"Booyahg!" Kayn hops to his other foot. "Booyahg!" Kayn hops back to his original foot. The swarm flies through his bonfire and Kayn ducks down with his dagger and slices as quickly as he can. He sweeps the dagger through the swarm of disgusting aberrations and can hear their screams. A few run past him and he screams, "Booyahg!!" And launches a fire bolt at those that remain living in the swarm. It bathes them in fire and the screams and smell of burnt flesh causes Kayn to yell out another loud, "Booyahg!!"

(Attack of opportunity hit damage 6; Fire bolt hit damage 2; kills the swarm)

As the scurrying swarm of monstrosities went practically right between her legs, Vesra let out a small yelp. Her own quarterstaff and daggers were gone, and all she had was the walking stick she had made for herself. Out of sheer instinct, the druid swung the stick and, much to her own surprise, managed to hit one of the creatures and send it flying.

Her companions making attacks all around her, Vesra watched as another swarm fell, leaving only one left. She produced another flame and hurled it at the swarm, catching a few monsters on the edges on fire. 

The others swiped relentlessly at the last grouping of the small atrocities. As it made its way to the door, Rezivah ran closely behind, swinging with both her daggers. Unfortunately, each time, her blade only swiped through the air, the swarm contorting itself away from each slash. Rezivah clenched her jaw and hissed deeply in frustration.

The swarm, their numbers greatly diminished, suddenly turned from their path of exit and lept at Vasha. Caught completely by surprise, she had no chance to react as they latched onto her body. She screamed in pain, collapsing to the floor as large patches of calcified skin, slowly turning into the same substance the hedron's floor was made of. Her screams stopped, as the aberrations continued to suck the life force out of her [20+ damage].

Suddenly, the aberrations seemed to vibrate, as new creatures grew from the aberrations, quickly multiplying their numbers as they continued to feed on Vasha [healed for 8 HP].

Status Tracker:

• 1st Aberration Horde: 41 points of damage taken; Dead
• 2nd Aberration Horde, E7: ??? points of damage taken; Dead
• 3rd Aberration Horde, F8: 19 points of damage taken
• Vasha: Unconscious

Map:

Seeing the aberrations swarm over Vasha and take her down, Ato darts in, blade slashing once again. He strikes true, hacking through a handful of the tiny creatures with grim glee.

[Sneak Attack: 21 to hit, 9 damage]

Rezivah saw why the horde had contorted so strangely. It was amassing itself on Vasha, clawing and biting her with their tiny appendages and maws. Their numbers overwhelmed the Kor and she fell to the ground unconscious. The cruel things remained on her, feasting.. and multiplying! Rezivah couldn't contain her disgust. Vile abominations!

Rezivah clutched her pendant and gathered the mana around her and fired a triplicate of white darts, focused on the monsters. Her magic completely avoided the Kor's body, clearing a small number of them off her.

(Action, magic missile. 8 damage. No movement.)

As the creatures swarmed atop Vasha, Kayn pulled the mana in the hedron towards him and unleashed it upon the aberrations. First they slowed, then they stopped, their multiplying halted as they slouched as if frozen in time. "Shhhh," the goblin said, "Move Vasha away. Ato, kill the remaining as they sleep." As an afterthought he adds, "Booyahg, you little shits." 

(Casts Sleep)

Ato sighed in relief as he watched Veythe step in and heal Vasha, allowing the young monk to rise and extricate herself from the ensorcelled swarm. "Not getting away now, little ones." He steps in, slicing his way through the aberrations, putting an end to this threat, at least. 

"Wherever these things are all coming from, we need to find it, and stop this. We can't take much more."

Kayn summons Sear with a flick of his wrist and the bat goes flying down the hall towards the maze. Kayn closes his eyes as he guides the bat through the labyrinth. His eyes remain closed for a few moments before he opens them and looks up at the others. "I do not know if we're safe yet," he says. Looking at the others and the wounds they've sustained, he adds, "Maybe we should close the hedron and try to regain our strength. At least then, we'll be having the confidence to continue."  

He felt like he could survive another battle like this, maybe two. But the rest of the group looked like they were at their limit. He wondered if they would even be willing to re-enter the hedron. 

Kayn hops off his boulder and inspects the hedron's door. At the same time he sends for his gnarlid in case they need its assistance to move the boulder. Checking the mechanisms, he tries to determine how the door will close.

Seeing Kayn examining the doorway, Ato joins the goblin to offer his thoughts. "When I looked everything over after we first opened the door, I got sense that it will close on it's own once everyone is clear of the opening.  That's why I suggested we block it, to avoid being trapped inside. If we feel we need to close it back up and take some time to recover, we should just need to move the boulder back out of the way. We'll need to expend the mana to reopen it later, but there's no way to avoid that." 

"It looks like it just closes on its own.  This should be easy," Kayn says as his gnarlid approaches.  The gnarlid pushes the boulder out of the doorway back to the outside and stands in the door's path.

"Ok!" Kayn says. "We should be good to rest as long as we're away from the door.  It'll close and seal up the hedron again."  He gestures for everyone to head on outside. After a few seconds of looking around he asks, "Where's Vasha?"

