In response to Rolf's suggestion, Sajaa merely nods her helmed head and moves in the Mage's indicated direction.

Lisa takes up her habitual last place.

Gustave joins the lead to Sajaa's right side.

Holding their light sources high, Rolf leads the others through the opening on the left side of the cave.  The thin film of mud on the cave floor slowly thins away, leaving only rough-hewn rock, and erasing any evidence of animal or carts passing through.

Almost as soon as stepping out of the last cave, the group finds themselves in a small nook, barely large enough for all five of them to stand, though three more caves shoot out like fingers.  The first one on their right offers the best view, a narrow alley in the stone that goes back some thirty feet.  The floor of the cave seems scarred black, and shimmering with the damp returns of Gustav and Lisa's blade.  The other two caves are more difficult to make out detail as most of the view is obscured by stone hall, though the one ahead seems larger, or at least longer, and the one farthest ahead and to the left seems largest of all, with small blots of purple visible in the distance.

This seems strange...

Rolf suspects the cave system is a mostly natural one so odd shapes and designs are to be expected, but he agrees with Gustav that some of it is indeed odd nonetheless.

In keeping with his suggestion of working from a counterclockwise direction he says "This way." as he points to the cave with some sort of purple blotches.

"But let's go a little slower and cautious.  They do like their traps as I recall."

OOC:  Lets investigate the left most cave with the purple blots.  I will search for traps as we advance.

At Rolf's direction, Sajaa proceeds, extra slow and wary, her eyes sweeping the area for signs of trouble...

Gustav moves along side of Sajaa with some trepidation , very much on guard and searching for anything odd.

Lisa keeps a wary eye to their rear, only stepping forward when looking in the group's direction of travel.

The group steps cautiously along, passing two of the caves on their right on the way to the cave with the odd purple color.  A spared glance in each of the other caves as they pass gathers little farther information.  The cave on the right is small, with the glossy black covering most of the floor...  though there are small rivulets, almost like veins on the ground where the black has been cut through and the floor matches the rough grey surfaces of the walls.

The second cave passes much the same though this one larger and seems to spread out wide towards the left and right as the cave opens up...  again the floor is blackened, as if the floor had been painted with dyes, then naturally washed away by the drips and drops of water spattering down from the ceiling.

As they reach the cave on the far left, it becomes clear that this one too, has some of the same black smeared across the floor, though it starts just at the entrance, and is slowly replaced by a bright purple fungi which crawls all over across the floor.

The mushrooms are oddly shaped, their stems small in comparison to their caps, which bulge outward like a goat's stomach tied off and blown up to bursting with air.  Closer towards the entrance, the mushrooms are rather small, only a few inches in height, though towards the back of the cave they grow to enormity, some of them nearly three feet!

Terri stoops downwards, rubbing a finger across the blackened floor which immediately smears off onto her finger...

Then, reverberating off the walls, a bestial chitter echoes through the room...

OOC:  It is 1330 on the 5th of January.  Everyone roll vs. Perception please, Gustav, I'll just go with the one you already rolled.  Everyone can be assumed to be in the left cave, fanned out in a sort of pentagon so everyone can see, with Gustav and Sajaa in front, and Terri in the back.

Purple Mushroom
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:59, Mon 22 Aug 2022.

Sajaa pauses, mouth formed into a little O of fascination at the strange, violet mushrooms, some enormous in size. A fleeting curiosity as to whether such fungi might be poisonous or palatable and good for cooking flickers briefly through her mind. But that thought is instantly replaced by alarm when she hears the chirrup of some creature coming from somewhere not far away...

"Do you hear that?!" She whispers urgently to the others, shouldering her crossbow and poising it in the direction of the sound...

OOC: 15:38, Today: Sajaa al-Kassem rolled 11 using 3d6 with rolls of 5,3,3.  Sajaa cooking roll to analyze mushrooms (10).  15:37, Today: Sajaa al-Kassem rolled 12 using 3d6 with rolls of 4,3,5.  Sajaa perception (needs 12).

Rolf is a confident man.  And feels that he is capable of handling just about any situation.  But the one before him gives him pause.  He knows a little bit about mushrooms and mold, enough to know you need to be at least careful with them.

"Back up." Rolf says softly through gritted teeth.

OOC:  Rolf will start to move out of the cave.  Imploring everyone to follow.  He made his perception roll by 4.  And a naturalist roll by 3 to try to determine what the mushrooms are.

Jaw dropped and looking like the village idiot Lisa looks around, then closes her mouth to whisper to herself, "Pretty!"

Hearing Rolf's warning, she glances behind, and smiles at Terri while backing up as bid.

Sajaa complies immediately with the urgent tone of Rolf's voice.

She retreats out of the area, eyes constantly searching her surroundings for trouble.

Standing about halfway between Terri and Sajaa, Lisa smiles again at her sister-friend's back as she thinks, "Despite where we are, in this cave, this is the safest I've felt in many months." Her hand seeks her buckler and readies it just in case.

Sajaa takes a moment to contemplate the purple mushrooms, though they are nothing like any of the fungi she has used for cooking.  Where button mushrooms are merely puffy and bell mushrooms wide and fleshy, these seem less substantial, almost as if they are a narrow shell and overfilled with air.  She has certainly never used them in a recipe, nor ever seen them in the markets back home.

While Rolf does not know these fungi either, he has something more of a knowledge in general.  And fungi like these are inevitably packed to bursting with spores.  While he couldn't guarantee they were poisonous, he knew enough to determine that a three foot spore-cap exploding its whole contents couldn't be good, regardless of how harmless it was under normal circumstances.

