Empirical Gnollage: Installment 85 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment085.png]

The horrible spider was a large as Al's torso. It collided with his upper body like a heavy leather sack full of mud. Its many legs clung to him as the impact knocked him off balance and he fell. The creature drove its dagger-like fangs into Al's shoulder. He screamed at the burning pain as he struggled on the floor to push the thing away and get Purgatio into position to stab. He could spare little attention for Gruntle as the gnoll's eager barking laughter started up, but Al's peripheral vision caught the black-eyed gnoll holding another of the spider-creatures away from himself. Its legs scrabbled for a grip on Gruntle as he lunged in for his large gleaming teeth to chomp behind its head.

Gruntle dropped the stricken spider twitching to the floor and rushed into the room, as a bright flash of divine light stabbed down from the ceiling onto Al's attacker. A gleam of metal followed, puncturing the side of its head and sending it spasming and rolling off of Al. Bote rushed to help Al get to his feet as the bark-laughter from the room beyond was joined by several loud CLONK! sounds of wood hitting stone.

Quiet skittering quickly approached the hallway and another of the spiders scurried out from the top of the doorway and fled over their heads down the hall along the ceiling.

Despite its foremost legs being burnt and stiff, the creature moved quickly, dodging Al's hasty stab up at it with Purgatio as it went by. Al heard Gruntle's running footsteps chasing after it, but considering how fast the spider was moving he didn't think the gnoll could catch up to it. He tucked Purgatio away again and conjured up the bolts of abstract violence that Melissa had taught him. They struck the spider as it reached the middle of the ceiling in the refreshement room. It twiched and writhed for a moment and then was still, dangling by one leg from the ceiling. Gruntle raced down the hallway after it and swung hard at the dangling spider. Ichor and chunks spattered messily against the far wall as the dead thing practically exploded from the impact. Gruntle looked for more things to kill, but found none. He gave a long huff of frustration, then loped back down the hall to where the others stood, watching the door warily in case anything else came out to attack them.

Al hissed at the stinging pain as he unconsciously reached up to massage the spot where the spider had bitten him. The only sound coming from the room was a quiet trickling of water somewhere inside. Al raised his torch to get a better look and groaned when the movement made the bite hurt worse. In the torchlight through the haze of burnt-spiderweb smoke, Al saw the blackened lump that remained of one of the spider-things, on the floor pressed against a door in the opposite wall. Another door was in the wall to the left, between a pair of washbasins. To the right, a row of partitions were along the wall, each enclosing a portion of a wall-spanning stone bench with a hole in each. The sound of running water seemed to be coming from there. Mildly charred wooden half-doors, which would cover the partitioned areas from about two feet from the floor up to about three feet from the ceiling hung open on bronze hinges at then end of each partition wall. Numerous bones were scattered on the floor, mostly from small animals of some sort. There was also a burnt and very dead goblin with lumps of charred webbing stuck to it.

"Found the privies," Al said, lowering the torch again with a wince. Gruntle walked back inside and looked around hopefully for other threats. When he saw none, he went to look down into the holes.

"Allow me to examine that injury," Bote insisted to Al while Gruntle investigated, "if it is envenomed, it would be dangerous to leave it untreated.

"Okay, but let's move away from there just in case there's anything else hiding," he agreed, "Oh, and thank you both for helping me out there. I hadn't expected there to be more of them, and I didn't know they could jump like that."

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"Hey, no problem, we can't let anything bad happen to our mighty sword hero!," Wikwocket replied, "Besides, you'd do the same for us."

Al struggled to come up with a witty retort. "Yeah, probably," he finally said, "If I could actually hit what I was swinging at with it. You're both unhurt?"

"So far!" Wikwocket answered. Bote nodded.

"All right then, would you mind chaperoning our gnoll in case he annoys something dangerous in there?" Al asked Wikwocket.

"Wouldn't miss it, I should get chances to annoy dangerous things, too!" she answered with a grin, and went into the room to see what Gruntle was looking at. Bote led Al back to a table in the refreshment room and helped him get his robe and the chain shirt off. Al frowned at the two small holes through broken chain links, while Bote prodded around the holes in his shoulder. They fangs hadn't penetrated too far, possibly slowed by having to punch through the chainmail. The small holes bled only a little but the skin around the punctures was a deep angry red. Al yelped, as Bote pressed lightly on the injury and examined the resulting blood and change in skin-color. The dwarf placed a hand gently between the two holes and spoke a brief prayer to correct the wound's interference with the Ineffable Plans, and a flash of divine light pulsed from underneath Bote's hand. Al felt the relief of the pain immediately reducing to a mild ache.

"So, it is allowed for the wizard to be miraculously healed occasionally," Al said.

"Yes, occasionally," Bote agreed.

