The Pyramid of Shadows (Inactive)

Game Master 137ben

Yes, Yessai remains standing in place.

As Mundarion's projectile strikes the menhir, the structure emits a crackling noise before finally crumbling down into a pile of rubble. Also among the rubble are eight metal jugs, each holding some sort of glowing liquid.

A column of light also emanates from the place where the menhir stood. The light overpowers the Darkness effect cast by the Splinter of Karavakos, allowing everyone to see.
Suddenly, a ghostly apparition errupts from the place where the menhir was. It resembles a giant floating orb with several stalks coming out of it, with an eye on each stock. Just as suddenly, another apparition, this one the likeness of a pit fiend, emerges from underneath the first apparition. The apparition of the pit fiend opens is jaws and devours the apparition of the beholder before vanishing in a flash of yellow light.

EVERYONE make a sanity check now!
The rubble around where the menhir used to be is now difficult terrain.

With the menhir destroyed, the vortex continues to slow. The DC against the vortex for all future rounds is only 10 for those in the vortex or on its outer edge. The DC is only 5 for those in the eye of the vortex.

Yessai's attack misses.

Hozela's sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 82
Sorjla's sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 13
Splinter of Karavakos sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 40

As the dragonborn's spell hits the Splinter, it begins to crackle with electrical jolts, and the sound of metal pounding against medal echoes throughout the chamber.
"Nooooo! They're coming! They won't take...."
The abomination's voice trembles and wheezes as it collapses to the ground. "Coconuts! They don't want..."

Its eyes become black and lifeless, and it stops moving, damaged to the point of deactivation.

The splinter is destroyed, but you are still in a turn-based encounter, because Gemheart still needs to make a save vs constitution damage every two rounds until he either succeeds, is cured magically, or dies. Also, the vortex is still spinning (albeit weaker than before).

The initiative order (reposting since it's a new page) is still
Mundarion--21+
Yessai--21-
Hozela--19+
Gemheart--19-
Splinter of Karavakos--14
De'arv'ki--12
Sorjla--11

But you might what to discuss what exactly you are doing now.

dang, if i were unconscious, i might have been immune from the sanity damage... i should have remembered autohypnosis works vs poisons too...

sanity: 1d100 - 5 ⇒ (8) - 5 = 3

autohypnosis vs poison DC: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (1) + 8 = 9 if succeed, +4 to below

fort: 1d20 + 8 + 2 - 1 ⇒ (7) + 8 + 2 - 1 = 16

Finally - we won! Thanks Hoz!

SAN: 1d100 ⇒ 44

Am I near the jugs? Do I need to make a Spellcraft check for each one/Does it take 1 round for each check?

Sanity Check: 1d100 ⇒ 13

Mundarion says, "It's good that the vortex is slowing down, but we may want to take out the other menhir as well. That may stop it all together."

Mundarion advances to G,5 and again imbues his bow with arcane energy and fires at the remaining menhir.

Attack Roll: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15

Damage: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9

"I shall tend to thy forgeborn in the hopes that he doth not expire from the foul beast's poison," Sorjla states.

Yes, you have to make a separate spellcraft check for each jug, and they each take a separate round, and yes, that would take a round for each one. Each one is on the square where the menhir used to be.

It's Gemheart's turn, but he's still nauseated and doesn't get another save until next round, so he can't do anything but move once. Then it is De'arv'ki's turn.

autohypnosis: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19
prepping for my next save

Gemheart attempts to focus himself and slow the flow of poison.

Okay, De's turn.

Sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 32
De'Arv'Ki flicks her ears before leveling her crossbow at the remaining statue, firing a bolt at it. "Well, thisss wasss... interesssting. Ssskip it... next time around...?"

De forgot to roll...just to speed things up I'll roll for her:
1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25
1d8 ⇒ 1
As it happenned, though, the second menhir was nowhere near as resilitant as the first. Or, perhaps the destruction of one menhir and the Splinter and destabilized the remaining menhir. Whatever the reason, this menhir collapses just as the first one did. It also lets forth an apparition, showing a pair of mindflayers, but both are devoured by a ghostly pit-fiend apparition and they all vanish.

Yet another sanity check for everyone!

Another 10 metal jugs, similar to the eight from the first menhir, fall out of the second menhir.

