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"I can do you one better than 'covering' you," Iason says with another thin smile. He walks up behind Guido and rests a cold hand briefly on the big Varisian's shoulder.
"Protection. You may pay that debt by continuing to interpose yourself between my person and enemies."
He also gestures Etrigan forward, to take the space next to Guido.
"Perhaps one of us with keen eyes might check the door over-- I would hate to walk into a bucket of acid rigged to fall on our heads..." Iason says with disinterest.
Once his eidolon has taken the place next to Guido, Iason steps back again, to give the fighters a bit of space. His wand of infernal healing is once again back in its wrist sheath, and his crossbow is out, and loaded.
No traps are found on the doors, which turn out to be slightly ajar and completely unlocked.
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"Now that ya mention it, Guido," Slach interjects, "I'm a bit o' hand at dealing with security measures." The bard clears his throat.
"Back in Westcrown, sometimes a neglected cornhouse was the only place a fella could find to sleep and not wake up with a boot on his snout. They weren't guarded as well as this one here... was," he gestures to the corpses to the corpses, "but ya still had to keep away from the wharf guards and their dogs.
"Those Wiscrani merchants are a cagey lot, though." The bard gives Iason and his summon a sidelong glance. "They weren't always satisfied with the security offered by the city, so they sometimes got their own dogs, and left em inside. Feed em just enough to stay on their legs, kept em ravenous. You try stickin' your fingers through the door to jimmy up the bar, well, they stayed in there.
"Oh, this one fella, ran a fishmonger, he was a bit more inventive than the rest. Can't leave the hungry mutts in with all the fish, so he rigged up some wires to drop alchemist's fire on anybody didn't know how to open the door proper. Only the silo next door was storing some moonshine on the sly. Well, some poor sod tries to break in--never heard o' sleepin' with the fishes--he gets a scalp full o' fire, and he's runnin' scampering about like a sick rat... I don't know about the alchemical explanation, but something about the stench from the fish and the vapors from the liquor, and Grins Bailey said he could see the fireball all the way over in Parego Dospera."
He pauses to emphasize the impressiveness of that account. "The point being, anyway, keep on the lookout."
Which brings up a point I was going to hold back for a bit. Anyone got a light? :-)
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Iason listens politely to the half-orc's account, head tilted to one side, clasping his hands behind him for the duration.
"How very.... colorful," he says to the vivid image conjured by a fish vapor fireball.
Iason does not intend to die, ever (there's an appointment in Hell he's eager to never make), but should his long-term plans go wrong, then he can still avoid dying in such a humiliating fashion as to be burned by a fishy fireball.
"We will be quite careful, then. Thank you for your inspiring little tale, Messire Slachagok."
He brings his crossbow up to readied again, and offers a slight shrug at Guido's question.
"Not exactly. He can be temporarily banished from this plane. I suppose truly powerful magic might destroy him, but it would be the magic of legend. What you have to worry about is not that Etrigan perishes, but that I perish. Etrigan's usefulness is lost to you under such a circumstance."
Etrigan smiles, as if to say there's more they have to worry about from his corner than just that, should Iason perish.
"Anyway. Shall we attempt this door, then? Etrigan. Open it."
The eidolon offers his 'master' a mock bow, one clawed hand over his heart, then tests the door.
The doors, having already been forced open, swing in easily to reveal a large antechamber that smells sharply of grain dust. Two sets of large double doors lead further into the building. The set on the right stands ajar.
You detect a faint blood trail leading from the front doors through the open double doors on the right.
Anyone, go.
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Slachagok adjusts his grip on the axehaft and takes a few slow strides forward, through the granary doors. He sniffs at the air and scuffs at the ground, looking for tracks or other telling signs.
The bard's pupils widen as they adjust to the darkness, his orcish senses taking the fore. A smudge of color on the floor catches his eye. He bends down closer to inspect.
