Motteditor's Strange Aeons PBP

Game Master motteditor

Round 1, Initiative: 20

Kyffin swears as the gnome heads into the mist, ”Gods-damnit, that’s not safe!”

He waits tensely gripping and regripping his scimitar once she’s out of site. When he hears her cry out, he immediately swears again and wades into the mist to find her, blade in front of him, ready to swing on anything not Tenebrynn.

30’ move puts me just south of Tenebrynn on the map which would give me a swing. I’m guessing however that I’m feeling my way through the mist and it’s a double move. DM call, but just in case…

Scimitar: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19 damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9

We can see 20ft in the fog, so I'm thinking anything past that get's total concealment but movement isn't compromised?

Round 1, Init 16

"NO! WAIT!! DON'T GO OUT THERE ALONE! OR TOGETHER!!" Tristain cries too late to stop the gnome. Seeing the brave Walter go out to try to save the gnome, Tristain moves up 10' and casts Bless.

Bless (1/20): +1 to attacks and +1 to saves vs. fear.

As the way clears Albert rushes forward. "Darn fools we were to let her wander out there alone!" A few feet into the room he spots the evil beast gripping Tenebrynn and lunges toward it. reach with bardiche, will stop 2 squares below Tene

Bardiche: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9
Damage: 1d10 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

I think that makes sense Tenebrynn.

Al rushes forward and jabs at the creature holding Tenebrynn, but it ducks almost faster than he can believe, even with Tristain's bolstering.

Walter has more success, and his blade cuts into the faceless creature, drawing a black blood that sprays over the gnome in its clutches.

It faces turns toward the half-orc, but it apparently decides to ignore it, as it leaps toward the sky with Tenebrynn still in its clutches, its tail roaming over her body and tickling her until she can barely breath. Walter and Al get AoOs; Tenebrynn must succeed at a DC 14 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round.

The nightgaunt and Tenebrynn are now 20 ft. up, just below the surface of the fog.

Fort (DC 14): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8

Tenebrynn's body seizes up as she's hauled from the ground, the nightgaunt's tail punching the air from her chest each time she tries to draw a breath.

Bloody Knuckles snarls. "Steal my gnome, will you!" He grabs a bomb and flings it at the thing!

BOMB!: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11 to hit; 1d6 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6 fire damage on a direct hit, 3 on a splash. Miss direction: 1d8 ⇒ 8

Round 2, Initiative: 20

Kyffin takes his swing as the creature moves away (AoO).
Scimitar: 1d20 + 4 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 4 + 1 = 23 (bless) damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8
crit threat Scimitar: 1d20 + 4 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 4 + 1 = 24 (bless) damage: 1d6 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 3 + 2 = 8 (+2 is fire)

His scimitar briefly flares with flame as Kyffin's passions run hot. He's surprised by the effect and wonders what just happened. He's intent on trying again, perhaps he can make it flame on every attack!

Then he sheathes his blade and draws his crossbow as the creature flies away. He begins to wonder if the gnome’s curiosity has just gotten her killed… or worse…

Round 2

Tristain moves slightly closer, his mind breaking from what he is seeing. He realizes his longspear won't ever reach...and instead picks up a rock/brick with his mind and sends it flying at the beast.

1d20 + 3 - 4 + 1 ⇒ (20) + 3 - 4 + 1 = 20 to hit;
1d6 ⇒ 4 bludgeoning damage.

Pot Crit:
1d20 + 3 - 4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 3 - 4 + 1 = 3 to hit;
1d6 ⇒ 1 bludgeoning damage.

"NO! PUT HIM DOWN! I ORDER YOU TO CEASE ANY AND ALL SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY AND RETURN FORTHWITH TO YOUR PLACE OF ORIGIAN OR TO THE NEAREST CONVENIENT PARALLEL DIMENSION!"

Bless (2/20): +1 to attacks and +1 to saves vs. fear.

Albert slashes again at the flapping wings as the creature rises with the gnome.

AoO, Bardiche: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8
Damage: 1d10 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

Unable to do anything as it pulls from his reach, the old man curses at it ineffectively.
"Come back here with our gnome you yellow bellied, orange faced coward!"

Tenebrynn finds herself unable to move as she's hauled into the sky, though the creature takes a brutal slash from Walter, black blood splashing on the gnome, half-orc and the ground around him.

Realizing it's absconding with Tenebrynn, Bloody Knuckles and Tristain launch projectiles at it -- the bomb missing and exploding as it hits the ground deeper in the garden, but the rock slamming into its head with a dull thud.

Seemingly badly hurt, the creature again tickles Tenebrynn before dropping her and swooping into the fog. DC 14 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round; plus 8 hp falling damage to Tenebrynn (not sure if you have some feather fall effect

Combat over.

Barely waiting for the gnome's body to bounce, Tristain retreats from the misty courtyard, anxious to have a roof over his head.

