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"On the immune-to-magic statues? No. No one can cast magic on statues that are immune to magic... And what magic I have cannot open doors. I'm a trapper, and a bleachling. Beyond that, I'm largely unremarkable without an audience."
”Didn’t come here to be turned back by fookin’ statues. Let’s smash them before they come to life. Easy as goblin pie. Ye ready Hob?”
Hob switches weapons, drawing a shield as tall as he is and a cut down polearm.
"Ready." Hob nods "Lead on. We'll need your hammer. They go you, I'll be your shield wall."
If Thurin plays along...
Hob will follow slowly, and (ready) Brace for an attack with 10 ft reach.
If any of them do still attack Thurin, Hob will use his AoO to give Thurin a +2 AC from his Cover Ally.
Hob and Thurin stalk into the room, towards the pair of animated statues. To their relief, the statues don't move. Perhaps the trigger is something other than merely entering the room...
”Ye smash that one, I’ll do this one. Break ‘em before they come to life. Let’s fight on our terms! Tell me when ye be ready.”
Hob nods, and takes the first cautious step.
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"Maybe they'd leave you alone if you acted like proper houseguests! I don't recall Kegan having any friends, but I'd imagine he wouldn't want to disarm his whole house to have tea with his mother. I'd hate to see you break your- nevermind."
Ganzorig pulls his trap sack from his backpack and gets ready to plant a pit outside the door.
Thurin smashes C1 with his hammer, causing spiderweb cracks in it's side. Both statues immediately drop their hands to their weapons, and draw them with the sound of stone scraping stone.
Initiative
The column Thurin just stuck drops low into a fighting stance and swings back hard. Thankfully, Hob's timely parry turns what would've been a deadly strike into merely a hard one. . While slashing, it steps around the dwarf so that it's partner can flank. C2 strikes at the dwarf's back, but only dents his armour slightly.
"I would suggest falling back. If you can put some space between you and them, I can drop one of them into a pitfall."
"Fall back?! Bah! A dwarf does not fall back! I'll hold them in place. Just make sure ye miss me with yer magics!"
Thurin grimaced as the blade bit home against him, and responded with another blow from his hammer.
"That, and if I turn me back on these things, they'll fookin' gut me."
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"Can Dwarves not walk backward? Saddly, dear sweet Thurin, I have yet to learn the secret to casting magic on stone what's immune to magic, but there's a chance this might help..."
Ganzorig focuses on Thurin, getting a feel for his heedless thundering, then attempts to duplicate him, zigging where the real Thurin zags.
The illusion will take a 5-foot step to get into flanking position with Hob. Hopefully "immune to magic" doesn't mean "literally cannot see illusions". If the illusion is visible to the pillars, they'll have to hit it and succeed at the will save per Illusionary Touch.
Touch AC: 15
Disbelieve Will DC: 16
With a sigh at having to break such beautiful creatures Hob drops his polearm and draws his sword, then lashes out at the golem flanking Thurin.
Katsa gawks at the statues, and waits to see if anyone needs healing magic.
Thurin smashes C1 again, feeling the crunch of stone under his hammer. The statue sways unsteadily perhaps due to the large chunk of it's chest that's missing, but it stays standing. C2 parries Hob's blow, and turns to face the orc, seemingly unbothered by his size. C1 glances at the two dwarves and decides which one to hit. Somehow discerning the real one from the illusion, it's sword clangs of Thurin's armour loudly. C2 strikes Hob cleanly, it's blade cutting into his armour.
”Losing blood here! Some Healing-“ He slammed his hammer into it once more.
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Hob switches to a defensive stance, once more swinging out at the statue in front of him. Rage takes over his mind, and his flurry of strikes is well telegraphed.
Thurin's hammer smashes C1, which collapses to the ground, deaminated. Katsa sprints around the newly opened gap in the fight, using Thurin for cover. With the armoured dwarf between her and the remaining statue, she taps Thurin on the back gently. He feels his wounds close and a gentle warmth flowing through his body. .
Hob's strike harmlessly flies over the statues shoulder. Despite it being unintelligent and emotionless, Hob almost catches a hint of a grin as it continues it's assault upon him, swinging wildly. The blow clangs into Hob's shield, sending vibrations up his arm, but leaving him unharmed and angrier.
Ganzorig maintains the falsified Thurin, plucking the threads that maintain the nodes of light and sound like a lute’s strings and having it move beside the genuine article. This brings the image to the edge of the gnome's control so Ganzorig holds his breath and leaves Pyrope's side to take a step into the house.
Seeing that Hob is dangerously hurt, Katsa circles back slightly to avoid the caryatid, coming to a halt slightly behind and to his right. Pulling a flower from her hair, she holds it on her hand and blows. Blue petals explode through the air, far more of them than could reasonably come from a single blossom. They blanket Hob momentarily, healing his wounds, and then fade away to nothingness.
Katsa has taken 2 non-lethal damage; 6 sp remaining if I recall her total correctly.
Don't let me forget to make a Fort save after each combat to avoid fatigue. It's part of my drawback.
As Katsa's healing envelopes him, Hob's focus returns. His swings become smaller, and more precise.
Flush with victory, the dwarf swung on the next construct. ”Aye, teamwork.” He grunted as he swung.
The twin blows of Thurin and Hob smash the remaining statue, sending it staggering back. Still standing, but looking like it could barely take another hit, it lashes out at Hob again. Again, the stone sword clashes into Hob's armour, but this time without injuring the massive beserker.
Hob continued to swing with perfectly timed mechanical precision against the statue. The construct had his rhythm now, though
Thurin sought to put the construct down with one giant blow. The secrets of the manor would be opened!
Thurin's double advances cautiously into a flanking position with Hob.
