Crypt of the Everflame! (Inactive)

Game Master Jellyroll

Cazithiel moves in and looks around from the corner, his glowing rapier piercing the gloom.

Giltman also moves on in, his shield radiating light straight ahead of him. Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 3 = 16

Edit: Given that we see skeletons, Giltman will use Knowledge [religion] to determine if they're undead creatures. If they're not, then he'll use Heal to see if he can learn anything about how they died.

Knowledge[religion: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12
Heal: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16

Smiling a wan half smile Hessiel to casts light upon a button, and eyeing the skeletons suspiciously makes for the nearest of them, drawing his morningstar.

The three amigos step into the room, radiating light, illuminating the grizzly scene.
Then all of a sudden six of the eight skeletons begin clanking together, quickly standing and each brandishing broken scimitars! Two bony groups moving towards your brave band of adventurers.

Initiative order:
Cazithiel, Mordack
Skeletons 4,5,6
Giltman, Leb, Hessiel
Skeletons 1,2,3

Cazithiel shakes his head. "Begone!" he calls out. Tendrils of darkness snake from his tattoos to strike all the skeletons.

Channel energy, DC 10. Should hit all the skeletons.

Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 6

He sheathes his rapier, preparing for a different strategy.

"Skeletons! I"m good at those!" exclaims Giltman, giving his trusty light hammer a whirl. He eagerly awaits his turn. :-D

Will save 1: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13
Will save 2: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15
Will save 3: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12
Will save 4: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 2 = 20
Will save 5: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
Will save 6: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9

Caz prays to his Count asking for divine blessing and the skeletons shake and quake with fear, two drop dead.

Leb turns to look at Giltman. Me too, big buddy!. He tries to twirl his quarterstaff but looks somewhat ridiculous.

Mordack will cast magic missile on the closest skeleton to him damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Mordack boldly forces a projectile from a safe distance, removing one of the remaining four skeletons!

That was the last of the first group of skeletons in the initiative order.
Giltman, Leb, Hessiel, yer up!

Giltman moves up to the closest skeleton and swings at it with his light hammer.
Hammer: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10
Oh, a miss! Bad luck for Giltman! :(

Hessiel casts arcane mark, enchants his morninstar with a thought, and steps forward swinging his morningstar twice one handed.

Morningstar: 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (14) + 4 - 2 = 16 Damage: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7
Morningstar: 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (3) + 4 - 2 = 5 Damage: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8

Hessiel and Giltman step in to smash, Gilt misses yet Hessiel connects sending one skeletal abomination back to dust!

Leb pulls a vial from his belt pouch, uncorks it, and downs its contents in one gulp. Suitably fortified, he walks towards the skeletons.

quaffing an extract of shield

The remaining walking bones attack!

BS: 1d20 ⇒ 20dmg: 1d6 ⇒ 2
confirm: 1d20 ⇒ 4
The first rushes forward and swings it's broken scimitar at Giltman, connecting soundly yet not as soundly as it could have been...

Claws: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21dmg: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6 The second swings both claws viciously at Hessiel! The skeletons claws find hold in Hessiels neck trying to rip out his throat! The claws connect yet fail in finishing the elf's life and slip away dripping blood...

The party is up!

Giltman utters a small prayer to Nivi Rhombodazzle, channeling positive energy into his hand, then reaches out to touch the skeleton.
Using 1 daily use of Fervor to deal positive energy damage.
Touch attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (8) + 6 = 14
Positive energy damage: 1d6 ⇒ 3
Not sure what the skeletons' touch AC is, this MIGHT hit.

The warpriest muttering a prayer of thanks and guidance to his deity, reaches out and lightly caresses a skeleton's rib cage.

The skeleton closest to Nivi's human devotee looks momentarily towards him and crumples in a bony pile. Its skull rolls to end at Giltmans feet.

With pain thinned lips Hessiel attempts to cast arcane mark defensively but the spell fizzles, and he has to settle for a single swipe with his morningstar smashing it home into bone.

Cast Defensively: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6
Morningstar: 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (15) + 4 - 2 = 17 Damage: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6

After leaving it's mark upon Hessiels neck the skeleton attempts to move away from the deadly magus only to find itself headless and falling in a heap...

Encounter ended

Gathering your wits and looking around you all note the ceilings are 15 feet high and the surfaces are made of stone. The walls are decorated with a scrolling pattern of villagers fighting off masked bandits and monsters. This artwork is still in relatively good condition, although water damage and lichen have taken their toll. The stench of mold and rot hangs heavy in the air.

