Early evening, 29th Nightal, 1383 DR Davkul & Bronx:
It is early evening in Deadsnows. One of Mrs. Flora Prestwick’s most excellent dinners having just been concluded, you have drifted into the common room of her boarding establishment, where fellow visitors to Deadsnows are mostly discussing tomorrow night’s New Year celebrations, as they gather round tables in the light coming from the oil lamps, to play card games, or engage in other evening pastimes of gnomes and halflings. (Whilst Mrs. Flora Prestwick can afford magical illumination for her establishment, she prefers the softer, ‘mundane’ glow of an oil-lamp in the common room, as she feels that it lends an air of ambience that magical illumination has difficulty reproducing.)
You are just settling yourselves into a pair of comfortable chairs, when the front door of the establishment bangs, there is a sound of boots being stamped free of snow in the hall, and a few moments later a halfling who looks as if he can’t have celebrated his ‘coming of age’ much more than a couple of years ago enters the room to look scan the faces with an air of weary resignation. Dark hair is visible beneath the edge of his fur cap, he still has traces of snow clinging to his boots, and his cloak and clothes are those of a traveller and looking to have seen some hard usage recently if tears here and there and the mud splatters are anything to go by.
Davkul:
Spoiler:
You recognise the new arrival as, Fenwick, the younger brother of Keswick Bonicot, the ‘retriever of rare manuscripts and small objects’ whom six months ago you had arranged to rendezous with here in Deadsnows, ‘at the end of the year’. The last you heard of Fenwick (a decade younger than Keswick), he was living comfortably in the family burrows just north of Waterdeep.
Edit:
Mrs. Flora Prestwick's boarding house includes some stabling facilities, so you can consider your ponies taken care of, and you have paid your lodging fees/stabling costs, upto and including breakfast on the morning of 1st day of Hammer, 1384 DR (the equivalent of New Year's Day), so need not make any deductions from your cash reserves.
NB
The taverns in Deadsnows, with the exception of 'The Bully's Noose' are all closed tonight, as the proprietors take the opportunity to ready themselves for tomorrow night's partys. The town's two inns (Glittergold's Nugget & The Black Bear) are both open, as is the upper class drinking establishment 'The Silver Tree' where the elven mine-owners, their guests, and what else passes for Deadsnows' aspiring 'high society' go for their drinks.
Bronx is oblivious to the newcomer, being already engrossed in telling a story to a poor server who is probably looking for a polite way to get away.
"... I then tracked the fairy, and I tell you it ain't no easy piece to do that given their flying and disappearing and all. But I found him, sitting there playing his evil fiddle that he had made the children dance to. Well I got out my bow, knocked an arrow and BLAM! Ended his playing days for good.
Kill 'em? Well ... not exactly. That is, I hit his fiddle, and broke it good. I mean sure hitting him might have been better, but hey it all worked out. He was a bit fuming at the time, and I made a hasty retreat."
Having ended his story he releases the server, and turns to the others.
“Davkul?” The halfling’s face lights up in palpable relief, and he makes his way across the common room to join the two of you. “Kes said you were famous for never missing a rendezvous, but he never said how many boarding houses for gnomes and halflings there might be in Deadsnows or which one you might be staying in.” He sinks into a chair and sighs in a melancholy fashion. “I have just had a *gods awful* journey from Waterdeep, although at least the gods seemed to have had a change of their hearts and to have been looking out for me those last three miles. Some sort of nasty imp or pixie thing shot my pony out from under me, a couple of miles out from this place, and Yondalla knows what it might have intended for me if a couple of travellers hadn’t happened to be riding through the sleet only a couple of hundred yards behind me. Some sort of big-folk travelling entertainer or professional illusionist, she said she was, and her priestess bodyguard. How it screamed with disbelief as the priestess whacked the nasty thing out of the air with her staff to break-up into a puddle of foul smelling ichor on the ground- urggh. There wasn’t anything they could do for my pony- some sort of nasty poison there must have been on those darts- but they trotted alongside me, as far as the edge of town, where they said that they had to go about their own business. And then I found out that there were *dozens* of these places packed with dwarves, gnomes, fellow halfings- even the occasional bigger folk. Oh what joyous news that was.”
