Kris's thrill at besting her foe is dampened slightly by the surge of disappointment following the soul's release.  The blade is potent, keen, and sure, deserving of some reward.  Perhaps the next strike?  She looks around eagerly as Stallock's barrage of arrows strike their foes.

"Excellent aim!" she calls, whirling around at the drow's voice.  "Take the animal, I've got this one!"  She races at the drow, rapier lashing out in two quick slashes.

Attack 1: Attack: 28 Damage: 15

Attack 2: Attack: 24 Damage: 13

Kris lunges forward, a few quick steps across the ancient cracked paving stones has her at the Drow. He raises his hand crossbow to protect himself, deflecting the first blow, but Kris is already bringing her sword around for another blow and the blade stabs through his mid section.  He drops his hand crossbow, clutching his side, as his surprised eyes look at Kris. He falls backwards.  Once again, she see's a faint whisp of his soul depart...streaking away into the ether away from the hungry blade. 

The displacer beast, confused, crippled by attacks from two directions, and in a mental fog, just runs. It dashes out into the forest leaving a trail of blood, managing to find full cover behind bush and tree as it rushes into the woods. 

Sistri, Llwyd, Irmiel, you're all up. 

Initiative: Irmiel 23 | Stallock 17 | Drow14 17 | Kris 16 | DB 14 | Sistri 13 | Drow58 8 | Llwyd 3

"Aw... How kind of you. Thank you for the correction, I'll keep it in mind for your next brethren. Tough, they respond well to the force, it seems."

Irmiel ran to the entrance where Kris had slain the curious drow and glanced around quickly. Should another enemy be spotted, the said enemy will be thoroughly cursed and firebolted:

BA: Hex (Strength)

Attack: 15 Damage: 13 + 4 necrotic if hit.

Irmiel rushes to the doorway, glancing around inside the ancient elven tree home.  The other Drow doesn't appear to be here anymore. The room looks empty and quiet.

Sistri will run to join the others near the entrance, keeping an eye out for wherever the beast went to.  She hopes it will stay away, but is wary of it coming back. (Using DASH action to get to the others.)  "Were there others?" she asks as she approaches the others. 

Stallock comes jogging up to the others, an arrow knocked as he looks around cautiously.  There seems to be no obvious sign of any other drow here.

"Ran away, I guess, like the beast. To save their lives or to report to shadovar - heard one screaming about it? Yes, apparently, shadovar know about the place. Sort of proves, it is related to mythallars somehow."

Since there was no one to curse and she did not expect the "drow-in-the-ring" to help in any capacity, she looked around herself. "What were they looking for in here..."

Perception: 4

Irmiel takes a quick glance around the place. The doors that enclosed this space are big and grand, but also old. One of them hangs by its lower hinge only, and is off to the side. The floor is covered in vines and leaves that have come to reclaim the space to nature. It's clear the space was once a grand hall, but that is has been subsequently looted and used by animals or other creatures as time has gone on. The furniture is rotted, torn, and flipped over. The fountain in the center of the room is empty and dry, filled with detritus. A stairway leads up and out of the main room and to a higher level. The floor is tiled, and though the tiles are chipped and cracked you can make out a mural depicted.  It appears to show a massive, dark figure, with lava for blood...absorbing what look like deer and other nature creatures. A number of holy, god looking figures are elsewhere apparently creating elves, and dwarves, and humans. In another section, the dwarves and elves are fighting side by side outside a huge mountain stronghold with a large open hall.  They are fighting orcs, and other creatures that seem to be spilling out of the original dark creatures heart. 

Otherwise in the room she sees two flipped over lounge chairs, a wardrobe cracked open and laying flat on the ground, a large book shelf, it's shelves empty except for a collection of animal bones arranged on the lower shelves, and finally a large desk, it's chairs tossed to the side and broken, the drawers all pulled out...and a large statue of an elven huntress with a bow rising up at it's back and set against the wall.  Several spots where paintings once hung are just darker spots on the walls amidst the faded painted plaster that is chipped and broken. 

Sistri scans the room as well, remaining wary as she keeps her shield up and stays with the wall close to her back. "The Drow must be here somewhere. And the way they mentioned shadovar makes me think they had been ambushed by them."  Her focus is for any glimpse or sound of others inside this tree home.  (Perception: 18)

Sistri moves about cautious, eyes and ears open for danger. She notices that there is a circular spot in the room, off to one side, where the floor is free of dead leaves and vines. In fact, a quick inspection shows that the vines around the small area have been severed cleanly as if by a knife.  The floor in that spot doesn't seem particularly unique in any way, until she catches the light at the right angle and notices an inscription is inlaid with gold on the floor.  It reads, "At the days of old there was only darkness far and wide."

Perception Check: 15

Llwyd moves about the space...sniffing as his eyes scan the area. He smells two distinct individual Drow smells in here...there were two of them in this room for quite a while. The first one is over there, dead, but the 2nd one is not around....though....Llwyd thinks he'd smell him if he was around.  That dry earthy smell mixed with strange incense. But, he doesn't think the Drow is in the room with them.

Sistri points out the cleared off space to the others. "Vines were cut back, someone was investigating it."  She repeats the inscription, "At the days of old there was only darkness far and wide."  Immediately she turns her gaze to Irmiel. "Is it magical in some way? Was this what we were looking for?  I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds kind of like that poem."  Slowly she moves over towards it. "Any signs of drow?  It can't have just disappeared. Or can it?" 

