Tlatrien now went truly wide-eyed, and froze abruptly like a child caught stealing sweets, moving scarcely enough to maintain her position in the dark water. "Why not admit it!" she said, almost more to herself. "Aye...but at this point knowing will avail you little!"<br/><br/>The faint swimming sounds echoed from behind them up the tunnel, gradually growing closer. Then Aria gestured, for Kass's benefit,<em>ahead</em>along the tunnel, behind Tlatrien - as three more swimmers moved into the edge of Aria's darkvision. They all resembled Tlatrien in race and dress (or lack thereof), swimming with relative quiet - and, Aria could see on their faces, they'd caught sight fo her just as she had of them.<br/><br/>"Three more...here they come...and their faces say they're looking for a fight!" Aria used her arms to give Kass an area of their location, pointing toward each in turn. She kicked forward in the water, clearly bearing towards Tlatrien, and then she began to blink: her body vanished, leaving a split-second body-bubble of water rushing inward where her body had been - then a foot beyond it, water surged outward as she reappeared and displaced it.<br/><br/>Tlatrien seemed to hesitate, seizing up mentally for a moment, but the other three swimming up demonstrated no such reservations. Two spellcast underwater, one of them hastening herself and the others, one of whom cast a conjuration to suffuse the water around Aria and Kass with clouds of some violently green acidic liquid.<br/><br/>Aria twisted her body painstakingly through the water, between the billowing and dispersing acid. As she came through she saw the nearest of the new swimmers staring hard at her. Those of he three swimmers seemed somehow blindingly bright despite casting no illumination over the surrounding darkness, and the tiefling felt a smarting on her eyes - it passed quickly, but she had the sense that she wouldn't been blinded if not for the abjurative magic of her eye lenses. The slit-pupiled eyes of the nearest winged woman seemed to carry some other effect of their own - and Aria felt her body seize up momentarily, then she was frozen in place, and sinking to the floor of the tunnel....<br/><br/>...Aria had a sudden sense of deja vu, like she were reliving a moment she just had, or like she'd just had a prescient daydream about the next few moments to come. The nearest new attacker was staring into her scornfully. Aria felt her body threatened to seize up, but then the sensation passed. She hissed to Kass, just as the shapes of the swimmers came into the edge of the bardess's blindsight, "Their visage is blinding...keep the blindfold on, even if you would otherwise would plan to shed it and use a light source!"<br/><br/><br/><br/>Init<br/>Aria 25<br/>NPCs 24<br/>Kass 18<br/><br/>Aria:<br/>Swim check 19+8, regular speed (5'!) as a move action, then activate blink<br/><br/>Half-dragons:<br/>Center one: casts haste on self and other two, swim 30' closer<br/>South one: cast Acid Storm on Kass and Aria, swim 30' closer. 47 acid damage to Kass and Aria, reflex DC 27 half/negates.<br/>North one: swim 30' closer, stunning glance at Aria, Fort DC 32 negates.<br/><br/>Aria: reflex roll 15, saved. Fort roll 1, fail - use fortunestone to reroll; 39+2r, saved.<br/>Blinding gazes: immune thanks to 'raptoran mask' abilities of her eye lenses.<br/><br/><br/>North one:<br/><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;"><br/>A = Aria<br/>H = other half-dragons (the north one is beyond Kass's blindsight range but pointed to by Aria. In other words she doesn't have line of sight from her present location, but knows the square. The other two are just barely within her blindsight range.)<br/>K = Kass<br/>T = Tlatrien<br/><br/>. . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>. . . . . . H . . . . . .<br/>. . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>. . . . . . H . . . . A .<br/>. . . . . . . . T . . . K<br/>. . . . . . H . . . . . .<br/>. . . . . . . . . . . . .<br/>. . . . . . . . . . . . .</span>