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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1454131" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #14: The Rat Man Warren, Pt II - Episode 4 of 5Stone, despite the burden of his treasure-filled sack, continues to lead the group, with Drinks with Orcs, Chuck, and Paks behind him. We return to the room with the pits and tables, and see a narrow corridor, about ten feet long, leading off into another room. About five feet down it branches off to the right. Stone stops and listens before heading down the corridor. He hears a moaning sound, as though of a creature in pain or despair, emanating from the room at the end. He walks up to the branch and peeks around, but can’t see anything, so he continues to the room and peeks in. It is roughly thirty feet around. There are fifteen slaves caged in reed cages, and manacled. Two exits lead from the far side.“Found ’em!” the half-orc calls, in a loud deep voice. He enters the room. The sick people don’t respond to his presence. A few are tracking his movement with their eyes apathetically, but many of the others don’t seem to respond even that much, and several have their eyes closed. They all look extremely ill. “Miriel!” Stone calls for the priestess as Drinks with Orcs follows him in. Chuck stops to stand guard over the branching corridor. Paks walks across the slave chamber to guard one of the exits on the far side. Miriel steps into the room, and looks at the sick people. It doesn’t take a moment before she exclaims, “Oh, Goddess! Everyone stop!” We all freeze, and she explains in a more normal voice. “This room is filled with people nearly dead of Slimy Doom! Don’t touch them, or anything else. We think it’s airborne, so everyone who hasn’t come in, stay out of this room.”Stone and Miriel look around the room. In addition to the reed cages, they see a number of bowls, tools and grails.  “We should get out of here, right now,” Miriel says.Paks looks at the suffering slaves, with compassion in her eyes, and says, “We should put them out of their suffering.” Miriel looks at her grimly, and says, “You do it. I suspect the goddess will protect you.”“Will you administer last rites?” asks Paks, her voice almost timid.Miriel’s face softens, and she says, “Of course.”As they are talking, Stone steps down the far corridor. He can see a small room with a big pit in the center, and as he gets closer, he can see slime and gore on the outside of the pit. He drops his sack in the corridor, and steps into the room to look into the pit. As he leans over the edge, eight tentacles writhe up out of the pit, trying to grab at him. He dives out of the way, leaps back down the corridor, and shouts a warning. “Snakes!”Stone swings at one of the tentacles, but instinct tells him to stay far away, and he misses. Paks draws her bastard sword and waits in the slave room to see what the monster is. Miriel backs towards the corridor we came in from, with her spear out. “Everyone, stay out of the disease room,” she admonishes.Behind her, Chuck moves down the branching corridor, but still doesn’t see anything. Novalia covers the rear.Something like a cross between a centipede and a Chthulhu monster crawls up out of the pit towards Stone. It grabs at him with all eight of its tentacles. Three of them find a grip, and pull him off his feet. He stiffens as he falls, and Paks yells, “Stone’s paralyzed!”Paks charges it, yelling, “Help me!” However, she is still not used to the balance of the bastard sword, and she overbalances herself trying to make a running swing at the beast. On the slimy floor, she is unable to recover her footing. She loses her weapon, cutting herself, and stumbles into its tentacles. It grabs her as well, and she, too is paralyzed.Telryn sees this disaster, and runs through the slave’s room. He pulls out a scroll and reads a spell from it. A bright flash appears in the monster’s face, but it is not stunned. Drinks with Orcs grabs Paks and Stone and pulls them back down the corridor. Red Scale sees what he’s doing and helps him drag them out.Goldpetal draws his bow, while Miriel calls, “Chuck! Come back! Get your bow ready!” She steps towards the monster with her spear out, but she is afraid to get too close to the tentacles. The monster is following Paks and Stone, but the two lizard men dragging them are able to keep just ahead of the questing tentacles. They have dragged the two fallen heroes all the way back into the slave’s chamber. Chuck and Novalia step forward, with their bows ready, and shoot at it. Chuck wounds it, but Novalia’s shot bounces harmlessly off of its thick hide. Goldpetal yells, “It’s a