Finished with its first foe, Luca's Eidolon turned to the next foe (Blue 2), even as Luca moved forward to take a stand near Tyrus and get a better view of the fight. She didn't want to, but... sight was important, and she was just in time to see her unwanted companion unleash a full set of attacks on the centipede.
for
for
for
Meanwhile, the Vilstrak lumbered forward to slam at its foe (Red 3) - and get close enough so that, in a few moments, it could hit much harder.
for
Still staying at the back Tyrus casts his best ranged spell while he looks for a light producing device.
The resultant ball of acid is barely enough to kill a normal sized centipede, and Tyrus' lack of skill is evident when the ball of acid arcs overhead and sticks to the ceiling.
Torble sneaks forward to attack the red centipede, but is too busy dodging betweeen busy feet to attack properly.
Round 3
Logan tries to keep a strong grip on the sconce but has trouble with it as he goes for the cleave, thinking to himself, Where is a proper weapon when I need one, too bad we didn't find an armory first rather than this potion filled room.
He continues as his orgiginal attack cleaving to hopefully down two of them.
unfamilar, PA, CE
unfamilar, PA, CE
Luca's summoned help lay into the centipedes, each landing a blow on their chosen targets. Tyrus's misses terribly, while Logan similarly whiffs his heavy iron sconce through the air between his enemies, harming neither. Dante stumbles back from the melee and magic surges, healing some of the damage that clasping mandibles had done.
Meanwhile, Yllaine has taken another torch out of her pack and lights it from the brand that Tyrus holds, flooding the room with a bit more light.
Despite the poison coursing through her veins, Lara continues to fight - she joins Luca's summoned creature in attacking the red centipede, and together they manage to lay it low - at least for a moment.
Finding his own courage in the face of the insectile nightmares, Vincent lands a powerful blow on one and splatters its face in a shower of greenish goo.
The centipedes swarm again, this time over Logan - but only one of them manages to sink it's jaws into him and the burly man easily shrugs off the effects of the poison.
Init Order
Luca
Tyrus
Fluffy (10/14 HP, 1 Dex damage)
Dante/Eidolon (5 damage, 3 dex damage)
Logan (2 damage)
Yllaine
Lara (5 damage, 5 dex damage)
Vincent
Red Centipede 2 (11 damage, incapacitated)
Red Centipede 3 (9 damage)
Blue Centipede 2 (3 damage)
Yellow Centipede 2
Yellow Centipede 3
Now that you've been looking for a couple turns, you can see a couple of torch sconces anchored into the wall above the alchemy table - but you cannot reach them right now.
Though their numbers are thinning, the insects still threaten. The red one knocked down by Lara and the vilstrak twitches and gets up again, its wounds healing rapidly.
The earth-man raised both of its arms, then slammed them down with all the force it could muster in a pair of brutal blows.
for
for
Her truly otherworldly companion, meanwhile, continued to rip and tear with all of the weapons at its disposal, aiming to properly finish its foe off.
for
for
for
Now that she had greater visibility, however, Luca's gaze blanked - and another summoning began.
Feeling a little better Dante moves back in to take on one of the centipedes attacking Logan.
Finally
Torble fights on valiantly, if ineffectively.
Tyrus throws another ball of acid (badly). Now that Yllaine has joined him as a light source he starts to relax a little - no more will one trip or misstep cast them all into darkness and death.
Logan continues his sweeping attacks.
Round 4
Logan tries get a sweeping blow but misses and fails to connect with his foes.
unfamilar, PA, CE
unfamilar, PA, CE
Torble deftly avoids the thrashing of the centipede, but isn't able to land it's own attack. The Vilstrak, knocking it motionless once more, and Lara stabs the downed foe again hoping to end it for good. Fluffy also hits, killing the final blue centipede, and the feat is echoed moments later by Dante as he fells another. Vincent steps up and crushes the face of the final yellow centipede.
With the rest of its ilk destroyed, the danger of the situation finally pierces the dim attack instincts of the final centipede, which turns tail and vanishes into the gloom. Soon the sounds of its movement fade to nothing. The party easily dispatches the downed red centipede before its wounds heal enough for it to revive. Then all is silent save the crack and pop of the burning torches.
Fluffy (10/14 HP, 1 Dex damage)
Dante/Eidolon (5 damage, 3 dex damage)
Logan (2 damage)
Lara (5 damage, 5 dex damage)
Luca clenched her fist slightly, stopping her magic before it could complete - though the loss of concentration also meant the loss of the spell. The Void didn't actually mind this too much, seeing her normal spellcasting as too weak to be much of a factor in her protection anyway.
