Moving in, Ullar sees that the chamber is filled with old dusty books. More importantly, though, as he cautiously steps in, are the webs hanging everywhere. Before Ullar's mind can wrap around the danger, a huge black spider drops down in front of him, green fluid dripping from it's fangs.
Once again following at the back of the party, Tolik pulls his dagger out and stops at the entrance, pausing for a moment to see if he can see anyone following them. He sees the spider webs ahead and is about to call out to be careful when he notices that a spider has already dropped in front of Ullar. He checks around himself once again, as he has no desire to end up on the ground again.
Forte, not wanting to bash Ullar's face in accidentally, looks around for other spiders to crush with his mace.
Arkady takes up a guard position so that he can stab the spider if an opening comes. He carefully scans around him for other spiders. "Damn!! I wish I could get a sketch of this. Try not to totally crush it Ullar!"
Forte quickly glances at Arkady out of the corner of his eye, incredulous at the request not to crush the spider. Then he returns to the task at hand - destroying spiders. Once Ullar has leapt clear of the spider, Forte ignores Arkady's plea and attempts to crush the spider with his mace.
Ullar, regaining his senses, says to Arkady: "I bet there are more of them. And.. what are you planning to do with them? Retrieve their venom?"
Tolik groans. "Oh great, I bet he hadn't thought of trying that yet. Now he's gonna want it not only un-smashed, but also alive." He rolls his eyes, but is smiling and shows that he in completely in jest, just happy to be alive.
Although the situation is awkward, Ullar's face show a little smile after hearing Tolik's words. "Yuck.." he adds, his face wrinkled in disgust. The warrior walks back up, readies his greatsword and will try to 'splash' any new arriving spider, covering Forte in his 'splut' attempt.
Shivering, "Spiders.....I hate spiders." Rhune replies as she tries to find something that will light so she can torch the webs...."Fire would be really go right about now. and watch out for poison" she calls. When she can't find anything she tries to help with her sword, looking up and all around her
Hearing Rhune speaking from the back of the line, Tolik calls back, "Fire? I'd rather deal with the spiders, poison and all." He says this without trying to be brave, and seems to be completely honest. But he pulls up the hood on his cloak, not wanting any spiders crawling down his neck either.
"Fire would be good if you want to burn down this building!" Ullar yells out, with the inexplicable desire to talk while he is fighting the spider.
"Look, there are lots of books inside, there is dust and there are cobwebs. All will burn very easily.. I assure you that. It's no problem to me, since I have no love for such books, but I guess that our spell casters would love to have a look at them."
"Therefore I'd prefer another way of dealing with this problem, but I doubt there is one..." says Ullar, sighing and looking with disgust at the black spider sitting in the entrance of the building.
"Yes there are the books....I nearly forgot about them. but what else can we do?" Rhune asks
Pietro really looks shocked when somebody mentions burning the webs and spiders. "Please, you cannot be serious about burning that. There could be very valuable information and other stuff in that tower. I think we will have to try to kill the spiders, so we can take a look inside. I'd love to get a look at those books. Is there a possibility of killing the spider with missile weapons?" Pietro is asking Ullar.
"We could try. But we don't know how many more are in there." Rhune replies
Seeing all the books and hearing the suggestion to burn out the spiders Arkady blanches. "NYET!! NYET!! There is a grand Bibliotek....uhm Library in here. Fire will destroy that!!"
"Okay, okay. no fire" Rhune utters as she puts down the stuff she had gotten to make one
Tolik seems to have relaxed a great deal since his brush with death. "Oh, come on Rhune. Don't be disappointed. You'll have another change to but something down." He laughs softly, but not so much to divert his attention from the warriors ascending the stairs.
Chuckling, "yes I suppose I will." she says
It is a fascinating conversation, as Ullar banters lightly with the others while engaged in combat with a giant poisonous black spider, whose bite would surely spell his end.
Lady luck is remarkably with him, even as he seems to pay more attention to those behind him than the foe ahead. The spider seems a bit slow, as the cramped conditions do not favor Ullar's huge weapon, and he misses striking the beast several times without being made to pay for it.
However, with two massive strokes, the creature is hacked down. It's a nasty sight, as Ullar's weapon is not kind to preservation, and Arkady won't have much to draw about.
There are heaps of webbing throughout the library, most notably in the northeast corner (you all entered from the south). There is a door on the north wall in the northwest corner, and a staircase leading up to the west (left). Interestingly, the path between that staircase and the door seems to have been cleared of webs, and does not show the dust of age the rest of the room does.
Not particularly enthused to search within this room, for fear their luck will not hold as true as Ullar's did, nonetheless both Arkady and Pietro take a book down from the shelf. It's language is totally undecipherable, as it bears no resemblance to any language either has read before. It is impossible to tell what the purpose of the book is, much less read any of it. Taking down several safe-looking books, all seem to be in the same script, and the same format, a peculiar one, not novelized, but rather seemingly randomly put together, with series of characters most likely as titles on each page, followed by more nonsensical characters. It is most confusing.
