Rauno does some math in his head before he begins to fire off some charges. If shatter would work on ice, he imagines it could affect about 30 pounds of ice at the power level a wand would have. He studied how to generate volume during his studies at the Stone of the Seers in Magnimar and figures that the volume of ice that needs to be cleared away would be almost 115 cubic feet of ice. And knowing that 1 cubic foot of ice weighs nearly 60 pounds, he realizes he would need more than 4 fully charged wands to break through.
However breaking through the ice manually or controlling where you melt it you could make a smaller diameter hole that would take less work, but the shatter spell would not be accurate enough for that even if you had enough charges.
So the choice is to hack through ice or continue down the river while your air walk is on.
"..?" asks Trevor to his mentor as they hack at the ice, but no one hears the paladin.
"I could call down holy fire to melt the ice. That's not subtle, though."
"Let's save our magic since it is limited right now." Kelkzar gets the coin in place and then proceeds to join Trevor hacking through the ice.
Hacking through the ice takes some time, but eventually you break through and open the hole enough to get through. Moving up through the hole you come into a large room that is very cold. Crusted red ice cakes the floor and walls, and two large humanoid statues of the red ice stand at each end of the room, their scarlet surfaces scribed with smoking white runes.
As the last of you make it up, the statues begin to move and close in on you.
- Rauno, Kelkzar, Trevor, Red Ice Statue, Rowena, Quintus
AC 22 T 9 FF 22 CMD 30
Trevor eyes the nearest statue starting to move: "We got trouble coming... I'll take this one!" and lifts his fauchard before dashing forth to charge at the ice sculpture.
"Unfortunately nothing blunt for me except a few of my teeth." Kelkzar draws his longspear to help offset the size advantage of the golems, rages and charges the other one.
Trevor moves east and Kelkzar moves west and initiates combat. Neither of the powerful warriors has a weapon best suited for their attacks, but with their magic amulets to fight gokems, they each land a blow on the scarlet statues leaving a wicked gash in the ice they are made of.
The statues each take a wicked blow but return a pair of punches with their icy arms. Trevor is is hit once but Kelkzar is unable to avoid both blows after charging and is grappled by the ice golem .
vs CMD 30
vs CMD 30
vs CMD 30
vs CMD 30
Quintus floats across the ice towards Trevor and invokes Sarenrae's healing power on the paladin.
Rowena moves through the air towards statue 2, and tries to help Kelkzar by dropping the golem onto the ground.
Rowena moves towards the gokem avoiding its icy arms and drops it to the ground doing very little damage it it, but setting up Kelkzar for an opportunistic attack.
Struggling against the grip of the ice golem, Kelkzar tries to bite it twice, but his jawa fail to find a purchase against the construct's icy skin.
OK, Kelkzer gets grappled and tries to bite the prone ice golem with no luck. Rauno finished his enlarge spell on Trevor.
- Rauno, Kelkzar, Trevor, Red Ice Statue, Rowena, Quintus
AC 22 T 9 FF 22 CMD 30
"Ok Big Boy, let's see if I can melt that icy heart of yours..." mutters Trevor as he grows suddenly in size, his large fauchard slicing through the air with dizzying momentum as he makes the blade dance in his hands, slashing at the golem's icy skin.
Trevor wails on the ice golem with three solid hits. The ice golem looks like it could fall apart with a strong wind, but it is somehow still functioning.
Feeling Rauno's spell take effect, Kelkzar tries to break loose from the golem's grip. But wriggle as he may, he still cannot free himself.
Kelkzar manages to squeeze out of the ice golem's grasp with Rauno's spell.
Trevor wails on the ice golem with three solid hits. The ice golem crumbles into pieces
The ice golem stands and swings at Kelkzar and re-grabs him.
*Hit*
vs CMD 27
Rowena Quintus and top of round 3 to go.
- Rauno, Kelkzar, Trevor, Red Ice Statue, Rowena, Quintus
AC 22 T 9 FF 22 CMD 30
Quintus casts a spell and drifts towards Kelkzar, touching the inquisitor when he gets close enough.
Focusing on her inner ki, Rowena grabs the ice golem (and apparently Kelkzar) and flips the pair of them over her shoulder and to a spot closer to Trevor.
Then she starts pummelling the golem.
Kelkzar braces himself and tries to burst free from the golem's grasp.
Kelkzar breaks free of the golem, Rowena trips the creature, and while not damaging it sets up the newly freed Kelkzar to finish it off
Combat Over!
With both of the ice golems defeated you study the room, which is featureless for the most part. In the northern part of the room is a door to the east. To the south there is a archway that leads to another room, but it is currently blocked by a portcullis. However peering into the other room you see the hall is watched over by six statues of Wind Duke nobles — three against each wall. The central statue to the east stands before a stone door. The statues all have cupped hands in front of them, and floating on a cushion of air above these hands are intricate carvings of strange buildings and towers. The statue before the door does not hold a carving. The room's floor is covered in ice like the one you are in.
"What happened here?! Why is there so much ice? Is this recent you think? Those golems are just thugs. I wonder who's their master..."
He walks over to the gate, careful not to slip, his arms flailing wildly to keep balance, until Quintus reminds him he doesn't have to walk on the ice.
Blushing, he looks beyond the gate: "Wow! These dukes were really powerful!"
"Good question Trevor. Shall we try to get into the room with the Wind Duke statues first?"
As Kelkzar asks the question, Rowena notices a hidden lever that seems to have been iced over. Chipping away at the ice you get it cleared enough to pull it. Kelkzar examines it for traps and once satisfied pulls it down opening up the way to move south into the room.
As you move south into the room, one of the statues (The one in the east not holding a building), pulls a level behind him re-closing the portcullis and cutting off your group from each other. Now that it is moving you notice it doesn't resemble those statues anymore and even look part mechanical.
Monster Lore Check:
Kolyruts also have impressive defensive capabilities including a resistance to spells cast on it, hard to penetrate skin without a chaotic aligned weapon, and regenerative properties only countered by chaotic aligned attacks.
Least conspicuous of the inevitables, even in their natural form, kolyaruts are the size of tall humans, though they weigh far more because of their composition. Capable of using both invisibility and disguise self to pass completely unnoticed through humanoid lands, kolyaruts most frequently appear as cloaked warriors bearing finely crafted bastard swords, allowing others to chalk up any metallic noises to the clanking of hidden armor until the moment when they pull back their hoods and let their quarries look upon their mechanical faces, understanding only too late the nature of the mysterious strangers.
- Rowena, Rauno Quintus, Trevor, Wind Duke Statue, Kelkzar
AC 26 T 14 FF 22 CMD 32
"Separated! A trap!"
Trevor decides to rush the kolyrut before it could act further, but he is too close. With a brusque shuffle, he moves back between two statues to bring his fauchard to bear and sends its sharp end flying in a deadly arc.
Rowena concentrates inwardly and becomes a cloud of gas, which then passes through the portcullis.
She then floats to the space just "east" of the creature.
Quintus steps back towards the lever, but with the portcullis currently protecting Rauno doesn't pull it right away.
The magic missile slams into the Kolyrut but seems like it has no impact on it.
Trevor steps south and connects once with his fauchard, but while Trevor does damage the creature its skin absorbs some of the blow and you can see the wound is starting to heal already.
The Kolyrut returns the attack on Trevor casting defensively and attempting to touch Trevor
DC 21
vs Touch AC 11
"That was a vampiric touch spell!"