The door is trapped, but what it's connected to is hidden. You skillfully disable the connection, but it feels super heavy and takes some leverage. When the connection finally pops, you hear a jingle of chain and the portcullis down the hall falls three feet!
Two seconds later a huge force impacts the door!
The door cracks open and a black sludge comes leaking out. Then it turns purposefully toward Kayla!
The party is up!
Kayla can't say for sure what it is
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Grelthe takes an experimental swing at the blob with her magic morningstar...
The slime quickly retracts.
Suddenly, the door bursts open, flinging Cain to the side!
A mass of the black slime surges out of the door at Grelthe! It's huge! It fills up the whole of the hall, floor to ceiling!
Grelthe, when you strike the thing your weapon comes away with some of the gooey mess on it. Your morningstar starts to smoke!
Zadira steps to the side so that she won't be damaging any of her party, and decides to try fire on the sludge to see if it is effective.
Zadira, this is a Black Pudding, the scavenger of underground realms. It's acid will dissolve anything that isn't stone and slashing or piercing weapons will only make it divide into more Puddings. It can also climb up and stick to just about any surface.
It takes minimal damage from the fire.
Zadira shares her insight with the rest of the group, and then throws a fireball at the thing, if she can get into a position where it won't harm the rest of the party.
If so, then...
If there isn't room to do a fireball, then she does another burning hands.
Vuzi let's loose with some Magic Missiles on the Pudding.
Marco groans as he's flung to the floor throwing a pair of arm spikes at the pudding as he gets up
She is so stunned by the goop on her weapon it doesn't even occur to her to shake it off, and she watches as it eats away at her weapon.
Kayla has no idea how to help, she backs up to stay out if the way. slipping down the open corridor a few feet.
With a hiss, Simon jumps back.
From painful experience he knew that such ... glibber was nothing he could fight with neither blade nor tooth.
Seeing the magick user unleash their powers he added a couple more meters of safety margin.
"Come to me if you are hit-meow!
Healing is the best I can do in this fight!"
The pudding gets slightly cooked.
The mound of animate pudding surges toward Grelthe!
But she dances out of the way!
If I can reach one of my allies who aren't attacking, I would like to hand them an alkali flask.
After her first attack, she noticed that despite the smoking there didn't actually seem to be any damage to her weapon, so she will attack again with the Morningstar. She tosses her shield behind her to grab the weapon with both hands.
Marco shoots another couple of bolts at it with one arm while the other arm turns into a hammer
Seeing that there isn't room for a fireball, Zadira moves to avoid burning any of her friends, and hits the black pudding again with burning hands.
Vuzi doesn't know what to do so she tries acid on it.
The slime takes the full brunt of the flame and acid, then cain's spikes hit and shear it clean in two!
This doesn't seem to bother it, however. One half, which is still easily big enough to swallow somebody, jiggles and flops forward as the second half follows close behind!
Grelthe gets struck by the pudding, then it latches on! Acid starts seeping into and onto everywhere!
Grelthe screams in pain and yells "Don't get close enough it can grab you!"
I don't plan to." she curses in Orcish as she pulls out her sling.
Electricity arcs off of her arms as she winds up and sends a sling bullet at the creature.
Remember, slashing and piercing weapons only split it apart. They aren't actually killing it I don't think. Use something blunt, or magic, or fire... or, (seeing Vuzi's move) good... electricity.
Zadira maintains her distance at 15 feet, burning both puddings if she can get them in the same area effect without burning Grelthe. If not, she burns just the one that isn't grabbing her.
Cain charges with his bone blade reshaped to look like a hammer
She can't tell how damaged they are, but knows she won't have time to escape the grapple and heal before it damages her again... so she frantically tries to beat the thing into oblivion with the one arm that is free.
She swings with all her might!
She also yells back to Simon "Come up here and heal me, if you can keep me between you and the monsters!"
