DM Carbide's PFS Emerald Spire

Game Master John Woodford

Consider yourself entitled to guidance whenever needed.

Kali pries loose enough of the spikes that whatever they're holding above will move easily. Then she opens the trap door, ready for anything.

In the dim light above, she makes out the shapes of several morlocks.

Round 1:

Initiative order
Kali
Creeper
Senja
Morlocks
Torque
Asvald
Eva

Kali, you can act!

Kali moves up to 30 feet forward, looking for the enemy.

Does moving forward reveal any of the morlocks on the map? Will take the second part of this action once I know if there is anything to see.

Kali, you're under the red D. It opens into the floor of a narrow hallway, and to either side there are morlocks. They are currently above you.

Would it be possible to cast Burning Hands up through the hole and catch them all?

Yes. If any of them have Combat Reflexes they'll get a shot at you unless you cast defensively, though.

Concentration check DC 17: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (3) + 11 = 14

Kali attempts to immolate the morlocks above her, but is unable to concentrate sufficiently.

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Kali-acted
Creeper-acted
Senja
Morlocks
Torque
Asvald
Eva

Kali's spell fails. One of the morlocks tries to hit the kitsune, but has similar luck.

Senja is up! You don't have line of sight on the action at the moment, though.

Not sure what Kali is trying to burn to a crisp through the opening of the trap door, Senja spins his hand in a quick circle, then flings his fingers outward at his companions, imparting magical speed upon them!

Cast haste.

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Kali-acted
Creeper-acted
Senja-acted
Morlocks-acted
Torque
Asvald
Eva

Senja speeds up the party! The remaining three morlocks try to dent Kali's compusure (and head) with their clubs, with similar success to the first.

Torque, Asvald, and Eva are up!

Eva goes looking for a morlock to befriend. I'm not quite following the setup, even after re-reading the posts and comparing with the map, but the goal is to walk to where I can attack a morlock and grapple it.

Grapple (grapple bonus, haste): 1d20 + 12 + 3 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 12 + 3 + 1 = 35

The dotted lines on the map delineate a tunnel under the floor, that leads to a trap door over where Kali is located. That trap door opens up in the floor of a hallway, where there are morlocks on either side of the trap door. Since Kali is occupying the space below the trap door, moving to where you can reach a morlock will take a few Acrobatics checks to move through their squares--Kali can't see this so it's not on the map yet, but there are more morlocks packed in behind the ones to the west. The ones to the east are backed into a dead end.

How many Acrobatics checks do you want?

Acrobatics: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (12) + 12 = 24
Acrobatics: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (16) + 12 = 28
Acrobatics: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (2) + 12 = 14

Torque moves up and casts Prayer!

+1 at/dmg/saves/skill checks. Enemies get -1 to all these things.

Asvald begins his rousing ursine chant. "Get him Eva!"

If you accept the raging song:

+2 strength (morale)
+2 constitution (morale)
+2 constitution (enhancement)
+2 will saves (morale)
-1 armor class
no spellcasting

Eva judges that in the crush she'll be unable to get far, and waits for Kali to withdraw.

Round 2:

Initiative order
Kali
Creeper
Senja
Morlocks
Torque
Asvald
Eva

Kali is up!

Kali fully withdraws from the tunnel to let the heavy hitters get a chance at the morlocks.

Withdrawal action with double move.

Round 2 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Kali-acted
Creeper-acted
Senja
Morlocks
Torque
Asvald
Eva

Kali retreats. Before the party can react, one of the morlocks closes the trap door.

Senja is up!

"Wow, these guys are annoying," Senja opines. "Let's try another way."

Have we looked into the door to the south? If not, let's do that.

The door to the south led to a dead end, clogged with rubble.

I had some vague recollection of that. Hmmph.

"I say again, they're annoying," Senja repeats. "We could pull the door open and I could send in a ball of agressive lightning, maybe drive them back a bit. Or we could try digging our way through one of the dead ends we found." He pauses a moment, then adds, "Either way, I would like to kill them."

What are y'all doing?

