Session 13: Friendship in dark places Arc 2

Faced with a new monstrosity, Minerva wasted no time to toggle with the beast. The fur in her forearms chiseled with the gastric acids pouring from the mimic’s maw, but rage and might overpowered the beast. The rest of the party surrounded the enemy, concerned that the conflict would alert the nearby guards inside the warehouse. They needed to act hastily.

Like a cornered animal, the monster chose an expeditious retreat, morphing and liquefying its body, slithering through the feet of its foes like a vicious snake, living behind only a trail of mucus and blood. It moved to the next room, a small and dark corridor filled with pieces of old furniture, nightstands and wardrobes covered with mantles of cloth and darkness created an illusion of ghostly apparitions. Minerva and Valsali quickly lit some torches but found no comfort in what they saw. The trail of the creature, crimson and grey dragging trough the walls and ceiling. The light also revealed the two entrances that connected this room to other divisions of the warehouse, one right next to them at their left side, and another at the end of the corridor, where the tracks of the monster reached beyond the sights of our heroes.

One of the torches suddenly became extinguished, its light quickly replaced by the sound of Cici´s voice, but once melodical and shy, now portrayed in a colder and commanding tone, fitting an assassin by trade. She advised not to light up the room, risking attracting unwanted attention. Her concerns were not unfounded, for a couple of seconds later, voices were heard coming their way through the left entrance. The adventurous vanished as best as they could, counseling themselves inside wardrobes and bags of holding. In the commotion, they did not notice the familiar slithering sounds passing through them, and like a true predator, the mimic revealed itself only at the right moment.

Valsali was the last to find shelter, for he pretended to find refuse in his trusted magic chest, like many times previously, returning to the previous room where he had left it, only to be greeted with a horrible sight, two identical chests, one right next to the other. Perhaps he could have looked around the room, in the hopes of finding the previous trail left by the monster, revealing the identity of the forgery, but there was no time. The corridor behind him echoed the steps of incoming guards ever louder. He knew it, and so did the cunning Mimic, a game of chance, a pure gamble was proposed, heads our tails, life or death, it was up to the player to choose. He chose poorly. A jagged maw with a tentacular tongue dragged the Verdan inside the monstrous gullet. But not all hope was lost, for the victim was of sharper witt than the predator, and with his magic of creation, Valsali sealed himself inside a metal cube, shielding him from being digested by the beast.

Minerva and Cici witnessed the events, but were powerless to aid him, for a guard had arrived. The two of them heard the man’s bumbling, talking to the beast, referring to it by name, Yasu, an apparently placed guard dog, and an undisciplined one at that, whom the warehouse workers shared no love for. The man took his time to identify which chest was the mimic, and upon so, placed the apparently regular chest on top of the beast to avoid being beaten. The guard placed both chests in the room at the end of the corridor and left.

The rest of the party urgently went to their friends’ aid, but once they entered the room, they found a storage full of chests and crates. In their eyes, they had to worry before Valsali was digested, and although there was still such risk of such, the reality was that their compatriot would run out of oxygen way before such horrible fate. Nevertheless, urgency was paramount. Minerva, as a minotaur, was accustomed to dark subterranean biomes, having develop an acute sense of hearing, and as such, she heard the footsteps of the man coming to a close further down the room, cutting the potential search zone in half, but there was still twelve possible crates or chests to choose. As quietly as they could, they opened chest after chest to no avail. That’s when Rhiya proposed a different approach. She quieted her companions, took a second to close her eyes, attuning to the arcane energies in the air hoping to find the creature, our Valsali. Three chests glowed. The first to be pulled out contained magical items, storage from the warehouse, enough for Cats to come to terms with the loss of her companion and to start distributing the spoils of the battle amongst the remaining members. The second chest was pulled, a familiar sight, a bottomless container, filled with trinkets and oddities, Vaisali’s Chest. All hope seemed lost for Valsali, who was on its last gasps for air, not knowing that on the other side of his containment, where a group of rugged looking adventures, with bloodlust in their eyes, looking at a frightened and trembling mimic, who realized he had been discovered at last, and this time, with no possible escape. But the cornered animal moved the druid´s heat, and Rhyia, familiar in communicating with woodland beasts, convinced the guard dog to peacefully spit out its prayer. With a gurgling sound, the chest vomits a half-digested metal cube, crumbling to reveal a Bard gasping for fresh hair.

Too much action in so little time demands a well-earned rest, and so, covered by the dark and silence, the party takes some time to lick their wounds, and those of their new friends. Rhyia feed the creature some of her rations, and the voraciousness of Yasu showed them that it had not been fed in some time. Despite acting cautions around them, he quickly became attached to the elven druid, turning into a fluffy keychain that stuck to her belt.

With newfound friendship and strength, the party is led by the previous assassin to advance into the next room. Rhyia turns into a spider, climbing the ceiling, acting as the scout of the operation.

With a sketch of the layout and the patrol patterns and with the help of the rest of the party creating distractions, Cici incapacitates the guards one by one, leg-locking and shocking out her victims with her cloak, coordinating her takedowns whit cat, who would catch a falling guard before he would hit the ground, and quickly concealing his body. At last, a true challenge was in front of the three guards, all with visibility of one another, one of them asleep, the others on duty. A simultaneous takedown was planned, Cici positioned herself above the Rook guarding the door to the upper floor, Cats approaching the other, and Valsali reding a spell to incapacitate the remaining sleeping one. They all moved in synchrony, like a pack of wolves surrounding their prey. Cici was the first to dispatch her designated guard, with a surgically placed elbow to the temple, with all the force of her falling body behind it. Cats, much like a literal wolf, jumped behind and above a desk covered in white sheets, lunging her frame into the unsuspecting guard. They both stumble onto the ground, the guard struggling to figure out what had happened, but when he did it was already too late, for a second punch was placed in his chin by the vicious bloodhunter. The commotion awoken the last guard, but he found himself paralyzed and unable to shout for help, and the last thing he saw was the frame of a bulking minotaur emerging from the shadows, charging at him with tremendous speed, his sight being blocked by an incoming, massive fist. Not even his metal beaked visor helped, bending upon impact, laving a mess of the entire uniform, and most likely, was underneath it.

The basement was cleared at last, but not as smoothly as planned. A question loomed dreadfully over our heroes’ heads: Were they heard by those above them?