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Noting that Thurin is still wounded, Katsa plucks another flower from her hair and drops it. Pale green leaves coil out of nothingness, covering over his wounds. When they vanish moments later, his wounds have vanished as if they never were.
The slow moving construct may have seen Hob's blow coming, but failed to dodge out of the way. It's head severs cleanly from it's body, and silence once again fills the room. Hob notices a huge chip in his blade, and many cracks running down the side.
The two swords the statues were wielding are intact and valuable. Despite being made of stone, they are weighted and balanced as very high quality longswords. While there might be some magic involved in that, they'd only be worth more than a normal masterwork long sword as a rarity, as the effectiveness is equal.
Ganzorig gives the duo a round of applause. "Well, that was a near thing, and quite riveting. Might I suggest, however, that we make some small attempts to avoid provoking the house's deterrents?" Ganzorig hugs his shoulders and looks around. "Anything important is bound to be behind that metal door. Should we bother with the others?"
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Katsa picks up the head of the fallen caryatid, studying it. "So strange that Kegan would fill his entry chamber with such terrible guardians," she says. "I wonder if he was expecting to be attacked?" She gently places the head back on the floor.
Brushing her hands free of stone-dust, she stands and looks about. "I don't like the idea of leaving things behind us that we don't know about," she says. "We should tackle them in an orderly fashion."
Her mouth quirks. "Hey, Hob," she says. "Remember this from the games we played as children?" And she chants:
When in danger or in doubt,
Deisul is the path to flout!
Turn the luck the other way --
Widdershins will save the day.
"So ... I suggest this one." She moves to the southwest door and examines it carefully without opening it.
"Sure." Hob shrugs. "Get out of the way though. I'll set up my shield, open the door. If there's a trap, hopefully it'll bounce off. Thurin, be ready to hit anything that comes out."
”Aye. As I see it yon mage might well be dead. And we will just loot his notes. If he’s alive, we make enough noise for him to investigate. But nay matter what, this house is tryin’ to kill us until we are certain otherwise.”
Hob slowly opens the door, revealing a neat kitchen. A bare wooden table and chair decorate the south wall, practical if not comfortable. Across the north wall lies a neat countertop, also quite empty of supplies. The countertops along the west wall contain a few simple plates and glasses, along with the rotten husks of vegetables and plants and other cooking ingredients, clearly unused for many years. A wooden door leads outside, connecting to the garden. The windows on the south wall are tightly curtained shut, leaving the room in darkness.
Your finely tuned sense detect nothing else of interest.
Katsanóron runs her hand over her hair, causing the flowers growing there to shed a gentle light. She looks about the room. "Well, we found the kitchen," she says. "I doubt there's much of interest here. Shall we move on to the next room?"
”Aye, I suppose so. Guess it’s too much to ask to find the mage making himself a snack.”
While the others peer into the kitchen like a totem pole of cookie thief's, Ganzorig and Pyrope exchange a series of increasingly exasperated looks. Pyrope looks impatient, and anxious, pacing outside the door. The gnome's face is writ with excuses. He has the image of Thurin pantomime knocking him through a window with a clean swing of it's hammer.
Then, Ganzorig mimes striking a fire, and points at the saddlebags, and shrugs.
"Everyone out." Hob orders, and turns to the gnome. "You. Open those." he points to the curtains "From out here." he points outside the door.
Orders given he hunkers down, ready for something. "We should get those swords, too. Good work." he comments. "Once we make sure we're not thieving."
Ganzorig looks at the floor outside the door, and the curtains, several feet away. "I'm not entirely sure how you think I can do that. I don't go down to your forge and- nevermind."
Ganzorig walks past the others into the kitchen, set on drawing the curtains.
Illusiory Thurin shoulders past Hob, following the gnome.
Struggling to reach past the table, Ganzorig barely manages to pull the ragged curtains open. A sheaf of dust falls from them as they move, and the bleary light of the clouded day floods the room.
Katsa opens the next door with a creak, revealing a dark room filled with shelving units. Four rows of floor each carve their way deep into the darkness of the tall room. The shelves are in no particular order, covered in rotten rood, magical supplies and implements, and general living materials at seemingly random. Notable is that there are no books or scrolls of any sort here, although some ink pots and quills are visible on a shelf near the door. The shelves are rotted and the stench of decay fills the air. Something is gently burbling and bubbling deep within the room.
"Hmm. If you want to go in that room, watch the shelves. Could go at any time - and squish small people." While Hob's comment is addressed to everyone, he glances at Ganzorig as he speaks.
”It would take a light step and a light touch to pilfer anything from those shelves then. Which isn’t me. I say let’s secure the house before we do anything as dangerous as exploring this room.”
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Ganzorig glances at the table and counter in this first room with apparent disinterest, raising his hands to present the empty room. "If all you needed was light, I can do that." The gnome's black eyes iris, and circles of sickly yellow light project into the area around him, swimming like sunlight through a pool of water. "I haven't any use for it myself--I only see light and color through others--but for you?" Ganzorig slaps illusory Thurin's calf. "Anything."
"Yes, they look unstable," Katsanóron says. "What's that bubbling noise?"
She cautiously eases into the room, taking care not to disturb the shelves, and looks for the source of the noise.
Ganzorig walks back into the central room. "Door number three, or door number five?"
Katsa slowly stalks deeper into the room, on the lookout for trouble. A puddle of water covers much of the floor. Glancing down the third isle, she notices a huge pile of smashed beakers and vials, as if someone swept a whole shelf of potions onto the ground. Before she can react, a tentacle of chemicals emerges from the puddle and whips Katsa, wrapping around her waist and trying to yank her sideways. The acid of the chemicals burns her flesh, but it doesn't get a hold on her. The puddle begins to move and shift, taking on a silvery sheen and it starts trying to grab Katsa again.