Its "A" Dungeon, Too: The Second Chance (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

"I'm well, I'm well. So how long should we give them before we assume they've died some horrible death?"

"Half an hour, tops. Then we yell at them. If they don't yell back, then we start to worry."

Day 6, turn 117, approximate time of day 7:20 pm (turn 4 of 6)

Praink and Tofutee are about eighty feet away from the party at the intersection, just beyond the range of most monster’s Darkvision, and just when Larg, Bud, and Misty are about to call out for them to be sure they are alright, the two come back into sight at just about the same time, walking back toward the rest of the group, after spending a moment or two updating everyone on what was found, and making sure maps, and notes are updated as well, the group moves to the south, and almost immediately comes to a pair of tall slender columns, carved with a regal female form, and an opening that indicates a chamber is ahead.

Day 6, approximate time of day, 7:30 pm (turn 118, turn 5 of 6)

Approaching with caution, Tofutee looks left and right, just past the columns and sees a large chamber with a peculiar checkerboard like floor. Sections of the floor of the chamber, in ten foot by ten foot squares are done up in swaths of different colored tiles. With only her Darkvision to go by, Tofutee cannot tell what colors are used, but she can tell that squares of tiled areas are lighter and darker than each other.

In the southeast corner of the chamber Tofutee can see a strange sort of sign on a post that stands in the corner by itself, it is too far away for her to read what is written on the sign, while along the west wall, about forty five feet to the south there is a five foot wide opening in the chamber wall, indicating another passageway exits this place.

Misty wants to know what colors are used! She hopes it's not gray on gray... With a tremendous, world-shattering glub... her shield begins to glow with the light of a torch!

The checker board pattern is done in dark red, and light yellow

"Gah!" Tofutee shouts in surprise as the light violently fills her meager dark adjusted retinas. "Why'd you turn on the lights like that! warn me next time before hand, or better yet don't. Friggtity fraggity insensitive walking horse glue."
The bacon scented one mutters as she turns her head to the side and does her best to avoid facing the full light of the spell.
"And now my vision is all blurry, great. Well least I can see further than normal now." With her face turned to the room and doing her best to ignore the light seeming to blink spots from her eyes
"Oh boy, a tile room. I don't like tile rooms, always a pain to maintain and adventures always seem to want to pry up the tiles. Never mind that they always seem to save the more irritatingly creative tricks for such places."
Shrugging resident trapspringer gets to work, annoyed expression lessening some once she escapes the bright light and gestures in the liquid womans direction. "Just do me a favor and don't shine that where I'm working. Kay?"
With that Tofutee begins checking the floor carefully, looking for seams or clever covers hiding such lovely things as hole, bear traps and or holes with bear traps and or bears that are also traps in them.
"Lets just hope this one isn't the Anti-gravity ceiling bear trap. I remember hearing about that one. Quite happy to never see it.
If satisfied as she moves forward she also checks the ceilings for trigger mechanisms and other such.
Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (13) + 12 = 25
As a plant Tofutee has low-light vision. So she can get quite a lot of use out of light effects. trouble is if she is inside bright light her Light blindness kicks in. Now if we were to get a shuttered lantern that would only point light in one direction then Tofutee would be quite happy.

EDIT: Mah. I'll just let it stand and say Tofutee is a bit over sensitive Big baby when it comes to light. She isn't actually suffering any penalties but that doesn't mean she likes the light to begin with. *shifty glance* But a good point on the light spell thing. I missed the rules on light between 'normal' and 'bright' somehow.

Misty's light spell only increases the light level to 'normal' light within 20 feet, and dim light for another 20. It can't create anything brighter than 'normal' light, so it shouldn't bother light sensitivities. :)

Day 6, turn 118, approximate time of day 7:30 pm (turn 5 of 6)

When the light from Misty’s shield illuminates the pretty colors of the floor tile patterns, Tofutee is, at fist, unimpressed, but a careful examination of the floor reveals a surprising, and troubling fact.

Nearly every ten foot by ten foot section of the floor is rigged to collapse and drop anyone standing on the floor into something, most likely sinister, below. as hard as she tries to figure out exactly what triggers the trap, Tofutee cannot puzzle out the mechanism.

Why would anyone have a room with so many pit traps? Perhaps the sign will explain.