He accepts Davkul’s offer to order him a drink, and nods perhaps a little uncertainly- but respectfully- to Bronx.
"Glad to hear you got through that scrape in one piece, lad. I must say it is a shame about your pony though."
Spoiler:
Leaning over conspiratorially as he uses Ghost Sound to mimic a sprite's laughter somewhere behind Bronx in order to distract him for a moment or two, he goes on
"So I gather you might have have news from home for me? Anything good?"
A sound remarkably akin to the annoying tittering laughter of a small fey comes from somewhere behind Bronx's chair, in the general direction of the wide open door to the front hall. (Fenwick didn't push it to behind him when he came in.) It may very well be young gnome pranksters upto their tricks again; there are several about the place right now, with parents/aunts/uncles, and they apparently enjoy watching Bronx stalk about the place, just to check that everything is okay.
"Pixies and Sprites! You can't be too careful I tell you! If I catch one of those here ..."
Bronx wanders the room poking into corners and dark areas. Once he is satisfied with that, he'll start trying to poke other patrons in the arm to see if they are "really" who they appear.
Davkul:
Fenwick sits forward, catching your general desire for privacy regarding such a matter, to murmur quietly to you:
Spoiler:
“I don’t know what place you asked my brother to go to, but I gather that you were both expecting it to be uninhabited, and to be merely a case of avoiding a couple of old magical traps to retrieve an item. He came back a wreck, babbling about cultists, and raving something about ‘The Kelly Lee’, over and over. He went straight to bed, and slept- rested would hardly be a word to use, given the nightmares he must have been suffering from the way that he tossed and turned- for over a day. When he woke up, he seemed more like his old self, but said that the less I said about this around Waterdeep, the better. In fact that it might be a very good idea if the rest of the family left home for a while, and that he had the perfect errand for me, since he now had to get together with some of his old cronies and make enquiries about the possibility of smuggling several barrels of that highly dangerous smokepowder stuff in from Lantan if he could wrangle it. He told me to come up here to meet you, in his stead, and wrote a long letter, which he made me promise not to read, explaining everything to you he said.” Fenwick pauses and looks shame-faced here. “I lost the letter somewhere in Sundabar. I tried to keep it on me at all times, but somewhere in Sundabar I think it may have been lifted off of me along with some coins by a sneakthief. And my room at the inn there was searched at least once by someone, I think. Ever since, I’ve had this sensation of being followed by someone or something, or thought that I’ve glimpsed things from the corner of my eye that aren’t there when I look for them. I don’t know if it was that pixie thing that attacked me in the woods just out of town, here.”
He stops as one of the maids arrives with a drink, and takes a long grateful gulp from it. Once she departs, he resumes again:
Spoiler:
“There have been strange chittering and clicking noises that I think I’ve been hearing at times since I left Sundabar as well. I don’t know if it’s all anything to do with this.” He takes out a plain lead scroll tube, sealed at both ends and offers it to Davkul. “Kes said since he couldn’t get you what you wanted, he thought you may as well have this instead. He said he ‘lifted’ several papers that looked as if they might be of value to collectors or sages, as ‘recompense’ for the troubles that he was put to wherever it was that he went.”
Meanwhile, Bronx works his way methodically around the edge of the room, whilst an exasperated gnome dispatches (to their protests of complete innocence) a couple of youngsters to bed. In places the plush (deep blue) carpet covering the common room floor doesn’t quite reach the cream coloured skirting boards, leaving uncovered the edges of the room's floorboards of dark pine.
Bronx:
As you inspect one of the darker corners of the room:
If you make a DC 15 Spot check:
Spoiler:
You note a very faint sickly greenish flight flickering from the corner, and along the angles of the walls/floors for a couple of inches out from it.
