OoC - #FaceHuggerLyfe

Hildigrim warned him!

Initiative: 4
Pascal turns and starts running (quite comically) toward where the creature near Jorin is. He will also help him! This is all I can think to do in this scenario, I am primarily a fire caster! 

DM Rolls, starting with Quillary Init: 13

Hildigrim has Bless - 3

Summary of round 2

• The foe on Jorin strikes him (18), which does 6 slashing and 4 necrotic. Since he is raging (resistant to slashing), Jorin takes 7 damage total.
• Jorin is rather upset at this, and deals 10 damage with the hand axe and 13 more with the battleaxe. Jorin hears a rather satisfying "thud" at his feet.
• Quillary, spider-sensing that the foe on Jorin is dead, scampers on the ceiling out in the hallway. She and Drusk accidentally get in each other's way (4 and 7 to-hit rolls).
• Fortunately, the remaining enemy is also confused by what is going on, and its claws are deflected by Drusk's armor (14).
• Pascal rushes over to Hildigrim, except Hildigrim rushes out to the hallway. He stabs with the rapier (12+3 = 15, which hits) and does 11 from the sneak attack. The grey humanoid is still standing, but hurt.

(OOC: Hilidigrim said he was waiting for an attacker to come to him, but after Jorin's foe died, it made more sense for Hildigrim to take advantage of the chaos in the hallway. Pascal can always try a light crossbow or bite or dagger attack, even if it is with disadvantage.)

Round 3 is up. Everyone can post. Quillary, Jorin, and Hildigrim are still Blessed.

Jorin will follow Hildi and continue whirling his axes around in a most unsafe manner.

• Initiative: 21
• Move: To Hildi
• Using reckless attack to counter disadvantage
• Action: Reckless Silvered Handaxe Attack: 6 Damage: 11
• Bonus Action: Reckless Battleaxe Attack: 9 Damage: 12
• Forgot bless: +1 to Silvered axe attack, +4 to battleaxe attack.

OoC- Hmm, a double natural 1 on a reckless attack in close proximity to a companion...

OOC > Technically you can kill the spider and Quillary will be fine. But let's not test this...

Quillary-spider, sensing where the enemy is, will try again to leap on it and bite it.

Action: try again to bite the invisible attacker, blessed! 12 to hit, for 12 piercing damage.
Initiative if needed: 13

Poison? If it's a hit, "the target must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw, taking 11 poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is paralyzed while poisoned in this way."

Drusk almost getting hit by spider-Quillary and Jorin has him deciding not to get in the way of the others, and instead cast Cure Wounds on himself.

Init: 15 , heal 13

(Hildigrim and Pascal to go.)

14

"Gah!" Hildigrim exclaims. "The blasted thing is still standing. Pascal, quit dancing around and attack it. Right there!" he says, pointing his rapier in the creature's direction. He then lunges with said rapier at said creature.

Action: rapier attack: 20 + bless: 3; damage: 5 piercing damage

Sneak attack if appropriate: 7

Bonus: help Pascal vs. last creature

(OOC: Pascal left to go. With Hildigrim's "help" to offset the creature's invisibility, Pascal can attack normally with bite, dagger, or crossbow.)

Pascal, for the literal first time in ALL THREE CAMPAIGNS, pulls out his crossbow and fires it! 
Initiative: 13
Pascal aims down the line, awkwardly closing one eye and pulls the trigger!

Attack: 4 Damage: 5 piercing damage.

Scathing.

DM rolls

Summary of round 3

• Pascal is a bit flustered from being yelled at to "shoot it", whatever "it" is. The crossbow is big enough to find in his backpack, but where did he put those crossbow bolts?
• Jorin swings twice, but even with the Bless (9+4 = 13) only finds air. These foes are soft, but agile enough to avoid the axe swings.
• The creature is about to strike Jorin from behind (20), when Hildigrim puts his rapier (19) through the creature's neck (14 damage). It is dead, and falls over.
• Pascal finds the bolts, which were packed underneath his backup cooking pan. (He wouldn't risk having the bolts scratch his good pan.) He fires and successfully hits the body as it is falling. He looks on with satisfaction, seeing his bolt hit "it", and then obviously collapse to the ground. "Scathing."
• The party sees Pascal blowing the end of his crossbow. It looks like he is pretending to blow smoke from the tip of the weapon, but he actually noticed a thick coating of dust that he wanted removed before putting it away. Well, it still works, and he can recover the used bolt as well.
• Drusk heals 13 points.

