"Lead on, my hammer is ready to deal with anything that comes our way! Curse these dark fey and their evil magics!"
As we draw nearer to the Ice Carving area I will activate Detect magic and concentrate for any areas that are over expressing powerful magic or a concentration of lots of smaller magical things.
You guys arrive at the Ice Maze/Ice carving.. You have to transverse the Ice Maze to get to the Ice Carving contest..
"Two tall columns of hard-packed snow mark a gaping entrance into the ice maze. Beyond,shimmering ice walls climb into a mammoth labyrinth of twisting frigid corridors."
Yall notice the minotaur is not in his cage when you pass by..
Once the group enters the maze there are two directions you can go.. Left or right?
As we enter the Ice maze I shiver and draw my cloak a little closer around me, I eye the minotaur cage but know that it is out and about somewhere and we are likely to encounter him. I look left and then right, rubbing my hands down my arms.
I saw we go left, I am right handed but really it might not matter to much in the end, also can we attempt to leave a trail? Wreck can carve into the ice?
"Carve...?" he looks a bit puzzled as his eyes wander to his hammer
"Since we ended up not using it on the Modern Wonders tent, I can use my Clairaudience/clairvoyance scroll here to get an overhead view of this labyrinth. It might be easier to navigate then."
I look at Wreck "No dagger or such? Just to mark out trail so we don't get overly lost?"
"A fine idea. A maze is only interesting if it's not deadly peril. Harb if you can draw us a map, we can easily follow it, or simply walk around the outside and melt a way in. Either way."
"Cover me."
Halmier pulls out his scroll and casts Clairaudience/clairvoyance. He then flips the spent scroll over and starts scribbling.
Keeps a watchful eye about for any sign of ambush
Hal places a magical sensor high over the maze, getting a nice view of the maze and the surrounding area.. You see some disturbing things. Here and there throughout the maze death and carnage is apparent.. In the middle of the maze you see the minotaur hacking up people as they make there way to the middle. On the other side of the maze the ice carving contest isn't much better.. Ice blocks with frozen people in them are being carved up by fair goers and fey alike.. It's a massacre.
You can use the sensor to easily find the middle and the exit. Which shall yall tackle first?
Halmier describes the two scenes to his companions, and holds out his scroll and charcoal stick.
"Someone else write these down, I can't really see while I focus on the spell. To get to the middle of the maze, it's:"
Halmier lets out a stream of left, right, and straight with some descriptions of unusual geometry, then does the same for a path to the end of the maze and between the middle and the end.
"Hopefully this spell will save us some time, but no matter which way we choose, people will die in the meanwhile..."
As the spell fades, Halmier continues to stare at the ground, still not over the shock of the sheer violence towards this reasonably innocent village.
"Though it's likely the frozen are already dead. It's probably better to stop the minotaur sooner."
Pulls out a quill and my spell book really quick, flipping to the last pages I jot down what Hal says.
"I guess we look after the Minotaur first since if we don't he will be behind us and that is not something I wish having charging up the back of my skirts."
"The minotaur then."
Daphne sets out, following the path outlined by Halmier.
It takes a few minutes but the group fianlly reaches the middle.. You round the corner in time to see the fiendish minotaur spit a man in half with its massive greataxe.. It turns to the group and stares at you with demon eyes..
Order:
Harb
Danika
Minotaur
Daphna
Halmier
Wreck
Harb charges the Minotaur and gives a mighty swing..
but his hammer is deflected by the beasts chaimail and tough exterior..
Danika is up..
Is it looking at me? Why is it looking at me like that?
I point my wand at it and release a dart of magical energy
the acid darts sticks into the beast and it howls in anger..
It then attacks Harb twice with its axe and once with its horns..
oh noes..
lucky.. Two devestating hits none the less.
Harb is standing but just barely..
Rest of the party is up!
"Harb!"
Wreck moves up, flanking with Harb, and swings at the beast
By the narrowest of margins Wreck misses the Minotaur..
