"Okay, BJ... may I call you BJ? It's so much less tiring than Burt and Jimmy. Anyway, how did Burt get top billing? I mean, why isn't it Jimmy and Burt? Is that because Burt is smarter than you, Jimmy?" The gnome continues prattling on.
Another of Grubyub's arrows flies towards BJ, and it strikes him in Jimmy's leg.
"", Jimmy says quickly. ""
Burt looks back to his other head. ""
Firmly shaken by the size and might of the giant, LeGrande rushes himself to lob his last fire bomb, then look for somewhere to hide.
Touch Attack (-2 for shaken)
Flame Damage
Unwilling to part with his last dagger, Drysten stays near the others, hoping the giant comes within his reach.
Seeing everything is frozen in place, Grub jumps up.and down in frustration, wringing his little goblin hands and shaking them at the ceiling of the dungeon. "Hey bigboss director guy! What's next?"
The flask of incendiary liquid explodes as it splashes on Burt and Jimmy again, burning his flesh further.
Burt and Jimmy advance, and Burt suddenly roars in pain. "[bigger]YARRRGH! They keep usin' th' fire, Jimmy! We gonna smash them flat now, yeah?"
"[bigger]You bet yer soiled loincloth we are, Burt!"
The massive two-headed giant heads directly towards the balcony, and stands beneath it, looking up at you with all four eyes, swinging his club wide and aiming for the crude goblin upon the balcony.
Seeing the brutes approach, Darius turns to Duncan, readying his rapier and dagger. "Ready, Duncan? On my signal! Three! Two! One! Jump!"
Then, Darius waits to make sure Duncan is jumping first before he leaps to land behind the monster, flanking with the fighter. On his way down, he aims to plant his rapier in either of the brutes' necks.
As he lands from the slash, Darius performs an elegant roll forward, reducing the impact from the fall.
"K boss."
"Hey, BJ! A guy your size shouldn't wear a dress! Whooo!" Fester taunts, pretending to look up the giant's loincloth.
Mock (Su): At 1st level, the prankster can use his performance to cause one or more creatures to become furious with him. Each creature to be mocked must be within 90 feet, able to see, hear, and understand the prankster, and capable of paying attention to him. The prankster must also be able to see the creatures affected. For every three levels the prankster has attained beyond 1st, he can target one additional creature with this ability.
Each creature within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the prankster's level + the prankster's Charisma modifier) to negate the effect. If a creature's saving throw succeeds, the prankster cannot successfully mock that creature for 24 hours. If its saving throw fails, the creature is angered by the performance and seeks to harm the prankster. While the prankster maintains the mocking, the target takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and skill checks until it has successfully attacked the prankster with a melee or ranged attack, or has harmed the creature with a spell that deals damage.
Mock is an enchantment (compulsion) mind-affecting ability. Mock relies on audible and visual components in order to function. This ability replaces fascinate.
Grubyub reals from the blow, staggering to and fro along the railing trying to shake the stars from his eyes. "Čo sa to sakra ma udrel? Bol to škaredý kôň?"
The goblin looses a shot at the giant then jumps from the railing back onto the platform so he can get out the way.
As he leans heavily against the wall just inside the opening to the cavern from which they'd arrived earlier, Sparkly comes racing up with a towel, a water bottle and a bruise presser to work on his companion's swelling face.
Darius and Duncan drop from the balcony to either side of BJ, their blades slashing out as they fall. Neither man is able to cut through the giant's thick hide. Darius rolls to his feet, while Duncan lands on a more padded portion of his body . Grubyub fires off a second shot at BJ, which strikes the massive creature again, causing the giant to wobble slightly from the many wounds upon his body.
BJ looks a bit confused at Fester's quip. "" he says at last, after a few seconds thought.
Unwilling to be outdone by the others, Drysten jumps off the platform, trying to land on the giant.
LeGrande reaches into his satchel for more bomb components and comes up empty. He instead reaches for a Javelin, and toss it the giants way.
"Here". "Catch"
(+2, -4 for melee, +1 for higher ground)
Damage
Drysten lands directly in between Burt and Jimmy's heads, and the pair turn to look at him. "" Lagrande doesn't throw the javelin so much as drop it on the giant, which has about the effect you'd figure that would.
"", Jimmy shouts. Drysten can smell the giant's breath, hot and putrid, with large globules of spittle. ""
"Aha! Dodge! Parry! Feint! Strike"
Darius whirls around wildly, revealing his fighting style to be approximately 85% pointless posturing and 15% actual strikes.
Darius's rapier misses wildly, but a well-executed stab snuck in amidst a confusing feint finds its target.
Drysten smiles. Hey, it - worked. Okay, play it cool. Let's try and confuse these poor guys.
Drysten pats Burt, or maybe Jimmy, on the ugly head and whispers,, Don't worry, I'm really on your side! Lesser Confusion
With a final croak, LeGrande falls to the ground un-moving, and bleeding from one ear, one nostril and one eye.