I don't suppose that by 'almost every' you mean every single red tile do you?
Tofutee mutters a mispronounced kobold curse and stares at the floor with a grimace "Alright... so far as I can tell this is one of those 'whats trapped?' 'Well EVERYTHING!' sort of rooms. I've got no hint to how it works yet so I'm going to move a bit further in and try to check out that sign over there. I will mark any safe places on the floor with a big X in chalk. Best advice would be to just hang out over here and avoid the room that will most likely put you in a hole." The pale female rattles out as she looks at the room.
"Oh and there is a very small chance that I would't notice one of the hole if I'm leaping about trying to get to that sign. So before that, Horns could you do me a favor and stick this pulley into the ceiling and hold onto the rope I'm going to trail as I move?" The bacon scented one asks as she forms that odd looking rod of hers into a pulley again offering it to the Minotaur of the group.

I'm assuming Larg is inclined to help.
With preparations made Tofutee ties the rope off to her waist and begins cautiously jumping to what she believes the first safe area.

Take 10 on acrobatics results in a 20. with 10ft distance on trapped/safe squares the DC for 10ft long jump from standing is exactly DC 20. and I can get double that if I can get 10ft of clearance to make a running jump
And if anyone else happens to have a clever idea for a better way to get the sign feel free to speak up. Tofutee is quite glad to not have to risk life and limb.

"Oh... uh. Alright. I don't think I've ever had someone complain about my light before." She takes a moment and dispels the light spell. She seemed a little more fizzy than usual.

Day 6, turn 118, approximate time of day 7:30 pm (turn 5 of 6)

Moving cautiously, at first, and keeping all her senses tuned to any slight changes, Tofutee creeps her way to the south, while Larg feeds out rope. After a few careful steps, stopping to bend over and examining the floor again and again, Tofutee realizes something

With renewed confidence, Tofutee makes her way safely to the southeast corner and can read the sign, which is written in common, looks very official and reads

Tofutee mutters a curse under her breath in annoyance at the revealation. looking back to the party the trapspringer sighs.
"Ok, so two things. One, only the red tiles are trapped you are fine to step on the yellow ones. The sign says the trap doesn't trigger unless you stand on a red tile with a magic light. I'd still avoid the red tiles though, signs often lie down here. Two apparently the only way to get the treasure in this room is to fall into the hole that has it in it. If we don't get it right the treasure gets moved and we have to start over." Looking to the rope on her belt and then at one of the red squares the plant creature shrugs "This doesn't sound terribly dangerous so long as we have enough rope, but it will likely waste a good chunk of time if we have to just stand over a hole and hope we get the right one. Hope they don't destroy the treasure if we get it wrong enough times."

"Well, as long as you have the rope, there's no real danger, cause they're just pit traps. So... simple enough to take care of!" Misty nods. "We just stay over one pit and keep casting light on ourselves until the treasure appears. And by we, and our, I mean you and your."

"So any idea how long the reset I just described is? because if I only have a one in fifteen chance of finding the thing each time and the 'extended reset period' ends up being something like half an hour then we could end up spending several hours of time in the room fishing for the treasure. I was going to suggest we use more than one person, so we don't end up stuck here all day." Already having a rope attached to her and having moved to a red square to let anyone desireing to read the sign do so tofutee feels a creeping feeling in the back of her head "I really hope they don't decided to just drop me right now... Tofutee looks at the bubbly semi-liquid caster Nah... she definitively wouldn't do that. surely not.

Assuming that the sign is placed at the opposite side of the room Tofutee would be standing north of it on the red square immediately above the yellow square with a sign.

"Well. We really only have one pulley and one set of rope, right? If we had more, we could totally rig up more people, but we definitely need someone who can climb decently to go down and get the treasure once we discover it. Other than that..." Misty shrugs. "One should be enough, depending on how much time it takes to reset it."

"She's right about only having one pulley. Maybe you should go to a safe spot and try using your light Misty? Damn. Wish I prepared light today. It's the best time to try it now."

Misty moved over to stand next to the fungal creature, making sure that everyone else was ready...

"Alright, everyone ready? On the count of three! One... GLUB! And with that, Misty's shield began to glow!

Day 6, turn 119, approximate time of day 7:40 pm (turn 6 of 6)

After careful and painstaking preparations, with each participant in place and ready, Misty unleashes a spell of light that radiates from her shield.

Somewhere in the distance a horn blasts out and the sound of a cheering crowd sweeps through the room. This, naturally, is followed by the unmistakable sound of multiple latches being released

*clap-snap*
*clap-snap*
*clap-snap*

Al around the room the red tiled sections of the floor open in flower petal fashion, the tiles collapsing against the walls of pits below.

Tofutee is smiling, thrilled with anticipation, and then she is falling. She falls only a foot, before the rope around her goes taunt, and Larg, surprised by the sudden event, pulls on the rope. It is then that Tofutee realizes that the angle of the rope from the pulley above the door to where she was standing is to shallow to actually allow her to be hoisted into the air and instead she finds herself pulled backward and dragged across the floor.

