Under a Dark Sun(2nd Ed. AD&D)

[Armen]

Tamora

Tamora cursed under her breath at the insect’s sudden attack and Anne’s apparent fall. This was not going well at all. She wanted to get the creature away from Anne but also back into the trees where some of the advantages of it's size might be neutralised.

She took a step to her left, dropped her broken spear, now little more than a quarterstaff, and snatched up the stone-tipped weapon Anne had lost when she was grabbed. Not taking her eyes off the advancing creature she held out Bas’s staff to her right. “Bas,” she said to attract the druid’s attention and pass his staff to him, “back towards the trees with me and beware it leaping.”

[ 06-11-2007, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[Kazilan]

Bas took the staff from Tamora and began to back away. His eyes flickered between the kreen and Anne, whom he watched for any sign of convulsions or loss of consciousness. In either case, he would try to move around the creature to heal her. Otherwise, he will follow Tamora's lead and only attack the creature when it comes into range.

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath stayed in the cover, understanding what Tamora's plan was. He wasn't too enthusiastic to have to fight this thing, but they had made the decision for him. They would remember it, though. While he was sitting in cover he cast a Strength spell on himself and prepared to leap out at the beast when it was drawn past him.

[dplax]

Anne

She had not expected the sudden attack. The extended hand, to her, was a gesture of peaceful intentions. Either they meant something different to the creature or it had simply been the first phase of its attack that Anne had dumbly walked into. She shrilly screamed, while falling to the ground. Cursing herself for having believed that they could cooperate with the creature, she tried standing up, only to find that every bit of movement required a hundred-fold more concentration than before.

She was weapon-less, her spear having been picked up by Tamora. Anne tried standing still, and after some considerable effort managed to stay upright. She indicated to Bas, that he needed not care for her at the moment with a wave of her hand. It would be best if the others concentrated on fighting the creature.


Anne wished that she could help them, but without a weapon and weakened as she was by the poison she judged it better if she stayed out of the battle.

[PurpleXVI]

Tamora, Anne, Lorath, Bas

Not noticing Tamora, the creature advanced calmly, only briefly stopping to snatch up it's throwing weapon as it passed where Bas had originally stood, then taking a moment to hurl it after Tamora.

In this case, however, it missed, and the thing whistled through the air well away from her, burying itself in a tree.

Using it's two free hands to thrust aside vegetation, it followed Tamora and Bas' retreat with it's slow methodicality, apparently willing to wait until they attacked or backed themselves into a corner before it struck. It completely missed Lorath who was hiding behind a tree, and as it walked by him, he unwrapped his bizarre, organic-looking sword and leapt to attack.

As soon as it was free from it's wrappings, the blade lead out a blood-curdling moan, a roar of hunger that sounded like a demon trapped in an echo canyon.

The sound seemed to unnerve the Thri-Kreen, which swung around to look in it's direction, but not before Lorath had struck it, sinking the blade into a gap in the chitin. This did nothing to muffle the sword, however, which let out a new and even more bizarre sound. Like a demonic vampire sucking a victim dry, it slurped and gurgled happily and disturbingly as it bit into the thing's tissue.

Their enemy let out a shrill, howl and backed away from it's attacker, exposing it's flank to Tamora, an opportunity which she instantly took to strike. Unfortunately the thing was more nimble than it appeared, even in the thick vegetation and dodged away from the blow by leaping at Lorath.

Bunching it's powerful legs, it threw itself into the air towards Lorath, only barely avoiding catching it's head on overhanging vines, and crashed into the elf. The brutal head of it's polearm hammered into his abdomen, almost coming out the other side, and turned his stomach into a bloody, red mess. The injury wasn't made any less by the fact that the impact sent him reeling backwards into a bush with six-inch thorns, several of which stabbed painfully into his back and arms.

(16 HP lost, 5 HP remain.)


Anne

As Anne sought to recover, she noticed something on the ground, either something that the black Thri-Kreen had dropped, or something that had been lost by it's fallen companion: A crystalline dagger apparently made from the same material as the thing's throwing weapons and the head of it's polearm.


Lorath, Bas, Tamora Anne

Bleeding profusely and with his sword still moaning, Lorath tore himself free from the bush and threw himself into a thicket, hoping it wasn't concealing something worse than his attacker and that Tamora would distract it.

His wish granted when the ranger attacked again, now directly behind her enemy, before it could pursue her companion. She sunk her spear into it's long abdomen, causing it to let out another shrill sound and turn around to face her, a rather complicated operation for the large thing as it had landed in the dense vegetation Lorath had been hiding in.

This left it mostly striking wildly to it's side and back with it's polearm, rather than making a proper attack, easily allowing the ranger to get out of reach before it had turned all the way around.

Eldritch chanting came from Lorath's hiding place as he conjured up missiles of glowing force to strike the Kreen. Zipping around the tree he was hiding behind, the two glowing projectiles impacted the thing's torso and cracked a chitin plate, from below which oozed a thick, dark yellow substance, probably the thing's blood, though it looked more like sticky pus.

It's injuries seemed to be slowing it down, and Tamora followed up with another succesful attack, this time piercing the chitin on it's lower torso. As it recoiled, it coughed up chunks of disgusting yellow gunk which stained it's chitin.

Letting loose what could only be called a roar, it struck out at it's attacker, slashing sideways with it's brutal polearm, and hit Tamora's right leg before she could dodge.

There was a sound like a snapping twig, and as the elf was thrown sideways, she could see that her leg below the middle of the hip-bone had turned into a loose, flopping sock of skin. That thought was driven from her mind as she hit the ground, though, because that was when the pain hit her. Her leg had become completely useless, and when she was hit her spear had been sent flying.

