Generally, if the race isn't mentioned, assume the creatures are human.Say, dad?Hm?When did you fight the cult? Hm, long time ago, really. Around thirty years ago, I think. I was still green behind the ears, but Liam kept me alive. That was before I even started using hooks, back then I was a strapping young lad with a rusty axe and daddy issues. How did that go, anyways?Hard to really put a number on it. We lost a couple of the other mercs when they split off from the main group, and I took a nasty hit to my shoulder, but we managed to take the drider down without much issue. Once you're past the cultists, it's just one target, after all. I think we took it in alive, even. Once we gave her a couple of whacks she decided to give up. So it wasn't a wild drider or anything?No. Misfit kid in an orphanage, somewhere. Common case with driders, I suppose. Your species isn't the most motherly. No instinct in it.You both continue on without a word. There wasn't much else to say, and your dad isn't that talkative.
The journey continues, and apart from a small run-in with some sewer-hounds, nothing eventful happened. The pack of hounds turned tail when they saw you, preferring to avoid combat with your party. They're not dumb animals, they won't pick fights that aren't worth it. Suddenly, there seems to be a shift in scenery. The moss seems to clear away more and more, and mushrooms take it's place. They weren't rare before, but now they are positively everywhere. Some of them seem to be luminescent as well, almost making Eveline's torches unneeded. Eveline warns everybody not to touch them, however. They're quite poisonous, as the flashy colors suggest. Ra'at scoffs at the advice, and says that they can send somebody on a profound vision. But considering you don't have three days, she decides against proving that.
On the subject of poisons, Eveline states that she is, for all intents and purposes, an expert on the subject. The easiest thing to make in alchemy is something that can harm somebody, after all. Anti-toxins are a bit harder, but she can manage on most. If nothing else, she can help with any fevers or pains that arise from them. You also give her a small explanation on your poison, what it's effects are and all that. She says that she may be able to figure something out, but also points out that if she were to get stung she'd probably straight up die. cuz she smol
During the journey, you also experiment with trying to improve your creatures. Enhancing the dog's sense of smell crosses your mind, but you just don't know how noses work well enough to improve the sense of smell. And you can't really morph flesh quite yet, all you can do is add a sort of wisp in the shape of the addition. It's entirely cosmetic, although you can, with enough dedicated, slightly change the physical appearance. You managed to make the claws of the rat a few millimeters longer, although you feel like you may just get an aneurysm from trying too hard. You lose two mana by altering your rats, but the claws are just a tad more hooked. You don't think it will make a difference. Something did seem to "click" as you were doing it, and you lost less mana when you tried it on the final rat. Perhaps this is something that will come with practice...
Of course, things couldn't keep on going smoothly. In this new biome of mushrooms, new enemies appear. A massive mushroom on small, stubby legs is blocking the path. It's body is a pale white, and the cap is red with some white spots. It doesn't seem too dangerous... As your party cautiously approaches, however, other mushrooms seem to free themselves from the damp floor and begin walking towards you. You wonder how these creatures expect to hurt you, and you wait for their move, first. The one with the red cap towers above everything around, as the other mushrooms barely reach people's hip. The first one to move is Anatoli, who swings his hammer against the massive mushroom. The hammer strikes the soft flesh of the mushroom, and ends up stuck! Before Anatoli can wrench it free, the mushrooms throws it's head forward and headbuts anatoli with it's massive girth. Almost immediately, the other mushrooms follow suit and begin bashing everything in sight, be it stones, the wall, each-other and your party! Yunikki is almost completely unaffected by the bashing, as one of the mushrooms cracks open against her knee-pad. The rest of the party isn't quite so lucky. While the hits aren't the most dangerous, the mushrooms prove to be nearly impossible to take down! Horizontal swings only seems to embed the weapon inside the flesh, and the mushrooms don't seem to particularly care about that. The massive one is already rearing it's head back to strike, but Ra'at jumps forward using you a launching surface! You wince as her feet push into your shoulders, but the effectiveness cannot be underestimated! The slices the creature vertically, and nearly splits it two using nothing but a gnarled tooth of some creature!
It clicks for Eveline.
