Brok looks at Keil and says "Good thing they're on that side of the river 'cause our weapons are worthless. If they come over here, I'm climbing the wall and trying to get away."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In the spirit of fraternal gobliness I declare that Grezzor will leave his sphere in place, cooking the same goblin as last round.
Grezzor is content to have his sphere finish off the rearmost goblin, which it does quite effectively.
The remaining goblins, despite their numbers being whittled away with inflicting any damage upon you, continue their attacks...
; damage.
Again only Raaz suffers a minor wound.
As Grezzor's ball of fire cooks the little abomination, the shadowy man's black lips crack a smile beneath his dark mask. Keil takes a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of cooked meat hanging in the air. The odor is, simply rapturous!
But his revelry will have to wait. Considering his success rate with the bow, a cold idea seeps into his psyche. Although he and Brok had been able to score hits upon a few of these goblins, neither of their arrows have been particularly effective. With this in mind, Keil draws back another arrow and his yellow eyes select a new target from the remaining goblins. One which won't put up much of a fight, one that is already badly wounded. Spying such a goblin, the shadowy man's fingers release the tension of his bowstring and Keil watches as the arrow takes flight.
Seeing how little use his crossbow has proved so far, Brok just reloads and holds his action.
If one starts across the stream he will shoot it and start climbing out of reach.
|
Realizing that even if they hit him, these cretins are unlikely to cause serious damage, Varg stops defending and begins pounding the goblins.
Attack-FOB: <-- attacking most injured looking.
Damage:
Attack-FOB:
Damage:
AC: 19
In making the attack, Varg also shifts over to allow his companions to flank the gray goblin.
Arlok steps back and cuts down another of the puny goblins.
"Shade, execute the enemies who go unconscious." Grey says calmly, turning his attention to another goblin.
Raaz glares at the feral goblin's before swallowing his pride, as he weaves his spear in front of the goblin trying to distract it from Arlok's coming blow.
Malzii sends her ancestor's blessings over the party while Raaz manages to distract the goblin pestering Arlok.
While Brok holds his fire Keil has better luck this time, manageing to draw blood.
Raaz's aid proves most timely as the tiefling's spear manages to give the godling the opening he needs to savagely wound the goblin. Not to be outdone here, Praetor sends his wave of dark energy at the already wounded goblin... fail.
Shade swoops in and dives into the unconscious form of the goblin still asleep draining its life essence...
Vargrenz' first blow connects to the goblin's side but the tough skin thwarts the followup blow.
Taking aim at one of the creatures still standing, Grezzor unleashes a Ray of Frost.
Grezzors ray strikes the lone goblin that is still putting up a struggle, but despite the patch of frost appearing upon its body it shrugs off the effects without any issues.
The goblin maddeningly strikes at Raaz...causing a slight wound to the tiefling's arm.
; damage.
With most of the goblins seemingly asleep or bleeding out their last remaining fluids onto the inky stone floor, Keil lowers his bow, "Their fate looks set."
Turning with a flurish Keil once again faces the puzzle of the door. Recalling some of Grezzor's lecture the fetchling looks to the circle, Encircle the fiend... The shadowy man stows his bow, then reaches up to the symbol of the circle. Black hands, slowly at first, move the image across the surface of the door towards the center, testing its motion. Satisfied that his impression of the symbols capacity for movement is no mere trick of the eye, Keil reaches next for the square. Again, a few of Grezzor's words echo in Keil's mind, Bind it to your will... Sliding the symbol down, the shadowy man superimposes its sharp edges within the boundaries of the circle. Pausing to exhale, Keil gives his hands a purposeful rub, "If I am right, this demon will be contained." Turning to Brok the fetchling adds, "If not...Be ready." The tone of the fetchling's voice carries with it a note of imminent danger as though something terrible is about to be unleashed. Placing bony fingers upon the image of the demon Keil breathes a whisper to himself, Call it to you... Beneath his mask Keil's tongue draws itself across dingy lips as he brings the last symbol over to join the others, halting when the demon has come to rest within both the circle and square. Unsure of what may happen next, the shadowy man takes a step backwards, his yellow eyes glued upon the three superimposed images.
Hearing Keil mutter about demons and circles as he fiddles with the door, Brok gets ready to run......
Grey waits for Arlok's swing, just in case this turned out to be one of the rare times the Ogrekin missed.
Arlok continues attacking the goblin menace.
Thanks to Vargrenz' timely grapple, Arlok is able to finish off the last remaining goblin. It is a simple manner for the rest of you to dispatch the last two sleeping goblins. Soon the only bodies moving around are your own, until you see the two orc hirelings return to you after their panicked flight.
