"Right, so it's a standard trick-collecting wands trump game. Except the King of Wands is the Hungry Ogre, and when he's drawn, you either are eaten, killed, and out of the game, or else you can sacrifice one of the tricks you've collected to reshuffle him back into the deck. Sacrificed tricks are out of the game. Come to the end of the deck, the discard pile gets reshuffled and made the new deck, and the Ogre is shuffled back into it. Winner is the last player not eaten by the ogre. It can take a while to eat up all the tricks, but clearly they're doing some serious exploring up there, so we have plenty of time, I'm sure."
Tanith misses badly, but manages to destroy two more of the seven images. Five remain.
Standard Action: Total Defence: +4 to AC this round
No Action: 5' step back to my original spot
Move Action: Yank the seal out of the pillar!Carina steps out from behind Farrukh and makes a grab for the seal in the floor, being mindful of the demon's sharp evil sword.
Farrukh's newly-holy weapon cuts into the beast, but he's still encountering heavy resistance. On the last hit, though, he cleaves through several of the demon's eyes and hears a roar of pain.
The column begins to descend, but it starts just as slow going down as it started going up. The demon takes one last swipe at Farrukh as the brazen Tanith catches its gaze dead-on.
The column descends rapidly beneath the floor and reenters the Rising Path. The others see that Tanith and Carina are both injured. Farrukh collapses as the column is about halfway down, bleeding heavily from his wounds.
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"Of course, it might not be exploration. I mean, we're talking about Carina and Tanith here." Eben says lasciviously. "Farrukh would be a third wheel, but I imagine they can figure out how to get him out of the way for a few minutes of privacy..." The grumbling of the descending pillar diverts his attention, and he gapes, seeing the bloody Farrukh collapse. "I didn't mean like THAT!"
*burble burble* Farrukh says.
"Everyone pile on!" Tanith barks as the pillar descends. "There's some kind of eye-monster up there. It's hurt. We need to finish it off before it manages to heal itself."
Carina pulls out an extract of deep blue liquid and pours it down Farrukh's throat.
"Come on, dammit!"
Farrukh licks his lips as he's returned from near death, yet again.
"What's in this one? It tastes like candy floss."
"You noticed?" Carina holds out a hand to help Farrukh to his feet. "I wanted to find a way to make my extracts easier to swallow, so I'm experimenting with adding some sweets. Not too much, though--don't want to dilute them."
After digging in his pack for a moment, Tanith produces a potion vial and offers it to Farrukh. "Drink up."
Robin sighs before putting the chewed arrow to his bow, which has found its way from Robin's back into his hands. "It's always something. One of these days we'll venture out and be able to enjoy one another's company without somebody nearly dying."
"You noticed?" Carina holds out a hand to help Farrukh to his feet. "I wanted to find a way to make my extracts easier to swallow, so I'm experimenting with adding some sweets. Not too much, though--don't want to dilute them."
Chocolate coating makes it go down easier.
"An eye monster? Again?" he says, pulling out his Quickening rod as he stands. "Ugh, bet it sees through illusions. I mean, why not." Still, he flicks his wand and splits into four Ebens.
After digging in his pack for a moment, Tanith produces a potion vial and offers it to Farrukh. "Drink up."
"Thanks."
"I don't know if I took a blow to the head or what, but I could swear there's something weird about the north end of the room over there." he says as he rubs his eyes
"Does it feel like your face is being pulled inside itself? I got that too, before."
"Yeah. And spots in my eyes."
The party looks where Farrukh is pointing, but only Carina is able to see what he's talking about. Spots appear in her vision, blurring what she can see. She feels as though she recognizes these symptoms from somewhere.
"Huh... I just noticed it too." Carina blinks and tries to focus her vision on what Farrukh pointed out. She thinks back, trying to place where she's heard of such things before...
"I didn't think much about it before... I'd just finsihed jumping and I was distracted- but maybe it's another illusion or something?"
"Yeah, I bet it's an illusion, and if you pay too much attention to it, it comes to life with tentacles and jaws and saliva and..."
Carina wracks her brain, but the secret just barely eludes her. She knows she's heard of something like this before. She just can't think of where.
And to add some more depressing news- good hope is probably kaput by now. It was down to 2 minutes when we entered the pillar room, we must have spent that much time jumping, bouncing, and being puzzled. I was going to recast it once we solved the puzzle and were ready to move on, but hadn't imagined an immediate fight with a split party.
"S#&*!" Astraden says, jumping up and dropping Eben's cards all over the stone. "Rodrigo, can you teleport us over there? Or make us go fast, so I can try to run over there? I've got no way to heal them from here," she laments.
Farrukh's excellent and highly clear description gives Carina exactly the prompt she needs.
Robin jumps over nearby the pillar. "Excuse me, coming through, need to get over there." Assuming someone else jumps out of the way, he leaps with the power of a leaping bullfrog and lands beside Farrukh. He rests a hand on the slayer's injuries and starts pouring in healing magic.
He pauses, appearing to consider whether or not 'Hide From Animals' is likely to be of use here. Shrugging, he casts it again.
He frowns apologetically. "Afraid that's about it for me. I do have a wand, but it's quite a bit more used up."
Eben quickly mutters and touches Astraden. She feels the grace of a panther enhancing her movements.
Then he begins making his way back across the pillars. This time a little less enthusiastically.
He very nearly slips, but catches himself at the last moment.
He starts bouncing up and down in place on the blue gel, the elevator platform being pretty full. "If you two teleport on top of them, it'll be tight, but we'll all fit, I think..."
"Huh. Thanks, Farrukh." Carina turns to him and nods. "That's a greater scrying sensor. It's clearly focused on you right now--can't really say why. It's been a long time since I read about it."
"Maybe the eyeball monster can see at a distance?" Eben suggests while bouncing.
"That's probably it."
"It's a nasty thing. I still feel nauseous from where it hit me earlier. It's affecting my movements."
"Looks like we could squeeze on there, yeah..."
"Ready?" Rodrigo asks, grabbing Astraden's hand. He then chants a quick spell and a door opens in the air, with a twin next to the crowded column. He steps through dragging Astraden with him into the muddle of adventurers.
"That's probably it."
"Come to think of it, might be that Kolyarut. It was up there watching us when we were fighting. Seems to be interested in what we're doing here."
Eben looks aghast. "How the hell did it get down here? Thought for sure it would have been sea serpent bait." He sighs, then gestures at the assembled group. "Well, I believe in all of us." Then he bounces for the main pillar.
"Incoming!" he calls out as he soars onto the ungainly mass of adventurers and crowd-surfs his way onto the pillar. "Ow! Okay, who has the seal? And are you anywhere near the socket, because this is uncomfortable! Rodrigo, call your elemental back up here with us too, and cast haste once we start moving up..."
The elemental doesn't seem to understand the command, no matter how clearly Rodrigo pantomimes it out. It can't fit on the pillar.
"Thanks, Eben," Astraden calls as the bard jumps away. As Carina fits the seal back into its divot, she straps on her shield, releases a healing burst, and splits off a double. Saying, "Verhanel beran gortsaduli ir mejk’y," she pulls a golden rapier from her sheath, then withdraws the actual, metal rapier as the golden one floats above her head. Jammed between her friends, she has to be careful not to jab one of them with either weapon.