for
I meant to pull up Nadab. He doesn't have any rope.
Both Zane and Bern manage to strike deep divots into the wood of the animated statue of Kassen, visibly marring the construct's movement and durability.
Venedictos bravely extends his glaive (and body) over the stairs-cum-chute in order to pull Nadab to safety, but not before the statue bashes at the sorcerer with its shield, critically brutalizing the poor half-orc .
Turning its attentions to the two warriors, the statue sloppily swings a shield at both Zane and Bern, missing both.
Nadab -6/11 HP (unconscious, dying)
Zane 4/13 HP
Bern
Venedictos
Statue (13 AC, T 9, FF 13) -28 HP
"What is this thing?"
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"Some kind of animated moving wood statue," Venedictos calls out helpfully.
He channels again.
Bern, still ignorant as to what the statue might be (other than the obvious), continues to hack away at it. Zane, too, attacks, but far less successfully. You can clearly see that the dents and divots inflicted on the statue is slowing the thing down significantly.
Venedictos's channeling manages to bring Nadab back to consciousness, though just barely. The staggered sorcerer weakly pushes himself to his feet looking worse for the wear.
The statue again bashes at Bern and Zane, sending a huge wooden shield toward each fighter simultaneously. Bern is able to leap from the blow, but Zane is not so lucky. The ranger takes the full brunt of the shield .
Nadab 0/11 HP (staggered)
Zane 8/13 HP
Bern
Venedictos
Statue (13 AC, T 9, FF 13) -40 HP
Venedictos says, "Nadab, just stay put and defend yourself. That thing will crush you if I try to pull you up!", then he chants again.
" I think I can do a little better than that from here " Nadab says nodding to Ven.
He turns and with a quick incantation flings a green globule of acid at the statue.
Between Bern's brutal slash and Nadab's orb of acid, the statue proves it cannot tolerate any further damage. Its limbs cease movement with its battered arms extending two large tower shields toward the party. From Zane and Bern's close vantage point, it appears the shields could be slid from the statue's grasp with moderate effort.
The door beside the altar on the lower level of the room appears to be locked , while the door on the upper level is not. The stairways remain chutes, though a cursory observation of the altar reveals a pressure plate with which the party might revert them back to their original form.
Nadab 5/11 HP
Zane
Bern
Venedictos
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First of all, Zane decides to try and disarm the statue: "I have no idea if, and when this...this...thing might come alive again, but I have no wish to be smashed into a paste, with shields of all things."
After taking the shields off the statue (if possible) and putting them away, Zane activates the pressure plate and returns the stairs to their original form.
"You can come down now guys, I think it's safe. Ven, say thank you to Shelyn for me for all the blessings , they've kept me on my feet."
"Now, it seems this statue has the room at the back for some kind of a key, but I do not recall seeing one so far" - ranger motions towards the back of the strange creature, while approaching the door. After a cursory examination, he adds: "I have no clue how to deal with this lock. We either go up, those doors are unlocked, or I stand aside and let one of you sturdier guys simply beat down this door. I am for up, but what do you say?"
With a little help from Bern, Zane is able to detach the two shields from the statue with minimal difficulty. The twin tower shields are poorly designed and weigh about 60 pounds each.
Pushing against the door in order to gauge its strength and whether it might be barred from the other side, Zane assesses that a man as burly as Bern, even weakened slightly by the shadow, would likely be able to pop it open with a hearty kick or a hard shoulder.
Nadab points to the south and the unopened door up the stairs. " I think we should head back towards the entrance. We might find some useful things incase there are more 'obstacles' on our way. "
He puts an ear to the door and listens for a moment.
Nadab hears nothing and he is incredibly confident that that is because there is nothing making any noise on the other side of the door.
" Sounds all clear. " Nadab says as he swings the door open.
By the light of Vendictos's glaive, the party can see the long corridor beyond the southern door is flanked by a row of human statues, set into alcoves on each side. The statues look like Kassen, and each one holds a longsword out in front of it. The blades of the four northernmost statues are wrapped in leather padding, while the four closest to the adventurers are uncovered. At the end of the corridor is another door.
"I get the feeling we should keep our heads down," Venedictos says, eyeing the covered blades. "The fact that some of them are covered suggests a reason."
He looks about the floor to see if there are any covers that have been pulled off.
Vendictos's cursory glance beneath the first two statues does not turn up any evidence that covers had been pulled from the swords.
Nadab looks for pressure plates in the stones before him, using the butt of his spear to press firmly on all the tiles he can reach.
" What do you think Zane? Triggered by the floor somehow? "
Nadab presses the butt of his long spear against the floor, both directly in front of him and the full range of his implement. The stone seems firm, without giving so much as an inch.
"Well, we can't stand here forever."
"Alright, Alright. I just don't want to get chopped in half!"
Nadab steps forward completely on his guard, expecting the swords to swing towards him.
If they don't he checks the next part of the floor.
Just Nadab prepares to take another step forward, Zane calls out, halting the sorcerer's progress. The ranger moves alongside his companion and points out the faint outline of a pressure plate in the tile he was about to walk upon. Zane has his fellow adventurers step out of the corridor as he crouches and sets to work lodging bits of wood and debris into the crevice between the tile and pressure plate.
As the ranger jams one last piece of wood between tile and plate, he can hear a click and the scraping of stone on stone. Suddenly, all eight swords - padded and not - come crashing down forcefully. Stuck between two pairs of blades, Zane sighs in relief. Though he had not been able to disable the trap, at least no one was injured in its triggering.
"Oh, fun!" Venedictos mumbles as he prepares to weave his large girth through the blades.
He casts guidance on himself to help.
It doesn't help.