Meanwhile, distracted for a moment by the event, Misty gurgles quite loudly, and a pop and fizz escape from the top of her head. She is almost afraid for Tofutee, for a moment, but then she can see the baconling is indeed safe on the floor to the north of where she had been standing.

There is an audible groan, as if a crowd was mildly disappointed, and then the sound of ratchets being cranked begins to rise up from below.

WME?: 1d6 ⇒ 6

Misty points into the pit to the north of herself. "In there, qui-" She watches s Tofutee goes sliding across the floor. Hm. Physics was indeed a 'thing'.

When Praink sees Misty point, his prodigious intellect jumps to the conclusion that Misty has found the treasure, and he immediately uses said prodigious intellect to push her in the direction she is pointing.

If I can see the bottom of the pit well enough from my vantage point that I can tell when Misty is about to hit the bottom, then I will send her down at max speed and put the brakes on at the absolute last second to keep her from hitting. Otherwise, I'll let her float down and hope we have enough time.

It is 22.3 feet measured along the floor, from Praink's location to the pit with the treasure, and then 30 feet down (Misty was standing right next to the correct pit, while Praink was one a little further away. I am going to say that he cannot see the bottom of that pit, but can extrapolate that all of the pits might be the same depth, and there are pits all around him, so...If Praink can pass a Knowledge Dungeoneering Skill Check, with a DC of 23, he can easily set her down on the bottom, otherwise she can float slowly, and call out when she is there. I do not have access to the details of Telekinetic Charge SLA, could you reassure me that what you want to do is bounded by it's description?

As Misty slides across the floor, she begins to sound like a wave about to crash upon the shore, and her eyes grow wide in surprise, fear, and a little excitement.

meanwhile, the ratcheting sound begins to slow.

Misty begins to skid across the floor. "A TRAP! AUGH! A TRAP!" It never occurs to Misty to be -unwilling- however, as she gets flung into the pit.

Praink does some quick calculations as he goes for a minimum-time descent for his fizzy min,er, compatriot.

Knowledge (dungeoneering): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (19) + 11 = 30

*grunts and pulls rope*

Sorry for lack of posts. A week full of midnight lab rat testing and midday rat dissections. The life of a grad student.

Tofutee feels the pull in the rope almost immediately after it arrests her fall, as she looks to the pully and frowns. "Ah... Crap."
Reflex: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (1) + 7 = 8
And her attempt to right herself only results in a rather impressive slap against the wall of the pit, the vegetative one getting the wind knocked out of her as she is dragged to safety and flopping on the ground like a stunned trout.
" Owww..." the roped baconling groans.

Misty, surprised that she could fly as the result of a trap, but not altogether upset... reached the bottom, and decided to see what sort of treasure awaited them inside the hole!

Day 6, turn 119, approximate time of day 7:40 pm (turn 6 of 6)

Misty floats, a bit awkwardly, to the floor and comes to land next to a silver metallic box

Misty snatches the box, even as she looks for whatever is making the humming noise... And wills herself to fly back out.

I don't think it is fair to be allowed to use this spell to levitate creatures out of such predicaments, as it is supposed to be used to launch creatures into combat with a limited ability to lift them up over obstacles. Falling slowly I allowed, but that, I think is going too far

You misunderstand! Misty doesn't know what just happened! I know it will fail, but Misty doesn't! The spell pretty much only covers launching your ally and putting them back down. Everything else isn't in the ballpark. :)

"Ugh. Stupid trap sucks me in like so much blood in a drain, then won't let me back out..."

"So... don't suppose we have a quick method of getting her out of there?" Tofutee asks as she sits up and unhitches her rope tie off.
"Here! have an exit." Tofutee says as she pulls the knot she had used into a tight, easily grabbed ball at the end of the rope and tosses it toward the hole.
"Hey horns, can you lower the rope?"

I am assuming that Larg will lower the rope when asked. Time to get us our loot.

From Mistys perspective, she wanted the loot, and then she was in the hole. Then she wanted out of the hole, and nothing happened. I'd expected something bad was in the hole -with- the treasure, which is why I had her be oblivious, for comedic effect :).

Misty watches for the rope to come down to her, then weaves the rope through the neck hole of her breastplate, and then through an arm hole (and consequently through some of her fizzy self in the process, then tied the rope into a loose knot, and held not the ball to keep it from unknotting. It was like kill my up a soggy breastplate!

"Of course the trap doesn't let you out. Why would it?" Let's just not mention that I didn't think far enough ahead to figure out how she was going to get out...

