Maria turns to Jack. "I didn't see you bring that tobacco with you..."
"What??? This? Of course I did! I'm hurt that you would accuse me of such, Maria; that truly pains ol' Jack's heart," he claims as he pats his chest. "Now, I guess I never told you how I'm such a HUGE tobacco connoisseur so I always keep some handy," he says with a firm nod while making fairly weak eye contact.
As he works to place the clothes back in the closet, Jack examines the monocle before it just so happens to accidentally fall in his pocket. Falsely wondering what may have happened to it, he gives a fake shrug for show. The snuffbox seems to have been misplaced as well.
He snatches up the magnifying glass. One never knows when that might come in handy.
He then rummages through the secret cupboard, "Man there's a lot of coin in this little hidey-hole," he tells the others. Spotting the tiny animal statues, Well aren't those the neatest little things. Definitely mantle pieces to be sure.
Making their way to the , "Now this is my kinda place! I wonder if the old man here will let me move in. As long as he doesn't go too crazy with rent," he mumbles as he's busy searching the place. Finding all that can be found, "Secret door there and a couple of boring books about engineering. Never was much into engineering."
Heading toward the , he looks upon the various odd looking pipes, and then proceeds to look elsewhere. Glancing over at Maria to see if she is watching, "I'm only going to take a pinch or two! It's part of my connoisseur-ing if you will," he says, grinning 'innocently' as he takes a multitude of pinches and places them in a snuffbox he found from somewhere that he can't remember.
Finding their way to the , "Wow. Now THIS is what I'm talking about. I mean, who wouldn't want to live here?" Noticing the walking cane upon the hooks, Jack picks it up and looks at it, rubs his back with one end and it somehow manages to get lodged in his pack! I mean, what ARE the odds?
Entering the , "Borrrrrring. A bunch of wine. Not much of a wine drinker. Although, if this was my place, I think I'd become one," he claims, giving a wink. "Okay, moving on," he says and does just that.
As they find themselves at the doorway, "Okay. We got ourselves a wooden door that leads us into an unknown room." Nodding at Gadren, "Thanks again, my good man. Now, before we walk in like the good guests that we are, let's make sure this door doesn't blow us all to Hell, huh?" He then pulls out his tools, unfolds them, and retrieves a specific tool. He then studies the door and its lock for a moment before going to work on it once he - at least in his mind - deems it safe.
The doors are neither trapped or locked, Jack opens them to reveal.
H2. Precarious Alchemy Workshop
This large workshop is crammed with alchemical equipment, but an explosion of some kind has ripped away the western wall, leaving a large gap in the floor and wall open, now wreathed with scaffolding.
It looks as if a stone bridge once connected this building with another on the far side of the gorge, but only a slender rope bridge now hangs between the two.
Jack easily spots the three creatures trying to hide amidst the equipment.
Rust monsters!
What are you doing now?
Maria shrugs when Jack says he brought the tobacco with him. "Good. Just make sure you keep your hands to yourself until we find out what happened here."
When she sees the odd monsters, she raises an eyebrow and looks to Gadren for direction.
Snuffbox, magnifying glass, animal statues and several bits from the smoking room. Gadren kept a mental check list... Jack seemed very concerned about making sure Maria wasn't watching... he'd have a discrete chat with him later.
"We'll have to asses that rope bridge carefully to see if it can handle you in all that armour Maria."
Lazar is not much interested in the wares, since they still don't know whether their owner is dead or alive. He's thinking also about what would have happened to The Beast, when his attention is caught by Jack about something moving ahead.
Oh dear, it was all going so well... Cedric sighs at the rust creatures.
"Rust monsters! I say we distract them with some worthless metallic objects or take them out from afar!"
"You gotta be kidding...," Jack immediately grabs several of his own coin from within his pack and throws it as far as he can towards the yellow one.
"Wait, do they actually like gold?"[b] Lazar asks, confused. [b]"Gold doesn't rust..." he shrugs while throwing some coppers at them.
Ignoring the worthless gold the Rustmonsters rush to get at the tasty iron they can smell waiting for them.
As most of the ferrous goodness is behind Jack the first to arrive tries to get him out of the way with a bite.
Missing in it's excitement.
The party may now act. Remember you are on a stone bridge that is only three feet wide.
Maria can't reach the action so she prepares herself to do battle when she gets an opening.
Gadren casts create pit into the room. "Don't go near that!"
Red is at the bottom of the pit, the others jump to the sides.
"Pepper them with a few shots, if they want to get up close to Jack they will be in danger of falling in!"
Unsure of what to do, Jack decides to step right up next to the pit in hopes to let the others get a clear shot. "Alright, take your shots, people! I'll try to keep them occupied!" He waves and hollers at the creatures, doing whatever he can to keep them distracted.
Lazar finds himself in an advantageous position, with a pit protecting the access to him and his companions while he rains death on the creatures. "Low your heads, there!"
