Café de Nuit

Wolfglide wrote:At the sight of the dark elf, Klokulf's eyes go wide, and his hand goes slack. The sunrod clatters to the ground.
He clears his head with a shake, then goes to retrieve the rod, cursing at his clumsiness.

After Klokulf retrieves the rod, the dark elf woman studies him, head cocked to one side.

"You seem shocked. Either you've never met one of my kind or you've had an unpleasant experience, yes?"

"The latter," Klokulf grudgingly admits. The sunrod shakes constantly in his trembling hand. "I was told she served not the Spider Queen, and danced in the moonlight. What of you?"

Wolfglide wrote:"The latter," Klokulf grudgingly admits. The sunrod shakes constantly in his trembling hand. "I was told she served not the Spider Queen, and danced in the moonlight. What of you?"

Kerillith's delicate features twist with sudden disgust.
"Moon-dancers? I know of such perverse practices, but I have no dealings with traitors. As for The Queen of Spiders..."
She slips her left hand out of her cloak just far enough to make a subtle crawling motion with her slender fingers.
"I keep out of the way of her clerics and make such offerings as will, I hope, keep me from any untimely entanglements in her web.''

Alain steps forward and says: "My name is Alain, as they say enemy of my enemy can become an ally ." Smiling as he says it .

Kerillith slides into the room, turning her head to one side and tugging her hood down to cut the glare of the sunrod.
''I'll act as rearguard. The light you humans needs discomfits me. And I can spot the stinkscales coming, if I don't smell them first. I suggest we go that way-''
she points at the closed door Katrin had been examining.
''I'm hunting treasure and am willing to share if you help me. From what I saw, there's not much of value behind me, just those foul-smelling brutes, the food animals they have gathered from above, some few barbaric trinkets.''

"We are looking for a man, taken by the creatures earlier today," Klokulf replies. "Perhaps you have seen him?"

Wolfglide wrote:"We are looking for a man, taken by the creatures earlier today," Klokulf replies. "Perhaps you have seen him?"

''No, but if the stinkscales seized a man, he's probably already in their bellies. Or their larder, I suppose."
She casts a quick look back down the way she had come.

Seeing the party's strong interest in rescuing any prisoners of the stinkscales, Kerillith, issuing only the smallest of sighs beforehand, describes the section of the dungeon known to her.


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She says that the rooms and halls between here and the lair appeared empty to her, but adds that stinkscales are surprisingly good at hiding for such stupid brutes, and she might have missed watchers and perhaps other hidden things.

Kat says nothing as she watches the newcomer, glancing at Klokulf as she hears he has met such people before. To her, this is just another weird resident of the realms, no odder than the gnome. Still, she keeps a close eye on her. No reason to believe they are trustworthy

With Kerillith creeping along at the rear--out of the glare of the sunrod--the party makes its way through the archway and down a hall, round a sharp bend, and through a corridor leading in a large and seemingly empty chamber.

Three stinkscales appear suddenly in the room, seeming to spill out of gaps in the masonry walls.
They hurl javelins, one of which skims Klokulf's hair, and then begin to release noxious fumes from their wriggling fingers.

The party rushes, in, braving the stench, and attacks the scaly fiends.
Kat runs one through and the other two turn to flee, but fall to Alain's conjured bolts of magical force before they get far.

The foul musk doesn't swiftly clear, given the poor ventilation in the chamber, but lingers in the air.

Will the party push on through the thin green mist and into the hall ahead, or fall back?

A hasty search of the room reveals empty niches in the walls, some grime and rubble and scattered bones on the floor, but nothing else.

Pressing on, the party passes down a hall and into a rectangular chamber, the far right-hand corner of which has collapsed into a sinkhole. Another open doorway opens in the wall to the left (as one enters the room from the hallway). A cautious search shows that the hole leads down to another level, what appears to be a natural cavern.
Kerillith casually mentions that the party wouldn't like what it found down there, but before anyone can ask what she means, the Dark Elf tilts her head toward the door across the room and lifts one spidery finger to her lips for silence.
Sure enough, noises echo through the open doorway. Sounds like rock scraping on rock, footfalls, and faint hissing voices...

PRESSING ON AT KLOKULF'S URGING, the party passes through the chamber, down a crooked hallway, and into a very large but low (8 feet or so) cavern.
Wise to their enemies' tricks, the heroes pick out at least a dozen of the 'stinkscales' who lurk behind stalagmites or in crevices in the rock walls--but the creatures don't seem to be moving to attack. The stench of the creatures’ alarm or fear permeates the air as the group advances with weapons lifted. The monsters quickly scuttle away to deeper, darker hiding places.
Hissing voices rise from the shadowy recesses of the far recesses of the cavern, chased by a strangled cry of terror—very human-sounding!
Another ten paces in... and then the light of the priest’s sunrod reveals the scene at the far end of the cavern, where two stinkscales with crooked poles drive a human man toward a long, wide crack in the floor.
Something moves in the murky darkness beyond the screaming man, like a mass of flowstone breaking loose but accompanied by a squelching noise instead of the rumble of a rockslide.
The monsters give their captive a final push with their sticks, sending the unfortunate man tumbling into the great crack!
The prisoner's frantic screams echo off the rock walls.

Before anyone in the group can act to intercept them, the two guards rush in opposite directions, seeking cover.

Kat leaps forward, as far as she can given the light, trying to get to the thing in the crevice before it can start making a meal of the unfortunate man!

She is shifting to the defensive, though, to give her companions time to back her up...