.
Nodding at Pemsworth for the halfling's aid in fixing the fiery wand, Malavarius tries to put it to use once more.
HP: 65/65
AC: 15 (11 T / 14 FF)
Fort: +4 // Ref: +5 // Will: +10 (+1 vs spells, SLAs, & Su abilities of evil arcane spellcasters)
Resist 10: Cold
Energy Absorption: 36/36 absorbed
Pearl of Power I: 1/1 used
Pearl of Power III: 0/1 used
wand of scorching ray: 13/50 charges used
Cantrips Prepared (4): detect magic, open/close, prestidigitation, read magic
Level 1 Prepared (4+2+1): endure elements [X], feather fall [ ], protection from evil* [ ], mage armor [X], shield [ ], snapdragon fireworks [ ] [ ]
Level 2 Prepared (4+2+1): glitterdust [ ] [ ], locate object [ ] [ ], resist energy* [ ] [ ], spontaneous immolation [ ]
Level 3 Prepared (4+2+1): dispel magic* [X], fireball [X] [X], haste [X] [ ], magic weapon (greater) [X], protection from energy [X]
Level 4 Prepared (3+2+1): dimensional anchor [X], dimension door [ ] [ ], secure shelter [ ], stoneskin* [ ]
Level 5 Prepared (3+1+1): break enchantment* [ ], dismissal [ ], passwall [X] [X], teleport [ ]
Level 6 Prepared (2+1+1): disintegrate [X], flesh to stone [X], greater dispel magic* [X] [X]
Protective Ward used: 0/10
Ongoing Effects:
mage armor (Pemsworth)
mage armor (self)
greater magic weapon (Hektir)
Shaken: -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks
protection from cold: 39/120
Pems nods back to Malavarius and throws another lightning bolt at the old wyrm!
for electricity damage!
Round 15, Init 11
AC = 23
HP = 52/138
Weapon Equipped = +1 Flaming Falchion
Condition(s) = Judgment, Resist Cold 10, Bless
Bane = 2/5
With the dragon holding its position, Tsin tries to end it before it ends her. "The trouble with ruling with fear, sooner or later those ignorant of your reputation and ability might try themselves against you. Pharamol sends his regards."
Attack- Bless, Bane, Judgment, Flank, Power Attack, first strike only
Damage- Bane, Fire, Precise Strike, Power Attack, first strike only
Quinn expels another wave of healing energy as he continues to exhaust his daily gifts from Cayden.
Round 16, Init 14
Zephtyr flaps down more to take advantage of flank with Tsin.
to hit; (flank,-fear,-PA)
magic damage.
to hit; (flank,-fear,-PA)
magic damage.
AC: 7 armor+2 dex+2 dex(form)+1 ring+5 barkskin+3 NA(form)= 30AC DR 5 bludgeoning
HP 114/123
Speed: Fly (60') perfect + 10' (Gr. Longstrider) = 70' fly perfect
[ dice]1d20+15+2+2-3[/dice] to hit; (flank,BOF,-PA)
[ dice]1d8+7+6[/dice] magic damage.
to hit; (-PA,-shaken)
magic damage.
+9 BAB +6 Str +1 amulet = +15 to hit
1d8 + 6 str damage +1 amulet = 1d8+7
Barkskin (extended-240 minutes)
Resinous Skin (extended-240 minutes)
Gr. Longstrider (12 hours)
Resist Cold (30) - 120 minutes
Echolocation - 120 minutes
Elemental Body 1 (druid lvl 6): Air elemental: If the form you take is that of a Small air elemental, you gain a +2 size bonus to your Dexterity and a +2 natural armor bonus. You also gain fly 60 feet (perfect), darkvision 60 feet, and the ability to create a whirlwind.
Elemental Body 2 (druid lvl 8):Air elemental: As elemental body I except that you gain a +4 size bonus to your Dexterity and a +3 natural armor bonus.
Elemental Body 3 (druid lvl 10):Air elemental: As elemental body I except that you gain a +2 size bonus to your Strength, +4 size bonus to your Dexterity, and a +4 natural armor bonus.
AC: 7 armor + 3 shield + 2 dex + 1 ring +3 barkskin =26
HP 123/123 - DR5 piercing
[ dice]1d20+16+1[/dice] to hit; (bless)
[ dice]1d6+6+2[/dice] magic damage.