Her Eidolon, on the other hand, quickly began sniffing around the area, clearly trying to make sure it was actually safe.
The stone man, meanwhile, lumbered towards the door on the far west side of the room, clearly set on investigating it.
If nothing was noted, it would merge with the stone and go look through the hall before returning to Luca and explaining what it saw - repeating the process for the northern door before its short time on the Material Plane was up and it returned to the ground.
The vilstrak merges his way through the stone and beyond the far west door - to find a smallish room containing a number of boxes, barrels, and more shelves. Obviously a storeroom of some kind.
It scouts beyond the north door for a short ways, but doesn't find anything except for more tunnels before it has to return and report, and then disappearing.
Though the majority of the many potion bottles are either broken or long since evaporated to uselessness, on one shelf you do manage to discover a well-stoppered bottle containing a translucent yellowish liquid. On the table you spy some sort of apparatus, including wisps of long-rotted paper and cloth. Several candles look like they were mostly eaten by the centipedes or other insects. However, from a drawer you pull a smallish leather-bound book which is still mostly intact. Inside are scribblings in a language you do not know, as well as a number of what appear to be formulas.
Logan takes a few more moments to make sure the centipedes are squished, especially the red ones. He then takes a few more swings with the sconce trying to become more familiar with the weapon, he knows that he would need at least a few hours with it to really get used to its weight.
He goes over to Lara, "How is the bite wound? It looks pretty bad. Tyrus I can hold the torch if you see what you can do to help."
Once Lara is tended to and the light is no longer needed, he then begins to look about the room for anything, anything that is of worth value or even could be used as a better weapon than the sconce or a club.
What is the door made of? Is it rickety like the one before? Do I hear anything beyond it?
So... listen to the horrible creature and tell everyone else, thereby benefiting from something she didn't want, or turn it away and possibly hurt others because of her negligence. And she couldn't even wish to go home. Luca clenched her hands tightly, but did speak softly a few moments later. "There's another room that way, though there might be more bugs hiding inside." she said quietly, indicating the door to the storeroom. She gingerly picked up the items the Eidolon had brought over to her, and after setting the bottle aside - Tyrus would probably be much better at identifying it, she flipped through the book... and the Void whispered a few short syllables. It was often hungry for knowledge, though only in certain areas...
Logan looks over at Luca, he gives her a big wink with his hands full most likely, in a happier voice than any of the others, "Good job Luca, we check out this room fully and do what we can for the wounded before we move on. It is good to know they won't come after us right now."
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Dante takes a moment to catch his breadth. That was a surprisingly difficult fight. Then again, magic does seem to be the great equalizer in most battles. That and they had the numbers. Hoping he might find a potion or two still left Dante lights his dagger and searches with the others.
Oh look, I made a palindromic number with my crappy rolls.
On the shelves you find another intact potion and what appears to be an oilcloth bag containing a few sprigs of incense. .
The incense that Logan found is called mensha. It is a magical herb which, when a person inhales the burning smoke from it, will increase their intelligence by 2d3 points for a period of one week. Additional doses do not stack. There are 4 doses in the bag.
Mensha is a fairly rare herb. It can commonly fetch up to 300 gold pieces per dose.
You find nothing else on the shelves. You find a corked jar of ink in the desk - the ink appears to still be usable.
Read Magic turns up nothing new from the book.
Those of you who study the doors and the rest of the room find that the doors, while also old, look sturdier than the one you entered through and you can't tell how hard it might be to bust through offhand. You notice nothing else odd about the room, and find nothing that could be used as a better weapon than that sconce. There are other sconces anchored into the wall, which you might be able to get loose.
Luca frowned at the book, then shook it up and down a few times before putting it with the other gathered items. "It doesn't seem magical." she said quietly, completely ignoring her Eidolon as it dealt with whatever had inflicted it before. That it seemed unbothered by this was a testament to the strangeness of their relationship.
Tyrus quickly hands off his torch
"Light the sconces over there, will you?"
"Centipedes tend to the poisonous. I do have something here that might help..."
Yeah, Torble looks weak now, but in a few levels he can start tossing around touch attacks and that small size of his is his major weakness (well... and the three hp)
Treat Poison
To treat poison means to tend to a single character who has been poisoned and who is going to take more damage from the poison (or suffer some other effect). Every time the poisoned character makes a saving throw against the poison, you make a Heal check. If your Heal check exceeds the DC of the poison, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the poison.
