Move 272: A Big Lizard
Tunnels--Late, Day 23 (8 Marpenoth)Echo made Arachne invisible while a decision was made to do some further investigating in the immediate area. Nothing of additional interest was found in the tunnel so the group moved slowly into the small cave. Their lights illuminated the whole cavern and initially, they saw nothing in there either until some movement on the ceiling got their attention. A huge cave lizard, its body over twenty feet long, was upside down on the ceiling about twenty feet over their heads, flicking its tongue rapidly. It started to move towards the entrance of the cave, staying out of reach on the ceiling and cave walls.
"Big lizard," Renn murmured as he dropped his mace back into its loop and strung his longbow. He dropped one war arrow at his feet and nocked a second sheaf arrow, then prepared to take a short range shot. "Unless there are better ideas, I'm going to feather it," Renn said as he kept his aim on the lizard.
"Bah," spat Aloysius, "there be the culprit!" he said, a hint of anger in his voice.
He turned back towards the opening of the cave and began casting a spell.
Jana drew her bow. "Let's not waste spells unless we have to," she advised.
"Blacky, Olaf, if you guys will provide cover in case it charges, let's feather it, like Renn said."Azrun frowned and took out his scroll tube light and shined it around to look for anything that might look like it belong to Daelen. "That lizard might just be looking for an exit you know. Can anyone talk to animals or anything? Then you might find out if it ate him or not." Azrun continued to look for any sign of the missing fighter.
"You're not serious," Jana snorted, drawing back her bow and taking aim. "You really want that thing wandering around, sneaking up on us later? We'll cut it open after we kill it. If it ate Daelen, there ought to be something in its stomach. Boots or armor or something."
"I'm guessing it's looking for the exit because it's not hungry anymore thanks to Daelen. There's only one way to find out." Blacky grimaced at the thought and moved back toward the cave entrance mirroring the lizard's movements and holding his axe at the ready.
Renn and Jana both nocked arrows and fired at the gigantic lizard. Three arrows, two from Jana and one from Renn, sprouted from the creature's back. Blacky moved towards the cavern entrance, stopping just short of getting caught in the webs Aloysius summoned to block off the mouth of the cave, effectively webbing both party and lizard inside. The lizard probably could have ripped through them, but instead, it spun its head around towards the people on the floor. Its extremely long tongue shot out, effectively wrapping around Azrun as he looked around the cave. The lizard starting pulling the man towards it rapidly, yanking him off his feet.
“Someone grab this,” Jana said, dropping her bow. She ran forward, drawing her sword.
Azrun rolled around trying to free a hand to pull the dagger free from his belt, "What in the hell is the world coming to.....I try to get them to spare your life and you try to eat me....You've been talking to the trolls haven't you....eat the bard...he's tasty."
Aloysius cast another spell.
Renn fired two more arrows at the scaly beast.
The giant lizard retracted its tongue rapidly, pulling Azrun up off the floor and into its mouth while he struggled to get his dagger from his belt. Jana drew her sword and went after the lizard, which scurried further out of reach up on the wall. Jana's bow disappeared from the spot where it had landed on the floor. Renn fired his bow, again hitting with one arrow and missing with the other. Aloysius pelted the lizard with three magical missiles and Echo followed with two more, reappearing as her invisibility spell ended. That was enough for the lizard. It released Azrun as its muscles went slack. The man tumbled to the floor unceremonious, taking some damage in the fall. He rolled out of the way before the lizard tumbled on top of him as it fell to the floor.
Now that it was on the floor and not moving, everyone could see that it had a bloated and somewhat bruised looking abdomen. Aloysious' webs were still in place, blocking all of them in with the dead reptile.
Jana approached the lizard cautiously, prodding it with her sword until she was sure it was indeed dead. She looked at the stomach and blanched. "I, uhm, I guess we ought to check in there," she said hesitantly. She sighed and looked at the webs. "Aloysius, how long before these webs go away? I'm thinking when we slice open that thing's gut, the smell will attract gods know what. I'd like to not be here when scavengers arrive." She sheathed her sword and looked around where she'd been standing earlier. "Uhm, Arachne?" she said softly, not looking anywhere in particular, "do you have my bow?"
