The large hound trots into the room with a very subtle click of toenail, the slight slump around the middle and the floating of the reigns being the only indicator that Feldivar is still on its back. Feldivar can see that the rest of the room is empty of anything beyond a table and a few chairs that look to be for taking breaks. A large door sits in the northwest corner, resembling the one on the ground floor for the lift.
Feldivar's voice comes out of the thin air, just loud enough for Rutter to hear, "I don't see anyone else, but there is another door." The animal continues into the room a bit farther.
Neva hurried up the stairs and opened the double-doors to the south, the ones with the design of rampant gazelles and worn from heavy use.
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As Feldivar moves his mount a little further into the space, Neva rushes into the room to try and push past the double doors that the Maidens were obviously guarding. She grabs the handle, but the doors are locked and do not give way.
Rutter wipes off his scruffy mouth after spitting on the Maiden felled by Raliscar. Watching Neva try the door, he sheathes his blades and takes her place, producing his lockpicks. "I guess there's a chance he don't know we're coming yet."
After pausing to check the door for traps, and let whoever's behind it stew in anticipation, Rutter gets to work on the lock.
After popping the lock, Rutter, puts away his picks and pulls out a kukri, then looks back to make sure everyone's ready before he opens the door.
As Rutter picks the lock, compassion overcomes Neva and she reaches down a comforting hand to the still-breathing maiden.
Rutter deftly sheaths his blades as he moves over to inspect the door Neva attempted to open. Drawing near, he inspects the surface, edges, seams, and finally the lock, before he determines that it's safe to proceed with unlocking it.
Vyshael mentally directs the flaming sphere into the room, then follows it, keeping his blade in hand and raised, waiting for danger.
Raliscar shakes his head at the downed maiden Neva stabilized and, seeing Rutter was still at work on the door, kneels down and removes the woman's helmet, looking hard at her still face. 'Sometimes it helps to not think of the people stabbing and shooting at you as people.' The dwarf then shoots a quick look at Neva. His shoulders droop slightly and he shakes his head ruefully as he turns his gaze back to the woman Neva spared from a trip to the Boneyard. 'An' then again, sometimes it's important not to lose sight that they are.'
HP: 57/64
AC: 21 (14 T / 17 FF)
CMD: 20
F/R/W: +9/+11/+5
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [X] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [X] [ ]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [X] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [X] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
haste: +1 to hit, +1 ref saves, +1 AC, +1 attack/rd (4/6 rounds)
As Rutter focuses his attentions on the door and accompanying lock, every else files in and takes up a position in the room. Despite his considerable skills, Rutter just barely manages to catch the tumblers just right to open the thing. Any slight upset and he would not have been able to bypass the doors defenses.
Vyshael steps toward the door, trying to line himself up to see as soon as it opens and readies a web spell.
Rutter pauses for a moment. That was a more complicated lock than I expected. Hope I didn't miss anything... Eff it! Here goes nothing!
Rutter swings the door open with an eager grin.
The ornate doors swing open to reveal rows of white-sheeted beds lining the walls of this room. Each one is occupied, every bed bearing a patient restrained by leather straps that bind the figure to the sturdy metal frame. At the room’s center stretch simple wooden worktables, each covered in fluid-filled beakers, intricate glass tubes, small burners, and other alchemical instruments. A single door stands off-center on the south wall.
HP: 57/64
AC: 21 (14 T / 17 FF)
CMD: 20
F/R/W: +9/+11/+5
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [X] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [X] [X]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [X] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [X] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
haste: +1 to hit, +1 ref saves, +1 AC, +1 attack/rd (4/6 rounds)
gravity bow (1/6 minutes): bow damage increased to 2d8
Feldivarxon looks back at the door they haven't checked yet. He urges his hound toward the door to have a listen.
J
Vyshael pauses, waiting to see what happens next, and prepares to react based on what it may be.
Neva looked warily into the room, sharing Vyshael's reticence to enter.
"I don't see anyone. Rutter?"