Time: 1 standard action.
Tyrus will try to do a quick Triage and start helping those who may be poisoned, starting with those who look the frailest (lowest fort), inasmuch as he can.
If he makes it, they'll get a +4 bonus.Not sure how many he'll need, so I'll preroll 5. DC is poison's DC.
I believe you said I could treat Torble as aiding on knowledge and perception rolls up until he learns how to speak, so...
Might be there's no time to search after the doctorin'... Is there? In case there is enough time here are some rolls
+4 from Tyrus and I just make it on the first one.
Dante pockets the ink, might finally start writing in that chronicler's kit he bought. And after overhearing Luca he walks over to her. "May I?" he asks. If she hands it over he takes a look too. He too tries Read Magic only to have it fail. "Well its not a spellbook," he says.
or I can try linguistics to get a idea of what I am looking at.
Searching the shelves along with the others, you have also found an intact potion flask with contents protected from the ravages of time.
With Tyrus's help, Dante is able to resist any further hindrance to the poison as Lara does - though the venom has already taken some toll on them both. Luca's creature is somewhat less fortunate, though it manages to purge the poison from its veins before too much longer.
Luca hands you the book she found in the desk, and when you look at its pages you immediately recognize the script as Dwarven. You can read it just fine, though the subject matter is rather beyond you - it seems to be a rather in-depth series of notes on the subject of alchemy.
Fluffy (4 damage, 2 Dex damage)
Dante/Eidolon (5 damage, 3 dex damage)
Logan (2 damage)
Lara (5 damage, 5 dex damage)
"I found a potion here and an oilcloth bag, I will let those with knowledge of such things a chance to figure out what it is before the more mundane route." He points the potion out to Luca since his hands are full. After lighting the other sconces if that works he hands off his torch to someone likely Vincent.
He then gets to working on one of the sconces to help the others be more equipped to fight. After a while he doesn't think it is budging much and asks Lara and/or Vincent to give him a hand with it...
Once it proves fruitless after everyone has recovered and looked over the room or they have secured the two sconces as weapons, Logan checks out the doors more closely.
"I have also found a potion. Perhaps I can identify..."
Luca looked down at herself, then up at Logan. Did... did he really think that she knew enough about magic and spellcasting and potions to be able to identify them just by looking at them? Her mouth opened slightly, but she was saved by Tyrus, who stepped up and seemed far more competent at seeing what the various vials held. Her mouth snapped shut, and she just nodded at the wizard's words.
"I believe a dwarf practiced alchemy here. These appear to be his notes but I can't make much from them. Tyrus, do you know Dwarven?" Even if he doesn't he is sure Tyrus will want the book and hands it over offering to read it for him if necessary later. He also helps Logan with the sconces, trading one for the dagger.
"So do we continue or end the adventure early? Honestly I could do either but I suggest we shore up the doors and best as possible to prevent anymore infestations."
Working together with Vincent, Logan is able to rip another heavy sconce out of the wall. It should serve them as another slightly-better weapon.
Tyrus checks the magical auras of the potions, and finds that one - the yellowish liquid Luca found - has a fairly strong Transmutation aura. You are not sure yet what the potion does. The other two have conjuration auras of varying strengths, and it seems rather obvious that they are healing potions.
After securing them another weapon, Logan studies the doors a bit more. Their structure seems to have been weakened with time and the ungentle attentions of the centipedes. It wouldn't be too hard to break through them.
"Lara and Dante since you took the most wounds from the centepides are you both able to continue on? We should see what is behind one of the doors at least. I am hoping for a dwarven armory, ya know weapons that can help us in any of our endeavors. Tyrus was there anything in the oil cloth bag?" He says hopeful and ready to move on.
"Just boxes that way." Luca said quietly, pointing through the door to the storeroom. "It didn't say anything about weapons, though I don't think it checked the boxes, either..." More likely, it would just be a few more potions or something... if they were lucky. If there was an armory in this place, it probably wasn't here.
Dante was certainly torn over what to do. He was excited to continue but it was tempered by his intellect. Continue and potentially meet more danger and have some explaining to do. Or leave now and cut there losses. These wounds weren't going away in a night though so..."Maybe one more room." He tried to keep his eagerness in check but was failing miserably.
Lara looks up from where she was binding her wounds. "I can keep going. We haven't found much yet, and it's only been a few minutes. If we're lucky this tunnel will lead to an escape of some kind. Worth trying." Even as she says it, she is working the fingers of her right hand, feeling the effects of the poison.
