DM Salsa Presents: The Jade Regent (Inactive)

Game Master AdamWarnock

Soli shakes her head but she smiles as she does so and moves to follow after Emi and the others now that they've chosen a new direction in which to explore.

At least everyone seems to be in pretty good spirits!

Vigny doesn't understand why Randal is smiling at her in a strange way.

She cocks her head and ask "did I do something funny?" as she follows after him.

Confused by the sudden change of tact, Jerukh shrugs to himself and moves in the wake of those pressing onward.

"Not you my dear, I'm just fascinated and amused by the dynamics at work in this troupe. Truly splendid." Randal replies.

Emi's Room
This large circular room features a ring of pillars that support
a balcony just over fifteen feet above. A flight of stairs winds
up to the balcony along the southern wall. Faded paintings of
dancing elves decorate the walls, spattered here and there with
ancient bloodstains.

As soon as Emi opens the door, she can hear what sounds like the long nosed man ranting and raving in a language that's familiar to her. The same language that Ameiko and Reiko have slipped into in the past. Minkaian

Randal's Room
Old tapestries depicting a seaside castle hang askew on the walls
of this circular room and a thick layer of dust cakes the floor. The
air is musty and weirdly cold. Old bloodstains splatter the walls,
along with numerous brutal gashes and slashes to the stone
itself. Two doors hang askew on hinges in a passageway to the
south, while to the north, a third door lies in fragments on the
floor, opening onto a flight of stairs leading down into darkness.
A second staircase leads upward against the north wall.

Its not just familiar- they taught it to me! (I added it with my rank in linguistics at 3rd) Can I hear what he’s saying? Also, can I tell where he is?

It sounds like he's up on the Balcony, seeing as he's not on the same floor as you. It's mostly unprintable curses and abuse directed at you and your friends for ruining his play. It also sounds like it's winding down.

"Let's go get Soli's voice back" whispers Vigny.

Soli gives a vigorous nod of agreement to Vigny's statement, her eyes wide as she listens to the thief rant unintelligibly (to her anyway) in her own voice.

Am a little confused here - are we exploring separate rooms? Based on the map we are..

Jerukh notices that Emi seems to be striking out on her own, shaking his head at her familiar headstrong approach.

Nevertheless, he won't leave family undefended - so he backtracks to accompany her.

No, I peeked into the north room and Emi (not wanting Randal to think she is a follower) went to a different room. Randal and Vigny then followed Emi to keep the group together. I fixed the map.

actually... Emi was too impatient with Randal’s lengthy examination of the other door (and attempts to be witty), so she decided to speed things up.

Seeing that the others are following behind her, Emi rushes up the stairs towards the voice thief.

Whatever you need to tell yourself, the view is better when Emi goes first anyway. :)

You hate to see her go but love to watch her leave? :3

Emiliana rushes up the stairs and finds the source of the raving. Instead of the strange man, there now stands a figure with the head and wings of a crow and talons for feet and hands. He seems a little startled by Emi's appearance, but not startled enough to not act. His hands are already moving to cast some spell as his beady eyes narrow in hatred.

Vigny's up first.

Seeing a spell probably forthcoming from the scoundrel, Vigny decides to get as up in his face as she can. Shouting "you scoundrel!" at him, she tries to open up his torso with her sword.

Attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (18) + 7 = 25

Damage: 1d8 + 3 + 1d6 ⇒ (8) + 3 + (1) = 12

I'm not sure if Vigny's Holy Smite (Minor) will still be in effect from the previous lizard man fight. It has a duration of 1 minute. If not, subtract the d6 of damage added.

Okay, I'm not sure Vigny can get to him without double moving. stairs count as difficult terrain and she's still on the ground floor.

Um, okay. Well I don't see either the guy or Emi on the map and really don't know where to go. The stairs we're at look like they go down? To be honest I've been totally confused by the map for a while and just sort of gave up on it. Just move Vigny generally in the right direction I guess and whatever distance seems to make sense. Close as she can get without moving into attack range or something.

I double moved Vigny... she's now adjacent to the baddie. She doesn't have a standard action left to attack with (unless she wants to burn a hero point) but, I believe, the spell it hasn't finished casting yet will now provoke an AoO from her?

Yes and I'll even use the Roll above.

The birdman howls as he focuses more on his spell than Vigny's sword.

"Fine!" He spits out, his voice dripping with hatred. "Maybe I won't have you stupid, smelly humans in my play!" He retreats around the balcony away from Vigny.

Everyone's up now.

Randal double moves up to the balcony.
"what's that about a stupid, smelly play?" Randal mocks

I took the liberty of double moving Randal's token (assuming, as a ranged guy, he'd want to be as far from the enemy as possible).

From the top of the stairs, Emi watches as Vigny races by and interrupts birdthing's spell. She smiles as the creature begins to flee around the circular balcony, and then she moves the opposite direction to head it off. When they nearly run into each other, she reaches out her hand and tries to touch the creature. single move (clockwise), using laughing touch
touch attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (10) + 5 = 15

Soli races up the stairs after Emi and the others, but her armor slows her down and she only just makes the top of the stairs. But it's enough to see the strange crow-person-thing and she points her glaive in the thing's direction, lips moving silently.

Give me back my voice!

Kn. Nature: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (19) + 7 = 26
________

Double-moved; think I've got Soli's positioning right on the map for that!

Round 1

Jerukh pauses before following, pulling forth a long vial and glugging it down...

Imbibe Mutagen (Standard Action to drink: +2 STR, -2 INT & +2 AC)

... his body shifting to become bulkier and more "orcish" in appearance.

