The book seems to be a tome with a bunch of terrible monsters in it. It is quite extensive, and seems to have enjoyed heavy use in the recent weeks and months.
Elaina flips through the tome. Elaina cannot read Abyssal. "I knew it! It's a goblin summoning thing. I bet we could summon our own goblin army with it. Hmm, yes. It all makes sense now." Not being particularly strong, she rarely volunteers to carry anything and hands the book to anyone else. "OK I think we're down to the last door in the place, right before the pits of monsters that want to eat the world." She leads the way back to the untried door and opens it.
Rumal just follows along. He likes the bunch, they are entertaining if nothing else. That human, though, she says things like the random mumblings of a passed out drunk. No sense to them, but she's an oddity. He almost wants to see what she would be like drunk. Well, heck, he likes to see what everyone is like drunk. Nonetheless, he follows them to wherever they are headed now, with only the occasional hiccup or burp reminding the others he's still there.
Nover is looking at the stairwell anxiously.
"Let's go, I've got my blade, anybody have a spear that can be right behind me? It's not really a necessity, just nice to have. Let's keep moving so we can rest soon."
"Unfortunately, the magic in the rod eludes me at this moment. So we should push forward it seems, lead on friend Nover. The sooner we get to rest, the better."
This wing of the complex explored, Nover leads the group back to the room with the statue, taking the eastern passage. A few sets of shallow steps lead upwards, and ahead the group sees a single door at the end of the hall. The door looks in good shape, with iron banding around the outside to reinforce it.
I wave invitation to Nover. "By all means, cousin, proceed," I tell him.
Elaina urges whichever dwarf is in front of her forward.
"I thank you for the honour, cousin," I nod appreciatively, as I step before Nover, since he has politely waited. A good sign that he has not lost himself to bloodlust. Then I open the door and step through...
As Togog opens the door, the group sees a small circular chamber with a small stone pool in the middle of the room. The rim of the pool is lined with skulls, giving it a quaint, homey look.
Initiative:
Surprise Round: Rumal, Enna, Elaina, Creature, Nover
Enna lobs yet another attempted glob of acid at this new threat, hoping her target practice has bettered her aim.
Apparently it has.
Rumal looks twice at the thing, unslinging his crossbow before adding, "They ane no moun' of dring thadill make that thing pretty."
Elaina is feeling a bit too faint to try and move past the dwarves in front of her.
Rumal takes a look at the thing, and has to take a second glance to be sure he is seeing it correctly. He makes a correct, if impolite, comment on its looks, than unslings his crossbow, getting ready to improve the creature's complexion.
Enna shows off the skills she's been practicing, shaving the corner of the wall to tag the creature with a glob of acid.
The creature, realizing it has been revealed, starts flapping its bat wings, going further into the air. It opens its mouth, its jaws distending like a snakes, impossibly wide, before emitting a piercing shriek!
Initiative:
Surprise Round: Rumal, Enna, Elaina, Thing, Nover
Round 1: Togog, Rumal, Enna, Elaina, Thing, Nover
Rumal winces at the sound, but still offers an appraisal of the performance, "Well, thas a horrific singing voice, but nuthin compared to my grade an Wilomena. Tha' woman could wake tha dead with her caterwaul." Regardless, he takes shaky aim with his now-loaded crossbow and lets fly. With an accentuating hiccup just as he lets loose, the bolt skips off the door frame, yet ends up still winging the creature.
Elaina's fortitude holds strong.
And Enna freezes up at the shriek. effectively out of the fight.
Togog's Dwarven fortitude bears up to the challenge... but he can't see what's attack them.
"Angradd's blessing be upon you," I say, letting his divine power flow through me to support my friends and allies...
Nover sheathes his blade and drops his shield before moving up to the creature. During the movement he draws his ransuer.
Nover sheathes his weapon and drops his shield, then draws the ranseur as he steps near the strange, hideous beast.
Togog, now clearly seeing the flying, disgusting head, calls upon Angradd's blessing, and the other members of the party feel invigorated by the divine energy.
Rumal offers a critique on the monster's weird screech, then proceeds to shoot his crossbow at it, clipping one of its large ears.
Enna, experiencing enough bad luck for an entire party of adventurers, is completely frozen in fear.
Elaina decides to bide her time, not wanting the thing to focus on her.
The head-thing swoops down, attempting to sink its rows of sharp teeth into Nover's face. The battle-tested dwarf raises his armored arm up, and the thing ineffectually bites down on his mail.
