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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Medriev" data-source="post: 4807396" data-attributes="member: 21864">Chapter 9 - Beasts and Mazes (Part 2)his anger while beside him, Telkya retched and lashed out at the rat before her. To Erlmoor’s right, Dulvarna lashed her sword across and gutted two rats with a single blow, the bodies flying away from her and smearing the floor with blood. Telkya leapt back as the rat before her ran forward and snapped at her but then Erlmoor roared again, spraying the two remaining rats with acid and searing them into blackened corpses.“We have to save Enlishia,” he called out and rushed past the fallen rats to place where Enlishia had stood when the floor had tilted. Sure enough, the floor tilted again and Enlishia was thrown out of sight into the space behind the wall.“He’s right,” said Lavren as he rushed forward. “We all must go into the trap to aid Enlishia.”The elf rushed across the floor, expecting it to tilt at any moment but it did not and he crossed the smooth space without harm. Litiraan moved past Telkya and crossed close to the north wall but again the trap did not spring. Both elves shared puzzled looks as they pondered how to rescue their friends.In the pit, Enlishia heard something else crunch down onto the bones followed by a low growl that identified the newcomer as Erlmoor. She felt sudden relief and though her unknown enemy still stood close by and lashed at her with what she assumed were tentacles, she felt hope return. At least she would not die alone, she decided, as a tentacle lashed out again and slammed her into the side of the pit.Telkya looked across the smooth floor to her brother and her husband, momentarily undecided about what she should do next. They had both tried to trigger the trap and failed and now she hoped that perhaps venturing into whatever darkness Erlmoor and Enlishia had vanished into would not be needed. She could cross the smooth floor without stepping on it using her fey step but then the ranger and the dragonborn would be alone wherever they had been thrown to. Both Lavren and Litiraan looked at her with pleading eyes and she knew she could not leave them. She closed her eyes and vanished into a shower of light only to reappear a few moments beyond the smooth floor between Lavren and Litiraan.“Perhaps we can trigger the trap from her and bring them back to us,” she said to both elves.“I hope so,” Dulvarna answered. “I need you to bring me back.”The warrior woman rushed forward with her blade before her and as she reached the far side of the smooth floor, the stone tilted again and threw her into darkness behind the south wall as it dropped away. She slid down a shoot in pitch darkness and then a stench of rot and decay assailed her before she landed painfully in a pit. Bones crunched beneath her feet and a large creature moved in front of her. She stabbed out with her blade and drove it into the flesh of the creature, hoping too late that it was an enemy and not one of her friends. Suddenly a tentacle with sharp barbs or teeth at its end slammed Dulvarna into the pit wall while others lashed out elsewhere around the creature. She heard Erlmoor roar and Enlishia cry out and knew that she had found her friends.“We have to get out of this pit,” Erlmoor snarled as he tried to get leverage on the pit wall.He roared his annoyance a moment later as he fell back into the pit and turned on the creature while calling out a prayer to Lathander. His blade glowed brightly, momentarily illuminating the three struggling companions and the creature they faced. Before them was a terrible creature with a squat body on short legs, two grasping tentacles with toothy maws at their ends and another tentacle with three eyes in a spike-guarded orifice at the end. Its skin was black and covered with rotting detritus and its body was dominated by a huge mouth filled with dagger-like teeth. Then Erlmoor’s sword clove into the top of the creature’s body and the companions were plunged back into darkness.Lavren looked down at the smooth floor and then up at the south wall which was now back in place, although in reality it had last been the floor. The bodies of the terrible rot-covered rats had been hurled after Dulvarna and now a clean floor lay before the three remaining companions. The warlock stabbed at the new floor with his sword but the trap refused to trigger. Litiraan joined him as did Telkya but this new floor refused to move.“They can’t be trapped,” said Telkya.“Let us hope they are not,” Litiraan answered without conviction.</blockquote>

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