Shaking, Simon hurries over to Vuzi, acid eating at the magical reinforced mithral shirt ... but the small fortune spent on it was well worth it: the armor is a match for the acid. For now. The cloth pieces woven in between the chains (to silence the chain shirt) are frizzling into nothingness though.
Hissing, Simon pads a paw against the broad shoulder of the Orc paladin.
"Gozreth! Please keep my friend standing and fighting on-purrur!
She is a good greeny-meew."
Seeing Simon going in, Emily ignores the fall-back order from her companion and rushes into as well.
The loyalty of the pantheress shows as she actually takes a bite off the creature and tries to claw at it.
The healing keeps Grethle on her feet for a moment. The paladin and the Kitty work together to beat the first ooze into paste. Their spikes and claws do absolutely nothing to it except make it divide rapidly, but their weapons pack just enough oomph to splatter the resulting segments into inanimate mush. But the effort takes a toll, escpecially on Emily.
Then the second ooze rolls in.
But it's attempt to catch a kitty misses! Emily dances out of the way!
Emily really takes a beating for her loyality.
Fur starts to fall off around her maw and claws as the acid eats at her (lethal) weapons of choice.
Zadira tries burning Black Pudding part 2.
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Seeing the damage Emily takes, Grelthe roars in displeasure and responds in kind aggressively. It must die before it can hurt another of my companions or kill me.
"Noo, Sister, stop it-chhh!
You will hurt yourself too much!"
Simons face is white as chalk, but he keeps his hands firmly pressed against Grelthes back.
"Oh great Gozreth, keep my friend standing so we can continue to destroy these filthy horrors!"
Emily only returns a gaze that very clearly says: "You don't back away either!", then continues to attack the slimey thing whose skin burns wherever she connects with it.
Full-Round Attack, with AF: Bull, Outflank
The flurry of attacks, though only partially effective, are enough to overpower the creature. As before, it divides rapidly from the slashing and piercing damage, but you have just enough brute force (and a helping of fire) to take it down.
-> 3 saves
Emily looks terrible as the second ooze finally goes down.
Great patches of fur around her maw and all of it on her front paws is gone and the naked flesh beyond looks worse still.
Simon is at her side, the moment it became clear that the second pudding is dealt with as well.
"Oh you silly cat, let me see this!"
His voice is troubled but the the remark is clearly not meant fully earnest either.
There is even a remote level of respect and thankfulness in it.
He sits down in front of her and takes her paws and head onto his lap, then starts a low singing, while invoking more healing magic to at least ease the horrific pain. Her fur had to grow back naturally though. Nothing can be done there.
As the pudding falls, Grelthe's appears to crumple a bit. The pain of her wounds is finally showing. She thanks Simon for keeping her on her feet, then turns to Emily. "Oh, you brave and foolish kitty." Her voice is full of warmth though, no admonition. Then she prays, and the gentle healing light reaches all of the party.
Well done, Emily.
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Vuzi is happy the creature has been destroyed. "Do vu have enough healing? I can help with that. Ve ver not prepared for something dat has no face." She shakes her head an their unpreparedness. "I need to buy wands." she mutters to herself.
The wave of healing emitted by the paladin washes away the remaining acid burn marks from Emilys skin and soon purring replaces the low whimpering of the black pantheress.
Turning to Vuzi, Simon shakes his head.
"It is alright, Vuzi-purrr.
I spent a lot of my healing for today, so we can keep your more powerful one's in reserve-meow.
Small-Stabby-purr ... want to look into the rooms were those things came from with me-miii?"
Zadira helps in the search/looting.
Before we open the "formerly trapped" door all way, Grelthe will suggest propping something underneath the portcullis so it doesn't lower further... just in case. She will also call out to Kayla "Little one? The black ooze is smooshed... it can't hurt anyone anymore. Come help us investigate what is behind the door?"
Kayla pops from practically right behind Grelthe, ok thank you.
she slips around the Paladin heading toward the door. check in here?
The room beyond is nothing to speak of. Is about 15' square and completely empty. The remains of the pudding contain the suggestion of several items, but they're all too corroded to be of use.