DM Carbide's PFS Emerald Spire

Game Master John Woodford

A bar? Who put that there?

Barsvald begins his ursine crooning. "You can take 'em Torque!"

If you accept the raging song:
+2 strength (morale)
+2 constitution (morale)
+2 constitution (enhancement)
+2 will saves (morale)
-1 armor class
Access to raging dirty trick
no spellcasting

Finding herself first in front of a pit trap, then blinded with darkness, Kali calls out, "What am I fighting here guys? Where are the bad guys? Should I just get out of here?"

Waiting for someone to tell her where to shoot, or to move out of the way for someone with darkvision.

"Friend Kali, would you kindly move so I may vacate this pit of chaos?" Assuming she does so, Torque will dimension hop out of the pit and cast Shield on himself.

Eva waits for there to be something she can do to help. Delay.

"Sure thing." Kali replies to Torque, as she exits the room.

Move action, then go full defense until next turn.

Senja peers around the singing bear, then tosses a pair of shadowy manacles at the morlock he can see, hoping to hamper the foe's effectiveness.

Misfortune hex on the one not in the pit, DC 20 Will save to resist.

Senja peers around the singing bear....

Just as well Asvald didn't go with Perform (Dance).

Senja's hex fails to bite on the morlock. Kali retreats, Eva waits, Asvald declaims, and Torque teleports.

As I understand dimensional hop, since Torque can only move to places he has line of sight on he appears in the square that Kali vacated. I'm assuming that's the case for the morlocks' actions.

Round 2 (ongoing):

Initiative order

Foes-acted
Eva
Kali
Senja
Asvald
Torque

The two morlocks swarm up the walls and end over the doorway, where they attempt to smash the half-orc with their clubs. One hits Torque for 19 HP.

Party up! Note that the circle defines the edge of the volume of darkness.

Senja makes an annoyed "Hmmph!" sound, then tosses another pair of shadowy manacles at the same morlock!

Use Accursed Hex to try again with Misfortune, DC 20 Will save.

Round 2 (ongoing):

Initiative order

Foes-acted
Eva
Kali
Senja
Asvald
Torque

Senja can't really see either of the morlocks, as they are clinging to the wall above the doorway and striking at Torque from there. (On the other hand, all Torque would have to do is take a 5' step backwards, and the pair would have to drop to the ground to follow.)

Torque moves back and casts a spell on himself. Shield

Torque, you cast shield on yourself last round. However, I forgot about that, and was working off of the AC marked in your header. Take back the 19 HP, as both morlocks miss you.

In that case Torque will just Total Defense.

Barsvald continues his crooning and backs away from the ring of inky darkness.

Senja can't really see either of the morlocks, as they are clinging to the wall above the doorway and striking at Torque from there.

Got it, thanks for the clarification. I'll ready an action to do the Misfortune thing on whichever one comes into view first.

Kali steps out of the magical darkness and shrugs, "I guess we can just wait until that unnatural darkness stops. I don't have any other plans for today."

Total Defense action.

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (15) + 12 = 27

"The spell will last at least three minutes, maybe longer," Senja offers. "So we can go in after them, or we back up and see if they come for us, or I can try to dispel it. If we go for the last option, I have a reasonable chance of success."

We might as well finish our actions for this round and see what they do, and decide based on that.

I'm going to keep going total defense unless I know where to attack.

Ditto.

OK, these are two CR 4 creatures, and even though most of you can't see them they have a really tough time hitting Torque when he's got his defenses up. I'm going to call this. There's also nothing else left on the level that will give you folks much of a fight, now that you've dropped the Mistress and the barbarian.

After a rather frustrating fight, which most of the party has a hard time participating in, the two morlocks fall. You make your way through the rest of the level, slaughtering morlocks as you go, with a short pause while you fight and kill a flesh golem.

Burn 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4 charges of infernal healing to account for incidental damage taken during the fights. I'll get the chronicles out in the next few days; unfortunately, I have a program review at work along with a few rush jobs, so it may take me a while.

Something to (hopefully) whet your appetites, and maybe give you a hint for things to buy.

Descending from the lair of the morlocks and their infernal guest, the stairs emerge into a natural cavern that itself winds downward, following an ancient waterway. Here and there, steps have been carved in the rock when the natural slope was too great. Eventually, though, the cavern ends in more finished limestone.

The half-orc's keen senses are the first to pick up a faint tang of sulfur in the air...an odor that soon grows to eye-watering intensity. The limestone gives way to marble, and the steps widen and show signs of having been melted, eventually becoming a broken ramp.

The ramp ends in a small chamber with a single exit.

Started leveling up, not quite sure when I’ll manage to finish it - but I started! And I auto-succeed at that Knowledge DC.

Senja looks around and says, ”It got pretty warm in here at some point, and was probably that way for quite a while. For limestone to turn into marble like it has here, it takes very high heat and a long time. We should be prepared for some high temperatures.“

"I will heed your sage advice."

"Hmm, I got a spell that can help a little with that, but probably not enough for everyone." Kali explains with a slight shrug.

Once we start, casting Resist Energy (fire) on Kali. It'll give her Fire Resistance 20 for 80 minutes. I can cast on it a couple of other people, but casting it on everyone really shorts me on 2nd level spells.