I am going to roll a d20

Tiiiiiiimmmme, is on my side, yes it is...: 1d20 ⇒ 11

If Mist can roll less than that on a d20 She gets the rope tied, and Larg can pull her out before the door closes...

how does that sound for excitement!

The Final Countdown!: 1d20 ⇒ 8

HA!

Day 6, turn 119, approximate time of day 7:40 pm (turn 6 of 6)

Misty ties the rope around and through her armor, and then bends over to pick up the small metal box just as Larg heaves on the rope. The semisolid girl is slammed, not hard, against the wall and unceremoniously dragged up the wall until she emerges from the pit carrying the box, only moments before there is an loud snapping sound and the panels of the floor close again.

"Well, that was fun! Kind of. It's kind of annoying that it pulled me in instead of the trap-springer. You didn't tell me it was gonna pull me in. But we got the shinies." she held up the box.

"Excellent. Where should we head next in our search for the tresspassing adventurers?"

"Before we do that, maybe we should look inside the box?", Bud says as he drums his fingers together.

Misty tosses him the briefcase, without paying much attention, looking around the room at the checkerboard pattern.

"Now would be a good time to count the coin we have. and as an added bonus if we stay on one of the safe tiles if any monsters come to eat us we could turn on a light a put them in one of the pits."
Tofutee says as she eyes the case unsure of its nature
"Hey Horns, could you do me a favor and push the button about half way up the pulley? Should turn it back into my toolrod. Just unthread the rope from it on your side first. Dunno what will happen if I get rope in that thing on account of it being magic but I don't much want to find out.
With this said tofutee pull out the marginally complete map she had and shrugs. eyes darting across the page as she uses her brain for something other than storage
"As for our next destination I see two paths unless we want to go back the way we came. The three doors we didn't open as we cam here link back to some of the other rooms. Pretty sure there is a path out of here and there is a passage way out of the Chamber I checked out a few minutes ago that doesn't connect back. So one of those two."

Bud hands the case to Tofutee. "I believe opening the case falls into your realm of expertise. I've seen enough around here to know it might be trapped and I don't want to lose any body parts."

Larg reaches up for the button

"Now that we know how this room works, this will make a good fall back position if we are forced to make a ... strategic retreat. Not that that would happen"

Tofutee takes the offered box, moves a good number of paces away and examines it closely. The she check around for the most obvious traps before pulling out a dagger opening the case from the side. Or from the back if the locks happen to be good.
If they happen to be needed, tofutee not knowing this will do the checks regardless.
Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (9) + 12 = 21
DD: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (5) + 11 = 16

Day 6, turn 119, approximate time of day 7:40 pm (turn 6 of 6)

A sideways glance, a quick sniff of the seem, and Tofutee is certain the box isn’t trapped. She begins to wonder how difficult it will be to count all the coins that are stashed inside the box when she lays it on the ground and flips the lid open…

Inside the box is a blue, silk cloth imprinted with the white image of a strange, serene cat’s face, and resting on the cloth is a book. The title of the book is splashed across it in bold dark colors over the image of several artistically rendered young people.

The title is
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

The box, being well made, durable, lockable, and plated with silver sheets, is worth 140 gold pieces. The small silk cloth will fetch ten gold in any market in the city.

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (13) + 10 = 23

Praink walks over, careful to walk only on safe spaces, and looks at the book. Something is familiar about that title...Ah! He turns to the rest of the party and says: This picture-book is very rare. I estimate we can get about 100 gold coins for it."

Misty looks to Praink... then the book, then to Praink. "I'm not allowed to touch books. I got orange cheese-powder all over the last book I touched. I'll take the scarf, though. That thing looks incredible. It'll match my eyes."

"Larg, will you carry this for us while Misty is accessorizing?"

Tofutee looks to the liquid ladys semi-liquid skin, her armor obviously dripping in liquid. Then she looks to the book and back to her. The baconling sighs. "I get the feeling that this is like the secret of how Horns makes his milk. Something I will regret having in my head for however long it decides to stay. So I think I will avoid asking how it is that you managed to get cheese powder on anything."
With those words said tofutee stands up and bobs her head slightly and sighs.
" Right, so on account of us being in this room already I vote we take the path that leads out of here. It might have more loot in it."

"Oh, you don't have to ask, I'm more than happy to share!" Misty explains, before launching into a tirade of incredibly unbelievable, and at one point scandalous descriptions of exactly how all of that occurred. There would be laughter, and cheers, and jeers, and even a few awwwws. There were even a few jokes for the adults that the children wouldn't get. It seemed that when Misty's player wasn't speaking for her, and she was able to take twenty on the effort, Misty was a pretty solid storyteller. The whole thing, if no one stopped her, would take around ten minutes.