"Ow!"
He can cast guidance on others before they go through the sharp blades, too.
"Thanks Zane. I don't think I'm really cut out for this.
Nadab follows Ven. Following his path but trying to avoid the spot where he got scratched. unfortunately he leans a little to far to the other side.
"Ow! Thats trickier than it looks."
Once he's traversed his way past all the statues Nadab listens at the far door.
Venedictos gives Nadab some magical guidance on his listening, though I doubt it'll help in any appreciable way.
Moving slowly and deliberately, Nadab, Venedictos, and Zane are able to bypass the blades without injury. Bern, however, encumbered by his armor, stumbles over the second pair, slicing his thigh .
Not hearing any obvious threats in the room at the end of the corridor, Nadab attempts to open the door, only to find it locked .
Bern (13/16)
Nadab (7/11)
Venedictos (9/9)
Zane (8/13)
Sadly, Venedictos' armour check penalty means he has a negative to Acrobatics. Since everybody is slightly injured, he'll channel once before they deal with the door.
Nadab shrugs after he tries the door. " It sounds all clear but the door is locked. Think you could break it down Bern? "
Despite only being able to get a very short head start, the combined force of Bern and Nadab slamming their shoulders into the door manage to bring it down off its hinges with a thunderous slam.
In the center of the room before them is a large pool of clear water, fed by a fountain on the wall above it. By the illumination provided by Venedictos's glaive, you can see that the fountain has a stone statue of a weeping maiden holding the slain body of Kassen, but his head has been broken off and is nowhere to be seen. Once the first of you steps into the room, a voice booms out from the darkness, saying, "Magic is the key." The voice slowly fades, leaving a dreadful silence.
To the left is another door, identical to the one you've just knocked down, leading north.
"Well, if magic is the key..."
Venedictos casts detect magic and has a look around.
Venedictos detects a faint magic aura emanating from the bottom of the pool before him.
"There's magic in the bottom, but I don't have skill to identify auras."
Nadab casts detect magic and waits till he can see the aura too.
"Maybe we just have to swim down and get it. I think I could do it. "
Or a really good swimmer could go down, grab ALL the keys, bring them up and we'll toss the non-magical ones back in...
...unless that triggers the trap of ultimate world annihilation.
Well, Nadab has a positive modifier, and if the DC is just 10, he should be able to handle it.
With no other ideas forthcoming Nadab starts laying out his gear beside the pool. He takes off the outer layers of his clothing and nods to the others. He takes a deep breath and dives into the pool using a slightly awkward frog like motion to swim down to the keys while concentrating on his spell.
The combination of Nadab's strength, racial darkvision, and magical aptitude proves incredibly fortuitous as he is able to locate and retrieve the single magical key at the bottom of the pool with relative ease.
The doors to the west and north remain locked . There is nothing else of interest in this room, though Nadab does smell quite a bit better than before his swim.
Nadab Brandishes the key, smiling and dripping wet. "Got it!"
He hands the key to Ven as he dries himself off with his shirt and then puts his clothing back on.
"I think that door would lead back to the first chamber... want to try this one?" He says pointing to the door to the north.
He moves over to it and listens with his ear against it.
After trying the key in these two doors, without success, Venedictos says, "I think it would be prudent to return back through the crypt and try the other doors we weren't able to open, before we continue on."
" Maybe this is the key for that statues back... I think we might be doing everything backwards. " Nadab says shaking his head. Then he shrugs " oh well might as well keep going. You sure we shouldn't try to bust this door down? "
Before following Ven, Nadab tries to bust in the door to the west.
Just as Nadab starts to try and bust the northern door open, a strange swell of exhaustion washes over Bern and Zane. Apparently, the touch of the shadow they had encountered earlier had affected the two men far more deeply than the group had realized. Not wishing to burden their companions further, the weakened ranger and fighter decide to head back to Kassen and seek reinforcements to aid in the rescue of Roldare's sister.
36 hours later ...
Roldare frantically paces the front chamber of the crypt, his fear of leaving the supply closet having subsided hours earlier.
"Where are they?" he asks over and over again, kicking aside the crumpled remains of the skeletal warriors Nadab and Venedictos had defeated just three days prior. "Dimira could be dead now ... she probably is ... where are they!"
Brayken, Faunra, and Quinn - the three brave volunteers from Kassen who did not hesitate to risk the journey upon hearing Zane and Bern's tale - hear Roldare's shouts from outside the cracked stone doors of the crypt. Figuring the cobbler's complaints signify a lack of danger, they hitch their horses beside the freshly dug graves containing the remains of what townsfolk Nadab and Venedictos were able to recover and enter the crypt.
Nadab, Roldare, and Venedictos are there to receive them and immediately burst into a rundown of the past three days' events - much of which the reinforcements have already heard from Zane and Bern:
- The gristly scene outside the crypt,
- The fight with skeletons and dead townsfolk,
- The maze of padded pit traps,
- Finding Roldare and learning of his captured sister,
- The "one with the voice of death, who stalks the halls in ancient mail,"
- The shadow in the smoke,
- The hungry fire beetle,
- The living wooden statue of Kassen,
- The gauntlet of swords,
- The pool with the magic key.
"Yes, yes, there's been plenty of horror to be had by all," Roldare interjects. "Now go and rescue my sister already! You know where I'll be hiding ..."
Quinn buttons his double-breasted studded-leather jacket fully, pulls on a bandolier with four daggers across his chest and adjusts his grieves. He pulls his large shield onto his his arm and tightens the buckles.
"No time to lose then. Can you show us a safe way through the traps?"
Shouldering his pack and drawing his short sword, Quinn looks to Nadab and Venedictos for direction.