Spira grits her teeth in frustration.  "One more go to scare this one off," she whispers to Rash, "and then we can all go up, and hopefully be out of sight before the rest come back."  She begins to count paces as she was trained to do in the Berdusk Watch, ten seconds for each standard human pace, three feet covered per, until the older guard would have gotten perhaps fifteen or twenty feet away, too far to be of immediate help to the one left.  Then she turns and unleashes another sequence of three castings of thaumaturgy.  With the first, she dims the first candle's flame to the faint ghost of light a candle about to gutter out gives.  Then, from the newly shadowed other side of the blocks as close as she can find a point the remaining guard cannot see, she makes a noise like the first one she made to get the guards to believe an insectoid had burst from the stone.  Finally, she produces a much louder, deeper and more venomous hiss there, like the mate of the crushed insectoid getting ready to charge.

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Intimidation 13

(OOC: kind of lost track of how long it's been since she started the tremors.  If the minute of their duration has expired she would first restart them before making the sound of the creature bursting through)

When even the candle flame begins to behave in a bizarre way, a kaleidoscope of expressions manifests itself on the boy's face: fear, doubt, anger, frustration: "What the heck... Is there... is there anyone having fun?! Are you... are you those damned goblins?"

For a few long seconds, the poor guy doesn't seem to know what to do. Then, with a sudden decision, he moves to the side, out of sight of the hole and adds: "We'll have fun, soon, when we're all there!"

Swearing under her breath, Spira readies herself for one more effort...or a desperate rush if that failed.  This was her plan, she would get up to the front and take the consequences if she'd blown it.  She could have sworn she'd made the fading of the flame look like a candle naturally guttering out   But there was still one more chance.  The fear had still been there on the remaining guard's face.  As she slowly eases herself forward into a crouch, she renews the trembling.  Then, looking to see how far the guard has reduced his line of sight by moving aside, she produces the most vicious sounding hiss of all near the bottom of the collapsed blocks, and then clattering scrapings as of hooked claws such as she saw on the insectoid carcass inexorably climbing the blocks towards the guard.  As she does, she whispers to the others, "We'll have a lot less time, but might be able to pull this out of the fire ... '

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Intimidation 8

(OOC: ... with a prayer to Tymora, Beshaba, and as Spira's patron Angharradh ... )

As she starts stalking forward, she mutters under her breath, "At least it will drown out anyone trying to climb the blocks.  Knew I should have waited for Gaer; he'd be up there and have the &_%&%&'s throat cut by now.  But Roxana didn't look half bad at the stealthy work.  Hope she's better than this fool priestess is at the ventriloquism..."  But at least she has cooled off enough by now to not rush forward with a din of footsteps.  And to realize she would need to keep back and fire or heal from a distance until she could pick up some armor from a fallen foe.  Some others might find opportunity to snipe as well.  She began preparing her guiding bolt that would strike her own blow and mark the one struck with a dim glimmer for a moment, enough for one or two more to shoot as well.

Still hiding behind the fallen stones, the white-haired warrior watches the tiefling, awaiting any signs on what to do next. Clearly the others were better suited than him for trickery but as far as he could tell this was not going as planned. At least he could sense a ferocious battle fast approaching.

"Damnation!" Spira can hear, getting closer (as well as Obadiah and Roxana, of course, that are close enough already) "No goblins... It's a beast indeed! One like the other below!"

It's clear from the tone of his voice that the boy is scared... yet the place his voice is coming from is close -- it must be just a little way from the hole. He probably feels between a rock and a hard place ... scared of what might come out of the hole, but just as scared of disobeying those who ordered him to wait for reinforcements there.

As Spira creeps forward, she waves to the others to get ready to move.  "Well, that one worked better than I hoped, so I suppose ... ," she whispered.  Now the noises she produces are of clattering bits of rock being dislodged by the creatures' claws, the rasping of claws continuing its inexorable approach towards the top, and the hiss of a creature that has scented blood.

==============================

Intimidation 17.

Spira insists and does her best... in the end, after much hesitation, the youngster's inner resistance is finally broken: "D4mn it! I won't stay here to play the sacrificial victim! Now, I'll save my skin... I'll think about avoiding Mhurren Flick's whippings later!"

So the boy's hurried steps away echo in the corridor... but it took some time to scare him enough! The 'reinforcements' can now arrive at any moment...

Well, people, if someone wants to do something, then post... but you have to act quickly; else, I'll have the reinforcements arrive as anticipated...

(Nothing wrong, of course, if you want to ambush rhe reinforcements or to wait for them down there - I just want to be sure that this is what you want, since you were so eager to scare away the remaining sentinel...)

After some time, an excited shouting announces the arrival of a large group of people.

"But what could I do about it!?"
"If the beast entered the corridor while you ran away, it will be a problem to shoot it down!"
"And if that's the case, you can bet I'll tell Mhurren Flick everything - who'll whip your skin off afterwards!"
"Calm down, calm down! There are eight of us... prepared, well armed... Hole or corridor, if that beast only dares to show itself, we'll pierce it like a pincushion!"

The people must have brought a good number of torches this time as well, because you begin to see light seeping through the hole.

Soon, two are leaning out of the hole: a hard-eyed gray haired man and a brunette woman with some bones (not hers!) sprouting in her strands - apparently using them as a hair clip. With the torches they have in hand, they light up both the area of the hole and the area below...

"Here, the only beast there is, it's stone dead... down there" Woman Bone Clips comments, spitting on the carrion to leave no doubt as to what she's referring to.

