Sandwhisper, Palmseed, and Scorpion loose their bows and all find their mark.
Att, Dam: (1d20 4=19, 1d6=3, 1d20 4=16, 1d6=2, 1d20 4=14, 1d6=3)
Two arrows drive into wasp 1's head, one into a compound eye. While another arrow sinks into the thorax of the bedraggled wasp below.
Wetsands hurls his javelin at wasp 1, Att, Dam: (1d20 5=15, 1d6=4), also finding his mark. The beast looks sorely wounded.
Syd draws his falchion and swings at the beastie. Falchion two handed (1d20+6=17, 2d4+6=12)
"Off wiv ya, ya great bee!"
After falchion shears through several legs and removes a wing, the last wasp spirals downward, bouncing from the cliff several times before gravity dashes it against hard packed sand below. Jets of bug guts from the thorax and head leave colorful splatter marks across the sand. From above it looks no more frightening than a tiny swatted bug.
The water soaked wasp retreats into some cracks below, hopefully to die, bothering you no more.
I'm calling that a 400 XP encounter.
With muscles crying out for mercy you pull yourselves the final 150 feet to the top of the mesa.
In all your years, never have any of you seen such a spectacular sunset: as if the Sun, squeezed into a disc, is bleeding its fires out across the clouds and draining into the Inner Sea. All the coastal desert is laid out below you. As your eyes are drawn toward the scrub below you make out the vague strokes of streets and neighborhoods long abandoned written by the long evening shadow. Columns of blackness cast by the mesas swallow up the desert behind you in the east.
In the time it takes Syd and the Bhuka to gather up the rope and check it for wear the others are able to make a cursory check of the 300 foot diameter mesa top. There is no abomination here now, but near the center of the plateau you find a perfectly smooth crystal dome roughly 30 feet across, apparently none the worse for wear after ages – and just to its west a collapse: a gaping maw of a hole that leads into a vast empty space marked by nothing now but a hint of crimson sunlight refracted by the crystal onto boulders within, but far, far below. The rest: darkness.
Hmmm. That dome is interesting. I would like to be checking that out.
*Aref moves slowly and carefully toward the dome. Perception-1d20 4=7
The Deceiver scans the area for anything of interest.
Aref moves slowly and carefully toward the dome.
The dome is perfectly preserved.
Although the desert is quick to reclaim the stakes of man, you know from your readings that the city below must be very old, more than a thousand years old. If the dome is as old, one would expect it to have cracks or chips or flaws.
The Deceiver scans the area for anything of interest.
There are tracks that looks like a very large lion all over the surface. The nests of small birds and significant mouse communities can be found among a few clusters of larger rocks and brush.
The Deceiver draws his sword. He points out to the others the tracks.
"Calebra chalaka?"
Sandwhisper scans the horizon.
"Tokala ba chalaka."
Wetsands looks in hole.
"Calebra return soon. Go in hide?"
Scratches his head.
"Maybe Calebra in."
Jon Qiang scans the tracks but seems to be having trouble focusing. He's feverish and in pain from the wasp poison.
Bohdan looks at the paw marks in the sand.
"Quite a large and fierce predator it seems, let's hope the Bhuka's warnings are enough when we finally meet this Calebra."
Pointing to the large drophole he asks those who have more experience in tracking: "Does that seem like its lair? I'd imagine the tracks would lead to and from it if it is."
"Me think Calebra out. New tracks leave. Jon Qiang agree?"
Perception,survival (1d20+6=21, 1d20+6=26)
Jon moves around the areas and looking for the tracks Calebra left.
Jon points out the freshest tracks he can find: clean depressions with little or no crumbling at the edges. They lead to the eastern edge of the mesa top and disappear at the edge. It seems that Calebra is out.
"If Calebra is out then its lair should be fair game."
Wetsands tosses a rock in the hole. It falls... for a long time. The hole seems as deep as the mesa is high.
"Lo chooka!"
"This Calebra must be a terrific climber to say the least."
"This Calebra must be a terrific climber to say the least."
"Calebra fly."
Wetsands leans over the edge of the hole.
"HAY LAPA NO YA, CALEBRA!"
You hear the most remarkable echo of Wetsands' outburst.
"...ALEBRA, Alebra, alebra, alebra, alebra, ... bra, bra."
"ut-o"
Perception DC 25:
Racham leans on his copper-shot staff, staring in turn at the crystal dome, then the leonine footprints.
"Strange..."
"Strange indeed Rackham...I feel the gods are cranky today. This will not bode well for us"! ;)
Let us get in the beast's lair before it returns to toss us off the mesa here.
"Blimey, 's a fair ol' sight, innit, Wetsands ol' lad?" Syd says with cheerful awe to the Bhuka as he looks out over the panorama before them.
Option one: slide down 500 feet of rope into the abyss below.
Option two: jump in.
Option three: well, so far, those are the only options you have.
Racham leans on his copper-shot staff, staring in turn at the crystal dome, then the leonine footprints.
"Strange..."
The dome looks like it could be some kind of lens.
Inventory in case anyone needed to know...or to bring anything from this list...Most of food we gave to Wetsands, I'm sure his people could use those baskets...
I'm imagining Ryor carrying that barrel of tar... or "the bow of a ship"... hehe... Nah... You probably didn't carry everything, did you, too heavy. ;)
But there's no need for you to list what you brought, I trust you.
The curiously copper infused wood came from the timber of the Intractable. It was in a spoiler for Pulsifer.
Yeah just stuff that might be useful...I just thought I'd list it :)