As soon as the PCs enter this room, a large unseen bell emits a single, deep toll, signaling the end of the dungeon’s longstanding stasis effect and bringing its denizens and illusions back to life.
A series of stairs winds west and east down to the floor of this bare stone room. A short railing permits a view of the room from the staircase’s landing. A scuffed circle of blue-white chalk marked on the floor of the northern section of the room is filled with various sigils and runes. Four-foot-tall torch holders adorn the corners of the room, and a wide, closed stone doors take up half of the western walls.
The redheaded woman smells the damp air, finding something else entirely among the strange scents.
Fortune and Glory awaits us just behind that door, goodfellows! Worry not, for Valerya the Valorous will spearhead this expedition - right behind our strongman Grutsnick!, she exclaims, guiding the way to the door.
Hmn, where to go, where to go... Fortune should show us the way! Quickly, Valerya takes out a gold coin and sends it spinning wildly before nabbing it from the air. Heads we got north, tails we go west.
To the wild west we go!
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Adonara follows quietly onto the landing, both anxious and excited about what the group might discover ahead, but feeling relatively secure behind the breastplate she wears over a simple, fitted tan tunic. She smiles at the human woman’s enthusiasm, thinking, I like her spirit.
As the elf casts her glance around the room, the torches’ tall holders remind her that she may not be able to rely on lighting further on, and she murmurs a prayer as she rests her hand on the whip coiled at her hip, setting it aglow. “Yes, let’s go west.”
Chantilly pushes her way to the front of the others, "West is good with me" The half-orc makes sure everyone is ready before heading in that direction.
Opening the Western door you look up to find the archway of this chamber’s entrance curtained with black chains and metal rings, from which hang the hands of many species animal paws, humanoid hands, and skeletal fists.
Within this room stretches a sun-drenched, dusty canyon. Layers of reddish rock create small plateaus that rise up in graduated ledges against the walls of the room, which appear to be impossibly high canyon walls. Tall pillars of orange stone rise up from the parched earth, all seemingly randomly dispersed throughout the barren landscape. One of these hoodoos soars well above the rest, easily rising thirty feet into the sky above. A fissure in the walls opens up to the northeast, revealing a night sky full of stars in the distance.
"Pretty. Everybody watch your hands."
The hulking half-orc carries his greatsword at the ready.
Chantilly follows into the west room and whistles in appreciation, "This was not what I was expected. Well I suppose we won't be able to climb up there. I'm more of a push them over then get up top kind of gal!"
As you begin to make your way into the room, you hear snickers and chuckles coming from the edges of the shadows of the hoodoos... small and little creatures... four with the heads of the ugliest dogs you've ever seen and two with insectlike heads wielding hammers.
Chantilly:
Grut:
Valerya:
Badguys:
Action Tracker (Round 1): Badguys, Adonara, Chantilly, Grut, Valerya
Tiny arrows fly towards you...
Bow at Grut:
Bow at Grut:
Bow at Adonara:
Bow at Chantilly:
While the two insect headed ones swarm into Grutsnik's personal space and try and crush his toes...
Hammer at Grut: for
Hammer at Grut: for
Round 1
Grutsnick attempts to hit one of the creatures as they move to attack him.
Having completely missed the first, he steps over to hit one of the dog-face gremlins.
Chantilly moves around the pillar to F17 and tries to take out one of the two creatures on Grut
Valerya loudly exclaims as the enemy ambush is sprung:
Curse my luck, gremlins! I claim kill rights on the uglier one! No, Grutsnick, of course I don't mean you!
Adonara's bowshot flies true, but does not harm the gremlin as well as hoped. It's skin proving resilient.
Chantilly ignores that restriction and cleaves straight through one of the insectoid creatures on Grut - damage outweighing any defence.
Grut splats one of the dog-faced little buggers with his hammer, and Valerya manages to skewer one also.
The two remaining pugwampis shoot...
Arrow at Grut:
Arrow at Grut:
While the sole remaining insectoid also steps up to the big guy...
Hammer at Grut:
Action Tracker (Round 2): Badguys, Adonara, Chantilly, Grut, Valerya
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Knowing that she won't be able to hit as hard as either Chantilly or Grut, Adonara notes that Valerya's cold iron rapier seems to do the trick, so as she ducks back she reaches deeper in her quiver. Adonara rounds the hoodoo with an arrow barbed with cold iron in her hand, draws, and fires.
(cold iron)
'Tis incapable of resisting my blade, just as you, sweet Adonara, can't resist my charms!
Valerya digs her heels in the earth to start a short run towards the rugged wall.
Her feet failing to find purchase, the redheaded tries again, making short progress.
...eventually.
Round 2
Seeing the weapons of his enemies miss him or bounce off, Grutsnick steps away and swings at the insect that is harrying him.
Grutsnick turns the second insect like creature into paste and Adonara gravely wounds a pugwampi with her bowshot. Valerya forces her way unto the top of the hoodoo - and with the pugwampi unable to escape her blade - the threat is cleanly and clearly ended.
There is little else in the chamber of interest bar the exit to the North and East.
Valerya adds two notches on her sheath belt.
"There is a time for resistance," she
And this isn't it. How about you gimme a little kiss for good luck?
Making the easy ascent through the hoodoos you see a dark night sky full of twinkling stars above you. Running southwest to northeast is a jagged bridge of land leading over a huge ravine. Obsidian cliffs descend from the land bridge on both the left and right sides, plummeting downward to the hard dirt forty feet below, which is intermittently dotted with dead trees whose roots appear to claw at the soil. A set of natural stairs rises from the chasm’s floor in the southwestern portion of this room. To the south is a small tunnel dug out of the chasm wall at the base of the valley, and to the north a wooden door is set into the black rock where the bridge meets the chasm’s edges.
However as you look up you note that one of the stars is moving... and isn't a star... and is instead a living writhing storm that is descending towards you. At that moment, you also see that the earth bridge has two lumps upon it that rear up and form into animate mudmen...
Valerya smiles, making a swift ample cut with her blade before announcing herself:
And so battle is joined!
Almost immediately, she springs to action, hoping the enemy is appropriately bewildered by her bluster to properly defend itself.
I offer you this one last chance to surrender before I call upon my blade to finish its muddy business!
Round 1
"No surrender!"
Grutsnick also charges, striking at the other mudman.
Valerya's charge is barely unsuccessful, the point of her blade deflecting off the mudman's thick hide.
Grusnick has better luck, his hammer slamming powerfully into the mud creature and forcefully damaging it.
Adonara's loosed arrow flies wide of the living storm.
Chantilly will use charge through feat to overrun through Grutsnick (assuming he lets me through) and attack the mudman.
Chantilly hustles past Grutsnick and under the arc of his hammer before lashing out - blow damaging the injured mudman beyond it's ability to continue.
The sole remaining mudman bludgeons at Valerya...
Slam: for and DC 14 Fort save
...the force behind the blow evading the attempted parry of her blade.
The lightning beast descends upon Chantilly and sparks flash forward...
Slam: for
...the aftermath of the thunk followed with spasms of electricity through her body.