Both blades touch, but only your rapier comes back wet. Your invisible foe yowls in fury at your continuing ability to hit it. 30
Another claw rakes into you for
Looks like it's all you this fight Caldir! I'm about ready to drop my blade and just try and tackle this thing...
"Less talking, more killing stuff Ragnar, you jinxed me!"
-45hp
Unlike Ragnar, your blades touch your foe but do no damage.
In response:
Another claw catches you for
~gritting his teeth at your admonishment and his failure~
Sudden attack!
~Ragnar ROARS in frustration!!!~
"Damn this thing!"
**Surprise strike (flatfooted, bypasses DR)**
-56hp
Your surprise strike does just that and elicits another yowl from the foe. 53.
Apparently it doesn't want to be close to you and shreds Ragnar for .
The big man is staggered momentarily as blood and flesh fly from his frame.
HURRRGH!
Ragnar's eyes go wild as he enters a rage.
Sudden attack!
YAAAAAAAR!!!! He screams indecipherably, froth spitting from his lips as he finally connects with a single blow, albeit weakened from the damage he just sustained.
Surprise strike
Your efforts finally bear fruit as the combined strikes from both you and Ragnar hack down the creature attacking you as it falls to the ground you can finally see its form:
"This eerie beast appears to be the animated skeleton of a huge fanged cat, its bones glowing with fire and seething with smoke."
The glow and smoke quickly dissapate and soon you are looking at just the skeleton of some enormous cat.
***end of combat***
~Ragnar takes a knee as the strength of his rage leaves him and the effect of the horrendous wounds take hold~
Anything else in this area?
4 uses on me
Do you want some heals Ragnar?
3 uses on Ragnar
-5hp Caldir
Just the desk over the hole of mystery. Ragnar greatfully accepts some heals (far superior rolls BTW).
Move through doorway.
The door suddenly flashes with heat, glowing red-hot as steam and smoke pours out of the develish face decorating the door.
It swings open...revealing nothing but a blank wall beyond.
There is no doorway.
Search for secret doors on the blank wall.
Finding none after a few minutes you are convinced it's just a wall.
I think we left some of the hallways unexplored, head back and check out what we bypassed earlier.
~exhaustion still in his voice from the recent fight~Aye, but sooner or later we are going to have to see what's under this desk. I can't imagine they put such a protector here for it not to hide something valuable down below...
You double back and find two unexplored rooms:
ROOM 1
"What may have once been a small cheerful bar shows that this
room once acted as an underground tavern. Several shelves
for wine bottles fill thewestern half of the room. Most of
the wine bottles are smashed, the furniture likewise ruined,
with the exception of a strangely child-sized table and set of
chairs that seems to have been built out of scavanged parts
from larger furniture that sits on top of the bar itself."
In this room you find:
four bottles of century-old elven spirit wine that
has just reached its apex, worth 175 gp each. two potions
of cure moderate wounds, two potions of lesser restoration, a potion
of levitate, two potions of mage armor, a potion of protection from
arrows, and a potion of reduce person.
ROOM 2
"This chamber looks to have been designed for both comfort
and function. Oversized beds and couches litter the room, but
there are also desks for study, maps and libraries for research,
and even a small exercise area."
In this room you find:
a well-crafted pre-Thrune Chelish banner worth 75 gp, a
vial of oil of daylight, a scroll of sending, and a scroll of lesser
globe of invulnerability
You also find a strange helmet with a note:
Vudran Ashak Helm
There are many wonders to dazzle the eye of the
visitor to distant Vudra, and chief among them are
the statues and paintings of the many-armed and
many-faced deities that seem to sprout like weeds
after a rainfall. In Vudra, the people incorporate
their strange depictions of gods and spirits into
everything, from the mundane to the mystical.
Multi-faced masks are common, and it seems
that every day brings a parade, with men and
women in clever costumes with extra arms
controlled by some mechanism like a mummer’s
puppet. Many temple guards, known as Ashaks
in Vudra, wear special helmets with three faces
representing their watchfulness in all directions.