"Come over here! Don't stay out there! No tell what the Creator's thoughts have metasized into! We should be careful in areas that are less defined by reality!"

constant feather fall effect comes soon, but not yet!

Fort Save (DC 14): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23

Tenebrynn hits the ground with a sickening thump, and remains frightfully still for a moment before groaning and pushing herself back to her feet. Glaring up at the ripples in the fog where the creature vanished, she sends a blast of swirling stones and debris chasing after it.

Rubbing her head, she looks at the others then jerks her thumb toward the far side of the room and waves a dismissive hand at the worrisome Tristain. "We've come this far, let's see what's on the other side."

Kyffin looks incredulously at the gnome. "You nearly died getting this far and that creature is still out there waiting for you. I'm going back to the relative safety of the structure. I strongly recommend you do the same. When you return, I'll see what I can do for your injuries."

He switches back to his scimitar and makes his way carefully along the same path he came in.

If Tenebrynn returns to the building, Kyffin spends his last spell healing her, combining it with the blessings of Sarenrae.

Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8 (+50% = 12 total healing)

Albert helps the gnome to her feet with a surprisingly warm hand.

Lay on Hands for Tene: 1d6 ⇒ 2

"Don't go scampering off now, it ain't safe out here." Al follows Tenebrynn as she continues across the courtyard, tightly clutching his bardiche and constantly scanning the mists above them.

As Walter and Tristain retreat, the gnome advances further into the mist, Al hot on her heels and Bloody Knuckles not far behind.

Despite their fears, they make it across the courtyard, where they discover a sturdy wooden shed leans against a courtyard wall.

"Oh! What's in here? Could be anything. Maybe a boy?" Tenebrynn starts to reach for the shed door, then hesitates. "Last storage thing had undead fetuses." With the memory of the gross undead fresh in her mind, she examines the door for any telltale signs of similar trouble.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16

If she finds none, she shrugs then opens the shed.

Finding no signs of anything worse than anywhere else in this mad plane, Tenebrynn opens the door to find a few gardening tools and a wooden staircase that descends into darkness.

The brittle wooden stairs descend 20 feet along a stone wall, but then stop. The wall itself continues down another 15 feet, but then it falls away, along with any evidence of a worked floor.

Below that, even the sides of the subterranean chamber give way, leaving the lowest steps and mortared bricks hanging exposed in a vast, airy expanse. Below lies only darkness as far as you can see.

"A tunnel? Did not expect a tunnel." She looks to the pair who'd accompanied her and asks brightly, "Should we go down?"

"We've come this far. Onward then," Bloody Knuckles murmurs.

After 20 feet the stairway ends, nothing but a deep, dark pit below you.

Tristain waits on the far end, wondering if the gnome and others are going to return.

Tenebrynn speaks softly for a moment, conjuring up a small cluster of tiny, glowing orbs that spin and dance slowly around one another. With another shrug to the two men with her, she lets the lights loose and watches wide-eyed as they spiral downward into the dark.

cast dancing lights, send them down, down, down!

BK watches the lights, also dropping a stone to see how long it takes to hit bottom.

The lights descend, until they finally wink out as they reach the limits of the spell's range.

You barely hear the rock clink after a long three count.

"That's very deep." Tenebrynn nods to the red man who used to be Heinrich, then glances back up the steps. "Anyone have rope?"

BK grunts in the negative.

Kyffin waits at the doorway staring into the mist, fretting. "Surely they'll shout if they're in distress again... right?" he looks to Tristain for comfort. He's so well centered. Must be the head banging.

Tristain shrugs at Kyffin's question...and moves to a good wall upon which to bang his head and think.

"I don't know what they were thinking in going out there in the first place, let alone continuing deeper. If they boy's brother went this way, he's deader than dead. That flyer that nearly snatched the gnome would surely have gotten the boy," Tristain begins to bonk.

*bonk*
*bonk*
*bonk*

"Maybe we need to find that flyer's lair to find the bones of the boy to know for sure. Really hard to tell in this demiplane."

"This ain't the safest route, I reckon we'll find another passage down there if we keep exploring this place. Maybe this old place was built on the ruins of something else?" Al waits for the others to abandon the pit and return to exploring in the relatively safer indoors.

Tenebrynn casts a longing glance at the mysterious pit, her curiosity obviously burning brightly within her, but after a few moments she simply shrugs and turns to Albert and Knuckles, "Ok."

She heads up the steps and back toward Kyffin and Tristain, eager to find a long cord of rope and return. She rambles as they walk, "Mist and fog are bad. Outside though. Tunnels could be safest place. No windows to break like in here. Could also lead to den of those little ratpeople. May even be way out. Or could be dead end. Many possibilities."

The three explorers return, Tenebrynn being healed by Walter before returning to the visitor's room, which you glanced in earlier but didn't really look around much.

"None of you apes have a rope. Preposterous." mutters BK before twitching and roiling back down to Heinrich once more. Heinrich looks around, pale and confused for a moment before composing himself.

