Round 9
Artemis would quickly shift up again closer in order to get a better shot, moving 20 feet closer to the big room before aiming at one of the archer goblins and firing.
Round 9
Another shot from Artemis though it seems luck is not with him. Jellena comes in with her lightsaber and takes down one more as Joe takes out the one in orange.
The goblins come in and the big one has a dark blade with minimal rust upon it. Joe takes two large cuts, As Franks armor takes the blow for him.
Round 9
Frank disarms and skewers another goblin, keeping his balance over the blood slick floor he aims to flank the goblin, moving to far to open himself to the goblin but dodges the attack easily enough.
Round 10
The big goblin shouts, "Grugluc..." Then the rest if not also his name is all in goblin.
The other goblins come through the door and get ready to attack, the two not in combat pull out flasks from their pouches, the third moves to target Frank.
Round 10
That big goblin is the Leader, the big bad, thinks Joe. Well, you know what that means..!
The paladin's concentrated visage curls into a sneer, and stares into Grugluc's face. "YOU!"
Round 10
Artemis shift closer towards the goblins, wanting to get a better shot on them as he listens in and fires his rifle towards the big goblin.
Round 10
Joe strikes the leader and it seems to barely be able to stand from the grievious blow, then the shot comes through and takes off the top of his head. The leader down and the goblins scatter...
Round 11
As one of the nearby goblins attempts to flee, Joe takes a swing with his magical sword.
The last few goblins are taken care of easily enough. Two of them cower in corners as the other two flee mindlessly provoking 'attacks of opportunity' from your group, .
As the last of the goblins are dispatched, Joe carefully approaches the door where the reinforcements came from.
Joe you can hear a strong whirling sound.
The paladin carefully opens the mysterious door.
As you open the door you can see a blazing red orb or portal, beside it is a woman chained in place with her arms outstretched towards the red portal. The whirling is obviously coming from the red portal. It appears that red energy comes from the female elf's hands. Vibrant red runes of all sorts cover her skin, which most is exposed as most of her clothing has been ripped from her body and laying in pile at her feet. New glowing tattoos continue to form on her body. She does not look back at you only focusing on the portal. The room is rather bare, it seems that there is a slight suction to the portal as you can see her hair and bits of her clothing move back and forth as if trying to get free and enter the portal.
Joe takes a moment uses detect evil on the woman and the portal.
No evil present until a goblin appears on round three from the portal.
"Crap!" The paladin exclaims as he draws Excalibur to take down the newly-formed goblin.
Artemis would leave the rest of the goblins to the party, not wanting to waste any more ammunition on harmless goblins. Resting a bit on the wall, Artemis would frown and count the remaining ammunition before mumbling to himself, "Is this gun cursed? Or am I just that bad of a shot?" Watching Joe out of the corner of his eye, Artemis would raise an eyebrow and slowly follow as Joe disappeared into the room, checking the corpses.
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Jellena takes her attacks of opportunity as the goblins flee, her lightsaber buzzing as it slices easily through the air the same as bodies. Muttering to the goblins she has death resounding from her voice, "Oh no you don't! Goblin filth must die!!!" She follows the remaining goblins out of the room with a flutter of her robes. She then begins searching for them and cutting them down with no remorse. Stopping at any unexplored tunnels to return possibly with the others.
Entering the room you can all feel a draft and a slight gravity pull from the red portal. The goblin sees you and shrieks, "EeeK!" Then jumps back into the portal. The woman blankly looks at you and whispers something.
Artemis you find all sorts of trash, small weapons that look either rusty or falling apart, toys that have mold and are falling apart, though the big goblin's sword looks better than most and is not small, a black longsword.
Joe nods with grim determination. The paladin whispers to Excalibur, "We're just knocking her out!" The then raises the blunt of the magic sword's hilt above the chained woman's head and brings it down hard.
