Move 331: Back to the Sharp Rock
Tunnels--Early, Day 34 (Marpenoth 19)The group resupplied from the cabin before settling in to rest. Nothing untoward happened during the watches. After their morning routines, they started back down the portion of tunnel they had explored previously, soon finding themselves in front of the same patch of sharp broken rock they had seen earlier.
"Um, you're not running out of eyelashes yet, are you?" Arachne asked Azrun, unsubtly hinting that there was something she wanted from him.
"Hey, fat chance that anything like this could possibly happen, but I just thought I'd ask," Arachne's voice said, fairly loudly. "Suppose we go forward a bunch of paces onto this sharp rock stuff, so that we all have to move kind of slowly and carefully to avoid slicing our footwear and feet to ribbons." Her voice dropped to normal (a.k.a. soft) volume again. "And then, while we're ambling along, somebody were to suddenly get snagged by a roper who shows up clinging to a wall or ceiling. What's everybody _planning_ to do? Me, I'm not sure whether I want to try to make for a wall or fat stalagmite or something to cower by and stay out of the way. Or if I should make for whomever got snagged in order to try my Blacky trick. Or if I should stay near the largest clump of us to expedite a speedy retreat, should Jana or someone call for that. But whatever _I_ do, I'm going to try to do it quietly because I really hate to be noticed in the middle of combat. Oh yeah: Like as not we'd have more than one roper tossing tentacles at us at once."
As had been his habit the past couple of "days", Aloysius spent his time in camp working in his spell book and studying the grell spell gems. For the latter purpose, he borrowed the gems from Azrun, but gave them back before the group broke camp.
The good humor Aloysius had been demonstrating continued. He even seemed to be humming to himself as he gathered his belongings to move on with the others.
"Yes," we must get into the habit of preparing for likely contingencies," said Aloysius. "Perhaps, solely for purposes of going into the roper tunnels, it would be prudent to have part of our group travel somewhat ahead of the other members? If we are ambushed, which appears to be how the ropers prefer to operate, the second group would not be taken by surprise and could move ahead to assist the first group."
He thought about what he just said. "Unless the ropers are smarter than we give them credit for, in which they could certainly turn that strategy against us."
"For once, I _don't_ like that strategy," Arachne sighed. "Unless you have a means for the groups to recombine quickly when they need to even on shard-strewn and uncertain ground. Have you an oversized version of What's-His-Name's Disc? Or a magic carpet in your back pocket? Well, I doubt the latter, and that disc thing I believe will only move as fast as the wizard who's still walking." She shook her head. "This ground isn't going to let us be mobile. That makes a strategy that spreads us out even more risky. Of course, the likelihood of getting snagged by the ropers' tentacles means that clumping together too much is also dangerous. The only good news I see is that I doubt that this place is Happy Quaggoth Country."
Aloysius nodded. "'Tenser'. His name is 'Tenser'," he said.
"But your point is valid. This rock does make separating more perilous, but staying close together creates peril of another sort. Stargazer can assist during an attack as he need not move to cast spells. Perhaps those who are able can prepare missile weapons rather than their standard hand-to-hand weapons?"
He shook his head and shrugged. "Frankly, I am at a loss to provide helpful guidance on this issue." He looked over at Jana.
"I thought we'd had the whole 'I'm not gonna play "battle leader" anymore since some people can't follow orders or plans' conversation a few days ago," Jana muttered petulantly. "But yeah, we have a problem. Since I don't see anyone with metal boots or any way to plate our feet, we have no choice but to stay close together. No one'll be able to run over and help someone who's, say, snagged by a tentacle. Can you magic-types make that disc-thingie or cast a spell that'll allow at least some of us to float? And how many times can you do that trick where you pop over, grab someone and pop back over to the rest of us, Arachne?"