"'S blood. Thin trail, leading through here and past those open doors," he indicates the set on the right. "Can't say whose."
He focuses his senses further, now calling on his limited arcane knowledge to attempt to sense magical influences.
Slachagok detects no magic.
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"I can't see shit in there, but a torch seems a bad idea. Even a city boy like me's heard of granary explosions."
Guido opens the front doors wide to let in as much light as possible.
Since we don't seem to be in rounds, he takes up position NE,NE,NE,NE of his current one.
Checking the right-hand doors for traps.
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Iason also spots the blood, wasting a perfectly good fortuitous god-given fortune as he does so. Or maybe hell-given. Who knows.
Etrigan no curr. Unless it's blood coming from someone he can kill.
"I can create a light that will cause no chance of incineration," he points out. "But if the Black Echelon are lurking ahead in the darkness, it will be a target for every throwing knife or arrow they have to hand."
He pauses, shrugs, and casts it on Etrigan's cloak.
The outsider bares his fangs.
"There is the matter of debting
"Between us. Pray don't be forgetting."
"Oh, I doubt I ever could, with you bringing up your payment at every chance. Go see if we have any friends lurking in the room beyond."
The team breaks into the lower floor of the granary. The four vast silos that hold much of Absalom's grain tower above them. Here on the lower floor are four large holding chambers into which the grain can be poured as needed.
All four rooms are covered in a thick sea of grain. In the eastern room, the blood trail gets fainter as it heads toward the open doorway to the northeastern silo. A thin, cold mist permeates the granary despite the warm night outside.
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Iason's eyes narrow at the presence of the mist. He will detect the presence of magic on it. It does not seem to fit the natural order of things that a mist should be here, now-- not the season for it, and since when does grain emit mist?
Etrigan cocks his head, listening for noises, staring into the piles of grain and sniffing the air for signs of people he can kill.
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Slachagok braces himself as the doors swing fully open. He sees the trail of blood growing fainter, towards the doors at the far end of the open silo.
But what's in that other room?
Moving as quietly as his as his armor allows, Slachagok shuffles up to the opening into the neighboring silo. He flattens himself against the wall, and peers around the edge.
Correctemundo.
Please ignore the stairs. They do not appear in the story.
Also correct.
I'm +7 currently.
What causes your Perception to go up or down from the +6 noted on your character?
You deserve it! Props to you for all the Etrigan-esque rhymes!
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What causes your Perception to go up or down from the +6 noted on your character?
Slach's bardic thing, Careful Teamwork. Link
The mist is not itself magical in that it is actual water vapor, nor is it at all natural for this place and season. Iason suspects it is the product of some unnatural force or spell.
The team moves quietly into the first silo. From there, Guido can see three shadowy figures at the same time as he himself is seen. Cloaked figures bearing ancient sickles move in total silence. Fog seems to both wreathe and animate them, as if the fog were real and they merely apparitions. Two stand silent vigil thigh-deep in the grain while a third unpacks ceramic vials from an ancient, weathered chest.
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Initiative Order
- Black Echelon
- Everyone Else
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The mist flows out from one of the undead figures and obscures all within the northern silo.
Anyone, go!
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Iason & Etrigan, Init 8
Iason's brows draw together as the mist seems to thicken. "Have a care," he mutters to the others, while gesturing Etrigan forward. "They'll likely try to sneak up on us in the cover of the mist..."
He puts away his sling-- no use trying to fire into that mist-- and retrieves his morningstar from its belt loop instead.
Etrigan, meanwhile, stalks forward, into the fog.
With his back to the wall, the demon cocks his head in the darkness, clawed hands opening and closing with impatience as he tries to hear the movements of his prey.
Apparently, he is much too hungry to be good at hearing.
<- Failure
<- Failure
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Flinkae forces his way through the grain, high-stepping to get through the northern room. At the end of his march, he confronts two Black Echelon operatives who bear rusted ancient sickles. Suddenly, two more skeletal robed figures burst from beneath the grain in total silence, surrounding the tengu magus and slashing at him with their sickles. They cut bright red wounds across his chest.
