Knock Down (Part 4)

After the last trial you are all more than ready to make your way into the dungeon itself. Which is how you've all found yourselves in the middle of nowhere with a map that supposedly points to the location of this dungeon. So far however all you've been able to locate is a lot of sand and broken land marked only by a few odd plants and scurrying lizards. At least you think that they were lizards. The location doesn't encourage looking at anything /too/ closely. One thing that you are afforded is a view. An unending view of more wasteland. No sign of what might be a dungeon.

Sargon looks at the map. He looks at their surroundings. He looks at the map again. He turns his head to look back the way they came. Then sighs. "Are we lost? We're lost, aren't we?"

"Completely," is what Stena says. She's not been paying too much attention, but enough to say that. Her mind was... elsewhere, a hand on the back of her neck.

"I can look at my star maps, not sure if they will be useful here," Merek says, while he looks about a bit, and nods to the two as well, in thought. He has with him his usual attire for things as well.

GAME: Sargon rolls survival: (4)+8: 12
GAME: Stena rolls survival: (3)+0: 3
GAME: Merek rolls survival: (2)+3: 5

You are indeed lost. So lost in fact that you're not sure which direction you came from. The strong wind keeps coming in and obscuring your footprints meaning that finding your way back is as difficult a prospect as finding your way forward. Worse, the sun is setting in the sky now turning the sky many colors and warning that it will soon be too dark to make your way at all. Reading a map in the dark is rather difficult after all.

Sargon peers at the map one more time before passing it off to another member if the party. "We may need to camp," he suggests. "We won't be able to see far enough to navigate with any certainty..."

"Set up camp, I have star charts, if we wait until night and weather is clear, I can steer us about," Merek says, with a nod to the others also.

"... I guess so," admits Stena after a moment. She sighs. "I do not want to be out here after dark." Scowl. Scoooooowl.

Sargon looks around for a suitable spot. He narrates as he searches. "Something relatively flat, dry of course. A few large boulders or bushes would be useful, anything other than just sleeping completely in the open."

GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d100: (14): 14
GAME: Sargon rolls perception: (14)+9: 23
GAME: Merek rolls perception: (11)+13: 24
GAME: Stena rolls Perception: (16)+0: 16

As fate would have it, there's no sign of anything like a decent amount of cover. Worse... it begins to rain the moment that night starts to set in. It's not a torrential rain, but it's not a pleasant one either. So you set up camp, and that at least helps to get out of the rain. As you start to get settled however you notice a rumbling. Not the sound, but rather the earth beneath you is trembling slightly. Then up out of the ground burst three giant ant-looking creatures.

GAME: Merek casts Prayer. Caster Level: 5 DC: 16
GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+7: (20)+7: 27
GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+7: (4)+7: 11
GAME: Stena rolls 1d12+6: (1)+6: 7

Merek looks to the ankheg when they come to surface, and he takes a moment to supplicate to Eluna, so that there is a sigil upon the sands that wraps about them all, assisting them while it works against the foe.

GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+7: (18)+7: 25
GAME: Stena rolls 1d12+6: (5)+6: 11
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (10)+5: 15
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (10)+5: 15
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (18)+5: 23

With her axe in her hands promptly, Stena screams a most undignified scream as the ant creatures appear. She was completely caught off guard by this. Still, she reacts speedily enough and that axe is bouncing from one creature to another in rapid succession, taking full advantage of the double bladed weapon to crack outer shells.

GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 2d6+4: (4)+4: 8
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+11: (16)+11: 27

Being attacked seems to upset the ant-like creatures that had emerged suddenly from the ground without warning. Choosing different targets with their sharp mandibles the creatures attack. Only one of them hits though, and it promptly grabs Stena up.

GAME: Sargon rolls cmb+2: (13)+8+2: 23
GAME: Merek casts Spear of Purity. Caster Level: 5 DC: 15
GAME: Merek rolls ranged: (14)+7: 21

Sargon had been sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed in some sort of meditative trance. At the first hint of rumbling his eyes fly open. As the creatures emerge his knees shift and them he rises to his feet, the rest of his body above his waist barely moving. He sways back away from one of the creatures. When Stena is grabbed his eyes flash. He steps in and grabs at its mandibles, attempting to pry them apart.

Merek lifts up his amulet with a hand of his so he can pull a spear into his other. The golden weapon then hits the ankheg to hurt it, so little that it probably does not notice it.

GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+7: (10)+7: 17
GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+7: (4)+7: 11
GAME: Stena rolls 1d12+6: (10)+6: 16
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (5)+5: 10
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (20)+5: 25

"...waugh!" Stena is not liking this. She did her level best to bring her axe down onto the creature again and it looks like she's getting ready to literally fly off the handle, but instead, is getting dragged into the ground. She's fighting it, but not as well as she ought to be just yet. Seems she's focused on trying to /kill/ it.

GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (17)+5: 22
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 1d20+5: (10)+5: 15
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 2d6+4: (9)+4: 13
GAME: Afterschool Special rolls 2d6+4: (5)+4: 9

Down into the ground Stena goes. Carried down into the earth by the ant-creature. Sargon's being half dragged down for the ride, but the other creature attacks him and he suffers a terrible wound from its mandibles.

GAME: Sargon rolls cmb+2+1+5: (12)+8+2+1+5: 28
GAME: Merek casts Corrosive Touch. Caster Level: 3 DC: 15
GAME: Merek rolls melee: (2)+5: 7

Merek tries to use magic on the ankheg but isn't able to manage it

Sargon shakes off the pain of his wounds. Given the rugged and exotic upbringing of an Oruch orphan, this is actually not the worst he's been injured by an insectoid monster. Gritting his teeth, he flexes the muscles in his arms and shoulders and locks the creature in place.

GAME: Stena RAGES!, gaining +2 to melee attack/damage/Will saves and 6 temporary HP
GAME: Stena rolls Cmb: (15)+7: 22

GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+5: (7)+5: 12 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+5: (10)+5: 15 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+5: (15)+5: 20

SPOOSH!

Stena's hand bursts up through the dirt and she hauls herself out of the hole she's made.

She's covered in dirt and she's NOT happy. Enraged, actually, one might even say. "I HATE BUGS."

GAME: Aftershock rolls 2d6+4: (10)+4: 14
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+11: (17)+11: 28

The ankheg's snap at Merek and Sargon, warning them to stay away; attacking them to little avail. Stena however finds herself entrapped by the same bug that had her only a moment before.

GAME: Merek casts Corrosive Touch. Caster Level: 3 DC: 15
GAME: Merek rolls melee: (3)+5: 8

Merek keeps trying to touch the ankheg, it keeps moving away.

GAME: Stena rolls 1d20+9: (8)+9: 17
GAME: Stena rolls 1d12+8: (9)+8: 17

"RARGHL I HATE BUGS! I HAVE BEEN A BUG! THEY ARE GROSS."

Stena roars and then buries her axe in the head of the insect that's recently grabbed her once more. Right between the mandibles. It shrills and twitches and dies horribly.

And Stena, covered in blood, seems barely satisfied."...now I want a beer."

With the death of their companion, the other giant ankheg's scurry underground as quick as they came. They leave nothing behind to show that they were here at all save a bit of disturbed earth and the corpse of the one you killed. Almost it seems too easy. As if something perhaps more dangerous is now on its way...

-TBC