"Vile thing, be gone and trouble this land no more!" Ellangil screams out, whipping himself into a fury.

He dives recklessly into the water, swimming while wielding Virile in both hands and locking eyes defiantly with the creature. He chops downward with both hands, catching the creature solid across the neck, causing a gaping wound and furious bleeding.

(META: 24 on Con save for gaze, rage as a BA, 2H reckless attack with main bastard sword, rolled a nat 20 and did 16 points damage total.)

As the creature attempts to run from him, due to his impressive display of power, Ellangil chops again, striking the creature across the back and slicing off many green, putrid scales.

(META: AoO rolled a composite 19 with Disadvantage, 7 damage.)

Veythe pulled out her crossbow, gaze off to the side because damn it if she weren't going to risk getting turned to stone. Veythe just prayed that Bravery was up to the task. So far he hadn't let her down just yet. She loosed the bolt, and then whistled sharply and then began to sing in mer's language.

"Graceful, deadly, silent, and sleek; roguish good looks and a witty cheek. Flesh and blood and bone is sweet; basilisk stone is for the weak."

With that done, Veythe breathed out through her nose. There. Hopefully now he wouldn't become a statue at the bottom of the lake. She rather liked him.

Ellangil cuts deep into the basilisk, causing it to roar out and retaliate with a savage bite of its own [9 total damage, accounting for resistances]. It flips around, thrashing its tail furiously to get away from the daring pursuers [moves 10 feet and exits the cave to go outside, granting it full cover from those inside due to the low cliff lip].

As Vasha begins to make her jump, she sees the basilisk forty-five feet below her, its body just breaching the surface of the water...

The silence in the water told them everything. When Vasha's voice sounded from the other side, a wave of relief passed through Kayn. He hops on his gnarlid and goes deeper into the cave, returning a few seconds later to see the party getting ready for another swim.  Seeing Ato, he says to the Mer, "There is another stream of water on the far side of the cave. Do you want to take a look?" 

The fight with the basilisk was over almost as suddenly as it had begun, and despite feeling some measure of the creature's power, they'd come away victorious. Ato climbed out if the water at Kayn's call and looked about. "Of course, I can check it out. Did you find the egg you were looking for?"

Peering back into the shadows, he adds "Can someone magic me up a light I can take into the water please?"

Vesra ran to her sister's side. "That was bad petunias, Vasha," she said softly, placing her hands on her sister's back and calling on the white mana that coursed through the forest around her. A wave of white magic emanated from her fingertips, causing the gashes and bruises that littered the monk's back to close. "You doing alright?"

"It is probably best if we make camp in this cave for tonight," Vesra announced to the group. "All of the other animals in the area will know better than to disturb this place."

The goblin hops off of his gnarlid and embraces Vasha in a hug, "I can't believe you killed it!" He says, his voice echoing throughout the cavern. "It almost turned me into a beautiful goblin statue." Kayn's hug lingers for a few awkward moments before he feels Vasha shifting away. He steps away as she does, "If not for Gnarlin the Gnarlid I would have been at the bottom of the pond." 

When Vesra mentions camping in the cave for the night, Kayn looks up at her and says, "You don't think there might be another one? The mate could return at any moment, I think!" He pats his saddle bag, "I got the basilisk egg here... it'll sell for enough gold to pay for nearly all future expeditions! We just need to sell it before it hatches." 

As the group recovers from the brief combat, Ato swim out to check on Ellangil, putting off further exploration of the cave for the time being. "Let's get the thing dragged out of the water so we can harvest what we need from it to prove to the elves that we've carried out our end of the bargain" He swims down and quickly realizes he won't be dragging it up to the surface on his own, so ties a rope around the carcass so that it can be pulled out by the entire group. "It sounds like Vesra feel we should camp inside the cave - you should come back in for now," he adds once he's returned to the surface himself. Returning to the cave he reports what he's done. "I don't know if we want to drag it in here, or leave it outside so anyone venturing near knows the threat has been eliminated."  

"At this point we need to finish exploring this cave and the other water filled portion at the back that Kayn found.  When I was swimming in, I also noticed another cave mouth, or tunnel opening down at the bottom of the lake. Probably worth checking that out as well. Who knows what's down there?"

Seeing Ato's work in the water, he hops back onto the gnarlid and swims outside to the closest beach to the corpse. When Ato swims up and hands him the rope, he ties it around the gnarlid's saddle, and with the barbarian's help they begin pulling the basilisk's corpse to the shore. 

Once that dirty business is done, Kayn and his gnarlid return to the cave with the others. 

