Tinier Problems pt2

When last we left our heroes, they were faced down with a (thinning) vast number of strange roaches that had crawled up through tyhe floors and tried to cnsume the flesh of the living here on the farm! The adventurters and the animals. The barn has wooden boards covered in staw and more for flooring, of course.

In any case, fire has been deployed, as has acid, and quite a large numebr have been dispensed with.

GAME: Lorik rolls 1d3: (2): 2

GAME: Lorik rolls ranged: (19)+7: 26

Oh god. More bugs.

"Is there no end to them?!" Calls out Lorik as he snaps his fingers. "At least the water makes the barn harder to burn." He calls out as a small globe of acid snaps into being to splash hissing and sizzling among the roaches.

"Where did they all come from!"

GAME: Elin rolls Melee: (16)+6: 22

GAME: Elin rolls 1d3: (2): 2

Elin is getting /really annoyed/ at the veritable cloud of roaches. When she gets annoyed, she tends to get aggressive.

Still, she's keeping herself under control because she doesn't want to accidentally burn the barn down in a fit of rage. She swings aggressively at the swarm, swiping the torch through the cockroaches before stomping - not to crush roaches but to ensure that if she accidentally lit straw on the floor on fire she can stamp it out. It shouldn't have caught real hard with the water. "I don't know! The ground?"

Soaking wet, torch smoldering away to nothing, Shivani is suddenly convinced that, perhaps, they have not struck fear into the heart of this swarm just yet. "LORIK. HALP. HAAAAAALP!"

She leaps backward, then turns to scurry away, batting at various bugs all over her until she can reach out and light her torch against one of the others, finally whirling to take up a defensive position.

"This is the worst, I swallowed one and it wasn't even that tasty!"

GAME: Azra rolls weapon0-4: (8)+6+-4: 10

GAME: Floofystink rolls 1d6: (1): 1

GAME: Floofystink rolls 1d6: (4): 4

GAME: Elin rolls Fortitude: (12)+6: 18

GAME: Lorik rolls fort: (2)+6: 8

The horrible swarm of swarmyness, considerably thinend by flame and acid tso far, moves over Lorik and Elin for the time being. While tyhey've been dispersed, they're noew c hewing on /them/.

GAME: Tamrielo spends ONE use of BARDIC PERFORMANCE.

GAME: Tamrielo rolls ranged: (10)+4: 14

GAME: Tamrielo rolls 1d6: (6): 6

Tamrielo loosens a bottle of acid, looking for an opening. He winces as he realizes he can't avoid hitting anyone else, and interrupts his own narration to shout "Sorry! I'll patch you up, I promise."

After a moment, he returns to his verse, eyes glazing over slightly as he returns to previous lines.

"What then, when faced with insect ire? The task is clear: kill them with fire!

Should fire not clear roachy thugs, Let loose FOUR GALLONS: drown the bugs!

Perhaps your water just won't do, In which case time for acid goo!"

Iskandar hefts his last flask of acid. His gaze darts around trying to see if there's any space he can throw it without endangering his allies. But when no such area is readily apparent, he instead moves to what appears to be the thickest concentration of bugs he can find, careful to keep his eyes half-closed and his mouth fully closed.

For the record, most of the farm animals still in the barn are doing their best to keep away from the flailing people and bugs. Some squish bugs with their hooves. THEY ARE HELPING.

But mostly they're scared.

GAME: Kaelthilas rolls perception: (17)+10: 27

Heedless of the ongoing melee, the heroic dawn elf trusts that his companions can handle a swarm of insects. As flame and acid render bugs to mounds of writhing protein he stalks the floorboards for several paces keen eyes intent upon the space about his feet.

Dropping suddenly to a knee his gloved hand sweeps aside a mound of hay and places his other hand upon the ground. Moving his head back and forth a bit to try to get a different perspective through the boards he then frowns.

Head tilts and he regards his companions before shifting to stand.

Reaching to his back he grasps the hilt golden hilt at his left shoulder.

Mydraahil; the blade of Dycan shimmers nakedly against the torchlight as it settles in the skirmisher's two-handed grasp. What match could a rotting floor pose to the elvish rune blade?

