gulp. The grace of Enlil healed most of the flaring red welts around her neck, easing her pain.Her shield arm, still bruised from fending off the rapid tentacles, weighed her down as she inhaled deeply, catching her breath. More boxes from the storage area below toppled over, and two spiny pads grasped the ledge of the trapdoor, pulling up the rubbery form of the creature. Its mottled, hairless body was no larger than a halfling, yet its arms extended to over three times its height, coiling in the air like writhing snakes.Abrina cringed, weaponless, behind her shield, preparing herself for the coming onslaught.OOC - Abrina's initiative +1: rolled 3. Choker's initiative +6: rolled 10.Choker attacked, +6 against AC 18: rolled 7, miss. Second attack, +6: rolled 26, hit, 5 damage. Abrina at 9 hp. Grapple check +5: rolled 21. Abrina's oppossed grapple check +4: rolled 24, grapple failed. Third attack (quickness), +6: rolled 17, miss. Abrina attacked choker, +3 against AC 17: rolled 14, miss.Choker attacked, +6: rolled 11, miss. Second attack, +6: rolled 11, miss. Moved, Hide check +10: rolled 20. Abrina drew crossbow. Spot check +3 (+4, -1 10 ft. distance) against DC 20: rolled 16, failure. Readied action to attack when choker attacks.Choker attacked, triggering Abrina's readied attack. Abrina attacked, +1 (+3, -2 one-handed): rolled 13, miss. Choker attacked, +6, rolled 18, hit, 6 damage. Abrina at 3 hp. Grapple check +5: rolled 17. Abrina's oppossed grapple check +4: rolled 20, grapple failed. Second attack, +6: rolled 13, miss. Third attack, +6: rolled 14, miss.Abrina took 5-ft. step back. Used potion of cure moderate wounds, healed 7. Abrina at 10 hp. Choker moved out the trapdoor.With lightning speed a tentacle shot out, knocking aside her shield as if she held a piece of parchment, and encircled her neck. Desperately she brought both hands to the tentacle, clawing at the rubbery skin as the spiny pad bit into her skin and squeezed. She could not breathe and as the tentacle tighted its grip darkness overcame her sight.OOC - Choker attacked, +6: rolled 19, hit, 5 damage. Abrina at 5 hp. Grapple check +5: rolled 25. Abrina's oppossed grapple check +4: automatic failure. Constrict, 6 damage. Abrina at -1 hp.As Abrina lost consciousness, she felt the tentacle's grip loosening and at the edge of her quickly fading hearing she thought she heard shouts in the distance and the fluttering of the black curtains behind her. Her eyes closed, her arms went limp, and Abrina fell to the stage floor.</blockquote>

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