+9 BAB +6 Str + 1 Mwk +1 magic = +16 to hit
[ dice]1d6+6+2[/dice] damage;
Endure Elements (24 hours)
Barkskin (extended-240 minutes)
Resinous Skin (extended-240 minutes)
Gr. Longstrider (12 hours)
Resist Cold (240 minutes)
Resist Fire (0 minutes) -Mal
Stoneskin (0) Mal
Mage Armor (+4)
Endure Elements
Tsin: 11
Hektir: 14
Quinn: 12
Malavarius: 4
Pemsworth: 25
Bone golems: 22
Dragon: 24
The dragon seems unaffected by Pems' magic, but roars in pain again as Tsin's blade drives home, wide gashes opening on his muzzle. Ignoring Hektir, he concentrates completely on the swordwoman, trying to end the deadly threat.
Dragon: 231 (no acid)
The dragon falls, as Tsin's blade cuts home on his ravaged body.
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Zephtyr pounds the dragon a few more times, trying to ensure the blasted thing's blasted death. When he finishes he floats down to the ground and changes back into his natural form, winded.
"That was not a good fight."
Hektir spits and catches his breath, happy to be alive and that others are alive.
"That was our worst fight yet. Remind me of the time that Quinn was surprised by a few slap goblins...ol' Quinn couldn't have been much more than 17 or so. He didn't even have his pubs yet, let alone any muscle...them slap goblins and Quinn slapped each other silly for hours, it seemed. I hadn't laughed so hard in years."
Tsin sees her life flash before her eyes, moments before the dragon succumbs to its wounds. She checks herself, then studies the dragon for signs of imminent implosion. If there doesn't seem to be an immediate threat, she moves to the double doors, and posts herself there as guard, hoping no one of significance heard the lord's death knells.
She checks the door for ways of barring it against vagabond guards.
"That was our worst fight yet. Remind me of the time that Quinn was surprised by a few slap goblins...ol' Quinn couldn't have been much more than 17 or so. He didn't even have his pubs yet, let alone any muscle...them slap goblins and Quinn slapped each other silly for hours, it seemed. I hadn't laughed so hard in years."
Tsin's face contorts a moment, as she hears the tracksmage discussing Quinn's naivete with various saloons and taprooms, before she realizes that Hektir has misspoken, and is indicating that he's been witness to Quinn's genitalia both pre- and post-pubescently. She misses the rest of the story, guarding herself mentally from any images that arise subsequently.
"In this instance, we knew Yrax would be a difficult confrontation, Hektir. Of course it was horrible. Can we leverage his death to clear the hold now? I'm imagining that there are still several difficult fights still left within this structure, before we find the bearskin rug."
For a moment, she can't help but picture Quinn, naked and prone on a bearskin rug, the bear's head mercifully positioned to obstruct his hairless dangles.
"Those slap goblins had it coming!" Quinn fumes, "Always spilling my beer when their slap fights crashed into our table. I gave them a real slap fight and after hours of devotion Cayden gifted me with the Holy slap of Chaos." Quinn holds forth his hand like it's a holy relic, then mimics slapping the slap goblins.
Still brandishing his slapping hand, Quinn looks over the body of Yrax.
"That was one dragon and these lands are full of them. Let's find that rug and get back to the hut."
Pems lets out a long sigh and drops to the ground, looking at the white scars across his body from the many icy wounds he sustained and then healed. "I don't think I want to meet another dragon. If this thing has a mate, I'm leaving. Baba Yaga can rot." He sits like that for a few moments, then sighs. "And of course we have to continue. I'll search the treasury."
Pems searches for the rug.
Malavarius chuffs as the dragon falls. "Miserable dragons." He then leans forward, his hands placed on his knees and breathes heavily for several long moments. "That was closer than I'd have liked. Good grief!"
He then turns around and starts poking around in the vault as well, casting a spell to aid in the search.
Hektir goes back to helping with identifications (see previous rolls) and storing the loot.
"Maybe we go back out the way we came...or Mal bampfs us out, then we can come back on the morrow. That fight took a lot out of us," Hektir opines as he gathers loot and magic.
Tsin discovers that the massive doors to the warlord's nest can be closed and barred, and is able to do so with Hektir's help.
As you close the doors, you realize that the icy obelisk in the room outside is in fact an ice elemental.