"Did I harm anyone?"

"Some rats. And you threw fire at a winged thing that tried to steal me but you missed." Tenebrynn pats Heinrich encouragingly on the knee with a smile. "I got away. So did it. If we come back this way, which we should, we'll be ready for it though. Still looking for the boy."

"None of you apes have a rope. Preposterous."

Tristain's eyes bulge with all the wrong involved in Heinrich's calling the rest of the party *apes*...as if the man wasn't a walking were-ape with goon tendencies and a penchant for oafery.

He decides to say nothing, but add a few more bonks on the wall while he figures out what to do next.

"I think I saw a visitor's room back this way. We should explore that next, I think."

"So did it."

"I wonder if the boy was taken away by that beast, but we'll never know. It's lair could be anywhere." Tristain repeats, figuring Walter already had time to process the ample genius of the statement.

Kyffin is pleased and amazed when the team returns from the mist. "Deep pit huh? Might just be another way into the rat warrens like you said. I bet there's rope around here somewhere though." he shrugs.

"Sure let's make sure there's nothing to investigate in the visitors room, then let's keep on looking for the boy."

He smiles at Tristain as he speculates about the beast. He hopes the boy is safe elsewhere, but as they encounter more things around here his hope is faltering.

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12

As though it had been plucked from the halls of some warm, country estate, this room is filled with inviting furnishings, a hearth ready for a fire, artwork populated by picnicking families, and a mansion-shaped cage with colorful taxidermic birds inside. Large windows might have once looked out over colorful flowerbeds, but now show only yellow mist. A battered corpse is impaled on the antlers of a stuffed elk head hung above the hearth. A second man, who like the first was wearing stained yellow robes and a tattered yellow veil, lies dead on the ground. Another door leads to the west (according to Al's recollection, this leads to a garden path).

Tenebrynn grimaces at the robed man speared and suspended upon the antlers of the stuffed moose head. "What put him up there? Something big? Maybe strong. Probably both." With a shrug, she starts drifting through the room, allowing her curiosity to guide her steps.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

1d20 + 7 ⇒ (19) + 7 = 26 Perception

Tristain casts Detect Magic and looks in the room, thankful that he has others more daring than he to enter first.

"That gnome if fearless. And if that gnome is fearless, then we must ponder *why* the gnome is fearless. Did this demiplane's creator make her fearless for a particular reason? Or is she truly her own construct and not imaginary? This is interesting to ponder." Tristain opines aloud.

"Geez, boy" Al fixes an eye on Chalker, "If you go wondering why a gnome does what it does, then you will go crazier than you already are. Now stop bonking your head on everything and put that noggin to use, the idea of the boy getting nabbed by that winged thing was a good one, we need more of them."

Al sniffs around the room for the stink of evil. (detect evil)

Not spotting anything other than what you saw at first glance as you look around, Tristain detects magic auras coming from both bodies; Al detects faint evil coming from the birdcage.

Tristain points out where he sees magics with his longspear (nearly poking Walter in the leg) without going into the room.

"Crazy? I'm not crazy. You're crazy," Tristain responds to Al. "At least I'm willing to accept the possibility that I don't really exist. But you? Do you know you exist? "

"Great hats, people. Postulating existence is no way to spend the day! Let's focus on concrete concerns. Find the boy, find a way out of this mess, eh?"

"Listen to Heinrich!" Tenebrynn's voice sounds echo-y and distant as she addresses the group with her head inside the flue of the fireplace. She emerges a moment later, soot smeared across her face, and bounds effortlessly up onto the mantle to investigate the suspended corpse once Tristain points out the presence of magic about it.

"Yellowrobes here has magic?" She shrugs and starts patting the body down. "Real magic or non-existent magic?" She chuckles at her joke.

I'll take 10 patting down the dead dude. (nets an 18)

Kyffin, scimitar out, goes into the room, carefully, to examine the bodies, dodging Tristain's assault.

He'll fire up his own Detect Magic to try and pinpoint what's there.

He's being very cautious.

Albert takes some time to investigate the evil birdcage. "Well, it's a cage, and that's evil within itself, but something ain't right about this cage."

take 20 on perception for a 19

As you look around, Heinrich and Tenebrynn realize they hear a pleasant chirping coming from the bird cage.

Tenebrynn hasn't yet gotten to pat down the dead body.

"Chirping coming from inside cage. Could be bird. Could be thing that killed these yellowrobes." She shrugs, "Probably a bird though."

"I'll check the bird. You examine the body." Heinrich says, heading over to the bird cage.

"A bird? I don't see any bird..." Kyffin wonders if his eyes are playing tricks on him. He continues on to check the bodies with Heinrich while the others examine the cage.

"Not see: hear. Chirping. Sounds nice, but not sure why. Nice is strange though with creepy yellow fog swirling at the windows."