Move 308: Out in the Passageway
Grell Nest--Early, Day 29 (Marpenoth 14)Renn cast a healing spell on Azrun; the prayer stopped his bleeding and closed up part of the large gash he was sporting. A light appeared down the passage way, and soon Aloysius, Arachne, and Blacky were visible, coming in their direction to rejoin them. Blacky was holding his two-handed sword. The spherical tentacled monster was not out in the passageway with the group, and everyone seemed to have recovered, one way or another, from the hold attacks that it had used against them earlier.
"Well, hells," Jana grumbled. "Are we fit to go on?"s he asked, directing her question more to Renn, Olaf and Arachne. "And we need to decide if we wanna move on and leave that thing behind us, or if we wanna try to lure it out and kill it."
Renn shrugged and winced. He pressed down on one of the wounds in his side. "Most of my stronger healing prayers are expended," he said slowly. "I've four small curatives, and after I heal myself somewhat, one which is slightly more powerful. I can try to pray for another of each of those however," Renn added.
"I don't know -- anything, I feel like," Arachne moped. "I managed to lose the invisibility," she realized, looking at her arm. "And lost my light. And I don't know what happened here after I grabbed Blacky and ran -- I mean, executed a strategic withdrawal... whatever. Was that the right thing to do? Clearing out with him? I didn't know who might be able to un-paralyse him and he was looking kind of helpless...sort of like me, but stronger even if he wasn't moving..." She sighed and sat down in the passage slumping against the wall. "Where's the bad thing now?" she asked.
"It ducked into a pool in the chamber," Renn grumbled. "But fear not Arachne, I have a few light-gifted stones in one of my pouches," he smiled slightly. Rennirolas opened a smallish pouch and rummaged through it momentarily. "And there you are," he said with a flourish as he found the stone he was looking for and offered it to Arachne.
Aloysius moved closer to the others. he was carrying a dagger that glowed with a soft light.
"Thank Mystra you are all well," he said excitedly. "No more helpful incantations have I, so I went to retrieve Eric."
He looked back in the direction where the nasty was the last time he had seen it. "Where did the creature go?"
"I just wish I had known it was you." Olaf said with a smile, looking obviously relieved. "I thought that beast had Blacky and was trying to figure out how we could save him!"
Olaf begins chanting over Blacky, casting the same spell he used to free Echo before.
"Actually," Jana replied evenly to Arachne, "a little communication and planning would have been nice. There was a reason I wanted to try to get Echo and Blacky clear by dragging them back. As it turned out, that thing very nearly pulled Azrun into its pool. I guess it's not very hungry, because it hardly fought for him at all. He's very lucky, because Renn and I couldn't have gotten him otherwise."
Jana directed her next words to everyone. "We've got to start acting as a team, as one unit. If we continue to act as a bunch of free agents doing whatever we please without communicating with the others, without following a plan and without leadership and coordination, someone is going to die. Probably most or all of us. I know I've said this before, much louder, but it's still not happening. Figure out who you want to lead you in battle so that it will happen."
"You want planning and you want communication but you're not willing to pay for them," Arachne said quietly. "You can't plan in a vacuum of information, Jana. Even by yelling. Or by wishing quietly. It doesn't really matter how you behave. You still can't get a plan if you have no idea what to expect.
And if I'm invisible and there's a battle going on, you're unlikely to get communication out of me, anyway. You might -- but you won't like it. Because I won't shout. Shouting kind of defeats the purpose of invisibility, you see. I might use the spooky mind magics if there's something that I need to communicate and I think it's very important and will still be important after a minute or two and I'm pretty sure that the person I'm communicating with won't drop her sword in shock.
"I _was_ getting Blacky clear -- the only way I can. Dragging him would have been pretty difficult. You had enough of a challenge with Echo. True, when I did that, I didn't know who all might have been able to clear his paralysis if he stayed. I gather that both Olaf and Aloysius could, so maybe pulling Blacky clear was the wrong move. I don't know. It seemed right at the time.
"Look. If you don't want to lead, then don't. But don't give impossible orders and then complain when it doesn't execute just the way you'd like. We got halfway into that chamber, through a _narrow doorway_, you decided that we didn't belong in there and you said 'Let's get out of here.' That's all the leadership you gave and that's _not_ enough communication to get you a coordinated response. That gets you a collection of free agents trying to do their best to make a success out of 'getting out of here.'
