Vael opens with a massive pillar of flame. It cuts the troll's roar off, though Whistle Pig goes temporarily mad before it stops.
Tulia fails to connect as Hamilton and Sammi take positions.
Round 1:
Jotund Troll: Cacophonous Roar
Vael: Flame Strike
Whistle Pig: Will attack Doxon
Raen: Go
Hamilton: Move
Ushyle: Go
Doxon: Go
tROLL: 36
Ushyle spurs Rosewind forward, a bit circuitous to avoid the massive troll's arms until the last moment. He takes stock of his foe and brings Milani's Thorn to bear!
Ushyle tries to duck the tree-trunk club. for . Ushyle pays the troll back with a powerful slash!
Round 1:
Jotund Troll: Cacophonous Roar
Vael: Flame Strike
Whistle Pig: Will attack Doxon
Raen: Go
Hamilton: Move
Ushyle: Hit
Doxon: Go
tROLL: 64
Lykophos has no trouble withstanding the roar. Determined to make a difference, she flies into the room and takes up a position opposite Ushyle.
"You will pay for your dream-ending ways, troll," she says lashing out with her starknife.
FAIL
The discordant roar sends Raen's senses into a dizzying spin. She retains just enough mental capacity to join the battle, floating into the room with a wand in hand and conjuring a ball of flame to lick the jotund's feet. Its magic expended, she drops the wand unceremoniously to the flagstones below.
Whistle Pig, unable to think clearly, goes after the imminent threat of Doxon!
Lykophos takes a risky path for
Raen keeps it together long enough to add fire to the field, and the troll steps right on it!
Round 1:
Jotund Troll: Cacophonous Roar
Vael: Flame Strike
Whistle Pig: Will attack Doxon
Raen: Sphere
Hamilton: Move
Ushyle: Hit
Doxon: Go
tROLL: 74
Doxon weathers the hailstorm from WP. He canters the steed into the room. Seeing his friends beset by madness, he calls on Torag to aid them and clear their befuddled minds.
Doxon bolsters the party, able to touch Whistle Pig, but the spell doesn't seem to affect the halfling the way he wants. There's no control to break here. The giant troll, regardless, tries to make Doxon pay the price.
It steps forward, and from 15' away begins swinging, biting, and slashing:
for
Doxon manages to dodge nearly every attack!
Round 2:
Jotund Troll: ATK
[b]Vael: Go
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Go
Hamilton: Go
Ushyle: Go
Doxon: Go
tROLL: 74
Ham and Sammi charge, taking slightly to the air to avoid the furniture, and perform a ride by attack.
Charge, 2H, Power Attack, Ride By:
And likely catches nothing but air... Argh.
Whistle Pig fills the air with stones, striking with almost all of them, obliterating eyes and jaws. Unfortunately, Hamilton's attack doesn't land straight enough to wound the troll.
Round 2:
Jotund Troll: ATK
Vael: Go
Whistle Pig: Hits
Raen: Go
Hamilton: Miss
Ushyle: Go
Doxon: Go
tROLL: 156
Ushyle adjusts his bane to giants, then brings Milani's Thorn back into the fight.
Ushyle, finally poised to end the threat, buries Milani's Thorn to the hilt and pulls it out with a trail of viscera. The massive troll gives a grunt as it falls to the ground. The blood covers the floor, even snaking out in the space between the massive stones in the floor.
Raen coldly begins her search. A table in the corner of the room holds a trio of masterwork morningstars, sized for something even larger than a cloud giant. There's a scimitar there too, also gargantuan. The scimitar is magical .
On the table in the northwest corner, beside the horrid finger food platter suited to the jotund troll’s cannibalistic and necrophagic tastes, are a tall pewter pitcher and three matching goblets. The pitcher contains several gallons of wine.
Raen dispassionately appraises the pitcher and goblets ( ) and quietly slips a dose of simian tranquilizer poison into each goblet.
