You can all get to your horses on the Southern side of the inn, the stables were thus far unaffected by the destruction, though the horses are noticeably panicked.
The cracks should be easy enough to avoid with a little caution, none of them are very wide except for the main gouge cutting out from where the inn used to be. The northern end of the square is mostly cut off from that rift on one side and the collapse of much of the Academy on the other. In the center of the square is the lava geyser. You can move with little difficulty around the southern rim of the square, and slowly through the cracked area just south of the geyser.
Ever pragmatic, Mayve scoops up her the map and the book Lamere had shown them.
"Let's go! There are undoubtedly people needing help."
"Undoubtedly. But we will help no one if we oursselvess are injured. I ssense no foe, but if our enemy iss not flessh and bone, a bit of caution would not go amisss until we know what threatenss usss." T'zay attempts to open the door.
The big lizard steps cautiously into the hallway spear at the ready, alert for danger....
Glee finishes clambering to the top of the rubble pile in time to see an upper door open and a giant lizard-person step cautiously out. "Watch that first step, friend; it's a doozy." She smiles lamely as she looks back down the rubble pile she just ascended to get here. "Anyone else in here? I believe the building will hold for now but we should really get everyone out, pronto. Oh! And I'm Gliressa, by the way. You can call me Glee if you wish. Most do. I figure we can do proper introductions later but names are always useful."
Glee stands and catches her breath for a moment while waiting to see who else might come out of the room.
Mayve sticks her head out the door past T'zay, and surveys the destruction.
Ducking back into the room she looks around "Well Lareme, if there is anything you want to take with you, get it now." Mayve reaches into her haversack and pulls out a coil of rope.
"Mayve! T'zay! We just had a rift into the Elemental Plane of Air down here. Tore half the inn apart and a good deal of the town as well. Are you injured or anybody else up there need my...herbs?"
Sevram arrives at the bottom of the rubble a few seconds after Irina and he has his shield ready to cover himself of any new events he looks at Irina and says Who the heck are Mayve and Tzay?
"We are well, Irina Moretz'kya." T'zay turns to Mayve and offers to hold the end of the rope while she and Lamere climb down. "It ssays there is a doozy below," He glances down at the rubble dubiously, "I shall watch your back as you dessscend."
Glee does her best to assist any who might need it, climbing back down to street level.
(sorry for the delay)
Rhane rushes out the door to the inn, narrowly avoiding a gout of magma flaring up out of the ground. He sees Glee and Sevram and the other woman from the inn heading across the street to the academy, and waves them onward. Go, see if any of the mages can be of use sorting this out. I am going to get whatever horses haven't bolted from the inn so that we can make get everyone to safety. As he makes his way towards the southern end of the inn, towards the stables, he attempts to keep any traces of fear or nervousness off of his face.
Please, Misha.. stay with me old girl. I am on my way! I know I promised you a few days of rest and nice oats, but it looks like neither of us will get the peace and quiet that we wanted...
He enters the stables and attempts to calm the (I assume) spooked horses and get as many as he can on a rope to lead towards the academy.
Handle Animal:
@Rhane
You find Misha well, if a bit startled. The other horses scream, snort, and kick, obviously terrified, however your constant training with Misha allows you to calm them enough to lead them from the stable.
"Go, girl! Get to safety! I must see to the others here, the apprentices and teachers!" Master Lamere shouts to Mayve over another crash of stone, before disappearing into the dusty haze of the ruined academy.
As the rest of you make your way over the rubble into the square, you see two massive shapes crawl from the lava spray. As they make their way clear of the lava, they coalesce into humanoid shapes, their red, glowing forms take on a rocky shape, cracking and reforming as they move.
Bright, glowing flames protrude from their eyes and mouths, and ripples of bright red and orange can be seen between the cracks in their rocky exteriors. The creatures are stocky, each almost 20 feet tall .
One creature heads in the direction of the group leaving the academy, and the other heads toward the inn and stables, where many wounded remain and Rhane is tending to the horses.
EDIT:
(Oh crap... well, here goes nothing!)
Initiative:
(Well, that was abysmal. I suppose now is when I should inform you that anything dice-related hates me. Especially when rolls matter. ;) )
"Beassts of sstone and flame..." "Stay hidden, Baem, your fangs are no use here."
"What in the nine kingdoms? This does not bode well!" Mayve pulls out a wand and casts mage armor on herself. For the moment she remains in the library room.
Kn. Planes
Initiative
For all the gods, where did that come from?
Knowledge - Planes:
"Magma elementals! Probably from the planet's mantle. That rift must go far down."