If you make a DC 15 Listen check:
Spoiler:
You hear a faint chittering and clicking sound which seems oddly to be coming out of the corner.
Davkul:
Usually, I would require a Bardic Lore or Knowledge: (local[Waterdeep]) check, but since you were until lately resident in Waterdeep, if you make a DC 10 Intelligence check:
Spoiler:
There was a play doing the rounds in Waterdeep’s fashionable theatres, you recall, a couple of years ago, that was about a group of pirates who find an abandoned ship called ‘The Kelly Lee’ drifting with no crew. During the play, the pirates all disappear or are killed, one by one. In some versions of the play this is the result of a ghost, in others of a vampire, and in (possibly the original) of attacks by monsters unknow that are never ‘seen’ on stage, but simply leave slime covered and horribly dismembered victims.
Please include the results of any checks that your characters make in your responses. On this occasion, given the flexibility to a certain extent of the time element involved in how long Davkul and Bronx's separate undertakings are going, whoever posts second may take into account any general reactions by whoever posted first.
The halfling looks surprised. “There was a play? Well I never visited Deepy much, and certainly not for anything so grand as one of the city's theatres, but unless my brother came across cultists planning to infiltrate a production to- I don’t know- assassinate someone, I can’t think why he’d keep going on about it when he got home, and then shut up so fast once he’d had some rest. He was a nervous wreck when he came back, I tell you. As for the chittering….” He trails off, and freezes. Listen check, DC 15. (1d20+4=23) "There it is again. Don’t you hear it too?"
If you succeed in a DC 10 Listen check, Davkul:
Spoiler:
Sure enough, you think that you can hear a slightly disturbing chittering and clicking noise emmanating from somewhere nearby.
Bronx:
You continue to study the corner, whilst running possibilities through your mind.
Spoiler:
Given your ranks in knowledge (nature) you’re pretty certain that there are some insects that make noises like that. In this case beetles of various sizes and mundane or magical natures. You’re not certain, but you think that the sound is getting louder, coming from that corner.
If you succeed in a DC 6 Spot check:
Spoiler:
You notice a faint green light flickering in the corner, and radiating out for about a foot along the angles between the walls and floor.
Being in a corner, and screened off behind several sizeable armchairs (which you've had to squeeze past several times today already, each time that you've checked this part of the room) no-one else is apparently currently in a position to directly observe anything unusual happening down there.
Davkul, Bronx: In your next posts, please do not detail (re)actions that would take much longer than half a dozen seconds. (Including any words spoken.)
"Looks like you have a bug problem." Bronx says though he sounds a bit confused. He draws out his walking stick (club) and pokes at something in the corner.
There is a flash of green light, and barrelling out of the depths of the corner of the wall in front of Bronx, from some kind of hideous distortion of the dimensions, a 2½ foot long creature resembling a giant beetle emerges, its jaws clacking hungrily and antennae questing in front of it as green energy sizzles along them. It has a shiny black carapace, and a sickly green glow is emitted by a ‘gland’ positioned above each of its multifaceted compound eyes.
Elsewhere in the room, a couple more of these creatures erupt a moment later from angles between the floor and wall, in further flashes of green light. One of them bursts out of the shadow between the curtains and the floor of a window alcove close to Davkul, and the other emerges close to the fireplace. On the opposite side of the fireplace to that from which the latter emerged, an ominous green line is flaring along the angle between the floor and wall.
