Move 282:  In the Grell Nest

Grell Nest--Midday, Day 25 (10 Marpenoth)

More of Renn's chanting was heard and Olaf was suddenly able to move again.  Jana got hit by another tentacle before the grell that had frozen Blacky flailed wildly, giving her an easy shot against it. Aloysius called three magical missiles into being, hitting the grell that had parazyled Olaf moments before. The grell came after him, hitting him a couple of time before it too faltered in its attacks. One of the two grells that Echo was left alone with now swung its eight good tentacles at her. The woman dodged all but one of them, although she still looked very beaten at this point.  The other grell did not bother to attack her. Instead, it floated up a little higher and seemed to be observing the fight. All of the remaining grells squawked and chirped to one another as they fought on. The one that had just floated out of reach squawked the loudest, its noise echoing around the chamber and undoubtedly beyond.

Echo gave the noisy grell who had floated up to the ceiling a worried look. She kept trying to dodge tentacles from the grell in front of her.

"Olaf, help Echo!" implored Aloysius, a strong tone of concern in his voice. He cast another spell at the grell on him.

"This is my last paralysis cure," Renn called, his voice now from the northern end of the fight. After a slight pause, the all-too familiar chant began, Renn's prayer coming from near where he called out.

"Echo, dammit, giddown and hide," Jana said through clenched teeth as she took another whack at the grell on her.  “Aloysius, isn't that wand of yours good for anything?"

Aloysius fired more magic missiles at the grell on him, causing the monster
to fall to the floor. Renn began chanting one last time, allowing Blacky freedom of movement again. The grell up at the ceiling turned in the direction of the elf's voice, but it did not move after him. Echo continued to dodge grell tentacles, and Olaf went to her aid. He missed with his sword, but he did provide another target for the pesky appendages. He got hit a couple of times, but Echo managed to stay out of the way. Jana took another tentacle slap, but the grell faltered, giving her an opening to finish it off. The grell at the ceiling and the one on Echo and Olaf, squawked a few more times. The one in melee range flew up out of reach, then both of them flew off down the southern tunnel.

Jana growled as the grell moved out of range of her sword then hurried over to Echo's side. "Olaf, can you unfreeze Azrun?"

"We need to get outta here and regroup. And rethink our damned strategy."  She wiped her sword clean on one of the grell bodies and sheathed it.  "Let's fall back." She looked ar Echo, her brow furrowed. "You don't look too good. You going to be okay walking through that nasty rock?" Jana looked over at Olaf and once she caught his eye, inclined her head toward Echo.

"I'm here," Arachne's voice said, close to Echo. Her hand touched the woman lightly. "How about leaning on me a moment?"

Aloysius began to head for the southern passage. "We need time. Stargazer shall acquire that for us," he said as he moved away.

"Aloysius, cover our retreat with the wand," Jana said calmly. "You can't go off by yourself. If just one of them gets close enough to zap you, then none of us would be able to do anything. You'd be lunch. Remember, we'd already decided that no one goes alone down here. We need you to come with us and cover the rear with your wand," she repeated, nodding encouragingly.

Aloysius waved back somewhat dismissively. He stopped near the southern passage and began casting a spell.

"I can walk," Echo said. "Let's get out of here."  She gave Jana a pained smile. "You know it's kind of hard for me to hide when something not only sees me
but is beating the hell out of me, don't you?"

Jana looked down and mumbled, "I know. I was just worried and I couldn't get over there, and..." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "We've gotta have a better plan," she concluded lamely.

Echo nodded. "Now we have a better idea of what to expect from them. It'll be easier to make a plan."

"Thanks," Echo whispered to the empty spots where she thought Renn and Arachne were. "I feel a lot better."

"If Aloysius is going to web up that southern passage, I'll see what I can do for the wounded," Renn added.  "Why don't we take a peek into that northern tunnel," his voice continued. "If there were more grell up that way, they would have come with the sound of the combat."

After that, Renn's voice was raised in prayer again, with Olaf and Azrun both feeling better, then after a slight pause, Echo.

Aloysius webbed the southern tunnel while Renn suggested they peek into the northern passage. It was nothing more than another empty cavern, deserted as the elven priest had suspected. The two invisible healers worked on the wounded, Arachne healing Echo and Renn casting spells on Olaf and Azrun then on Echo. After another pause, Renn cast a couple of additional spells on Olaf and Azrun. By the time everyone was done, Echo was fully healed and Olaf and Azrun looked better, although Azrun was still frozen.

