GM Rednal's Mark of the Chosen (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

She moves forward to examine the doors. She expects to have to interact with each one before moving forward. If Supremacy defers, then there is one door for each deity.

The numerics there are probably a coincidence - at least, there are no insignia for the deities to separate the doors from one another. They're not locked, either, but nothing seems to be barring the way forward. (Admittedly, there's only so much 'forward' there. You can't see any exits from the watery chamber, though it does seem to be fairly deep. If anything is present there, it's either cunningly hidden or out of sight, beneath the surface of the water.)

That aside, everything in the prison feels just a little off to your senses. The stonework is a little too hard and perfectly patterned, and while the air is perfectly breathable, it's almost too pure, like a drink that hasn't been diluted properly. There are really no smells here, either, as if someone had forgotten they were supposed to exist.

Given that there doesn't seem to be anything happening, she will walk forward to the water and examine that.

Drawing closer to the water, you can stick your head around the corner and look around the chamber. It looks to be some 55 x 60 feet (give or take a bit), with water of indeterminate depth and a ceiling reaching fifteen feet above you. You can also see something moving fairly deep inside it, though the water isn't clear enough to let you get a good view of whatever it might be.

She figured that Physis was either the form in the water or beyond that. Her divine empowerment would deal with that when it came to it, but there may be other options. She turns to the doors near her and uses her door sight to peer through one door and then the other.

As you move over to the door and attempt to peer through it, a hundred images pierce your brain - the room is empty, and also heaped with treasure, and simultaneously filled with an endless variety of individual creatures... all of them and none of them at the same time.

Please make a Will DC 14 save vs Sickened for 10 minutes.

Int Check: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

Unfortunately, try as you might, you aren't able to piece together the exact nature of whatever the heck is going on with these doors.

will save: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

She pulls back from the water as the confusing weight of possibilities scrambles through her mind.

Would Recall let me reroll that Int check?

Recall (Su): With a touch, you can cause a creature to recall some bit of forgotten lore or information. The creature can retry any Knowledge skill check it has made within the past minute, gaining a insight bonus on the check equal to your Wisdom Intelligence modifier.

In this case, no, as that was a straight ability check instead of a skill check (although you could try any power you have that affects ability checks).

I don't think 2d6 will make enough difference.

Eh, depends on how high they actually rolled... your choice, of course. XD As well as your next action(s). Incidentally, your Life: Restore can cure your Sickened condition if you don't want to wait for it to pass naturally.

She will take a moment to stabilize herself magically.

If she were to try again, would she get bonuses because she expects what is happening?

No. Much like lava is still dangerous unless you have enough resistance to fire damage, it's not the kind of effect that simply steeling your mind really works against. You're basically in a divine prison area - "safe for mortals" was not a design goal. XD Or, you know, you could just open it. Or leave it be and move on. They're all good courses of action - all that matters, as is often the case in this game, is what you want to do.

She will move to the edge of the water and prepare herself to enter.

1 mythic point for Alteration and Aquanc transformation. She is staying her form and adding amphibious and a 40' swim speed.

She then enters the water.

As you dive into the water, a few things quickly become clearer to you. In the northwest corner, you can see a change in the wall - it looks like there's some kind of tunnel there. More importantly, you can also see the thing that's in the water with you...

As you watch, a massive, grayish-white shark-like creature swims forth. Its head is horrifically human-like in appearance, but completely hairless, having neither hair, nor eyebrows, nor lashes. Its teeth are long and pointed and its tongue is forked and brown in color. Its shark-like pectoral fins end in three-fingered claws and it has two dorsal fins, side-by-side. Its tail fins curve sharply and are a bit lighter in color than the rest of its body.

Knowledge Check: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (16) + 13 = 29

It's recognizable to you as a Renzer - a type of intelligent, magical aquatic creature. They're known to have the ability to control water and emit zones of intense cold, and to command other fish (although there don't seem to be any of those around). They're also resistant to magic, and tough overall but with somewhat weaker willpower.

Init (Renzer): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15
Init (You): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9

It was some forty feet away from you to start with, and didn't approach at all. Instead, it focused and let loose a blast of icy chill.

Cone of Cold: 8d10 ⇒ (1, 10, 9, 2, 9, 2, 7, 8) = 48
Reflex DC 17 Halves: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (11) + 10 = 21

Fortunately, you were able to dodge the worst of it - and weren't covered in ice like it had probably been hoping for.

Don't forget the effects of being underwater. o wo/

That's why I went with amphibious and a swim speed. It covers many of the problems. And I don't get evasion until next level.

As the water flows through her new gills, she stays still and pulls on the magic around her to transform the water around the renzer into living crystal.