He gives the order to back up under gritted teeth, and not a moment too soon, for the bestial chittering continues... echoing... returning calls.  Narrow, low, glittering eyes appear in the shadows between the fungus, and just as the last retreat out of the room, a face appears out of the midst of the flora, furry, matted, and hissing in fury.

It's a rat.  And one of the largest any of the five have ever seen.

OOC:  All five of you have backed up out of the room.  The rat you see is about two feet long.  It's hard to tell how many of them there are, though many of you saw at least a half-dozen sets of eyes peering out of the fungal trove.  You are back in the first room with the cart tracks (it's only about a 4 yard retreat from where you were standing), though you are all still facing the cave you retreated from.


This message was last edited by the GM at 18:13, Mon 22 Aug 2022.

"Allah! It is HUGE!" Sajaa cries. She raises the crossbow to her shoulder, taking careful aim...

OOC: Turn One, aim at Rat, center mass. Turn Two, fire (provided no one moves into her line of fire before she gets off her shot) +1 All Out attack.  Once she fires, she will step back and draw her saber. If she has the opportunity to defend, she will extra effort retreat, Aggressive Parry the Rat.

Gripping her rapier comfortably but not too tightly, Lida eyeballs the overlarge, presumably alpha-, rat. If it takes a run at her sister-friend, Sajaa, she will try to skewer it.

======
OOC: Evaluate maneuvre

Gustav backs up alongside Sajaa and eyes the beast. He considers getting his crossbow out as well, but dismisses the thought as too time consuming. He expects a melee before that.

Rolf doesn't like the look of those mushrooms one bit and is glad to be clear of them as they back up.  Though the collection of them are called "fungi" he doesn't see what's fun about them.  Not one bit.

And despite falling back, he is unsure if even at this distance they could still affect them if one were to burst.  But his mind can't spend more time considering the matter and turns to more immediate concerns.

Preparing for battle Rolf tosses his sack to one side and draws his falchion.  From the sound of it they will be swarmed by rats soon enough and is glad to have his shield ready in lieu of his crossbow!

OOC: Rolf will drop his backpack off to the side and draw his falchion.  Defense retreating dodge.

Not sure of how to attack them especially since they are a big group. I have nothing to cover such an area.

Hearing Gustav's request for inspiration Lisa suggests, "Create Fire then Shape Fire might work. Certainly a decent try for clearing out fungi and still keeping a distance in case of spore explosions or whatever.. Might help bottleneck rats, too."

With a shriek to her God, Sajaa raises her crossbow aims at the monstrosity and fires!

Twang!

The bolt barks out of Sajaa's bow, flying straight for the monstrous rat at the base of the mushrooms ahead.  Still bearing its teeth and hissing, the rat seems oblivious of impending death.  The bolt hits!  It tears away at the flesh of the beast's right haunch, sending splashes of blood streaking across the mushrooms all around, and the rat it self flailing in pain...  But the bolt continues on, going straight through the animal and the purple fungus behind.

"Reeeeeeee!"  The rat shrieks as it disappears into cloud of exploded sickly green gas, blasted from one of the mushroom caps that had been hit in the chaos.  The plume ruptures upwards and out, reflecting back the light of Gustav's saber and shadowing all behind.  It thins, however, as it floats to the edges of the cave ahead.

After a moment, the cloud has cleared enough to see beyond, though the purple grove now stands motionless and empty, though the chittering scree only increases up in volume.  The rats call, one after another, back and forth in a crescendo of fear and rage.

"REEEEEEEEEEE!"

OOC:  I think maybe there may be a bit of back and forth, probably that I caused by going a little bit too far with the groups actions before everybody was ready.  Map is below that hopefully gets us all back on the same page.  A quick note first that everything probably isn't exactly as the players imagined it, for example a little ways back Gustav said he was on the right, but Sajaa's shot simply doesn't make any sense without her being either on the right side or in front, so I just did what made sense to me.

The rats and mushrooms are in G5.  For the moment, it doesn't seem like the rats are following you out, but they are making a fairly big ruckus.  The spore explosion came from the area the rat was shot in, presumably from either the bolt going through and hitting a mushroom, or from the rat flailing around after he was hit.  The spore cloud also expanded for several yards before visibly thinning, though it hasn't seemed to come quite as far as any of you yet.

As you can't see any of the rats at the moment, you aren't in combat, so no need to post in second increments.

Lisa had wanted to show Sajaa that she wasn't useless, but she's ended up moving back further than she'd planned.

Desperate to contribute, to feel less useless, Lisa pipes up, "With a reception like that I think bandits wouldn't make a habit of going that way. It could still do with clearing out. Never know, someone carrying lots of interesting stuff may have expired in there. Fire would do the job, I think. But maybe we should investigate other caves first? Probably Runt would have gone one of the other ways too."

When her bolt streaks through the giant Rat and then continues on to puncture a mushroom behind it, releasing a cloud of spores, Sajaa falls back, swearing: "Ya Ibn el SHARMOUTA!"

She retreats from the expanding cloud, even as she is unslinging and readying her shield...

OOC: Retreat with others, ready shield, sling crossbow on back, draw saber. Defense Extra Effort Retreat Aggressive Parry. If the cloud starts to overtake her, she will hold her breath and continue backing. PS, I, Sara, knew the shrumes were likely toxic-spore releasing and didn't want to fire, but Sajaa didn't know this. Sorry folks! :(  Here's to hoping the rats aren't immune to the spores.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:20, Tue 23 Aug 2022.