Before Mallory can open her mouth to answer Lisana's question, a stirge plants itself on her face, prompting an ear piercing scream from the young woman as she shakes violently, trying to pull the wretched creature off her.

Shouts, yelps, and much swatting arises around you as the other expedition members start to notice the flitting red shapes zipping between them. Within moments, a the scattered creatures build up into a rustling cloud of red wings and claws. Left and right, the exclamations of annoyance swiftly become cries of pain and terror.

From below, Bruno bellows in pain. "It bit me!" 

Aju, the tabaxi snarls as he swats a stirge off his leg. The mangled creature falls silently and unceremoniously into the abyss.

As Fifi tries to recall something useful about stirges, she is distracted by the sound of a spell being cast by someone far to her left, resulting in a spout of roaring flames, frying several stirges in that area. She can't see who cast the spell, but it seems they are doing alright for themselves.

Rosie, shifting her weight against the rocky sides of the chasm, is able to run along the wall, supported by the wire cord, towards Radu. However, as she moves in to dispose of the stirge, it is flung in her direction, impaled through the eye by one of Radu's crossbow bolts. Missing Rosie's head by a foot, the stirge is pinned to the cliff by the bolt skewering it. It seems Radu needed no rescuing after all. Her leverage running out, she is swung back into her original position like a pendulum.

Geraine's incense begins to burn, creating a steady stream of smoke as he is slowly lowered downward. However, will take a few more seconds for the fumes to become strong enough for the nearby stirges to notice it.

Initiative:

Notes:

• This map is vertical. The red lines represent the cords from each of your wirepacks.
• Each square on the map is 5 feet.
• By succeeding on a DC 12 Acrobatics or Athletics check, you can shift your weight against the wall so as to run on the wall to move in a horizontal direction. However, at the end of your turn, you will swing like a pendulum back to your original location as the line gains slack from unraveling.
• At the moment, you are all moving downward at a speed of 40 feet per round. So are the stirges.

Fifi's initiative count (adding because I forgot to add it earlier): 5

I need a spray weapon that won't hurt us but that will gum up their wings, Burn thinks to herself.  While rummaging through her box, she spots the components for one of her prepared spells.

"This isn't usually how or when this spell is cast but let's give it a go, shall we?" Burn mumbles to herself as she searches for a cluster of bat-bugs below or lateral to her.  Once she finds a suitable target within range, she casts grease at them.

(Despite grease only affecting ground, I will allow for it to work here):

Wobbling globules of oily black liquid manifests in the air right above Burn, raining down on her and the stirges swarming her and Geraine. Several stirges drop simply from the weight of the liquid falling down on them, while those who survived the initial greasy assault slowly start to sink, desperately trying to cling onto their targets before they are rendered entirely flightless.

Addition to movement rules (courtesy of Makkiu's suggestion): As a bonus action on your turn, you can briefly accelerate your descent by toggling the switch to the left, causing you to fall freely. However, you may use a reaction to toggle the switch back to center, causing the wire to suddenly go taut. You may only take this reaction if you had willingly set the wirepack to free-fall. If you descend more than 20 feet in this manner, you will take bludgeoning damage from the whiplash upon stopping. The damage equals 1d6 per 10 feet after 20 feet.

It is now Geraine's turn (there are a few ties in initiative. Let's just run those in alphabetical order. In this case, Geraine, Radu, and Rosie all have 22s, so the order will go Geraine, Radu, and Rosie).

Geraine begins to run along the wall towards Radu actively attempting to dodge the stirges and other insects, flipping the switch to the left once he has covered the majority of the distance to allow the inertia of his movement to carry him during descent.  He will use his reaction to flip the switch back to the center at around 15' of the freefall to pendulum back in an attempt to pass by Bruno on the next turn (as well as to spread the heavenly aroma of his incense as wide as possible).

Burn tries to blow the hair away from her eyes but quickly realizes that it has been caked onto her forehead by her conjured, localized grease shower.

"Spell notes for grease - Next time just let the bat-bugs stab you in the face", she whispers to herself while shaking her arms and legs like a dog after a bath.

As she catches a glance of her intended targets dropping into the abyss, she allows herself a barely noticeable smirk. It worked, Uncle. 