Jana called for a retreat and the party picked its way carefully back over the sharp rock, with the fighters carrying Azrun as they went. When they reached the tunnel that seemed to mark the beginning of the grell nest, the bard startemoving again.

"That went relatively well," said Aloysius. "As well as could be expected." He looked back nervously, and then glanced at Echo. "I was afraid we were going to
lose you," he said with a genuine inflection of concern.

"That would have been . . .bad," he said plainly.   "Very, very bad." He blushed a bit and grinned at her.

"Yep," Echo replied, giving Aloysius a puzzled look.  "It would be bad to lose anybody."

Aloysius studied her for a moment, then nodded. "That was what I meant," he said slowly. "Well . . yes. That was . . . what I meant. Sort of. Losing anybody
would have been . . .bad. But, . . ."

"We didn't though," Echo said. "There's no point talking about what might have happened when it didn't." She pulled her cowl up.

The mage cleared his throat and looked around at the others. "Methinks we should put a good distance 'twixt ourselves and the grell nest. We are low on resources and they will likely come a long way to look for us."

He took a quick glance at Echo from the corner of his eye and then awaited the responses of the others.

"How far?" Echo asked fidgeting.

"I'd say that we walk for no less than a couple of hours," suggested Aloysius. "The web should hold them for perhaps 20 minutes or so, assuming there is no
other means of egress from their nest. I'd think they'd be most concerned about us and will go to great lengths to eliminate the threat we present."

"We need to be able to confine them better. Aloysius, is it possible to web just the top portion of a tunnel, so they can't fly over our front lines?" Blacky asked during the walk back.

The mage thought for a moment. "I would think so," he replied. "Although the web is always limited by the availabilty of anchoring walls and the dimensions of the space within which the webs are to be erected. If we could somehow dictate the logistics of our engagement such that the martial environment provided the requisite anchors, and also had dimensions within the accepted parameters, it could be done."

He took a breath.

"Howe'er, doubts have I that we shall be able to so manipulate our future engagements, given the assumed intellectual prowess of our opponents. Stargazer would prefer an approach which places an emphasis on long-range offensive maneuvers prior to more proximate techniques. Keeping Rennirolas in reserve was clearly crucial to our survival, so I'd advocate that we do that again. Perhaps Olaf could assume a similar position, if he has the same spell available to him.  It is also apparent that the grell are unable to detect invisible persons. Stargazer would therefore call for some limited amount of scouting, although I
realize that was considered unacceptable afore."

His burst of energy not entirely spent, he stood silent nonetheless.

From behind her cowl, Echo interrupted, "Let's get out of here and make sure they aren't coming after us before we start talking about the next fight."

Azrun slowly worked the stiffness out of his body, "Well, that was not fun. Definately on my list of things to not try again. Ummm...thank you both forthe healing and unthawing, Renn and Olaf. Being frozen in place and hurting was pretty scary."

When it came time to discuss strategy, Azrun spoke up, "Aloysius, I was thinking while frozen when I was worried about dying. Perhaps, instead of anchoring our web spells to the wall, we anchor them to the outside members of a charging group. I'm not sure it'll work, so I'm going to think about it more if we're resting before battling on."

"No scouts," Jana said flatly.

"We need scouting." Olaf said equally flatly. "If we had scouts earlier we would not have blundered into what was nearly our deaths. People might die, Jana, but if we do this, we have to do it right. The grells obviously couldn't see Renn, and we needed some forewarning. I'll do it myself, if I have to. I have access to a spell of silence, if someone will cast invisibility on me."

Olaf then said, carefully, "Daelen was a fool who got himself killed walking off for no reason. That's not even remotely the same as careful, invisible scouting."

"I said no godsdamned scouting," Jana repeated, sounding rather angry. "You may be okay with needlessly risky Arachne and Echo, but I'm not. You'll have to go through me to send them on such a damnfool suicide mission." She glared a bit more, then turned to the others. "Let's get out of here so we can rest up. We can't do anything more until we can deal with the paralysis again."

Azrun looked at Jana, "Perhaps, we should discuss this once we're in a safer location. I'd also like to point out that this is a group and we all have the right to voice our opinions, without getting our heads bitten off.  Decisions such as where to camp and scouting are made by the group. Decisions on who kills what are made by the battle leader." With that, he assumed his position within the ranks of the party.

