Drawing an arrow from his quiver, Yarroth sends the deadly shaft towards the wooden construct.
Kerren moves away from the statue wincing in pain and draws his short bow.
Yarroth's arrow shatters against the tough wooden statue, leaving it seemingly unharmed.
Looking bewildered, Anton picks himself up from a prone position and readies his shield and longsword. "Great! A big wood statue is trying to kill us now - this just keeps getting better and better."
Anton tries swinging for the back of the statue's legs, but it moves away before he can connect. "Just like chopping a tree down - a big, nasty, moving tree with shields."
Santoval cuts deeply into the statue's leg. Another blow like that will topple it.
The statue relentless pounds at Santoval with the shields. He dodges one blow but is caught by another powerful slam. If there were some way to get the shields away from the statue, it would be much less effective.
Dropping his bow, Yarroth swing his shortsword out and attempts to strike at the creature.
Seeing Yarroth's arrow break on the statue Kerren drops his bow and pulls out a flask of oil.
Kerren will light the flask and throw it at the statue.
Kerren's oil flask splashes over the statue. The fire starts small, but begins to quickly spread across its wooden body.
Seeing the fire spreading, Yarroth moves away from the wooden statue and takes up his bow once again.
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Santoval shakes his head, slightly dazed by the blow from the statue's shield, and falls back a step. After a second, the gleam is back in his eye, and as the flames begin to lick up the side of the statue, Santoval lets out a gutteral growl, dodges a blow from a shield and hacks at the statue's legs.
The firelight confuses Santoval as he swings, the greatsword's arc missing the wooden form and contacting the flagstones, sending sparks skittering between the statue's feet.
Santoval's blow nearly topples the flaming statue, but it remains standing.
The statue relentless pounds at its opponents, nearly catching Yarroth with a shield and smashing Anton hard.
The flames spread across the statue's body. The deep cuts along its legs become brittle from the flames and snap, the torso falling motionless to the ground. The two shields clatter as they skid away from it on the floor.
Kerren backs away from the statue.
"We did it!"
"Right? It's not moving... right..."
Anton looks dazed and on the verge of consciousness after taking the full brunt of the statue's shield bash.
"Uhhhng...I feel terrible."
He leans up against a wall and slumps down into a sitting position, watching the smoldering statue.
"Santoval, if you still have those healing draughts, now might be an opportune time."
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Coming out of his rage, and panting from exertion, Santoval is silent for a few moments. Blood drips from his nose, and he clearly is favoring his entire left side.
"I am not doing that well either. Here is one of the three that we have. I am loathe to use one myself. Are there any other options?" Santoval asks as he hands over one of the potions to Anton.
"I still have a potion as well. I, unfortunately, do not have any other healing abilities, but perhaps our new friend might?"
Yarroth looks over to Kerren. "And by the way, Kerren, quick thinking with the oil and fire!!"
Kerren's gaze of the burning statue is pulled away at the sound of his name.
"Yes, I can help. Though not for Santoval... until tomorrow. I won't be able to help anyone else until tomorrow.
Oh wait, I can help Satoval too."
Kerren touches everyone's wounds with a soft yellow light surrounding his hands. The light travels over the wounds like a wave of water.
"My other abilities have no effect on a statue, I'm not sure how much help I'll be with my club." Kerren smiles weakly.
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The dribble of blood from Santoval's nose has ceased, and he looks a bit better after the wave of warm healing energy passed through his body.
"Thank you Kerren. To be honest man, just keep us alive, be a good councilor, and lend your club-arm when you are able, and you will make an excellent comrade-in-arms."
Santoval claps Kerren on the back in approval.
"Shall we see what was so special about this statue? Perhaps there is something important about the shields?"
The room is divided into an upper section in the north and a lower section in the south. There is a door in the north wall and a door in the south wall. You came in through a stairway that leads down from the upper north east corner of the room.
The shields are crude tower shields, weighing 60 pounds each. Unwieldy in melee, but could provide total cover to two people against ranged attacks. One reads "home", the other "family".
