Tanith pauses and lowers his weapon to examine the scimitar-shaped wounds stretched across his bare brawny torso.
"Those bastards are strong alright."
He nods toward Farrukh. "You kill anymore out in the hall? This might be the last of them."
"I got two of them, yeah. You okay?
He winces.
"Took an arrow myself. Didn't feel it until now."
"I'll live. Let's see what we've got left for curatives."
Tanith crouches down and dumps out his pack. Picking up the quarantined potentially contaminated potions, he offers the separate sack for examination. "These are the ones Red thought might be poisoned or something. Is there anyway to check? We could use every potion right now."
"Hand them here, let's see if I can figure it out."
Farrukh sticks his left pinky into each one in turn and takes a taste.
Carina nods. "Stillleeryofdrinkingthem." She digs her alchemy kit out of her haversack, taking some flasks out. "Perhapswecouldpourthemintodifferentflasksforabetterlook."
"They're all exactly what they say on the bottle, I think."
potions of lesser restoration x2
potions of remove disease, CL 10 x2
potions of Cure Light Wounds x4
Farrukh pats down the Doppelganger corpses to see if they have anything useful.
Each of the four doppelgangers wore masterwork studded leather armor and wielded masterwork scimitars. Each of them bears a teardrop-shaped vial at his belt.
Eben chimes in, "Check out those potions the fake me was carrying too." He sorts through the recently scavenged gear from the Hall of Deception. "I think I'm going to try and see if this rod helps next spell I cast..." he says, hefting Elaxan's baton in his hands. "And... well..." he tucks the 'dragon' wand into his belt. "Just in case of an emergency, since we have no idea what it does."
Farrukh inspects the vials, as well as the potions Eben requested he look at.
Carina speaks up again. "MayIlookatthosevialsplease?"
Not really waiting for an answer, she examines them by taste.
Farrukh determines that Ixiaxian's vials contained nothing but colored water. All save the vial marked "Healing", which he identifies as a dose of deathblade poison.
Carina takes them in turn and confirms this.
Carina wrinkles her nose. "Coloredwateranddeathbladepoison. Amateurish. Coulddobetterdrunkandblindfolded."
"Well damn." Farrukh says after tasting the water.
Then...
"Oh, god, that is FOUL." he exclaims, spitting out the small drop of poison he'd tasted.
"So we've got pretty water, and a potent poison. Yay."
"Careful with that. It's Deathblade, it'll seep the life from you pretty damn quick if you let it. Friend of mine took a dagger from a goblin with that stuff on it before I left Ket. He died screaming."
"Would be handy to use, if I didn't think I'd be more likely to poison myself than the enemy."
The teardrop vials are potions of invisibility.
"All right, so what's the plan?"
"I think a little payback is in order. Why don't we strengthen ourselves with potions and such as much as we can, find their boss, and storm into his room? Invisible."
"Yeah, we drink the potions and I can vanish Spiny. Probably easier than trying to get him to drink..." Eben says.
Using the wands, Tanith tends to the wounded.
Once the party's ready to move on, Tanith drinks Carina's protective extract and lines up behind Farrukh.
During the brief lull, Eben takes his ivory wand out. "Pretty sure this is almost spent, but you've still got a few scratches, Farrukh..." he makes a pass of the wand over Farrukh's last injuries.
Sure enough, once the and spurts out its last little bit of positive energy, it crumbles apart. "Another dead soldier..." EBen says, wiping the dust off his hands.
Once all the preparations are done, Eben drinks down Carina's extract of seeing the invisible, his own potion of invisibility, waves his arrow-shaped wand on himself, and then touches Spiny, saying "Walk unseen." Looking around at his group of invisible friends, he has a hard time suppressing a giggle. "You guys are all transparent and stuff!" He then takes cautions to move as quietly as they head onward.
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Farrukh checks said door first.
As preparations are being made, Carina takes one of the teardrop vials and opens it.
"Bottomsup!" She drinks it down and disappears from sight.
Pushed by an unseen force, the door swings wide. The door opens on a large chamber with a vaulted ceiling high above. Along one wall, a macabre assembly of vats and tubes connects to a table with numerous straps and a strange silver helmet. On the far side of the room, a raised dais supports a throne.
Sitting upon the throne sits a hawkish bald human. His bright golden eyes are sunken in, dark pits of lava on his pale, stretched face. He is shirtless, wearing a gray kilt and a large belt with many pouches. A large greataxe is strapped to his back, though he doesn't look especially strong. Even those with no experience with magic (meaning Farrukh and the dinosaur) can tell that this man has numerous spells cast upon him by the tiny twisting tendrils of violet mist that spiral around his form.
He is rising as the group enters, his hands clasped behind his back. He's looking slightly ahead of the heroes, as if not totally sure of their location.