Layout of the Room & situation:
(spoilered to make the thread look tidy, anyone may consult it)
Spoiler:
In terms of floor layout the room can be approximately represented (in terms of a five-foot grid of squares) as being 5 ‘columns’ of squares long, and three ‘rows’ of squares wide. Numbering the grid ‘chessboard’ fashion, I will refer to the columns by letter as A, B, C, D, & E, from left to right, and the rows by number as 1, 2, & 3 from bottom to top. There is a door out into the hall on the left hand side of the grid at square A2, and one leading to a staircase going down to a lower level of the boarding house (a lodgings area) on the top boundary of square E3. There is a fireplace with a large blazing log fire in it along the top boundary of square C3, and windows (closed and curtains currently pulled to) that would look out onto a Deadsnows street area along the bottom boundary of squares B1 and D1. There are various items of furniture (tables, armchairs, sofas, etc) about the room which hamper movement (half speed), get in the way of ranged attacks (+4 to AC against ranged attacks from further than 5ft away, possible +2 bonus to Reflex saves against area effects), and provide cramped conditions for creatures larger than size small (-2 penalty for medium sized creatures trying to use one handed light weapons, -4 penalty for other one handed weapons, two handed weapon use impossible) except in the relatively clear square ‘C3’ in front of the fire. The squares in front of the doors A2 and E3 may count as ‘clear’, once the panicking boarders seeking to flee the room have cleared out.
Thanks to the various oil lamps around the room, and the fire burning in the hearth, illumination is no problem in the common room for now.
There are sufficient pot plants (aspidistras) dotted around the room for plant-spell tricks to be considered viable.
Bronx is currently occupying square A3, Davkul is in square B2, Donnie is in square C3, and Seebo & Nim in square D2 (one of them will have to move for them to be able to fight without getting in each other's way). As of the ‘NPC’ initiative coming up every NPC in the room is going to try and head for one of the nearest exits, in a panic to get out, leading to a ‘jam’ in squares A2 and E3 and making exit or PC action from these impossible. The first creature invading the room is attempting to bull rush Bronx in A3, the second is in square B1, and the third in square D3. The ominous green line is flaring along the top boundary of square B3.
Phew! I hope that this is clear enough for everyone. I really need to look into the possibilities of scanning these maps.
Will save for the ‘beetle’ that bursts into the room in the windows square at B1, and which triggers Davkul’s readied action by making for him. (They have clear line of sight to one another.) Will save vs. Colour Spray (1d20=9) A spray of darkly shimmering colours shoot out from Davkul’s hands. The ‘beetle’ staggers a couple of steps further towards the illusionist whilst emitting a distressed chittering noise, before sliding to a halt and slumping to the ground (in B1), inert for now. Fortunately, given a slight chill near the window on these winter evenings (despite the heavy velvet curtains), the chairs in that area had not been occupied, so there is no danger of Davkul catching anyone else in the arc of his spell. Davkul can’t be sure how long his spell may have rendered the creature unconscious for, however.
The 'beetle' in A3 is trying to knock Bronx prone, by ramming him into a chair with a bull rush. This will trigger an attack of opportunity from Bronx, who had wisely drawn his walking stick and readied it to use as a makeshift club. If Bronx fails to hit AC 14 and deal at least 5 damage, then the beetle completes it’s bull rush: Opposed strength check for bullrush. +2 for charge, -4 for size. (1d20-2=11)(Bronx must make a strength check, -4 penalty for his his size, and score at least 11, or be knocked prone.)
The 'beetle' in D3 rams a chair, comes to a stop, and reorientates itself for the next round, antennae twitching. Gnomes and halflings around the room are starting to react in shock and panic; the moment for any further heroes amongst them to step forward has almost arrived.
Bronx: I'm waiting for your attack of opportunity (and possibly your attempt to resist being bull rushed).
If anyone would like to make a group initiative on behalf of the PCs for next round, please do so.
EDIT:
Bronx:
Spoiler:
These creatures remind you of Giant Fire Beetles, (sometimes used as light-sources in mines) although those vermin tend to usually glow red from their glands, and you're pretty sure that in nature they don't possess a dimensional warping power of travel.
The effort of knocking Bronx down after such a stout blow is evidently too much for the 'beetle'. It collapses on top of him, unconcious.
Awaiting a group initiative roll by any PC for next round.