Fester is snoring blissfully.
Drysten begins chanting, attracting Burt's attention. "", he asks. "" The end of the giant's sentence devolves into deep gibberish as the charm takes root in his mind.
Grubyub is dismayed to see the Bigboomboomfrogman fall, wiping the blood from his face and pushing himself from the wall. "Frogmanboomfella, no!" He scrambles over and drags his pack to the grippli's side and withdraws one of the bottles of wine he'd procured earlier.
"Big Top Orthos say many problem sold by wine!" He proceeds to pour wine on the bruises and hurts on the grippli's body then pulls a rather questionable looking tear of cloth from his pack to fashion a sling for the poor boomboomfrogman.
Sparkly, for his part, comes over to the downed alchemist and begins licking at the wine now running rivers over his face.
Those three points are non lethal yes no?
Duncan stands provoking an attack of opportunity. If he is not knocked out by it he will strike at the giants legs.
Seeing Duncan swing at the giant's legs, Darius leaps at the monster, unleashing a pair of piercing strikes. "From the heart of hell, I... uh... what's the line again? Ah yes. From the heart of hell, I strike at thee, monster!" Darius shouts.
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Duncan rises, wincing as he prepares to receive a crushing blow from the two-headed giant. It never comes. Both Burt and Jimmy seem in a daze from Drysten's enchantment, and prevents him from taking advantage of the opening Duncan gave him. The strike cuts deep into BJ's leg, followed swiftly by a pair of flashing blades that pierce BJ's side. Both heads turn to stare unblinkingly towards Duncan and Darius, their mouths moving silently, trying to find the words to question why they have done this. At last, Burt finds the words that escape Jimmy. With his dying breath, he asks, pitifully, ""
The massive creature then slumps to the floor, collapsing with a loud meaty crash.
Drysten jumps off the crashing form, trying to roll to minimize the damage.
Regardless of the outcome, Drysten will whoop with joy. I-we did it!
zzzzzzzz
Pulling an old piece of cloth out of his pocket, Darius wipes off his blades, including the one still embedded in the giant's neck, and tucks them away in their respective sheaths, winding his wrist sheaths back up.
"If I see another foul creature like this one again in my life, if will still be too early."
Putting his copy of the adventure back into his pack, Fester grins evilly, looking very much like a certain Batman villain for a moment. "You might want to rephrase that..."
Duncan smiles and stares off having put himself in his own little world.
Grubyub pokes his head above the railing of the balcony and calls down to the others. "Hey, Grandaddyboom is hurt. Not opening eyes no matter how much wine Grub pours on him!"
Indeed, Lagrande remains still regardless of the amount of booze Grubyub douses him with, though Sparkly does his best to keep the grippli clean. In a short amount of time, the raccoon is wobbling back and forth on his feet, but continues to look expectantly at his goblin sidekick.
"Don't mind me, I'll just stay here waiting for you to rescue me," says the rotund man in blue robes from within the cage. His voice has a strange rise and fall to the cadences within the sentence. He spent the majority of the fight cowering away from the violence, but now that you have triumphed over the giant, he waits impatiently at the closed gate.
"Oh fine, fine. Just be patient already," Darius sighs, stepping over to the cage and producing a lockpick from his pocket to unlock the cage.
"Look, we saved your daddy. You're not an orphan no more.
"That were him talking, mister," Culum says to Duncan as he scampers down from the top of the balcony to the floor. "Not me."
Darius finds the cage bound by a stout length of cord, which he easily cuts with a dagger. The door opens, and the pudgy man quickly leaves the confines of the cage. He's a stumpy sort, with thick jowls and a red bulbous nose. "Thank you very much, my good man, you've saved me from being eaten by my own cretin, arising from a set of circumstances so unlikely that it would strain the very ranges of credulity itself." He tips his cap to you, a genuine smile upon his face. "You have the thanks of Zando the Great himself." He juts his chin up in pride, in apparent ignorance of your lack of recognition to his name.
Zando is so wrapped up with his own importance that he doesn't even notice Culum approaching. He walks straight up to Zando and tugs on the man's blue sleeve. "That's fifteen silver you owe me for rescuing you," he says. All traces of fear and uncertainty are gone. It's almost like looking at a different person.
"Go away, kid, the grownups are talking," Zando says without looking at him, trying to shove him away.
"I don't think so, pops," Culum replies, standing his ground. "You'd be giant chow if I hadn't brought these folk to come rescue you. I want my fifteen silver!"
"Fine, fine, fifteen silver, fine," Zando replies, turning his attention to Culum at last, and fumbling for his coin purse. He withdraws a handful of coins and begins handing them to the boy. "One, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen. Now get away from me, kid, you're bothering me."
"Ooh," Fester says, holding his hand out. "After all, we did rescue you from that horrible, two-headed giant."
Regardless of the response (or lack thereof), Fester moves to check out Legrande, poking him with a stick.