"We did --"
“A half dozen, I expect," Arachne replied. "More or less, depending on how far I pop. Well, with the popping over, it'd be more like three or so. And that's assuming I haven't tried any other spooky mind magic. I think I might turn visible again the first time I try it. I'm not sure about that. And ... um ... We're never going to finish conversing about battle leadership. It's much too important to our survival and surviving does matter to us. Peculiar thing, that..."
"I cannot make anyone float," admitted Aloysius, "except myself." He considered the sharp-edged floor. "Assuming I am not entangled, I can arrange for mine own swift retreat, but not that of another. The best I have to offer in that regard are encantations to provide cover or to counter-attack an offensive roper."
Azrun listened quietly to the conversation before speaking up, "What about Olaf's stone spell? As long as he wasn't the one snagged, maybe Olaf's spell could help smooth the floor out underneath us to the point where we could move with worry of getting cut up? We also have the detection spells for evil creatures and Arachne could possibly scan down the tunnels for minds...maybe.." He looked to Olaf and Arachne, "It's a suggestion, I'm not sure the extent of those powers you all have."
"I don't have floating or flying spells," Echo said.
"Who's going to be battle leader? I think Jana resigned." Echo stared at her feet as she spoke. "I don't want to start a fight," she said quickly, "but we need to decide this. Maybe we can make a temporary decision about who'll do it if we get in a battle today and make a permanent choice when we camp tonight."
"Leadership only works if everyone follows the plan and follows orders in battle," Jana said, not without a touch of bitterness. "Our survival depends on everyone acting as a team. Everyone's just as important, even if they don't happen to be the one issuing the orders. One person running off on their own and screwing up the plan endangers everyone. I don't care who's givin' the orders, just that they're followed."
"We could change our marching order too," Echo said. "The way it is now, the strongest people are in front and back. If we get ambushed, they could all lose their strength at once. Maybe we could go one by one and alternate strong and, uhm, not so strong. Like Blacky then Aloysius, Jana, me, Renn, Arachne, Azrun, Olaf. No one who can't fight is in front or back but we don't have our best fighters too close together." She fidgeted nervously.
"I'm good with that," Jana said with a nod, looking around at the others for their reaction. She turned back to Echo. "Maybe you oughta be battle leader," she said with a disarmingly warm smile.
Echo laughed. "I cause enough strife when I talk in a normal conversation. I'm sure no one would follow my orders. But since they'd be bad orders anyway, that might turn out to be good."
Olaf answered, "It will not affect enough stone to be useful."
Olaf paused, and then said, "I have not looked at the map recently, is this the only path we can take? an alternative route which does not lead through such an obvious trap would be preferable. Even if it lead to the dragons mentioned. If their horde contains items of dweamorcraft we could certainly use them, and a well planned attack could be very successful."
"I don't think there's another way to get in these caverns," Echo said. "The dragons are sort of behind us now, I think."
"That sounds good to me. I'll take point and Aloysius can back me up with his spells when we get attacked." Blacky said and hefted his axe in preparation to go.
"I shall do my best, Eric," said Aloysius.
Renn loosened his longsword in it's scabbard on his belt. "Should we get an idea that trouble may be soon to approach, I do have Corellon's blessing which may be of some use. It wouldn't alert us in time to avoid any attack, but we wouldn't be taken completely unawares," Rennirolas added.
"If I do cast that spell, I'd volunteer to take the front position while the prayer is in effect," Renn shrugged. "It lasts an hour, two hours if my lord will bless me with a second prayer," Renn shrugged again as he looked down the tunnel with the rough footing.
"Olaf thinks this is a trap," Echo said. "Maybe you should cast the spell?"
"I don't have the extent you're asking for," Arachne regretted. "Not now. Maybe I can develop something like that. I can contact minds I'm already familiar with -- friends or something I know is there. But I can't use the contact to search for unknown minds. I can use my spooky to make myself very sensitive to sights or sounds or smells, and maybe sense things ahead or around that way...but I can't keep that up for very long. It's better for tracking or for inspecting a particular space, rather than for all day long creeping through tunnels."
