”What happened?!” Ingrahild replaced her axe with her bow as she looked for enemies.
Belir makes quick work of cutting down the dwarf-eating plant, and after a few minutes, Gundar does finally wake up.
You get to the end of the hall, and there are double doors leading to another stairwell back up. Turning a few corners, you come across another set of double doors.
This large, arched chamber provides a grim contrast to the Vault’s other life-filled rooms. Instead of lush vegetation, a massive briar patch and layers of thick humus form high mounds throughout the room. Hundreds of varieties of fungi choke out any attempt for healthy plants to root, and the air is heavy with the stench of decay. At the chamber’s eastern end, a large, swollen wooden chest sits atop a high mound of compost.
Gundar sleeps silently - a rare trait in a dwarf. When he is finally shaken back awake, he scrambles to his feet in alarm. "Wha the hell hit me?"
After the circumstances are explained, he blushes a deep crimson. "Bloody pollen... bloody fey flowers..."
In a snit, Gundar wastes no time throwing open the doors. He's eager to get through with their exploration and return to the world he understands. In the next room, he views the fungi and takes in the pungent aroma, then tries to make sense of any dangers.
"It would take several hours, but we could harvest these flowers, now that they're... docile... and sell them for a tidy sum of gold. Might not be the best choice now, but before we leave it would probably be worth it!" Thozar explains as Gundar recovers his composure.
Thozar frowns as he peeks into the room. "Ironically, there is so much death and decay in this room that it is practically bursting with life... I suspect this is a dangerous place, we must be careful," he warns. Before stepping in, he activates his Spirit Sense to sweep the room.
________
”So...we need the chest but this place will probably kill us. What’s the plan? Besides selling flowers, that is. Which we really should do once we have whatever these elves thought of as a weapon.”
You immediately recognize the signs of a brambleblight. You also know that they have standard plant traits.
You may ask for one more type of knowledge from the list.
As you suspect, there is something moving in here, and Gundar recognizes it. Two long vines covered in sharp thorns protrude from what appears to be a massive rotting bundle of barbs that’s topped with a heap of berry-red eyes. There are also many brambles around.
Ulark moves up into the room, trying to peek around and through the thorn piles to get a better look at the shifting plant mass. Is there any green in this place that doesn't move?
"I'm getting sick of these plants too!" Thozar calls back to Ulark. Pulling energy from the fungal growth around him, the dwarf forms a small ball of fire and hurls it overhead at the plant creature.
________
I'd like to know about any Special Attacks.
"Half the reason I love trees is they almost never try and et ya," Gundar mutters. "This damn place is testing my patience."
Animate Brambles (Su) As a standard action, a brambleblight can animate any of the dead, thorny brambles created by its bramble infestation ability. For 1 minute, the animated bramble (see page 85) then attacks as though it were a Large animated object. The animated bramble is under the control of the brambleblight, which can change the animated bramble’s target as a move action. The brambleblight can instead cause the brambles to entwine around creatures as if by the entangle spell (the brambles are considered to be covered in thorns). This effect lasts for 1 hour.
Rain of Thorns (Ex) With a snap of its thorny vines, a brambleblight can loose a volley of four thorns as a standard action (make an attack roll for each thorn). This attack has a range of 120 feet with no range increment. All targets must be within 30 feet of each other. A brambleblight can launch up to 36 thorns in any 24-hour period.
"Mind your eyes, lads. The damn thing can loose those thorns like arrows," Gundar warns . After sending Blinder up into the air to keep him safe, the ranger advances, shield up and warily watching the brambles around him.
The brambleblight wiggles and shakes, and then you see a pile of branmles near Ulark become animated and attack him. Then the original beast moves closer to Gundar, seeming to ignore the difficult terrain.
Not letting the Brambleblight simply avoid his assault, Thozar has his sphere chase the plant. Adding to his elemental assault, he tosses a glob of sizzling acid at the creature.
________
As the number of brambly attackers seems to grow, Ulark steps back at the newest creature as he yells out. Urge to deforest this whole swamp's growing strong. Head around to the first one - I've got this thing!
He chops again at the plants in front of him as he yells.
for
Three shots in twice as many seconds. Ingrahild’s ki was running low.
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, plantsense 120 ft.; Perception +10
Aura blight (40 ft., DC 19)
Defense
AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 17 (+3 Dex, +8 natural, –1 size)
hp 85 (10d8+40)
Fort +11, Ref +6, Will +5
Ulark's readied action hit the animated bramble, but it hit with a resounding crack! Hardness took a bit of the sting out of the hit.
Thozar's flames continued to burn some of the brambleblight creature, but the acid simply failed to hit.
Ingrahilde managed to smack the creature with a single arrow.
Gundar-bot heaves with his axe, trying to chop the woody beast to pieces.
"It'll ignite eventually, keep hacking at the thing! Let's turn it into kindling!" Thozar cries as he tries to lob more acid at the Brambleblight.
________
Dang! Ulark says as his chops meet stronger resistance than expected from the writhing vines. I've seen ore softer than some of these brambles!
for
Tozar and Ulark are proving their mettle in this fight, but these creatures are not easily destroyed.
Twice more Ingrahild’s arrows flew out. She hoped that this would end soon, and without any tragedy. At the very least she was curious to see what the elves considered to be treasure.
Only one of Ingrahilde's arrows finds its mark , and Belir takes a wallop as he moves in.
Sensing Belir as a possible immediate threat, the creature focuses on slamming him again. Luckily, the tough dwarf is well armored, and suffers no additional cuts.
Meanwhile, the animated brambles attack Ulark.