At the mention of retrieving venom, Arkady turns pure white! He freezes in place and shudders as he mumbles to himself "nyet nyet ya horoshoi. ya buil horoshoi" After a moment he shakes his head and looks to the fight, disappointed that he will not get to draw the arachnid but glad that Ullar lives still.
Once looking at the books leads nowhere, Arkady gathers some cobweb and a spider's foot into jars and stashes them. "Is this strange book perhaps an Index or Table of Contents for the whole Library?? I'll take it in case we find a sage or someone who can identify these letters." He keeps the "index" and then moves to help search the staircase.
Glancing at the books and grabbing two at random Rhune puts blows the dust off them and puts them in her backpack, "I think that the door is the way to go. Even to me it is obvious that it far more traveled than the others. Unless someone wants to check out the stair case first?" Rhune asks as she pulls her longsword out just in case.
"I think we need a place to defend. In that case I rather make camp above, following the staircase, for that is much easier to defend. However, checking out the door could benefit as well, since then we know what we might have to plan about this evening." says Ullar, smiling at Rhune her words, not wanting to disagree with her proposal totally.
"I'll check out the stairs. Anyone wanting to come with me?" says Ullar, while making his way to the 'cleared' path in the room.
"I'll come with you Ullar." Rhune says heading toward Ullar.
"I'm right behind you," Forte says, mace still in hand. "But perhaps Dakath could listen at the door first, to give us an inkling of what might be behind it."
"Good point. Dakath? Ready for it?"
Pondering the situation for a split second, Ullar adds: "Rhune, you have sensible ears as well. Perhaps you can check the other door?"
"Alright, I can do that" she says going toward the other door, looking around as she slowly heads to it, careful to check for traps along the way. Reaching the door she checks for traps then listens at the door. She is very careful about listening at it.
Carefully following the cleared path Arkady follows Ullar but when the party divides between doors he follows Dakath.
"Dak, if there is anything nasty jump aside and I'll take care of it. Unless it's mechanical in which case I shall observe your craftsmanship at work again." Arkady says with a grin. He slashes at a few spider webs with the silmar sword and prepares for anything to happen.
Watching Dakath work he struggles to erase the memory of another dark cloaked man from his vision. The mention of venoms has obviously not set Arkady off well, he frequently rubs the surface of his blade as if feeling for something. "Nyet, Nyet" he mutters to himself as he waits for Dakath's revelations at the door.
Dakath looks around the room, turning round in a full circle "Quite an impressive library, isn't it ?" clearly un-phased about the whole spider incident. He crouches over the dead spiders body, looking at it for a moment before drawing his dagger and poking through it's remains. "Does anyone know where it's poison glands are?"
He gets lots of absent stares.
As no one knows he guesses and coats his dagger in any green fluid he can find.
He thinks that he has found the wellspring of the nasty stuff, and carefully dips his secondary dagger in it, having heard that poison and magic weapons don't mix somewhere. It's a dangerous thing to carry around with him, though, and the rest of the party tends to sidestep Dakath while he bears it.
"Does anyone have a vial or container I can use to store this ?" he asks the others.
Arkady pulls on of his precious sample jars from his pouch. "Use this Dakath. But I want it washed when you are done." He smiles and hands over the jar. He carefully avoids the poison and stays as far from it as he can. A worried look crosses his face seeing the green fluid.
Dakath grins "Thank you Arkady, this could come in very handy." he then proceeds to fill the jar as best he can.
He is able to scrape in only a bit, and that narrowly missing coming into contact with the stuff.
So absorbed in his examination he didn't hear Forte's comments "Huh sorry?" Realizing that Rhune has the situation covered he stands up again and removes some of the cobwebs from his clothes.
Watching Ullar and Forte he calls to them "Don't explore too far the idea is to rest here undiscovered." Dakath turns to the door in the North wall "Arkady perhaps you should go first, until we reach the door?, I'll cover your back." When they reach the door, Dakath listens at it before checking for traps. He then tries to determine if the room is locked or not. Whilst examining the door he addresses Arkady "Fear not if there is anything behind this door I shall be out of your way swiftly."
"Regarding staying here... I'd rather sleep some place else. Spiders give me the creeps..." says Ullar, while watching Dakath poke around in the dead spiders body with disgust.
Dakath looks up at Ullar "This is the best place to stay, look around nobody's been here in ages, that's a good sign."
"Nobody has been here in ages? What makes you think that?" replies Ullar, raising his voice in surprise.
Dakath turns to Ullar "The fact that the stairs up to the door were unused and this place is covered in dust."
"There is a clear path between that door..." continues the warrior, while pointing at the door Rhune is listening too, ".. and that staircase. Seems to me that it is being used, so I sincerely doubt that 'nobody has been here in ages'".
"Next to that, there was a spider here. Can you assure me there are no more of those around? Seems to me they have an awful lot of hiding spaces behind all those books.."
Tolik steps over to the books and pushes a few aside with the flat of his dagger, taking care not to damage the books. He warily looks behind the books, but doesn't allow himself to get too close in case there are spiders. He isn't ready to be as adventurous as earlier just yet.
