Move 305: Big and Ugly
Grell Nest--Early, Day 29 (Marpenoth 14)Renn healed Blacky, bringing the warrior back to full strength. Echo reclaimed the pair of magical boots and cast an invisibility spell on Arachne. The decision was made to check out the unexplored part of the grell nest, so the group headed through the northern exit, the way that the small grells had fled during the fight. They found another largish cave that opened to the east. Nothing interesting was found there.
Following the previously established Standard Procedure for Invisible Persons, Arachne looked for her light coin ... and looked ... and looked and finally found it (since it did glow and was therefore hard to hide). She then packed up her gear -- then repacked it so that her useless knife and not much less useless sling and a rock or two were at the top of her purse where she might find them. Then, carrying the light coin in hand so that she was the center of a glow and less likely to be walked on by Aloysius, she took her place in the walking sequence.
As they continued northward, the passage narrowed then broadened slightly before it finally bottlenecked into the entrance of another cave. The glowing fungus that lit most of the grell nest was not present here.
The party started filing into the cavern to find it had an occupant. A large bloated sphere of a creature writhed its tentacles, some of which seemed to end in mouths full of sharp teeth, and peered at the intruders with eyes springing from multiple stalks. The mottled brown and gray monstrosity began to stir from its resting place among a large pile of coins on the floor. Scattered around it were bones, some picked clean and some not, and treasure. Some of the most recent looking dead matter on the floor looked suspiciously grell-like. The floor of this cavern was very rocky, and there seemed to be severed body limbs floating in the pools in the southern portion of the cave.
"Well, that definitely wins the prize for the most f*cked up looking thing I've ever seen." Blacky said as he moved to the side in order to flank the creature and let other members of the party move into the room. If it attacks, Blacky responds with his axe.
"Oh, shit," Jana muttered. She backed out quickly, waving those behind her back. "There's something in there," she whispered. "Big, round sumbitch with a buncha tentacle thingies with eyeballs and mouths. Maybe we'd better back up s'more in case it comes in here," she suggested.
The glow shifted right and drifted forward a little bit into the room. It got out of the doorway, anyway, but wasn't moving quickly owing to the uncertain ground. It stayed very close to the wall on the right side.
Aloysius began to move back as best he could per Jana's directions. "Echo, Azrun, ready magic missiles," he said. Seeing that Blacky and the gnomelight had advanced, he added, "Janathell, what would you have the rest of us do?"
Olaf said softly, "It hasn't immediately attacked us as the grell did. I suggest one of us, and I volunteer, try speaking with it first. While the others stay back and wary for traps."
"They just keep getting bigger and uglier don't they," Renn quipped as he backed away from the doorway to allow those within room to back out.
Echo didn't take her eyes off the creature or what the others in the room were doing. She tried to back out of the room after Jana.
"Nothin' down here's wanted to chat so far," Jana observed. "Maybe it's not very fair of me, but I'm assuming everything down here's out to kill me. Question is, do we want to leave this thing here behind us or, well, kill it."
Arachne's light moved out of the doorway to a point near the wall inside the cavern. No one else tried to come in. Jana made it out of the cave back into the passageway where Aloysius, Azrun, Olaf, and Renn waited. The creature waved some of its tentacles around, doing something that caused Echo to stand motionless before she could get out of its lair. At the same time, as Blacky had started trying to move into a flanking position, he suffered from a similar effect, freezing in place.
"Shit!" Jana yelped. She said as she darted forward to grab Echo and, ideally, carry her well away from the nasty-bad, "Olaf, Renn, get Blacky!"
Olaf rushed in to grab Blacky and pull him out. After seeing the beast he said, "Maybe that's the grell mother?"
The light by the wall drifted toward Blacky. It was silent.
Aloysius tried to peer up ahead of him to see what was happening. "Janathell! What is it?" he called.
He began casting a spell.
"Hell if I know," Jana replied.
Azrun nocked an arrow into his bow and stepped to the entrance prepared to shoot at what ever was giving them problems.
Renn hurried inside to assist Olaf with getting Blacky out. He cast a quick glance at the creature.
Jana, Olaf, and Renn moved into the cavern. Azrun stepped into the doorway. Aloysius remained outside, beginning to cast a spell. Jana got to Echo and started back toward the entrance with her, an awkward business considering the woman's muscles were locked in place.
The monster moved across the rocky floor in Blacky's direction as Olaf and Renn ran over. The light that had been near the right wall drifted toward Blacky as well. One of the creature's long tentacles neatly took Blacky's axe as another wrapped around the frozen fighter and began constricting him. The last mouthless tentacle slapped soundly into Olaf as he approached. The mouthed appendages were even more problematic. Two of them ended up directed at Renn, and the creature seemed to have deadly accuracy in its maneuvering as both bit the priest. The other mouth bit into Olaf. Neither of them was able to get to Blacky yet as they were assaulted by the ugly blob. Azrun fired an arrow into the fray, but with him taking extra care not to hit any of his companions, it missed its intended target too.
Outside the cavern, unseen by everyone else, Aloysius conjured three copies of himself.
Olaf drew his sword and hacked at the tentacle constricting Blacky, doing his best to cut him free.
Jana moved Echo farther back, well out of range of the whatsit, and set her next to the cavern wall. "I'll be right back," she whispered to the statue-like woman. "You'll be okay, I promise." With that, she ran back toward Blacky and the others, drawing her sword as she did.
The light remained near Blacky, such that Blacky was between it and the creature.
The Aloysiuses moved up behind Azrun. They all began to cast a spell.
With a few muttered curses in elvish, Renn wrenched his longsword free of it's sheath and attacked one of the tentacles that bit him.
Azrun dropped his bow to the side and began casting a spell.
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