Kelgan's towering shield protects him from the blast, and as the flames blast over them, he instinctively reaches out and yanks the halfling out of the way.
Caspian feels like a small dog yanked away at the last second by the scruff of his neck. He finds himself face to face with the inside surface of kelgan's shield.....though he can really only tell because of the sound of his own song reverberating off of it....
Jaegr sloshes forward. Normally he'd be able to charge that distance and kill his enemy in a rush, but the knee-deep water slows him and he gets forward only 20 feet, even hustling.
Caspian casts suggestion on the clown....
"The people you are fighting against are tough and capable, if you were to switch sides you could keep yourself from ending up as parts for the necromancers army!"
Wyvurn dives to the side and avoids most of the blast, the charring he does suffer already sloughing off to be replaced with new flesh, although his looks are not improved in the least.
"Yes, clown, you have no hope in this endeavor"
The hobgoblin puts a little supernatural menace behind the words to aid Caspian. Crushing Despair: DC 14
Will save vs. suggestion:
Normally, a spell like Caspian's would have no effect on an undead clown, but Caspian's lore enables him to weave effects that not even the dead can ignore. Unfortunately, this one's willpower enables him to resist the compulsion that lies behind Caspian's words .
Caspian senses more clearly now that the clown is not alive at all so of course he could not appeal to the life of an undead.....Caspian switches his inspiration to give the despair a chance to work.....and he gives words to it as well....
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps this constant onset of decay; To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Deaths jester but a walking shadow, a poor clown, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by the living, for the living, with nothing for the dead to gain or dream."
The jester sneered at the attempts to magical compel him, but seeing Jaegr shrug off the blindness and keep coming, he is forced to stop capering -- especially because the dwarf will be in his face in a few more seconds. Quickly, before Jaegr can get within reach, he invokes another spell, and the hallway around him fills with fog. Jaegr can still move forward, but he can barely see 5 feet into the mist, and everything past that is totally obscured.
Caspian switches back to the standard inspiration....
"Did we win?" he ask between breaths in the sudden quiet...
"No but if the jester is smart he will flee otherwise I will make sure it is over"
If Jaegr doesn't hear the jester, he moves to the location where the jester was and then begins to zig zag to try and find him.
Jaegr moves down the tunnel like a paramecium, zagging from wall to wall.
Straining his ears, he fails to catch any whiff of sound from his quarry. After moving to where he judges the enemy was, he still hasn't bumped into him.
Wyvurn will stop trying to call on magic he does not have and assist Jaegar in finding the clown.
Wyvurn will stop trying to call on magic he does not have and assist Jaegar in finding the clown.
[dice=Acrobatics]1d20 + 10
[dice=Athletics Augmented with Sudden Jump]1d20 + 18
Wyvurn, in a sudden kinetic burst, dashes across a patch of muck and slime as if it were dry pavement, and explodes into a Carl Lewis-style, Olympics-worthy long jump. He's at the top of his arc when he hits the front edge of the fog, sails over Jaegr's shoulder, hits the ground and is immediately on his feet -- and smells the undead reek of the clown just up ahead, near the far edge of the fog about 10 or 15 feet from where Jaegr is now standing.
Wyvurn will growl, "This abomination cannot escape. You are close Jaegr. No more than five yards up ahead."
A loud buzzing, like a swarm of bees, reaches Jaegr's ears, and he feels a stinging, but it's weak . After the stinging sensation, the buzzing noise stops.
Inspired by Wyvurn's move, and not to be outdone in general, Jaegr deftly moves through the water up to where Wyvurn calls out to go and swings away
The clown is still just inside the fog, making targeting him slightly more difficult. However, it's not difficult enough to prevent Jaegr from launching a solid blow that would certainly have cleaved through any armor in the way. But the jester is fast. It almost seems to anticipate the exact path of the blow, then jerks out of the way, grinning fixedly the whole time.
Hearing the others advance, he will shake Caspian a bit.
"I can't see a damnable thing. Lead me up there and tell me where to shoot."
"I can't see either!"
"Must have been that hobgoblin ball sweat running down your brow....and eventually onto my eyes."