Raen poisons the wine, just in case there's a chance later to soften up the enemy. Meanwhile, some of the party nods to the east, assuming the doors are safe since nothing burst out of them during the troll fight. Both rooms are locked, but the keys hang on a hook 15' up.
Indeed, the macabre rooms are empty. They're both detention cells, expansive by human standards, and furnished with a giant-sized wooden pallet, stool, and bucket. While both are empty, the southern room smells strongly of raw meat and blood. The wall above the pallet has the word “Hide” scrawled upon it in Common in blood. The source of the stench is easily discovered. You find the freshly flayed skin of a dead human man under the pallet.
You recognize the work. The flayed skin is as that worn by an ecorche! The bodyguards and spies of undead masterminds, ecorches appear as gory giants with musculatures overdeveloped by infusions of necromantic toxins and grafts of reanimated sinew. Although its natural form possesses no skin, an ecorche can steal the flesh of another creature, flaying its victim in mere seconds and leaving it in unimaginable shock and pain with only moments to seek aid before perishing.
"The work of an ecorche," Raen notes in a grim voice. "A monster that steals the skin of another, and dons it."
Raen knows that ecorche have sharp vision unhindered by total darkness. She also knows that their claws are SO sharp that they can tear open arteries and literally and permanently tear a person's skin from their body like it was an article of clothing.
Whistle Pig doesn't find anything special
What? You mean that literally?, Ham says as his gorge rises a little at the sight of the skin.
He pushes it down and examines the area. A message to his... It's... captors, methinks. Probably in human-guise before discarding the skin, and now it could be anything.
Ham examines the area, and attempts to track the, what did Raen call it? ecorche.
Survival:
Hamilton fails to find any trail, but what he does find worries him. There are obvious and successful signs of covering any tracks once out of the chamber.
Whistle Pig checks the southern door, and deems it safe. After opening, it opens to a simple straight hallway. Without checking, he advances to the next door. This one is also safe, but the air near the door smells of ....earth. It smells like the cellar in a halfling home.
Pig Approaches the door:
If not trapped he checks the door for sounds:
WP tries to pick the lock:
This long, vaulted hall, almost completely draped in fungus, moss, and vines, is permeated by a powerful, musty smell of herbs and spores. Rivulets of water flow from holes in the walls and ceiling to a row of drainage grates set in the middle of the floor. Scattered throughout the room he spies a trio of creatures among the life. Each is a large pool of greenish muck covered in white and red lines resembling veins and blossoming with weird vegetable-like growths and sap-seeping boils, twitches into unnatural motion as a pseudopod springs outward, dragging the entire grotesque mass forward with an ameboid life.
Whistle Pig has no idea what he saw in there....
Invisibly, Whistle Pig opens the door. He makes it about 10' into the room when the strange creatures begin moving right for him, undeterred by the invisibility!
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Go
Ushyle: Go
Hamilton: Go
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Raen looks for key markers of species...
Raen, what am I looking at?
Just in case, Ham might know as well:
A verderous ooze! Raen knows them to be immune to acid, fire, mind-affecting effects, slashing, and piercing damage. Additionally when hit by piercing and slashing weapons they split into multiple oozes! She also knows that they can launch spores into the air that induce a powerful sleep effect. Oozes of this size can likely reach 60'!
"Verderous oozes," Raen replies calmly. "Beware their drowsy spores. I must insist upon bludgeoning weapons only, as any blade or arrow will simply force the oozes to undergo mitosis; that is, to split into multiple progeny. Additionally, I recommend freezing, electrifying, or sonic evocations, as fiery and acidic spells will have no effect. Finally," here Raen begins the somatic movements of her spell, a ring of frosty sigils glowing about her hand, "I note for Ushyle's particular benefit that oozes are utterly mindless, and are best contained such that they can inflict no harm."
