>>5497311“Princess!” you address Jazkarmel. “Duelist! Lancer! Archer! All of you—handle these menaces!”
>Leadership 13“Wh-what?” Azonia the Duelist scrambles, drawing her baldes. “’Handle’ them? I mean, OBVIOUSLY, but what are YOU going to be doing?”
“Wait,” Karz Throat-singer interjects. “What am I doing?”
You are already gone by the time the questions are uttered. You hear them, but don’t slow to answer them. They are competent enough—they do not need your personal oversight. This is a good thing, because your first priority is clear—for reasons from the personal to political, tactical to spiritual: Glowie.
The great glow-worm ‘queen’ may be able to handle herself, too, admittedly. She IS a giant bug-monster with terrifying venomous mandibles… But then again, can venom even affect the undead? And what of your sons—have they hatched? What sort of form have they taken if so? If not… how durable are those translucent, rubbery insect-shells of theirs? No. It’s not a risk you’re willing to take...
<bzzZZ-krakKRAK>
…But you don’t forsake your friends, either. You command your lightning elemental, tamed by your will and ever-near since then, to rise and annihilate. Unfortunately, your control of it is imprecise, its understanding of your commands incomplete. Even as you hurtle through the caverns, you hear the buzzing and crackling accompanied by the screams of Drow scouts and the croaking roars of undead footsoldiers alike.
Bah, no time for that. As you suspected—dreaded, really—the scourge of cursed unlife is not isolated to the main camp. You spy torn-and-ragged kobolds, bugbears, and corpses so desiccated as to be unrecognizable shuffling and lurching purposefully about the camp, accosting any who cannot escape their clutches or gathering whatever weapons and valuables they can get their filthy hands upon. They readily wield these weapons against you, and with surprising force—they may be rotting, but they are no mere shamblers when they sense an enemy at hand, and they strike with unnatural strength and speed.
>16 AthleticismThey’re no match for you in a straight swordfight even so… But you’ve got no time to prove this point of pride, either. You dip and dodge the swings and thrusts, barreling past them and <Jumping> over a small horde the walking corpses and down to the entrance to Glowie’s brood-cavern. The spell takes a lot less out of you than it once did, attesting to your growing magical aptitude and mana reservoir—or perhaps just your honed physique means you need to channel less energy into the spell to get the same effect. Either way, it brings you to your destination without delay…
And there you find your first unavoidable interruption.