"Rivers! If we'd done what I suppose you'd've liked and backed out carefully and in order of entrance, you'd've been cooked. Renn and Olaf and Aloysius were at the back and the thing had magic! We'd've had to come back in -- slowly, through the narrow doorway -- to retrieve or melt whomever got frozen. While trying to fight the thing at the same time.
"So what should we have done? Scouted around the narrow entrance, of course. But you won't hear of that. So, if you're going to march the whole throng in, then go in with a plan for bringing the whole throng or any portion of it, back out around that tight spot in a fighting retreat that can cope with magic as well as teeth and nails. Is that hard? You bet it is. That might be why most folks employ scouts."
The gnome leaned her head on her hand and looked up at the warrior. "Are you going to yell at me now, or would you rather sulk? Me, I rather lean toward sulking, but you're a lot tougher than I am."
Aloysius had continued staring down the passage as Jana spoke. With a deadpan expression on his face, he muttered some words that were loud enough for the party members to overhear.
"Then pick someone else to be leader, just find one, or you're all dead," Jana replied to Arachne in an even, controlled voice. "When circumstances permit it, I'd appreciate a personal favor. A 'ride' back to the surface. I think it's time I worried about myself for a change."
As Aloysius mumbled, Jana's eyes flickered over to him. "But," she said suddenly, "this discussion can wait. We should get out of here. Back the way we came. Now," she added quietly, looking at each person in turn. Jana remained where she was, facing the way Aloysius had been looking, until the others were past her.
Echo's eyes widened at Arachne's harsh speech to Jana. She even looked slightly angry, an unusual expression for her. It disappeared as she listened to Aloysius speak.
When Jana spoke, Echo followed her directive, heading down the tunnel with the others who went. "I don't want a different leader," she muttered loud enough to be heard. "I want Jana."
Blacky didn't move. "That thing has my axe. I need it back." He said simply, staring in the direction of the creature's lair.
"Blacky," Jana said in an urgent-sounding near-whisper, "go. We need to get out of here. Now."
Azrun nodded, "If we don't get backed up and into a more defensivly position quickly, we're going to see Blacky's axe up close and personal. Echo, what spells do you have handy? Olaf?" Azrun started moving away with the group, watching in the direction of the monsters lair.
Without further comment, Aloysius headed down the passage in the same direction as Echo and the others.
Olaf also kept quiet during the arguement, heading off in whatever direction the group decided to go.
Aloysius, Azrun, Echo, and Olaf started down the tunnel at Jana's urging, while she tried to wait for the whole group to go. Renn handed Arachne his light stone. Blacky expressed a wish to retrieve his axe.
Arachne and Renn suddenly stopped moving, looking very much like Blacky and Echo had when under the effects of the magical hold spell a few minutes earlier. The monster reappeared in the doorway, clearly intending to come after the group as it propelled itself out of the cavern and into the passageway. It looked much healthier than it had before it had taken that dunk in the pool; other than its two truncated tentacles, it seemed to be almost completely healed from the wounds it had taken earlier.
Olaf chanted calmly, "Great Tyr, free these brave souls from this foul beasts paralysis!" while motioning towards Renn & Arachne.
"Well, hells!" Jana snarled. "Blacky, grab one of 'em," she said as she moved to grab whichever was closer, Renn or Arachne. "We need to move it, people," she called out. "Aloysius, can you seal the tunnel with one of those web thingies once we're out?" She worked on getting her person and everyone else out of the cavern. "And they wonder why I get so damned testy," she groused quietly.
"Get back to an open area! I'll cover you!" Blacky said as he surged forward swinging his sword at the creature. "Where's my axe you bastard!?"
"Oh . . . dear," lamented Aloysius. He withdrew something from his pouch, watching the action in front of him closely.
"Blacky, no!" Jana yelled in a somewhat panicked voice. She tried to grab both Renn and Arachne and called out, "Aloysius, can you get your web thingie between it and Blacky? If you can, do it!"
Azrun ran to Arachne's side and picked up the small gnome and attempted to carry her back down the tunnel, "I've got her, Jana. you get Renn."
Echo turned around to see what was going on. She stayed well away from the monster, looking ready to dart at a moment's notice, and began casting a spell.
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