Davkul curses his lack of combat experience, (drawing a weapon is in itself a whole move action for those without the benefit of +1 BAB or the Quick Draw feat) fumbles his quarterstaff into some sort of readiness, and steps forward to attempt to batter to death the bug he knocked out with his spell. He takes a 5ft step, drawing the quarterstaff as a move action. On this occasion, I shall allow a full-round action to ‘lap round’ using up this round’s standard action and next round’s move, leaving Davkul with one standard action next round. I shall report on whether or not the 'beetle' makes its fortitude save when their intiative comes up.
In the meantime Nim has, despite the confined space (as far as he’s concerned) and the intervening chairs, somehow managed to reach through a gap and skewer the ‘beetle’ in D3 with his dagger, taking it out of the fight.
Donnie, Bronx, and Seebo, you have yet to act before a general stampede out of here by panicking NPCs (including Davkul’s contact, Fenwick, who is probably more unnerved than the rest by this) is likely to begin, and any surviving or as of yet undetected enemies get to go. Getting out from under the ‘beetle’ and standing up from prone will be a full round action for Bronx; (in Bronx’s case, taking 10 on the strength check will be sufficient to flip the twitching unconscious ‘beetle’ off of him as either a standard or move action, but that will leave him still prone).
sorry i am slightly confused as to the way we are doing init and when best for me to enter the story... i hereby give you permission to post it in a big obvious, patronizing way so i dont miss it :P
Donnie, confused by the brawl that has erupted near him stands and watches unable to move of shock.
sorry i am slightly confused as to the way we are doing init and when best for me to enter the story... i hereby give you permission to post it in a big obvious, patronizing way so i dont miss it :P
Donnie, confused by the brawl that has erupted near him stands and watches unable to move of shock.
My understanding is that all PCs have the same initiative roll. What order things actually happened in, is based on the order that people post.
Davkul's second round actions are to complete his coup-de-grace attack, and then to send a mental ping to Nightsong to come to me. I will assume that Nightsong is far enough away that he does not arrive for several rounds at least.
"Such a queer insect, never quite seen anything like these before.."
Fortitude save for 'beetle' undergoing coup-de-grace attack. (1d20+2=21)
Apparently Seebo isn't the only gnome around here who might have concerns about an ability to hit like a girl. Davkul prods as ferociously as he can manage with his quarterstaff at the 'beetle' in his area (B1) but somehow fails to kill it, even though he goes for a point where logic tells him that even a weak blow ought to finish it off. (Maybe the arrival to stand by him of Seebo, who's getting out of the way of his giant gnome brother distracts him.)
Seebo has now moved to join Davkul and the unconcious 'beetle' that Davkul knocked out wth his spell in B1. Thank-you to Davkul for correcting me on the matter of full-round actions 'wrapping aound'. Next round he will only have a move-action left, not a standard action. I'm guessing, if nothing else comes up that he may have words with Seebo here, if he feels he put him off- or maybe not if he has any respect for clergy-members of the gnome pantheon. (I'm assuming here that Seebo hasn't taken any particular steps to hide his religious calling tonight.)
Davkul:
Since there's been no mention of your familiar so far, I'd suggest that you maybe left it in your room (if it freaks some of the guests out or Mrs. P. has a 'no pets or familiars in the common-room' rule) or have turned it loose into the cold winter skies to go and see if it can find any insects to eat. If it's in your room, it might not be able to get here without assistance (opening of the room door) given the complications of the other likely alternative- the boarding-house's complex flue system; If it's outside snacking, then it should be back in 2d4 rounds, given that the front door is about to be open due to a lot of boarders wanting to get outside.
EDIT:
Unless Davkul insisted on one of the few rooms for boaders above ground level, so that he could leave a sash window open a crack for it to come and go? Although (given that this still involves going outside first, and getting back in though the hall) this would still take d4+1 rounds, I would think.
