"Fire?" Blue stammered with concern. Oh boy, they didn't like this idea. Their experience with very high heat at Mount Drakolt had not been a good one for them. They'd gotten a lot more liquid than they were comfortable with. Setting the webs around their ankles wouldn't do that, would it? They had metal armor on, and it wouldn't burn for that long, right? The idea of spraying acid onto the web crossed their mind, but they didn't want to damage their armor, and if they severed the web farther up, their legs would still be bound together. A bit of fire seemed like the only option.

Their arm connecting them to the floor stretched, straining like a rubber band starting to reach its limit. It was starting to hurt, and the cave fisher kept pulling and pulling! They were hesitant, but they couldn't keep this up much longer. They had to just suck it up and bite the arrow. Blue Raspberry grimaced and nodded to Astrid.

"Alright! Yeah, do it!" they replied after a moment with as much conviction as they could muster to give permission to set their feet on fire as anyone possibly could.

While Astrid and Blue Raspberry struggled with a cave fisher, a similar struggle was occurring nearby. A man was being pulled up by a thick rope of webbing toward the ceiling that was attached to the back of his leather jacket. After a moment of struggle, he managed to take the thing off and drop back to the ground, landing nimbly on his feet. With the weight of the man removed, the jacket rocketed up to the ceiling and into the mouth of the arachnoid menace above, but the creature was obviously disappointed with the meal. It threw the leather scraps to the side and shot another thread at the man who had begun running down the tunnel for his life. The thread missed, hitting the ground. The cave fisher detached it and chased after its fleeing prey.

"Aye, fire!" Astrid shouts, struggling against the strength of the massive ceiling bug. "I won't burn ya. Er melt ya." She worries if she lets go, Blue will fly right up to be crunched on by this thing, so she frees a hand just enough to create a replicant beside her. The duplicate needs no context or explanation and immediately jumps to take over tug-o-war with Blue Raspberry while Astrid punches her fists together. Fire sparks around her gauntlets, and she rushes over to the webs around Blue's feet. She may not be as good at punching things as Zarius, but she's strong, and now her fists are flaming!

Flaming Fistrid punches the webbing, and flames lash out at the material, burning it away enough to snap the web. Bstrid ends up falling back while pulling on Blue from the sudden release and collapses into a pile with the ooze knight. Astrid quickly works to free up Blue's ankles so they can help with the fight then summons her hammer back to her hand, readying up to take this thing on as a group. Hopefully, Zarius is alright. 

---

Hearing a struggle back toward the entrance and having nearly gotten himself eaten, the man without a jacket runs through the tunnels. "Hey! Help! I need help!" he shouts desperately, a humongous bug on his tail. Considering he cast a spell on Snow, he doesn't have far to run before he comes across Zarius. "You look strong! Kill this thing! Please!!" 

And then he promptly runs past the tiefling, leaving him to deal with the cave fisher. 

"Not so fast." The tiefling's tail whips out and trips up the man as he runs past.^[1]

He slams into the ground face first, skidding the palms of his hands on the stone floor.

Zarius then grabs the back of his shirt and hoists him up.^[2] "You are not going anywhere."

Before the man can protest or put up a fuss, Zarius bashes his fist into the man's jaw and knocks him out. There isn't any time to question him at this moment as the sound of the insects leg clickity clack across the ceiling towards the its prey.

This was less than ideal situation, Zarius would have to make sure this thing didn't go after Snow or the unconscious man. Good thing he could get up on the spider creature's level using his boots. He quickly scales the walls and gets up onto the ceiling. There is a bit of a hiccup though, as the surface of this ceiling was also covered in sticky webbing which slowed him down a lot. 

"Tch." Zarius faces the monsterous pseudo-arachnid as it gets closer and gathers another spay of sticky web in its mouth. 

The tiefling ignites his fists, wreathing them in blue fire, and readies himself for whatever the creature tries.^[3] The cave fisher doesn't get too close and spits out a shot of webbing. Not keen on being turned into an snack for this thing, the tiefling throws a small burst of fire from his fist forward and it catches the webbing on fire, reducing it to ashes by the time it reaches him. 

The creature is unharmed, but hisses and chitters loudly. The sound echoes through the halls only to be answered by more chitters deeper into this dwarven complex. 

"Of course." Zarius says under his breath. 

