Vel rights herself, snarls, and sends illusions spinning madly at the sapped vine, but to no avail.
Kia reviews her options and realises that she could either stand there doing nothing or stand there shooting at something. She chooses the latter. Putting away her sword, she takes out her new longbow and aims at V1.
Kia looks pleased with her new bow.
Kia channels her eladrin heritage and fires an efficient arrow into V1. More sap flows.
Whiteclaw's hackles rise and the gnoll charges across the clearing and with a single blow of her frost battleaxe fells S4.
Gobi moves closer to Arianwyn "How ya doing mate? Let me help you with those wounds."
"May Avandra's luck be with ya"
Gobi then grabs his Hammer and Shield and charges at the enemy in front of him.
Pausing only to help Arianwyn heal his wounds, Gobi pounds relentlessly to the shame of his race and bloodies the final vintner.
An outraged squawk greets his efforts.
"Don't touch the coat!"
The vines, meanwhile, converge mindlessly on Seraphiel. Even with the divine help of Gobi's aura, he can't prevent the swinging, encroaching tendrils from severely wounding him.
V1 (AC) v Seraphiel (1d20+14=29, 1d10+6=8).
V3 (AC) v Seraphiel (1d20+16=26, 1d10+6=10).
Reason attempts to aid Seraphiel.
Stepping away from the vine, Reason tries and fails to hit it.
Thoroughly flustered, the last vintner edges away from Gobi.
"Disgrace to dwarven kind," he chunters ineptly. The comment never even touches the paladin.
S2(AC) v Gobi. On hit gets secondary attack v Will. (1d20+12=14, 1d8+4=8)
Arianwyn stands by Gobi and ponders "Are they sentient, do you think?" as he casually fires a beam of energy at the enemy dwarf.
The vintner turns and gasps in outrage as Arianwyn's insult and his eldritch blast land at the same moment. Before any words can leave his mouth, injury wins and he collapses dead to the ground.
Backing cautiously towards the prisioner, Seraphiel takes line of sight on the advancing vines and sends a miniature lightning storm to trouble their peace. For V1, the attack is too much and it subsides into compost.
Vanguard's Lightning (ref) v V1 and V3 (1d20+9=22, 1d20+9=15)
Damage from Vanguard's lightning on V1 (1d6+6=10)
Vel, satisfied that the tide of battle is turning, works to hamper the remaining vine's attacks so that it can be brought down.
"Now we'll never know." the eladrin adds as he fades out and then back into existence.
Vel's attack just misses the last vine and Arianwyn elects to teleport showily across the field of battle, emerging at Kia's shoulder.
Seeing that there was no-one else near enough to deliver the (hoped for) final blow, Kia drops her bow, draws her sword again and moves up to the vine to deliver the coup de grass (the vegetable equivalent of the finishing blow).
Kia's grass cutting antics cut more tendrils, but do not finish the monster. Whiteclaw can stand no more. She raises her frost battleaxe high, hurtles towards the ambulant plant and bisects it with one chilling blow. Ice forms on the edges of the defunct plant.
Charge! (1d20+11=31, 1d10+5=6).
Yusiri huddles on the ground, eyes still wide and horrified, rocking gently.
Arianwyn surveys the destruction.
"So, this pertains to your dislike of dwarves, or your dislike of alcohol?" he asks dryly.
"I love alcohol and it loves me."
Yusiri looks up at the still faintly glowing warlock.
"I feel as if every hangover I've never had arrived at once."
His voice grows a little stronger as he finally starts to realise that the vineyard is mostly devoid of dwarves or wandering plantlife.
Arianwyn laughs.
"Each of you has indeed had the greatest prison devised for you, wherein your ardent love is perverted." he says, not in an unfeeling manner.
"It felt like a prison. I've been here for years, haven't I?"
Yusiri looks around and flinches back a little at the sight of Gobi. "You did ... remove them all ..."
"Merely hours. Interesting."
Arianwyn looks at Gobi, "Mm? Ah yes, this is Gobi. He is a stalwart companion, and has very refined sensibilities for a dwarf."
"Hours ..."
Yusiri looks down at his meagre towel and then at Vel and Kia.
"Have you any garments you could lend me?" he whispers, "So I can leave in a less embarrassing way. We are leaving, aren't?" His voice starts to rise again in panic.
Arianwyn looks at the dwarves, "I wonder if their clothing would cease to exist if taken from this demi-plane?" he ponders.
"Good question, most of it is my size after all." Gobi chuckles
Neither Arianwyn nor Gobi have any idea whether the bloodstained and scorched garments will survive transportation to the material plane. Yusiri gulps slightly.
