Beholder Quest

[X] study it!

 

[X] Study it!

You study the creature intently, making sure to keep out of sight.

The creature continues to struggle for several more minutes, making unusual sounds all the while. Finally, it falls still, and for a moment you think it has died but you soon spot it breathing.

Then, it does... something, and you feel like you've absorbed something that you need. Its like finding a stream after flying for seven hours.

It does that hand motion again and you have the same feeling of absorbing something. The creature looks at its front limbs in confusion as you search the bits of racial memory that you have for what's going on.

Disintegration, Petrification... aha! Your central eye absorbs magic, which it seems to be... doing... now...

You hastily shut your central eye. That creature must have been using magic, which means that it's either magical or it's intelligent enough to learn magic, from what you can glean from your racial memories. Either is not a foe a newborn beholder wants to face. But if you could ally with it, you could increase the rate at which your eye-rays fully develop by absorbing its magic.

The creature seems to have given up using magic to get it down. It's back to struggling futilely.

[] What now?

 

[X] Float up to it, look straight at it, and ask if it wants help.
-->[X] Make sure to keep any harmful eyes closed or looking away. You're nice, like that.

 

[X] Float up to it, look straight at it, and ask if it wants help.
-->[X] Make sure to keep any harmful eyes closed or looking away. You're nice, like that.

 

[X] Stealth kill. And eat.

 

[X] Float up to it, look straight at it, and ask if it wants help.
-[X] Make sure to keep any harmful eyes closed or looking away. You're nice, like that.

You float up to the creature, emerging from the tree you've been hiding behind. The creature's struggles grow more frantic as soon as it sees you. You make a show of closing your central eye, and it calms down a bit. It looks at you intently with its two eyes as it rotates.

Now that it has calmed down, you decide to ask it whether it wants your help or not. You take a moment to compose a polite speech, then you speak. Unfortunately, the creature starts thrashing again as soon as some of your spittle sprays onto it.

You feel somewhat insulted. You even took the time to incorporate a pleasant gurgle into that speech! And that elaborate smack of the lips!

But no matter. You won't be bothered by a social misstep by a less cultured being. You float upwards and examine the thing that's holding the creature up. It's a intricate structure of dead plants, the fibre twisted in an ordered structure to from a stronger whole. Something made by intelligent beings.

Then suddenly, out of your seventh eye, you spot something odd. Light flickering some distance away, and it appears to be getting closer. The creature seems to not have noticed yet.

You...

[] Bite the creature free.
[] Float away and hide.
[] Write in.

 

[X] Bite the creature free

 

[X] Bite the creature free

 

[X] Bite the creature free

 

[x]Bite Creature Free.

 

[X] Mobs are bad news. Any force with more numbers than you have eyes can present a problem. Disintegrate snare in such a way that it keeps the creature bound, but that you can bite down and carry it away.

 

Your eye rays haven't developed yet.

 

* Bite Creature Free.

 

[X] Bite the creature free

 

[X] Bite the creature free.

Someone is coming. Someone with the ability to create and use fire, which either means that it's a magical creature, or it is intelligent. Both are things that you don't want to meet, not now.

But what about the creature...

You think about it for a moment, then you decide to set it free. Your teeth make short work of the thing attaching the creature to the tree, then you float up, above the reach of the creature in case it becomes hostile. It merely looks at you in confusion for a few moments, then focuses on untangling its foot, though.

You float up and towards the source of the light, trying to discover what is approaching the both you. You see a bigger version of the creature, only its skin is a lighter colour, and its ears are rounded, rather than pointed. Its body is covered with dead organic material too, and a large piece of dead skin on its back is filled with stuff. It is carrying in its hands a piece of wood with a sharp metal shard attached to the top, and a burning piece of wood, which was the light you saw.

Hm...

[] Float back and tell the creature about larger-version-creature.
[] Stay in the sky and watch what happens.
[] Float down and follow it silently, taking offensive action if it does too.
[] Write in.

 

I'm guessing this is some kind of troll or giant.



[] Float back and tell the creature about larger-version-creature.

 

Oh boy, an adventurer.

... Are we going to join an adventuring company as the cute mascot?

 

[X] Stay in the sky and watch what happens.

 

That would have been west.

Oh, and the larger-version-creature isn't that much bigger than the creature.

 

[X] Float back and tell the creature about larger-version-creature.

I wonder if this is one of those rare, yet strangely frequent, good Drow.

 

[x] Float back and tell the creature about larger-version-creature.

 

[X] Float back and tell the creature about larger-version-creature.

You decide to tell the Small creature about Large creature. As fellow intelligent beings, it's polite to inform others when possibly hostile creatures show up. At least, you think that's the polite thing to do.

... You just had a thought - maybe the Large creature was the one that set the trap that caught Small creature. All the more reason to inform Small creaure, then! A quick glance at Large creature tells you that at the rate it's moving, you have plenty of time to go back.

You float back to Small creature and attempt to tell it that a larger creature is heading its way. Since it cannot understand Beholderese, you endeavor to communicate by simultaneously rolling your eyes and waving your eyestalks. It takes a while, and eventually it gets the idea, but at that point you're making eyestalk acrobatics so ridiculous that any sane beholder would be obligated to kill you.

Small creature decides to hide behind a tree opposite the direction Large creature is coming from as soon as it understands what you're trying to convey. Its posture indicates readiness - you speculate that its going to attack Large creature, possibly using magic.

You...

[] Hide too!
-[] Opposite where Large creature is coming from.
-[] To the side!
[] Float up and come down for a Sneak Headbutt.
[] Write in.
--------------------

To express myself more clearly:

The O represents the trap, X trees, D the Small Creature, -> direction Large creature is coming from.


XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXDXOXXXX <-
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX

Something like that.

 

[x]Hide too
-[x]To the Side to the left of small creature.

 

[X] Hide too!
-[X] To the side!

 

[X] Hide too!
-[X] To the side!

 

[X] Nobody ever looks up!

 

[X] Hide too!
-[X] To the side!

 

But the elven Ranger who set a trap that draws people up.