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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CanadienneBacon" data-source="post: 3265463" data-attributes="member: 11146">At Wyleck's command to attack Traven, Yssal cocks his ears forward.  Instead of complying, however, Yssal choses to sit and gnaw on the chitinous rear leg of the dead wolf spider.Wyleck rolled a 3 on his Handle Animal check.  Not enough with his Handle Animal check modifier to get Yssal to obey.  The DC was 10.The yellow dog leaves Yssal to his prize and trots over toward Rancid.  The dog leaves a discrete space between itself and Rancid and Traven but appears to be getting ready to spring at a moment's notice.Baliss hefts his battleaxe and crosses the festhall's common room to be nearer to the fracas going on between Rancid and Traven.  Not wanting to be stepped on, kicked, or otherwise bitten, Baliss stands within 10 feet of Traven but is ready to attack should either need or opportunity present itself.Arden deftly stows her crossbow then draws a rapier seemingly cut down to size for a small creature.  Though miniature, the rapier's tip gleams with lethal purpose in the dim lighting of the Cockatrice.  Arden hollers a taunt at Traven.  "Ha, didn't expect me to be watching, did you!"Kularian, with Vaja's aid, begins shuffling customers out into the street.  The pair are soon lost in the thickening crowd outside, the noise of which fills the festhall.  Lowel moves from the courtyard into the main common room and tries to persuade a particularly recalcitrant drunkard to heave off his chair.  After much badgering, Lowel seems to ignore the old man's protests and looks to be on the verge of simply grabbing the customer and forcibly removing him from the tavern.  Frane takes a step toward the second wolf spider then starts to keel over.  While Frane has a distinct green palor to his skin, his lips are ash.  With Rhys's help, the big barkeep eases himself down to the floor and sits, slumped, trying to catch his breath.  Rhys confirms his guess that Frane has been poisoned and works quickly to stauch any lingering effects the poison might have.  Rhys knows that Frane may well take a second shock to his system in another half minute or so but for now it's a waiting game.  If the tender is to be saved, Rhys will need to be on hand to minister to Frane.  Judging by the color of Frane's skin and the pale hue to his lips, the spider was monstrous in quality, a type normally found deep in the hearts of the blackest forests or in old abandoned places where men fear to tread.  Examining Frane, Rhys spots the man's tongue, which has turned black as night.  Not normally a symptom of monstrous spider venom, the blackened tongue is a puzzlement to the healer.Like Baliss and the yellow dog before him, Phud too moves toward the tussling combo of Rancid and Traven.  His mace raised high, Phud looks for an opening to bean Traven on the head.  Finding none, the bouncer holds off a moment.Traven soon finds himself nearly surrounded by foes.  The hole where Arden's crossbow bolt hit the bouncer in the chest begins to make a sucking sound.  Traven coughs and red foam rushes to his mouth.  With a horrified look on his face, the bouncer screams "NOooooo!" in a high-pitched shriek and backs away five feet from Baliss and Rancid.  Traven starts to violently and, from the look of it, involuntarily thrash.  Right before the eyes of Phud, Baliss, Wyleck, Rowan and Arden, Traven molts his human skin and reveals his true aspect. A third spider stands before them now, though very unlike the two wolf fiends that have already been bested. Chitinous plates cover the creature's back and belly. Unlike the wolf spiders, this new spider is sleek and hairless and its exoskeleton is mottled blue and purple in hue. Arresting to look at, the spider has a wolf head just like the other two, and eight spider legs, but two robust humanoid arms thick like those of a fairy tale ogre's sprout from the base of the fiend's neck.One of Cheal's thugs panics as Traven sheds his skin and transforms into a spider within mere inches of Cheal's table.  Acting on pure instinct, the thug attempts to push the purple-and-blue spider away from the table.  The thug scores an unarmed blow on the spider's backside for 4 points of damage, but the action comes at a price.  The spider kicks its rear legs at the thug.  The force of the blow crumples the thug's chest and the man slumps back in his seat, his eyes rolled back in his head.  Cheal and the remaining thug quickly push back from their table and flee out the festhall's front doors. From his stance on top of the Cockatrice's bar, Rowan intones words of power and points at the new spider.  The fiend doesn't fall to the effect of Rowan's prowess, but Rancid does.  The human fop topples over, already snoring before his head hits the wooden floor with a thud.  The wand rolls free of Rancid's fingers and idly spins on the floor a foot from Rancid's body.  Rowan's action induces a hiss of displeasure from the mottled spider.  In perfectly accented halfling, the spider fixes its eyes on Rowan and says, "It wantsssssssss to play, doessssssssssss it?"InitiativeWyleck 21Dog 18Baliss 17Kularian 12Arden 11Cockatrice NPCs, KularianRhys 9Phud 7Traven 6Rowan 4</blockquote>

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