"Zando the Great, is it? Pray tell, what makes you so... great? Please, allow me to introduce myself in return. Darius Quint, Baron of Rosethorpe."
Drysten, suspended in air for a few moments, decides he is safe to finish his flip and step down to the ground. He hurries over to LeGrande.
Everyone in the area gains that 6 healing. Drysten smiles. that should help. I killed the giant and healed the hurt allies. I'm going to make it into the merc guild in no time.
Drysten notices that Fester is asking for funds and he approaches and mimics the posture.
"What makes me so great, you ask? Why, I am a wizard without compare! A thaumaturgist the likes of which has rarely been seen before and shall not be seen again! And on top of that, I possess a keen business acumen unparalleled! If you'll follow me to my office, I'll be glad to discuss a suitable reward for you all."
He leads you to the southeastern section of the herbivore exhibit, and opens up a concealed door. Beyond this is a tunnel that snakes back and forth before opening up into a natural cavern. Stalagmites and stalactites circle the perimeter of the room, but in the center all such obstructions have been cleared. Situated at one end of the clearing is a finely polished mahogany desk, behind which sits a blue plush chair. A set of bookshelves stand against the far wall and covering the floor is an exquisite silver-threaded rug. As you step across the rug, you hear the hollow sound of wooden planking beneath it. Zando has a seat in the plush chair, clearly relaxing for the first time in awhile.
"Have a seat, my little axebeaks, have a seat so we can talk shop. You see, the Castle's been having a bit of a monster problem recently. All sorts of unusual beasts of all shapes, sizes and colors have been attacking. Everything from one-legged asthmatic albino kobolds to shadowy flying fire-breathing krakens. There's almost no rhyme or reason to it. But I noticed that many of the weaker and more pathetic monsters have all been coming from this area. I tracked it down to the opening you undoubtedly used in the Union, and found this area. And then, it hit me![/b]" He stands, suddenly more animate as he begins describing his plan. "A bit of paint here, some beautifully illustrated posters there, some cages installed in several places, and this whole area could become..." He says this title louder, sweeping his hand across the empty air as though he were trying to conjure it out of nothingness.
"That was about a month ago. I've been working around the clock, almost nonstop, but the day before I was going to open the place to the public, Burt and Jimmy, my cretin, broke free of his cage, captured me and my staff, threw us into a cage and released all of the other exhibits! I would have fought back, but all of the time I would normally have spent preparing my spells I had put towards getting the Emporium together."
He slumps back in the chair. "The only one of us that was able to escape was Culum. After Burt and Jimmy ate my herbivore exhibit, he slipped through the bars and made his way to the surface to find someone to rescue us. And that, my rays of sunshine, is where you came in. Now, I am not the sort of man who would turn a blind eye to his saviors, but all of my money is currently tied up in getting the Emporium up and running, and that can't happen as long as all of my exhibits are running amok, so I'll make you a deal. If you can round them all up and put them back in their cages, I'll give you, let's say, 5% of the first year's gross. I'd prefer as unharmed as possible, but I did find a secret room where these critters just appear out of thin air, from time to time. What do you say?"
"Unharmed?" Fester repeats uncertainly. "Five percent after a year? I dunno. Empty promises and 200 gp will buy me a wagon out of town."
LeGrand shakes his head as he is awakened by the healing energy. "Thank you my friend".
"So we take all the risk, have to try and use nonlethal force to 'Capture' these unknown beasts, and all we get is a share of the potential profits". "Sounds like not such a good deal to me".
Making his way down from the balcony, his inebriated raccoon slung over his shoulder, Grubyub finally stands with the rest of his group as the overstuffed human describes the situation.
"Sound like no fun, Thurmonutzanzan. Why we do this for one cent purse?" The poor little goblin not understanding the word percent, plants his horseychopper in the ground next to him and leans on it with a haughty air. "We kill Crème Tin nice and quick, maybe we think we get more for trouble."
He points at the little boy. "You tell big lie, Killem, get us down here..." Grub picks up his horseychopper and waves it towards the wizard. "...maybe this Zanzan tell bigger one, eh?"
"Five percent of one year of some miserable circus? Ha! Don't make me laugh." Darius snaps.
"You'll need to do better than that to secure our help. I believe I speak for my companions and myself when I say that we will only accept a fixed number, not some vague promise."
yeah, I'm not waiting around a whole year. I need the loot now!
Duncan waits quietly, this is adult talk and his grams always told him to stay out of adult talk.
"Fine, fine, five isn't good enough, fine," Zando says, waving a hand dismissively. "Let's call it ten. And while I can't do anything about paying you up front, I did hear tell that the Herzog himself is paying good coin for maps of the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. I believe it's about a thousand gold, but it needs to be complete. Helping me with my problem helps you with yours, my darling carbuncles. So, what do you say: do we have a deal?"
"Hm..." Darius wonders, scratching his chin in reflection. "What do you think, companions?"
Fester sighs. "Yeah, I guess."