Summary:
Head-thing - 2 damage
Enna - Paralyzed
"Don jus stan there, Missy, do sumpin," Rumal manages, as he makes his way past the paralyzed Enna. He gets up into the space between Togog and Elaina, and fires. Then he realizes he didn't reload the thing, and sets about doing that instead.
"Foul creature," I snarl, "die and return to the helldepths from which ye spawned!"
Attack Greataxe +3 , damage
"Hah, winged beast. You won't be going anywhere. Now come here!"
The battle hardened dwarf drops his second weapon before lunging at the creature.
-Posted with Wayfinder
[ooc]my apologies, I forgot to add the bless to my CMB. Add another plus one, if it does bite me I rage and increase the roll by two more. My AC is currently 15.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Elana sees her chance to strike the bat-thing when it swoops down in Nover.
Elaina is sure she read somewhere that three dwarves was a cursed number of dwarves.
Nover attempts to jump up and grab the flying head, much to its surprise! It's not so surprised that it doesn't try to bite the brave dwarf, though. The angle is all wrong, as the teeth just scrape against mail as the sturdy dwarf drags it down.
Capitalizing on his cousin's successful maneuver, Togog takes careful aim and plants his hammer directly on the thing's skull, leaving a dark welt in its wake.
Rumal moves closer to the melee, winding the crank on his crossbow and setting another bolt.
Elaina laments on the unlucky company of dwarves as her blade narrowly misses the fairly immobile head-thing.
The thing attempts to bite at Nover ferociously. It bites its own lip, instead.
Nover begins to crush the head thing with his gauntlets while maintaining his grapple.
"The thing is trying to wiggle free, there. Now somebody hit it! Spells, arrows, weapons whatever. It's rather bitey, for that matter what in Torag's name is this abomination!?!"
He grunts a few times while speaking as he wrestles the creature into a position where it cannot move.
"Bam! It's dead!"
Once Nover gets the thing grounded and easier to hit, Rumal bemoans wasting his time loading his crossbow for nothing. He instead puts it away, and moves to try and find a spot where he can hit the thing.
"Die," I snap simply, sweeping at the beast with my axe
attack , damage
As Nover holds the beast still, Elaina and Togog make a quick end of it. Enna's paralysis wears off soon after.
"Eww! How can anyone sleep with all these freaks down here? They're not even the same kind of freaks. It's weird that they all get along enough to live down here." Elaina kicks on of the skulls into the little pool. "I wonder if the bat built this."
Elaina finds nothing of interest in the room, except a dead flying head and a skull-rimmed pool full of crystal clear water. After kicking one of the resident skulls into the water (which surprisingly doesn't make anything awful happen), the curious bard walks to the eastern door and opens it. Inside the door is a spiral staircase leading up!
Holding the head still, Nover tosses it up, grabs it by it's hair and hurls it into the water. Removing his bloodstained gauntlets he moves to help Enna up.
"One down, the rest to go. Ms. Enna, are you alright? That was a pretty nasty fall. Do you know what that thing was?"
After the paralyses wears off."No clue what it was, nasty is all i can say. Felt like every muscle in my body seized all at once."
"It's a spiral staircase! There's a serial killer here somewhere!"
Elaina waits for someone else to go up the stairs. She heard a story about a madman that killed cute girls on such a staircase, and she's the cutest one here by far.
With a soft nod, I proceed up the staircase...
As Togog starts to proceed up the staircase, he is dismayed to find out that this staircase is block with rubble from up above a short distance up the steps.
"No good this way," I mutter. "Unless..."
Perception stonework check...
To Togog's knowledge, the collapse looks complete. It would take a crew of 6 a few days to clear it all out.
"Now can we rest? We have a location where nothing is going to kill us, we can take guard duties, and nothing is going to come in from up there to kill us. I'm sturdy but I'm starting to get a bit chewed up here."
I slowly, and regretfully, nod my agreement. "If we needs-must pass that bizarre room of flesh and weirdness, would be best to have our full wits about us. Of goblins, I have little fear, save for the innocent caught in their clutches, but there is greater weirdness afoot here," I make his sign. "Angradd watch over us."
"But I'm not tired! And where is the goblin army? They must be the tiniest goblins in the world." Elaina checks the bottom of her shoes.
Elaina points over her head. "I don't wanna sleep on the floor, my comfy bed is right there-ish."