Survival Check: 11

Llwyd doesn’t find any sign of the missing drows location. 

As the drow disappeared, he tried to catch their smell or hear their step. When nothing but the sounds of his companions registered on his keen senses the druid was convinced the dark elf had left the room. His first thought was to look for signals, traks to follow, but in that he was simply unsuccessful. Maybe he teleported, the thought me naturally with the memory of the wizard back at the tunnel. If that was true then maybe the escapee was truly beyond their reach. All reflection stopped when Sistri spoke.

“It is the first line of the poem. Word-for-word.” Llwyd said returning to his original form. “And this make it seems that my theory may not have been far-fetched.” He approached the others with a worried face. “Those guys know of the Shandovar and were expecting, at least in some capacity, an attack from them while searching these ruins. They were clearly looking for the Mythalar and everywhere we look from concrete information on these things this poem keeps appearing.” But what did it actually mean? “I think the stones are linked to that blood god somehow and that something is happening with them. Something that sprung all those powers, from Cormyr to the Underdark, to act now.” And they just walked in the middle of the mess. “The drow is not here and left no tracks I could find. Considering that we killed his closest source of reinforcement some days before, we should have at least today without any ambushes. Enough time for the fallen to tell us something. Maybe they carry notes. Maybe we can find their camping site and some information there.”

"Attack? From what that last drow was shouting I understand they work with shadovar. Not a good news, as if undead were not enough." Irmiel paused for a second to send a question to the wizard. "Did shadovar hire you or you simply searching for the same thing? And why now all of a sudden?" She did not expect much of an answer but who knows, the wizard-in-the-ring could want to find that "something" too and at the moment the group was his best chance to do so.

While Llwyd was searching the bodies, Irmiel was studying the clearing that Sistri had spotted. "The mural is a depiction of the poem too but why did they clear that particular place? An entrance? One that can be opened in the darkness only?" She looked at the spot again. (Investigation: 25 if needed)

The drow in the ring scoffs at Irmiel's comment, "Drow are not for hire by some has-been human wizards!  Their secrets are not mine to keep. They can rot for all I care. Perhaps this is why Lloth has guided me to your hand. Revenge is a worthwhile goal. We have an alliance with....another party...who supplied us with the location of this tree home. However when we arrived Shadovar were here. They managed to drive us away. Some were sent for reinforcements...however when we returned to this place....the Shadovar were gone. We left a small contingent here to search the ruins while the rest of us went scouting for any sings of the Shadovar while reinforcements were on the way. We believe there is a portal in this place, and the key to opening it is related to that poem your friends mentioned. What do you know of Mythallar?  You know the poem?!  You must tell me what it is! And then, when the Drow come, I will tell you what to say...so that they will not kill you. I will help you bargain, your lives for the poem!"

"Wow, thank you," very sincerely thanked Irmiel the drow-in-the-ring. Not that she believed for a second the part about "not kill you" but the rest of the information was quite useful. "Give me a second to inform others."

Irmiel motioned others to come and retold the words of the drow. "Our friend in the ring shared some information. It seems Llwyd got it right - the two factions (races?) do not work together. He also said that several drow patrols are still around and can come at any moment. He offers some help in negotiations for our lives in exchange for the text of the poem - something drow did not learn. Drow think there is a portal somewhere here with the poem being the key to open it."

While others were digesting that new information, she continued her silent mind conversation. "What I know about Mythallars is more of common knowledge. They are physical manifestations of refined elven Mythal, mastered by ancient Netheresians. The latter used it as the driving force for their flying cities. Probably the reason shadovar want them. And, yes, I do know the poem. But still do not understand what Mythallar or that poem - dwarven mind you! - have to do with this place." She paused and then asked. "By the way... Since at least for now we have to coexist together, can I get your name? I am Irmiel. How would you like me to call you?"

((Reminder: Irmiel speaks both Elven and Undercommon)) 

“Oh, so what they said can be interpreted like that.” He said before leaving the right hand to the chin, assuming a pensive posture. “I just took what they said that the Shandovar attack directly so it wasn’t them because it was an ambush. Maybe it was bias from our encounter with them or just intuition, but it is good to know that other person in the group thinks so differently from me. Means we can cover for one another.”

Then he pondered the words Irmiel delivered. It was hard to decide if he believed in them without hearing how the dark elf spoke. Coch would say it was a chance for him to dive in the unknown and challenge his abilities. It always impressed Llwyd how the man could find a valuable lesson in everything.

“If we tell him the poem, we give him what we have and he wants. In other words, we lose the only thing that can interest him enough to genuinely try keeping us alive.” Now where to go from there? He asked with the voice of his mind while half cursing his lack of experience negotiating. “Instead, we could trade lines of the poem for bits of information. A good first information for a line would be the position of this patrols he mentioned. All of them, if he doesn’t want us to die before telling him all of the verses.” That would give them the number of patrols, a estimation of how much time they had and the chance to decide if the patrols are too much for them to deal or enemies they should confront. “Irmiel, did he mention some other involved part besides the Shadovar?” He asked the wizard thinking about Larloch.