Anyone, go!
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Iason grits his teeth as the other Pathfinders disappear into the mist. To say this is an unfavorable situation is putting it mildly. He wades in after his colleagues.
Meanwhile...
Etrigan snarls (noiselessly) as he pushes past Slachagok and into the silence.
Now that he can make out the dim forms of the undead, he sets to clawing at the one on the right.
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Slachagok tenses up as Etrigan shuffles past him. Never mind, that one's on your side. He sees the eidolon vanish into the mists, only the rustling of grain to indicate his position. And then, that too vanishes.
The half-orc blinks in the darkness. He can still see Guido on his right flank, just barely, and feel of sheaves shifting around his legs as he moves. Everything else is lost in the grey haze. He hasn't heard any sounds from Flinkae since he disappeared into the mists.
"Stick together, as best we can," he growls to anyone that can hear him, "and stay to the walls." It is clear to the bard that this fog, and its sudden arrival, are no natural coincidence.
For all we know, those wraiths can see us clear as fire on a hilltop. Slachagok would rather not give their enemy the opening for an ambush. The more walls and bodies he and his allies can keep on their backs and flanks, the better.
He mushes after Etrigan through the grain. The beast comes back into vision, facing away from the bard, poised at some unknown fixation.
Another step forward, and Slachagok sees the beast's quarry. We got one! he opens his mouth to say, but He raises his greataxe and, channeling arcane energies, swings it down towards the black cloak.
Another step forward, and Slachagok comes to Etirgan's side. He follows the beast's gaze to the crumpled remains of a wraith. He grunts his approval. "One down, two to go!," he shouts to his other companions. He trudges another few feet in the direction of the wall, but sees no more of the cloaked reapers. He tacks around, no easy task in the thigh-deep mass of grain, and moves back to flank the eidolon.
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Iason rushes forward until he finds Etrigan and the wall. Sound works normally for him. The demon hies off into the mists until it finds a Black Echelon operative, whereupon the demon can hear nothing at all. He promptly slams his clawed fist silently into its skull, shattering the bones, which then drop lifelessly to the floor. Flinkae falls back and Slachagok moves up, the three forming a tight knot in the midst of the silo.
Guido leaps forward, spraying grain across the floor and, ducking under the skeleton's swung sickle, seizes a second Black Echelon operative and throws his arms around it, grappling it tight.
The remaining three operatives follow Flinkae through the mist, methodically swinging their rusted sickles before them with inhuman sameness. The first slashes its sickle across Flinkae's feathered chest, cutting him badly. The tengu drops bonelessly to the floor and his blood waters the grain. The next attacker slashes Slachagok across the wrist.
The creature Guido has seized tries to cut the monk with its sickle, but is too solidly bound to effect the attack.
Anyone, go!
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Etrigan's eyes glow red in the mist as he sees that Guido holds another of the enemy, right within his reach.
At last. At last, he is close enough to unleash his full fury.
The only thing ruining his joy is that his rhyming witticisms cannot be heard.
Ah well. He'll make up for it in blood.
Etrigan's claws bite into the undead flesh like so much chaff before the reaper's scythe.
Meanwhile...
Iason feels his way around through the mist until he can come up behind his silenced-but-snarling demon, and see his other allies, as well. He's not about to wade further into the mist and try and kill foes he cannot see, so-- the devil-tailed wand makes its appearance again, to poke the half-orc.
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Two more up here! What do you see?
Slachagok tries to shout to his companions, but he only swallows more mist. He rakes his tusks across his upper lip.
Maybe an effect of that summoner's infernal magic, he wonders, but more likely some weird power of these wraiths.
He has at least seen that they cannot silence the eidolon's claws. Raising his axe over his shoulder, he hopes steel will be treated no different.