GAME: Lorik rolls ranged: (3)+7: 10

"I'm trying to help!" Lorik tries to assure Shiv as he fairly dances on the bugs. "Ahhh! They are in my mouth and you're right they taste horrible!" A short pause. "I feel sick." An even longer pause. "Kael did you find a way downstairs? There has to be something controlling them!"

GAME: Elin rolls Melee-4: (2)+6+-4: 4

Elin gets splattered by a bit of acid, but that's okay because she also gets splattered by a whole lot of bugs, and all things considered, she'd rather have the acid (it ends sooner).

"Calm down!" she yells at the farmyard animals, which probably does not help matters. "This place is - is - way too rural!" Under normal circumstances she might have laughed at the song, but right now Elin just swings her torch to try to drive back the bugs. She checks her swing a couple times instead of hitting herself (or Lorik, or anyone else with bugs on), which means she doesn't manage to crisp hardly any cockroaches, either.

Kael might be disappointed at her inability to handle a swarm of insects. Elin, for her part, has totally lost track of him.

GAME: Shivani rolls melee-4: (1)+3+-4: 0 (EPIC FAIL)

Eager to get back into the fight, Shivani charges forward, whirling her newly lit torch into position for a stabbing thrust, as if she were using a rapier.

It goes into the swarm.

There is a puff of smoke.

When she withdraws it, it has been gnawed down to nearly her hand.

There is a slow look, up and around, as if to say 'is anyone else seeing this Shuz?!', then she means to backpeddle and slips on a cowpie to land in a crunch near Kael's feet.

Looking up at him, sword at the ready, she holds her hands up. "Wait I was only kidding about that thing I said about your face when you were not looking I promise!"

GAME: Azra rolls weapon0-4: (17)+6+-4: 19

GAME: Azra rolls 1d3+2: (3)+2: 5

Iskandar stands in classic heroic pose, smiling with his fists on his hips and his chest thrust out. Roaches churn and patter over his legs, a few ambitious specimens getting high enough to bounce off his his armored torso. But then the swarm dies down. Iskandar looks around carefully before venturing a cautious, "Is that it?"

"I told you, way too farmyard-y," Elin calls to Shivani, having seen her slip on something /decidedly/ rural.

She is annoyed enough that she swings several more times at the dispersing swarm anyway, though this doesn't do much more than wave some more smoke around.

Tamrielo steps forward, checking people for torn or dirtied clothing. A touch of his hands mends torn clothing and acid-eaten armor, and a few quick gestures cleans bug guts off of people. His glassy look has faded, and he's back to his usual quiet, shy tone. "Sorry, sorry. Here, let me... I can clean that up." His hands and eyes glow as he cleans up the mess on people, and it's not until he's done that he takes stock of what just happened.

"That was, uh, awful. Why were there so many bugs here?"

In a scurrying moment, Shivani claws her way to her feet and scrapes off her boot, frowning as she once more draws her sword and tosses the bit of her torch to the side.

"Well, from what I know of bugs, they are attracted to terrible people. Maybe the farmers are all compulsive gamblers or something, you know? Or maybe they are all secretly dragons with like, the big fangs, and giant wings..." This, she gesticulates widely, flapping her arms, all the while her accented tradespeak paints a wonderful picture. "Sometimes good people are bad people in disguise. I mean maybe they are all bugs themselves and these are, you know, like their children! Maybe we were meant to be food! LORIK, I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!!"

No, she really hasn't.

At the moment, they are insdie the barn of Weathertop farm, where many squished roaches remain.

Ithiliel will see this as she arrives, late, to the party. %r

In the meantime, still remains the source of the infestation to discover.

Lorik keeps stomping for a bit even after the swarm disperses. "I don't like surface cockroches!" He finally exclaims as he glowers at the bugs. "Urgh. I feel sick." He grumbles as he leans one hand against the wall and grumbles as he looks round the barn.

Of course Shivani distracts him from his own misery with /plots/. He blinks a moment as he contemplates this.