Seren rushes from further down the corridor, slightly frustrated. She always seems to get to the fight after it is over. Darn that level of exhaustion!

But then she notices the spider on the ceiling, ready to pounce on the men of the party. Seren must save them!

(OOC: Quillary can maintain spider form for a few more hours, if she likes. Her communication would be limited to scratching messages for the others to read, or pantomimed actions.)

OOC > Somebody saw her transform, right?

Quillary-spider drops from the ceiling and hides behind Jorin, waving its front legs and ducking back and forth, then pokes the dead thing several times.

Jorin jumps, and definitely does not yelp, as a giant spider falls off the ceiling behind him.  He was too blinded by rage to see Quillary transform and whirls around, ready to strike it dead!

He stops mid swing as he see the creatures eyes.  There is a quirky familiarity in those deep pools of black and, as the rage bleeds off him like a fog burning off in the morning sun, lowers his axe.

"I think...this is Quillary." he says in a soft voice.

OoC - Are the corpses of the things we killed visible now, or is the room seemingly empty?

Quillary-spider bobs up and down, and climbs onto the dead thing (if it remains invisible) prodding at it and then waving its legs around generally.

She will scuttle about the hallway, looking for more of the things (blindsight is only 10') and then return to the room with the fireplace, scuttling over to the fireplace itself to examine how/where the creature came out of it.

Perception: 18
Investigation: 5

"Quillary?" Hildigrim asks. He pokes his head back in the workshop, the last place he remembers seeing the half-elf go. When he can perceive no sign of her, he looks at the giant arachnid. "Hainard's hairy toes," he says with an equally soft voice full of awe and wonder. He watches the creature scuttle about.

Seren was told that Quillary is a druid, but since she didn't see the transformation, she did not put 2-and-2 together. The party quickly gets Seren to calm down.

Quillary surmises that there was one of these things in each of the workshops, but they stayed hidden as long as they were not observed. And when they were seen, they became very hostile.

The bodies of the enemies are still invisible. With the use of Hildigrim's hand mirror, Seren is able to identify them based on textbooks she read. "Those are Skulks. Travelers in the Shadowfell can get lost, and over time lose so much of their identity that they can no longer be seen directly. Oddly enough, they are visible in the reflection of a mirror, in the light of a special kind of candle, or if the viewer is a child... Their claws add necrotic damage when they are attacking with an advantage on their prey. If we find more mirrors, everyone in the party should be equipped.

"Those creatures should not be here. Maybe those Black Bloods unleashed them on this outpost?"

"Perhaps we could each take a shard of the mirror I smashed upstairs?" Jorin says feeling like he just had a great idea.

Quote from Guiltysparc >>

"Perhaps we could each take a shard of the mirror I smashed upstairs?" Jorin says feeling like he just had a great idea.

The slivers upstairs are too small to be useful in combat. (Jorin went to town, on that helpless half-sized mirror.)

Drusk tries to cheer up Jorin. "When Seren was pointing out the big buildings in this outpost, the next closest one is the old inn. There are bound to be mirrors in that place." (That map was in post 1334, if you want to take another look.)

The library is also nearby, but Seren would like to go to the inn first. "Andras was staying there. I want to see his room, to look for signs that he is still alive."

Quillary-spider returns from her investigation, climbs the wall to be at eye level with the rest, and calmly waits for a decision to be made.

Seren asks to use Hildigrim's mirror to inspect the invisible creatures, which breaks him of mutely watching spider Quillary. He then listens to the elf's explanation with interest. But when she asks, "Those creatures should not be here. Maybe those Black Bloods unleashed them on this outpost?" he furrows his brow. After Jorin and Drusk speak, the halfling interjects, "If these were creatures unleashed on this outpost, why would they be working? Or at least attempting to work?" He looks around at the others. "We saw evidence that some tasks are still being performed, however incompletely. In the stable. In the workshop." He starts to shake his head. "I don't think these are outsiders." He looks at Seren. "Do you know of any other way someone might turn into one of these skulks? Aside from getting lost in the Shadowfell, I mean."