They're mushrooms! The flesh is weaker if you slice vertically! Vertical strikes! Ra'at jumps INSIDE the massive mushroom to carve it from the inside. You, on the other hand, focus your attention on the smaller mushrooms that have been trying to harm you for a while. Your carapace is more than sufficient to safeguard you, in addition to your complete lack of internal bleeding in your spider part. The vertical strikes work out quite well, although the halves still seem to twitch and move even after being completely split in half. Anatoli rushes forward to get his hammer back from the massive creature as it falls backwards from Ra'at's onslaught. During his attempt to wrench it free, he is hit on the knee by a particularly luminescent mushroom, which he backhands away. The small mushrooms explodes in spores, and Anatoli coughs and hack for a while before gathering his senses and finally retrieving his war-hammer. By then, it's pointless. Yunikki was untouchable, and your father's axe works beautifully against these creatures. Even Danica managed to kill a few, although it was with some difficulty. Her blades are a little too short to work. Ra'at is crawling out of the corpse, covered in yellow... juice. She licks herself a little, which makes flinch in disgust. Still, this looks to be another battle without casualties... Let's hope this keeps up.
Anatoli is still coughing, after a little while. He must have caught an allergic reaction, as it doesn't seem to be much more than a cough. You also meet something interesting along the way. A small chest, covered in mushrooms. It must have been here for quite some time, and you're glad you found it! Danica quickly gets to work checking the whole thing over. She finds a trap under the box, attached to a string. She ties the trigger around a sturdy-looking mushroom to stop the trap from going off. Then she gets to lock-picking the little chest. After around a minute, she manages to open it! Inside is:
Nothing but mushrooms. Or, more accurately, an old weathered flag covered top to bottom in fungus. You click your tongue in annoyance, and don't even bother taking it with you. Seems like ages-old treasure isn't always what it's cracked up to be. You continue onwards, as Anatoli coughs once more. He's pushing a handkerchief around his nose and mouth to try and keep the allergies to a minimum, but it doesn't seem to help much. The rest of the journey continues without much issue in this mushroomy land of wonders. The architecture, what little is visible, has also changed. There are more engravings, and the stone looks to be of a different make. You don't know enough about geology to know what the differences are, though. Eventually, you find a large chamber, much larger than the ones you were getting used to. In the middle of the room is a well, with crystal-clear water inside. It seems to be from a different source than the rest of the sewers. The chamber itself is covered in the same massive mushrooms you saw in Ra'at's village. Massive enough to be used as a house, and glowing faintly. Considering that everybody's been traveling for quite some time, people have decided that a rest may be appropriate.
You're getting quite hungry, and you ran out of hound a little while ago. The cookbook states that you can make a dish out of the mushrooms here, but warns that it's a little difficult to get the correct ones. There's also some kind of insect around here that could be used as a meat dish.
During this rest, people will do their own thing. Will you risk the mushrooms or the hunt? Or will you try something else?Level: 6
HP: 25/25
Mana: 14/17 (13 mana invested)
Stress: 45/100
Current Party
Guide: Ra'at, shaman of the Fungustalkers.
Father: Alibert Aestinus
Ex-bandit: Yunikki Madotsu
Alchemist: Eveline Flynn
Bruiser: Anatoli Barino
Rogue: Danica Karstuno
Equipment:
Drider shirt
Steel sword
Gardener's iron shield
Rough leather armor
Items:
Handkerchief
Magic Cookbook
Pick-axe
4 sleeping bags
five potato sacks
Pot, pan, kitchen knife collection, scraping tool.
Loot:
One working clock, three broken clocks, needles, gold-edged monocle.
Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(1) (invests 1 of your max mana)
Resurrect average beast: Allows you to resurrect creatures such as dogs, cats and other similar-sized creatures.(10- (invests five mana)
Reshape minion: Allows you to slightly change the appearance of your resurrected minions. (///......)2
Minion Vision(weak): Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (invests one mana) (1)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You can't do anything with it, quite yet. (10 mana)
Undead flashbang: Allows you to blow up a minion for a flash-bang effect. (15 mana)
Stitch: allows you to close a wound and stop bleeding as fast as you can stitch. Costs very little mana, but requires something to stitch with.
Minions
Two sewerhounds
Three rats(enhanced claws)
Skills:
Poison Stinger (Potentially lethal)
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: Excellent!
Corpse Cutting: Awful.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge
Soul Sniffer
Author
Topic: Web of Life: A Drider's Adventure (Ended) (Read 185064 times)