Oster pulls the scepter out of the niche, holds it triumphantly up in the air for a moment, then stashes it in his handy haversack for safekeeping and later easy retrieval.
"My, a resort stay? How nice of a reward," Mira says with a plastic smile. She fully expects the team to cash in on the credit worth but it is worth it to feign excitement.
She speaks to Oster before he can put away the scepter. "Would you mind if I take a look at that?" Assuming he says yes, Mira examines the item for any magical properties it may have.
The scepter appears mundane, probably made from Akitonian glass, based on the very slight pink hue.
At the announcement of the team's newfound vacation, Otto's eyes widen slightly. "Huh. I should've seen that one coming. I'll, uh, go for this one." Otto spins on his heels and approaches a princess at random.
This time, the princess disappears and is replaced by a carefully stacked pile of 100 credit chits, 50 in all.
"Another success! Perhaps this random guessing can be good in its own way." Caught up in the excitement, Mira takes the hand of the princess she spoke to earlier, bowing with a charismatic flourish.
Mira suddenly finds herself holding a store-bought wand, still in the AbadarCorp packaging. A smiling halfing waves a wand, leaving behind a trail of sparkles, on the plastic box. Upon opening, a stamped plastic chit identifies the contained wand as cure light wounds, the caster level as 5th, and the activation word - revealed only by scratching off a metallic coating - as "AbCorForYou".
Ko lets out a deep breath, unusual for the normally breathless kasatha. He types into his wrist pad, "Well, which one should I pick? There is a 50 percent chance of failure, so I suppose I cannot pick randomly."
This time, the princess turns into a robe, wrapped in plastic. There is another chit inside this package too, identifying the robe as a robe of useful items, and the patches it contains are described as:
Dagger (x2)
Bullseye lantern (full and lit, x2)
Mirror (a highly polished 2-foot-by-4-foot steel mirror, x2)
Pole (10-foot length, x2)
Hempen rope (50-foot coil, x2)
Sack (x2)
Silver coffer
Iron door (x2)
Wooden ladder (x2)
12 foot rowboat
Pair of wardogs
Window
"Nice," Oster says as he observes the prizes that the others are winning. The wand and the robe are a lot more immediately useful compared to cash and the vacation package. He lets out an amused little half-chuckle at Ko.
"On the other hand, with a fifty percent chance of success can you afford to not pick randomly? But in all seriousness, though, we haven't been able to figure out the differences no matter how hard we try, so it's not like we have any more information than you that we're holding back on. Sometimes you've just got to roll the dice and hope for the best. If you still want advice, though..." he takes out a credit chit. "Heads is your left. Tails is your right." He flips it into the air, catches it in his palm and slaps it to the back of his other hand.
"Heads," he reports after lifting his hand to see the result.
Ko walks to the princess next to Oster and offers a hand.
Ko's hand touches the princess and she disappears, as all the other have - but rather than a treasure, she transforms into a blue-skinned fiend, wrapped in loose-fitting red silk that reveals all sorts of taut, well-toned flesh and promises a dizzying array of physical delights. The other princess disappears as well, but the crowd roars with new excitement and no small amount of sexual desire.
Otto hears the fiend take it's true form and rushes across the room, lining the creature in his sights.
Move action: 30ft move
Standard action: Cast Snowball (Electricity)
Pairaka 72/76hp
The fiend takes Otto's blast with remarkable aplomb, barely seeming to notice the attack . Her eyes flick briefly to the sorcerer, but quickly returns her gaze to Ko.
This seems like unnecessary violence, my dear, the kasatha hears inside his mind. Why would you be my enemy when so much more pleasure can be had by being my friend?
"How unfortunate! We seem to have unleashed a pairaka div, a planar monster embodying the worst attributes of sexual desire." Having given the basic summary Mira begins rattling off other attributes of the creature that would be useful to know in defeating it.
