Riekan waits to see if Andreas' spell worked out. His sword is ready to strike at any moment, just in case.
The slime gurgles and ripples with pain where it has been struck by the flame charm. Already half frozen and half shredded by the cat girl Tila, the slime suddenly bursts like a soap bubble, showering everyone with sweet-smelling goo. A green light fills a crystal now sitting in the midst of a slippery pool of slime girl. It is the crystal that Silvan had pushed into the slime just before he succumbed to her wiles. The cat girl licks at the slime covering her paws trying to clean it away. Silvan sits up, slowly recovering from the clutches of slime girl ecstasy.
The goo hit Andreas like a wall of snot. "For the love of everything good and holy..." He spits, expelling the sickeningly-sweet glob from his mouth, and wipes his eyes free from it. It drips from his fingers like thin caramel. "Look, hey, did anyone see Mrs. Fenton in here?" He swipes his hand, sending goo splattering to the floor. He reaches into his satchel for another specimen jar, collecting a healthy sample.
Crap! Vi’lea curses as she realizes that in order to not hurt Silvan she had been too careful and the spell did not fully freeze the slimegirl as she had intended. As Tila begins to attack the creature the sorceress tries to think of a spell that would finish the freezing without hurting the catgirl. Before she can come up with anything, however, the second group arrives, apparently finished with the exploration of the granary. Within seconds the second girl has been dealt with as well… and everyone has been showered with slime. The dark elf manages to avoid some of it, but most – too much for her liking – hits her. "Eww! Disgusting! But at least none got in my eyes or my mouth." She begins to freeze each glob of slime and then remove it, trying to clean her dress and her hair. Andreas’ question makes her pause as realizes something. "I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but when we arrived there were two slimegirls and no sign of any humans. Based on what Lyssa earlier said I don’t think we’ll be seeing Mrs. Fenton again… though I wouldn’t mind to be proven wrong about this." Trying not to think about what has happened to the poor woman she starts looking for a mirror to help clean herself from the sweet-smelling goo. (OOC: For simplicity let’s say that the other group was faster in their exploration. Also, someone refresh my memory: Can each crystal hold only one slimegirl, or can the same crystal hold multiple? This will determine Vi’lea’s tactics in the future.)
"Count yourself lucky," Andreas spits again. "Tastes like syrup mixed with rancid beer. Gods." He walks over, gingerly picking up the warm stone. "At least it's contained." He sours at Vi'lea's response, frowning and scowling. Goopy clothes lay beyond in the house. "Well... let's hope for the best then. Because I won't say the alternative given what we just did."
"Well," says Pepper, poking her head into the slime-covered room. "This was not what I expected from treasure hunting. Pretty gross, actually." You manage to get cleaned up, although there's slime covering an entire room in the house. There is no sign of Yoshua's wife, leading you to believe the worst: one of the two slime women you encountered inside the house was probably the former Mrs. Fenton. Yoshua is distraught about all this. He gathers up his things and says that he is going to head into town to stay with family. This is too much for him and he's tempted to "burn the whole place to cinders." On the subject of the crystals, Lyssa seemed to indicate that each of the crystals could only hold one slime. You've used three of the six green crystals and you still have the pink crystal. Looking at the map, it is less than a mile to the cave entrance Hurley marked for you. If you're lucky, the two slimes that attacked the Fenton farm might be the slimes Hurley had detected patrolling outside the cave.
Riekan looks at Pepper trying to analyze the map. "So, have you been to this cave, yet?" He asks. "I mean, is it big, dark and all that?"
Vi’lea, having cleaned herself as best as she could and having recharged her used up spell, looks at the other members of the team. She’s about to say something when she hears Riekan’s question directed at Pepper and remembers that the girl knows the local area better than the rest of them. She decides to hear what the redhead has to say about the cave first.
"My Papa used to say there was a bear that lived in there, but then me and Mick Pollarc sneaked in there and it was just a bunch of bats. It's pretty big though and it branches off in at least two directions." She glances back at the granary. "I hope we have enough of those crystals left." (BTW Silvan has recovered most of his senses after being molested by the slime girl. Tila is very nurturing and concerned for "master", helping to clean him up with a tongue bath that is a bit distracting for the rest of you.)