Seeing the devastating hit, Hamlier casts Cure Critical Wounds
"This thing hits harder than anything I've seen before."
Daphne eyes the beast, and tosses a ball of fire at it almost as an afterthought, then brings her bow up again.
"Hrm, fiend. This might be interesting."
Seeing the devastating hit, Hamlier casts Cure Critical Wounds
Hal moves and heals Harb,
Daphne casts a spell at the beast.. and passes its resistance to magic, however the fire does little to it..
Beast -43
Harb 36/73 hps
Harb uses a blessing and attacks the beast again..
and lands 2 blows.
He does not do full damage though.. It still hurts and the beast howls in fury.
Danika is up again as her acid arrow does more damage..
Danika knows this is a fiendish minotaur.. It has resistance to fire and cold, as well as spell resistance and damage reduction. A good aligned weapon is need to bypass its DR..
Her lance misses due to firing into melee.
Threatned on 2 fronts the beast attacks Harb and the Wreck..
1 hit
miss
Group is up again!
Harb attacks again..
2 hits
Beast -76
Harb 3/73 hps
Still waiting on the parties actions..
In a desperate attempt to keep Harb from falling, Halmier readies the following actions.
Halimer casts Hydraulic Push to push the minotaur away from Harb, then if it works, he places himself between Harb and the minotaur.
Hal tries the push the minotaur away, but only succeds in making it wet.. Its hair freezes in the cold though and its now smells like a nasty ass old wet dog..
Swinging twice, Wreck makes at least one good contact with the creature!
Good hit indeed.. The beast suddenly has a very worried look on his face..
Just waiting on Daphne now..
-107
Daphne fires on the creature, aiming for eyes and nose.
Daphne hits with one attack, but the monster still stands..
-115
The beast roars... "I will eat your soul dwarf!"
He attacks Harb three times..
1 axe and the gore hits..
and cuts poor Harb in half.. A cruel look of delight shows on the Minotaurs face..
Party is up again!
My face goes white as Harb a long time friend and traveling companion is cut down bravely, I am almost sick to my stomach as blood sprays and soaks the ground, a half of Harb on either side of the Minotaur.
You GODS DAMNED BEAST, you will pay for what you have done, you and your cold rider.
"Harb! We just reincarnated you! With your luck you'll come back a gnome this time."
Daphne jokes, but her face is grim.
"I brought him to his doom!" Halmier mourned.
With a cry of rage, Halmier casts Burning Hands on the beast.
Halmier then takes up Harb's spot flanking the minotaur with his flimsy mace, trying to keep it distracted from Wreck.
Between Daphne's arrow and a little fire damage the beast falls over dead.. Out of combat..
All it has is some large gear that yall prob cant use.. Harb's gear is prob usable though..
I will slowly walk over to the halves of Harb, falling to my knees, tears welling up and slowly sliding down my face. I brush the hair from his face using my skirts to clean up the blood from his faces as well.
"This cold rider seems to like taking souls at his pleasure, to bad don't have souls or I may have to acquire his to hold prisoner for a while. We cannot return Harb to the stone here but the cold should slow down the process of death."
I move Harb closer to the wall of the maze, packing snow and any loose ice around his body. I finally stand up.
"Hal lead the way out"
Daphne looks at Danika like she's crazy.
"Remember, we can just reincarnate him once we break the fairies hold. Don't worry harb, we'll be back. Or you will. Gather up his stuff, he'll want it."
She casually saws off some of his beard, the wraps it for later reincarnation.
- Gnome
"That is not nice... but I am glad it's over..." he looks at the rest of the group
"We need to end this quickly..."
Where to? Really alls that left is the Ice Carving contest..
I guess the last place we have to check is the ice carving and I shudder at the thought of the massacre that has occurred there.
"Can any of this stuff help us before we get Harb back?" Halmier slowly picks through his possessions. "We can't do him any good if we get trapped here as well." Halmier gathers Harb's magic ring and belt, and starts sizing up the dwarf's magnificent armor.