"Well if they were bugs I don't think they would have hired us to come out here to take out the bugs already here." A pause. "Unless they were really sneaky bugs." A longer pause. "Or these bugs were in compition with the bugs-as-people."

Again he thinks about this a second then shrugs. "Regardless I don't think they are bugs. But there might be a big bug. We should try to find it!"

Tamrielo opens his mouth. Closes it again. Tries to decide if the short Mul'niessa is serious. Visibly gives up.

"Does that happen... often... in your experience?" He mends any tears in her clothing or nicks in armor before studiously and magically cleaning everything, particularly where she's slipped.

Elin seems to be overtaken by Shivani's guesses.

"I don't think so," she says, after a few long moments. "They weren't bugging me. Ha. Get it? Bugging me?" She grins, an almost too-big grin "Anyway I don't think they were bugs, and if they were they weren't these stupid little cockroaches."

Elin just kind of walks across the floor. She is a large giantborn wearing heavy boots. It sounds like popcorn. Really, really gross popcorn. "Where DID they come from?"

Iskandar balances on one foot so that he can lift the other leg and twist it to peer at the bottom of that sandal. "I'm going to have to replace these," he says regretfully. Then he looks around. "There were bugs outside, too," he remembers. "Nkt so thick as these, but more than there should be. Far more than there should be even at a country farm like this."

Ithiliel, meanwhile, was busy. Tasks as clergy don't always obey tasks as an adventuring cleric, and she pulled a shift at the library, and... well, she came trotting out, still buckling her breastplate and adjusting her hair.

When she finds the group, however, and the evidence of a war with roaches, she stares a little nonplussed. "We're exterminators now?" A pause. "I guess we always were. Do they have a serious bug problem? Did someone leave a sandwich lying around?"

Fabris starts brushing bugs from his clothing -- gotta keep up appearances! He takes a moment to purge his beard, too. Damned things are so hard to keep clean.

Tamrielo turns to Ithiliel as she approaches. "There really were a... lot of bugs. A shocking amount, honestly." He gestures to the mess before realizing that it's really just a whole bunch of dead bugs and, well, mess, and doesn't quite capture the horrific grossness of the swarm from just a few moments ago.

"It, uh, might have been a really big sandwich. We're investigating that part, I think."

The bulls and cows in their stalls in the barn all kind of huff and snort, irritably. And moo.

Crunch. Crunch.

"Maybe if the sandwich was the size of a pig," Elin says.

Ithiliel appears and before the elf has much time to react, Shivani is upon her, wrapping her in a great hug. "YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT OH NO NOW I AM GETTING BUGS ALL OVER YOU SORRY!"

Her duty in greeting her done, she turns to eye the cows and bulls, emulating their sounds as best she can.

"Perhaps these creatures can tell us where the bugs come from. Other than the floor. Do any of you speak Moo?"

Kaelthilas lowers his blade as the vermintide seems to subside. Moving it to rest casually at the front of his right shoulder he nods to the floor, "There is a tunnel below," he announces with purpose, "Search the barn for an access and pry bars," the elf commands them.

"The hive is likely below."

Iskandar purses his lips and nods knowingly. A tunnel? That sounds promising! He looks around and spots an old rusty rake, which he uses to move straw out of the way to look underneath.

"I don't take orders," Elin says.

But then she grins. "Bloody good idea, though. I'll do it anyhow." And she does. She doesn't need a prybar, probably; she generally can get in through grates if she wants to. She's perfectly willing to pry boards up.

Once the boards are pried up, you can indeed see a too large for just the swarm tunnel sitting right here under the floor.

It's darkl down there. Too dark to see without throwing a light or torch down.

"WWWWAAUUUUUUUUGH"

Ithiliel goes a bit stiff when Shivani hugs her. But it's because of the bugs, not because of Shiv. And she says so: "Shiv, there are //legs in your hair//, and I'm not going to ask about how they got there. Just. Um." Without another word, she fishes in one of her pouches and pulls out a bone comb and just... just hands it to Shiv. As a courtesy.

Squeamish as she is, she then plucks out a leg from her friend's hair and examines it, carrying it over to a pile of horribly smashed insects.