Acrobatics Check: 24

With no time to celebrate the hit, Radu turned his eyes on the direction of the screams. Too far, he noticed immediately. The woman under attack was out of the reliable range of his weapon some fifteen feet or so. Without hesitation and with inhuman ease he shifted his weight against the wall and moved towards her, putting a new bolt on his crossbow and drawing a second, loaded, one.

Burn did a number on more than a few of the pests and Ashford was happy with that. Or at least as happy as anyone could be while dangling on a rope over a deathly fall and being surrounded by the hate child of bats and mosquitoes.

Step by step he advanced. Five, ten, fifteen feet. As soon as the stirge over Mallory was on reach he raised his arms, his face a mask of blood and flesh, devoid of any emotion other than the deepest concentration. Raising both arms, Radu took aim. The first attack would go to the creature biting the young woman. If it failed to kill the thing, then a second shot would try the same otherwise the second offensive would go towards the enemy closest to the redhaired elf in glasses.

Notes: Radu moves fifteen feet towards Mallowy, so both her and the creature attacking her are no further than 30ft from him. He uses his action to shoot the stirge attacking Mallowy. If the attack hits and kills the stirge, Radu uses Crossbow Expert to spend his bonus action to shoot the closest stirge to Lisana. If the first attack fails to kill the stirge attacking Mallowy, then the second shot would be made against it.

Attack 1: 15
Potential Damage: 6

Attack 2: 12
Potential Damage: 6

(I'm not sure how many stirges are left. Rosie will attack one closest to her. Will do an acrobatics check in case she needs to move to get to one)

Rosie stabs at a stirge, frustrated that she can only hit one at a time.

Rapier to hit: 17

Damage: 10

Acrobatics if needed: 8

Fifi pulls out her lute, "I suppose every start to an adventure requires an opening tune.  For now, how's a lullaby?"

The satyr strums several chords on her lute and hums a sweet little lullaby.

Action: cast sleep on the biggest cluster of stirges in a 20 ft diameter sphere
(Not sure which stirges are still alive, but Fifi will try to catch 2-3 stirge swarms in her spell whilst avoiding allies).

Movement: descending 40 ft down

As Geraine swoops down to Bruno's rescue, he finds the minotaur flailing about helplessly, stirges planting themselves on his body faster than he can remove them. His large hand swats one between his eyes, crushing it. Upon seeing Geraine swing by, he makes a shocked expression. "Wait! No! We'll-" Geraine then realizes that his current trajectory will result in him crashing with the minotaur (like a Newton's Cradle). Before Geraine can shift his weight to avoid contact, he collides into the metal portion of Bruno's wirepack, his face landing in the still unraveling spool of steel wire, taking 6 bludgeoning damage. Several stirges that had latched onto Bruno have now lost their balance, clumsily falling into the abyss. Bruno has clearly had the wind knocked out of him by the impact, as does Geraine, now sporting a nasty gash on the right side of his face. Nothing permanent, luckily, and he managed to hold onto the incense, which now coats them in its fragrance. "I owe you for the rescue," he says, brushing off a stirge and watching as Geraine pendulums away from him, "but you ought to consider your own safety as well!" he laughs. 

Firing the crossbow, Radu sees that the bolt meets its target. The stirge attacking Mallory is impaled through its bulbous abdomen, causing it to burst, covering Mallory's face in blood, much to her horror. Her screaming does not cease. It seems this one had fed recently. Perhaps on some other poor fool climbing down the wall. The second bolt, however, is not so fortunate. The stirge that Radu had in sight darted behind Lisana at the last second. It did not appear to be a conscious dodge of the attack, but rather a stroke of pure luck on the stirge's part. Radu then swings back to his original position.

Rosie is surrounded by Stirges on all sides, yet momentarily has no luck stabbing any with her rapier.

Fifi's lullaby reaches the ears of about half of the swarm, encompassing most of the stirges surrounding Rosie, Burn, Geraine, and Radu. As she sings, Fifi sees stirges drop like flies, one by one into the pit.

Note: Sleep effects 31 (5d8) hit points' worth of creatures, and the caster can only choose the area of the spell. Not which creatures are and aren't affected. The spell targets those with the lowest hit points first, which are the stirges. Thus, no allies were affected.