carrion crawler! Stay clear of the tentacles!”The carrion crawler leaps forward into the slave’s chamber, and bites the helpless half-orc, who looks badly hurt. The slaves all cower away from the edge of their cages, looking very disturbed. Telryn casts a ray of frost, which barely seems to injure it. Chuck shoots it again. Drinks with Orcs and Red Scale keep dragging Stone and Paks back, and Miriel stands resolutely between the monster and its prey, spear at the ready. Goldpetal yells something in a strange language and punches the ground. A visible shockwave travels across the floor, from his fist towards the carrion crawler, but it misses. Some stones fall from the ceiling, but the hideous monster seems unaffected.Just as the carrion crawler reaches Miriel, Chuck draws his bow one more time, and this shot buries itself deep in the beast’s head. It collapses, lifeless, on top of Stone and Paks.Miriel shudders. “Thank you, My Lady,” she says in prayer to Madriel. “Let’s get out of here. Stone, pick those guys...oh...” Drinks with Orcs and Red Scale move the heavy corpse off of its two victims, and Miriel checks for a pulse. “They’re both still alive,” she says.Goldpetal nods. “The carrion crawler will leave them paralyzed for a time, long enough for it to eat its prey, but it should wear off soon enough.”“We have to get away from this,” Miriel says, gesturing to the slaves, who have returned to their apathy, with the carrion crawler gone.Drinks with Orcs picks Stone up off the ground and carries him out, while Red Scale picks up Paks. Telryn says, “Let’s go rest in the library.”  He bends over to drag Stone’s sack of jewels with us. We all pack ourselves into the library, an uncomfortable fit in such a small space. Only Goldpetal seems happy, perusing more books. While we wait for Stone and Paks to recover from their paralysis, we discuss our next plan.“What do we do now?” asks Chuck.“I think we should rest here,” Telryn responds. Miriel’s reluctance is clear in her voice, but she says, “I agree. It’ll be dark out, by now. I think we should stay and recover overnight.”Goldpetal shakes his head. Without looking up from his book, he says, “We should stay for as short a time as necessary.”Chuck says, “I agree. I can explore while you rest.”Miriel shakes her head firmly. “No. We all stay together.” She looks at Chuck until he nods in agreement. “Goldpetal, are you willing to rest for four hours?” she asks the elf.“If we must,” he answers.The two lizard men stand watch, while Chuck meditates to learn alarm, another new spell he has learned. All of the rest of us rest. After an hour, the paralysis has worn off, and Stone and Paks are able to move. Chuck has learned the new spell, and he sets the password as “Goldpetal sucks,” which amuses Stone greatly. Paks goes to sleep, while Stone and Chuck relieve the lizard men of the watch.Another hour later, Paks wakes and heals herself, taking care of as much as she is able. Goldpetal also feels better, and prays for healing from Denev again. He heals Paks, himself, Stone, and Chuck. Novalia also heals Chuck. Those three return to sleep to regain the energy they’ve expended on the healings.While everyone sleeps, Chuck searches the room again, checking for secret doors. He spends about an hour, restless, but finds nothing. Just as he’s most itching to go explore, despite Miriel’s admonition against it, the alarm rings. It makes an audible ringing, as though of a small bell.Stone goes to look down the corridor, and he sees five giant rats scurrying around. Though larger than a normal rat, they aren’t anywhere near as large as the wolf-rats we battled earlier.“Fellas,” Stone calls quietly, “Got rats over here.” “Give me space to shoot,” Chuck says, drawing his bow. “Go ahead,” the half-orc says, stepping back out of the opening. Chuck shoots twice. His first shot hits, pegging one rat to the ground, where it thrashes in death spasms for a moment. The viper slithers forward to attack another rat, but the rats are scattering and running. Chuck’s second shot, the bow slips, and his arrow shatters off the stone wall near Stone. Stone jumps back. By the time Chuck recovers, the surviving rats have all disappeared into the darkness, and he calls his snake back.The rest of us are still sleeping, undisturbed, so Chuck goes down to the laboratory, which is still within the radius of the alarm spell. He searches it thoroughly, but doesn’t find anything we hadn’t already found.After another forty minutes, the alarm goes off again. Seven more rats are approaching the laboratory. Chuck steps over to shoot at them again, but when they see him, they scatter. Paks, Miriel, and Goldpetal wake