Another buzzing sound and another blast of wasps from the fog targets Jaegr:
Not able to see well through the pea-soup fog, he's an easy target -- although the fog doesn't seem to be hindering his assailant.
Wyvurn, then Jaegr, assuming the others are still hanging back.
Wyvurn steps up and attempts to catch the clown between himself and Jaegr. He will then slash into the area where the stench of undeath is the worst.
Wyvurn is able to use scent to pinpoint the clown's exact location, then quickly moves around and in. Within 5 feet he can dimly see his target through the fog and slashes out twice, strongly and accurately, connecting with the second blow despite the jester's incredible evasiveness. The thing's gray, undead skin seems like it should be resistant to damage, but Wyvurn's slashing sword, imbued with his ki, bypasses that resistance entirely and leaves a long cut. The fog makes it hard to tell, but the clown's insane grin seems to falter.
Caspian continues to perform inspiration for his friends..
Caspians whistle cuts through the fog.....as he goes into the chorus of the song "Moves, like Jaegr..."
Jaegr gets even more angry as he continues to get stung. He presses on trying moving to the sounds Wyvurn makes knowing he is pressing the jester. He hopes he aims for the right place this time and uses The Finisher to full effect.
HP 31/52
Hit!
Jaegr quickens his stride as he nears his target, already swinging the Finisher in time with his step as he moves. The jester, readying his next move, is caught by the unstoppable force of a blow that would very nearly fell a full-grown elephant -- his damage reduction avails him not at all. The clown folds like a rag doll on impact, his broken remains thrown further down the corridor to splatter in the muck.
Jaegr stares at the corpse as he gathers himself from the battle. "I'm afraid there is worse than this ahead waiting for us. I don't think we should linger too long."
After a few minutes to rest and check your surroundings, the fog begins to disperse and, more importantly, your blinded companions' vision clears. The tunnel you're in slopes upwards, and dead-ends in a stout door. It seems likely that the room beyond is dry.
DC 28 Perception or Spellcraft:
Perception
Spellcraft
"I can see clearly now, the clown is gone..."
sings the little hobbit as his vision clears....
"Well that was unpleasant. Let's get out of here. This muck is making my toes curl."
"Oh is that what is doing it, I thought it was the pleasurable tea bagging hobgoblin style...."
Wyvurn sheds the rest of his charred flesh and lopes up to the door.
"I agree, Jaegr, we must keep moving. Any ideas how to get through this door and maintain the element of surprise?"
"My tactic is usually bashing it down and pounding the enemy into submission. Mountain dwarves tend to not be all that subtle."
"I am somewhat sneaky, but in my experience wizards know you are coming and have magical alarms to tell them when they don't already know."
Caspian decapitates the clown and adds the head to the bag with the other head in it.....
"The Finisher should have us through that door in about two seconds flat. If some magic ward lets someone far away know, well... we'll just have to move swiftly."
OK, let me handle it, I'll advise standing back after the last time something was booby trapped.
When the rest of the group retreats back a safe distance, Jaegr begins bashing the door down.
The door flies open, amidst an explosion of negative energy.
"Good call on us all standing clear of that, are you Ok Jage?"
Despite be ready the worst, Jaegr stands in place and takes the full blast of necrotic energy.
HP 32/52 (Not sure I can breather this)
(Not sure I can breather this)
The doorway opens into a small chamber containing a ladder leading upwards. Standing in the chamber is a weird monstrosity, vaguely insectoid, with a squat, barrel-like body and 5 clawed arms symmetrically around its torso. Its head rotates to look at the fallen door, and the darkness of the Pit lies in its faceted eyes. It begins to make a chittering sound with its mandibles.
Initiative:
Knowledge the planes
"Look out a mutated dwarf!"
Initiative
Is this out of the water or are we still in the muck?
The room is pretty much dry
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Standing beside Jaegr, Kelgan is also blasted by the necrotic nastiness.
Unable to fit both bulky dwarves behind his shield, both suffer some skin-melting malfeasance.
"Must be some spawn of Obmi. It has his eyes."
"Can we feed it the clown and the zombies?"
The chittering intensifies into a blasphemous sound that you feel may have some monstrous meaning behind it -- something that would blast your sanity if you understood. You quickly become concerned that permanent brain damage may result: