Their backs to the wall and hopes raised by Odol going down, the Adepts dig deep. Salvin's target ducks the Paladin's lightning quick swipe. Gregory's oppoent jumps back away from the earthbreaker, still catching it in the chest but only barely - somehow, his leather armour cushions the mighty blow. All three adepts drop their bows and draw short swords, trying to fight the two warriors off:
As two strikes glance from Salvin's heavy armour and Gregory's opponent wasts his opening trying to get his sword out of it's sheath it becomes clear this can only go one way...
Vhailor's unconscious mind is filled with creaking gears and puffs of steam. Outwardly his miniature frame seems peacefully at rest, and though bloodied his face is not creased with any stress or concern.
Turn 6
Salvin steps forward and swings at the adept.
Round 5:
Gregory directs a mighty swing at Adept directly in front of him...
Though he withstood the brunt of it, the colour spray has clearly hampered Salvin's aim as a second swing misses it's mark and carves a deep groove in the earth. The luck of Gregory's opponent has run out, however. The Earthbreaker connects with his skull and cracks it like an egg, slamming the Helix trooper's spasming body to the floor.
Seeing Vhailor safe, Damrang begins hauling his weapons closer to the action, not trusting his aim in the chaotic melee.
As Damrang rushes to re-enforce Salvin and Gregory, the remaining two adepts focus their attacks on Salvin. Shortswords held ready their fists are sheathed in magical electricty as they grasp for the paladin's suddenly useless armour:
Lightning courses through Salvin's body searing every nerve with pain. Even so, it will take more than pain to stop him.
Round 6:
Glancing nervously at Salvin, Gregory directs his attention to one of the remaining Adepts...
Turn 6
Salvin grimaces at the pain of the electrical bursts, then quickly touches his own chest to heal some of the damage. Then he swings his greatsword again, hoping to the adept in front of him.
Gregory's next blow is somehow even messier than normal. The hammer catches the adept in the leg and he goes down screaming. It takes several seconds for the internal bleeding caused by his splintered bones to kill him.
Meanwhile, Salvin's opponent seems to have the measure of him as the adept dodges yet another swing. There is a hint of mania in the man's eyes - he seems determined to fight to the death.
Damrang barges over the top of the barricade and piles in with a huge overhead swing of his dorn-derger:
It lands with a wet crack in the adept's skull, and after the thump of his body hitting the floor silence abruptly descends over the blood-stained courtyard.
Vhailor starts to smile in his sleep.
About half a minute later, Odol groans, waking from the adept's spell. He pushes himself up and takes his feet, looking around and smiling when he sees Damrang, Gregory and Salvin standing.
Gregory nods with satisfaction when the last Adept goes down.
"We should search them quickly, and then proceed down. I will tend to Vhailor."
He then moves over, and pours a potion down Vhailor's throat.
Vhailor is awoken back into the world half choking on viscous liquid and with the unholy sensation of a quarrel being forced back out of his lungs as his very lungs and muscles re-knit in front of it. Unable to scream as the pain o'ercomes him Vhailor girds his teeth before turning over, rising to his knees and vomiting upon the ground. Wiping the remnants of bloody bile from his mouth with a sleeve he turns upon Gregory with an impish grin upon his face.
Rising somewhat unsteadily to his feet Vhailor thanks Gregory "I am in your debt... I trust that means we got the bastards?" waiting for a nodded affirmation before stalking down to the charred area where he sent the flaming missive earlier.
Seeing that Master Falk is still a little unsteady, Gregory offers Vhailor a hand standing up.
"Think nothing of it, Master Falk. We did indeed 'get' them. Hopefully, they have a few useful items on them that we can grab quickly, before we head deeper into the complex; we definitely should not tarry long up here..."
Nodding at Gregory's words Vhailor hustles down to strip the three adepts of any items of value before going to join the others. Picking out the blackened corpse of the one who pierced him with a quarrel, Vhailor delivers a childish kick to his corpse and spits on it before moving away.
As he walks to the others he pulls out his own potion of healing and quaffs it.