Mira notes that divs all have immunity to fire and poison; resistance to acid 10 and electricity 10; see in darkness; summon (Sp) - the ability to summon others of their kind; and telepathy. Pairakas in particular also have DR 10/cold iron or good and SR 22.
Ko nearly succumbs to the creature's charms, but shakes his head. With that he attacks the creature, but still muddled by the charming his accuracy was impaired.
Round 1, Initiative Count 12
Oster doesn't know much about the creature himself, but fortunately Mira knows a lot about them. As soon as she mentions their vulnerability to cold iron he takes a moment to bend out his wrist, causing the cold iron dagger he keeps in reserve on the spring-loaded sheath to pop into his hand. From this distance his first reaction might normally be to try to overpower the creature's mind, but with the further information that it resists magic he decides not to risk wasting his energy and instead just gets closer to set up the use of the appropriate weapon next turn.
As it becomes clear that Ko resisted the pairaka's charms, she hisses in anger and begins dodging a veritable avalanche of sword strikes from the kasatha monk. None manage to land, however.
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Okian laughs and smiles, a hint of playfulness crossing his face as he utters a prayer to Iomedae and casts bless weapon on his own greatsword. He hefts the weapon and stares at the div, his eyes gleaming with utter hatred for the evil creature. "I will destroy you, fell creature!" he yells as he readies his weapon and approaches the Div, and yells with divine inspired fury. "I will destroy you!"
The pairaka sneers, and you all hear, This could have been pleasant for you, mortals, at least at first. Now there will be pain, echo through your minds.
The div concentrates for a moment, but her beautiful and cruel features twist in frustration as nothing happens.
Round 2
Oster grimly circles around to the far side of the Div with his cold iron dagger, the better to set up a flank for either of the other two heaviest hitters in the group. He tries to stab her himself, but it's not a particularly good thrust. He'll have to take a closer look for weaknesses before his next try, but at least for now he's threatening the outsider.
Mira moves 30 feet closer to the creature, maintaining her performance.
"Wait, you said this thing has electricty resistance?" Otto curses loudly and sprints across the room to try and get a better shot.
Once within a thirty feet, he chucks a mass of ice and snow at the creature.
Including +2 crowd bonus and +1 from point-blank shot.
Pairaka 58/76hp
The icy missile strikes the div and again it seems unaffected by the chill, the damage is clearly more potent this time, and Otto sees the div's red eyes turn angrily his way.
Ko unleashes another battery of attacks, emboldened by the crowd and Mira's performance.
Ko manages to land several blows, but the fiend's supernatural resilience means that she only suffers a single small scratch from the monk's sword. However, his final strike is executed so poorly that there are some shouts and boos from the crowd, and you get the sense that they are not as behind Pentakill as they were a moment ago.
Pairaka 57/76hp
There is a buzzer overhead, and you look up quickly to notice that the judges have deducted a point from Pentakill's total score as well.
Okain's blow is mighty and driven by the force of his convictions, but it is clear that the div is no mean foe to be felled so easily - even as the blow is falling on her head she parries with her long, bloody nails, sending sparks up from the blade as she pushes it just far enough to the side.
Even as she does, the pairaka also maneuvers herself sideways, slipping past Ko to put the monk between herself and Oster and Okian. Her claws lash out twice at the kasatha as she goes, but from her expression it is evident that Otto remains her target.
The crowd roars its approval as the div's claws clash open Ko's flesh, and she throws back her head and laughs, drinking in the adulation.
Round 3
Oster is a little relieved when the Div chooses Ko as its target instead of him. Now he just needs to make it pay for ignoring him. While the fiend focuses on his mute friend, he takes a moment to study it, looking for patterns in its movements and scanning for the weaknesses that Mira has been helpfully informing them about. Unfortunately, he's not as practiced with the dagger, compared to the rapier, and his stiffened joints are also betraying him.
Otto's frustration really begins to show as the Div shrugs off another spell. "Why won't it die?!" He points to Ko and shouts an incantation.
Mira approaches Ko and touches his primary temple sword. It takes on a strange sheen as its properties change.
