Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 112
Mole made a desperate grab for something, anything, to arrest their fall, but the remaining ropes, twisting with the movements of the lizard, escaped her grasp. They started falling... but abruptly Mole found herself jerked to a rough halt. Instinct rather than conscious thought had her clutch onto the straps of Hodge’s armor, even though it felt as though her arms were being ripped from her sockets as the full weight of the dwarf snapped down onto them.
Hanging freely in space, a dwarf dangling beneath her, Mole looked up to see the giant lizard’s face directly above her, its jaws locked onto her magical backpack. She thought she saw remonstration in its eyes, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Nice catch, Clinger!” she said. “Don’t let go!” From below a string of expletives sounded from Hodge, whose feet kicked uselessly out over the void. Mole knew that she couldn’t hold him for long; gods, the dwarf was heavy!
As if matters weren’t already complicated enough, a small crossbow bolt shattered against the cliff face behind her, a pace from her head. There were kuo-toa below, shooting at them!
“Great,” she said dryly, echoing Zenna’s tone perfectly. She looked down at the roof below, trying to judge the distance remaining; it looked to be about fifty feet, she guessed.
The two kuo-toa, goggling animatedly in their strange language, reloaded their small crossbows. But even as one lifted its weapon, taking aim at the subterranean lizard holding onto the two intruders this time, an arrow slammed into its shoulder. Croaking out in pain, the fish-man dropped its bow and staggered. The other fired its weapon at the archer now visible atop the sacred temple, then the two moved quickly to take cover behind some nearby rocks. They continued croaking loudly, the sound no doubt clearly audible to the rest of the kuo-toa force still within the structure.
“Dannel!” Zenna said, drawing the elf’s attention from the two kuo-toa who’d taken cover, back up to where Mole and Hodge were dangling from the mouth of the giant lizard precariously clinging to the cliff wall above them. The cliff face actually sloped back as it neared the cavern floor, so that the two adventurers couldn’t even try to grab onto the uneven surface of the stone. Arun stood there, helpless to do anything to aid his friends.
Suddenly, with a sound of tearing fabric, Mole and Hodge broke free and tumbled down.
Dannel reacted instantly, lifting his hand even as he sang out the melodic resonances of a spell. The potent energies of the feather fall enchantment enfolded the two falling adventurers, and their precipitous descent slowed to a gentle drift. Hodge, falling back-first toward the ground, didn’t immediately recognize the change, and he bumped awkwardly against the sloping summit of the kuo-toa temple, tumbling down the side of the building in a jumble of arms, legs, and assorted equipment. Fortunately the spell’s power remained in effect until he hit the ground, but even so he landed in heap, dazed and more than a bit confused.
“That weren’t so bad as I thought,” he finally managed to say, as he staggered to his feet, just in time to see a company of kuo-toa emerge from the building and start around to his location.
Mole landed only moments after Hodge, but she’d gotten her bearings far quicker, and she was able to dig the toes of her boots onto the slimy slanting surface and avoid falling any further. She cautiously pulled herself up to where Arun waited, the paladin helping her as soon as he could get to her without risking going over the edge himself. Once secure, she immediately shrugged off her backpack, her face falling as her suspicions were confirmed. The main compartment of the haversack was torn where the lizard had bitten it; the compartment was now empty, its magic sundered by the destruction of its integrity. She held onto a momentary hope that the side compartments had at least survived, but she could tell from the weight of the pack that it had lost all of its magical potency, even before she checked.
Well, damn it all, she thought. Looking up, she thought to offer a complaint to Arun about the general unfairness of the universe, only to belatedly realize that a battle was still going on.
Two-more kuo-toa had clambered out of the lake, joining the pair already in cover among the rocks below. Those two apparently did not have hand crossbows with them, but they drew rapiers and rushed forward to where a stream of dwarven profanity indicated where Hodge was getting his bearings. The dwarf saw them coming, and finally spotting the resting place of his axe, rushed toward it. The kuo-toa, however, moved to intercept, and the dwarf was forced to draw his dagger as the pair moved to flank him. Before they could launch their assault, however, the first staggered and went down, two long shafts stuck in its back. Zenna had unlimbered her crossbow, and added her fire to Dannel’s precise and deadly shots. The tiefling cried out in pain, however, as a small dart stabbed into her thigh.
“Protect yourself!” the elf said, shifting his aim back to the pair hiding in the rocks. Below, Hodge let out a roar and charged into the kuo-toa still facing him, stabbing his blade into the creature’s bloated gut.
Zenna cursed as she drew out the dart and tossed it, slick with her blood, aside. She was mostly angry with herself; in the excitement and drama of returning here and embarking upon the giant lizard, she’d forgotten to cast mage armor upon herself. She rectified that now, and as the familiar glow settled about her person, fading quickly to invisibility, she glanced down at the mouth of the fish, partially obstructed by the bulging front of the structure.