(the stirge swarm's turn now begins) 

A stirge lands itself on Rosie's sword hand, and makes its move, unsheathing its proboscis to plunge into her wrist.
Attack: 15
Damage (if hit): 7

Two more stirges land on Radu, one on his ankle and the other on the back of his neck.
Attacks: 20 and 9
Damage (if hit): 7 and 7

Mallory, having just recovered from her initial attack, is blasted with a flurry of stirges, having been driven in that direction by Geraine's incense.
Attack: 6
Damage (if hit): 12
Shrieking at the top of her lungs in her struggle for dear life, Mallory manages an incantation, conjuring a transparent bubble of force around her.

Torwin seems to have caught the interest of a single stirge, which lands itself on the tip of his snout.
Attack: 7
Damage (if hit): 7

Torwin's turn.

The stirge's proboscis breaks through Rosie's flesh in a sudden, burning, stinging sensation as the straw-like organic needle stabs into her wrist. Sickeningly, she can feel the blood being pumped out of her limb.

Just as Radu manages to remove the stirge from his ankle, he feels a sharp sting on the back of his neck from the second stirge. Adding insult to injury, the puncture wound was over one of his scars.

Mallory's shield manages to force the stirges away from her. Shocked, they attempt to regroup for an attack against a different target.

Torwin manages to shake off the stirge on his nose before it can bite them.

Torwin fumbling through his spellbook in a panic, finds the sleep spell, following Fifi's lead, casting it over the stirge swarm.
26 hit points worth of stirges are effected. They promptly fall to their deaths.

Mallory, recovering from being swarmed, releases three glowing blue orbs from her right palm, each taking a twisting, turning route through the air, leaving a sky-blue trail behind. The three projectiles each embed themselves in the bodies of a stirge.

Lisana reaches to pull something out of her backpack. As she rifles through, her wire suddenly ceases to unravel. "Dammit!" she cries. "It's jammed!" she shouts while toggling the switch back and forth to try and fix it. The stirges take notice that they now have a stationary target.

Burn's Turn.

As Geraine bounces hard off of Bruno's wire pack he recognizes the smarting pain from his miscalculation only partially.  He scans Bruno to see the stirges taking their flight upward to the rest of the group which guides his eyes upward.  "Of cour..." he starts to respond, but is stopped short as he sees the activity overhead.  

With a flash and a scream Mallory's shield seems to drive several away while blasting three more from life mid-flight.  As Radu removes a stirge from his ankle Geraine sees another on the back of his neck beginning to swell.  Geraine tries to quickly asses the greatest need and begins to focus on the warmth and light of Amaunator, yelling to Radu "It is too early to be judged" while casting <spell>Healing Word</spell>.  

Geraine then uses the residual momentum to strafe along the wall opposite of Bruno, again flipping the switch to the left to again drop approximately 10-15ft below Bruno, spreading the beautiful aroma of his incense as he swings across to rise above as the group continues to descend.

 Healing Word

Two shots, one hit. Radu was less than satisfied as momentum pulled his body back towards his former position. One of stirges try to latch onto his ankle, but the Blood Hunter is fast to slap it way. Unfortunately, a second one hit his neck. Acute pain washes over his body followed by a burning sensation. His vision becomes cloudy, telling him the damage was high. The thing must have hit an artery, he thinks realizing that another hit like that and he would be down. Gerairne says something on his direction, but Ashford cannot understand what. He does feel a wave of warmth and strength taking hold. It took just a second, maybe even less, but it completely erased his wound.

“Nice heal!” He shouts to the cleric, hearing as Lisana cursed. As fast as he could the Bloodhunter turns the crossbow at his right hand towards the creature on his neck. The dart is shot, but no ichor hit his skin, so he assumes to have missed. The crossbow on the left hand is then turned towards the closest enemy. Another shot, but no gore. ****, he said with the voice of his mind, eyes on the elvish woman. It was almost if he worried more about her than about himself.

Notes: Radu's attack rolled on the Discord. Both miss.

Ow, these overstuffed mosquitos *hurt*. Rosie grits her teeth and steels her resolve. She would not die on her very first adventure to a bunch of bugs. Feeling recovered somewhat, she flips the rapier deftly and catches it between her shield and the wall, then swiftly moves her sword hand so the feeding stirge is skewered upon the end. But there are so many more and once again, she is frustrated that she can only hurt one of these things at a time.