"I certainly hope so. Maybe if we can get the ooze, it'll like killing the queen in a beehive. The rest will be disoriented." Andreas looks down at Tila being... quite comforting to Silvan. I'm beginning to like cats, he thinks, scraping off the remaining goo and twisting a glob from his hat. "Gods I'm just here to write a damn book."
"Hmm," Riekan says, suspicious. "You can tell me who's this Mick later, what worries me is that the cave splits." He looks at the rest of the group. "Maybe we'll have to split ourselves again inside," He suggests. "But then again, if someone finds the ooze, that group might not be strong enough to capture it without the others." He finds the treatment Silvan is receiving from his pet very distracting, and instead turns around to focus on Pepper.
Vi’lea pays no attention to Tila and Silvan. After the previous night she’s satisfied enough to not get distracted by such things. "If necessary I can create an ice wall to block off one passage temporarily, but it will take me some time and it’s hard to predict how long it will last, especially if any slimegirl tries to break it down. In any case splitting up is a bad idea – we have only one pink crystal, so if the wrong group finds the ooze…" She tells the others as she considers their options.
Pepper is staring at Tila give Silvan's cock a tongue-bath. Her cheeks are flushed and when she realizes you have caught her watching she quickly looks away. "Ummm," she stammers, "maybe we should get going. We want to be out of that cave with all our treasure before dark." (You guys can continue whenever you want, Silvan and Tila will be with you and I'll use Tila and until FallenSaint is back assume Silvan is still a little shell shocked from getting slimed.)
(OOC: I'm heading to work now, will be back in a little more than six hours. You guys can decide if you want to keep going.)
"Agreed!" Tila is quite loud with her slurping and despite the events of the previous 12 hours, Andreas grumbles over his stirring cock. He gives a side glance to Vi'lea, apparently unaffected, and happily wishes he had her resolve. "I suppose we can try your ice dam, and we can wait as long as you need. If they attack, well... cross that bridge when we get to it I guess. Seemed to be doing well so far." (OOC: I can be here for a bit longer, but I'l go with the crowd if we choose to wait.)
You gather your equipment and set off at Pepper's urging for the cave on the edge of the mountains. You make your way through the blackwood forest and cannot help but notice that it is supernaturally quiet. There are no birds or insects singing in the trees. You reach the cave around midday and find that the entrance is unguarded. A foreboding darkness yawns before you. You have a couple of lanterns rescued from the Fenton farm and the elves, particularly Vi'lea, should have no trouble seeing in the dark cave. "A couple hundred feet into the cave it branches left and right," says Pepper. "I've only ever followed the branch to the left and it took us down to an underground pond. It was too cold to go swimming in, but the water seemed fairly clean. I don't know if these slime girl things like water, but I would bet the treasure isn't hidden in that pond."
"Considering they seem to be mostly water, that's probably a safe bet Pepper." He turns to her. "Maybe you should count your blessings that it's too cold for swimming." Andreas holds a lantern to the darkness. The mouths of the cave bifurcation glows dimly, though he's sure Vi'lea can see it as clear as day. "Question being then, if the slimes are down there, would our ooze friend be there too?"
(OOC: was able to sneak a couple of free minutes, lol.) "So Pepper," Riekan says, with somewhat of a serious tone. "Who's this Mick you came here with?"
Vi’lea examines the cave entrance and sees nothing unusual. The inside of the cave is dark, but it is just the darkness typical of such places and not some sort of darkness spell (not that she expected one, but you can never be too careful). Apart from the unusual quiet there’s no indication that something is wrong. "The question is: Is too cold for swimming also too cold for slimegirls? If the pond is not too big it should be easy to freeze it and trap any slimegirls inside it. But that seems almost too easy, and things are rarely this easy. Maybe we should investigate the other path first? What do the rest of you think?"
