"Let's make some torches for now, if they prove less than effective, we'll switch to the lamp," Sam said, pocketing the uncooperative gem for now.
"I'll start on the note for Reaghar." Connor stated. He sat down on the wooden riser, and took out pen and parchment. Scribbling a few sentences, he added a crude map to the bottom of the letter. With that done, he put the items aside and then concentrated, putting his fingertips together, then drawing them apart. Ectoplasm appeared as Connor made a shovel from the aether. When he was finished, he handed both the tool and the message to the waiting construct.
The psicrystal came over to Connor, climbing up his leg and back until he perched on his shoulder. Connor merely pointed a hand on top of the construct's head, and Hero climbed down his master's arm and dug his spiderlike legs in the crown of the artificial creature. "We have our messenger-slash-digger ready to move out." Connor announced. The artist flashed the construct and Hero a set of mental commands, with contingencies. The astral construct flapped its' wings, rotating away from the Atalantians and heading out the double doors.
As Reaghar and Elrohir are bedding down for the night, there are noises that begin to come from the hole, and then a rather dirty astral construct with a shovel comes crawling out of the hole. It marches up to the pair, and holds out a dirt encrusted piece of parchment.
Upon reading it, the parchment has a crude map, and details on what the team has found below.
"Well, I'll be damned. Not just an animal's den. You gonna dig that hole out a bit, crystal-pet-guy?"
Hey! Boss! Ol' Red-Eyes wants to know if we're going to dig out the tunnel. It almost collapsed on us climbing up it. It's 40 ft long, I don't know if it'll stay in one piece long enough for us to dig it out if we start digging. What you want me to do? Oh, and can I ride in Alys's bra next time instead of one of these idiot constructs of yours? It's a real moron. Or at least take some classes in sculpting and make them female? You know, with big ol hoo.... The next few minutes is Hero describing the 'perfect' construct to be his ride.
Back down in the halfling underground city Connor was doing his nightly chores, such as updating the chalk map on his map maker's kit and writing in his journal. The adventurers had already made their torches out of the refuse in the room. Connor was debating whether use a torch, his lamp, or his lighted ring as a room light for the next eight hours when he suddenly looked up at the others.
"Hero has finally reached Reaghar." he told the elvavians and the half-elf. "It seems that tunnel might be-" Connor broke off and spoke to the side for a second, saying "No, that's not important, you lecherous crystal, arrgh! Stay focused!" Connor shook his head as if he had dunked it in a barrel of water, to clear it, then continued. "The tunnel's a little shaky. If I dig too much it might collapse entirely. I don't want to send more constructs with shovels to do the work while we sleep, because I'm almost out of mind-energy as it is. I'll have to tell Reaghar to squeeze in like we did. If everything goes well, I'll send back the construct alone to dig a better tunnel. Worst-case, Reaghar might need some help from us, but I don't think that will happen. I'll tell Reaghar to go ahead and come to us."
Connor sent to Hero Have the construct dig the tunnel a little wider at first, but if Reaghar follows concentrate on reinforcing the tunnel walls with the construct and the shovel. Pantomime to Reaghar to come to us. Get Reaghar past the shaky areas first if they look dangerous. If Reaghar doesn't have a light source you'll have to lead him by the hand to our room.
I'm a part of your personality you know, maybe if you got laid more often, I wouldn't be so preoccupied with mammaries and other things. You've got a perfectly attractive girl in the same room with you and you never make a move on her. So don't complain to me because your subconscious is tired of living a celibate life! The crystal responds archly. Anyway, how the hell do you expect me to tell Reaghar all that? I don't got vocal chords. Idiot..
Up top, the tiny red crystal the constructs head waves it's little spider legs until Reaghar notices it. If he doesn't, the spider will crawl up Reaghar's body and park itself on his nose until it's noticed. Once it has attention, it points to the hole, then the shovel, and two legs make digging motions. Then all it's legs stick straight out, and it slams down into the dirt on the constructs head, raising a little puff of dirt. Then it stands up and shakes itself off. It again points to Reaghar, and then to the hole, and then curls itself up into a tight little shape and edges itself across the contruct's head for a few inches before standing up and stretching.
The small crystal seems to be trying to convey that digging on the tunnel may collapse it, and it's safer to squeeze down it to where there's larger areas below.
Connor conversed silently with his psicrystal.
First off, Alys is armed with a gun. All. The. Time. Secondly, she's an elf. In case you forgot our grade school lessons, a human that mates with an elf gets a half-elf. A Wingless. Clan McIntyre wouldn't just disown me, they'd have me assassinated. Clan Reville might not care, but I won't rear a child that can't fly. Some of the girls, or women, back on the Edge had possibilities, but I'm not one of those guys pretending to be 'a bumblebee spreading his pollen to every flower' or having a wife in every port. So find me a Clan woman who won't despise a craftsman, or has a 'pedigrees only' dance card, and I'll convince her you're a pendant good for her skin tone.
As for Reaghar, use the astral construct, rocks-for-brains. Connor suggested, not unkindly. That's why I sent it with you. If it starts digging a little bit on the hole, Reaghar might get the idea.
"What the hell is this crap? They stuck in the well?"
The small crystal slams itself repeatedly with one leg, about where it's head might be if it had one. Then it crawls down to the dirt around the entrance and begins the long laborious task of making scratches in it with tiny legs.
HOLE MAY FALL IF DUG ON
The whole process takes about 20 minutes.
"Oh boy so it's even more dangerous. "
at this point reaghar just gotta in because this had gone on too long. Not what he would reallydo but whatever.
