Crunch. Basher's fist piles into the kraken and something inside breaks. The kraken drops to the stairs with a muffled clump and stops moving.
Basher's rage continues and he ignores that his opponent has fallen. He rips the tentacle still wrapped around him in a display of rage-enhanced strength and proceeds to batter the construct squid with it.
Rolund’s attempt to calm the construct warforged almost costs him his life when one of Basher’s swings comes dangerously close to flattening his head. Clearly, someone else will have to take the dangerous chore of calming the warforged.
When it finally becomes clear to Gil that she's going to have to exit the suit and swim for air, she pops open the canopy.
Amazed to find herself (and the suit) out of the water, she stands looking around, "What..? How..?"
Thank the Flame!!!
Gil tries to use her scroll of RMD on the golem suit once more.
Damage repaired
"Basher! Stand down!" barks Lightbringer in his best sergeant's voice, figuring that the dim warforged will respond best to military type authority. Once the battle rage has left the other construct, he adds, "Well done Basher. Now, let us return to the surface for repairs. Help me drag this guardian up with us, we may be able to salvage some parts."
Once back to the surface, Lightbringer looks to Rolund, Janosz and Ezreal. "You fought most bravely," he says. "Are you much injured? We may need to set up the tent for a short while to effect repairs before continuing."
Gil nods at Lightbringer's suggestion, looking at the suit with a critical eye. "I'm afraid this thing is a massive paperweight for a while. The systems seem to be undamaged and I can see signs that something is still running, but it's not responding to me. Perhaps it does some sort of self-repair? If we could get it into the tent or into the portable hole, that would be good. Otherwise, I think we would have to leave it behind."
"Getting the golem into the portable hole shouldn't be too hard - it's just about draping the fabric over it, right? I can do that while you heal up the others."
Gil looks doubtful at Janosz' suggestion, but shrugs, "It's surely worth a try. Beats anything I can think of."
Janosz drapes the nondescript cloth over the inert suit and it vanishes into extradimensional space.
“We should take a few moments for repairs. Set up the tent if required. Ezreal, do you have any remaining wands or scrolls to repair Basher or I? If not I will use some of my remaining potions.”
"I have some healing. I didn't exactly exhaust my spells there; let me know. I have my wand too."
Setting up the M.A.S.H. tent;
Rod hits Ez with a wand of cure mod wounds; he's down 13 hp.
"There you go, friend."
Rolund drinks a dose of the goodberry wine to heal his wound and satisfy his hunger. Time for a good meal had ended; speed was now their ally to surprise their foes.
Lightbringer administers some potions of repair moderate damage to Basher and himself (unless Ez steps in with wands etc).
The wrecked kraken lies inert on the floor, barbed tentacles trailing into the water. Eying it up for salvage, the drill bit - still snarled in rope - glitters interestingly. Closer examination reveals that it seems to be adamantine tipped with diamond.
After stowing the diamond tipped drillbit safely in the tent, Lightbringer asks, "shall we try the watery passage again?"
“Farlowe, how long will your spell last?” Rolund asks.
“We’ll need to go back down and check how long the underwater passage is for those unable to breathe water. There will be more traps and guardians ahead of us. So we must be wary.”
"I'm ready."
"Time will tell, Purified."
“Indeed. Basher, Rolund, Janosz – if the water breathing spells persist – and myself should forge ahead.”
Lightbringer makes ready to re-enter the water.
The four re-enter the chilly water. It is dark, but a combination of darkvision and the glow of an everburning torch allows them to navigate. They reach the point of the entrance to the sideroom where the kraken lurked. The headless corpse disturbed in the initial attack sprawls against the doorway.
Lightbringer, who has no need for air in his lungs (or indeed lungs) in order to breathe, looks at the corpse then at Janosz. "Do you think this was one of the people you've been tracking?" he asks, his voice burbling weirdly in the water, "or is it an older corpse?"
He tries to determine, at a glance, if the lack of head is kraken related or from some other cause. He glances up the tunnel through the murky water, and briefly into both side rooms here, looking for the head or anything else of import.
Perception:
"The wand should last most of the day. We should be fine." After repairing the 'forged to the extent of his capability Ezreal notes the remaining dents and scoring in Lightbringer's frame with some dissatisfaction. "Until I get the opportunity to scribe some more scrolls or purchase another wand, my ability to keep you in working order will be severely restricted. Protect yourselves."
While the others are dealing with the armored suit, Ezreal inspects the kraken. "This thing was an unholy terror. I can only thank the Host that it never entered mass production. A few of these would have effectively ended the riverboat recon teams where I served and used strategically could have crippled the navy."
You can throw me in the tent; it's all good.
If all seems clear, Lightbringer leads the group to quickly search the Lurker’s chamber, then the chamber across the corridor (if nothing untoward happens in the first). Janosz takes charge in both searches.
"The wand should last most of the day. We should be fine." After repairing the 'forged to the extent of his capability Ezreal notes the remaining dents and scoring in Lightbringer's frame with some dissatisfaction. "Until I get the opportunity to scribe some more scrolls or purchase another wand, my ability to keep you in working order will be severely restricted. Protect yourselves."
While the others are dealing with the armored suit, Ezreal inspects the kraken. "This thing was an unholy terror. I can only thank the Host that it never entered mass production. A few of these would have effectively ended the riverboat recon teams where I served and used strategically could have crippled the navy."
Janosz quickly finds Brelish identification papers on the body, dated a few months ago. The armour appears to be of good quality and a bow lies in one of the room, though now spoiled by immersion.
One of the rooms has a long range with stuffed targets at one end. The other appears to have contained a large tank of thick glass which occupied over half of the chamber. The glass is shattered, which is presumably how the chamber got flooded. A corpse in a full-body leather suit with water-tight seals, wearing a globular helmet with a glass viewing port, lies inside. Next to him inside the tank is some machinery, and tinkering with it manages to extricate an ornate glass bottle or decanter, from the open neck of which can be felt emerging a current of water.
"The headless corpse is clearly one of the guys we tracked. Should be interesting to see if the fellow in the suit is the other one."
The drenched, headless corpse is a grisly trophy, but a quick search doesn't find anything very useful other than ruined rations, a sword and a pouch full of loose change and personal effects.
The body in the suit is wearing Cannith livery, also soaked due to the suit flooding through the torn air hose. He also has minor personal items but nothing of particular value.
Matersork. We're going to have to spread its usage outside of Brave Scandinavia.
The cessation of the flow from the bottle doesn't seem to have an immediate effect on the water level in the corridor.
"I guess it'll take a while for the water to go away. You guys want to ferry me through the soak in the tent, eh?"
“We don’t have time to fix the suit,” Rolund says to the others. “Put it in the hole with the armored suit for another time.”
“We need to move quickly. Master Frogshanks, the warforged, and myself will continue our exploration of the underwater passage and see if it exits somewhere above water.”
“The rest of you. Set up the tent and prepare to wait inside when we come back and find an exit.”