She waited for the sharp-eyed halfling to move forward.
For his part, the invisible gnome is at the unexamined door, listening.
Rutter draws his other kukri and casually saunters into the room. He looks at the patients in this room, trying to judge if they are in better or same shape as the ones on the ground floor. If any are conscious, he'll approach them, "Hey, buddy, aren't there any doctors up here? Who's looking after y'all?"
Raliscar follows the others in, heavy crossbow still at the ready but the sight of the numerous patients puts a brief check in his step. "The devil-" His face then darkens as he looks to the doors across the way, "This is as far from being a hospice as anyone can get!"
HP: 57/64
AC: 21 (14 T / 17 FF)
CMD: 20
F/R/W: +9/+11/+5
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [X] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [X] [X]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [X] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [X] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
haste: +1 to hit, +1 ref saves, +1 AC, +1 attack/rd (5/6 rounds)
gravity bow (1/6 minutes): bow damage increased to 2d8
As Neva realizes there is nobody hiding with a weapon, her concern for the patients starts to rise. She moves into the room, trying to master conflicting feelings of fear, compassion and outrage.
Neva's concern for the patients overcomes her fear of more enemies, and she moves into the room to examine them.
As the doors open, Vyshael pauses as the expectation of a threat does not present itself. Raliscar decides to go ahead and make his way inside, in the absence of enemies. Almost as anticipated, as soon as he enters, three men in the eerie plague doctor masks leap out from behind the doors to batter at him with their cudgels. Only two of them find their mark, striking hard on his forearm, and the other his knee, respectively.
Neva yelped in surprise and pain as Raliscar was attacked. She instinctively reached out to him in sympathy and a surge of healing energy flowed out of her fingers and into his body.
Then, realizing she needed some space to fire her crossbow and to allow Vyshael and the others forward, she stepped back.
"Ouch! What ever happened to 'do no harm'? Bunch o' bloomin' maniacs in here!"
---
HP: 27/64
AC: 21 (14 T / 17 FF)
CMD: 20
F/R/W: +9/+11/+5
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [X] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [X] [X]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [X] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [X] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
haste: +1 to hit, +1 ref saves, +1 AC, +1 attack/rd (5/6 rounds)
gravity bow (1/6 minutes): bow damage increased to 2d8
Vyshael begins whispering arcane words, casting a longer spell.
Raliscar is limited in his options while surrounded by the three men. Out of necessity, he fires off the shot he already had loaded into the stomach of the man standing beside him. Despite the three men swinging their cudgels at him, he manages to shrug off the blows or avoid them all together, all the while launching his bolt. The man takes the hit just left of the stomach, doubling over in pain as the bolt sees a spread of red around it.
With the sudden appearance of the physicians, Vyshael realizes he can't roll the ball of fire in without running into one of his allies. He switches tactics, beginning to conjure the energies for a spell.
Adjusting his position on The Dog so he can see into the room where two of those physician fakers are attacking the dwarf, he conjures up a coating of slippery slime under their feet and behind them.
Rutter draws his other kukri and circles around the single physician before taking his swing.
Feldivar's investigation of the north door turned up nothing more than it looking similar to the one on the ground floor where the lift was. Returning his attention to the fight, he leads his mount back to a spot where he can see more clearly and conjures his reliable puddle of slippery grease. The physician with the bleeding wound, actually manages to keep his feet, having already been using the nearby wall and bed to try and hold himself up after the bolt struck. The other one, however, manages to flop flat on his backside into the mess.
Neva, seeing the abuse Raliscar has taken, decides to refocus some of her divine gifts into healing him. She channels Pharasma's life-giving energies into his wounds, before stepping back and loading her crossbow.
Rutter, using the distraction caused by Raliscar's reckless crossbow shot, dashes into the room with a flashing kukri in hand. Unexpectedly, Rutter saw the physician's cudgel come back around at him and was mostly able to deflect the blow off of his chain shirt. It wasn't enough to keep the halfling from cutting a gash along the back of the man's left calf, as a line of blood began to seep through his leggings.