By the time Reaghar squirms down the tunnel, and then falls out on to the pile of dirt and stones at the bottom, he's covered in dirt and dust and caking mud (from the sweat mixing with dirt). Annoyingly enough, the small construct and hero mostly just slide down feet first behind them.
The small construct then leads Reaghar carefully through the underground areas to where the group is resting. Fortunately for Reaghar, he has darkvision, and can see just fine.
When Reaghar gets to the group, he says "Remind me why we are down in this s@#@hole again? El' was out hunting for some meat but I'm sure he will figure out what's happened from the scratches in the dirt."
Connor told everyone in the room when Reaghar had made the last turn in the corridor to their location.
"It was nice and quiet above?" Connor asked Reaghar. "Let me tell you, this Snowcoat person picked the worst place, outside of that dragon capital we were told about, to look for treasure." He filled in Reaghar about the halfling city, the decorations, the godling's room, and the murderous balls of light and not-electricity. "What gets me," Connor stated, "is that we haven't found a kitchen, or a sleep area, or a school, or a nursery. Just the worship room, a storeroom, and this" the young man waved his arms around, "...whatever it was. I think theatre, but I could be wrong. But is this a normal city, or a special temple, or a monastery?"
Hero crawled off of the red-eyed humanavian and went back to Connor, while the astral construct took a position at the far end of the corridor from the room, acting as a guard again. Hero seemed miffed by something, even as Connor stroked it like a cat cradled on one arm.
"Anyway." Connor finished, "We should get some sleep. Hopefully Snowcoat won't die of thirst while we recuperate."
"I really hope you can turn that suit of armor that none of us can use into something useful, like a pile of coins."
The first concept that something is amiss that Connor has on his watch is when something slams him in the back with a crackle of energy. Agony floods through his body as anti-life floods him.
+1 if fort
+5 if perception like normal
PErception
Reaghar and Selvan wake up, looking around. They see a purple ball of light make another attack at Connor.
Connor is hit by an especially powerful bolt of energy, and the man goes flying back against the wall to bounce off it and slide down. His skin goes bone white and he slides to the ground bonelessly.
The ball bobs and turns toward the next closest strong source of life force, and hovers over to Alys's sleeping form.
The electrical spark slams into Alys's body, but it hits part of her pack, missing her. She is however awakened by the near miss.
As Connor fell the astral construct outside the room turned, its' sightless eyes focusing, as it beat its' wings and flew towards the rest of the party and the glowing ball of light.
Meanwhile Hero narrowly escaped being crushed under his own master. Moving closer on spidery pseudolimbs, the psicrystal tapped a tattoo on Connor's neck half-hidden by his white shirt. (psionic tattoo of Natural Healing, 3 hp back, -8hp and stabilized)
Draw bow.
Swift Action: Inevitable strike.
Ready action to fire on purple thing as soon as alys gets at least 10ft. away from it.
SElvan pulls his bow and with a command backed up by panicked empathy over the collective he roars.
"ALYS! CLEAR OUT OF THERE!"
Readied attack
attack
damage
Reaghar will attempt a knowledge check. below is his roll, modified as shown below that depending on what knowledge was required.
Know (Arcana) +9
Know (Dungeon) +4
Know (Engineer) +4
Know (Geography) +4
Know (History) +4
Know (Local) +8
Know (Nature) +4
Know (Nobility) +4
Know (Planes) +4
Know (Religion) +4
Knowledge (psionics) +9
If Reaghar thinks he knows what it is, and he isn't in melee with any of these things, he will take a full round action to gain psionic focus (already has focus, but must spend the action to focus again to change his Disruption Type, since I assume Humanoid and Animal, his last two stated types, are not right for these arcane-elemental-mote-thingies).
However, if he is in melee, he will 5ft step out of threat range and tap a tattoo.
I didnt see a map link so I assume we are going "theater of the mind" on this one?
Reaghar looks at the pulsing purple ball of energy, and realizes it's a negative energy elemental. They are exceedingly rare, very hard to defend against, and tend to attack the closest living thing if they encounter something alive. That might explain why there's been no sign of vermin in the place. They tend to explode on death.
Sammark Init: 5
Alys springs to her feet. "Good idea.", pushing herself off the wall with one foot she dives past the elemental towards connor, using the corner of the wall to adjust her trajectory she slides along the stone stopping next to the humavian.
The elemental, having lost it's current target, vibrates for a second, and then moves toward the next nearest source of life energy.
The elemental jerks and a bolt of energy slams into Sammark, making his flesh smoke and crackle.
Reaghar's attack goes wide, and dissappates itself on the wall.
The astral construct, a small humavian with wings, continued to advance on the sparkling ball of light, as per its' last orders. As it moved it changed, its' arms becoming bulkier, heavier, losing their dexterity as the astral construct curled its' hands into fists.
Even as it swung, the astral construct started to fade and dissipate.
Hero the psicrystal stayed put, watching from atop the fallen Connor.
Sam does his best to defend himself from the orb of death and stands up. If he was going to die, he might as well die on his feet.
The elemental takes advantage of Sammark's slow movements as he pulls himself to his feet.
Fortunately for Sammark, he slips as he's getting up, and the attack hits the wall instead. Sammark then completes his movements to get to his feet and begins to bob and weave defensively.
The small construct races in and tries to slam the elemental, but misses, and then fades from existence.
The elemental attempts to attack Sammark again.
The fat spark of energy slams into Sammark, although it's a near thing.