With the second menhir gone, the vortex stops, finally!
The only turn-related thing left is Gemheart's saves and constitution damage every two rounds. Hence, I think the best way to handle this is that you can take your turns in any order, but no one can go more than once between any two of Gemheart's turn.
De just moved, so Sorjla, Mundarion, Yessai, and Hozela are all entitled to a turn before Gemheart makes his next save against the poison.
Hozela's sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 4
Sorjla's sanity: 1d100 ⇒ 59
Sorjla flies over to Gemheart, and tries to tend to his poison through mundane means.
Sorjla's heal skill check: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 29
Her fey hands press his joints just right to give him a little help resisting the poison.
Gemheart gets a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw vs poison this coming turn.

Hozela heads over towards the remains of the first Menhir and tries to ascertain the contents of one of the jugs but it takes three rounds to do.

Now, Mundarion and Yessai both have the option of taking a turn before Gemheart's saving throw, if they think they can do something to help. Also, everyone needs to make another sanity check. Otherwise, Gemheart should just roll his fortitude save.

rolling now so as not to slow things down on my account.

sanity: 1d100 - 5 ⇒ (68) - 5 = 63

no autohypnosis this time since it wont stack with Sorjla's competence

fort: 1d20 + 8 + 2 - 1 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 8 + 2 - 1 + 4 = 14

Make a natural 1 reroll:)
(There is a very small chance that you will roll a 20, giving you another reroll with the -20 and +20 modifiers cancelling each other out.)

Unless you succeed (or unless Mundarion or Yessai can do something on their turns to delay the poison), you take extra constitution damage:
Sanity damage to Gemheart: 3d6 - 5 ⇒ (2, 3, 4) - 5 = 4
Gemheart slips ever closer to total insanity, though no further symptoms affect him yet.
constitution damage to Gemheart: 1d4 ⇒ 3

Mundarion and Yessai still need to state what (if anything) they do before Gemheart's roll, and each also need to make their last sanity check.

damn 1d4 con, rough.

fort: 1d20 + 8 + 2 - 1 + 4 - 20 ⇒ (6) + 8 + 2 - 1 + 4 - 20 = -1

Also, if you eventually examine the ten jugs that fell out of the second Menhir, you find...

Sanity Check: 1d100 ⇒ 76

Mundarion has no healing abilities. I double checked what he might be able to do with his Survival skill, but it does not apply to helping deal with poison.

Mundarion puts his bow away, moves over to where he dropped the staff and picks the staff up.

Sanity check: 1d100 ⇒ 77

SAN: 1d100 ⇒ 28

Still assailed by maddening vibrations, Yessai picks up a jug from the first menhir at random and examines it, then scowls in frustration.

Random choice: 1d8 ⇒ 8

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (7) + 10 = 17 Damn!

Apart from Aid Another, and no Heal ranks, I'm pretty useless...

Okay, since no one but Sorjla can help Gemheart, I'm just going to roll Gemheart's saves (and autohypnosis checks) for the next couple rounds until he passes. Otherwise, waiting for everyone to roll repeated checks will get tedious.

Cumulative con loss for Gemheart so far: 5

Gemheart autohypnosis: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22
Gemheart's next fortitude save: 1d20 + 8 + 2 - 3 + 4 ⇒ (18) + 8 + 2 - 3 + 4 = 29

Well that didn't take long....

Gemheart recovers from the poison.

No more turns, combat over. You all go up to level six.

Woohoo!!!!

Oh, and yay! Gemheart didn't die! :p

Hip, hip, hooray! Glad to still have Gemheart around. :-)

Level up may take a day or two what with other stuff I have to do. One of the problems of going multiclass and having a familiar, but Rogue 3/Wizard 3 here I come.

Once everyone has caught their breath, Sorjla opens her tiny fey mouth and addresses the group:

"Thine prowess are great indeed, my mistress was wise to enlist thy aid. I knoweth not what sort of mecha that tiefling-like creature was, mayhaps one of thee shall examine it more closely. "
"Thereafter, whither shalt thou bade me follow thee next? My mistress still desires information concerning the Arboreans' home in order that she gains your trust, and now that thou dost have the Staff of Medragal thou didst say it might be easier to deal with the Arboreans. "Reminder of what Thoraska asked for.
"Yet, methinks thou didst have thine own goals aside from those of my Mistress."

