Zara spins around about after trying to help Nicea when Samara cries out and pole-axes to the ground. Her eyes blaze with anger at the ugly abomination that has hurt her friend, and with a swirl of scarves she starts to call upon her Goddess to help heal the downed elf.
Not one to let the opportunity to cause pain pass him by, the bugbear brings his flail around to crush the beautiful dancer.
The gods are apparently angry the party did not think their strategy through, and the bugbear brings the cleric to her knees along with the elf...
From behind the killer bugbear a shrill voice cries out something celebratory sounding in goblin.
For a moment Damieka could feel the hair at the back of her neck twitch as if a ghost tickled her neck then her head snapped up as their friend fell in a heap. She moved as fast as she could getting out of the staircase and out of the way so that she could shoot at the perpetrator.
Damieka's eyes burned as she brought back the bowstring, arrow notched and ready to fly, a growl issuing from her lips as she let loose with her arrow.
Silva's head jolts, as though he had been the one who took a flail to the head. The cocky grin that was on his face wavers as his brain processes the scene before him. "Samara...?"
Another painful thwack follows, and Zara too, is laid low. "Zara...?"
After several painfully long seconds, comprehension seems to dawn on the scrawny sorcerer. He bares his teeth once more, not in one of his typical smiles, but in an expression of pure rage.
"You son of a b&#+$!" he shouts as he runs down the stairs. He tosses one of his hands out at the bugbear, unleashing a small maelstrom of colors.
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The rampaging bugbear suddenly reels, the flail falling from his grasp, and his fingers twitch while his vision swirls with obscene and indescribable colors the normal eye was never meant to see.
The human fighter who just emerged slumps against the doorframe as his sword and shield clatter to the floor. Before his eyes swims a rainbow most riotous.
While they both remain upright, they are very clearly unable to defend themselves properly.
"Thazzie!" comes a cacophony of high-pitched goblin voices from the room behind the bugbear.
As not one but two of her companions are felled in rapid succession by the snarling bugbear, Nicea feels reason leaving her. Her beloved Red Mist already in her hands, she finds herself yelling as she steps around Zara's fallen form to lay the monster low.
"Paws. Off. My. Lieutenant!"
The scythe slashes the monster grievously, rending his leather armor and spraying blood across the still forms of Samara and Zara. Between the arrow Damieka sunk into the creature's arm earlier and the brutal cut, the bugbear collapses in a heap, blood seeping from its wound.
An arrow comes sailing out of the darkness at the fighter acting like a crazed barbarian.
Nicea bites the arrow out of the air and spits it to the side, a growl resonating in her throat.
Someone in the dark room cackles while someone yells in Goblin in panic. A smack is heard and the laughing stops in a small cry of pain.
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Halfway up the stairs Davben hears the ruckus happening below, and quickly turns rushing back down to join the fray. He comes down just in time to see Nicea slashing open the one who must be responsible for the two downed companions "Nice hit Nicea, but what is this? Samara and Zara both already beaten? Maybe I can help" He hurries past the enraged woman and the bleeding bugbear reaching into his belt pouch the monk tugs out a small potion, then quickly kneeling by Zara he pops the cork and upends the contents into the unconscious woman's mouth. "Quit laying down on the job Zara, there's work to do."
New Round 1 ends
There's some whimpering in the darkened room sounds of shifting, but otherwise nothing happens.
The fighter slumped against the doorframe starts to drool a little.
Samara lies on the floor unconscious.
Round 2
The bugbear bleeds...
...and continues to do so.
Groaning on the floor, Zara calls upon her reserves of strength to accomplish what she started to do & flicks her scarf with a ritual intonation - releasing the power of her Goddess.
There is some scuffling in the dark and some goblin squawking, but no further arrows come flying out of the room as of yet.
Her eyes smolder with fury as she growls under her breath,
"I give to thee, my friends, the ability to share my hunter's favored enemy bonus so that we may fight this fight to their bitter end."
Damieka's bow is then raised once again with an arrow in play and ready to shed it's stationary position for the feel of wind upon it's skin. She waits, lining up the bugbear in her sights until she feels ready that this will be a better shot.
A slight prayer to the lands, the world at large and thanks for the bounties she has received. Her friends, her abilities, all that she felt was there for her heart to receive was tenderly stated within her mind as she let go of the string, hoping for a good, powerful shot upon the bugbear.
Nicea gets everyone moving and up the stairs. The door to the room with the goblin voices closes and what is probably bickering in Goblin can be heard muffled by the door. The soldier slowly begins to rouse from the daze of color Silva put him in, and he hastily falls back down that hallway and out of sight around a corner.
Rushing up the stairs, Zara gasps. "So do we; lock & bar the door - explore & kill everyone up here, try and find a different way down. Or do we attempt to sow chaos. Or do we just leave and come back another day - tho' they may hunt us.... or be more prepared."
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Samara rubs her forehead where she was struck with a blank expression on her face, "I felt like I was dead. That is how I felt." She turns her eyes slowly over towards Zara and adds, "If I had time and a lab I could convert some of my supplies into airborne toxins." She sighs with regret that she hadn't had such foresight.