A rime-covered prison suddenly springs into existence around the nearest ooze, hopefully giving Whistle Pig time to bludgeon the others to death before they reach the end of the hall.
Raen keeps the fight going, immediately encasing one of the oozes in an icy prison!
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Icy Prison
Ushyle: Go
Hamilton: Go
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Green: Icy Prison
Whistle Pig finds the oozes and easy target! He goes after the cloest one which isn't frozen and easily nails it four times!
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Hit
Raen: Icy Prison
Ushyle: Go
Hamilton: Go
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Green: Icy Prison
Dark Green: 81
Ushyle spurs Rosewind forward to confront Lime Green, Milani's Thorn unhappily in its sheath. He sudies all three oozes and attacks.
Ham pulls his warhammer, riding forth on Sammi and preparing for some ooze thowmping.
Double Move.
Ushyle wiffs as Hamilton closes. The wounded ooze shudders for a moment as the air immediately fills with some kind of chemical. Despite the action, each within 60' feels a yawn coming on.
The other closes and both oozes lash out with highly acidic pseudopods:
for and It then tries to absorb him! and it does!
for and It then tries to absorb him! and it does!
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Hit
Raen: Icy Prison
Ushyle: Miss (Grappled)
Hamilton: Close (Grappled)
Oozes: ATK
Vael: Go
Doxon: Go
Green: Icy Prison
Dark Green: 81
extra +2 vs poison, spells, or spell-like abilities
Wounds open up on Vael as they begin to close on Ushyle and Hamilton...
He launches into a summoning spell, looking to aid his friends with some conjured fists.
"I, uh... I don't think my crossbow is much use here!"
Knowing that her weapon will be a detriment, Lykophos flies forward to act as a distraction and provide a flank. Certain that the ooze might have a degree of reach, she twirls through the air as she flaps close.
Vael and his entourage move to control the next phase of the battlefield.
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Hit
Raen: Icy Prison
Ushyle: Miss (Grappled)
Hamilton: Close (Grappled)
Oozes: ATK
Vael: Stuff
Doxon: Go
Green: Icy Prison
Dark Green: 81
Doxon summons the protection of Torag, then rides the phantom steed into the fray, swinging Thunderbolt into the slime.
Doxon finds that the oozes are exceptionally easy to hit. He's not sure he could miss them.
The aura bolsters the party, and the hammer does its work.
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Go
Ushyle: Go (Grappled)
Hamilton: Go
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Green: Icy Prison
Dark Green: 95
Raen stifles a yawn and waves a wand at the gathered melee.
Raen's spell pushes the party forth for what should hopefully be a quick fight...
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Good Hope
Ushyle: Go (Grappled)
Hamilton: Go
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Green: Icy Prison
Dark Green: 109
Ushyle is completely unaffected by the sleep effect.
The acid damage to his armor, less so.
Infuriated to be held fast, he activates his Liberation domain ability, a rose-red aura with a penumbra of black washing over him as he slips free of the ooze's pseudopod!
Quick as can be, he moves his bane ability to oozes and lets loose a volley of blows.
Will Save:
Ham falls asleep
Will Save:
Sammi falls asleep.
Then he's smacked by acid and I assume... Wakes up from the pain?
Ham takes Acid Damage and is wearing metal armor... Reflex Save:. Fail. Armor takes 6 points of acid damage. Mithral has a hardness of 15 so... I'm good?
Ham and Sammi are engulfed and will try to free themselves.
Combat Maneuver Check Ham:
Combat Maneuver Check Sammi:
The acid begins to sizzle and burn, but Ushyle pummels away. His trained and powerful blows are enough to smash the ooze apart!
Hamilton succumbs to the ooze's soporific cloud, though the legendary material of his armor resists all of the acid.
Round 1:
Whistle Pig: Go
Raen: Good Hope
Ushyle: Kill
Hamilton: Zzzzzz
Oozes: TBD
Vael: TBD
Doxon: TBD
Green: Icy Prison