NPCs' initiative:
By this point the other lodgers, between the beetles, the Bard who had been regaling them with tales from his position by the fireplace stopping to gape, and Bronx shouting 'too arms' are freaked out enough that they decide it would be a good idea to get out of here. There is an instant rush of gnomes and halflings for the exits from the room into the hall, or down the stairs to the lower levels. Tables are barged, vases fall over (although fortunately most of the oil lamps are mounted on wall brackets or otherwise around the edge of the room, so are not fire-hazards) and one gnome trips over a particularly large floor-level potted aspidistra in E2 to sprawl face down into its leafy depths. The halfling, Fenwick, is amongst the first of those to bolt out of the door into the hall. Sounds of general disturbance seem to be spreading rapidly throughout the whole boarding house, and by the sound of the front door opening, some of the lodgers simply want to escape outside.
Opponents' Initiative
There's actually a horrible nasty tearing/ripping sound/sensation as the green light flaring along the wall to the left of the fireplace B3 disgorges from the boundary between the floor and the wall, a further of the strange, beetle-like creatures. This one however, is fully five feet long, barging tables aside and coming rather awkardly to a halt its front legs scrabbling for purchase to lift it partially up a couple of armchairs as it comes to a halt. For a split second it rears there, antennae twitching, as green light flickers over its whole form. Then, with a particularly harsh chittering call, it awkwardly turns and lashes out at Bronx, his walking stick still smeared with sticky stuff from the smaller 'beetle' that he smacked with it only moments before.
The 'beetle' lashes out and hits Bronx. (-2 penalty for natural attack in the current unusual confined space totalled into roll.) (1d20+3=19)
Fortune is on Bronx's side as his assailant is evidently unused to fighting in environments such as these, with obstacles such as sofas and armchairs to cramp its style, and it is unable to properly position itself to get proper value out of its bite. Damage roll, bite, strange beetle: (2d6+2=6)hp
In the meantime, the gnome who tripped and fell face-first in an aspidistra gives a startled cry as (accompanied by a pulse of green light) he plunges head first into its suddenly apparently bottomless depths with a sinister rustle of those leathery green leaves. He completely disappears from sight, which is a remarkable feat given that the pot in which the aspidistra stands cannot be many inches beyond a foot in height.
Okay people; Round 2, in any order of characters. If you would please clarify for me, Davkul, where your familiar is likely to be and what it is doing, and roll dice if appropriate. For those rolling attacks, could you please roll damage at the same time, in case you hit.
Donnie:
If you make a DC 5 knowledge (nature) check:
Spoiler:
The smaller 'beetles' at least remind you of Giant Fire Beetles, which are sometimes used as light-sources in mines- although those vermin tend to usually glow red from their glands, and you've never heard anything to indicate that in nature they possess a dimensional warping power of travel.
"Cowards! Help us defeat this giant monster!"
Despite his bravado, Bronx looks badly injuried by the larger creature's attack. He takes a more defensive stance as he attacks the bigger creature. Fighting defensively -4 att -> +2 AC, combat expertise -1 att -> +1 AC, total -5 att -> +3 AC.
AC now is 18 for Bronx.
Bronx swings more cautiously at this larger beetle-like creature, and fails to harm it, his blow glancing off its thick black carapace. Bronx's current position (armed as he is) in A3 offers a flanking bonus to anyone who actually draws and/or attacks with a weapon from square C3. Since the current occupant of C3, Donnie, was unarmed when Bronx made his attack he was in no position to threaten B3, and thus supply Bronx with such a bonus.
Okay people; Round 2, in any order of characters. If you would please clarify for me, Davkul, where your familiar is likely to be and what it is doing, and roll dice if appropriate. For those rolling attacks, could you...
I was assuming that my familiar was outside, and so by what you have said, 2d4 is appropriate
Familiar Arrival roll: (2d4=5)
Okay people; Round 2, in any order of characters. If you would please clarify for me, Davkul, where your familiar is likely to be and what it is doing, and roll dice if appropriate. For those rolling attacks, could you...