Seeing that Vasha was in good hands, Vesra sunk to the floor of the hedron. “I need a minute,” she murmured, feeling drained from the back to back battles. Her eyes closed as she began to meditate, focusing on the wild mana all around her. She needed more magic if she was going to be useful. Her heart beat in time with the ebb and flow of the mana, the minute feeling like an eternity to her.

Vesra’s eyes fluttered open, Kayn’s voice helping the room come back into focus. She glanced around, looking for her sister, but couldn’t see her. “Where’s Vasha?” The druid asked, rising to her feet. She looked around, but the other Kor was nowhere to be found. 

“Vasha!” She shouted at, looking for any signs of her sister. It wasn’t hard to spot the tracks that disturbed the layer of white dust on the ground. They led straight into the maze. “Petunias, we have to go find her.”

The following chamber was a interwoven set of passageways. Vasha, hearing the party enter, had warned everyone not to step in a certain area. The chalky, debilitated surface in a single spot on the ground had been destroyed. Above and to the center of this area was a rune. Vasha was a several feet away, hacking at something with a crowbar. Several members of the party inspected this magical contraption, determining it was triggered by both proximity and race- proximity being on the rune, race being the aberrations. Why then would it activate against Vasha?

Amidst this inquiry, Kayn simply exposed his arm and foot to the rune, nothing happening in either instance. The party wondered if perhaps after its initial blast at Vasha, the rune became faulty, or perhaps expended. Ato stepped in and Rezivah shielded her eyes, as the merfolk was immediately blasted by severe white energy.

Why was this rune attacking a merfolk and a Kor, but not a goblin? I'd step on it myself I was in better condition.. With not much else to go on, Rezivah wondered the foreign tomb for more of these traps. The ground was littered with the chalky, residue, but sure enough, several identical runes were found throughout the chamber, along with two levers in either side, and there was a safe route to Vasha's current position.

After deliberation, it was decided Kayn to pull the 'left' lever, as he doesn't trigger the runes, and Vasha would pull the 'right' lever.

Vesra didn’t care much for plans, her sister was hurt and needed help. Without thinking, she stepped over the rune, and was surprised when it did nothing to her. ‘I thought you would learn from my mistakes,’ she signed to her sister with a tired smile. She sat down on the ground beside Vasha and held her in a tight embrace, pouring her mana into her sister. Vesra watched as the chalky and decaying matter fell away from the wounds, replaced by normal gashes that the druid certainly knew how to deal with. ‘Better?’

Mana swirled around the older twin as she embraced her twin once more, the untamed nature of the hedron acting up again. The druid shrunk in size until she was about a foot shorter. She looked up, realizing Vasha had gotten bigger suddenly. “Why are you bigger?” She asked, her voice just a smidge higher than it used to be. 

“I don’t think Vasha should pull the other lever,” she attempted to soldier on, her voice cracking somewhere in the middle. “But I wouldn’t mind doing it instead.”

It was hard to focus on her words, as the Vesra sitting beside her once identical sister didn’t look like she had a few seconds before. She had gotten younger? The druid looked to be barely a teenager now, although the burn scars remained. 

Ato hadn't even noticed Vasha slip away, but wasn't going to let her sister run off after her alone. Joining Vesra, they lead the group deeper into the hedron, following the tracks left behind by Vasha.  Finding her, they cautiously approach, heeding her warning to avoid the rune-trap now clearly visible on the floor. Ato inches closer, carefully examining the area for any sing that it's a mechanical trap of some sort, although it certainly appears to be of arcane design at first glance.  His suspicions are confirmed, though he does note that a matching rune adorns the ceiling above. He points this out and moves aside to let Rezivah and Kayn in to conduct a more magical examination. Seeing Kayn finally test the trap, reaching into the space and finally stepping in after sharing their findings, Ato foolishly makes the assumption that something about Vasha's current altered condition must be the cause of her susceptibility and he tests this theory by stepping onto the rune. He pays the price as an agonizing blast of energy erupts around him and he staggers back with a scream. "What? How?" He fumbles for words, panting as the pain fades. "I don't know why Kayn didn't trigger it, but whatever you do, no one else try that."

Climbing back to his feet, Ato helps explore the rest of the room, noting more of the runes by way of the visible ones on the ceiling. With the discovery of the pair of levers on opposite sides of the room, one blocked by a rune-trap, he falls back to let the others work out what to do. With a shock, he notices the now-visibly-younger Vesra. "Vesra? What happened? WHEN did that happen?" With the shock of his own rune-blasting, he hadn't been paying attention when the druid has healed her sister and change so noticeably.

The fool girl. Why would she run off on her own?  Has she learned nothing from her sister's near-death?  He can hear the others ahead as they inspect a sort of trap. Weaving through the line of people he notes the runes on both the ceiling and floor. Out of curiosity, he reaches his hand between the runes, squinting his eyes as he wait for a blast from the trap. When nothing happens, he puts his foot on the rune for a few moments. Again nothing happened. 

"It looks like..." It's at this moment that the rune explodes into a burst of radiant energy that sears Ato. Kayn is about to snicker at the Mer when Vesra runs passed him to her sister. Curious. She didn't get hit. We must be the good guys. 

Kayn returns to the hallway as the others inspect the runes further. When he hears his name being called to pull a lever, he responds, "Nope... no levers. We need rest." He leaves it at that. If the party were smart, they'd all be heading outside right now.