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Nicea slams the door to the stairs behind her and sets her back to it.
"I'm fine with going back down there - more than fine - but we need a plan," she pants, "We need to heal up, then NOT stay in that killing room with doors on every side. We need to pick a door and go through it, take the area room by room without exposing our backsides to everyone."
She looks around at the ragged crew. "Do you need to heal? Anybody got ideas for getting through locked doors or securing them behind us?"
"Got that covered, let's just nip into this room." Zara says hurriedly with a flick of her wrist pointing to a nearby door & a sashay towards it showing what she doesn't have covered.
Okay, THAT just happened, Silva thinks, panting once the group has reached their little "safe" zone. Somehow, everybody was still in one piece... more or less. As he catches his breath, calming down after that near disaster, the sorcerer seems to revert to his ordinary self. This time around, the smile that cracks onto his face does seem a tad bit forced, however.
"I'd cast hold portal to hold some doors shut... except I don't know that spell. I'm pretty sure that no sorcerer in history has ever known it," he chatters, stretching out his back. "By the way, wasn't that big guy one of those 'heroes' Shalelu mentioned waaay back then? Remember? That makes two that we've dealt with."
Once getting to the top of the stairs, Zara focuses and preys to the Lady of Illusions for her cleansing healing powers.
"There do you feel better? Lets move." Once everyone is out of the stairwell, Zara jams an iron spike into the door to try & hold it. Bending down attempting secure the iron wedge and the portal into an immovable object especially from stupid goblins.
"This room?" She moves to the nearest untried door on the left as they leave the stairwell, putting her ear to it for a very quick listen.
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Davben comes over to assist Zara spiking the door, he uses trusty hammer to drive the spike in more securely. Knowing that metal on metal strikes would ring out loudly he uses a portion of his bedroll folded over the end of the spike to muffle the sound of the pounding. "That should hold them at least for a while, but what is our plan? Are we looking to find another way down and surprise them?"
"Maybe diving into the belly of the beast wasn't such a great idea," Silva says with a shrug. "We should wipe out everything on this floor, first. Maybe there's another way down, maybe not. But honestly, the big guy was the only real threat we ran into down there, and he's dead now."
"Let's try those doors," he says, pointing back at the nearby set of double doors.
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"I thought we wiped out everything up here," Nicea frowns, "But yeah, let's finish cleaning out up here, make sure the main doors are still barricaded, then have a plan for heading downstairs. We need to get out of that first room as soon as possible and get into another, unless we find another way in."
She gives a nod of approval to the Varisian dancer in thanks for the healing.
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"If everyone is feeling better, it's time to get to work, people! Let's clear out this place. Have we been in here?" Nicea gestures at the double doors to the north. "If not, let's get in formation and clear this place out! Lieutenant, if you are all healed, check that door!" She flexes, then stows her hammer and pulls out her scythe. The message is clear: Nicea means business!
Samara peeks into what appears to be an empty foyer leading to another probably larger room. A single armor display stands next to the next set of closed great doors. Most of the armor pieces have been removed and a wadding of straw has been placed in the head area roughly goblinoid in shape.
Quietly walking into the foyer, she focuses upon the suit of armour to detect if there any magical energies.
"There's probably someone through here, so lets get ready..." She whispers standing near the door ready to burst into the room.
"Perhaps it's a scarecrow, I'd find scarecrows scarier if they had armour on..." Zara whispers as she moves after Nicea & Samara.
The party seems less than amazed when straw which wasn't there until they were looking at it sprouts to fill the inside. The straw goblinoid head looks less out of place now.
Ignoring the magical explosion of straw, Samara softly creeps up to the door. She can hear the sounds of some goblin-like voices yelling and the sound of clanking. There seems to be fighting!
She also notices this door is actually locked.
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Davben makes his way silently over to Samara as well "Foyer? Anyone in there?" The monk asks in a hushed voice as Samara moves to the door further in"I think I remember another door just past the bunk room on the other side of the stairwell, if it connects we could come at them from both sides. I'll go check it out."
Unless anyone makes an attempt to stop him Davben sneaks his way over to the door just past the bunk quarters, and sees if he can make anything out.
As Davben saunters off, Silva stuffs some of the magical straw down his pants pockets for no apparent reason.
"Who wants to bet that everyone in Thistletop knows we're here at this point?" he asks no one in particular, sounding more amused than terrified. Or maybe he is just crazy.
Davben doesn't hear anything on the other side of the door he has approached. The door does not appear locked as the latch moves freely if a teensy bit creakily.
Davben discovers this door is in fairly sturdy shape and does not have any holes or rot which would allow him to peer through to the other side. He still hears no sounds from whatever lies beyond.
Samara's attempt doesn't seem to unlock the door. She is fortunate in that whatever commotion is occurring on the other side is loud enough to cover her fiddling.
She is free to try again, but she can't help but feel as if she may not be lucky enough to avoid detection next time...