Afterward, as Quinn attends your wounds, Hektir resumes identifying the various magical items -- adding to the gloom blade, dragonbone divination sticks, drinking horn of bottomless valor and manual of war an oil of magic vestment, a potion of good hope, a staff of journeys and a scroll of hallucinatory terrain. A glass ring remains unidentified.
Pems and Mal are able to find -- among a variety of other things -- a brown bearskin among the other exotic hides and furs, none of which appear to be from Golarion.
"Ah! This must be the bearskin rug we need for the hut. I don't image there are too many bears on Triaxus, after all. Splendid!"
"Now, what about these other skins and such? Hmmm. Very strange."
Perception
"Sure, wrap all the gold in those skins. Let's get what we can carry and get out of here," Hektir says, pulling out his Rimeblade. He uses it to cut the head off the dragon and adds it to the loot to be taken out of here.
"Mal, did you want to teleport us out? Or are we going the way we came?"
"Well, I'd prefer to teleport the lot of us as well as the dragon back to Spurhorn, but the dragon's too big, I'm afraid. And headless or not, there are magics strong enough to bring the warlord back if his followers have a mind for it. Either way, I've only enough left in me to weave one such spell today. No bouncing back and forth, unfortunately."
"Is that dragon wearing jewelry?" Pems casts detect magic and begins systematically removes the jewelry from the dead dragon. Also his horns. And his teeth. And his heart. Because Pems doesn't want this sucker coming back from the dead and a heart seems really important to that process.
As Pemsworth approaches Yrax's head with a blade drawn, Malavarius' complexion pales and he blurts in alarm, "Oh no, not again! Don't eat its eyes this time, Pemsworth! Good grief, that was disturbing enough the first time, lad."
Tsin waits, expecting the powerful magics to bring their current quest to its conclusion. "If we've found what we came for..." The butcher hopes one of them finishes her sentence.
"Hey, look at this!"
"What?" Hektir lopes over to see what Quinn found.
Pems laughs, covered in blood. "I'm not eating its eyes, though the a@!@!%%% deserves it. I'm cutting out its heart and taking it with us. If this bugger tries to come back from the dead, I'm pretty sure there's some nasty stuff I can do with Baba Yaga's hut and his heart. And I want the insurance."
Yrax wears four huge ruby-studded bracers, a gold serpentine draconic armband, and two gold draconic torcs, but none of them radiate magic. Pems does notice an aura coming from a coffer near his sleeping nest, however.
Mal, even with Pems' help, you're not really able to tell what's of general value in the hoard besides the obvious.
"I'm not eating its eyes, though the a*~@#@%* deserves it. I'm cutting out its heart and taking it with us. If this bugger tries to come back from the dead, I'm pretty sure there's some nasty stuff I can do with Baba Yaga's hut and his heart. And I want the insurance."
Tsin wrinkles her nose at the halfling, as he turns savage/cannibal again. Such a large bloodlust for such a little thing. She continues to wait for their departure.
"Sure, wrap all the gold in those skins. Let's get what we can carry and get out of here," Hektir says, pulling out his Rimeblade. He uses it to cut the head off the dragon and adds it to the loot to be taken out of here.
"Mal, did you want to teleport us out? Or are we going the way we came?"
Quinn starts removing the jewelry from Yrax and displaying each piece to the party as he wipes away the blood. "Look Hektir, we could wear matching torcs, we'd be the flashiest adventurers in the guild hall."
"Or maybe I can trade one for a good wife? You think?" Hektir helps himself to one of the items of jewelry. "Get myself back to summer, get me a wife, and just you know...drink and life and make babies. That'll be good, won't it? No more cold?"
Pems finishes his butchery, shaking his head at Quinn and Hektir's summery romance. He stops for a moment, trying to envision what the baby that had Hektir and Quinn as parents would look like, then shudders.
What a hellish thing to wish upon the world...
"I'm ready when you guys are."
"Well, as I said, I've only got the one bit of magic left to me today to whisk us all away from here. We're sure we have accomplished and acquired all we came for? Because it'll be near to a day before I can bring us back if not."
Quinn, now draped in massive, gaudy jewelry as he dons the rest of the dragon's baubles, looks ready to return home."I think we've found what we needed here, let's escape this frozen place."