Rutter's target, disregards him almost completely, side-stepping to use his ally's position against Raliscar. He swings from a flanking position, but the usefulness of his ally is too little to allow him to find a gap in the dwarf's defenses. The other's uselessness is compounded by his attempt to move through Raliscar and rush for the door. He keeps his footing on the slippery surface, but just bounces off the sturdy dwarf. At this, he changes his tactic and moves deeper into the room. The last one just barely stands up in the goop, and shifts over to replace the cowardly member of their group in flanking Raliscar. He too finds that a prepared Raliscar is much harder to hit than the one they got a jump on.
Vyshael speaks the final word of his spell forcefully and smiles as the room, and his foes, suddenly seem to shrink before him. As soon as he feels the magic fill him, he pushes the lingering energies into the blade in his hands, then reaches within himself and looses the chains holding the righteous fury within him... so carefully... allowing it to fill him with strength and focus. "Now, little doctor, it's time for your appointment."
Raliscar slips next to Rutter, his brow furrowed with a deep scowl as he glares at the surgeon beside him and the halfling. "Ambush me, will you? You should have stuck with sewing stitches!" The dwarf then lets a trio of bolts loose.
HP: 55/64
AC: 21 (14 T / 17 FF)
CMD: 20
F/R/W: +9/+11/+5
Ranger's Focus (+4/+4): [X] [ ]
Level 1 spells prepared (1+1): gravity bow [X] [X]
Necklace of Fireballs: 6d6 [X] // 4d6 [X] [ ] // 2d6 [X] [ ]
-Ongoing Effects-
Favored Terrain (underground/dungeon): +2 to Initiative, Perception, Stealth, & Survival for ALL party members
haste: +1 to hit, +1 ref saves, +1 AC, +1 attack/rd (6/6 rounds)
gravity bow (1/6 minutes): bow damage increased to 2d8
Raliscar steps out from between the two physicians still in the fight, turning to aim his crossbow at the one that Rutter had slashed. Taking aim allows the physician a chance to swing out and just glance off Raliscar's armor, offsetting the dwarf's shot so that it just skipped past the leather clad arm of the man. Being more cautious with his second, he launches a bolt too prematurely, as his caution pays off by the man missing. Finally, on the third shot the man tries to recover his swing, but does not return fast enough to avoid Raliscar's bolt shot ripping into him. He pauses, clutches the wound, before crumpling to the floor.
Vyshael finishes his spellcasting, and soon begins growing almost too large for the space at twice his size. With the one active physician standing against them, he finds that he needs to step into the doorway to get a clear shot at him. Hunched within the arch of the doorway, Vyshael brings his now oversized greatsword around in a wide arc and cuts almost cleanly through the middle of the man. The physician has only a split second to weakly grasp at the gash in his middle, spilling out his guts, before he drops with a wet plop into the grease and his own wide pool of blood.
Feldivarxon whispers to his dog and off it runs, weaving through and past the assembled allies.
The dog turns and faces the fleeing doctor and growls, showing a handsome set of choppers.
Neva squeezed past Vysh to get into the room, training her crossbow on the retreating physician. Her magically enhanced speed allowed her to clear the door and the table with remarkable quickness. She let loose her bolt.
Rutter rushes to cut off the retreating physician. He circles around him and brandishes his kukri threateningly.
The dog, sitting quietly in the back of the room, perks up before dashing off across the room to stand defensively in front of the single door on the opposite end of the room. Oh, and although no one can see it, Feldivar is there too.
Neva uses her magically advanced speed to rush into the room, just far enough to peek her crossbow around the corner of the table toward the retreating physician. Just over the top of the small vats, sitting at this end of the table, Neva fires her loaded crossbow at the man already bearing a heavy bolt in his gut. The shot just clears the vats to hit the man in the chest, his eyes go wide in shock, before he slumps limply to the ground.