"Good evening, my friends." Telakin gives a thin little smile. "It seems you've made quite the mess of my lovely home. You've scratched up the floor. The dinosaur has tracked blood all over. And everybody is dead. Ordinarily, I prefer to let others do my fighting for me, but if you want something done right..."
He brings one hand into view, crackling with violet power, and turns to look right at Farrukh. He winks. The hand gives a flash as he flings a bright orange bead at the party.
He has more cast spells on himself than all of you combined, though not all of them are combat-related. Carina, ever the arcana expert, is able to identify all but a scant few.
False Life
Clairvoyance
Grease
See Invisibility
Protection from Energy (fire)
Aid
Shield of Faith
Displacement
Most of them were cast as if by a cleric.
The orange bead soars lazily through the air, coming to land right in front of Farrukh and Tanith.
The moment it touches the ground, a loud humming fills the air.
Then it explodes.
If you rolled below that, you take the whole thing.
Tanith invisibly dodges some of the flames and stifles a grunt lest he reveal his location.
Farrukh slathers the dose of Deathblade on his scimitar and moves in silently.
add 20 as appropriate.
Recalling the fallen Astraden, Tanith draws on his spark of Kord’s divine might in a way he’s never done before. The big man touches the tattoo on his pectoral and a burst of the Brawler’s power fills his companions.
Carina easily manages to evade the worst of the fireball.
She then speaks up, her voice moderated and angry. "He has several protections and enchantments up. False Life, Grease, Shield of Faith, Aid, Displacement, Clairvoyance, Protection from Energy (Fire-based), and See Invisibility." She steps into the room, mildly singed, but Tanith's channeling takes care of that. "Recommend going loud."
She breaks her invisibility by throwing a bomb vial filled with a suspiciously clear fluid...
Fail
Spiny charges across the room, angry at the fire eyed fire man. The dino's long neck lashes out like a striking snake. His jaws snap shut with all the force of an apex predator.
Eben instinctively ducks as soon as the fire starts exploding outwards.
"Ow." He still says, though he clearly avoided the brunt of the explosion. "You know, the last guy that hit us with one of those died horribly about three seconds later. Let's see how this guy measures up. Thanks, Tanith." The last said in response to Tanith's wave of healing. Doesn't feel quite as nice as when Astraden did it, though...
"Ugh, this jackass can see us, still? That's it, I am sick of every damn doppelganger in this city being prepared for my standard set of tricks. Time for something new. I cooked this one up while I've been your guest for the past day or so, Telakin. Thanks for giving me lots of time to do nothing but think." He gestures around the room, poiting to each of his friends in turn with one hand, the other holding Elaxan's rod and willing it to contribute whatever power it has to his spell. (And pressing one of the buttons, in case that's necessary...)
"Because this is a time of need,
I grant us all the boon of SPEED!"
The effects of his spell are immediately noticeable by those upon whom it was cast. It feels almost like being a tight violin string resonating as a bow passes over it, with an odd pounding sensation behind their eyes and teeth. It's not pleasant, but Telakin's relative motions seem like someone suspended in clear honey, so it's clearly doing something.
Moving with near-blurry speed, he dashes across the room and approaches the podium near Tanith. Interestingly, his movements, while fast, also have an unusually (even for Eben) graceful, almost ballet-like quality to them.
1d20+11
Farrukh slathers the dose of Deathblade on his scimitar and moves in silently.
1d100
1d20+14 add 20 as appropriate.
As Farrukh heads towards Telakin, he feels an ominous click beneath his feet. Before he even has time to roll his eyes in exasperation, the floor collapses beneath him.
If you got less than a 20, you fall into a forty-foot deep spiked pit and take damage.
If you got a 20 or higher, you leap clear.
"Your tricks, Eben, are our tricks. We just show their rather harsh reflections." Telakin rolls his eyes. "I know all about the overconfident idiots you've faced in the past. Scheming zealots, buffoonish necromancers, lizard people...no wonder the fools needed our help. You must be very proud."
Telakin swerves to the side as he speaks, barely reacting as the bomb's blast is absorbed by his false life and aid spells.
Spiny's bite does have noticeably more impact, though, as it tears through the remaining false hardiness to the flesh beneath. He snarls in surprise and pain.
Meanwhile, Eben notices that he doesn't feel any particular need to speak while casting the spell, thanks to what must be a metamagic rod of silencing. Hasted by his magics, the bard prances lightly through the room—and hears a click.
If you got less than a 20, you fall into a forty-foot deep spiked pit and take damage. If you got a 20 or higher, you leap clear.
Eben's dance-like movements end as he twists and turns and tries to avoid the pit.
He teeters and totters, but just barely manages to stop himself on the lip of the pit.