Also in the chamber is a pair of backpacks. One of the packs contains a large pillow and two quivers (each containing 10 blunted arrows). The other pack has 2 days’ worth of rations, a full waterskin, and a pair of smokesticks.

Mordack, will move forward around the corner to the left and stop at the path that leads left and will take 20 on his perception to try to spot something, anything.

Knowledge(local): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (18) + 3 = 21

Oh, no! It's the major's friends Gerol and Vark!

Hessiel frowns at the remains, owlish eyes searching, "Did we not find a pillow before? Does anyone know the significance of them? It seems a very strange thing to bring to a crypt."

"No idea, but maybe we should take this one with us? Perhaps they knew something about the crypt that we don't."

The brave adventurers strap pillows upon their backs, now which door to take?
East or West, the monumental stress associated with this possible life threatening decision is palpable.

What to do?

"The mayor's friends, brutally slain? This is bad tidings. If they traveled here, and brought a pillow... they expect this to be comfortable."

Cazithiel's eyes narrow as he adds, "Would they have been behind the illusory attack of earlier? More harmless fun?"

"Well, I usually like to go left, because left is the right way. Unless right is the right way. And then left is the left way. Er... wrong way. So I say left, right?" Giltman putters on, sounding ever-so-much like an excited gnome despite his human stature.

Indeed, left is right. Or, maybe I should say for our non-gnomish friends, left is correct..

Mordack has already taken a 20 on perception to see in the left doorway, which I assume he sees nothing?

Mordack grabs 1 trail ration out of the big huge loot pile.

Mordack searches the West doorway finding nothing untoward.

Hessiel heads down the doorway Mordack was peering through.

When Hessiel opens the door he sees the center of this room is a large pool of clear water, fed by a fountain on the wall above it. 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.

A voice then booms out from the darkness saying, “Magic is the key.” The voice slowly fades, leaving a dreadful silence.

Giltman says "Ominous... let's go in!"

He walks through the door.

Owlish eyes blinking Hessiel casts detect magic and scans the room advancing slowly.

Cazithiel follows Giltman and Hessiel into the chamber.

Leb cautiously follows the others.

Magic is the key? I wonder what that means?

Mordack will examine the pool taking 10, making his perception a 10. What does he see in the pool? How deep is the pool?

As with the previous room the only lights in this room are the ones you bring with you. The pool appears to be very deep, with your limited light seeing the bottom is impossible.

"Well, lads, I'm not very useful for swimming, but I do have a rope here, so we can tie this around someone and haul him up if things get sticky. Any takers?"

Mordack pulls out a sunrod he brought with him that he bought before adventuring, activates it and lets it descend into the bottom of the pool.

As Mordack drops his sunrod into the pool it sinks giving all a now lit view of the pools contents and depth.

The pool appears to be approximately 40' deep and the bottom is covered in what could be keys.

I like that you used the words "what could be" there, just to make us think "Hmm... what if they're not keys... what if they're A KEY GOLEM!!!" ;)

Leb strokes his chin thoughtfully. "'Magic is the key,' eh? That could mean that we need to use magic as a key, but it could also mean that one of those keys is magical. But how do we figure which one?"

"I'm not certain, I'm afraid..."

Detect magic is at will, why not use it again and find out which one of these keys is magical. Or we can just grab all the keys swimming back and forth several times and try them all out on every door that is locked, eventually we have to get it right.

We're really all just waiting for Hessiel to respond; he's the one with Detect Magic prepared.

Apologizes for limited posting. This is a travel heavy weekend. I'll update ya'll soon.

Back, thanks for your patience.
Hessiel did cast DM, just curious what he's going to do with the knowledge.

I think we are waiting for him to do it again, so we can find out which key might be magical.

actually mordacks constitution score is 12, so he can be in water for 24 rounds, I believe. If he takes 10, that would mean 12 rounds as a full round action. he has to swim 80 feet in 12 rounds, 40 feet down, 40 feet back. He can swim 30 X12 X 1/4 feet in 12 rounds which is 90 feet. So if my Math is correct, Mordack will lay down all of his stuff, go under water, grab as many keys as possible in one swipe and swim back up, lay the keys on the land. Take a breather and repeat process until he has taken all of the keys underwater if that is possible.

@ Mordack, sure thing.

Now that you have all these keys, what do you want to do with them?

Cazithiel hears a very faint sorrowful wail coming from beyond the previous room....

Mordack puts all the keys in his backpack. important, how much would all of them weigh? Probably a good bit, since I'm tracking encumberance.