Lazar wounds Green.
Maria prepares herself to battle the beasts as soon as she can move past Jack.
Cedric sighs and pulls out his crossbow and fires off a bolt that goes wide.
ah... been awhile since I used this heh.
Treasure:
A rod of flame extinguishing lies under the debris, which unfortunately
was of little use when the lab exploded.
I. Rope Bridge
Beyond the scaffolding, a slender rope bridge swings out toward a two-story building with a tower across the gorge.
The swaying rope bridge requires a DC 15 Acrobatics check to cross safely. Creatures that fail their checks or that are knocked off the bridge may make a DC 15 Reflex save to catch hold of the ropes before falling 150 feet to the waters below.
What are you doing now?
Maria eyes the rope bridge skeptically. "I'm not going to make it over that too easily..."
Looking at Maria and then to the rope bridge, "Dang. Yeah it looks a little sketchy." He then takes a look down below the bridge. "Okay, no way to survive that one. Alright! Well, um, let's see...," he ponders, turning his attention to the others. "How confident are the rest of you? Because one slip and that's it. No one's coming back from that fall." He looks across the way and thinks on it a moment. "You know, I could go across and check it out. I'm pretty confident I could make it. I could get those doors open, see what's inside and then return and report? What do you think?"
"I might have just the new spell I've been studying the theory of. Its quite a short range but very reliable teleportation spell. I could get all but one of us across." Gadren looks about.
"If someone has some string we can attach it to an arrow. I've got some good silk rope. We can properly secure it on the far side. I think this rope is of worse quality and has been weathered for some time. The only catch is I can only cast the spell once today."
Jack smiles wryly, "Gadren, ol' boy, you are more handy than my toolset. With you on our side, I'm not sure how we could possibly fail," he winks. "Give me the string; or whatever you need to give me. I can get across. Trust me on that."
Lazar approves the arrow idea, as well as the teleportation. Not so much the falling into a horrible death one. Even for a member of the clergy of Pharasma, death is always nicer when it's not one's own.
"Oh I try to be useful. Everyone else has a good handle on general combat, I can handle a few goblins without any finger wiggling needed myself to be fair. General utility from my arcane abilities seems wisest." He smiles and puts a hand on Jacks shoulder. "Your not without a few tricks yourself."
Gadren leans in and whispers to Jack. "Like those light fingers... just keeping your skills sharp yes? You'll put all of the owners belongings back before we leave?"
With a wink he turns to the others and starts preparing to cast dimension door to get them across.
Grinning wryly, Jack simply points and nods before making his way across with little trouble.
When Jack reaches the midway point of the bridge there is a flash of light and a winged woman appears in midair over the bridge.
Some calamity has befallen this angelic warrior. Wings stained black shear the air as her merciless eyes search for a target.
Seeing Jack below her she smiles cruelly and draws an arrow on her bow.
The woman is 20' above the bridge. What are you doing?
"You gotta be kiddin'... Um... guys? Little help? I don't know what this thing is but it does NOT look friendly." Jack looks toward his destination and decides it's a far better idea to keep going than to take a chance fighting on a rickety bridge that just so happens to be about 150' above the water. Jack moves as fast as his walking shoes will take him.
"Parlay?" Gadren calls out in common... the celestial, infernal and sylvan hoping for a response.
Lazar responds by mirroring the winged woman's movement, nocking an arrow himself. HE suspects she is some kind of fallen celestial, or an infernal - those ones sometimes mock their good counterparts' aspect - but he can't tell for sure. Could be a facade, a construct or some other creature he's never heard about.
Lazar, together with Gadren, finally finds out about the evil winged woman, and wanna the group while letting go his arrow.
"Beware, she's a devil!"
Maria growls in frustration as the creature hovers in flight, ready to shoot arrows. "Come down here and face me, you coward!" She prepares to throw herself in front of any arrow that targets Lazar or Gadren.
Cedric mutters a prayer to the goodly gods for protection.
light bless us with protection.
After consulting with Lazar Gadren calls out with more confidence as he passes his crossbow to Maria.
"Right so I'm guessing you've got some very specific instructions since you aren't indulging in biolence. Now I'm more than willing to strike you blind and unleash this lady Paladin loose on you but it might just squander our resources and your life... so parlay?"
"I'd rather prefer to leave this guardian alive if possible to slow down minions of a scertain order of necromancers if possible."
Maria accepts the crossbow with a nod and loads it.
The Winged woman ignores any attempts at communication, lining up Jack she fires her bow.
One flaming arrow hits the Rogue.
Lazar misses.
At the midpoint of the bridge there is another flash and a second Erinyes appears.
Now you can see it you realize that there is a Summon monster trap set on the bridge.
What is everyone doing?
"Uh, oh..." It seems the group is in a deadly trap. Lazar decides it's time to call for artillery support.
"Get away from there!"