"Yup." The word hung in the air in a relatively well-lit area of the cavern. The good lighting drifted closer to Jana and then the bow appeared on the ground in front of the warrior. "And, what with the shopping expedition and then chasing down lizard lunch..." There was a pause. "Sorry. My mind's feeling mushy and I'm
not up to working any spooky magic, anyway. And it isn't as if I _dis_-like him... I'd better --"Aloysius stood regarding the lizard for a long time. "Methinks that we all know what will be contained in that creature's gizzard," he said solemnly. "I almost don't wish to know, but we must."
Pointing towards the webs he added, "the webs, if left of their own accord, would last quite a while. Howe'er, a torch should make quick work of them."
He stood back, waiting for someone to gut the lizard.
"Before we go torching webs or cutting open lizard guts, we ought to check out the rest of this cave. We may need to rest here." Blacky uncovers his light stone and begins searching the cave. "If we decide to stay here we should drag the lizard a fair distance away before cutting it open."
"What?! You're going to wait?!" The lit area moved over to the lizard. "Where's my knife?" The light stone appeared on the ground. So did Arachne's backpack. "This could be messy... but he might not be dead yet --" The pack disappeared, then reappeared a little further away from the lizard. "Daelen's way too ornery to let a little thing like lizard stomach acid take him down. Well, I think so anyway."
"He left camp the same time you did. It only took us a few hours to walk here and you were gone what, a day or so. So if that is Daelen, he's been in there for at least a day. Stomach acid or not, we humans need a little thing called air." Blacky replied while he continued to search the cave for any more nasty lizards.
Renn lowered his bow after the beast fell, grabbed Azrun by the arm and helped the tasty bard get to his feet. "Have you been rubbing chicken behind your ears again Azrun," Renn smiled thinly as he gave the bard's injuries a quick glance.
With a double-take at the lizard and it's distended midsection, Renn grimaced and covered his eyes with his free hand. "I think we'd have trouble moving such a beast Blacky," he murmured as he looked up and pointed along the length of the large, very large lizard.
"Oh." Again, the dejected word hung in the air.
"And perhaps the lizard got Daelen on his way back," Renn said with a twinge of hope in his voice. "No, that's not right," Renn added quickly, somewhat dejectedly. "Daelen's scent stopped right here, which it wouldn't have done if he'd continued his walk."
Rennirolas stopped by where Arachne's pack was last seen near the lizard, before it disappeared and reappared further away from the monster. "Arachne," the elf said as he knelt by the torso, "if I might borrow your knife, I'll see about cutting this thing open."
"All right." The gnome's voice was a sighing whisper. The knife appeared on the ground. "I just -- I mean -- OK: Blacky's right and Blacky's sensible and I don't care. I don't know what I'm doing -- I _hate_ it when I don't know what I'm doing --" The words rushed to a sudden halt, then started again. "Hell! I expect that I'm going to feel rotten about this no matter what, but I'm pretty sure that I'll feel worse if I can't tell myself that we tried to get him out of there as quickly as we could. All right?"Echo walked over to stand close to Arachne. "Renn will get the stomach open, and then we'll know." She turned to face Blacky. "If scavengers will be attracted to the body, maybe we should leave it here. That way we wouldn't spread the scent around."
"Yes, we must open it at once." Olaf said, "We need to know, and cannot do
much regarding the smell anyway. I hope the poor fool isn't in there.""Do as you like, it was just a thought. I don't know anything about what lurks around in this gods forsaken hole under the earth. I suppose there has to be more caves like this nearby to rest in." Blacky replied.
Azrun stood with Renn's help, "Thanks, Renn. I guess we should open it up and see what is inside. I'm going to look around the cave a bit. We should consult the map now to see where we are in according to the critters we were told about." With that, Azrun pulled out his light tube and began searching about the cave.
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