Ko continues his attacks on the fiend, using flurry just to focus on the strikes that can penetrate the fiend's DR.
,
,
One of his strikes manages to land, and the newly-enchanted weapon finally manages to have an effect on the div, causing her to snarl.
Okian unleashes a full series of holy blows.
,
,
And when Okian's swings are done, the div is destroyed!
[dice= Performance combat]1d20 + 3 + 2 + 1
Ko easily resists whatever horrors the div had inflicted with her claws.
Oster blows out a deep breath of relief as his allies finish off the fiend. It's a good thing that they were there, he wasn't being of much use in that fight, despite the fact that he had a weapon that played to the monstrosity's weaknesses. That's life, though, and why it's always better to be part of a team. It was the same way on the force.
"Good job, guys," he says as he returns his cold iron dagger to the spring loaded sheath on his wrist. "Four out of five isn't bad, really. If we can keep up that kind of luck over the whole Crawl we may just have a shot at getting that high score. Hopefully we'll be able to find that break room soon. Shall we?"
He takes a look at the door that unlocked when he finished with the three locks, just making sure that it isn't trapped. If he doesn't see any, he'll check over his shoulder to make sure that everyone else has joined him by the door and open it.
"Another successful encounter. Excellently done, everyone." Mira follows behind Oster, keeping a respectful distance in case he discovers anything troublesome with the door.
Once the div falls, Otto rushes to it and unloads a battery of sparks. After a few moments, the light show ends, leaving only a charred corpse. Otto looks to his companions, a grin plastered across his face. "That was fun."
The door is not trapped or locked, and once you get to the other side, you find another corridor, about twenty feet long. There is a T intersection at the end, with door directly across from the hallway. Down toward the left, there is a door with three pumpkin heads on it and a dragon-headed door handle. Much further down on the right, a third door has a bird painted on it.
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Okian breathes a heavy sigh of relief, the outsider now gone, he can feel himself relaxing as his companions make their way to the door. The blade feels heavy in his hands once more, and he hefts the weapon with a grunt, resting the flat of the blade on his shoulder as he makes his way over to the rest of the group, he says nothing, content to merely watch, and to let others succeed. He's not the only member of the team, and he cannot hog the spotlight, after all!
"First rule of a maze," Oster says, mostly to himself. "Pick a direction and stick with it." Following his own advice, he turns left and walks close enough to the door with the pumpkins and the dragon-based door handle to examine it and see what it's deal is. The odd designs just scream that they're probably trapped, or at least constitute some sort of puzzle-based lock mechanism. He's a good choice for handling either choice, if he can figure out what to do.
"Everyone give the door a little space," he warns the others. "This door is trapped, I'm going to try to disable it. This might take a minute." The beat on the other side is catchy, and he finds himself unconsciously tapping his foot and working his tools to the rhythm of it.
Unts, unts, unts-ah-unts. Unts, unts, unts-ah-unts
Oster easily disables the trap mechanism - nasty thing, basically linked to a flamethrower pointed back along the hallway - and pushes open the door. As he does so, the three pumpkins on the doorway disappear and are replaced with "12 pts." The scene beyond allows only one word to describe it: bizarre. This room is decorated like a haunted castle. It has 60’ high cathedral ceilings, but no live audience. The room is lit by flickering arcane torches set in braces along the walls. It seems to be raining outside the “castle,” and you see the occasional flash of lightning through the arched windows. The gothic arched ceiling is strewn with cobwebs, and the floor is two feet deep with fog, no doubt from a fog machine somewhere off stage. You see six beautiful "princesses" dancing around the edges of the room, although this time their costumes are more "bride of the vampire," with gauzy robes over slightly torn lingerie and chalk-white skin. Each one is being menaced by a shambling undead horror with peeling grey flesh. The creatures claw at the air but do not seem to be able to make contact with the dancers. Then they all look your way as the door opens. All around, electronically remixed soundtracks from various vampire flicks and trid melodramas continually pulse.