"I don't know who you are or what you are talking about, I just wanna get out of this weird and terrible place."

Yessai looks on concerned.

"Gemheart, brother. Do you not remember us?"

Hand on the forgeborn's shoulder, Yessai turns to the flying fey:

"Sojla - we are mindful of that set before us. For mine, I too wish [here looks to Gemheart] to be rid of this place for its twistsome halls and great factions and maddened thralls, demons and devils take their toll. But...I begin to understand...see some things more clearly. Our way out is to destroy the Kravakos... shards. To do that, we too ally with power. I am ready now to treat with the Arborlings...in force or fairness, as we decide."

As an afterthought, and nodding thanks to Sorjla, Yessai treads carefully to inspect the body of the abomination.

Perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (9) + 10 = 19

Do we assume that if I don't die by a booby trap in the abomination that we can Take 10 on all those potions?

Level up is done. Now Rogue 3/Wizard 3. Part of the problem was that courtesy of various computer problems I no longer had my notes from character creation on my hard drive and had to try to figure out where my print outs from two years ago had gone to.

Mundarion walks over to the remains of the first menhir and gives it a once over checking for traps (takes 10, should give a result of 24, 27 if considered to be in low light). Assuming that Mundarion doesn't see anything that he thinks is untoward, he will examine the jugs. If he can take 10 on the checks he will be able to determine what everything is.

Mundarion says, "I want to get out of here too. Let's just check the jugs over and see what we've got."

"Sorjla, your mistress did not care that much for the Karavakos splinter. Would she want its head?"

"Gemheart, have you forgotten all of us? Will you need help with repairs? Usually you have not requested my help, but if necessary I can take a day or two to swap some spells around and provide some healing for you."

Mundarion currently has Medregal's staff. He would like to let Gemheart carry it, but not if Gemheart has no memory of who we are.

"I remember you three," Gemheart says, pointing to Sorjla, Yessai and De, "But not you two." this time pointing to Hozela and Mundarion. "The fight has damaged my mind, I cannot put into form my thoughts on many subjects. My body will be fine in a matter of moments, save the damage that the poison did. That, I cannot repair."

Mundarion shrugs. He says, "Sadly, I can not help you with the poison damage. Hopefully your mind will recover somewhat with rest."

Yessai begins to recount their adventurers together to Gemheart, with particular reference to Mundarion' actions to ensure the Forgeborn understands the elf is an integral member of their quartet.

"I remember the events you recount, I just don't recall him being there."

De'Arv'Ki just sits nearby, flicking her ears and honing her blades quietly and chiming in where appropriate with Yessai.

Yes, you can take 10 on all the spellcraft checks for the potions.
As Yessai begins to examine the Splinter, she sees that it has a battery-like device in place of a heart, and that its interior is a mixture of metal and flesh.
Suddenly, a burst of energy erupts from the creature's artificial heart. What comes out is a ball of light, about two feet across. The ball of light darts across the room and out the door, too quickly for you to follow. It effectively has a movement rate of 120 feet, and it can fly.

In response to Mundarion's inquiry, Sojrla responds
"I do not believe my Mistress would care for this monstrous creature's head, for the heads of enemies is of little concern to her. In the nine decades that I have served as her maidservant, she has only once commanded her servants to bring back the head of an enemy, and that was for a specific ritual, not merely a trophy of that foe's defeat."

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (6) + 10 = 16

Spellcraft check: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (18) + 10 = 28

Mundarion says, "That was a piece of Karavakos' spirit that had both been powering the body and imprisoned by it. I can't see anything good coming of it getting loose. I recommend we get out of here as quickly as we can before we go any crazier than we already are."

Mundarion walks over to the other pile of potions to identify them (will take 10). Once finished he will gather the potions up and say, "Let us leave this place now. We can return to the hallway outside the dragon's abode, rest and divvy the potions up."

As the spirit of Karavakos clears, Yessai can see something else inside the former Splinter: a four-inch wide key that seems to be made of pure mithral. It does not appear to be trapped, and it has an engraving in Elvish:

Assuming you take the key and then follow Mundarion's advice and leave....
Getting back to the entrance to the Blizzard Caverns poses no difficulty, nor are you interrupted in the time needed for a night's rest (or what passes for night in the timeless Pyramid.)

