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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2287581" data-attributes="member: 1210">The War Wagon (pt. II)The giant snake killed by Beau’s shocking grasp yields a considerable amount of meat for our heroes.  Into Chief Jawbreaker’s sack of supplies it goes, shrinking to easily-carried size.  The skin is an impressive trophy, too; the snake was easily 15’ long.  The corpses of the snake people yield up a few magic items- a wand, two potions and a scimitar.  One of the snake folk also wore a necklack of gold set with emeralds.  Sandy whistles as he examines it, impressed by its apparent value.  “This thing is probably worth about ten thousand gold pieces,” he says in wonder.  There are also three greenish stones in a pouch on one of them- malachites, according to Lundey.As the party prepares to move on, Jawbreaker examines the tracks again.  “Wagon is pulled by giant lizards, like those,” he announces, gesturing at the corpses of the two giant lizards that had accompanied the snake-folk in their attack on our heroes.  “Let’s go.”He leads the way through the warm jungle.  Sweat trickles down our heroes’ brows and backs as they move along, following the ruts of the wagon wheels.  A light misting of rain falls for about five minutes, then stops.  The undergrowth gets thicker, and according to Jawbreaker, the wagon looks like it was having considerable difficulty moving along by this point.  Indeed, it is not long before the party finds the wagon at last. It is half covered in a careless screen of brush.  One of the wheels has nearly popped off.  It is scuffed and scratched, and several boards are marred or bent.  Overall, it is in pretty bad shape.  It is along the edge of a lake, with a large hump of rock and dirt shoved up against it.  In the side of this, Jawbreaker indicates a cave.“The lair of the serpent-folk?” wonders Arthur.  He belches. “Those guys are tough,” murmurs Beau.  “Let’s just grab the war wagon and leave.”“There’s just one problem,” Lundey points out.  “We need something to haul the wagon.”Federico suggests, “Maybe we can find more of those lizards.”Jawbreaker grins and pulls out his magic sword.  He walks towards the cave.  Sandy groans, “More snake folk,” and follows behind the Chief.  The others fall in as well.  The cave curves around on itself almost immediately, and our heroes follow the path of the cave until it widens into a 20’ broad passage.  At the far end, Jawbreaker can just glimpse a group of a group of serpent folk crouched behind a low barrier.  He laughs and charges, his face lit with joy, twigs falling from his beard.  His expression changes abruptly as the floor beneath him gives way and he falls out of view into a pit with a yell.  Then he gives another great scream of shock as he hits the bottom, and a great slithering hissing sound rises up as well.The pit is full of snakes.Meanwhile, a fireball explodes around the rest of the group, burning and charring all of them, even the evasive Beau!  A chorus of halfling screams is followed by a hail of arrows from the serpent-folk.  Arthur takes a glancing blow across the head and drops, knocked unconscious.*Lundey hastes the group, excepting only Jawbreaker, who is in the pit, busily being bitten by a swarm of vipers.  Federico rushes forward to the edge of the pit and casts sleep on the vipers, then throws himself flat to avoid the arrows whizzing past.  Jawbreaker is now able to begin climbing out of the pit, which he does as quickly as he can, scrambling up the smooth dirt sides of the trap by digging little holes with his powerful fingers and his booted feet. Humphrey heals Beau even as he casts mirror image, but it doesn’t help him against the enemy spellcaster, who casts the terrible spell bonebreak at Beau.  The sorcerer screams in pain as the bones of his face crack and break!  He staggers, his head blazing with agony.Sandy, meanwhile, drinks a potion of cure serious wounds just in time to be caught in a web that effectively captures everyone except Naomi, who has been moving forward, and Jawbreaker, who has to climb into the web to get out of the pit.  Lundey, though entangled by the web, has a card up her sleeve yet.  She casts blink and begins circumventing the web by blinking through it.  Naomi moves cautiously towards the barrier and the archer snake folk, but another arrow hits her in the chest, disabling her.  She slumps against the cave wall, coughing blood, and works it free; then in a daze, she digs one of the potions the party just got, hoping it will help.  She’s in luck; it heals her enough for her to keep going.  Better yet, she is just out of the area of the fireball that Lundey casts into the midst of the enemies, fighting fire with fire, so to speak.  The barrier the archers are firing behind catches fire, making the lighting a little better.  The villains start to fall back.  Humphrey, meanwhile, has turned to call lightning as a way to express his distaste for these snake folk.  Bolt after bolt has blasted into the enemy archers.  A globe of darkness descends around the characters trapped in the web.  With the coming of the darkness, he can no longer see the enemy; so he instead casts bull’s strength on Sandy, who is right next to him.  Jawbreaker surges through the web, tearing his way with brute force.  He bellows out a tremendous roar as he finally gets out of the darkened area and the web and begins rushing forward at the foes he knows are waiting for his tender affections.Naomi, now on the other side, finds a trio of half-serpent, half-human guards.  Behind them is what appears to be some kind of dam, with supports propping it up.  On the other wall near it is a sturdy-looking stone door.As Naomi comes out of the darkness, one of the serpent-men, grinning, smashing one of the dam’s supports away.  She drops him with a recall agony, but it’s too late.  Water starts gushing into the place.“Flooding!” cries Lundey, suddenly all too aware of her danger.  Laughing, the other two serpent folk rush through the stone door. Next Time: Will the serpent folk have time to seal the party’s exit?  Will the party survive this deadly trap?  And who will go to sleep??Also- if I post the next update before our next session, this story hour will actually be caught up to the game!</blockquote>

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