“More of them!” she cried in warning, as she spotted a clutch of kuo-toa disgorged from the dark entry of the temple. There were at least a half-dozen, and Zenna saw that three of them were clad in the clearly distinguishable garb of lesser clerics, with metal armor fashioned to the odd configuration of their forms, and carrying hefty morningstars and large wooden shields that seemed to glisten in the faint light that shone throughout the cavern.
Dannel had seen them as well, and even as he drew his bow for another shot he shifted his aim to the right, letting an arrow fly at the newcomers. The shaft caught a kuo-toa warrior in the shoulder, the impact spinning it around until it landed in an awkward crouch. But the elf’s efforts were answered immediately by a flurry of shots from kuo-toa hand crossbows. The nimble elf darted back, the slant of the building giving him at least a modicum of cover from below, but one dart nonetheless caught in the mail links protecting his upper arm, puncturing his flesh.
And then the three priests linked hands. The foremost lifted his hand and pointed at Dannel in a gesture of denunciation... and a jagged bolt of liquid energy shot from the tip of the digit in a lashing arc that sliced across the elf’s torso. Dannel cried out and fell hard on his back, wisps of smoke rising from his body where the lightning bolt had struck. Zenna, just a few paces behind him, was caught on the edges of the blast, but her own innate resistance to electricity, as well as the fact that Dannel had absorbed much of the energy of the bolt, protected her from serious injury.
“Dannel!” Zenna exclaimed, crouching beside him.
“Ow...” he said, slowly getting up.
Arun, without a reliable missile weapon to use against the kuo-toa below, and in his heavy armor unable to move across the vaulted roof of the building without risking a hard slide to the broken floor below, found himself frustrated as the battle raged on. He’d hurled one of his light hammers at the kuo-toa threatening Hodge, but even that simple movement had nearly caused him to lose his footing on the slick stone, and the missile caromed harmlessly off into the darkness over the lake before vanishing from sight. He gestured urgently to his new companion, the giant lizard moving swiftly down the cavern wall now that it had been relieved of its awkward burdens. The celestial reptile had barely crossed the threshold from cliff to structure when Arun met it, determination writ clearly upon the hard lines of his face.
“Take me down there,” he commanded, tucking his hammer into his belt as he swung up across the back of the giant lizard.
As soon as she’d realized that her services were required in a more martial aspect, Mole had immediately reached for her crossbow. Unfortunately it was at that moment that she remembered that she’d placed it into her haversack, so that it wouldn’t bump her while she was riding on the back of Clinger. Glancing down at the target-rich environment below, she considered her holdout knife, but she’d seen Arun throw his hammer away and she really liked that knife... Undecided for several long seconds, her decision was finally made for her when she saw Arun clambering onto the back of the giant subterranean lizard, which immediately made a swift beeline for the front of the building. That was too good an opportunity to pass up, she thought, as she ran after them, her boots carrying her on a half-hop, half-slide course across the slick dorsal crest of the “fish.”
Hodge, bleeding from a gash above one eye where the kuo-toa’s rapier had cut him, grunted as he punched his dagger deep into the chest of the creature. Already well-savaged by two other wounds, it sagged to the ground, where the dwarf gave it another stab or two for good measure. Victorious, he kicked his foe’s corpse on the way past it to recover his waraxe, pausing only to stick the bloody dagger back into his belt.
“Ah, Betsy, don’t go runnin’ off like that on me again,” he said to the weapon, before turning back to the melee. One of the kuo-toa that had taken cover beyond the rocks earlier had emerged around the edge of a boulder, holding its rapier tentatively. That was enough for Hodge, who lifted the axe and rushed forward once more into battle.
Having recovered his footing, and bolstered by healing magic from Zenna, Dannel moved cautiously along the crest of the kuo-toa temple, sending arrows down into the ranks of their foes, using as much cover as the building could give him to the darts that continued to slice up from below. The whips did not unleash another lightning bolt, but they were also neutralizing much of the elf’s effectiveness; their shields served as quite effective protection from his arrows, while potent healing spells read from scrolls restored the wounds suffered when his shafts did hit. Zenna, with most of her own spells effective only at close range, added fire from her own crossbow, but even the masterwork bolts that Mole had bought for her earlier were not enough for her to penetrate the effective armor worn by the kuo-toa priests. The kuo-toa clerics continued to incant spells to their evil patron goddess, bolstering their allies or adding magical protections to themselves as the battle raged on. Thus far, none of the seven kuo-toa of the reinforcing group had been permanently removed from the battle.
But they hadn’t faced Arun yet.