---

[1] Prehensile Tail
[2] Iron Grip
[3] Art of the Burning Fist (1/3 post duration; 1/2 fireballs used)

Finally freed from the cave fisher's thread, Blue Raspberry, along with the Astriduplicate, was suddenly dragged across the ground as their overstretched arm quickly slurked back into them and the plates of their armor reconnected. The goo retreated back into their guantlet, detaching them from the floor while Astrid finished burning the threads binding their feet together. The heat was bearable, mostly blocked by the metal armor. They melted a tiny bit, but not enough to really hurt them. The liquified ooze was easily reabsorbed.

The freed knight clattered back to their feet and looked up at the cave fisher that had tried to make a snack out of them. Snacking on enemies was their job!

With the sticky blue slime now coating their feet, they began to run up the wall, straight toward the ceiling and the cave fisher! The ooze seeped through the gaps in their gauntlets, coating them and absorbing the armor into them. Their now bare hands transformed into blue-furred, wolf-like claws laced with acidic slime as they charged across the stone bricks. Electricity arced between their claws.

The cave fisher let out a clicking screech and shot another thread at the approaching knight, but Blue dodged to the side to avoid it. The thread fluttered to the ground below, surprisingly light for its thickness and strength. The creature wasn't prepared to have an enemy suddenly fighting it in such close quarters, used to ambushing prey that couldn't run up walls! Running alongside the monster that tried to hurriedly scuttle away from them, Blue slashed with a claw at its legs, severing a couple of them and leaving them sizzling and sparking. Unable to move very quickly with the loss of two of its legs, it was easy for Blue to slash the other two on that side apart as well.

With half of its legs severed, the monster hung sideways for a moment before falling toward the floor and Astrid.

---

Slimy Hands
Eldritch Claws
Static Stature

"Nice one, Blue!" Astrid shouts, rushing forward. Her war hammer flies back into her hand, and she whips her battle hammer off her belt loop. With the big bug vulnerable on the ground, Astrid steps into the air, her feet landing on dense air gathered by small swirling winds. Having gotten some height, she leaps down and brings both hammers down on the bug's head, splattering its guts. The rest of its body twitches, flailing about in its death throes. Its claws are still dangerous, so Astrid gets out of its range and looks around.

Right, Charles. She rushes over to the metal golem to free him from the webbing with the flames licking off her gauntlets, tearing and burning the webs away. "Okay, yer gonna get yerself into trouble down here," she says. With the twist of her hand, magic gathers and seems to slurp the Blixtbot^TM into nothingness. Now that Charles is safely stored away, Astrid turns back to Blue and calls for Spicy Pawsage.

"Zarius is farther in, and I bet there's a bunch more of these! Let's go!" The half-dwarf takes off running through the cave with her hellhound companion at her heels. Melodia said left at the split, so she darts to the left and comes upon Zarius with two unconscious people around him and a handful of more of the bugs scuttling down the tunnel. 

"Oi, Zarius, why's it always bugs with ya?" she asks with a jest on the tongue. "It's hard ta break through their shell. B- Wolfe used some acid an' magic on 'em ta cut off their legs."

The blue fire wreathing Astrid's fists gives her some pause. It's not been that long since Zarius pummeled her after losing control of himself. She looks at the tiefling and cautiously asks, "Ya gonna be alright?" The buckler strapped to her arm still shows evidence of the last time they encountered each other though she did her best to repair it.

---

Step of the Wind
Pet Pocket

Astrid's clinking armor getting louder behind him is a welcome sound as the chorus of chittering instects fills the hall ahead of them. Took her long enough, she must have run into trouble along with Wolfe. They were here now though, so that was all that really mattered.

He sighs exasperated. "I do not know. Maybe I am cursed or something." 

Zairus glances down at her from the ceiling, hearing the caution in her voice. "I am fine."^[1] He is insistent, but it is not clear if he is trying to convince the young half-dwarf, or himself.

There were still a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly came over him during that last mission. His memory is foggy at best.

The tiefling watches as more cave fishers arrive on the scene. "Astrid, I will knock them down for you and Mister Wolfe. Be ready to smash them to pieces."

He fires another gout of fire at the closest cave fisher.^[2] The webbing around it ignites and starts burning away. As the creatures hesitate to pass through the cinders, Zarius turns invisible and silently runs forward to pry the bugs from the ceiling.^[3,4]

As more of the webbing burns away, he's able to move a lot easier and sneak up on the creatures. He knocks one down before going to the next one. His invisibility flickers with every hit, but it still makes it very hard for the creatures to hit him with their webs. He gets three down before a fourth and fifth flank him and spit their webs, ensnaring the tiefling between them. 