"But the ground was shaking..." Gray Haired Man assures "I felt it too, not just that impressionable idiot Bjorn..."

"Maybe the beast really did come up!" hypothesizes another, further behind "Bjorn, go and see after the turn, we have to be sure!"

"But why me, Pedro!?" try to protest the voice of the guard you had scared (and who obviously responds to the name of Bjorn)

"Because you have abandoned your post!" Pedro replies angrily "So it's right that if that beast has climbed up and hid behind the turn, you're the one to act as bait".

After a short while, he echoes Bjorn's relieved voice: "No, it's not here…and the doors are still closed".

"Better for you" concludes Pedro. "Then we must do as Mhurren said. Let's go down in the tunnel and check".

Gray Haired Man throws his torch down, to the bottom of the tunnel, to illuminate even better... and also because he needs his hands free, as you discover as he moves away for a moment then returns holding a rope firmly in his hands, with which he intends to eventually allow the others to rappel down. Someone else leave a lit torch just at the hole's edge.

Woman Bone Clips is the first to grab onto the rope and start descending; behind her, a brunette with hair styled in a ponytail prepares to follow (she is probably waiting for the other to arrive down). From what you can see, each gang member wears leather armor, has a light crossbow slung over his shoulder, and a mace dangling from his hip.

(OOC: If anyone wants to do something while the Zhentyarim descend, please post... And the same if you want to do something before everyone descends... If not, I'll proceed to narrate until everyone descends).

Prepared to leap forth and attack with his mighty blade, Obadiah will grimly wait before springing their trap. He can already feel the adrenaline start pumping through his veins and the rage will soon cast him into a red haze of fury.

This is a map of the area

The colored zone is the one with debris and insectoid corpse.

Obadiah (Ob) and Roxana (Ro) are hoepfully hidden, the former behind stone blocks, the latter behind part of the insectoid body.

A torch has been thrown about in the middel of the area, plus another one is lit at Grey Haired Man's feet (Gh).

Grey Haired Man is holding a rope(Gh), while Bone Clips Woman (Bc) is climbing down using said rope.

The brunette with hair styled in a ponytail (Pt) is ready to start descending as well, as soon as Bc reaches the bottom.

Keep in mind that you hid when it was much darker and the Zhentarim were further away… as soon as Bc reaches the bottom she will have better chances to spot you than thos she already had.

Spira (Sp) should be behind the corner, now that there is bright light. She can try to furtively peek, if she likes.

Aidwyn (Ai) and Rash (Ra) are out of sight, at the moment, but note there is no way for 8 Zhentarim to stay all in the colored zone - while more and more come down, they will turn the corner... so if the plan is to wait for all to come down, Sp, Ai and Ra should retreat further back, behind the next corner.

Rash is on board with ambushing them, so he'll make a hand signal to Aidwyn and retreat back a bit to give these people an opportunity to all get into the dark, scary tunnel to be murderized. He's still not super confident in this plan... but they don't have a lot of other options anymore.

I really need to learn the gust, he thinks to himself. Blowing out their torches might be enough to give those of us who can see in the dark the edge we need.

Aidwyn nods to Rash, her weapons at ready the whole time the others were trying to lure the zhents down, and gets ready for the fight feeling the sweat in the palm of her hands. Fighting the goblins back at home was one thing, but this was entirely different. She felt her mouth dry as she was getting ready to fight trying to remember that they will need one or two alive in case they really need the zhents for their goals. 

Spira, Aidwyn and Rash fall back around the next corner as the Zhentarim descend.

Since they have torches at their disposal and are looking for a supposed threat, they all look around carefully, starting with Bone Clips, as soon as she hits the ground...

Perception: 19

"There's absolutely nothing here..." Bone Clips comments, even standing up on the insectoid carcass Roxana is hidden under - but looking up, not down, where the Longsaddle girl is! "Come on, the beast will have understood that it couldn't climb and it will have retreated into the corridor! Let's kill it and go back to rest!"

The Zhentarim all descend, including Gray Haired Man last, who secures the rope to some protruding bricks near the hole.

Obadiah and Roxana see a total of eight go by, as expected (the voice in the corridor, a little while ago, had revealed that there were eight): Bone Clips (Bc), Pony Tail (Pt), Bjorn (Bj, the boy you scared earlier), Pedro (Pe, a particularly hairy man), a plump girl with a friendly face (Pg), a woman with a mole on her cheek (Mc), a skinny boy (Sb) and the gray haired man (Gh, the one who was originally on watch with Bjorn).

(OOC: Obadiah, Roxana, you have not been detected... Do you want to attack now? You would surprise everyone this round, both you and the other party members out of sight, who hearing you attack could then attack back as soon as the Zhentarim turn to face you. Or will you wait any longer? If you strike now, just go ahead and post your actions - any order - but also roll for initiative, because the next round the surviving Zhentarim will also take their turns so intiative order will matter).

The muscles of the white-haired warrior tenses, ready spring forth from hiding, to let loose his fury over the evil zhentarim, holding back his rage only to let firebraids strike the first blow.

Initiative: 19

Rash's grip tightens around his staff as he prepares to fight...

Initiative: 13

Hearing the zhentarim descending, Aidwyn knows that the battle is unavoidable. They wanted to thin their numbers, now they are all together. If they survive this at least they will only have their leader to carea bout later. But that's a problem for future Aidwyn and only the Gods know if there will be such a thing. 

The young woman checks the bands of her shield one last time. 

( Initiative in game log: 21 )