I was assuming that my familiar was outside, and so by what you have said, 2d4 is appropriate
Familiar Arrival roll: (2d4=5)
That's 5 rounds then. It may have gone quite a way off to find something to snack on.
Seebo quickly takes in the situation, who's fighting and who needs help.
He moves next to Bronx, and casts cure light wounds.
Bronx
** spoiler omitted **
Seebo:
You can take a five foot step from your current location B1 to B2 a place where you will be diagonally adjacent to Bronx; however this location is threatened by the 'beetle' in B3, and you will either have to take your chances with provoking an attack of opportunity from it by casting a spell, or take a full-round action (and make a concentration check) to cast defensively, by which point Bronx may be in still more trouble.
It is also the caster of healing spells who rolls the dice for Hit Points restored, since they may be more familiar with their Caster Level and any bonuses that they possess which may apply to spells.
Edit:
If you are unable to post before I get around to the next set of actions for any (surviving) monsters, I shall work on the basis that you meant to heroically risk an attack of opportunity to heal Bronx and make dice rolls (including for healing bestowed if casting is successful) and post accordingly.
Seebo quickly takes in the situation, who's fighting and who needs help.
He moves next to Bronx, and casts cure light wounds.
Bronx
** spoiler omitted **
Seebo:
You can take a five foot step from your current location B1 to B2 a place where you will be diagonally adjacent to Bronx; however this location is threatened by the 'beetle' in B3, and you will either have to take your chances with provoking an attack of opportunity from it by casting a spell, or take a full-round action (and make a concentration check) to cast defensively, by which point Bronx may be in still more trouble.
It is also the caster of healing spells who rolls the dice for Hit Points restored, since they may be more familiar with their Caster Level and any bonuses that they possess which may apply to spells.
Edit:
If you are unable to post before I get around to the next set of actions for any (surviving) monsters, I shall work on the basis that you meant to heroically risk an attack of opportunity to heal Bronx and make dice rolls (including for healing bestowed if casting is successful) and post accordingly.
Actually Seebo could cast the spell first, THEN take the 5' step and touch Bronx, thus negating the need for casting defensively.
Summary: The current situation. (Edited)
Davkul is in B1 with an unconcious small sized 'beetle' thing which he has just coup-de-graced with little success with his quarterstaff, he still has a move action left this round.
Seebo is in B2, having cast a cure light wounds spell, 5ft stepped there to avoid provoking a potential attack of opportunity from the beetle, and applied the healing spell to Bronx.
Bronx is in A3, with another small 'beetle'. Bronx is currently armed with his 'walking stick', down 1 hp, and the small beetle is unconcious and oozing out. A medium sized 'beetle' thing is currently in B3, and gave Bronx its full attention last round. It is currently unharmed, and has yet to act.
Donnie is in C3, by the fireplace, with no weapon in hand. He has yet to act this round.
Nim is in D2. He has a dagger drawn at present and has yet to act. A small 'beetle' that he stabbed with his dagger last round is lying on its back, twitching in a likely death throes in D3.
A2 and E3 are currently full of gnomes and halflings trying to get out of the room.
A potted aspidistra into whose depths a gnome tripped and vanished last turn is lurking menacingly in E2.
The only squares in the common room where a medium sized character has the space to freely swing/employ weapons are A2, C3, and E3. These are all currently occupied.
Bronx:
EDIT:
I have checked the SRD, and upon reflection now agree with you that it is possible to hold the charge on an instantaneous spell. So yes, Seebo can cast, take a 5ft step, and heal Bronx. (Without risk of provoking attack of oppportunity.) Thank-you for getting me to go and take a closer look.
Seebo's healing touch causes most of the injury that the mandibles of the 'beetle' inflicted upon Bronx to close up.
Seebo:
Please indicate adjust your profile to represent which of your first level spells you have just used up to spontaneously cast the cure light wounds and also clarify upon it your cleric domains. Thank-you.