Despite his invisibility, the webs cling to him and reveal his position and also stop him dead in his tracks. He starts to burn away at the threads with his fists but not before the two creatures rush forward and get a few good slashes with their sharp legs in at him. 

---

[1] Smooth Talking
[2] Art of the Burning Fist (2/3 post duration; 2/2 fireballs used)
[3] Invisibility
[4] Silent Step

As the invisible Tiefling struggled between the two cave fishers, something that must have been extremely unexpected for Zarius happened. A knight with their hands and feet resembling that of a bright blue werewolf with sparks of electricity crackling across their metal armor and between their claws, suddenly dashed over, on the ceiling, and slashed at the webbing connecting him to the monsters! The threads fell limply to the ground, the cut ends sizzling faintly.

"Is that you, Mister Zarius? I can't see you! Are you okay?" Blue Raspberry asked as they tried to carefully rip the webbing wrapped around Zarius off of the invisible man without harming him. Acid sizzled on the silken strands, dissolving and severing them without the need for much cutting force, the ooze's wolfen claws slightly laced with the caustic blue slime. The webbing on the ceiling that they stepped on similarly sizzled away.

The two cave fishers weren't pleased with their prey escaping their bindings. With a hiss, one of them shot another thread at the only visible target, the knight that had freed its meal. Another slash of their claws cut the thread apart. Blue Raspberry rushed forward, swinging at the cave fisher's legs just as they had before, but this one proved to be a bit tougher than that one had been. It managed to scurry to the side and avoid having its legs severed.

While that one had chosen to fight the other cave fisher had decided to try for easier prey. An unconscious catfolk lying on the ground caught it's eye, a thread of sticky silk shooting down and latching to Snow's foot before beginning to drag them into the air.

---

Slimy Hands
Eldritch Claws
Static Stature

"Alright, let's take 'em out!" Astrid shouts, raising her hammer above her head. A surge of empowering energy washes over her and her allies, granting them strength in battle. With Spicy Pawsage at her side, she rushes forward. 

Thud. Thud. Thud. 

One after another, three cave fishers fall to the ground ahead of Astrid. Their legs flail about in the air while they try to right themselves. With the huge creatures and the close quarters, she's going to have to get creative with how she hits them. Luckily, she learned a handy new trick just for this! Three tough shelled creatures all close to each other! It's a perfect time to try it out! 

With a smooth motion, Astrid flings her war hammer at the group of downed cave fishers, and like a pinball, the hammer rackets between all three of them, rebounding off their carapaces and leaving a crack with each impact. She summons her hammer back to her hand and charges ahead when Spicy Pawsage suddenly starts barking. Astrid looks up to see one of the creatures spray webbing and capture the catfolk. 

"Get 'em, Spicy!" she shouts. "Roast the webs!" 

The hellhound bounds back to the catfolk and unleashes a breath of flame up at the cave fisher, burning the webs and sending the creature scurrying back. Bstrid, the replicant who can fling a few buff or debuff spells but can't do much more in the way of combat, runs over to grab the catfolk and drag them out of danger, hefting them over her tiny shoulder and fireman carrying them away from the fray. Not without giving Spicy an encouraging, "Good boy," though.

Meanwhile, the three on the ground with Astrid have recovered and snap their claws at the girl. Astrid manages to dodge two snaps, the afterimages of her Diplopia Armor helping her stay out of danger. The third claw snatches her leg and drags her to the ground. 

---

Battle Cry (post 1/2; 1/2 uses per topic) - x2 physical damage for self and allies
Resounding Rebound 
Greaves - 1 hit prevention

To say Zarius was startled by the knight's appearance would be an understatement. He jump which only detaches his feet from the ceiling, but hardly frees him from the webbing which now suspends him. As Wolfe tears or...dissolves?? What was that sizzling noise? Regardless of what he did, the webs are destroyed and the tiefling starts to fall. He just manages to flip in time to try and land on his feet.^[1]

The problem?

Where he plans on landing is currently occupied by one of the cave fishers swiping at Astrid, trying to turn her into a chopped salad. He twists in the air and drives the heel of his boot into the carapace of the cave fisher. The force of the hit shatters its exoskeleton, sears its innards, and splatters its guts across the floor.^[2,3]

"Ugh. Great." He steps out of the bug then turns his attention to the other two insects. 

Snow certainly is easy pickings for the cave fishers, thankfully Astrid's pet was quick to react and save the catfolk from becoming spider chow. A second Astrid carts him off--

Wait.

