>>5334013>>5334011>17, near missThe spike-men look at each other furtively… And, you realize, in confusion. You aren’t sure if you said anything intelligible, or if the sentence was simply so broken—or polluted by a single key mispronunciation—but they clearly understand only that you wish tow ait. Unwilling o comply, or obeying their unseen overseer’s instruction, they make to leave.
“Wait!”
They do not understand you exclamation, as it was in the True Speech, but they understand the intent. They halt.
“You cannot be serious,” The Novice hisses. “At least let me come with you, if you’re determined to be a damned fool. You will need someone with a working brain.”
“Your concern is noted,” you whisper back, “but the intent is clear. They want me, alone. They shall have me. Besides, with your amulet and my new spells… I can handle myself.”
“So once spoke every foolish and over-confident young male who failed to handle himself,” the Novice notes.
You say nothing, striding forward. You feel her gaze on your back, anxious… Anxious for YOU. It makes you feel… Something.
As you travel with the barbed devils, two of these strange and creeping creatures stay beside you. One, however, slips away when you aren’t looking. You imagine you can hear it—him?—behind you, sometimes, but when you steal a glance the stalking scavenger is nowhere to be found. You suppose he could just as easily have gone ahead to alert to your coming. It’s not as if you can ask.
These cloaked figures make no aggressive action—in fact, they maintain a careful distance from you and barely even chatter amongst themselves. They guide you silently, like spectres, down into the deeper regions, and further beyond the known, mapped areas of this region of the Underdark—into a place that is dry, and cold beyond even the sunless chill which you have known often in your life. It is as if there is a magic at work… OR some unknown alchemical reaction, natural and native to this area of the deep earth.
Their pace slows. You hear faint rustling, spot movement among the jagged and spiky terrain which now matches your guides’ hides. More barbed devils are watching you—maybe a half-dozen. Your guides gesture for you to hold your place, to wait.
What do you do?
>Wait patiently, albeit guardedly—no sudden moves, lest you provoke your ‘hosts’>Stake a defensible position, to guard your back and make a defence; retreat at the first sign of treachery>Assume <Augmented Dragonshape>, demonstrating your power and majesty and allowing your Fearsome Presence to affect these mammals for purposes of negotiation and forestalling attack>Ready a spell of magic item to defend yourself [which one?]>Write-in 