Monster Mashup - Table 1 (Inactive)

Game Master CaveToad

Extra aids is better than using tons of performances. :)

If you're not performing, I can give a +1 Guidance bonus to everyone (doesn't stack with perform)

With the guidance and aid of the others, Champawat is able to open the door. With a careful prod, she swings the door gently open to peek inside. Within the room seems illuminated and quite warm. Multiple large brazier keep the room temperature above normal, and within you hear the movements of something, shortly you see automatons moving within the chamber. You are able to see small crates, packed with straw being moved about.

The chamber seems quite large.

"Well," Teniel whispers. "Crates, straw, fire. Seems like a room for storing dragon eggs... but I wasn't expecting guards..."

"Maybe they're less guards and more workers? Moving the eggs or rotating them or replacing their straw or something? Although perhaps they double as guards. Or there are other guards out of sight," Tavros whispers back, using his height to look over the heads of his siblings.

"Is it better to hide out in the hallway or in there do you think?" His eyes flick around the chamber, looking for larger crates or pillars to hide behind or dark corners. Or other signs of guards.

Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (18) + 12 = 30

"One in, then the rest if it's clear." Makoto says, nodding to Champawat.

Champawat nodded and moved to enter the room. Sticking to the shadows as much as possible, she slowly approached the nearest crate.

Stealth: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (6) + 14 = 20

Champawat slips through the door and creeps low to the floor, moving when the automatons have their backs turned, using crates as cover.

automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (16) + 0 = 16 - fail
automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (20) + 0 = 20 - success
automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (8) + 0 = 8 - fail
automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (12) + 0 = 12 - fail
automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (8) + 0 = 8 - fail
automaton perception: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (5) + 0 = 5 - fail

One of the automatons notice Champawat and approaches. It speaks in a hollow voice. "Egg survival eight in ten. Tomorrow twelve will hatch. No other information to report."

The automatons appear roughly human sized and shaped, with a pair or arms, legs, head, torso, eyes. Large, seven fingered hands allow for agile manipulation of objects. They are made from some greyish metal, perhaps tin.

Has Champawat learned the local language yet? If not I could try talking to these guys.

Surprised when one of the automatons turns to address her and quite confused about what it was saying, Champawat stepped out of the shadows and into the light. She waved to the door way and motioned for her companions to join her. Her eyes continued to dart around the room as she was unused to being spotted when she didn't want to be. It made her feel uncomfortable and inadequate and put her on edge.

I've spent two points in linguistics but I never did pick new languages or role play the process of learning new languages. I'll have to remember to focus on that some after this scene.

Seeing the automata apparently unable to identify humans, Teniel steps forward as well.

"Full information report," he calls out, "Seven days of records. Total eggs hatched, and when the last one will hatch."

Not wanting to stand out in the very open hallway, Tavros quickly ducks inside the room. While his siblings work on talking to the robots, he keeps a eye out for other entrances or signs of not-metallic guards.

As Teniel steps into the room and to the automaton it turns towards him. He requests more detailed information and the thing looks at him briefly, just as Tavros steps into the room. The automaton sees the huge minotaur, and although there is no facial expression, there is a sudden jerk in the metallic things status. "Intruder!" it intones in its hollow metallic voice.

The others turn and notice the clearly out of place Tavros sans any believable disguise. "Intruder, intruder." they echo and start moving towards the minotaur.....

Well, I just screwed this up. Whoops, let's try to fix this.

"Tavros, close the door behind you. Alree An, get ready to teleport the second we have the eggs. Grab some crates everyone, and let's start smashing."

And, while the automata are distracted (if possible), he draws a puppet and with a gesture and Wayang chant ties one of the automata to its own shadow. (Will DC 22)

Alternately... preferably before giving up on stealth entirely...

The Kitsune that appears to be the Head Butler steps into the room, and in her limited speech, with the help of what Teniel had said, "Meet Tavros." she says, gesturing to the Minotaur. "He is new egg guard, we are moving eggs and dragons now."