Mythic point for Living Crystal Blast. Would it be possible to add a version of Wingbind, but for swimming?

attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
spell pentration: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23
damage: 8d6 + 8 ⇒ (1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5) + 8 = 41
DC 17 reflex save vs being entangled.

The options are what they are. XD

Reflex: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

Your blast hit hard, but not quite accurately enough to actually entangle the creature, and the heavy crystals promptly started sinking towards the bottom of the pool as the creature writhed in pain. That didn't stop it from firing off another burst of ice your way, though, in an attempt to finish you off before you could finish it.

Cone of Cold: 8d10 ⇒ (1, 10, 10, 9, 4, 4, 5, 10) = 53
Reflex DC 17 Halves: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (13) + 10 = 23

The creature dove down a moment later, clearly intending to use the large mass of crystal you'd created as cover.

Don't forget to keep your stat bar up-to-date.

I thought I had updated my bar. Sorry, I've been dealing with family medical issues and I've been really stressed. Since I'm in the position where I'm down 83% of my HP in 2 rounds (and would be dead if I'd have failed either save), can I get a map so that I know what options I have to try and not die?

Well, in this case, I'd recommend just swimming forward a bit, which would negate his cover, and smacking the creature either in melee or at range. It's very wounded, and any hit from you ought to bring it down. ^^ Also, it doesn't have any more of those cones - it's a 2/day power. If you're worried about its SR, Destruction's Stone Blast ignores that (and might be a good Talent to pick up permanently, actually, for that very reason).

Oh, I've got a list of about thirty talents I want to get, and stone is one of them. :)

In my games I borrow a 4e term. "Bloodied" is when something is at half HP. I find it's useful to give people an idea how well their doing. Sometimes it's difficult to tell with text.

Speaking of SR, I didn't see your penetration checks. (okay, I forgot to bring it up until just now). I might be in a better position than I thought. If I'm not hurt so bad I can conserve my mythic points.

Ah, yeah, you did activate that. o wo ...Those are the kinds of things that really should be at the bottom of your posts as reminders for both of us, given how slow PbP can be. I mean, the last thing you wanna do is not get the value of stuff you spent some resources on, yeah? Alas, you already posted after the first blast, and my general rule is that if it's not brought up right away, you don't get the benefit from it. (<- Rednal's idea of encouragement for keeping active effects listed.)

vs SR (Second Blast): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (4) + 8 = 12

Hooray!

She'll swim forward, activating her luck and blast at the creature. But in trying to miss the crystal, she shot wide.

touch attack: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (2) + 8 = 10
damage: 4d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 4, 2, 4) + 6 = 21

Active Powers: Foreshadow (5 hr), See Hazard (5 hr), Spell Ward (5 hr), Luck (1/3rd)

It has a Touch AC of 11 - do you want to Surge that? A successful blow there will definitely drop the creature.

I'll use 2 inspiration instead.

Works for me. o wo~

It took a bit of added creativity on your part when you were casting the spell, but at the last moment, you managed to twist it around and slam your blast into the creature. With a few final thrashes, the life left its body... or something close to that, anyway. Rather than leaving a corpse, the creature vanished like some kind of fading dream, leaving the pool empty and the way forward - in the upper left corner of the room, by the bottom of the pool - clear.

She will swim forward, knowing that she only has so long to continue to breathe water.

And that... might have been the big issue, actually. As you made your way into the tunnel heading forward, you could see a metal grate blocking the way forward, along with three more behind it at five-foot intervals. Checking around the edges, it looked like it might be possible to open them and get past, though it would definitely take some finesse...

A DC 20 Disable Device check will suffice to bypass a grate - or some other method of getting past, of course.

While warp would get past them, she figures that opening them would give her more options to escape later. She pulls out her tools and begins.

disable device: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (11) + 13 = 24
disable device: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (1) + 13 = 14

She learns the hard way that they alternate which way the tumblers turn.

disable device: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (10) + 13 = 23
disable device: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (14) + 13 = 27
disable device: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (16) + 13 = 29

After a wrong tug on the second one, you managed to open the others in quick succession. That was probably for the best, as you noticed the first one sliding shut about thirty seconds after you opened it, and the others followed in quick succession as you emerged up from the tunnel and into a mid-sized room. Several vents here are blowing out warm air, while a door to the east seems to be the only exit.

*Updates the map*

Taking a deep breath, she will attempt to use door sight on the door.

The room ahead of you - about fifteen feet square - seems empty of creatures, although you do spy another door on the southeast side of it. That's not to say the room is empty, however - there's a magic sigil on the wall directly opposite the door you're looking through.

She attempts to figure out what the sigil represents. spellcraft: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (12) + 12 = 24 1 more for kn:arcana; 2 more is kn:religion

Know Arcana, as it happens. Spellcraft is generally for stuff that's being cast - or magic items - while Know Arcane is for lingering stuff that was cast. Spell effects that are in place are definitely Arcana.