"Then you fuckin' scout if you think it's such a godsdamned wonderful idea," Jana snapped back. "I'm not letting Arachne or Echo to get themselves killed because people who aren't willing or able to do it themselves want them to run off with a damned 'come eat me' sign on 'em. It's too dangerous to be separated down here. Deal with it."

"We'll speak of this later." Olaf said firmly.

Olaf said in a calm, quiet voice while walking. "If you had listened to me, I _already_ said I would do it myself. You need to get a grip, Jana. This is no place for you to lose control of yourself. As you said, it's not a question of courage, and we are not being idiots to suggest it. We are a team, and we need to discuss thsi as a team. leave your issues with Daelen's death behind."

"My issue isn't with Daelen's death," Jana growled back, her voice rising in pitch, "it's with their deaths!" She waved in Echo's direction and made a guess at Arachne's position, but didn't seem overly concerned with accuracy on that point. "We don't know there isn't something besides those grell things out there. It's godsdamned dark! down here. That means the badass shit that lives down here doesn't necessarily rely on eyes to find you, which means being invisible doesn't mean shit. It's too godsdamned dangerous and since we have a fuckin' map, it's not even necessary." She glared still more, fists clenched and face flushed.

Despite Jana's angry tone, Olaf kept his voice carefully calm. "You are jumping at shadows and assuming monsters around every bend. It's unlikely anything else lives in the vicinity of the grells, and having a scout a hundred feet or so ahead, looking around bends, is certainly not too dangerous regardless. It's a minimal increase in risk for the individual and a much reduced risk for the group."

Olaf continued calmly, "Many of the creatures down here do use their eyes. They just see in a different spectrum then we humans, like our elven friends. The invisibility spell works on them as well. You need to stay calm, Jana. I am beginning to worry about you."

"Worry about yourself," Jana spat back, her tone threatening. She started to say more but then Aloysius spoke.

Aloysius sighed deeply and stared at the cavern floor, slowly shaking his head. "We need to keep moving," he said finally. "Methinks we can all agree on that
much." He continued down the passage.

Azrun looked over to Aloysius, "My idea for the web spell wouldn't work. You would have to totally rework the front end of it. Maybe when we get out this hole, we can work on it together. What do you think?" He looked down at his partially battle torn clothes, "When we find a spot to rest, could I try to learn your armoring spell. I'm going to quickly run out of my clothes if I don't get some sort of help."

Azrun looked over to Aloysius as the priest and fighter argued, "Perhaps, I could learn the spell while we're standing here. Or we could discuss how the spears or that ice wand works. You know a fire version of that would be pretty handy or maybe that flaming hands spell. you could nail them right before they get to you." Azrun continued small talk with Aloysius, before looking around for a minute, "Arachne, are you doing ok? You haven't been hurt or anything have you?"

"I worry for us all," said Aloysius just loud enough for everyone else to hear. "This is sheer foolhardiness. Our task would be difficult under the best of circumstances. We hardly have that. Intent am I on doing what I can to assist the apprehended, but I'll not continue on a suicide quest, which is what this will be if we can't maintain some modicum of reasonable communication. Suggest do I that we all remain silent with our thoughts until we have put a sufficient distance betwixt ourselves and the grell.  Then, mayhap our heads and tongues will have cooled sufficiently so that we can talk and plan in a rational fashion."

He readjusted his pack. "If we can't at least do that much, we shouldn't be down here at all."

"Good idea," Jana growled, still looking angry. In fact, she looked very much like she wanted to hit something.

"Mmm? No," the gnome's voice replied from the nearest open space to the visible group. "I'm fine. I was just thinking that, invisible _and_ silenced, I could probably scout with reasonable impunity -- Um, I meant reasonably _cautious_, prudent, afraid-for-my-life impunity. I mean, I'd be fairly hard to notice and I do have a few tricks for withdrawing from places I'd erred in going into... If it weren't for the fact that I'm nowhere near as good at keeping quiet as Echo, I'd already be the best candidate for scouting. Assuming, of course, that scouting was countenanced by the group," Arachne added very hastily. "How long does the silencing spell last?"

"Arachne," Jana replied, trying valiantly but ultimately failing to sound reasonable, "if they can't hear you, then you can't hear them. That doesn't seem like the most effective way to be scouting."

"Oh." The gnome's voice sounded very disappointed. "Right. Hadn't realized... Slosh, but I'm stupid!" After that, the gnome's voice was silenced. She also gave the impression that she was trying to creep as quietly as she could.

"No," Jana sighed, "not stupid. You just didn't think it through, something we've all been guilty of down here."

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