Initiative:
Irina levels an evil eye at the elemental heading towards the group, inflicting a -2 penalty to its AC for 9 rounds (Will save DC 18 reduces that to 1 round)
Update - The terrain:
The square is about 200 feet across, the magma elementals are in the middle, about 80 feet from either side. The academy is on one side, the inn on the other.
It's difficult terrain all the way across, except on the south side of the square, so if you want to fight them on even ground, you'll have to try to lure them there.
EDIT: The elementals are about 80'(24m) from their respective sides of the square. One magma elemental is about 80' from the people at the academy, the other is about 80' from the inn. They are about 40 feet apart from each other.
"Oh no! The Inn! The wounded!" Gliressa chuffs out a sharp exhalation and sprints forward, towards the inn. Executing a pair of flips to vault over fissures in the ground and a handspring over loose rubble, she lands at a spot just out of the nearest elemental's reach and then rolls and vanishes silently into the shadows behind a pile of cobbles and dirt left by the heaving ground.
No sense yelling from here; nobody's gonna hear me. I gotta get a lot closer.
Initiative order:
19 Glee
17 Sevram
15 T'zay
15 Elementals
14 Irina
11 Mayve
8 Rhane
Sevram is up!
Initative: 8
Hitpoints/Max: 51/68
AC/FF/Touch: 20 / 18 / 12
CM Defense: 24
Rhane comes around the corner of the inn, leading the string of horses behind him. Seeing the strange creatures in the square, he draws up short. What in the...? this day just keeps getting worse.
Sensing the ensuing combat, Misha tenses up in preparation for the charge. Rhane leans down and ties off the horses that he was leading and then goes through his mental pre-battle checklist. Armor? Check. Banner unfurled? *looks over his should to ensure that it is* Check. Lance? Check. Sword? Check. Guts and glory? Ha, you betcha!
Action: Depending on what you consider the action to be for tying the horses off, Rhane is going to ready himself for a charge at the nearest elemental. He is going to wait for it to make the first move, hoping that it will move to within 50 feet of him so that he can make a charge over the difficult terrain with his lance that will carry him past his opponent.
Whenever the charge does indeed occur:
Charge Attack:
Hit: (+1 Lance)
Cavalier's Charge: +4 to charge attacks while mounted, no penalty to AC from charging.
Spirited Charge: Double damage from mounted charge attack, triple if using lance.
Ride-By Attack: Can make a charge attack and continue on up to total of double movement, not provoking attack of opportunity from the target of the charge.
Banner: +1 Morale bonus on charge attacks, +2 Morale bonus to saves vs. fear. These effects also extend to any allies within sixty feet.
Initiative: 17
Hitpoints: 66/74
AC: 23
Sevram unsheathes his sword as he approaches the nearest elemental and shouts Stay back! I will try to hold him! the takes a swing at him trying to keep him focused at himself.
@Sevram
@Sevram
So it's probably outside Irina's hex range as well, then. I guess instead of hexing the elemental, she will sprinkle herself with some harmless powder and activate her flight hex, moving to shadow Sevram.
"I have a brew which will make you bigger, better able to reach those creatures."
As promised: the map
Elemental 1 perception
The elemental closest to the group sinks through the stones of the square, into the earth below. You see a strange sheen appear on the surface, moving toward you. The trail moves 20 feet closer to you, and the elemental bursts up again, leaving no passage behind it.
The other elemental continues toward the inn in a similar manner.
@Rhane Because of the difficult terrain, the elemental is still too far for your charge.
@Irina You can remove the potion so it's in hand, but you'll have to wait for next round to hand it off.
I think everyone's covered for round one. Round 2, Glee is up!
Gliressa, confident she wasn't seen, detaches herself from the darkness long enough to dance lightly over rubble and spring across the fissures in the ground, finishing her movement next to the remains of a shop front, where she again disappears from sight, blending seamlessly in with her surroundings.
"Mother, guide my spear." T'zay moves swiftly, yet carefully, over the rubble and takes up a position on the front line next to Irina, leveling his spear at the creature before him. "Irina Moretz'kya, do these creaturess know sspeech? Perhapss, like me, they were torn from their rightful place. It could be that wordss will calm their fury, preventing further losss of life."
"They probably speak Ignan," she replies, "but I never learned that language. They might have been displaced from the mantle by the rift, or they might have followed the opening up to see what they could destroy."
Sevram takes the brew from Irina's hand and takes it all in with a sip. He notices how his body grows and he feels stronger. He truns to Irina with a smile and says Thanks, that makes things more balanced his smile fades as he turns back to the elemental Maybe you should stay back, that creature won't fall easily
Hitpoints: 66/74
AC: 22
Mayve puts away one wand yanks out another, and casts fly on herself.