Some of these helmets are truly enchanted, and
allow the guards to see from all three faces. These
are the guards you should hire, should you ever
make the journey yourself.
—Robinsa Losis, Oppara
Vudran Ashak Helmet
Aura faint divination; CL 5th
Slot head; Price 22,000 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
Descr iption
Crafted of overlaid bronze, steel, and chain, each Vudran Ashak
helmet is a work of art. These exotic helmets possess three
stylized faces, each serene visage staring in a different
direction (with the wearer’s face concealed behind
the central sculpted plate). The helm allows the
wearer to see in every direction, granting
him immunity to being flanked, as well as
granting a +4 enhancement bonus on all
vision-based Perception checks.
There is one last unexplored room, but this one has a locked iron door-DD DC 35
What a string of crappy rolls, take 20 if I can.
After several minutes of dithering with the lock, you finally alight on the right tumbler sequence. You strangely feel almost like the lock was "fighting back" and actively resisting your attempts to open it:
"The walls of this room are lined with bookshelves. A velvet
sofa along the southern wall contains a single skeleton clad in
long-decayed rags, its arms wrapped tightly around a burlap
bag bulging with unseen items. A scattered pile of junk sits on
the floor before the skeleton, a corona of treasures and clutter
alike. A message in Common is scrawled on the wall in huge
crude lettering opposite the seated skeleton: “He who steals
from me dies by my hand.” The grisly pile of skeletal remnants
heaped in a mound in the center of the room seems to testify
to this threat."
(assuming at this point that I don't know what the helmet we found does, otherwise I would put it on for the +4 perception bonus)
Does any of this ring any bells on anything I've learned about the lodge, the Pathfinders, or the Thrunes?
Inspect the room and the skeleton more carefully.
Do I have any idea of the identity of the skeleton? Anything abnormal about it? Wearing any jewelry or anything besides rags? Any signs of trauma or other evidence of how the person died?
As you step closer into the room to examine the gear surrounding the body, the head rises from the rest of the bones screaming , Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!
A bitter chill fills the air as two enormous shadow-like creatures rise out form the corners of the room to confront the party as the skull continues to shriek and chatter about someone trying to take its valuables.
You are surprised as the creatures strike at both of you!
Caldir
Ragnar
Caldir
Ragnar
Ragnar's eyes again fly wide in a now panicked rage as he feel his strength ebb from the shadowy embrace of the creature.
GORUM!
Sudden attack!
Ragnar took 15 Str damage and he still does 54 damage! I am in the wrong build!
-5hp
-4Str
Ragnar took 15 Str damage and he still does 54 damage! I am in the wrong build!
[dice=rapier]1d20+15
[dice=dam]1d6+11[dice=dagger]1d20+14
[dice=dam]1d4+11-5hp
-4Str
Caldir
Ragnar
Desna smiles on you as both shadows miss!
The shadow facing Ragnar shatters into fragments and dissapates back into the gloom.
Your continuous flurry of blows is enough to dispel the sinister shadow.
As the last part of the shadow ebbs, the skull stops its chattering and falls back onto the rest of the skeleton.
***end of combat***
I hand Ragnar 5 lesser restoration potions from my handy haversack.
I take 2 lesser restoration potions. I have 7 more plus whatever we have gained since we entered the lodge!
Now look for traps and then inspect the skeleton, the stuff surrounding it, and the burlap bag full of what I hope is treasures.
*I have been on an extraordinary crappy roll binge of 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's!
The bones seem subdued now that you have vanquished thier shadow protectors.
In the bag you find:
a pair of chopsticks made from
manticore spikes worth 15 gp, a leather pouch containing
six bloodstones worth 50 gp each, a masterwork bolas, a
silver signal whistle worth 60 gp, a golden bell carved with
Thassilonian runes worth 450 gp, a ring of swimming, a set of
pipes of sounding, and a lens of detection.