Odol helps to pick over the bodies if the others are not finished before he wakes. He also pulls out a potion and healing and swallows it down. The area of his skin singed by the magic missile flashes hot for a moment and then the skin tightens as it scabs over the burnt skin.
"I'm ready to continue down below these ruins. Did anyone catch a glimpse of how wide it is? Do we have to go single file or can we go in pairs?"
Salvin quickly downs a potion as he helps the others look over the bodies.
13/17 HP
You pick over the bodies of the fallen adepts and manage to turn up the following items:
7 suits of intact Helix Studded Leather (20 lbs each)
10 short swords (2 lbs each)
3 potions of cure moderate wounds
1 scroll of create pit (CL3)
2 scrolls of burning hands (CL3)
80 Gold
Pack of playing cards
3 small plain steel keys
pouch of tobacco
A silver locket containing a young woman's portrait and a farewell note seemingly written by her. Perhaps the Helix Order aren't the cold blooded killers you've been lead to belive?
...Then you check the spellbook of the locket's carrier and realize the note isn't written to him. This is not the first time this bit of jewelry has been looted.
You also find 7 spellbooks. Wizardly tomes are typically highly personalized, but these are all bound identically and simple have a name and number of some kind engraved onto a brass plate on the cover. Their covers are robust dark red leather. Every one of them contains the Shocking Grasp, Colour Spray, Magic Missile, Mount and Gravity Bow spells. The notes written inside are mostly those you would expect of a student. interestingly, the back pages of some of them are covered with diagrams of squad-level tactics and what look like notes on Delve's military units.
There are two ways down into the catacombes below the ruins. The four ropes that hold up the lift (one in each corner) could be climbed down. Alternatively, there is a ladder leading down a 5' square shaft inside the remains of the tower.
Odol looks everything over with the rest. "Well, guess we should have known better," he comments as they look over the locket and spellbooks."Well, we're going to want to take these back to Delve. Hopefully gives you something useful too Vhailor to make up for their bolts. You should take these scrolls too. Let's split the potions. Gregory, Salvin, Damrang. You won the day. You should each take one. We can split the gold."
He pauses for a moment to look over the keys. "Hmmm, what are these?"
"In any event, we should definitely take these with us. Anyone for the swords, armor, tobacco, or cards?"
"We should travel light. Vhailor will presumably want the scrolls; I agree, we should split the potions, and take the gold as well. The spellbooks are portable, and worth a decent amount of gold. The locket should definitely be retained. I say we leave the rest."
"I agree with you about the ladder Gregory. Looked like that one was running for the ladder too."
Vhailor gleefully accepts the scrolls and all seven spellbooks unless someone else challenges for one. He stows them away for further study when they are less pressed for time. Looking around at their options his brow furrows a little...
Knowledge (Engineering):
Salvin sighs as he looks over the farewell note. He nods as the others mention returning things to the Delve. He sees Vhailor examining the elevator and gets an idea. He leans over the mechanism with the gnome.
"So, do you think we could rig this in some way to collapse when we choose? Or keep it from working for anyone but us?"
"I'll take the tobacco as well, that's probably worth some money and will help down the line. We should travel light, the potions, scrolls, keys, and spell books make sense, no time for the weapons and armor."
Damrang fits the potion in hit belt and then prepares to descend.
"Anybody else hurt before we go farther?"
"Back to full strength and ready to take out more helix mages. Whatcha thinking with those lifts," he comments as Vhailor and Salvin take a look at the ropes and platforms.
Between the three of you you do a fantastic job of (over)analyizing the lift. It's a wooden platform held up by four sets of pullies, one on each corner. The ropes of these pullies descend down into the shaft, which looks like it was dug out a long time ago - long before the Helix seige begun. The pullies are operated from the bottom of the shaft - the only way of getting the lift to descend from the surface is by cutting the ropes and letting it freefall.
Climbing down the ropes would have the benefit of getting you all the way to the necromancer's level. It should be easy enough to do by bracing your feet against the wall. The fact there's four of them allows you to avoid attacking in single file. On the other hand, climbing back up them will be much more difficult, making retreat unlikely.
Futhermore, peering down into the gloom you can just about make out a floor of some kind. It looks like the lift descends to the third sub-basement of the ruin.