Malzii looks over the goblin corpses and sees they do indeed look like normal goblins, albeit with a hardened skin. Their gear is filthy and their clothing is matted which indicates they have not been civilized in a long time.
Keil finds his manipulations cause the large doors to silently swing inwards, revealing a dark passageway beyond...
Noticing that Keil and he are the only ones on this side of the river, Brok ducks to the side and studies the passageway with his darkvision for danger.
(+4 for traps)
Beneath his mask, relief etches its way across Keil's face. The fact no demon emerged proves Grezzor's advice had been correct and the shadowy man may continue in his task. Letting the goblin Brok sleek past ahead of him, Keil scans the corridor for anything the ranger's keen eyes may overlook.
Grezzor nods in approval of Keil's actions and approach, then plods on after the scouts.
As the rest of you watch from beyond the massive doorways, with only the goblin corpses to keep you company, the scouts head off into the darkened passageway...
.
.
The passageway continues about 50 feet or so past the large doorway before it opens up to a pair of large alcoves flanking the passageway on either side before continuing on past your vision.
Brok notices the alcoves are not empty as the goblin ranger spots movement coming from first the south alcove, then the north. Two skeletal creatures emerge from each alcove that indeed look like skeletons constructed out of glistening black bones, the consistency of hardened steel. Small red pinpoints of light burn in its hollowed eye sockets. They are each armed with a pair of swords, and as they begin moving towards you you feel a growing sense of fear...
While the scouts went to work, Grey murmured an incantation over a pair of goblin corpses. Their flesh disolved to dust in a matter of moments leaving behind only white bones.
Grey pulled two sacks out of his pack, motioned the two Orc brothers over and handed the bags to them, instructing them to carefully gather the bones.
From outside the hall, the group can here Keil's raspy voice addressing something, drawing nearer.
As Praetor casts his spell upon the first goblin corpse he notices the spell have no effect upon the corpse.
Grezzor can tell these are Black Skeletons, used frequently by the priests of Orcus as guardians and sometimes shock troops. In addition to the standard undead traits they can cause creatures to flee from them in a panic and their bones are hard to damage unless properly equipped with a bludgeoning weapon infused with the powers of good.
Grezzor utters the words of a Conjuration spell, and the area in front of Brok is covered with a layer of slippery grease.
"Come Brok"
"Grezzor. Malzi. Raaz. Look to this. The goblin corpses are rife with necromantic energies."
success
fail, prone
fail, prone
success
As Keil quickly retreats from the alcoves, Grezzor conjures up a thick layer of greasy oil in front of Brok. The black skeletons immediately charge the only visible target, which happens to be Brok. Fortunately Grezzor's spell manages to cause two of the skeletons to tumble to the ground in a splaying of limbs.
The other two skeletons are not deterred by the spell, the nearest one hacking savagely at the goblin with its swords...
; plus
; plus
...Brok feels both blades hack into his side wounding him and also sapping his strength.
As the sounds of combat erupt from where the three scouts ventured forth, you all spy Keil and Grezzor emerging into view. Praetor puts that out of his mind, concentrating upon the goblin corpses. As he casts his spell, he now notices the presence of a magical aura surrounding each of the corpses.
As the first black skeleton reaches Brok and lashes out with its sword, the goblin's craven instincts kick in and he tumbles away as the blow lands.
Brok uses his Roll With It feat as an immediate action (I believe this is the first time he has taken melee damage).
(DC: 5+1 = 6)
He moves 5' down the hallway, becomes staggered for 1 round and flees another 20'.
"Arlok not like waiting on sneakies. Arlok sneaky, Arlok can make no sound, Arlok wanna sneak."
He leans on his glaive waiting on a report.
As Brok tumbles away from the black skeletons he yips and chortles
"Aye-yai-yai yippeekai-yay!" echoes down the passageway.
Brok manages to successfully tumble away from the black skeletons and flees away from them, his screams echoing down the passageway.
Grezzor retreats - "We are under attack" - he informs the others.
Praetor continues to concentrate upon the goblin corpses, the witchdoctor soon determines the necromantic auras does indeed surround each corpse. While the strength of the aura is but a faint one, his keen observations shows the auras are slowly growing stronger.
The rest of you retreat out of the passageway taking a position outside the doors, watching closely as the black skeletons regain their footing and approach your position...then their advance is halted as if they ran into an invisible wall. They spend the next few seconds glaring at you before they slowly retreat out of sight, all the while keeping their hate-filled eyes upon you.
"Arlok, behead the goblin corpses. They may reanimate." Grey said calmly, not breaking his concentration on examining the necromantic auras.