Disguise: 1d20 + 11 + 20 ⇒ (19) + 11 + 20 = 50 Another technically true statement

It took me a moment to realize that robots saying "Intruder" is not the same thing as triggering an alarm to cause red lights to flare and a siren to go off. Although I suppose the robots could be magically connected to some other alarm system, it is not quite as terrible as I first thought.

Visibly cringing, Tavros hurriedly ushers the rest of his family into the room before shutting the door. He stands there, torn between try to hold the door shut and slamming his fists into the yelling robots. His eyes dash about nervously as he prepares for battle while hoping that Maks soothing words will calm the metal people.

I guess I can hold my spell if someone else is talking...

As the automaton care takers begin sounding off, Champawat slowly moves towards the nearest crate to have a peak inside. She moves slowly and quietly so as not to draw any attention to herself. As she moves she retrieves a small flask out of her bandolier and prepares to down the contents.

Stealth: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (20) + 14 = 34

Retrieving shield extract; moving into position near the closest crate.

Lucina stays at the back of the group, tense at the risk of alarm but not wanting to act and ruin Mak's plan she would try to get a good look at the automatons to see if she knew anything about the tech.

K: Engi: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (4) + 8 = 12

The metallic thing seems to take it at face value that you are the butler but when you tell is Tavros is an egg guard that doesn't seem to register.

Makoto Knowledge Arcana: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 27

You think its because the thing doesn't have the ability to reason and logic through your statement. More likely than not you need to issue a command of sorts.

Tavros the guardians continue to move in closer and surround you. Their eye begin to glow with an arcane light.

Lucina, you know that these are not mechanical creatures, but infused with magic, much akin to golems, and may be minor variants. They are in fact magical constructs.

As Tavros and Teniel wait tensely, Champawat slips near a crate and downs her extract.

Right, Teniel will cast his spell when the golems clearly ignore Makoto, ideally trapping one of them where it can't reach anyone.

"Stop." Makoto says firmly to the golems, as she realizes they're not clever enough to follow along. "Bring Eggs. Bring Turtles."

The golems cease their activities and begin moving the crates, piling them next to Makoto. You estimate there are about thirty crate, each about 3'x3'. You haven't examined the contents yet.

Oh gosh never mind. These guys are nice and loyal!

Teniel attempts to feel the temperatures of a few crates.

The crates are warm as they have been near the braziers. They are not too hot to handle, being wood. The room itself is quite toasty of course.

At seeing the automatons collecting the crates, Champawat quickly digs into the one nearest her and begins looking through the contents. It was time to find out the truth of what was in these crates.

You dig down into the sand with your claws, and you bump into what you can only assume are the dragon turtle eggs that are the center of this whole mission. You feel around and you think there are maybe half a dozen or so.

"Tavros, how many crates can you carry? Anyone else?" Teniel whispers.

Bluff to pass message: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (6) + 13 = 19

Seeing the robots stand down, Tavros hesitantly moves forward. He experimentally hefts one crate slightly. "By weight, probably quite a few. Balancing all them might be a bit hard though. Maybe try to transfer as many eggs as we can to a few crates? Although I'm not sure how much time we'll have..."

We could have some people mark them as Teniel suggested while others start to transfer them to single crates. Then if we get interrupted while moving eggs, we'll have the others marked and can run with whatever we have. I at least don't have any way of merging the boxes together successfully. Although I can create an unseen servant.

I can create an unseen servant too, but I don't think it helps with carrying dozens of boxes.

Probably not, but it should make packing them into fewer crates faster. Not to mention if we get attacked, they can continue packing while we hold the line. We also purchased some sacks and stuff.

It would be somewhat time consuming to take all the eggs from each crate and concentrate them into fewer crates, but ultimately the only way to go to make sure you can transport them all easily. There is a risk of breakage, but you do have the straw and sand in the other crates for use.

"If they keep listening to us we might be able to use them to sneak out the eggs?" She said indicating to the robots. "I don't think I can carry many but I'll try to bring as many as I can move safely anyway."