Zarius does a double take over his shoulder.

WHY WERE THERE TWO ASTRIDS? Gods be, one Astrid was more than enough! How was Cantio, the brokest bard in all of Charon, feeding them?

He sighs and shakes his head, refocusing on the task at hand.

One of the bugs turns to him and screeches. It scuttles across the ground and tries to slash at him with its front appendages.^[4] Zarius catches both its legs and then flips the creature upside down on its back. It struggles against his grip which he manages to maintain, but it's pretty strong and there's a chance it will break free soon.^[5]

"Astrid! Take a swing!"

---

[1] Cats Grace
[2] Guillotine Drop
[3] Art of the Burning Fist (3/3 post duration)
[4] Steel Catch
[5] Iron Grip

Blue Raspberry had been worried when they saw Astrid dragged to the ground by one of the cave fishers, but then the monster suddenly splattered from Zarius falling on it. Well, that was a relief! On the ceiling, the ooze knight was now left alone with two cave fishers.

They swiped their claws at the first cave fisher repeatedly, the creature backing away and or stepping to the side each time, lashing out at Blue in retaliation between their swipes and the knight, but its attacks being dodged or deflected. They exchanged blows until finally, the cave fisher thrust a spindly leg straight toward Blue Raspberry's chest, but the leg was suddenly stopped, caught between Blue's claws. It tried to wrench its leg back from their grasp, but sticky slime kept it held firmly in place while electricity flowed continuously into the creature, making it twitch and screech in pain.

As they electrocuted the first cave fisher, an impact suddenly sparked across the back of the knight's cuirass! With its attempt to munch on the unconscious catfolk foiled, the other cave fisher had turned its attention to Blue as well. They turned their head around a full 180 degrees to see their new attacker and from the back of their chain skirt a blue-scaled, snake-like tail quickly grew, slipping between the creature and the ceiling and smacking it down, to the ground below.

With a wet crack, the cave fisher landed directly onto the exposed underside of the cave fisher being grappled by Zarius! Both of the cave fishers were injured, but they continued to move, clearly not dead yet.

---

Steel Catch
Slimy Hands
Bull's Strength
Static Stature
Lightning Armor
Charged Particles
Disjoint
Prehensile Tail
Torso Hit Prevention- 1/2

Despite being caught up in the fight having nearly gotten snapped in half by a cave lobster, Astrid still notices that Zarius' focus is broken by something. Splattered by bug guts, she gets to her feet and glances back to see Bstrid rushing off carting Snow away. By the time she turns around, a devious grin on her face, Zarius has the creature on its back. Right, finish those off!

As she raises her hammer to deal a deadly blow, a second cave fisher lands on top of the first. "It's a two fer one special!" she laughs. Electricity crackles on the head of her hammer as she grips it in both hands. The half-dwarf's tiny muscles flex as she puts her full might into the downward smash on both cave fishers. A thunderous crack rings out through the cave as her hammer smash splatters the two creatures with explosive force, cracking the stone ground beneath their bodies. The walls around them are painted with fisher viscera.

Panting heavily, Astrid looks much the same she did after her first cave adventure: a small girl having dealt a massive blow, leaving her absolutely covered in disgusting bug goop. Beneath it all, there's a nonchalant attitude with a goofy grin. She looks up to see if Blue Raspberry is doing alright then looks around for anymore threats. Things seem alright now.

---

Battle Cry [post 2/2]
Anvil Smash [1/topic]

Zarius lets go of the cave fisher he had grappled and holds his arms up in front of his face as the bug guts splatter across him from Astrid's attack. Ugh. It stung a little and smelled terrible. It would take at least two washes to get the stains out of his clothes. 

He looks at Astrid who is just grinning like a goofball. This kid. 

The number of creepy crawlies is quickly dwindling. There is one still engaged with Wolfe on the ceiling while another is there on the ground with them. Snow and the other unconscious guy catch the eye of the creature and it starts making a mad dash to at least skedaddle with one meal in tow. 

Zarius' fists run out of fire, sparking and flickering out. That hardly stops him from closing the distance between himself and the cave crawler that was making its way for the vulnerable prey.^[1] He slams his fist into the back leg of the creature, snapping the joint inward with the hit.

It screeches and whirls around defensively just as the tiefling combos the strike with a sharp jab right between its sets of eyes.^[2] There's a terrible squelching noise as his knuckle knife's pointed end is embedded in the creature's head.^[3] Zarius pulls his hand back, kicking the creature off his fist. 

