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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1392973" data-attributes="member: 1210">Poison!Nervously, the four adventurers descend further, clambering carefully down the rusty ladder that drops from within the sarcophagus.  At the bottom is an oval chamber, about 35’x25’.  Rubble chokes several areas of the floor and one section of wall seems partially collapsed.  A single door, much better made than the ogrish architecture the party has seen thus far, seems to be the only exit. “All right,” breathes Trinia.  “Let’s go.”Ezra steps up and opens the door.  Beyond it is a hall, but what a difference from the previous halls above!  The wall stones are cut square and tidy rather than being crudely carved, the door slides neatly into place rather than resting roughly in a frame that it doesn’t fit very well.To the left is a door; to the right is a pile of rubble- and, in the rubble, movement.“Look out!” cries Brother He.Then two scorpions as long as a man scuttle forward, snapping their claws, jabbing forward with their stingers.  Sam cries out in fear as the arachnids tear into both Trinia and him (? her?).  Brother He leaps up, his leg snapping out and connecting with one’s head, while the others duel the second scorpion with their blades.  The snapping claws deal horrible wounds, ripping a chunk of Brother He’s side free.  Blood pours down his torso as he grits his teeth, fighting past the pain to aim a chopping blow of his hand at the scorpion’s eye.  The other jabs its stinger forward, pricking Ezra.  Ezra jabs back with his blade, slicing open the creature’s carapace around its foremost leg.  It snaps again at him, but he dances back, the venom in the wound in his chest burning like the devil.Crack!  Ezra’s sword finishes the first scorpion, and a moment later Trinia’s scimitar slashes the other one down.  Breathing hard, bleeding and poisoned, our heroes retreat. “Best we go back above,” groans Brother He, his vision swimming.  “Need to rest again.”  He leans against the wall for a moment. Trinia nods.  “I think you’re right.  We’d best wait for the others to be ready, too... we’re too few.”Our heroes take the ladder back up, Brother He veritably dragging himself and Ezra barely able to make it in his envenomed state.  They close the sarcophagus tight- hoping to avoid repeating previous mistakes- and stagger back up and out of the cave to rest. The next morning Sam and Ezra take their leave of our heroes.  They’re en route to something perhaps more lucrative, and though they wish the halflings well, they’ve not much to do with the small folk.  “If we meet again, however,” Sam says gruffly, “I’ll remember that you treated me better than most.”  With a curt nod, the dwarven hermaphrodite leaves, Ezra following along behind.Next Time: Back down into the crypt!  What yet lurks within it?</blockquote>

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