Mole made a desperate grab for something, anything, to arrest their fall, but the remaining ropes, twisting with the movements of the lizard, escaped her grasp. They started falling... but abruptly Mole found herself jerked to a rough halt. Instinct rather than conscious thought had her clutch onto the straps of Hodge’s armor, even though it felt as though her arms were being ripped from her sockets as the full weight of the dwarf snapped down onto them.
Hanging freely in space, a dwarf dangling beneath her, Mole looked up to see the giant lizard’s face directly above her, its jaws locked onto her magical backpack. She thought she saw remonstration in its eyes, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Nice catch, Clinger!” she said. “Don’t let go!” From below a string of expletives sounded from Hodge, whose feet kicked uselessly out over the void. Mole knew that she couldn’t hold him for long; gods, the dwarf was heavy!
As if matters weren’t already complicated enough, a small crossbow bolt shattered against the cliff face behind her, a pace from her head. There were kuo-toa below, shooting at them!
“Great,” she said dryly, echoing Zenna’s tone perfectly. She looked down at the roof below, trying to judge the distance remaining; it looked to be about fifty feet, she guessed.
The two kuo-toa, goggling animatedly in their strange language, reloaded their small crossbows. But even as one lifted its weapon, taking aim at the subterranean lizard holding onto the two intruders this time, an arrow slammed into its shoulder. Croaking out in pain, the fish-man dropped its bow and staggered. The other fired its weapon at the archer now visible atop the sacred temple, then the two moved quickly to take cover behind some nearby rocks. They continued croaking loudly, the sound no doubt clearly audible to the rest of the kuo-toa force still within the structure.
“Dannel!” Zenna said, drawing the elf’s attention from the two kuo-toa who’d taken cover, back up to where Mole and Hodge were dangling from the mouth of the giant lizard precariously clinging to the cliff wall above them. The cliff face actually sloped back as it neared the cavern floor, so that the two adventurers couldn’t even try to grab onto the uneven surface of the stone. Arun stood there, helpless to do anything to aid his friends.
Suddenly, with a sound of tearing fabric, Mole and Hodge broke free and tumbled down.
Dannel reacted instantly, lifting his hand even as he sang out the melodic resonances of a spell. The potent energies of the feather fall enchantment enfolded the two falling adventurers, and their precipitous descent slowed to a gentle drift. Hodge, falling back-first toward the ground, didn’t immediately recognize the change, and he bumped awkwardly against the sloping summit of the kuo-toa temple, tumbling down the side of the building in a jumble of arms, legs, and assorted equipment. Fortunately the spell’s power remained in effect until he hit the ground, but even so he landed in heap, dazed and more than a bit confused.
“That weren’t so bad as I thought,” he finally managed to say, as he staggered to his feet, just in time to see a company of kuo-toa emerge from the building and start around to his location.
Mole landed only moments after Hodge, but she’d gotten her bearings far quicker, and she was able to dig the toes of her boots onto the slimy slanting surface and avoid falling any further. She cautiously pulled herself up to where Arun waited, the paladin helping her as soon as he could get to her without risking going over the edge himself. Once secure, she immediately shrugged off her backpack, her face falling as her suspicions were confirmed. The main compartment of the haversack was torn where the lizard had bitten it; the compartment was now empty, its magic sundered by the destruction of its integrity. She held onto a momentary hope that the side compartments had at least survived, but she could tell from the weight of the pack that it had lost all of its magical potency, even before she checked.
Well, damn it all, she thought. Looking up, she thought to offer a complaint to Arun about the general unfairness of the universe, only to belatedly realize that a battle was still going on.
Two-more kuo-toa had clambered out of the lake, joining the pair already in cover among the rocks below. Those two apparently did not have hand crossbows with them, but they drew rapiers and rushed forward to where a stream of dwarven profanity indicated where Hodge was getting his bearings. The dwarf saw them coming, and finally spotting the resting place of his axe, rushed toward it. The kuo-toa, however, moved to intercept, and the dwarf was forced to draw his dagger as the pair moved to flank him. Before they could launch their assault, however, the first staggered and went down, two long shafts stuck in its back. Zenna had unlimbered her crossbow, and added her fire to Dannel’s precise and deadly shots. The tiefling cried out in pain, however, as a small dart stabbed into her thigh.
“Protect yourself!” the elf said, shifting his aim back to the pair hiding in the rocks. Below, Hodge let out a roar and charged into the kuo-toa still facing him, stabbing his blade into the creature’s bloated gut.
Zenna cursed as she drew out the dart and tossed it, slick with her blood, aside. She was mostly angry with herself; in the excitement and drama of returning here and embarking upon the giant lizard, she’d forgotten to cast mage armor upon herself. She rectified that now, and as the familiar glow settled about her person, fading quickly to invisibility, she glanced down at the mouth of the fish, partially obstructed by the bulging front of the structure.