With a scowl the brute healer lumbers up the stairs, remaining curiously empty handed as he goes; (30ft Move)

Vigny Delays

The birdman begins to guffaw as he backs away from Emiliana.

Everyone up.

So the guy is gone? He's no longer on the map...

That was an error on my part. He's back now.

Round 2

Still unarmed, Jerukh advances on the creature (30ft Move);

"Please just surrender. Do not make them hurt you..."

As he closes, the brute alchemist attempts to grab the strange fellow;

Grapple Attempt (Provokes AoO): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

Soli continues to advance forward, moving around to aid Emi and Jerukh as they close in on the voice-stealer. She nods vigorously at Jerukh's words and points at him rather emphatically.

Listen to him!

Knowing nothing about this voice-stealing magic, Randal understands Jerukhs desire to capture this foe alive.
Stowing his bow, he moves behind the creature, drawing his daggers as he goes.
Guess I'll try to provide a flank and reassure his that he's out of options...

"It's about time for the final curtain."

Stowing bow-move action
moving around behind and drawing daggers-move action

”Vhat are you all doing?” Emi calls out as she hurries to flank the creature with Randal, ”kill it before it escapes again!”

When she gets into position she slashed at it with her scarf.
attack (flank): 1d20 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 7 + 2 = 16, for: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5

Soli gives Emi an exasperated and somewhat baffled look even though her friend can't see it.

YOU try sprinting in this armor - it's heavier than it looks!

As the figure is surrounded, he recovers from his laughing fit and glares at Emi.

"I will not forget this," he declares before vanishing.

Combat over.

Jerukh roars in frustration as long nose once again uses his magic to exit stage left...

"Ach. Now what?"

Soli scowls and looks to Emi and Jerukh, a mixture of confusion and frustration on her face. She raises her finger and spells out, 'How?'

As if not entirely convinced, Randal takes a quick swipe at the space now seemingly vacant.

dagger attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13
For damage: 1d4 ⇒ 3

Vigny comes huffing up to where the man had been just after his disappearance.

"That's getting really irritating. What can we do about it? Who was he talking to?"

any kind of knowledge or spellcraft checks allowed to recognize what just happened (like whether it was a spell or SLA? Whether it was invisibility or a teleportation? Etc...)

Emi lets loose a long and creative string of explatives sure to make anyone who understands Varisian blush.

”Ve already know it can fanish,” she scolds her companions, ”vhy vould you do nothing vith the few seconds he vas unable to act?!? Next time ve find him, you start shooting, and you throw a bomb or hit him vith something... I can’t stop him like that again, so ve need strike decisifely next time.”

Without waiting for a response, she turns to the double doors in the western wall and swings them open.

Still brutish, Jerukh nods to himself at Vigny's words;

"He walks through a Dimension Door that he conjure. Not a learned spell... Inside him. Part of him."

He scowls at Emi's chastisement, and rumbles a response;

"I find this out before but no-one waits to hear my words... Run ahead. Open doors. Fight and kill. Keep ahead. Keep killing. Not Jerukh. Not any more..."

The brute alchemist holds his head up high as Emi rushes off once again;

"Jerukh not kill unless no other way. Not any more..."

Soli pats Jerukh on the shoulder as way of thanks for answering her (quite literally) unspoken question. In response to Emi, all she can do is throw up her hands before stowing her glaive and drawing out her bow even as her fiery-tempered friend dashes ahead to open the next set of doors.

Nowhere near as as good as Randal with a bow but I'll do my best.

Still rude, and snappish now too!

"Emi, let me give you a snack..."

Vigny follows along after Emi.

Randal makes a face at Emi and juggles his daggers a bit before replacing them and drawing his bow.
As he follows the others, he sidles up to Soliana and whispers "I think our elusive foe stole the wrong voice....."

Randal's whispered comment does cause Soli to crack a smile but then she simply shakes her head, thinking back to when Emi had been ill during their journey.

No...it doesn't feel right to not hear Emi's fussing.

Spellcraft, Knowledge(Arcana), or Knowledge(Planes) can all be used to figure out what's going on with the strange man who runs this place. Or you could listen to Jerukh. :)

Soli has none of those so that's why she was hoping someone else would explain it to her, like Jerukh did :)

Also *poke* I think Emi just opened up some more doors unless you were waiting to see if we changed actions based on what Jerukh had to say.

Sorry, it was late last night when I wrote that. Moving us forward now.
This chamber reeks of rotten food and bird droppings. A long
dining table sits in the middle of the room, heaped with partially
eaten animal carcasses and several thick eggshells.

Three dire Corbies squawk in surprise as the doors are thrown open. Their hands drop a broom, a mop, and some rags as they all whirl around to face the source of the noise.

Everyone's up. The Corbis are too busy laying eggs.

Remembering Emi's words, Randal wastes no time sending an arrow into the room.
This play will soon be a one man show

longbow attack: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21
for damage: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9

True to her own advice, Emi rushes into the chamber with her scarf swinging. She heads straight for the nearest living corbi and slashes at it.
attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22, for: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7
heading for orange, unless Randal killed it; I can just reach burgundy if he did.

The first corbie reels from Randal's arrow before Emi dances inside its reach and tears through its throat. It gurgles as flailing hands clutch at the wound and it falls over to die.

The other Corbies stare in beady-eyed horror.

Jerukh, Soli, and Vigny are up.

Vigny runs into the room following Emi. The scene inside saddens her.

Ugh, more of these guys...

She moves on past the already dead one, and places herself to prevent the two remaining corbies from converging on anyone.

Double move.