The Forgotten City XXV
General Summary
The many winding paths and roar of the wind intermingled with the chanting of the Ascension already begun frazzled the party. They chose to move deeper into the cavern and found piles of bones with glints of metal among the detritus they found a helmet and decomposing mail in a style unmistakably old Rexan. On further exploration, Kegho found a standard bearing a frog and an inscription Theo confirmed said Legio XVIII. Alex approached a door similar to the one they had entered, but saw no clear way of opening it from the inside. In a side chamber they saw scrawled an increasingly derranged history of Rexan troops sent to investigate the area during the great plague from the east 300 years prior. They were cut off and went native marrying with the locals and taking up their gods and their ways. As successive generations continued keeping their history the Rexan became coarser and less coherent. It ended with the stacatto of madness "Reshpu, equality of Reshpu, Second Age, return to owners, slime, hatred, all are one."
While the party read the history of the Legio Alex crept quietly through the halls to find another door. He stage whispered back around a corner and listened while the party padded up behind him. A thunderclap and jubilation as voices shouted "RESHPU YEET!" With Kegho standing over him, Alex threw open the door and was shocked to see the troglodytic features they knew from the catacombs where they had slain Urbicus. A spear thrown by a patch of shifting light and darkness sank into Kegho's shoulder. He would remind Alex later just how many times his actions had precipitated a spear hitting his shoulder and how nice the two days without scar tissue in that should hard been following Theo's miracle. He mused on the futility of personal growth and healing and growled "Why am you so bad at this?" at the Oamenus.
More hits were landed as La Compagnia struggled to gain ground in the room through the tight door. Even more surprising was the voice shouting in monstrous, garbled, but intelligible Rexan "LEAVE NOW" Kegho missed his attack as the trogolodytes were partially obscured by their natural camoflage and the low lighting. Alex blew a cloud of chalk dust from his palm into the approximate area of the trogolodyte attacking Kegho and it became much more starkly visible. Keg is much more easily able to dodge its next attack. One leaps at Alex and misses with its claws but manages to bite him. Khufu called upon Xam to grant Teleptyon extra vitality and Teleptyon and Theo both landed mighty blows on their enemies.
The trogolodyte engaged with Alex reared up and secreted some kind of noxious fumes from its torso. Kegho was nauseated by the smell.
Theo taunted the Rexan-speaking trogolodyte calling him a traitor and deserter. It takes the bait, launching across the room at him claws and fangs in motion "You know nothing!"
A spear whistled through the darkness and badly injured Teleptyon. Theo and his enemy square off with Theo taunting him with the Legio's standard. It clearly struck a nerve, but not enough to interrupt his attack. Theo took advantage of its distrction to strike it. Teleptyon was struck by another spear and was dazed a third spear obliterated his nose. Kegho attempted to sweep Teleptyon out of the fray and into the hall, but was bitten in the process. The Party began moving out of the room hoping to channel the attacks into the hallway. Theo was able to call upon his gods to hold the enemies in place, but the leader was undaunted, and bit Theo. As they fall back Theo is bitten again. Riven, Alex and Kegho agree to push forward and let Kegho body block the trogs while Alex and Riven picked them off. Riven loosed a flaming arrow and immoliated her first target. Alex and Riven are pulled into direct combat with a trog, but none land their blow.