Al picked up his chainmail shirt and carefully bent the links back into place and magicked the broken ones back into an unbroken state, one after another. He tugged on them just to make sure they were holding up properly. Then, he magicked away the holes in his cloth undershirt, followed by the bloodstains.

While he was doing this, he listened to Gruntle and Wikwocket down the hall.

"HELLOOOOO!" Wikwocket's voice echoed and reverberated as she shouted down into the privy-holes. Al heard her laugh as Gruntle aimed a low howling sound ending in a quickly-rising whoop into one of the holes as well.

Al was just getting his chainmail shirt back on when he heard Wikwocket exclaim, "Wow! That's still hot!"

"What is it?" Al called out down the hall.

"That door behind the spider you baked is still hot to the touch!" She shouted back. "The other one isn't, though."

"Don't open them yet, wait for us!" Al yelled back, pulling his robe back on and buckling Purgatio around his waist again. Bote watched as Al did this.

"You appear to no longer be in pain," the dwarf observed, nodding in satisfaction, "shall we go see what further danger our troublemakers have found for us?"

"I'd rather not, but I don't think we can avoid it."

Al found Wikwocket lying down on the floor near the opposite door, trying to see underneath around the crispy remains of the spider that had been waiting there when Al conjured up the fire.

"The heat's coming from inside," she observed, "I can't see much, but the room looks mostly empty, except for a lump of something in the middle. I haven't seen anything move."

Gruntle yawned and pressed an ear against the door. He listened for a while.

"Water. Some hissing," the gnoll announced.

"Hissing...like a snake?" Al asked, remembering the last non-humanish corporeal undead thing they'd fought - the giant skeletal snake in the tomb of Aemilia and Darius. Gruntle shrugged.

"So, the thing your mysterious cause wants us to capture might be in there. Don't open the door yet!" Al hastened to add, "I think we should leave that for last, after we have a chance to prepare properly. It's going to be dangerous enough just to fight some unknown dead thing, it'll be even harder to do it without destroying it. Whatever it is."

"Are you sure?" Wikwocket asked, "it'll be more exciting if we just charge in!"

"I can't tell if you're being serious right now, but I'd rather spread the excitement in my life out over a long time than end up getting prematurely killed off by excessively exciting events. I would have assumed you'd agree, it's kind of hard to brag about your adventures when you're dead."

"Oh! But what if I became a ghost! I could haunt this place and tell visitors our story forever!"

"But then you'd be stuck here, and never have any new stories."

"You know, you're a real pessimist," Wikwocket accused Al.

"Realist. Besides, knowing my luck, the terrible thing we're supposed to run into is probably hiding in a perfectly ordinary room and this unnaturally-hot room is just some sort of trick. We may all end up haunting this place anyway."

"That's the spirit! Ha! I made a pun," Wikwocket said with a grin. "All right, we'll take a look at the other door first."

She went to peek under the other doorway, and Gruntle lazily joined her to listen.

"More water," Gruntle announced.

"I think I see a few big chairs, but not much else. Looks like it's not very wide, the wall looks like it's only a few paces across from here," said Wikwocket from the floor.

Bote looked thoughtful. "If I have not lost my sense of direction, I would guess we are near the baths. This might be the space we saw overlooking them."

"One way to find out!" Wikwocket declared, standing and putting her hand on the latch. Gruntle calmly readied his shield and flail. Wikwocket lifted the latch and yanked the door open, and Gruntle leaned into the space beyond to look around.

Had enough violence to satisfy him for now? I suppose we've been fighting things trying to kill us violently at least three times in just the last hour or two. Is that going to be a problem when we find the thing we're supposed to subdue? Al wondered to himself. Then again, maybe that'll make it easier to keep him from destroying it if there's a fight. He followed as Gruntle strolled through the open doorway.

True to Bote's prediction, Al saw they were in a sort of narrow gallery. Only perhaps four paces from the door was a partial wall that went from the floor up to about hip height. Above that it was open, overlooking the baths below. Finely carved granite chairs were set near the opening where occupants could easily watch anyone that was in the baths. Though it was only a few paces across, it stretched for a good fifteen to twenty paces above the baths. There was another door in the wall at the other end, which Wikwocket and Gruntle went to investigate.

"Hey! This one's hot, too!" Wikwocket called out as she got down on the ground to look under the door. "It's the same room, I can see that lump sticking up in the middle of the room, it might be in some kind of hole. I can hear running water and that hissing sound Gruntle mentioned."

"I guess that settles it. This room seems to be the only place left, so whatever it is we're looking for has to be in there," Al reasoned aloud.

"You're about to tell us not to open the door yet so we can spend some boring time getting ready, aren't you," Wikwocket predicted.

"Yes."