"I know I asked for garments, but I was thinking more along the lines of a spare cloak. The towel is fine," he adds hurriedly, "but please, can we go?"
Vel's mouth quirks, as if at a private joke, then she considers the portal to see if there are any difficulties in returning through it.
If not, she leads the way.
Vel's skill assures her that the portal is safe to use and what is more was created and held open by a master.
She steps confidently through.
Vel
"Just you?" He sounds concerned.
Gobi prods the portal with his finger a few times before poking his face through.
Whiteclaw bares her teeth in amusement and gently shoves Gobi through the portal. Turning back to Yusiri, she extends a huge paw to him.
"I'm a gnoll. We have different ideas about proper clothes. We're taking you home."
The man nods limply and obediently follows his huge protectress through the shimmering gateway.
Pirot looks relieved as Gobi, Whiteclaw and Yusiri join the party.
Looking sympathetically at the towel-clad man, Pirot throws a shabby dressing gown at him.
"Make yourself decent and have a cup of tea."
"Hey, what's the idea? Who knows what could of been on the other side of that thing. Bunch of dwarf haters or something!" Gobi grunts, "Tea? don't mind if I do!" he instantly lightens his heart back to its more common state and drops some of his gear aside in the room.
Pirot gestures towards a steaming kettle and stalks towards Yusiri.
"Look at me. I want to know what they did to you."
"The rest of you tell me what happened."
Arianwyn raises an eyebrow. Obviously Pirot has recovered some of the former manner that found disfavour with the rest of the University.
"A living vineyard and some offensive vintners." Arianwyn says simply, dusting himself down.
"Interesting. Kyleth seems to have deveoloped a sense of humour since she was under my tutelage."
Pirot extends a hand to Yursiri and places a finger on his forehead. "This will hurt, so just concentrate on drinking the tea."
Yusiri howls as Pirot taps his head and pulls upwards, creating a small portable vision of his own capture. You see Yusiri being yanked unceremoniously into the book and the swarms emerging to take his place.
"Quiet, man. I told you it would hurt."
"The pain is a good side-effect. She didn't manage to take over his mind." comments Pirot as an aside. He dismisses the vision and dusts his hands together.
"What do you plan to do now? How can I help you?"
Yusiri moans quietly and clutches his head.
Across the room, Gobi sips his tea loudly. "Eh, sorry." He looks embarrassed for a second and then looks around. "Yeah, what's the plan then?"
Pirot pours himself some more tea.
"Weltmann has been informative. I take it you are not admirers of my ex-student?"
Arianwyn states blandly, "Your former student is one of the foremost menaces to have threatened this land in recent times."
A look of faint pride crosses Pirot's face.
"Of course she is. I taught her."
"Even so, she's clearly got some remarkably silly ideas from somewhere. I suggest that you put a stop to her goings on. You need to find another book. This one will be in the Library."
"The library..."
Kia looks significantly at Vel, starts to say something, then decides not to.
"I suppose that's where we go then... Are there many valuable books there?"
Pirot raises his eyebrows at Kia.
"Naturally. Where do you suppose the bait for these singularly unpleasing traps came from?
More to the point, is whether you can persuade the Library to let you use it. In my teaching days, I lost students there. They didn't take proper precautions."
Turning his back on the group, he refills his teacup.
"Some of the ghosts left behind are unhappy about that. Hence my own preference for asking others to retrieve books for me. A fact Kyleth no doubt took advantage of."
"Praise Ioun!!! Let's go!!"
"Err.. which way to the library?"
Arianwyn sighs, "Friend Reason, this will unfortunately, not be a leisurely perusal to indulge your bibliophilic tendencies. It will most likely involve the forceful exorcism of these ghosts."
"Er... Before we go, I'd like to know a bit more about these 'proper precautions' your students didn't take."
Pirot nod approvingly at Reason. "A scholar to the bone. The ghosts," he continues, "may prove troublesome."
Turning to Kia, he continues.
"The main difficulty will be persuading the Library to let you look for the relevant book. I have no idea which unfortunate volume Kyleth has selected to implant herself in, but the arcana section of the Library can be helpful. I would recommend that you ingratiate yourselves by returning the books in your possession. Except for mine. I propose to destroy that. Where is it?"
"Persuading the Librarians? Or the Library?"
"What Librarians? The Library takes good care of itself and dispensed with them some time ago."
Vel mutters something, and by her expression, it's as well it isn't audible.
"Are you Weltmann's new find?"
Pirot stabs a finger in Vel's direction.
"He mentioned you. Enthusiastically, by his standards."