"Right. 'Butler', can you think of a way to ask the automata for help? Alree An, get ready to move us as soon as we have visitors—and everyone, get ready to grab as many crates as you can in an instant. Let's start packing."

And he summons his shadow to help move eggs as well. (Unseen Servant through Shadow Puppeteer)

Tavros copies his brother, summoning his own unseen servant and commanding it to help move eggs from some of the further crates into the closer ones. With one eye on the automatons, he makes use of his great strength to bring several crates nearby, simultaneously limiting the distance needed to carry the eggs and keeping the crates they would grab for teleportation nearby.

The group starts moving the crates and with unseen servants and the assistance of the golems, begin slowly and carefully moving eggs from the crates, consolidating them in a soft cushion of sand and protective straw. The process is painstakingly slow, or seems so in your minds since you fee as though you will be found out at any moment. However, only minutes have passed.

As you pack quickly, you hear noises from outside the door. It sounds like hammering and large heavy objects moving. A moment later, a group of people appear on the other side of the chamber. They appear to be guards of some sort, weapons drawn and focused on you. A female voice, with no distinct source, commands "Surrender fools, you will not take the eggs!"

"Right. Everybody grab a crate, let's link hands and jump?" Teniel suggests, as he casts Darkness on his armor.

Champawat grabs whatever crates she can and moves over to Teniel. Her eyes dart around trying to locate the source of the female voice despite not understanding what the voice was saying. Once close enough to Teniel, she whispers "if we leave without all of the eggs, they'll move them and we won't be able to find them next time. Can you try to mark one that we don't take?"

I was under the impression that marking all the crates was the first thing other people did? Although I suppose no one explicitly said they were doing it even though it was suggested.

Hearing voices that don't belong to them, Tavros immediately picks up as many of the crates next to him as he can, awkwardly moving to link up with one of his siblings. "Let's hope they haven't put anything in place to stop us leaving..." he mutters softly.

Well, if there's time, Teniel will start dropping invisible Arcane Marks on crates.

Despite her lack of strength Lucina would gather whatever she could carry and group up with the others.

Don't forget, Alree An can only teleport half of you at a time. In real time, this only takes a few rounds, but just saying...

I will have a map, just in case, prepared when I come back from camping. To be continued.....(dun dun dunnnn)

Oh! Right, that's... interesting.

Lucina has pretty good survivability more so against groups so she should be ok stalling

"We don't really have time for that." Makoto responds, "I can hold them off for now." she says, looking amidst the enemies at the doorway. "Get as many eggs as you can out." she suggests.

Tavros is probably the best bet for tanking large groups, but he's also the best at taking large amounts of objects out of a room. Maks is probably the second strongest at carrying things in the group... so we'll see how things turn out, depending on who Alree An snatches first!

"I would prefer to hold the line, but I will do what needs to be done."

"If you leave me in the behind party, I can leave some marks while the others block the door?"

Unfortunately, a teleport only carries 3 people + Alree (with Tavros counting as 2 people), so it's not like Tavros could go in the first trip, come back, and grab more eggs. That makes the order of teleporting back kind of moot in terms of who can carry the most. Unless we wanted to try having Tavros cast the spell, but it's unclear that he would have studied it beforehand, and he'd have to make a check in order for it to go off without mishap.

If everybody else wants to stay, I'm fine with going. Technically, that would also leave more people to defend for that extra time since only one other person would teleport with me.

On the off-chance that the DM would allow it - there's a good chance that knowing this was an eventuality, with a much more intelligent character than I am, that we'd have prepared for this with Miyu, giving him bags and such so that we could dismiss him to teleport the eggs to where we next summoned him! Sorry I didn't think of it previously, and it's cool if you're against it! BUT!

After quickly confering with Teniel, Maks snaps an order to the golems. "Imposters." she points, "Trying to take eggs, defend eggs."

That sounds like a great idea, Makoto! And if I can fire off a darkness spell, the golems should still be able to see (as should we).