BA: Second Wind to heal for 6
A: Rapier attack 18 to hit for 9 damage

Fifi continues her descent down into the canyon.  She thinks for a moment to cast another sleep spell, but decides against it.  Instead she looks to one of the stirge swarms and hurls an [spell[vicious mockery;insult[/spell] at it.

Action: casting vicious mockery
Wisdom Save: 13    Damage: 1
If the attack lands, the target has disadvantage on their next attack roll.

Movement: descending 40 ft down

The stirge swarm has been noticeably reduced in size, the cluster being much thinner than before. However, as they notice that a certain elven woman's line has become jammed, they begin to converge on the easy meal. You've never heard screams quite like Lisana's in the moments following. 

What stirges hadn't been slain all swarmed to her location, covering every inch of her. She thrashes around violently, struggling at first to find words for a spell, only to seemingly receive a stirge bite on her throat. Her face is completely hidden in the mass of red wings, claws, and abdomens, now beginning to swell and pulsate in their sanguine feast. You can see the desperation in her movements as she turns towards the switch, it seemingly ignoring whichever direction she toggled it in. Left, center, right, it made no difference. The line wouldn't move. She ear-piercing shrieks rapidly devolve gurgling wails. Giving up on fixing the wire as a means of escape, she turns to swatting at the stirges in vain with what little strength she had.

It was then that the wire became unjammed.

Suddenly, she is gone. There is no scream as she falls, as if she wasn't aware of what had happened. The stirges had all clung to her as she fell, leaving the vicinity swarm-free.

The wire trembles for several seconds after her fall, before making a sudden twang, becoming rigid from the dead weight it supported, far, far, below. Looking down, you can see the wire trailing off into the clouds at the bottom of the chasm.

Torwin had attempted to cast feather fall right before her fall. It seems that such a spell doesn't work if the target was dead before they fell.

All is quiet now.

It seems that the other adventurers have dealt with the stirges on their side as well. Everyone has toggled their wires to cease unraveling.

Klage's voice sounds from somewhere to everyone's right. 

"Well then! That was some excitement! Is everyone alright? Any injuries?"

Evidently, Klage is not able to see everyone from his position. 

"Lisana.." Geraine starts but quickly trails off.  He grabs his holy symbol just in time for her shadow to disappear into the depths below.  A feeling of dysregulation in this abdomen changes to violent stomach turning as the line snaps taut, and he presses his lips and tightly grits his teeth to avoid vomiting. 

Immediately his brain goes into reaction as he reaches up and flips the switch to the right to begin descending again, his eyes following Lisana's cable into the depths.  In his mind he can feel his subconscious screaming to Lisana "Just hold on, if only for a moment, please hold on!"  However in the back of his mind a familiar voice of logic and reason responds '"It is too late Sunlord, she is gone."  Ignoring intuition he continues downward, hearing but not processing Klage's question to the group as he descends.

Moment after moment of his descent sends shivers down his spine, until at last the still shadow forms at the end of her line.  Carefully strafing along the wall he reaches out and grabs her line, guiding his descent to her motionless body.  As her form comes into clearer view Geraine notices a few stirges still feed on her body, severely bloated and pulsating.  Swinging his censer as an improvised flail as he stops his descent, the stirges take flight off and into the darkness.  He loops the chain of his censer around his belt, takes hold of his holy symbol with a hand over Lisana's heart, and begins to pray - casting Spare the Dying and then checking her vitals several times before finally pausing with a great sigh.  "May the sun cast its glory on you a last time."

He then begins to pray aloud:
"Amaunator, the sun as set on this bright woman's life.  Grant her the comfort of the dawn, the blessing of noon, and the serenity of twilight, as the sun doth set for us all."

With this Geraine takes hold of Lisana's second switch, flipping it to rewind as he releases her line to swing back to his vertical position and awaiting the rest of the group.  Over and over, running the events of the last several minutes through his mind looking for answers, driven by his subconscious repeating:  "How could I have failed her so early on?"

It appears Lisana's faulty wire had become jammed once more, causing her neck to break from the whiplash. Otherwise, aside from the stirge bites, her body is intact. Her backpack was open when she fell, no doubt causing some of its contents to fall to the chasm floor. Suspended in the middle of the layer bluish-grey clouds, Geraine can't make out anything further than fifty feet in any direction, much less the bottom of the chasm. Geraine isn't sure how far down he is, but the spool of wire seems to have been reduced to a fifth of its quantity.