Also in a low voice, Alþórel agrees
"I'm afraid I'm little use to you in here Amelia, every glimpse of the future I have suggests I should stay well back."
Looking at the group
"It is up to you now."
Nethan looks back to Al with concern, "Esta mellonamin ar' tuupa lye n'alaquel"
The trip wire is set up quite obviously, Amelia notices there are a few false steps up the stairs that if they jumped over they would fall through. The trap seems to be hiding another trap as it were. Though climbing over it should be fairly easy now that Amelia knows what's there.
Nethan laughs quietly while looking at Amelia's performance past the trap, "Amelia, not everyone can do cart wheels and drank an ale at the same time. Can you make the trap inert?" Nethan smiles at Amelia, "Remember my last dance performance?"
"Maaaybe we could just make a makeshift bridge over the wire and the loose planks? With a bench or something..."
Elise was fairly certain she could get over the gap, but as amusing the thought was of watching Nethan and Al fall straight trough - it didn't seem right. With a grin she laughs
"Or we could simply throw you!"
Playing along with the humor, "Yes Elise, you can throw me and excluding the landing, it only solves my problem" Nethan smiles and then swings at the trip wire from his maximum reach to cut the trip wire.
After the trap goes off or not without being in the way, he looks to Elise to see if she found something to lay across the stairs.
If she fails to find anything else to bridge the she will simply unhinge the door to the house.
"There!"
Nethan laughs at Elise impromptu door and nods, "I see you have been working hard all day at making our bridge." Nethan smiles.
Amelia and Nethan both snag the trap at the same time, once they do a large piece of the ceiling swings down trying to clobber Nethan in the face. Nethan just takes a step back to avoid it, thinking that wasn't a very subtle trap. However it slams into the roof making a very large thud. No doubt alerting someone or something. Elise giving up on rummaging the lower floor rips the door off the hinges, they can repace that right?, and puts it over the false stairs and they all run up.
The group arrives at the top floor and they see an Eldred with what appears to be a bow with runes adorned along the haft. There are two 'dogs' for a lack of a better term guarding his back. They are two black dogs that have ooze along their bodies and two tendrils sticking out each of their backs lashing out at the air.
The group gets ready to fight.
Nethan had a scared visage as the trap was sprung and shortly after.
After gaining his composure, he follows Elise over the makeshift door bridge.
Before the group enters the room, he speaks up but not too loud, "Wait a second while I prepare! Dreyyn is probably already ducking or evading his way over here! If it was you alone on top of the building, would you let someone take pot shots at you?"
[broken Elvish]"Ugly creature. The hounds too!"[/broken Elvish]
Not to let Amelia have all the action, Elise surges up and towards the Eldred and his hounds sword in hand. Whatever she can reach, she plunges her sharp blade into.
Nethan readies some spells as Amelia throws some stars, all bar one hitting the dog.
Amelia swings through cutting through the hounds as well. Two of the cuts go quite deep but not enough to hit vital organs.
Al doesn't quite know what those things are but he does know they are aberrations. Having studied a few in the past he can guess at their physiology. The two hounds in front of them are likely to be one being, two heads to one body. That body however might be physical or incorporeal. He can't tell which at the moment. All also surmises they have access to dimension door
Dreyyn will try to bust in a side window or skylight or something similarly dramatic, and provide flank (maybe not in the game +2 sense yet, but in the strategic sense). No sense in following the same path they took.
"Nethan! I think the hounds are extrusions of a single multidimensional aberration into four dimensional space!"
then for the others
"They'll be able to Teleport!"
As he speaks Alþórel draws White.
Dreyyn jumps through the window entering the fray from the flanks. The dogs' wounds begin to spread across the both of them
A scar that might have appeared on one now appears half on the other. They begin to regenerate their wounds and it powers something on their flesh. They form spines on their back with the build up and fire it at the group (sans Dreyyn).
Reflex half of DC 17. 14 damage full, 7 halved.
The Eldred takes his time, a magic begins to build up in his weapon. He looks to be bidding his time.
Back to the top of the round.
Elise groans as the sharp spines finds the chinks in her armour as well as her exposed limbs. She was never the one to dodge danger, but this time she feels as if she should have made an exception. But as always, the pain quickly drowned in the fires of fury.
"We'll have to make him reconsider his stance then!" she replies to Amelia. "I might have a sharp argument or two! Hah!"
With glee and no small amount of satisfaction Elise buried her sword to the hilt in the creature. With a quick jerk and twist she ripped the sword back out, spraying fluids and little chunks of flesh clearly meant to stay inside the beast all over the room.
Round 1
Nethan nods and smiles to Al trying not to draw too much attention during preparation.
Nethan just finished casting to look up just in time to dodge some of the natural projectiles, "Ouch!"
Round 2
Nethan casts Mythic Magic Missile at the hound Amelia is attacking, "Nil'Gnos ArCaniss!"
The creature's spikes slam into Alþórel, who staggers back, severely injured.
"It was enough, Elise!"
Furious, Alþórel strikes out with a ray of scorching heat
Dreyyn moves to flank with Elise.
Panthera on the Hunt maneuver, charge at +4 vice +2, and no AoOs.
Round 2
The entire party trying to end this quickly all attack a single hound. Dreyyn and Elise in a pincer movement slashing through the hound. 2 of Amelia's stars find the dogs flank and two spells are flung at the creature. It melts into the ground.
The runes on the Eldred weapon begins to change colour as the hint of a smile appears on his face.
The remaining hound splits into two both of them regenerating a bit of the damage they took. Though this time only one is able discharge some spines from the build up.
Reflex 15, 8 damage, half for 4
The Eldred now pulls an arrow back, the group sees the colour in the runes fade into the arrow that fires upon Elise.