"These aren't local roaches," she muses. "And not just because local roaches are less flat. I'm not sure where these are from, but this is no normal infestation." And given that there's a tunnel to go down, well... what bliss.

Elin squints into the hole once the boards are pried up. There's some squinting involved as she holds her torch low, though she doesn't drop it. "There's bugs down there," she says, helpfully. "More little ones."

Fabris peers over the edge. "Yes, yes there are." He takes a moment, and assesses a little more before jumping down.

"Oh! I knew I heard something!" Lorik calls out as Kael gives some truly excellent advice and he sets about grabbing the tools to smash though the floor. "Er...Ithiliel...do you think...the cows should be out of the barn for this?"

The revelation of the hole though causes him to peer down it and blinks slightly. "Lots more little bugs down there. Does anyone have some fire we can poor down or something."

...and then Fabris just starts to jump.

"Or that...that now."

Tamrielo eventually gives up on trying to clean up everyone with magic, settling for what he's managed so far. He checks all of his books and does a quick sketch of the barn, the mess of bugs, and the group while people pry up the boards and reveal the tunnel. He looks up as people start to hop into the hole.

"We're... we're jumping in, now?" He sighs and folds a number of his notebooks into internal pockets to keep them safe and clean, and makes sure the rope to climb out is securely fastened. He's made THAT particular mistake before.

"If it were me," Ithiliel replies, gazing down the hole, "and if there were not people down there now, I would toss down a bottle of oil and then a lit torch. But it is not me."

She's withdrawing a torch, but she pauses at Lorik's suggestion. "You have a good point, but I think that they should be safe up here. Any horrible destruction will be taking place underground, and there's a bit of soil between us and them."

She hesitates.

"...Just to be on the safe side, maybe we //should// let them out and have a nice graze in the pasture."

GAME: Kaelthilas rolls knowledge/nature: (3)+4: 7

GAME: Shivani rolls knowledge/local: (9)+3: 12

GAME: Lorik rolls knowledge/dungoneering: (12)+knowledge/dungoneering: 12

Fabris follows, grasping a torch as well.

"Well, actually," Kaelthilas begins as they assemble, "These tunnels probably stretch for some distance the property. A flask of oil and a torch would only serve to endanger the barn and the livestock. If that were the course of action we should have decided upon it a time ago and spared the aggravation of splashing acid about."

"I predict we are delving into the lair of Heterophoda Maximo. A giant spider. Though why it has taken roaches as allies I cannot say. Perhaps the under ground climate has engendered a sort of symbiotic relationship or, perhaps, the spider's hunger is what agitated the swarm."

Iskandar acquires a torch and leaps down as well. He listens to the others and gives a sharp look at Kael when he mentions spiders. "Well in that case, perhaps I'd better go first!"

Ithiliel, biting her lips, nods once to Kaelthilas. She looks, perhaps, a little...

...stung.

"Well. That's why I'm not in charge," she says, forcing a bit of cheer into her voice. She takes the opportunity to usher the livestock outside, gently urging the cows into the pasture where they may be a bit safer. This done, she'll join the party shortly after.

Fabris holds up his torch for those who need it -- which might be him if the little bastard insects come along again.

"A giant spider? This close to human lands? But...why would it be digging?" Lorik querries as he peers into the darkness. Darkness doesn't seem to bother him very much. He is happy with the darkness.

It's like home.

He does at least help get the animals out though.

The tunnel though yawns before them. "Well, lets head in. Spider or no spider. We need to get rid of whatever is causing this."

"Oh Lorik, it feels so good to be under the ground again. Do you think we'll run into any friends down here? Eshmeg did have that one giant beetle he rode around until it ate his leg off."

Yes, Eshmeg did. And then Eshmeg's riding days were over.

Poor Eshmeg.

Shiv waves the torch a little, viciously burning some of the little bugs in her way.

Ithiliel's response to delving back underground is maybe not quite exactly one hundred percent the same as her comrades.

She pauses at the edge, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and mutters to herself:

"It's just a shallow little tunnel. It's just spiders and rats and all manner of bugs." Nobody's going to drag her back to the kitchens.