The burnt cinders of the statue appear to be normal wood, it must have been animated by a magical force.
Kerren smiles at Santoval's words.
"Those are big. They'd be great if we were ever going to storm a castle."
Anton looks at the healing potion Santoval gave him ponderously, and then corks it back up and puts it in his pack.
"Santoval, it looks like our new friend has given us the luxury, at least for now, to save these for another time."
"Whenever you all are ready to proceed, I will follow."
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"I get the feeling that we should continue downward into the bowels of this place. Whatever has caused the carnage here may be down wherever the heart of the tomb is...besides, we still need to get the Flame, and I bet it is further in."
Santoval moves to the south door and listens for any activity.
Kerren will stay near the back of the party but not be last.
"If you need it I can place some light farther than a torch. Just let me know."
"I agree. Let us delve deeper into this place. That girl has to be somewhere!"
This small chamber has a table on the opposite side of the room. On top of this table are a number of items, plus a small note.
There are no other exits to this room.
You have done well to reach this far. Take these as rewards for your heroism!
- Masterwork Greatsword
- Masterwork Composite Longbow (Str +2)
- Masterwork Longsword
- wand of cure light wounds (10 charges)
- a scroll of augury
"I can't use any of the weapons but I can use the wand. It should come in handy seeing as how things have been going. Is it alright if I use the wand?"
Anton picks up the longsword and hefts it in his hand. "This weapon is finely balanced, an expert smith must have made it. Thank Desna somebody is looking out for us!"
"I'm with Santoval - let's continue on deeper into the crypt. As they say, it gets worse before it gets better...I hope."
Anton takes up a marching position behind Kerren, in order to protect the healer from sneak attacks and the like.
Looking over the bow, Yarroth shrugs and slings it onto his back. He takes up position just before the witch, keeping an arrow at the ready.
The door opens to a long corridor flanked by a row of human statues, set into alcoves on each side. The statues look like Kassen, and each one holds a longsword out in front of it. The blades of the northern half of the statues are wrapped in leather padding. The corridor ends in another door to the north.
"Ummm...I think we should keep away from the ones on the north side...they must be padded for a reason."
Kerren casts dancing lights and sends it down the corridor to door at the other end.
"Let's take a look at what's at the other end."
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"This is starting to be like a kobold warren back home. Trap after trap, every five feet...at least these traps haven't been poisioned...or rubbed with garbage and spoiled meat."
Santoval squats down and while talking, starts searching the floor and walls for possible trap triggers.
"And you think that you would be able to smell the traps before you saw them...but the whole warren always stunk of guano and lizard barf. It was enough to make a man dizzy from the fumes."
You don't notice anything unusual along the corridor.
Yarroth moves forward slowly, keeping his distance from the statues as he moves down the hallway.
As Yarroth reaches the middle of the hallway between two statues, he hears the click of a pressure plate. All the statues on along the corridor swing their swords down, catching Yarroth and Santoval off guard. After the trap finishes, the swords remain down, blocking the path. It will take some nimble maneuvering to get past the blades without leather padding (the southern half of the hall, requires Acrobatics or Escape Artist check.)
Badly beaten by the trap, Yarroth curses and tries to work his way down the rest of the hall.
"None of the traps we were going to make would hurt anyone like that. These traps must have been put here by someone else. Maybe that shadow figure I saw. No one mentioned these traps from last year."
"Give me a minute or two to work my way down to you Yarroth."
Kerren will get on his belly and try to squiggle under the swords.
Yarroth smiles grimly. "No worries. I did not see it either. I think I will take more time in examining these traps and pitfalls."
You reach the other end of the hallway without incident. You inspect the door and find nothing unusual about it. It leads to a new room, you enter from the south west corner. There are columns in each corner. There is a door in the east wall and another in the south east.
In the center of this room is a large pool of clear water, fed by a fountain on the north wall above it. The fountain has a stone statue of a weeping maiden holding the slain body of Kassen, but his head has been broken off and is nowhere to be seen. A voice booms out from the darkness, saying, “Magic is the key.” The voice slowly fades, leaving a dreadful silence.