I have 2 resist energy(s) prepared so I can cast it on the squishier PCs.

Knowledge (Dungeoneering): 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 2 + 2 = 6

Eva turns to listen to Senja's discourse, nodding slowly. "Interesting..." she murmurs thoughtfully.

Mostly leveled... just finalizing my feat selection and seeing if I want to buy anything.

Considering the apparent proximity of molten rock, Senja concludes from the relative habitability of the area that there is some sort of low-level environmental magic at work.

There's just the one passage from the room--give me a marching order and I'll get things going.

Torque will take the lead, ever vigilant for traps and/or chaos.
Torque, Kali, Asvald, Senja, Eva works I think.

Perception: 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (6) + 21 = 27

Senja follows along, glad to not be at the front. Or the back.

Eva watches the group's back vigilantly, unwilling to let anything surprise them from behind!

Kali casts Resist Energy to make her more resistant to fire, then helps Torque look around.

With a Perception of +11, auto-aiding Torque. With the GM leave, could be assume she does so every time we enter a new area or look for traps?

Torque will do the same as he casts Resist Energy(Fire) on Senja and himself. Also Barkskin +4 on Asvald and himself.

The passage north goes only a few feet before opening out into a larger cavern. This was clearly the site of a pitched battle, and not that long ago. Heavily armored human bodies lie strewn across the cave floor, their black armor sundered. Brilliantly colored crystals jut out among the corpses.

Based on the armor alone, the fallen appear to be Hellknights. Senja, in fact, recognizes the style as that of the Order of the Nail, the order currently in command of Fort Inevitable, the nearby town. The wayang also recognizes the crystals as the remains of crysmals, crystalline creatures of elemental Earth.

"Curious. What are Hellknights doing here?"

"The Order of the Nail are garrisoned nearby. The better question is how they got so deep into the Spire alone. It's taken us ages to get this far as a well-prepared team."

Any sign of the tokens for moving about the spire on the remains?

Asvald finds no Spire tokens on the bodies. There are three magical (+1) halberds, four reasonably intact suits of Hellknight plate, and a small book. Most of the pages are blank, but the first page is inscribed thusly:

“The Journal of Chaid DiViri, Hellknight Signifer of the Order of the Gate, leader of the expedition to tame the Emerald Spire.

“What follows is Volume 3, the rest being enshrined safely with my order on my expedition’s return trips to the surface.

“The campaign continues, now into heat and boiling stone. Our troop has dwindled in size, but the gemstone vein that has provided our egress time and again is sure to be near. We will resupply, forge ahead, and discover what secret lies within these depths. I’ve come too far now to let something as flimsy as fire stand in my way. These pits’ secrets will be mine, even if it takes the bodies of all my knights to smother their flames.”

As the party searches the area, a rather chewed-up crystalline creature enters the chamber from the northeast, pursued by a floating sphere bristling with quivering blades and staring with a solitary eyeball.

Senja realizes that the crystalline creature is a crysmal and the floating sphere is an augur kyton.

"So...do we attack both things or just wait out to see who wins? The crysmal is probably dangerous based on the dead guys, but a floating blade eyeball probably isn't a welcome committee." Kali ponders as she draws her blade.

"These things in their normal forms wouldn't be much of a hazard for us," Senja observes, "and I wouldn't think they'd take out a bunch of hellknights either."

Are these just normal ones of their kind? If so, they're pretty low CR. I'll see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary about these two.

Knowledge (planes): 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (7) + 14 = 21

They both seem to be ordinary specimens of their kind. It appears that the crysmal is trying to get away from the kyton, and the kyton is keeping its distance from you.

Senja, you know that augur kytons are sometimes granted as familiars to lawful evil spellcasters.

"Those little kyton things are nasty," Senja remarks. "I say we kill it, then maybe we can chat with the crysmal, see if it can tell us anything about the dead guys and the crystals sticking out of them."

"Sounds good to me. Let's get 'em!"

"Agreed. What little I know about Kyton is they are enemies of justice."

The kyton flees. As the party gives chase, the wounded crysmal attacks Oladon, as she's in the lead, hurling a crystalline spike at the monk. If your AC is 24 or less, take 11 HP.

The party can act!

Carbide - not sure where the crysmal is on the map, I'll presume I can target an AoE spell with just it in the radius.

"Well, so much for that plan," Senja mutters. He swirls a hand in the air in front of him, conjuring up a cloud of glittering chips of black shadow, which he hurls at the crysmal!

Cast glitterdust on the thing, DC 19 Will save or blinded.

I don't see the enemy on the map. Once one of the melee characters attack, I'll move Kali in for a flank.

Same here.

I thought you'd already moved into the room, since you were searching it. Crysmal placed.

Thank you!

Torque moves in to engage the violent crysmal, Greataxe of Justice in hand.

Power Attack: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (1) + 12 = 13
1d12 + 17 ⇒ (4) + 17 = 21

Acrobatics: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (18) + 17 = 35

Kali attempts to flip past the crysmal to get behind it and hopefully into a future flank.

Err, I thought we were saving the crysmal?