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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Medriev" data-source="post: 4650794" data-attributes="member: 21864">Chapter 12 - The Red Eye Gang (Part 3)The six companions had almost reached the Seven-Pillared Hall again when they saw two figures blocking the lantern-lit passage ahead of them. One was a strange bipedal creature with a spider-like visage that had two black eyes and six other tiny eyes  along with prominent fangs . Two of its four arms were long and gangly, ending in a hand-like appendage with three digits, including a thumb. A useless pair of vestigial arms sprouted from the lower portion of its ribcage. One of its three-fingered hands held a spear while the other rested easily on the head of a snaky, spiky, and wingless drake about the size of a riding horse with bright, crimson scales. It had a frill around the back of its head, and its tail was short while its powerfully muscled forelimbs ended in feet tipped with wicked talons.“You pay toll to Red Eye Gang,” the creature called out in a scratchy, insect-like voice.“We pay nothing,” answered Telkya, drawing her sword and striding forward with her hand extended.A bolt of white light lanced out towards the insect-like creature but at the last moment, the creature ducked to one side and the bolt flew past to strike the wall beneath one of the copper lanterns that hung there. Suddenly a grinding sound came from the left wall of the passage and a portion of the wall slid aside to reveal two huge bugbears, each wielding an equally large morning star. One cast around for a moment until its eyes settled upon the companions and it lumbered towards them.“Not yet fools,” said the insect-creature in its scratchy, clicking tones. The bugbear paid it no mind and charged at Telkya.The bugbear swung out wildly with its morning star and Telkya ducked under the blow with an ease that surprised her. Dulvarna rushed forward to join Telkya, her sword before her. She stabbed Aecris into the bugbear’s leg, driving it back from the priestess and drawing a pained grunt from the creature. Dulvarna looked up then as the insect-like creature lashed out with one of its limbs and as a web of spider silk flew towards her she knew that they faced an ettercap, a strange creature that had a kinship with spiders and scorpions. She ducked and the web-net engulfed one of the copper lanterns sending it rocking and the green light it cast dancing back and forth across the passage. With a roar, the drake charged, rushing out at Dulvarna and lashing out with both claws as it reached her. She ducked under one but the other claw came in low and struck her hip, throwing her against the passage wall painfully. Another bugbear charged into the corridor past the one that Dulvarna but it found quickly that its companion and the drake blocked the way to its enemies. Litiraan watched it come forward and then uttered a phrase in his own tongue. He vanished suddenly into motes of light only to reappear behind the bugbear and between it and the ettercap. The elf drew his sword and spun around to lash at the bugbear but as he did so, the creature sensed the threat and spun around itself. The swing missed and the bugbear raised its morning star as it advanced on Litiraan.Telkya stabbed out at the bugbear before her and as it parried her thrust she drew back, retreating from her enemy. The bugbear stepped forward but found Dulvarna blocking its path and it lashed out at her instead with its morning star. She raised her blade and parried with her sword held downward towards the passage floor. She twisted her blade then and lashed it across the bugbear’s shoulder before carrying the blow onwards into the flank of the drake that snarled at her beside the bugbear. The drake reared backwards and let out a roar of anger. Then it came at her again.The ettercap lashed out with another of its limbs and hurled a net of spider silk over Litiraan that pinned him to the right hand wall of the passage beneath another copper lantern that was now swaying and throwing dancing light over the elf. The bugbear to the left of the elf staggered back as two arrows drove into it from Enlishia’s bow and then Lavren vanished in his own cloud of light motes and disappeared from the corridor altogether. Only when a bolt of black, crackling energy struck the bugbear still in the alcove in the back was his presence revealed. The bugbear roared its anger, raised its morning star and turned back into the chamber from which the hidden door had opened to take its revenge upon the elf.The drake roared and lunged at Dulvarna but she ducked back and its powerful jaws snapped shut on empty air. The bugbear behind it lashed out at Litiraan who was pinned against the wall in the ettercap’s web but the elf managed to twist his body downwards and the morning star struck the lantern above him. The blow stove in the copper lantern but its magical light did not go out and it swung even more wildly sending dancing shadows across the corridor.Lavren looked around the room desperately for somewhere he could evade the bugbear but the chamber was an ancient storeroom similar to the chamber where they had rescued Rendil Halfmoon and while it had a side chamber where the bugbears apparently slept, he could not reach it in time. He drew his sword and held it before him but the bugbear was too strong and as he raised the blade to parry, the creature’s morning star drove the blade out of its path and smashed down on the elf’s shoulder. Lavren reeled away from the bugbear and raised his sword again, cursing his own recklessness hoping against hope that his friends would reach him in time.</blockquote>

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