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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 862514" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #218] Counterattack[/PLAIN]There was no answer to Lant's fevered cries but a faint squeaking and the sound of crossbows being reloaded somewhere in the dark chamber ahead. At the sound, Lant began fumbling in the half-light to ready his own crossbow even as the thunderous clinking and jingling of Draelond charging down the steps drowned out his opponents' noise. The big warrior took one look at the unmoving Finian and the two crossbow bolts that were sticking out of him and stopped short. "By Ibrahil's vow," he hissed. "What happened?""We've got trouble in the rear!" Ledare yelled as she sidestepped away from the passage down and aimed her handcrossbow at one of the crawlers. Only Ixin was still within earshot, and she was too far down the stairs to offer immediate assistance to the outnumbered Janissary.Before she could squeeze off a single shot, the crawlers were upon her, flailing at her with their rubbery pink tentacles. The tendrils did no real damage to the armored half-elf, but the clear mucous with which they were coated had an immediate numbing effect on her. She was able to fight off the first wave of paralysis that spread coldly through her body, but the next - and each one after - stiffened her muscles. Soon, she couldn't move or feel the lapping tentacles as they probed for openings between the plates of her armor. She stood there with an unvoiced scream trapped in her throat as she thought with horror about the horse they had seen being eaten by the crawlers when they first arrived at the caves.More crossbow bolts streamed from the darkness. The first, Den narrowly avoided; he managed to twist aside at the last moment and it was deflected by his chain shirt. The second was clearly aimed at Draelond, but it struck the wall several feet above the warrior's head. The third struck Lant squarely in the right side of his chest, and even though his armor absorbed most of the damage, it still made him cry out involuntarily.He felt poison seeping into his blood, but managed to resist the effects.He raised his crossbow and fired into the dark chamber ahead toward where he suspected at least one of his assailants stood. The quarrel sailed off into the darkness and clattered off stone some distance away.Ixin raced back up the natural staircase and gasped at what she saw in the entry chamber. Ledare lay toppled over on her back with her crossbow pointed at the ceiling and her left leg raised as if she were taking a step. The two bloated green worms were pinning her to the ground, their tentacles sliding messily over her heavy armor while the small beaks concealed amidst the writhing mass snapped ineffectually at the air."Ledare, shield your eyes and I will cast Color Spray!" Ixin cried out. She reached into the folds of her cloak and the scroll she had 'liberated' from The Claw before she fled Highgate appeared magically in her hand. She unfurled it, her attention divided between the crawlers and the arcane symbols written on the vellum. "Fuco aspergo!" she intoned and the scroll was instantly consumed by eldritch fire. She pointed with her now empty hand and a cone of flashing color erupted from her fingers, bathing both carrion crawlers and Ledare in its disorienting radiance.The two worms let out piercing wails of shock and one of them tumbled off of the Janissary's paralyzed body, clearly blinded. The other, however, regarded Ixin with malice in its shiny black eyes and waggled its mop of tentacles at her."It seems I just about patch everyone up and 'ere we go again with unmending everyone," Ruze grimaced as he came down the stairs and peered around Draelond at the paralyzed Finian. He grabbed the Archer's left arm at the elbow and tilted him over so that he could grab him around the waist. The action made the shadows cast by the Finian's longsword skew wildly. "We need to get out of this corridor," the cleric huffed as he dragged the half-elf behind Lant and Draelond, "else they will shoot us like kettlefish."As if to lend credence to the Battleguard's assessment, another quarrel sped from the darkness and struck Draelond in the slab of muscle that was his right bicep. The warrior grunted with pain but resisted the numbing clutch of the bolt's venom. He pulled the bolt out of his arm and cast it aside.Ruze turned his attention away from Finian's wounds and fished instead in the paralyzed ranger's pouch. "Draelond, I suggest a flamed attack," he said, producing one of the flasks of Alchemist's Fire from Finian's bag. "What say you hurl this their way?" Draelond took it and grinned before lobbing it out into the benighted chamber.Being human, none of the three men clustered at the foot of the stairs could see much beyond the meager light of Finian's enchanted sword. The crossbowmen were somewhere beyond that radius, effectively hidden by the darkness that pressed in on the wan, bluish light. Like Den Lant, Draelond had gotten a general idea where one of the shooters must have been and it was toward this unseen spot that he threw the glass flask that Ruze had given him. Unlike Den Lant, Draelond's aim was true.The flask shattered against the hirsute belly of the creature that stood reloading its weapon in a narrow opening almost directly across the chamber from where the three humans were clustered. At once, the creature's torso was limned in a nimbus of flame that illuminated its inhuman rat's face and the membranous wings that sprouted from its back. It shrieked in pain, dropped its crossbow and began beating frantically at the flames."Now I gots you!" Lant growled and raised his crossbow.</blockquote>

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