About the skeleton you find:
+1 leather armor. A ring
of protection +2 sits on one bony finger, and his +1 animal-bane
heavy crossbow sits across his legs. An efficient quiver containing
60 mithral-headed crossbow bolts and two javelins of lightning
is wedged between his bones and the back of the chair he
sits in. His wayfinder is clutched in one hand, a dusty rose
prism ioun stone set in the wayfinder’s central receptacle. As
long as this ioun stone is kept in the wayfinder in this way, the
wayfinder’s powers are suppressed but the ioun stone grants
a +2 insight bonus to its owner’s CMB bonus and on his
CMD score in addition to the normal +1 insight bonus to AC.
Further details on how wayfinders and ioun stones interact can
be found in Pathfinder Chronicles: Seekers of Secrets.
Scoop up all the loot!
Are there any other exits to this room? Any other rooms or areas on this level that we have left unexplored? If not, then I guess we are headed back to the desk with the hole underneath it.
Back to the desk it is!
Making your way back to the desk, a refreshed Ragnar throws his frame at it.
Not sure how this works? It's a DC 35 STR check. Do I roll and add his STR 24 or just his bonus +7.
If it's the latter, that desk ain't moving and you will have to think of a different way to get in...
I think you just add bonus, but DC35 would mean someone with a +15 strength bonus which is a 40 strength would have to roll a 20 to move the desk. Just saying that desk must weigh 50 tons or something. What if we push together? Each roll d20 and add Str bonus.
HUUUUNNNNNH!
~pushes the desk with you~
Heavy load max for 24 STR is 700 lbs. Figure the push pull is 2-4 times that so yeah, the desk weight a good 4-6 tons (solid stone).
Caldir tries to push the desk but he can't get good purchase on the stone floor.
Well this stinks...never though I'd be bested by a rock! There's got to be a different way into this thing. Gotta be some kind of deal with these stupid blue letters, ya think?
Start touching blue symbols.
As before, each time you touch the runes on the wall they glow and pulse somewhat. You discover that with enough focus you can actually move the symbols around on the wall and as you do the corresponding ones around the desk move as well. Thinking about locks and tumblers and how you have to align each tumbler in sequence to open a lock you run through mulitple configurations of the runes.
After almost an hour of furstrating work, you stumble upon the correct sequence and the desk magically pivots to the side revealing a staricase leading further down into darkness.
"Looks like we need to go down there, but if this damn desk moves back over the hole we're gonna be screwed unless there is another way out."
Well best you be in good standing with Desna then. Trapped in a hellish canvas was bad enough. Trapped in a tomb...{shudders}...well that I don't fancy at all. Doesn't look like we have a lot of options though. Go down or go back, and Ragnar has never let fear stop him. Heh; not that it's always worked out well for me, but it has worked out. Screw it! Let's get this done so I can get back to the Boot. This place is depressing.
Heads down the stairs, sword at the ready.
Follow Ragnar down the stairs.
The 10' wide stairs descend E for about 40' before turning N and widening to 20'. This flight of stairs winds downward into a darkness that is periodically shattered by the erratic flashing of a bright but
distant light. The stairs continue to descend about 50' ending in a large hall running E/W. It is about 30' wide and runs as far E/W as you can see from the bottom of the stairs and your dim light.
There are single doors on the S wall on either side of the staircase.
To the N, three separate layers of huge vault doors of stone once barred
the way down this massive dark hall. Each has been forced apart by what looks to be the pounding of a thousand blows—the doors now hang askew on their hinges. Just north of the door are large piles of rubble on which numerous mirrors have been affixed, their reflective surfaces aiming to the north end of the hall.
From the rubble emerge four pale humans, their teeth and claws can only mean one thing...undead!
Time to die...again!
Ragnar hacks one down one of the creatures with his first swing and savages another with his second, but the second creature is tough enough to withstand the blow!