Waitin' to see if the others have a better plan than mine. Can you refresh my memory on which of the rubble-filled dead ends might be possible to dig through, if any?

"I can teleport us to the other side if I knew there was room." Torque suggests.

I've marked the easiest one to dig through with an X.

"I'm tired of these guys," Senja whines, "let's go back to the first tunnel we found and see if we can dig our way through the rockfall."

Let's do it!

I can Dimension Door us over there if we want to get away ASAP.

Asvald follows.

I'm not sure where the best spot to dig is.

I'm not sure where the best spot to dig is.

Carbide kindly marked it on the map with an X - you always dig at the X!

"Um, guys? Why are we spending hours digging through rocks when we can just take out the morlocks?" Kali asks with confusion.

What's the issue with just taking them out in the hallway? Is it just the bottleneck issues? I don't think they're going to get much better even if we clear a new passage.

I moved Asvald up to the X. Even being able to attack them from two sides would help.

I can go either way, we just seemed to have backed out of the hallway and I as looking for another route. And I agree with Asvald, being able to get at them from the other side would be good.

So, are you going to start digging, d-door past the block, go back and fight the morlocks?

BTW, Asvald, I like the new look. More icons available now?

Looks like we're digging.

Eva will help dig.

Asvald's new avatar looks like whatsisnameOwyn from Betrayal at Krondor... with long hair.

Senja waits patiently while the larger, stronger party members dig.

After some time, the party manages to clear a way through the rubble. Senja thinks the new passage should be fairly stable, at least in the short term. A corridor is revealed, leading west to a locked door.

Wordlessly, Kali looks at the door and makes an 'after you' gesture with her hands to Torque.

Torque's Perception does laps around Kali's.

Torque takes a look at the newly created door.

Perception: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (6) + 20 = 26

Revealed, not created.

It appears to Torque's practiced eye to be a door, with nothing out of the ordinary beyond a high-quality lock.

I find myself wondering who proofread the module...the description states that the door "is locked with a masterwork lock," a term which has no definition in the rules AFAICT. Locks come in Simple, Average, Good, and Superior.

"There are no traps. But it is locked."

"Sure, I can take care of that." Kali says as she pulls out her tools and works on unlocking the door.

Take 10 on Disable Device: 10 + 17 = 27

If that's not good enough, feel free to roll for me until either the lock gets jammed or it opens.

After some work, Kali manages to get the lock to open.

The room on the other side, unlike anywhere else you've seen on this level, is lit by coal-filled braziers that shed a dull yellow light over the great iron cages lining the walls. Some of the cages are empty, while others hold the skeletal or desiccated remains of a fantastic array of supernatural beings. The caged corpses hang from rusty manacles and have great iron skewers piercing their bodies. A table toward your end of the room holds a collection of small clay bowls filled with clotted blood, gobbets of flesh, flensed bones, and other grisly evidence of what happens in this chamber.

Doing anything in the room?

Senja follows the others into the room, doing a quick scan for magic amongst the horrors of the chamber.

There is an aura emanating from something inside of a cage in one corner.

Accompanied by his burly companions, Senja goes to take a closer look at what's in the cage in the corner, careful not to get too close or open anything until it's been checked out for unpleasant surprises.

The cage contents are unpleasant enough on their own. From a distance it appears to be simply the skin of a morlock hanging from a hook, but as you approach you can tell it's been tanned and stitched into something like armor.

While studying the unpleasant item, all of you hear a voice, cracked and raw, whisper "...help me..."

No, it's not a fly with a human head.

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (10) + 12 = 22

"I don't know what this skin armor is, but it's yucky," Senja offers, before he's interrupted by the almost inaudible cry for help. "What's that? Who's there?"

He looks around while listening carefully, seeking the source of the voice.

Who needs the rest of the party, eh, Carbide? Senja's gonna solo this level!

Go for it!

One of the larger cages contains what you at first thought was the corpse of a large (as in nine or ten feet tall) humanoid, slumped against the side of the cage.

It gazes down at you and croaks out, "Jherao...is my name."