Belir - HP 23/48 AC 24/11/23 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 18
Gundar - HP 29/51 AC 22/12/20 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 19
Ingrahild - HP 34/48 AC 19/18/17 (+2 barkskin +4 giants) CMD ?
Thozar - HP 43/43 AC 18/12/16 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 15
Ulark - HP 40/50 AC 23/10/19 (+2 barkskin +4 vs Giants) CMD 18
Focusing on the Brambleblight, Ingrahild kept shooting. Frustrated that it refused to go down she used some of the last of her ki. She was getting dangerously low, but it was better to use it than to see a comrade fall.
Two more solid hits knocks the creature down... and with it, the animated construct loses interest and simply returns to its formal, inanimate self.
There is a chest high in a mound at the other end of the room.
"Nobody move!" Thozar shouts as the Brambleblight begins to crumble. His eyes shimmer grey as he scans the area for any more assailants. "I'm tired of getting jumped by these things."
________
You look around and everything is quiet.
Thozar grunts with approval as his scan doesn't reveal anymore assailants. "Just getting paranoid is all," he admits as he begins tromping forward to the end of the room. Before making his way to the chest and opening it, he takes a moment to search it for traps.
________
Given this place, Ulark grunts as he slwoly walks to follow Thozar in. His axe sweeps as he walks to remain trained on the bramble patches. being nervous when plants about seems smart.
The chest is not trapped, but it is locked.
"If only Torith were here, he would know how to handle this thing," Thozar mutters softly in remembrance of their late companion. "Unless we are gonna haul it with us back to town and hope someone else can pop the lid, we might as well do it ourselves here."
A quick check reveals that the chest in not movable... it appears to be built into the side of the mound.
With a few good chops of his axe, Belir manages to get the think open... revealing an empty chest!
Ingrahild shrugged. ”See? Elves. Telling us that the power was within us the whole time. B#~+#!+s. The way we should deal with orcs is with an arrow or axe to the head.”
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Thozar stares blankly at the chest for a moment, his mouth agape. We lost Kragmyr... for this? Anger begins to well within him, quickly overflowing. he screams, enraged, as he begins kicking the box of empty promises. "HOW CAN THIS BE?! We fought for Trunau and this is how we are treated?! WITH LIES?!" he continues, breathing heavily from the sheer force of his emotion.
Silvermane said there'd be something here Ularks slumps for a moment. 'Course that legend was older than he was. Another group may've swung by and grabbed the lot. Or that hag. But where'd they've stashed it...
Frustrated, scratched and fuming, Ulark begins moving about the room grimly. The dwarf stabs his longsword out into the various bramble piles in the chamber, seeing if his weapon catches or connects with anything hidden within.
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Gundar's heart sinks a bit at the empty chest. "Aye, the hag and her ilk may have taken anything valuable from the place long ago. If she could access it, and we, then why not others?" Gundar says.
Or maybe they simply hadn't found the right place to look yet...
At the moment of great despair, Belir notices something is wrong with the bottom of the chest. Pulling it up, it reveals a trap door and a ladder that leads down into a small armory.
You inventory the loot, and find:
coins: 3 pp, 178 gp, 605 sp, and 2,125 cp
ironwood breastplate +1
flaming scimitar +1
10 +1 orc bane arrows
orc slaying arrow
scroll of barkskin
scroll of call lightning
scroll of summon nature’s ally IV
wand of flaming sphere (9 charges)
wand of greater magic fang (12 charges)
ironwood crown with a stylized thorn motif (worth 250 gp)
ceremonial gem-encrusted cudgel (worth 150 gp)
and
Gorum’s thorn - This forge-blackened +1 keen greatsword is festooned with religious iconography depicting glorious images of the Lord in Iron. If Gorum is the wielder’s patron. Gorum’s Thorn gains an additional ability: when the wielder confirms a critical hit gains any creature with the giant subtype, he can attempt to trip that target as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity and ignoring any size restrictions related to the target. If the trip attempt fails by 10 or more, the wielder is not knocked prone.
Ingrahild’s eyes lit up when she saw what was in the quiver. ”Good work Belir. Good work indeed. I’ll hold onto these arrows. These *could* turn the tide of a battle...”
Although the veritable trove of treasure does much to ease his anger, Thozar stil can't help but to smolder at the deception. "Let's hope this is enough," he says flatly as he fishes out the scrolls and wands. "I'm ready to be rid of this place. Even that boat full of Tuskers seems preferable at this point."
________
No disagreement here Ulark says with a nod as he too looks over the spoils. But we should at least rest the night here. With Watch. he adds, eyeing the chamber's ceiling suspiciously. Wouldn't put it past those fey to still be about.
Thozar grunts his approval before beginning to set up some sort of camp at the highest point in the room. "I'll take last watch if it's all the same to everyone."
You can head back for the boat, or spend a few days rest here (it's safe now).
The boat trip to the fort is another 5 days on the river. Bloodtusk is all paid with the people who matter, so it will be an uneventful trip. Just letting you know, in case anyone has some crafting to do.
I am going to assume you are able to heal everyone's wounds in that time.
Belir - HP 57/57 AC 24/11/23 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 18
Gundar - HP 51/51 AC 22/12/20 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 19
Ingrahild - HP 57/57 AC 19/18/17 (+2 barkskin +4 giants) CMD ?
Thozar - HP 51/51 AC 18/12/16 (+4 vs Giants) CMD 15
Ulark - HP 60/60 AC 23/10/19 (+2 barkskin +4 vs Giants) CMD 18
”Not a bad haul. Not earth shattering, but useful. Especially these arrows. Everyone ready to kill some orcs?”