"If we're certain that bearskin hails from Golarion, I think we're done here. I don't think we need to clear out the hold, to attain the reassurance. Granted, I'll be supremely vexed if, upon return, the Hut fails to comply."
Tsin continues to look ready for departure.
"Then we come back tomorrow and kill the dragon all over again. It'll be fun, like this tale I heard once of this guy who was stuck doing the same day over and over again for YEARS! Also he was haunted by ghosts while playing this odd game involving sticks and balls and holes and an angry dire gopher. I may have dreamed all that..."
"I'm certain we should go now...with as much as we can carry, then return to clean up the rest of the messes," Hektir opines yet again.
"That battle wiped us out."
Tsin, grab that brute's head while we're at it. Might look good on a pike at least. With a nod, Malavarius gathers the group around him and weaves the magics that will take them to Spurhorn. He allows the wards around the place to redirect them to the dungeon, and as soon as they arrive he blurts the golem's deactivation phrase.
"Ah. Here we are then. Let's tell Pharamol of our success. If the legion here can muster an offensive, we might have an easier time slipping in the back again, as it were."
Tsin does as the codger bids, picking up the head of Yrax, and welcoming the abandoning of Ivoryglass. Arriving back in Spurhorn, she takes a moment to understand the location, and moaning raspily. When Malavarius explains himself, she doesn't object immediately.
Setting down the dragon's head, she stretches a little, working out the soreness in her arms, before picking it up again, and moving forward into Spurhorn to cross paths with Pharamol. She'll start by setting the head down at his feet.
Pharamol looks shocked for a minute at Tsin's arrival and her gruesome package. His eyes seem to travel from the swordswoman down to Yrax's head several times before he realizes what he's looking at and his jaw drops into a wide smile.
"You did it?" he asks. "You defeated Yrax? I ..."
He seems at a loss for words as around him dragonkin and Triaxians begin celebrating at the realization of what you've accomplished.
Finally, Pharamol lets out an explosive breath.
"I'd hardly dared hope you'd be successful even after what you've done here, but truly you are heroes, and your name shall be celebrated across the Mandate!"
Pems glows. "Yep, we're big damn heroes. Now can I get a bath? I reek like dead dragon and you're all a little too tall for my tastes. Bath? Which way?"
"I'd hardly dared hope..."
"Their literal head has been hewn off, so I wonder what you will do, given this turn of events. How soon would a second-in-command assume Yrax's warlord title, and you are in the same position?" Tsin measures Pharamol, for the little celebrations are often short-lived.
"You'll need to be quick, the lass is right. The deed's only just been done and the rest of Ivoryglass likely remains ignorant of it."
He nods to Pems: "You are free to use the chambers you previously had for as long as you wish; it's the very least we can do."
He turns his attention to Tsin.
"I'm not sure," he answers her. "He's ruled for centuries, so I would assume it would take some time, if it happens at all. While we will be ready for the worst, I hope his army might fall apart without him, hopefully torn apart as his generals squabble. With Malesinder dead too, and his army here defeated, they may not be ready to try another incursion until the seasons have turned again."
"You don't intend to rout them from their foothold in Ivoryglass? Hmmm. Interesting."
Pems smiles at the offer of a bath. "Wait, Yrax didn't have a mate, right? Like we're not going to be fighting off a big old female dragon, are we?"
"I'm not sure..."
Strangely enough, this satisfies Tsin. She held Pharamol in the same esteem as many warlords, Yrax included, who claim to know everything, brushing off the public perceptions that they might not. Pharamol, for all his failings, is at least conscious of what remains an unknown.
"We are grateful for your assistance, General. If it please you, this weapon has been retrieved from the crevasse, a Longspear set against cold dragons. The adlets may warm to you, should you present yourself with it publicly, as it is associated with one of their fallen ancestors. I only pray that where we're going next, we'll have no need of it. It is quite the weapon."
Tsin extends the Dragon Bane Thawing Longspear to Pharamol. She hopes that their generosity might loosen Pharamol's pursestrings in whatever reward might be coming their way, following what must be a large banquet this evening to celebrate.
"My thanks," he says. "Perhaps we can forge some sort of peace with them too, or at least an alliance. We don't have the forces to mount an offensive of our own, but perhaps we can support others' actions against the Drakelands.
"And, no, Yrax, had no mate that I know of. That would likely have required him to trust much more."