The first elemental slides into the earth again, popping up 15' in front of Sevram and slamming him with a massive, burning fist.
The second elemental catches sight of Glee, and burrows 20' closer to her, no longer heading toward the inn.
Well, in the words of the ancient sage Mohandron... "if the firey creature will not come to Mohandron, Mohandron must go to the firey creature." Or something like that.
Rhane chuckles to himself as he lowers his lance to point at the nearest creature and clicks his heels against Misha's side, sending her into a slow trot in it's direction.
Moving: 40 feet towards elemental 2.
DAMN*D B*STARD THAT HURTS!! shouts Sevram
Reflex Save
Irina's move action was to hand Sevram the potion of enlarge person. She then takes a 5-foot step forwards, and quickly prepares and lobs a tanglefoot bomb at the elemental fighting Sevram.
Touch attack:
Elemental is entangled (-2 penalty to attacks, -4 to Dex, only move half speed, can't charge or run) by the goo and needs to make a Reflex save DC 17 or be stuck to the ground. The damage is fire based, so I won't even bother rolling.
Round 3, Initiative 11 AC 21/14/17 HP 43/43
Fort +8, Ref +9, Will +11
Mage Armor: 1 hour
Mayve launches herself into the air and moves up and towards the magma elemental.
Pointing a gnarled root of a willow tree at the elemental, Mayve activates the wand or unprepared combatants.
"That should slow you down a bit!"
Alright, he's seen me anyway, obviously, and I guess at least this keeps him from going at the inn...
Gliressa, seeing the mage take to the sky, Irina's accuracy with the bag, and the combat preparations of Sev, Rhane, and the big lizard man, gets an idea. After taking a second to steel herself, she steps boldly out of the shadows and strikes a defiant pose, not even bothering to draw her weapons. Pointing at the nearest magma elemental and yelling at it in its native tongue, she unleashes a stream of invective and intimidation as Seth stares beadily out at the thing as well, his twin tiny eyes a strange visual punctuation.
"K'c-rnaod'na! Y ryzzorj iy' dy maora dryk kmora, makd iy' zaad o dannycma orj vnygar jyyz od y'n rorj! Myyg od dra zokyrk 'a ryzzorj, vmiyrk orj jykokkaonyrk, zyryrk ok 'a 'ymm! Km'k y'n 'onnyynk rora zokyr 'aokyrk drod ona yzz'ra dy iy'n raod orj ror kyanra iy'n kdyri ryja ok aokymi ok kyvd kyym. Ky! Ky corg yrdy dra zokzo vnyz 'ryrr iy' roza! Y 'ymm RYD 'onr iy' okoyr!"
Seeing Glee confront the beast, T'zay holds his ground. We may yet avoid bloodshed, but I fear it may be too late....
(About to head into work for the evening, so I am going to go ahead and post my action for whenever my turn in initiative comes up.)
Rhane clicks his heels twice against Misha's flanks, prompting her to thunder forward into a full-tilt charge. He sights along his lance at the nearest elemental, focusing all of his strength and that of his horse into a single, overwhelming strike.
Charge Attack!
Hit:
@Irina, Mayve, Sevram, and T'zay
The elemental in front of you lets out a hideous roar that sounds of grinding rock and jets of flame as it struggles against the tanglefoot bag, but it cannot manage to break free.
Sevram stays his ground as his body grows to the size of that of an ogre and takes two testing swings at the elemental.
Full Attack with Combat Expertise
Attack 1
Attack 2
AC 24
HP: 53/74
The elemental near the academy, still railing against the goo pinning it to the cobblestone square, swings its arms furiously at Sevram, missing once as the fighter deftly ducks under its clumsy swing.
Sevram is not as lucky the second time as the creature clobbers him with a burning fist.
@Glee & Rhane
The elemental before you pauses at Gliressa's strange speech, seeming momentarily confused and indecisive. Suddenly, it roars as Rhane's lance pierces its side, exposing a massive gash of liquid rock that quickly cools and seals over.
In response, the elemental swings and connects with the knight, though it's only a minor blow.
Elemental 1:
HP: 85/85
AC: 15
Stuck in tanglefoot bag
Elemental 2:
HP: 46/85
AC: 17
1d20+14
2d6+1d8+6
1d4
(Just as a note: when charging, I do not provoke an AoO from my target per the "Ride-by-Attack" Feat that I am using. If you want to do so since I shouldn't have been able to charge per the rule you pointed out to me, I am okay with this. Just wanted to give you a head's-up for the future.)