Yllaine looks at Tyrus. "Can't you do something for them?"
"Let's check out the storeroom, at least we know it doesn't go anywhere else." He says optimistically, waiting for everyone to be ready and standing before touching or opening the door.
For a few moments, Luca had wonderful thoughts of those horrible stone creatures coming out of nowhere, trying to open a door, and getting smashed by some horrible trap while rendering it safe for the rest of them to escape to a freedom that involved soft beds and candy.
...
She was becoming a bad girl, wasn't she? Still, she did move a little closer to the storeroom door, indicating her readiness for Logan to proceed.
Tyrus looks up from his stufy
"Sorry? Oh. Yes, looks to be about 4 doses of Mensha in the bag. It's" Tyrus thinks better of a formal description and summarises "a magical herb that makes you smarter for about a week. Quite valuable."
"As for the wounds, two of these potions seem to be healing potions. One is quite strong. I can see to your injuries, but they're some nasty cuts; it's likely to take an hour or two each to properly see to them."
"There is a potion here I'm still unsure of. Some sort of transmutation potion. Could be a potion of enlarge, I suppose, or one to increase crafter's skill."
"As to returning or continuing... so far we've found enough treasure that in a decent city we could probably pay our living expenses for a year. Possibly enough to pay off our debts with the Captain, if we could trade with him."
"Given where we are, and the vector of the tunnel, I wonder if there is some sort of buried treasure the Captain is trying to get to..."
"Tyrus you stay back for you may need a few of those hours later once we are done here to help us on the mend. Do you really think the captain would free us, it would seem more apt for him to take the valuables we find. Let's see what's behind door number one." Logan says with a bit of skepticism about the captain. He moves over to the door and opens it, sconce in his off hand.
The rusty hinges grate loudly as Logan pulls the door open. Beyond, the flickering firelight reveals the scene the vilstrak had already described - a room filled with boxes, barrels, and shelves. The faint scent of old herbs still wafts from the collection.
Dante grabs a piece of refuse from the ground and casts light upon it. Once it is shining like a torch he tosses into the room. If he no combat he walks in to help search.
Though a few insects scuttle away from the sudden illumination and movement, all of them seem of the normal and nonthreatening size. There are no overt sources of danger here.
Logan goes into the storeroom, "If we are organized we should be able to clear the room quickly. As it is passed to you check it over quickly." He starts to hand a crate or barrel one at a time to Dante, working towards clearing the room.
Luca's Eidolon shuffled into the room, sniffing around for anything that seemed like it would be helpful in protecting her.
Though it often had strange views on subjects like these, it seemed like it was actually on the perceptive end for finding anything helpful. Animal instinct, perhaps?
Tyrus readily agrees to Logan's orders and cooperates.
The vast majority of the contents of the room have rotted into dust. Searching carefully, Logan and the others are able to find a sealed container holding some kind of lotion.
This is a healing lotion that can aid the body's natural rate of recuperation when applied to wounded areas before resting. There appears to be enough lotion for twenty doses.
Luca's guardian roots around in some of the old boxes, searching by scent more than sight. Suddenly its eyes go wide, and it beckons Luca over to retrieve what it has found - its claws rather poorly adjusted to handling and opening things.
Fluffy is indicating a metal box of some sort. When you open the latch, there is a plant lying within - even long dried, it has a strange purplish tinge to it. The fragrance it gives off is pleasant in a somewhat unsettling manner.
The Force that looks always through your eyes know that this plant shares some strange connection with the void - though it cannot yet say what it is.
"Shall we finish this room then rest for the night? What do you think should we secure the new things we found down here?" He asks the group.
Instinctively, Luca knew that her powers weren't going to run out anytime soon - it was an awkward feeling, and she cringed somewhat as her Eidolon beckoned her over. Rather unwillingly, she checked the inside of the box... then shut it again, dragging it out of the storeroom and into the main chamber. "Um, t-this might be valuable... or dangerous..." she said quietly - the metal box for storage was certainly interesting, but perhaps it was meant to contain the fragrance somehow? A dim recognition of a connection to the Void only made her more nervous - good things rarely came from it, although you could make a fair argument that bad things (usable on their foes) were exactly what the group needed.
"Well!" Tyrus rubs his hands together "Fortune fails the bold! It's a salve that can be applied to wounds to speed healing and lower infection. Might even draw out some of the poison!"