up. Paks heals Miriel and Goldpetal heals Telryn. They discuss quietly what to do, and agree to rest for two more hours. Chuck decides to meditate to memorize magic fang, since he can only have one spell memorized at a time and we no longer need the alarm. Stone and Drinks with Orcs stand watch.After forty minutes, the alarm goes off again. Stone looks down the corridor, but doesn’t see anything. There are no rats in evidence. “Uh, guys?” Stone says. “Wake up. Trouble.”Chuck and Novalia stand up, drawing their bows almost in unison, and knocking arrows. Red Scale and Drinks with Orcs stand as well. Paks rolls over, and says, “Call for help if you need it.” She, Telryn, Goldpetal, and Miriel continue to rest.Stone heads down the corridor into the darkened laboratory. He peers down the outbound corridors, but doesn’t see anything. Chuck and the two lizard men follow him, while Novalia listens for trouble from the confines of the library. Swims with Fishes looks into the treasure room.Abruptly, the ground gives way, and a bunch of emaciated ghoul-like creatures crawl up out of the dirt floor.  Stone yells, “Dead-eaters!”There are four dead-eaters, and, with dirt still falling from their heads and shoulders, they begin grappling at Stone, Chuck, and Drinks with Orcs. Two attack Chuck, and he fires his bow into one at point blank range, while Stone and Drinks with Orcs each have one to deal with.  They each take a swing at the dead-eaters as they clamber out of the earth, but both miss.The two dead-eaters attacking Chuck claw for him, but he steps back out of the way as he drops his bow on the floor and draws Paks’ sword and the glowing magical dagger. The one near Stone had burrowed its way up under the table, and as it attacks him, it conks its head on the edge of the wooden table. While it is stunned, Stone punches it, a solid blow to the face. The one attacking Drinks with Orcs grabs him, but he shakes it off, and it falls on the ground. One claw catches him on the leg, ripping open a gaping wound on the back of his calf.In the library, Goldpetal and Paks scramble out of their bedrolls. Goldpetal draws his scimitar and runs past Novalia, while Paks scrambles to grab her sword. She isn’t wearing her armor, but realizes that it will take her too long to put it on, so she follows him. “I’ll watch the sleepers,” Novalia tells her. Red Scale stands guard with her.In the laboratory, the dead-eaters continue to press the attack. One claws at Chuck, but it falls over the corpse of one of the wolf-rats. Before it can get up, Chuck drills it in the back with the fine longsword, and his viper bites it. Drinks with Orcs tries to club it, but he misses. Chuck’s second dead-eater attacks Drinks while he’s extended, but just as it leaps at him Swims with Fishes charges into the fray, clubbing it solidly. This throws off its aim, and before it can recover, Chuck’s longsword slices deep into its belly. It collapses, dead. The fallen one clambers to its feet, and Chuck cuts it with his dagger as he tries to free his sword from the dead one. Stone tumbles past the dead-eaters, trying to get to the opposite side of the room to flank them. As he rolls past, one of the dead-eaters claws him, a nasty wound along his left thigh. As he comes out of the roll, he punches at it, but it dodges the blow. Focused on him, it doesn’t see Drinks with Orcs, who clubs it over the head. Goldpetal slides in along the wall of the room, and attacks the dead eater which is under the table, but his scimitar clips off of a table leg. All of the dead-eaters save one, at this point, have fumbled an attack of some sort. The sole dead-eater which hadn’t attacks Swims with Fishes with claw and tooth. It bites him, but then stumbles, losing its balance as well. As it falls, Stone whirls and punches it, cracking open its skull and killing it. Swims with Fishes drops back, bleeding, to let the rest of us deal with the two remaining dead-eaters.Paks steps in to the gap and attacks one of the two remaining dead eaters, but her blow misses wildly, and Goldpetal leaps back out of the way. Chuck runs it through, and scores his second kill of the battle. The viper bites the last one, but it is Stone who deals the death blow. He steps forward and, with a flurry of blows, pulps its head. Paks wipes bits of dead-eater from her face “I have never seen anybody punch for as much gore as you generate,” she tells the half-orc, who smiles and cracks his knuckles. We return to the library to finish our rest. Paks dons her armor and joins Stone in the watch, but we make it through the next two hours undisturbed.</blockquote>

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