"Fair enough," Renn nodded. "Unless there are any objections before we set off, I'll cast my prayer and take the lead for the duration of the spell."
"If we go this direction." Olaf said, "I think they chose this place because it suits their style of combat, not because i think it is a trap for us. I think we should try to avoid it."
"I have an objection," Jana said flatly. "We still haven't settled on our plan of attack, or in this case, defense. We need to know how we'll react to attacks so everyone functions as a team. We can't afford to improvise here. We have to be smart."
Jana turned to Arachne, or at least where she thought Arachne might be. "You've got to save your mind-magic stuff for rescues. That you can grab someone or open one of those door things is a tremendous advantage. Don't worry about making yourself hear better or anything like that."
Jana turned back, surveying the others. "It's a guarantee something down here's going to attack us. Every single place we've gone with notations about something living there has turned out to be true and we've had to fight. There's no reason to think this place will be different. I think we can safely assume where the footing's bad like this, we'll only have those roper-thingies to contend with, but once this crap ends, we can count on those shaggy quoggoth things comin' out of the friggin woodwork. Or stonework, whatever. Anyway, we need to be able to act, not react."
Jana turned to Renn. "You're up front with your god's whammy on you. So you'll need to tell us when there's danger. At Renn's alert," she continued, once more surveying the others, "We need to fall back and prepare to fire. Arrows, not magical shit. We've gotta save those in case someone gets nabbed and we can't get to 'em in time. So that means everyone who can shoot a bow needs to have that bow out and ready. We shoot arrows at those roper-thingies and kill 'em from distance," she said, pulling out her own bow as she did.
"If someone gets nabbed, me and one other person, a volunteer, goes in after 'em. We advance together with swords ready, in case we get grabbed. If we can't get to whoever's caught quick or have to fight out of their grasp ourselves, Arachne does her thing. Now, if we get to smooth ground, we can't assume no roper-thingies, but those quoggoths are just brutes. Me and Blacky and Olaf move up to the front and Renn goes to the rear to watch for roper-thingies. The three of us up front can probably take care of any quoggoths. If there's a chance to catch those things in a web spell, though, we'll do that and torch 'em. Who has one of those and wants to be on quoggoth watch?"
Jana surveyed the entire group once more, hands on hips and looking quite solemn. "Is everyone agreed? And if we are, who's gonna be on roper-thingie rescue detail with me and who's gonna be ready with the web spell?"
Azrun listened quietly, then replied,"I've got the web thing covered...one time at least."
Aloysius nodded as Jana spoke. "I've not a web spell," he said when a lull presented itself, "but I've a spell that can immobilize a few quaggoth, for a time at least."
Jana nodded approvingly. "Good. Any we can't web up, you zap."
Olaf said, "So we are not rethinking our route?"
"We don't really have another route," Jana replied. "There's nothing to rethink here, unless we want to leave the roper-thingies and quoggoths at our backs and we've all already agreed we didn't want to do that."
Azrun looked at the Olaf sort of puzzled, "We only have two way to go....forward or backward. We're just going forward for now to clean out the critters, so they won't be at our backs." He pointed to the map, showing their position near the note that said Many Caverns-Beware Ropers, Quaggoth, and Others.
"Yes, ma'am," Arachne's voice said smartly, then quickly added, "Really: Thank you for telling me what's most useful for the group. I _am_ grateful."
"Me," Arachne's voice volunteered. "For the roper rescue detail, I mean. I need to come too because wherever I'm blinking to I have to see it or have seen it before. So I have to go in after them -- But I guess you wanted a volunteer with a sword... sorry."
"Uh, I guess I'm going to be somewhere in the middle while we're advancing through the dangerous ground," the gnome remarked. "Being as how I'm so useful and all -- That's OK: I just wanted to say that, if, when you're picking your way over the rough and uncertain terrain, you see a spot that seems enticingly well lit, please don't step there: It's probably me?"
"'Zap'?" asked Aloysius. "Oh. Yes. Methinks I gather thy meaning, Janathell."
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