“More of them!” she cried in warning, as she spotted a clutch of kuo-toa disgorged from the dark entry of the temple. There were at least a half-dozen, and Zenna saw that three of them were clad in the clearly distinguishable garb of lesser clerics, with metal armor fashioned to the odd configuration of their forms, and carrying hefty morningstars and large wooden shields that seemed to glisten in the faint light that shone throughout the cavern.
Dannel had seen them as well, and even as he drew his bow for another shot he shifted his aim to the right, letting an arrow fly at the newcomers. The shaft caught a kuo-toa warrior in the shoulder, the impact spinning it around until it landed in an awkward crouch. But the elf’s efforts were answered immediately by a flurry of shots from kuo-toa hand crossbows. The nimble elf darted back, the slant of the building giving him at least a modicum of cover from below, but one dart nonetheless caught in the mail links protecting his upper arm, puncturing his flesh.
And then the three priests linked hands. The foremost lifted his hand and pointed at Dannel in a gesture of denunciation... and a jagged bolt of liquid energy shot from the tip of the digit in a lashing arc that sliced across the elf’s torso. Dannel cried out and fell hard on his back, wisps of smoke rising from his body where the lightning bolt had struck. Zenna, just a few paces behind him, was caught on the edges of the blast, but her own innate resistance to electricity, as well as the fact that Dannel had absorbed much of the energy of the bolt, protected her from serious injury.
“Dannel!” Zenna exclaimed, crouching beside him.
“Ow...” he said, slowly getting up.
Arun, without a reliable missile weapon to use against the kuo-toa below, and in his heavy armor unable to move across the vaulted roof of the building without risking a hard slide to the broken floor below, found himself frustrated as the battle raged on. He’d hurled one of his light hammers at the kuo-toa threatening Hodge, but even that simple movement had nearly caused him to lose his footing on the slick stone, and the missile caromed harmlessly off into the darkness over the lake before vanishing from sight. He gestured urgently to his new companion, the giant lizard moving swiftly down the cavern wall now that it had been relieved of its awkward burdens. The celestial reptile had barely crossed the threshold from cliff to structure when Arun met it, determination writ clearly upon the hard lines of his face.
“Take me down there,” he commanded, tucking his hammer into his belt as he swung up across the back of the giant lizard.
As soon as she’d realized that her services were required in a more martial aspect, Mole had immediately reached for her crossbow. Unfortunately it was at that moment that she remembered that she’d placed it into her haversack, so that it wouldn’t bump her while she was riding on the back of Clinger. Glancing down at the target-rich environment below, she considered her holdout knife, but she’d seen Arun throw his hammer away and she really liked that knife... Undecided for several long seconds, her decision was finally made for her when she saw Arun clambering onto the back of the giant subterranean lizard, which immediately made a swift beeline for the front of the building. That was too good an opportunity to pass up, she thought, as she ran after them, her boots carrying her on a half-hop, half-slide course across the slick dorsal crest of the “fish.”
Hodge, bleeding from a gash above one eye where the kuo-toa’s rapier had cut him, grunted as he punched his dagger deep into the chest of the creature. Already well-savaged by two other wounds, it sagged to the ground, where the dwarf gave it another stab or two for good measure. Victorious, he kicked his foe’s corpse on the way past it to recover his waraxe, pausing only to stick the bloody dagger back into his belt.
“Ah, Betsy, don’t go runnin’ off like that on me again,” he said to the weapon, before turning back to the melee. One of the kuo-toa that had taken cover beyond the rocks earlier had emerged around the edge of a boulder, holding its rapier tentatively. That was enough for Hodge, who lifted the axe and rushed forward once more into battle.
Having recovered his footing, and bolstered by healing magic from Zenna, Dannel moved cautiously along the crest of the kuo-toa temple, sending arrows down into the ranks of their foes, using as much cover as the building could give him to the darts that continued to slice up from below. The whips did not unleash another lightning bolt, but they were also neutralizing much of the elf’s effectiveness; their shields served as quite effective protection from his arrows, while potent healing spells read from scrolls restored the wounds suffered when his shafts did hit. Zenna, with most of her own spells effective only at close range, added fire from her own crossbow, but even the masterwork bolts that Mole had bought for her earlier were not enough for her to penetrate the effective armor worn by the kuo-toa priests. The kuo-toa clerics continued to incant spells to their evil patron goddess, bolstering their allies or adding magical protections to themselves as the battle raged on. Thus far, none of the seven kuo-toa of the reinforcing group had been permanently removed from the battle.
But they hadn’t faced Arun yet.
). I probably also would have required a DC10 check each round if any of them had gotten into melee up there. 
