"Hey where do you think your going?"
Merle unleashes some magic missiles at the figure she saw
Damage 5d4+5
Merle also bags one, it's body blown to bits
Watching as the needles bounce harmlessly off of his armor, Ekuur lashes out at the closest creatures with his weapon.
trikal 1d20+11
damage 1d10+7 + 1d6 firetrikal 2 1d20+11
damage 1d10+7 + 1d6 fire
Ekuur's trikal smashes another into smoldering chunks
Justin flinches as his companions various attacks send sprays of varied puppet-parts flying past.
"How many of these blasted things ARE there anyway?!?"
Hamar drops back away from the spot where he brought one of the toys low.
Perception
"Less now and soon there shall be none..."
Justin glances over his shoulder.
"I think I like the new guy,..."
The puppets that are left disappear into the tangle of props. Critters and giggles echo from all around.
"We are sure we cannot start a fire down here?" Hamar says wary of the puppets who have yet to show how deadly they could become.
"Oh we could,... and we might. But I might have a better idea." Justin adds as he reaches into his pockets for spell components.
"I don't know," Karrin says looking around the room, "Can you breathe smoke? Or do you see some source of ventilation? Just a quick reminder: that chimney like structure you see there is our only known escape route at the moment"
"blasting them when they pop up seems to work well enough."
"Well then, lets just give them a reason to pop, shall I?" Justin asks, grinning that grin that says he thinks he's about to do something clever.
The wizard pulls out bric-a-brac from his coat, and begins chanting.
Hamar turns his head slightly towards the Cat, "My plan was not to stay and bur with them catwoman".
He suddenly shifts position, again his form a blur.
Justin pulls an assortment of bric a brac from his deep coat pockets and begins laying it out in a pattern, chanting quietly in a musical tongue. He fishes a piece of chalk out and sketches a small circle, closing it around the pieces. There is an almost audible snap sound and power thrums through the area. A small golden-furred terrier with half-cocked ears appears, nub tail wagging as it grabs a small bone Justin had laid out in the circle. Satisfied, Justin scuffs the circle and points in the general direction of the puppets' retreat
"Go gettim Fido!"
The small dog barks, wags his tail, and bounces off into the prop tangle. A screeching sound can soon be heard along with the sound of wooden things snapping
Ekuur watches the dog bound off and listens to the resulting ruckus. "If that does not work, I vote for the fire," he comments, a rare half smile on his face. As he says that, his obsidian holy symbol seems to flash ever so briefly with its characteristic blue flame.
Justin turns to the others, still smiling.
"Well, don't just stand there! They're distracted! Ekuur, grab that thing you said you and Hamar saw. Everyone else, smash a little wooden boy and lets get the heck out of here!"
There seems to be no puppets in the general vicinity. The path is clear
Hamar in literally a blur of speed runs to retrieve the glowing object and returns to his companions.
"Time to go".
Hamar in literally a blur of speed runs to retrieve the glowing object and returns to his companions.
"Time to go".
"Yep. I definitely like the way this guy thinks!" Justin calls as he backs towards the ladder. With one last glance to make sure another puppet doesn't pop out, he starts to climb swiftly to (the relative) safety of the chamber above. He pauses only once to look back and call out "Good job Fido! See you next time!" before clambering out of the floor hatch.
Merle swiftly follows Justin out
Hamar runs through the twisting corridors of rotting fabric and splintering wood until he reaches the gleam. A large diamond sits upon a black iron tripod. A ring of odd runes and sigils surround it in a circle. There is a hair-raising feeling like lightning in the air around it
I snatch a wooden coat rack and try to knock the tri pod over to dislodge the diamond.
Ekuur, following Justin's direction but obviously much slower than Hamar, comes up behind him. Seeing him about to knock it over, he calls out, "Hold! It may be best to have Justin look it over first."
If he catches him in time, he'll call back, "Justin, perhaps you should come back here to look at this before we take it!" Meanwhile, he will keep his eyes open for the return of the dolls.
Take 10 on perception for a 15.
Ekuur manages to call out before Hamar grabs his coat rack
Hamer grunts and holds his make shift weapon eyes darting for more toy foes.
Perception
Starting up the ladder, Justin freezes at the sound of his name. He hangs his head and sighs theatrically.