Seeing Tolik sit and start cleaning, Arkady ponders the situation. "What if we take the books off the shelves and use the shelves to barricade the doors? That will let us see if there are more spiders and will also let us form a safe perimeter so we can rest uninterrupted, hopefully. Does anyone know what is up there??" Arkady points to the door at the top of the stairs.
"I don't, and I'm planning to find out." replies Ullar. "However, your suggestion is a good one if there is no better place to stay. I think it will make Rhune and myself more comfortable if 'most' of the shelves have been searched..", he continues ".. and moved" he adds, softly.
Turning the others. "Shhhhhhh." Rhune then returns to trying to listen to the door.
Noticeably, the men ignore her unsubtle request for silence.
"Spiders that size do not make their homes were people frequent." Dakath adds "And no I can't guarantee there aren't anymore."
"Well.. that is really reassuring...." says Ullar, mocking a little. "I don't like this place and I'm not going to sleep in this room. Staying together would be for the best, but I know I will hardly sleep here. However, if the rest of our group rather stays in this room I'll stay as well, probably taking guard duty for most of the time."
Dakath shrugs "Well the most important thing is we find somewhere to hide and recuperate, if your not happy here we need to find somewhere quick." He grins "Your not scared of spiders are you Ullar ?"
"I.. eh.. Well, no, but, ehm.. well.. " stutters the warrior "Let's just say I don't like them."
"He may not be, but I am." Rhune replies in a hushed whisper.
Tolik speaks up. "I'm gonna hafta agree with Dakath. We need a place to lie low for a bit, because we've got a myriad of injuries, and if we advance it will be without benefit of magic, as I do believe all those with magic have used it. These are not my ideal conditions either, but I would rather stay here than walk headfirst into another pack of goblins." Tolik settles down in the dust in the middle of the room and begins to work on scraping off the dried blood from his cloak.
"Oh don't get me wrong, Tolik. I agree that we need to rest, just I don't like spiders very much." she mumbles shivering at the thought of others.
"I'm sure the spiders aren't to happy at having their perspective meal fighting back." Dakath chuckles.
"Yup.. " agrees Ullar "..therefore they wait until we sleep..." he adds, somewhat sarcastically
"Better to face an opponent while you are gaining on him, than being surprised by them..." says Ullar, shaking his head in disapproval.
"However, I don't see why we all should stay in the same room. I for one will check out that staircase, just to be sure there ain't no nasty surprise waiting for us up there. And.. if I manage to find ourselves a more suitable resting place I doubt you want to stay here."
"Does anyone have any water ?" Dakath looks around the group "We've left our footprints in the dust leading up to the doors, I need the water to remove all traces of them."
With the rations shortage, there has been no such problem with water, as you all have been nigh upon a river or a lake almost every day. There is plenty of water in the skins of the group.
For the moment, he checks out the staircase while Rhune has finished checking the other door. There are no apparent traps, and the wear on the stone floor indicates heavy traffic through this area. The door opens easily, and is not even locked. Opening it slightly, Rhune sees the glint of the late afternoon sun. The door leads outside!
In fact, it leads out onto the top of the gulley. Looking about, Rhune sees the tower's bulk to her left, and immediately in front of her the cliff face dives down into the canal. Before she can tell any more about her position, she sees a squad of the yellow goblins along with some chained baboons, apparently scouring the gulleys.
Stepping back inside. "Well they are searching for us...apparently they don't know where we are at the moment...not sure how many goblins there are but they do have the baboons with them. Too bad we can't get to the horses from here we could bring them inside." Rhune says she closes the door quickly and tries to figure out someway of locking it or barring it.
However, there is no locking mechanism that she can tell, nor a readily usable bar.
She ducks back inside and tells everyone what she saw. Meanwhile, Dakath, looking at the stairs, sees the same worn stone, as of heavy traffic. Listening at the door, he hears nothing at all. The doors are quite fine, marble, and seem to have remained in very good condition for all the time this building has stood. Judging from the staircase and doors, once this library saw regular use, though it must not have been used in that capacity for a loooong time.
Assured there are no more traps, Ullar peeks into a beautiful chamber. The marble walls and tiled floor of this chamber are dulled with age. The statues of jackal-headed men staring blindly from their plinths by the walls are robed in dust, and the fountain in the center of the room has dried up and is filled with rubbish. The place seems abandoned.
There are fine worn draperies on the walls, along with three other, smaller doors, one to the southeast and the other to the south, very close to it. The third is in the northwest corner of the room.
Tolik scrambles to his feet and dusts himself off. "I take it we are moving up?" He laughs softly at some joke that only he understands, then steps lightly to the stairs. He climbs cautiously up them, then he pauses looking around at his surroundings. "Wow, look at this place!" he exclaims quietly. "We gonna check the doors?" He peers around the room taking in all the objects, though their glory days have passed. His wonder does not stay long however, as his attentions are drawn back to the condition of his cloak, which he settles down to resume cleaning. Several patches on the cloak seem worn as if they had been scraped clean of blood before this time.