The tiefling breathes and watches as the creature's legs twitch for a few seconds before eventually growing still. He looks back at Astrid and Wolfe before walking over to the unconscious man and searching his pockets and pouches. 

---

[1] Dashing
[2] Two Piece
[3] Knuckle Knives

After a good amount of electric persuasion, the cave fisher finally succumbed to the shock. Its legs detached from the ceiling, the slightly smoking leg in Blue Raspberry's hands breaking off, and it fell to the ground, its exoskeleton cracking and fluids splattering across the stone and slowly leaking out. The legs curled up as it lay dead.

Blue Raspberry stood on the ceiling, taking one final look around for any more bugs, but the ceiling along with the floor seemed to be clear. All of the cave fishers had been taken care of, many of them ending up little more than stains on the floor.

Well, there was no immediate danger anymore, so the ooze could sneak a quick snack, right? With the broken spider leg in their hand, Blue scraped a bit of webbing from the ceiling and tops of the walls, swirling it around the leg like they were gathering some cotton candy. They inserted the whole thing into the neck hole of their cuirass happily.

They detached their feet from the ceiling, the sticky goo retreating back into them, and flipped in the air to land on their feet. They bent their legs as they landed in a wide stance, their gelatinous legs absorbing the impact and compressing and decompressing for a second. The fall likely would have still shattered any bones if they had any, but the ooze was completely unharmed.

"Great job! I didn't know you were so good at punching, Mr. Zarius!"

Blue Raspberry gave a thumbs up with their still wolfishly clawed hand, their feet also still similarly lupine in appearance and a large, reptilian tail swaying behind them.

---

Cat's Grace

With all the terrible, awful cave bugs dispatched, Astrid fully relaxes. It's brief though as Blue Raspberry's fall from the ceiling makes them land and jiggle like a gelatin dessert. Her face twists into a slightly panicked distress, hoping that Zarius' back was turned long enough for him not to notice it. 

And just in case he does...

"Aye, he's real good at punchin'!" Astrid jabs with a smile beneath all the bug guts. The expression is full of innocence, but the tone suggests there's so much more beneath the surface. In her mind, if Zarius is smart, he won't push even if he did see something weird. After all, wouldn't want Grandpa Bellighul to hear about the danger Zarius put her in...!

Bstrid, with Snow hoisted over her shoulder, peeks out from the corner of the cave she ran off to hide in. "Everythin' alright now?" she asks. 

"No more bugs!" Astrid calls.

With the all-clear, Bstrid makes her way back to the group, looking Astrid up and down. "Yer real gross," she says, a somewhat disgusted look on her face. 

"Yeeeah," Astrid says, looking herself over. If it were just her and Blue, she'd let the ooze clean her off. That's not possible right now. "Maybe ya should keep carryin' Snow." 

"Sure. We've still gotta find the villagers though!" Bstrid says. 

Zarius is too busy rummaging through the unconscious goon's bag to notice Wolfe's snacking or landing. When Astrid compliments his punching ability. He glances back over his shoulder at the armored pair...trio...Gods.

Then he does a double take at Wolfe. 

What the-

What?

WHAT?

No. Nope. No.

He's not going to ask. He doesn't want to know. 

Clearing his throat, he nods. "I suppose so." 

He rummages through the bag until he finds a bundle of something carefully wrapped in protective material. He slips it into his own bag before he pulls out some rope and ties the man up so they don't have to worry about him running off while they went deeper into the dwarven ruin.^[1]

Standing up, he walks back over to his fellow adventurers. While he would love to get out of this ruin, carrying Snow through the mountains wouldn't be some leisurely stroll. It would be best to wait until the catfolk had regained consciousness before attempting to leave. 

What's more, he has to decide what to do with the unconscious guy. He figures Astrid and Wolfe may speak out against leaving him to freeze and/or to get eaten by the local wildlife without a really good explanation of why Zarius wasn't interesting in carting him back to civilization to be judged for his crimes. He figures he can let Wolfe and Astrid handle that if they really want to. Otherwise he might just find a chasm on the way back to Sky Peak Village to dump the jerk. 

"Hopefully Snow wakes up sooner rather than later," he comments then looks at Astrid. "There is a chance they are no longer alive given how desperate for food those creatures were. But perhaps they found a room to lock themselves into." 

He looks about the walls of the structure again. All the fire and acid they threw around revealed some of the finer details of the carved stone supporting the corridor. "Do you suppose this was built by some ancient dwarven society?"

---

[1] Rope