With the woman knocked out after one strike the energy between her and the portal stops. The runic tattoos also begin to stop glowing easily seen before the cloak is draped over her. With the chains sundered the portal begins to fade but also its pull increases.
With great determination, Joe picks up the cloaked unconscious woman and walks out of the room.
Joe gently sets the unconscious woman down on as clean a part of the sewer floor as he can find.
"Jellena! Help!"
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With a cry of her name she comes rushing into the room. Seeing the wounded woman on the ground she quickly stows her lightsaber after deactivating it. She sits besides the woman and begins to inspect... shaking her head she simply lays her hands on the woman and calls, "Mistress come bring your power, your wisdom, use me as your conduit and do your will."
After the spell she checks her again to see if there is any change and moving her patient's head into her lap... covering up her inability of before. But you can tell how unsure she is as it shows in her face. She squints and looks up at each of you, with sorrow in her voice she relays, "I am not sure. My lack of knowledge or what is going on with her likely has to to with my little experience with the art. She is alive, that is about all I know. I will stay here with her in case she wakes up. Go find out what is in there, we need to find the other members of their team should they still be alive before leaving. I don't think I got all the goblins." As she says this she pulls out a massive 2 foot by 3 foot book bound in black leather with a white scythe printed on the cover, she begins to flip through it looking for answers.
Turning away from both healer and patient, Joe looks around the main room, stopping at every goblin corpse for ear harvesting. Taking one of the plastic bags still in his lunchbag/beltpouch, the holy warrior gathers those ears he harvested and begin to fill the yellow Dollar General plastic bag with gruesome currency.
"Guys! I have 2 more plastic bags for goblin ears to share. Who wants them?"
During his exploration of the main room, Joe finds a heavy wooden shield, filthy with whatever symbol on it hidden under layers of dirt and muck. Except for it's cleanliness, the shield appears to be whole.
The paladin eventually makes his way to the big goblins living quarters and finds the various items. Joe seems drawn to the bejeweled headband.
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"She has been through some s@!!. I don't know if she can recover. Perhaps with some magic that can make her forget. I agree Jellena. We need to find the others."
Frank is quite interested at the items they found especially the two swords. He seems drawn to the simple looking one. Picking it up and feeling the weight and balance of it.
"Well looks like we need to continue to hunt. I will carry the girl." He heads over to her unconscious body and picks her up fireman style.
"Which way did the little bastards run off to Jellena?"
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"I remember some of them ran off to the... um... over there." She says unsure about directions, she points towards the East tunnel, once back in the main junction again. Once the girl is picked up by Frank Jellena quickly looks around this room and the other before following the group.
She does collect the other items of note if no one else does... making sure to use her detect magic spell while searching,
Artemis would look up and watch as party centered around the unconscious woman, raising an eyebrow and walking over. longsword in tow. "I'll pass on the goblin ears, but thanks?" Artemis says as he briefly looks over at the girl on Frank's back.
While Artemis explored the living quarters, he would take the small wooden box, curious on what it is as he looks for any lock on it, returning back to the party as they began heading to the main entrance. If the party went down the Eastern tunnel, Artemis would make sure his gun was fully loaded, taking his position behind Frank and Joe, but in front of Jellena.
"I remember some of them ran off to the... um... over there." She says unsure about directions, she points towards the East tunnel, once back in the main junction again. Once the girl is picked up by Frank Jellena quickly looks around this room and the other before following the group.
Jellena stole Joe from his revelry of the mysterious headband and quickly puts it in his belt pouch. The paladin unsheathes Excalibur once more, now twinned with his newly-found filthy shield and nods tro the others as he investigates the eastern tunnel.
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Jellena nods at Joe's suggestion clearly remembering about the currency, "Yes I will take one bag please. Once your bag is full I can make it so the flesh doesn't rot, and you can make them stop smelling with your prestidigitation Joe." She takes a bag from Joe and helps cutting any ears off that she finds. Casting a form of preservative magic upon the dead flesh once a full bag is collected or at least what they collect.