"Of course it can't be that easy." He grumbles without any real frustration behind it. He drops the three rungs to the floor, and waves Merle ahead of him.
"Ladies first!" He says cheerfully, and makes his way carefully to where Hamar and Ekuur are standing.
"Huh." He says sagely, kneeling and waving his small magic lights closer to get a better look at the sigils on the floor.
"Definitely not your average theater prop."
"I think the spook above may have been guarding THIS, not the portal." Justin says eying the sigils.
Justin can see this is the anchor to the portal above. There seems to be some sort of protective summon spell interwoven in the protective circle
"Guys, Gals, Your gonna LOVE this one!" Justin says, his voice soft in awe but tense with excitement.
"THIS is the anchor to the portal upstairs! We take this down we can shut down their doorway! I can see there's a summons spell of some sort interlaced with the Protective circle. I didn't even know that was possible. Let me see if I can find the off switch."
Justin continues to examine the mystical writings, grumbling something about what kind of twisted moron used a conjuration enchantment to protect a conjuration enchantment.
"Will destroying this device shut that door trapping us here Wizard? That would appear to be a poor result for us."
"Destroying this magical machine will shut down the portal above, yes." Justin replies, still studying the arcane script.
"Which is what we want. Believe me. It does mean we won't be able to use the portal to get back to the tree, yes. But there are other portals out."
"Somewhere,..." He mutters.
As far as Justin can figure, breaking the circle will send out a summoning call to some sort of local undead.
"Hoo Boy. Perfect. Just,... Perfect." Justin mutters.
"OK. I've got good news, and bad news."
"The good news is, We can break the circle, and I can disable the power sigil. That should break the magic feeding the perma-portal upstairs. There shouldn't be any major mystic feedback, and the World Tree should be safe from anymore of these invading demon-spook-masks. Especially if we take yon expensive piece of jewelry as a consolation prize to prevent them from restarting the process."
"The BAD news is,... some wise guy linked a conjuration calling spell into the matrix of the circle. The magic feeding the portal is suppressing the summoning magics. Once the circle is broken, the summoning spell will send some sort of call out to some sort of undead."
"As we are currently in the middle of Undead Central, the spell might be calling anything from a few random skeletons, to some specific Undead Zombie Lord. Or anything inbetween. With OUR luck, probably all of the above."
Justin turns to look at the others.
"Things are about to get very interesting around here,..."
"Cant we just dispel the summoning circle?"
"Yes. Yes we can. Thereby releasing the calling magics it is currently keeping contained."
Justin pulls his hand down his face, tugging on his goatee at the last in frustration.
"GRRR! I HATE these Friggin' Darned if you do, darned if you don't puzzles! You'd think the bad guys would have better things to do than booby-trap their own battery!" Justin snarls.
"I just wish they'd play by MY rules every once in a while!"
Justin stops, blinks, and holds up a finger.
"That's,... it. That's it!" He bounces in barely contained glee.
"Why are we playing by their rules? Magic is all about CHANGING the rules!" He chortles evilly, walking in a circle around the glowing circle, muttering to himself.
"Ok,... I THINK I have it. We have to surround this circle with one of our own. We face it inwards, and when we break the power circle, our circle will contain the summoning magic, preventing whatever it is from being called. We just have to create a key to allow US to pass through the circle without breaking it,..." Justin realizes he is fingering his medallion, as he often does when puzzling through a problem.
He fails to resist the facepalm this time.
"DUH! This is easily the most powerfully enchanted item I have. And I'm intimately familiar with it's magical weave. I'll just attune our circle to this as a key. I pass through OUR circle, dispel THEIR circle, grab the rock, to prevent them from starting up the portal again of course, and exit our circle. It doesn't even have to be permanent. It just has to contain the summoning spell long enough for US to get away from here. It's brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?!?" He grins.
"Or we break the damn thing and slay whatever vile horror decides to investigate. Either plan is fine for me, provided we can find a way out of this nightmare realm".
Justin looks at Hamar incredulously.
"Well,... Yeah. That works too. I guess." He responds finally, visibly deflated.
Ekuur considers the options. "I am no coward, but with the life-sapping attacks of the undead we have already encountered here, I suggest we avoid the fight if at all possible. We do not want to be holed up in here while trying to find enough diamonds to reverse the effects on everyone. And if they were to hit me and I lose the ability to use that prayer at all ..."