With a twinkle in his eye and slight grin Vhailor turns to Salvin and Odol "Should we send a present to our friends below?..." idly turning a vial of alchemist's fire over in his hands.
Odol turns to regard the gnome, trying to determine whether he is serious or joking. "I don't think so Vhailor. Right now, we still have the benefit of surprise. I don't like the idea of descending those ropes either. It might get us to the objective faster, but we'll be trapped below. Let's go for the shaft."
Replacing the vial in his pack Vhailor follows Odol to the ladder dragging his feet somewhat.
Who's going down the ladder first?
"I'll go first, I can see in the dark and take a hit or two if necessary."
Damrang stows his weapons and climbs down the ladder, keeping his eyes open for traps and trouble.
Gregory nods to Damrang.
"Very well. I will follow immediately behind you, in case something happens..."
"I'll go next unless Vhailor has any little surprises he wants to be in position to send ahead to any Helix down below."
"Sounds like I'm rearguard in case something sneaks behind us."
With a final longing look at the lift and thoughts of a sudden plunge followed by cascading flames Vhailor moves to the ladder and follows Odol below...
Damrang gets 15' down the ladder and enters a vaulted chamber. The smell of ancient rot fills the air. The chamber is filled with ruster metal cages each containing the skeleton of some rare magical creature - a beholder skull and the bones of a wyrmling dragon can be seem in the dim light that filters down the shaft. Anything beyond is totally lost in the blackness.
This is no obstical to Damrang's eyes. In crystal clear monochrom he can see another two rows of cages. Amongst the final row he can pick out before even his eyes are foiled by the gloom, he can see a pair of bulky figures holding longbows. They are armoured differently to the Helix adepts topside - they wear chain shirts and a single sholder paldron.
After a moment Damrang also notices they're half orcs, and realizes the implications of this just as they notch arrows and take aim through the bars of the cages.
Initiative Order
Salvin
Damrang
Gregory
Half Orc 2
Vhailor
Half Orc 1
Odol
If Damrang calls out a warning, or just stops altogether, Salvin will take out a torch, his flint and light it.
In the daylight above ground, Salvin lights a torch ready to descend.
Map - Darkvision or low light vision with the benefit of a torch or light spell.
Map - Low Light Vision or normal vision with the benefit of a torch or light spell
It takes two move actions to get down or up the ladder. Once you have made one you are in line with the roof of the chamber and in the line of sight of those in it. The ladder is rickety - only one character can be on it at any point. Those on the surface will require a move action to mount the ladder. In effect, this means only one character can enter the battle each turn. You can get around this by jumping down the shaft to save time. It's a 30' drop.
Cage walls are represented by black lines. The bars of the cages are wide enough to fire through. One cage wall can be fired through without penalty, two or more will grant the target a +4 cover bonus to AC.
Cage doors are represented by Teal lines. They have locks on them, but all are currently ajar.
The extent of normal vision is indicated by a bright red line, low light vision by a yellow line and darkvision by a dark red line. In subsequant turns I will provide maps for each character individually.
Damrang, you're up.
Round 1 Init 14
HP = 21
AC = 18
Weapon Equipped = Dwarven Waraxe
Status Effects = None
"Half-orcs, 2, bows."
Damrang moves forward after calling this warning up the ladder, moving a full 40 feet while drawing his dorn-dergar.
Round 1:
Gregory nods to Damrang, and hustles down the ladder...
Round 1:
Vhailor breathes unto the tip of his metal staff and it starts to glow with light. To Salvin "Perhaps it best if you go down before me?"
As soon as the paladin sees the gnome cast a magical light spell, he'll stop fumbling with his backpack and prepare to go down the ladder as soon as possible.
Odol looks down into the hole and waits for Gregory to clear the ladder. Not jumping unless I start to hear screams...might kill myself if I jump.
Keeping low, Damrang advances quickly towards the half-orcs. They respond by moving into the cages to either side of him, crushing dried bone beneath their feet. When they loose their shafts they are less than 30' away and yet out of reach.
Damrang hears the tuned twang of composite bows releasing...
And though they hit home Damrang's armour allows them to do no more than harmless bruises.
Start of Round Two