Leaving the room and heading south down the tunnel to the main junction the group follows the wall around. Passing one outlet to the outlet leading directly East that Jellena referenced. Going down the tunnel you don't find any more goblins and after a few hundred feet find a small junction that can continue forward or go left or right. There is no obvious sign of where the goblins went.
Looking around the junction, Joe curses, "Dammit! That goblin is probably long gone by now!"
The paladin looks to the others for insight or consensus on turning back.
"I want to see Delman before we go", Joe said solemnly.
"Yeah, let's go see him at the very least," Artemis pauses for a few, a bit more dejected at the mention of the dead party member, "Its the least we can do...
"A little", Joe confesses. "I mean, does Alethia just grab our souls again and throw us back down to Arcannum, or are we a 'one-and-done' lot. The Afterlife is no longer as straight-forward concept as before, to be certain."
Artemis ponders for a few behind Joe as they continue walking, "Well... I can't say for sure, but I don't think we are one and done,". Artemis shifts his rifle as he continues, "There are a limited amount of wishes we can earn from doing various tasks, and while I can't rule out the possibility some of them have been done beforehand, I can say that Alethia is giving us a great honor by offering wishes as rewards."
Joe looks back at the rifleman, taking in the quiet man's words, and nods.
"Yep. You definitely have something there. One thing's for sure, Arcanium isn't boring!"
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”Oh there is an afterlife. I know all about it being a priestess of death. Death here is a lot different from our old world. As there are many different places you can go now. Don’t ask me why there is a difference. Or at least I know what happens when you die here. It is based on your actions on this plane of existence. So far by my judgement no one would go to panadmonium, the nuetral plane of nearly nothing. Likely putting you into a good plane of some sort. There are many so until you die I wont know where. There is ressurection magic here as well. If you pledge yourself to Death costs of ressurection would be decreased drastically, especially being an otherworlder you could become a Chosen and become part of her familia.” She relays with confidence and warmth.
Heading back you don’t see Delman’s body where it was left. Continuing into the smaller junction you find Einar sitting between Delman and another body. Einar then relays, ”Delman is still dead, this is the one Frank found down that cramped tunnel. He is breathing. I have not checked that room yet.” He points over to the closed door.
Joe is slightly distracted when Jellena talks about 'familia', but shelves that discussion for now as he finds Einar with the two bodies.
"Einar, how's that guy look?" The paladin motions to the unidentified man.
Without waiting for an answer, Joe detects evil on Delman's corpse, looking for a 'familiar' spot on the body.
Einar looks a bit out of his league, unsure, he relays, ”Not sure but he is breathing.”
The evil spot is in Delman’s pocket. The cat is there in his pocket, it does not resist being pulled out, it looks barely alive.
The lad coughs and sputters, with Jellena’s help he sits up. Seeing you he begins to cry but then stops getting ahold of himself he croaks out with a dry throat and cracked lips, ”Thank you, did you kill the goblins? We were ambushed and seperated. My other members retreated to that room. Stella... Travis?”
Joe slides down to sit next to Delman's body, and begins to pet the struggling familiar.
"It's okay", coos the paladin to the small cat. "If this works, hopefully you and Delman will be right as rain."
Joe then straightens his posture and begins to speak in an authoriative tone.
"I, Joseph Waskalis, hereby invoke the entity using his feline as it's conduit into this dimension to speak! In the name of Heironeous, Cayden Cailean, Bahamut, Alethia, and The God of Moses, I again invoke the entity to if not speak, but listen! Use your connection with this familiar to bridge the gap between the living and the dead to bring back your minion, Delman, back to life. It would be a shame to lose your connection to this world from something so simple as goblin arrows. You never know how long it might take you to find another in this dimension! Again, I, Joseph Waskalis, paladin and wielder of the magic sword, Excalibur, hereby invoke Delman's patron to return the soul and health back into the bodies of this familiar and your servant!!"