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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PieAndDragon" data-source="post: 3555120" data-attributes="member: 18108">Hideous FoesI took the lead, bow at the ready, Liverpate covering my right, Hoisin the left and our erstwhile leader behind, providing light to see by with her lantern. A large cavern opened before us, made of the same hewn stone as the previous passages and rooms. A small passageway was visible in the right wall, and ominous clacking sounds emerged from a second cavern through a wide archway.Rushing forward, we found a half-dozen creatures of blood and bone, but like nothing we had seen before. Their lower bodies were that of a scorpion, six chitinous legs supporting a stinging tail and body which fused with that of a human torso halfway along. Their entire upper body was like that of a human, a hideous merging of man and insect. Although not mindless, they showed few signs of sophistication, carrying crude clubs and wearing no armour beyond hardened skin.We met them where the caverns narrowed, negating their superior numbers and forcing them to fight us only two at a time. I stood two paces back as my companions stood ready, eager to face their foes in bloody hand-to-hand. Readying my first arrow, I noticed one that was different to the others, malformed in many ways, almost painful to look upon. He unnerved me with a baleful gaze and uncomfortable aura, and my trembling hand sent arrows past him, which normally would have met their mark.My comrades were likewise disheartened, swinging their weapons with less confidence than normal. Seeking advantage over our disarray, I saw one man-scorpion darted forward toward me, looking to strike me down as I carried nothing other than bow and arrow. Liverpate and Khaki were faster, one shearing off a front leg and the other almost tearing its body in two. No others attempted to dart through the gap toward me.Even awkward and uncertain, we still proved the more skilful warriors, as two more scorpion-men joined their kin on the bloodied ground. One of their kind was chanting rituals to dark gods, growing one of his arms into a massive claw the length of a sword. I joined the line, using spear and shield, and although Khaki had dropped a spear and Liverpate looked pale from a stinger’s poison, there seemed to be little doubt over whom the victory belonged.Distant clacks heralded more of the beasts arriving, looking to reinforce their surviving kin. Desperate moments followed, Khaki smote down a fourth man-scorpion, leaving the deformed beast and its companion with the oversized arm battling us. Another, disguised by magic, appeared from nowhere behind us, striking at Liverpate and disappearing again as the Humakti leapt aside with some sixth sense aiding him. We grew frantic as three more man-scorpions engaged us to our rear, dividing our attention between two fronts. One of Hoisin’s swords shattered beneath a flailing club, Khaki bled from a poisoned stinger’s blow, Liverpate fell to a club in the chest, still on the ground and I could feel the afterlife calling to us.But we would go down fighting.One man-scorpion, sliding on the blood of his recently-slain kind, stabbed his tail into his neighbour, allowing my spear to finish the job. Then Khaki proved her worth once more, striking a decisive blow with her mace, caving in the head of the monstrosity which still unnerved us, freeing all of us from our malaise. I heard a clacking as the unseen man-scorpion fled down a side-tunnel, leaving the numbers even. I focused my attention on the man-scorpion before me, thrusting my spear fully through its thorax, even as a sharp pain blossomed in my leg, and I noticed its spear mangling my upper leg through blurring vision, then I was taken into the realm of the void.</blockquote>

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