Hamar nods at Ekuur, obviously understanding his explanation much better than Justin's.
Justin nods, his ego obviously still wounded, but salved by Ekuur's stony-faced support.
Fishing into one of his copious coat pockets, he pulls a couple of pieces of chalk, and tosses one to Merle.
"Alright Merle, You take the Aether Flow, and I'll handle the Retention Matrix. We'll meet up at the Empowerment Sigil. Oh, and don't forget to face the Symbols to the INside." He adds with a grin.
Justin scratches behind one ear nervously.
"Um, Ekuur, I don't, actually, have a Circle Spell in my spellbook. Something I plan to remedy soon,... So you'll have to trade one of your prayers for a Circle of Protection to empower the symbols."
"I'll just,... be over here,... with Merle,..."
Justin beats an embarrassed retreat to begin working on his portion of the Circle.
The trio get to work. The creepy puppets seem to be keeping their distance, even now that the summoned pup has gone back to the fields of Mt. Celestia
Karrin begins to feel fatigued again, the strength Ekuur had infused her with ebbing away
Between the chalk work of Merle and Justin and the stentorian hissing chants of Ekuur in Ignan, the circle is soon complete
The trio get to work. The creepy puppets seem to be keeping their distance, even now that the summoned pup has gone back to the fields of Mt. Celestia
Karrin begins to feel fatigued again, the strength Ekuur had infused her with ebbing away
Merle Spellcraft
"Oh uh yeah of course...eheheheheheheheh." Seph getting a feeling of "Oh crap." From Merles mental link as she cearly has no idea what the heck she is doing as she stands there holding the bit of chalk a somewhat none plussed expresion on her face.
Seph Spellcraft
Seph fortunatly seems to have a much better grasp of the basics shifting to humanoid form taking the chalk and filling in the circle
Merle Spellcraft
1d20 + 6
"Oh uh yeah of course...eheheheheheheheh." Seph getting a feeling of "Oh crap." From Merles mental link cearly having no idea what the heck she is doing as she stands there holding the bit of chalk a somewhat none plussed expresion on her face.
Seph Spellcraft
1d20 + 4
Seph fortunatly seems to have a much better grasp of the basics shifting to humanoid form taking the chalk and filling in the circle
The trio get to work. The creepy puppets seem to be keeping their distance, even now that the summoned pup has gone back to the fields of Mt. Celestia
Karrin begins to feel fatigued again, the strength Ekuur had infused her with ebbing away
Seph fortunatly seems to have a much better grasp of the basics shifting to humanoid form taking the chalk and filling in the circle
The lanky wizard crawls around the circle on his hands and knees writing arcane symbols on the floor. He can heard muttering something about 'being too old for this'.
When he gets back around to the beginning of the circle, he looks up to see Seph's whiskered face instead of Merle's. He blinks.
"Yea. Okay then." He says, his brain still too involved in magical formulae to be surprised by much.
Justin takes another look around the circle, sharpens one edge of a symbol, and nods.
"Yea, that'll work. Nice job kid."
Justin ruffles the top of Seph's head with a smirk. Then he puts away the chalk, pulls out a couple of short candles and places them carefully at waiting spots in the circle.
He glances around the room, belatedly thinking about the not-family-friendly puppets, and clears his throat nervously.
"Yea, ok then. Whenever your ready Ekuur. I'll light the candles and you cast the containment spell onto the circle. I've added symbols to allow me to use my amulet as a key, entering the circle without breaking it's containment. Even if it doesn't work, the circle itself will hold anything that gets conjured into it. For a while at least."
"We need to make sure the dolls don't interfere. Whatever might get called into the circle won't be able to break it easily, but anyone from the outside can. Keep them away until we get the gemstone and get out of here. Then if they wanna play, let THEM deal with whatever-it-is."
Justin glances around once more, his wandering mind distracted by the dolls.
"What are those things anyway? At first I thought they were golems of some kind. But now I'm wondering if they aren't animated by malevolent spirits?"
"If they show their faces again they will be kindling..." states Hamar matter of factly as he holds his Scimitars at the ready vigilant for the creatures to renew the attack again.
Justin nods once more.
"I like that. That's it then. They're going into my journal as 'The Kindling' Thanks Hamar."
Nari watches vigilantly, trying to pinpoint the locations of any remaining puppets.