If the attack hits Elise's touch AC by more than 10 she is nauseated for one round.
End of round.
ROUND 2
Caught off guard this time, Nethan is not able to dodge the spikes as well as last time, "Ouch!"
ROUND 3
Nethan casts a second volley of Mythic Magic Missile at dog #1, "Nil'Gnos ArCaniss!
Nethan nods, "I agree with Amelia, let's focus attacks on both dogs at the same time. Al, scorch the other dog."
"Bleh. Clearly not!" she laughs at the hound(s) attack. But when the arrow strikes, she merely grins in pain.
"Let's see if we can't split this creep into pet-sized chunks!" she yells and continues to hack the creature apart.
The second spray of spikes catches Alþórel again, and he stumbles back brutally wounded.
At Nethan's words he nods, once, and calls upon the last dregs of his power. Too dangerous to send rays into the violent melee, he calls upon his last spell to buy time for the group to kill the hounds
That done he doubles over in pain, desperately moving away
Dreyyn then tears into the creature with a two-handed thrust at the creature, drawing the blade back with an upward flourish.
Round 3
Dreyyn and Elise circle one of the dogs and cleaves it in two between them. Whatever is sustaining them is getting weaker. More energy reaches the Eldred's bow. He is about to draw back for another arrow but a large burst of sound reaches his ears as Alþórel's spell rings out.
The Eldred finds himself unable to finish his spell, he instead grabs a grappling hook and braces it on the window.
Amelia's stars fly all 4 of them striking the remaining dog. Nethan then throws a magical flurry of bolts that also strike the lingering dog. It looks rather battered though still standing. This time it spends the time to split into 2 dogs, surrounding the group. However you can tell it took a lot out of the creature to do that. They don't have the stamina to attack you right now, though their wounds are regenerating still.
Amelia thinks the hounds are trying to heal the incoming damage through dividing and conquering. The splitting of the hounds does seem to drain then but they look to be amplifying their regeneration by doing so. Each death also seems to power that bow of the Eldred's. Perhaps that is something important too.
Alþórel darts behind cover incase of another explosion, though with the hounds being quite so exhausted the precaution isn't needed... yet.
Nethan, raises his voice, we need to wear down both the hounds and archer at the same time. With that, Nethan casts his memorized and final Mythic Magic Missile, ""Nil'Gnos ArCaniss!"
This time, the missiles target #1 hound and the Eldred archer...
Elise sneered and looked down at the dog-ish creature. It seemed done - at least for the moment. She smiled. That meant she had a small but delicate window to extract some vengeance upon the archer! And it looks like he wants to leave - we can't have that can we?
"Please, stay a while!" she yelled out at the archer as she stepped away from the dog and dispatched her shield. With one swift motion she pounced the Eldred, not with blade but wicked claws. Using her size and height advantage she attempted to trap the poor sod and prevent him from escaping.
Elise laughed as she slashed and tore into the eldreds flesh beneath her.
Dreyyn acrobatically glides over to the archer as well, but instead of attacking him, he slashes the grappling cord/chain/rope to ensure that even if the archer slips from Elise's grasp, the grapnel will be of no use in an escape.
to avoid AoO
Round 4
The archer is still unsteady from the piercing scream, and is unable to do much about it. Unable to really stop the charging Elise, he takes a slash to the gut and is taken into her fierce embrace.
Dreyyn deftly moves out to the edge of the floor and cuts the rope down. Disabling any escape options the Eldred had. Nethan blasts one of the dogs as Amelia sends off three more star knives, two of them hitting their targets. The dogs melt away from the barrage of magic and knives, their magic entering the bow of the Eldred who is in a precarious position unable to wield his bow.
The remaining hound seems to ponder if it will take a desperate attempt to save his master. Instead it uses what little power it has left to dimension door away from combat. Leaving his master for dead.
Round 4
Nethan yells, "The remaining hound has teleported away and he is still dazed, let's subdue and capture the Eldred Archer!" Nethan moves in to grab his bow away from the archer but pauses for others to grapple the Eldred for obvious safety reasons. The archer may have the expertise to loose matches (fire arrows) at point blank range.
Elise groans in disappointment - she was clearly hoping to pound the eldred into the dirt a little longer after that trick he pulled. But after a short moment she relents with a sigh and ties the eldred down, taking great care to make sure his arms where firmly bound. She kicks his bow away and does a quick search for weapons before handing him over to the others for questioning.
"Al, tell him to answer or I'll go another round on him!"
Before Elise kicks the bow, Nethan takes the bow so it is not damaged. In addition, then grabs any weapons that she confiscates.
Elise grunts in disappointment over being deprived of the pleasure of both punching and kicking in such a short span of time!
Alþórel comes back, badly wounded.
"I don't like this. This feels... wrong. I will interpret for you Elise: I trust you to remember who you are, and that some means are not justified by their ends."
"But he started it!" Elise exclaims and points at the eldred. She sighs and shakes her head, cooling down a bit. "Where I come from mercy is a precious gift that must be handed out carefully - especially to those whom seek to slay your kin. Or else you perish. That is whom I am. Not some mewling southerner that dance with their mortal enemies at some frivolous ball."
"And look at you -" her tone softens a bit. "You're all torn up from those hound-creatures... Just another reason for us to *swiftly* deal with this archer before his hounds fetch his friends. Whom has that healing wand again?"
After taking the bow and weapons from Elise, Nethan pipes up, "Elise, when I saw the last hound leave, it had fear on its eyes as it looked at its master and then us. I seriously doubt it will be back."
Using his Circlet of Magic Legendary Magical Item, Nethan rejuvenates himself 10 hit points. Unfortunately, he can not use it on his friends.
Afterwards, he inspects the Eldred's bow and any other items that were stripped from him using spellcraft and detect magic ...