Thus fortified, she joins the rest, lighting her torch when she touches ground. Squirmy, buggy ground.

Hopping down into the tunnel is not that hard.

Really it's big enough to fit people, assuming they want to go single file.

This also means getting covered in bugs, but at least these ones don't bite unless provoked by squishing them. As it is, you're squishing them just wal;king along the tunnel in the first place. It's unfortunate but unavoidable. They're everywhere.

Pushing ahead ahile having to brush the bugs out of your hair and off your clothes is all that can be done before the tunnel starts to widen and allow you more space to move. It begins to widen in a more conical shape before you come to more carved stone for walls as opposed to earth, even though you're not a good fifteen or twenty feet below ground given the slant of the passage. Seems like the farm is built over someplace more specific!

GAME: Ithiliel rolls knowledge/dungeoneering: (4)+6: 10

Elin doesn't like it in here. 'Big enough to fit people' doesn't mean 'big enough that she doesn't feel cramped', and she's trying not to slam her elbows or the hilt of her sword into the sides.

Fortunately, it widens a little bit, and Elin spends a few moments de-bugging herself and shaking them out of her hair before looking around. "Huh," she says. "Does every farmer have a basement like this?"

No.

Fabris scowls at Elin's question. "No. I think that's highly unlikely and now I have a bad feeling about this, officially."

Tamrielo looks a bit more nervous underground. There's a visible pause any time the tunnel tightens before he steps through, and then very obvious relief when it widens out again. For as quiet as the half-sil is usually, this is more expression than he usually gets. He tries to stand comfortably close to someone... comforting, without looking too much like that's what he's doing. It's really obvious he doesn't like enclosed spaces.

Of course, Shivani seems convinced now.

"I KNEW IT! They were hiding a bug dungeon all along. You know I bet they are just tricking everyone down here to be eaten. Man, this shuz is fooked up.

Shiv will step farther in still, waving her torch back and forth to try and open up the area with her low-light vision, and get a better look.

Ithiliel is shuddering too as they progress down the tunnel. Her free hand clenches and unclenches, and she gnaws at her lower lip as she tries to focus on something, anything, to distract her.

"These are no natural tunnels," she murmurs. "Do dwarves delve so high? Or could this be some ancient city?" Priestess of Eluna though she may be, she's not the greatest of historians.

Fabris grumbles. "Dwarves delve deeper than this," as he goes along, brushing furious at his beard.

It is worse than dwarves.

It is worse than a lost city.

AS you approach a wall, you can see a sign written on the wall.

IN GOBLIN. One doesn't even have to understand Goblin to get the gist of the message.

"KEEP. OUT."

It's the little skulls and crossbones that really sell it.

Down in the tunnel, covered in bugs. Well Lorik can at least feel this is familiar. His crossbow is out at least and there is a smirk at Shiv's comment. "Well, we just have to disappoint them and not get eaten. That's the best way to get back at them!"

The faithful of Eluna checks the action of his crossbow once again.

Its new and its shiny.

"Well...dwarves did make our old city, so I'd say they do delve deeper. I mean this really isn't that deep."

Then he pauses as he sees a sign. And one eyebrow creeps up high.

"...well." A longer pause. "I don't think its spiders."

Well, presumably they have to delve shallow on the way of getting deeper," Elin points out.

But then there is a sign. Elin looks at the sign. She doesn't actually read Goblin but some things don't require translation, and she at least recognizes the language even if she cannot speak it.

She growls. "Anyone who puts up a sign like that can't be trusted," she says. "It's the skull and crossbones."

"Only if they start from the top," Ithiliel muses. "If they come from down below, they don't have to come up top. Plenty of dwarves spend their whole lives underground. But they do pop up from time to time; still..."

She nods toward the doors: "But those don't look like dwarf-runes to me. Still, you have to admit, they're being polite enough to warn us that their door is poison."

That is possibly a joke.

Looking up to Elin, she adds: "Would you allow me to ask the moon to knit your bug bites?"

"Absolutely," Elin says.

They itch and burn.