Fortunately, you were well-read enough to decipher the symbol - it seems to contain elements of offense and electricity, with a direction component indicating that it was supposed to go straight out. It didn't precisely match any spell you were aware of, although some casters could definitely create similar effects.

If it's possible to open the door without being in the line of fire, she will. Perhaps ducking under it. If not, she will warp into the corner keeping away from the sigil.

After a moment of examining the structure of the door, you're able to reach over, grab the handle, and pull it open from a place by the hinges. A moment after you do, a torrent of electricity blasts through the space where you would have been if you'd just opened the door and crosses the entire room, striking and dissipating against the far wall. Your vision takes a few moments to recover from the sheer illumination, but at least for now, it looks like the way forward is clear.

As mentioned earlier, there's a door in the southeast of the room with the trap. You don't see any other exits.

Once again she will try and divine what lies behind the door.

another use of door sight

This door is clearly much safer than the last - it leads into a long hallway of some kind, and you can't see the end of it thanks to a corner. It's oddly angular, but at the very least, there are no traps within your line of sight.

She will open it up and cautiously head to peek around the corner.

*Updates map*

Moving forward, it becomes clear that the hall has an odd zig-zag of sorts, but a red glow soon enters your sight. The chamber past the hallway appears filled almost to the brim with lava - or something like it, anyway - giving the whole room a reddish tint. The path continues forward, albeit looping back a bit, and much like earlier areas doesn't seem to have been designed with safety in mind. There are no railings or other structures to protect people passing by, and at its thinnest the path is no more than a few feet wide.

Not liking this, she will warp to the end of the path.

Will: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (2) + 7 = 9

As you warped, there was a brief sensation of being flung around at uncomfortably fast velocities - and when the motion stopped, you were right at the start of the path again. After taking a moment to clear your thoughts-

Know Arcana DC 20: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (10) + 13 = 23

-you were able to identify the effects as some kind of Teleport Trap - probably installed by those who'd created this place as one of their security measures. On the bright side, they hadn't been mean enough to deposit you somewhere dangerous, like back in front of that lightning trap. So there was that, at least.

With a sigh, she protects herself against fire and begins to carefully walk

1 sp for energy resistance fire. 14 resistance for 5 hours.

Prisons do tend to have more security than most places. XD Broadly speaking, this is a world where you can fairly reliably predict the level of defense a given area will have. The more secure it is in the real world, the more secure it's probably going to be here, too. So major government buildings are often warded against divination and teleportation (to stop the theft of national secrets and make assassinations way harder, et cetera), prisons generally make it hard for people to escape or get past checkpoints, and so on.

As you made your way down the room and to the central area, three flaming elementals hauled their way out of the lava. Unlike most of their kind, however, they didn't have the form of animals or spheres - rather, they seemed almost more like walls of some kind.

They're on the map, by the way. ^^

I figured that would be the case, but I did need to try.

She sighs and takes to the air, becoming vaporous. She flies toward the exits, avoiding the reach of the elemental.

Spending a mythic for elemental transformation, air.

Trying things is good! Surprising player ideas are part of the fun of GM'ing... and one thing about this game is that there's almost always a choice of things to do. *Coughs* There is a plot, but it's less of a railroad and more of a... uh... series of tracks, I guess the analogy would be. You'll always be moving forward, but there's definitely more than one route to pick.

Transforming into air appeared to be... rather more successful than teleportation, actually, and a double move was enough to get you to the southeast exit. Past it, you could see a long hallway that turned sharply, even as the flaming creatures behind you started to slowly move after you.

She will continue down it, using her flight for as long as it lasts. She hopes that the elementals will stay near the lava.

The good news was that you were much faster than they were - the bad news was that the hallway turned back and forth quite a few times, which meant you lost sight of them almost immediately. Finally, after way too many U-turns, you came to a sturdy metal door. This one looked rather more well-made than those you'd seen elsewhere in the facility, although not so well-made it suggested the prisoner was behind it.

She opens it, ready for anything.

*Updates map*

This room is one of the larger chambers you've seen thus far, and also one of the most barren, consisting of little other than stone walls and the two doors (your entrance at the south, and an exit to the east).

As you opened the door, a trio of spherical lights rose off the ground and started spinning in a circle twenty feet off the ground in the middle of the room, clearly preparing for something - although whatever it was, they hadn't quite managed it yet.

Can she figure out what this is? 1d20 ⇒ 6 That's 18 for spellcraft or 19 for kn: Arcana

The spheres look like magical formations of some kind, albeit solid enough to be broken by damage as well as dealt with, or avoided, through other means. There's no direct analogue to things you've experienced before, but the closest comparison is probably some kind of conjured sentry.