Veythe, now that the danger has passed, makes her way over to the waters edge and pulls out her rope--the silk rope she'd found on the goblin when they'd first gotten off of the boats--and from her bag she pulled out the small bit of fireflies she kept on hand for situations like this. Carefully Veythe ran the rope through the hand with the fireflies, and although normally she would have played some sort of music with the action this time she just said dryly, "Light."

The rope lit up, and she handed it over to Ato.

"Tie it around you, hang it off your neck like a necklace, it's the best I could gather without trying to clamber around and find a rock that's bigger than the size of a pebble."

Ato accepts the rope, weighing it approvingly in his hands before wrapping it around his waist for the time being. "Very handy, this will do just fine. Thank you Veythe," he replies in mer. "You've been keeping secrets too, not mentioning you spoke the language of my people. Naughty, naughty."

Once the other activity with the basilisk carcass is taken care of and everyone has regathered in the cave, he reminds everyone that they still need to finish their search. "Anyone care to come with me - as far as the water at least?"  Vasha volunteers to help, and the pair set off deeper into the cavern, unsure of what they will find.  Kayn had indicated there was more water on the far side of the cave, but hadn't provided any more detail, or said what was in between.

Vesra sat down next to the basilisk's corpse, removing her dagger from her belt. If she remembered correctly, the gastrointestinal juices could be used to make the tincture that could cure those who had been petrified. It would be useful to have, and the druid knew that she would be of little help to the swimmers. The kor took a deep breath before beginning to carve into the beast. Its hide was thick, but eventually she was able to peel away the flesh and fat to reveal all of the organs beneath.

Her hands were shaking as she went for the stomach. The cut was too low, and far too wide, and the precious juices began to flow out. "Oh no, oh no," she muttered, trying in vain to stem the flow with her hands. "No, no, no," her already white skin paled as she realized that all of the juices were gone, lost to the dirt around her. Tears welled up in Vesra's eyes as she sat in the pile of flesh, with blood and ichor covering almost every inch of her skin.

The elves were going to be so mad at her.

Despite being comfortably in his element, Ato moved aside to let Vasha try to squeeze through the crack when she motioned that she wanted to try. He watches, initially with some amusement as she first gets stuck, then with more alarm when it's clear she can't free herself. Knowing her air must be running out, he gets a solid hold on on her harness and plants his feet on the wall to pull as hard as he can. There is an instant of uncertainty - it seemed as though her struggles only served to wedge her more tightly - but then Vasha is free, but visibly starting to struggle for air, the first hints of fear forming in her eyes. Ato grabs her by the arm and swims for the cave end of the tunnel, dragging her as quickly as he can for the surface.

Bursting from the water, he hauls her out onto the dry cave floor, concerned until she begins to draw in great gasping breaths of air. Once she recovers, his relief quickly turns to anger. "That was foolish, Vasha, and you well know it! You had no idea what was through that crack or if you'd be able to get to someplace you could breathe. What if you'd managed to get in but couldn't get out again before you ran out of air! You need to trust the rest of us to do our parts out here and not try to do everything yourself." He pauses before adding in a lower voice, "What if you'd drowned down there? Your sister would have been devastated.  And probably killed ME for not protecting you."

They return to the main cave and report what they found to the others waiting there. "I'll go back and see if I can fit through myself and see what is beyond that crack.  At least if I get stuck, I won't drown. Give me five minutes - If I'm not back I likely go stuck myself and will need to be pulled out too."

Kayn swims back out of the cave and sees the carnage that Vesra left. "Oh no, Vessie... what did you do?" It seemed as though they were the only two that knew the tincture could be created from the stomach acid of the Basilisk. He wasn't confidant in his skills though, so he decided not to try to cut it open. "You don't think, maybe the egg will help them?" He grabs her by the hand and leads her to the water to clean up. "I think it would... at least they can get what they need from it, maybe. We will see. Don't cry. It will be ok."  

Ato is only gone a few minutes before returning to the group. He's obviously holding something out of sight behind his back as he returns to the "campsite" in the cave and has a big smile on his face. "I was able to get into the cavern beyond that opening. It was completely submerged though, so it's a good thing you didn't actually get in there Vasha. I did find something of interest though." He stops and looks around at the gathered explorers. "Wait, where is Vasha? And Kayn and Vesra? They'll all want to see this," he adds with some disappointment. He removes his hand from behind his back with a flourish, revealing a large blue roughly-spherical crystal about 6" in diameter. The object has 20 flat sides (so, a d20 shape) with the same rune engraved on each. "It's a hedron, isn't it? At least we have something to show Vielara now." 

"No, it won't," Vesra hiccuped, still crying. "All of these people are going to stay dead, because I thought I could... I messed up, Kayn. Their lives are on my hands," she sobbed into her hands, rubbing blood and stomach juice all over her face in the process. "All of the stomach acid spilled out, that's what they needed. I ruined it, I doomed them all."