When you are rested, Hozela inquires
"Where wilt we go now? You have the staff of Medragal, so you could try to gleam favors from the arboreans, either to help find Karavakos as you originally wanted or to get information about the vicious creatures' homeworld as the dragon commanded. Or perhaps you would rather explore the third floor, wherein the wight told us another Splinter of Karavakos resides. Or would you rather return to the Library of Whispers, where we were beaten near to death before, in the hopes of better success gaining what my mentor asked for?"

Also, since at least one of you now has Knowledge (Nature) when you didn't before, you can now check to see what you know about Sorjla's species...

nature: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11

Mundarion tells everybody what the potions are and makes them available for anybody who wants to take one. Then he says:

"I think we should talk to the arboreans next and find out about their home for the dragon. If Vyrellis's head was right we can only kill one more of the splinters before we find and destroy Karavakos's body or bad things will happen. If we go ahead and kill another splinter I would like it to be the one in the library so we can get Vyrellis's head back."

De'Arv'Ki nods and declines to take any of the potions or oils for now.
"You make... a good point... What isss our plan... once we've completed... the draconian'sss tasssk?.. Getting Vyrellisss back... ssshould be helpful.. - though i do not... thrill at the idea of... charging back to the... library again."

Since no one else responded to Mundarion, I'm assuming you all go along with his suggestion.

Getting back to the first floor is easy. On your way back to the arborean's chamber (the one you entered before, I'm assuming), the sahuagin glare suspiciously at Hozela, but don't stop you.

When you get back to the hedge-filled chamber, a trio of familiar voices greet you.
"Hail, travellers, you have returned to the gateways to our territory!"
"I take it you have brought a captive werewolf with you?"
"Nuh uh, we told them to bring a spike from Thoraska's tail, so they probably did that."
"Are you sure we didn't ask them for Medragel's staff? I thought that's what they were after?"
"Nah, we asked them for all the Splinters of Karavakos--"
"No, they wanted to find Karava--"
"You're both wrong, they wanted a way to escape from the Charnel Lord."
"But they already did that, look, let's just ask them why they are back...."
While you have been learning to work as a team, the arborean guards seem not much different from your previous encounter with them.

Mundarion would have taken the chance to replenish his arrows from the corpse pit on the way to the Arborean's area. He also would have taken a moment before entering the Arborean's area to cast Detect Thoughts on himself. Then he will simply try to maintain concentration while there.

ASF check: 1d100 ⇒ 69

Mundarion makes it obvious that he is holding Medragal's staff. He says:

"You asked us to perform one of three tasks for you. Getting Medragal's staff was one of them. Here it is. Right now what we would like in return is information about where you come from."

Diplomacy check: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

at the corpse pit i would have grabbed the best non-tower shield i could find.

At the pit, I would have stocked back up bolts, back up to 100

Where the corpses are piled, Yessai would have taken...some parchment and ink.

;)

Yessai is somewhat puzzled by the boon asked by Mundarion, but does her best to seem likewise humble...

Aid Another: Diplomacy: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 27

"Oh, you really did it! I didn't think you had it in you. We came from that room just east of here, before our shift began."
"No you moron, they want to know about our home plane, from before entering the Pyramid. I say we shouldn't tell them."
"They have the staff, I'm telling. We come from--"
"NO!"
"Hush, this information isn't all that secret. We come from a plane we call Arsalaunooza. It is not an enormous plane, and its walls are as those of the inside of a tree trunk, streching far in each direction vertically but narrow otherwise. "
"Why are you shouting to them over the hedges? They should come closer to us if they want to hear. And they have to give us the staff, too."

Yessai struggles to conceptualise the plane the Arboreans tell of.

"Come out of your verdant fortress, friends. We have had nothing but trouble from every creature we have met. And we did something for you. Do something for us."

"Okay!"

"No--"
"Yes, Thuanor"
"Fine"
"Maybe--"
"Get on with in already."

Three figures emerge from the hedge maze. One is brown and has pine-needles covering its arms. A second seems to be made entirely of ferns, while the third has cracked branches and carries a scythe. Each is only slightly larger than a human.

Will Save: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (14) + 4 = 18

I better find out what happened before I post more.

If that was an enchantment spell or effect he gets a +2 racial bonus and makes the save.