(Tamora loses 20 HP, 20 HP remain.)

Bas, who had until this point stayed on the sidelines, ready to heal the injured or interfere if thing seemed truly desperate, seeing as he was armed only with a stick, judged this to be an opportune time to make himself felt.

While Lorath was still preparing another spell, and the creature was approaching Tamora for the killing blow, he charged and attacked, swinging his staff wildly. Coming in from behind, his weapon hammered the thing in the back of the head, producing a nasty crunching sound. It stiffened momentarily and then collapsed... Right on top of Tamora.

Thankfully no sharp chitin or other pointy objects injured her further, all that happened was that she was severely restricted in her ability to breathe because most of the thing's weight was pressing down squarely on her chest.

For the time being, it looked like they'd survived, the black Thri-Kreen was dead.


Aftermath

Searching the area and the corpse of the massive insect got the party, in addition to the dagger Anne had already found, the crystal boomerang which had missed Tamora, another two of them on the thing's person, it's large spear and a lot of dried meat from some unidentifiable creature.

Additionally, in a pouch, they found five unusual fruits which felt faintly unnatural to Bas. To Lorath's trained eye, they somehow seemed slightly magical. As far as he could guess, something odd or interesting would happen if they were eaten.

To Tamora and Anne, the fruits simply looked like an assortment of ordinary fruit: An apple, a pear, a nectarine, a peach and a pomegranate.

While both Lorath and Tamora were easily patched up so that they weren't quite bleeding to death any longer, Tamora's leg was quite obviously broken, though not as badly as Anne's had been. It looked like a simple fracture.

[ 06-13-2007, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath clutched his wound, keeping pressure on it to make sure it didn't start bleeding again. Quickly he wrapped his sword again, hoping that its thirst had been sated for now. He bent down and picked up the pouch of fruit, then set it in his pack for later examination and use. The rest of the stuff he left for his companions. They would need those weapons.

"We should probably rest up for a bit," he suggested. "Take some time to gather everything up, make sure we're good for another fight if one comes up." He set the portal down and asked the others, "Could I get some help opening this? It takes a few people, and would be the best place to stay and get healed, even if for just a short time." If the portal got up, he would begin, for lack of a better word, skinning the beast of its chitin and putting it in.

[Kazilan]

Bas dropped his staff in his haste to pull the dead creature off of Tamora. He immediately set to casting a healing spell focused on her leg. After making sure she was patched up, he turned to Lorath and used a second spell on his stomach. Last was Anne, who would receive a healing spell if she said it was necessary.

Once the healing is done, Bas will take some time to examine the dead kreen.

"Obviously intelligent, considering it used weapons. And used them well, too. A shame we couldn't communicate." As Lorath pocketed the fruit, Bas raised an eyebrow.

"Be careful with that, Lorath. They were not natural, but tampered with somehow."

The druid turned back to the corpse and inspected its mandibles closely. If possible, he would wipe a sample of poison onto a leaf and try to determine if it had similar properties to one known to him, via sight and smell, as well as questioning Anne on its effects.

The process of unfolding the portal will go unnoticed at first, and only when it starts to take shape will the druid lock eyes onto it and take a step backwards.

"Thats a, ah, what again?"

[Armen]

Tamora

Tamora had thanked Bas for his healing spell then gingerly explored that area around the break with her fingers. It looked and certainly felt better but she decided to wait a few minutes for the area to settle down before she risked moving it.

She watched Lorath struggling with the metal frame as Bas examined the dead thri-kreen and she thought through the implications of this encounter. They had lost time and would lose more as well as being slowed for a while. They would presumably have to treat the area as even more hostile if that was possible and the thri-keen community knew of attackers on their territory and were actively hunting them. She felt the weight and balance of the heavy spear and saw Anne inspecting the daggers. They had weapons now of a sort but even those would identify them as hostile to any other of the creatures they encountered. The situation is far from ideal, she thought ruefully.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Bas’ question to Lorath to which she added her own. “What is that? Some sort of tent . . ?”

[ 06-14-2007, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[dplax]

Anne

Anne lifted the dagger to eye-height, inspecting its fine, glittering edge. In the absence of all metal equipment, thus without her daggers, this strange dagger would have to do.

She shook her head when Bas approached, indicating that she did not need any healing. The effects of the poison had almost worn off and apart from the slight stiffness she still felt in her fingers, all the effects of it were gone.

She looked curiously to Lorath when he started taking out the portal, eyeing it with a curious caution. Bas had already voiced her question so she simply stared and waited for the answer.

[ 06-14-2007, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

"I'll be sure to take my lessons in caution from someone who rashly approached a wild, unknown, and well-armed creature with the assumption that we could work together with it and its insectoid intelligence," Lorath replied to Bas's statement about the fruit. "I'm aware that they're somewhat magical, but as with all things magical it's assumed that it should be identified and fully examined before anybody tries to use it."

He tried his best to hide a glib smile and arrogant look when he heard their questions. "Not quite," he said, pointing at the metal frame. "See, this is an inter-dimensional portal, which takes full form when it's completely extended. Basically when the gateway is locked in position, it opens a doorway between two different locations, between which you can instantaneously travel. In this case, the destination is an abandoned fortress which nobody but us can access. The portal is many orders of magnitude more complicated than a simple tent both structurally and in function."

The party could see it vaguely taking shape, something like a wireframe bird cage in the shape of a four-dimensional hyperpyramid, but it wasn't going to be finished any time soon with just his two hands. When he finished locking one section in place, one of the joints on the other side would collapse. "Now please, it works best with three people working to open it so that all the joints are locked at the same time."