(3) Severozov - Naked Steel in the Naked Bear

After discovering the uses of their new arcane cylinder at the Naked Bear Inn, the party’s party was immediately crashed. The explosive charge that knocked them off their feet was closely followed by threats from an unseen entity somewhere in the hotel lobby. Kopek, Levi, and Cornelius set up a defensive position in Nat’s room, hoping to use the doorway as a chokepoint to funnel in their potential foes. All the while, the voice from the lobby spoke, suggesting the party deliver it the cylinder if they wished to exit the inn with their lives. In the meantime, Kopek moved to get a better angle on the door, and as he peered through the doorway, his singular eye was assaulted by horrendous sight. A pair of gargantuan spiders rushed down the hall towards the trio, screeching as venom dripped off of their unsightly mandibles. Behind them walked a duergar, a deep dwarf of grey skin and great sensitivity to the sun, undoubtably hailing from the mountains of Zirakh to the south.

The battle soon intensified as Kopek rushed out the room and became surrounded by the disgusting arachnids. Still his bowstring sung as he feathered them with arrows. Levi once again made use of his magical catapulting abilities, launching the cylinder itself at his duergar assailant down the hall. Unfortunately, he had expended his luck polymorphing the concierge (and then launching that squirrel at the spiders and sadly killing it), and the cylinder flew past the duergar, leaving him unharmed. This was the object of the dwarf’s desire, however, and he turned about to pursue it. Cornelius had other plans. His fine business attire morphed into striped fur, and the tiefling took the form of Oleg as a majestic tiger, running down the duergar and mercilessly ripping him to shreds. After dealing death to one of the spiders and some of Nat’s disheveled tabaxi bodyguards, the remaining spider, just as Cornelius had before, changed its shape. Before the trio cowered an elderly man with a long grey beard and dirtied scholarly robes, who introduced himself as Syravich in between sobs for mercy. As he begged before them, the three bloodied investigators wondered if they should spare one who attacked them unprovoked…