"Right, then," Lym says, and she makes a grand gesture. "Dwarves first."
Looking around as if double checking to make sure he is the only dwarf, Thordak looks back to Lym with a proud grin. "Don't mind if I do," he says as he walks with supreme confidence to the door. Barring any objections, he opens it and looks to see what lies behind said door.
”Yes, it’s always important to have somebody in front whose head we can see over.”
Rows of thick wooden worktables occupy the center of this long chamber. Bookcases lining the walls hold hundreds of books and scrolls. Crates next to or pushed under the worktables appear to be filled with an odd variety of mundane items, such as rope, sticks, sacks, tools, and cookware. A dog on one of the tables looks dead, though its hind end appears to be made of some kind of metal. A few other animals pace back and forth in small metal cages—a house cat, a few rats, a snake, and a small white-faced monkey.
Standing in the back of the room is a man...or it would be a man if it didn't appear to be made of pure silver. He leans on his staff as he watches you through his silver eyes.
"Pray, do tell me to which I owe the pleasure of my interrupted research." he says in a metallic tone. "Which of you is responsible? I only ask so that I may know who dies first."
"Before we get into introductions," Lym says, "I'd just like to say something. Clearly you are a scholar of incredible lineage, and you may or may not be aware, but Thassilon is dust and ruins pecked over by crows, villains and historians. That being said, is there any way at all that we might avoid hostilities at this point and achieve some kind of equitable exchange, instead?"
Praxim scans the silver man to see if he registers as evil.
"That depends on you." the silver man says. "What are you willing to give me in exchange for your lives? As for introductions, I am Ordikon, Lord of the Vault of Greed. I am Master here, and I served Izomandakus who was Master before me. The Lord of Greed rules us all. For ten thousand years I have served, awaiting the day Lord Karzoug arises from the runewell."
He pauses looking over his work.
"That day has arrived."
"Well, we could provide you with details about the modern world," Veronica says. "You've been out of touch for a long time. Surely you'd like to know a little of what's been happening before you try to re-integrate yourself? An exchange of information seems a pretty equitable idea to me. I'm sure we could also discuss all kinds of other things. Magical knowledge, combat techniques, music, philosophy, you name it."
"And you are mistaken about one thing. We do not bargain for our lives. We bargain for yours. We have already visited and defeated the others guardians of this place. You are the last. Be reasonable this day and you can remain that way."
Lym focuses her attention on the silver man and readies her arcane energies.
Ordikon's eyes narrow at Veronica's suggestion. "The modern world does not interest me." he says warily. "All will be remade in Karzoug's image when he returns. Of that be certain. As for the bargaining," he says to Tomaru, "you are nothing. No one. You have defeated the others? A trifling. Who are they but followers of the weaker lords? Who are they but paltry lapdogs, hoping to achieve the greatness of the Lord of Greed?"
He laughs, a heavy sound not unlike the intonations of giant temple bells. "No, be assured you bargain for your lives here in this Vault. I am entertained by the offer of the young lady here. I will give you this: I am Ordikon, as I have said. I have performed the perfect transformation of my body into what you see here. I have existed for ten thousand years, and I know much that I can teach you. All you need to do is teach me everything you know regarding the arcane arts, and I will let you live."
He smiles at you, the arrogant smile of one who wields great power.
"And you must bend your knee and swear allegiance to the Lord of Greed."
"There's always that one thing that's a deal breaker." Tomaru gives Praxim a Bit of Luck.
"Well, you try to be nice..." Veronica says with a shrug. "And perfect body? Seriously? No accounting for some tastes, I suppose."
”Agreed,” Praxim says, ”He doesn’t even have a beard, right Thordak?”
Seeing the casters stripping away protections, and feeling himself getting luckier than a defrocked monk stumbling upon a secret Callistria temple, Praxim whispers to Rexil, ”Same trick as you used with the flying demons,” and he activates smite evil and begins loosing arrows.
(PBS, commanding, smite, rapid, deadly aim)
(PBS, commanding, smite, holy, deadly aim)
If silver dude is large-sized, add +1 to attack and +2 to Damage for each of those.
Rexil readies a rock to throw if the guy tries casting.
"Enough banter, I think. Aranea arcanorum rescindenda est!" Lym shouts, and hurls a spell at Ordikon to strip away any magical protections he might have surrounded himself with.
In case of
As per the planning session Tomaru will lead off with to strip away defenses.
"How do you like this?" Aurora will cast Baleful Polymorph (DC 26) against the silver man to turn him into a turtle. She'll add in a Quickened Glitterdust (DC 20) to hopefully blind him.
Ordikon's eyes narrow at Veronica's suggestion. "The modern world does not interest me." he says warily. "All will be remade in Karzoug's image when he returns. Of that be certain. As for the bargaining," he says to Tomaru, "you are nothing. No one. You have defeated the others? A trifling. Who are they but followers of the weaker lords? Who are they but paltry lapdogs, hoping to achieve the greatness of the Lord of Greed?"
He laughs, a heavy sound not unlike the intonations of giant temple bells. "No, be assured you bargain for your lives here in this Vault. I am entertained by the offer of the young lady here. I will give you this: I am Ordikon, as I have said. I have performed the perfect transformation of my body into what you see here. I have existed for ten thousand years, and I know much that I can teach you. All you need to do is teach me everything you know regarding the arcane arts, and I will let you live."
He smiles at you, the arrogant smile of one who wields great power.
"And you must bend your knee and swear allegiance to the Lord of Greed."
Raising an eyebrow in curiosity, "'Bend our knees and swear allegiance'?" he repeats, pondering that a moment before, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! GOOD ONE!" The dwarf laughs until he finally realizes the silver man wasn't joking. "Oh wait. Ya mean ya weren't foolin'? Well that's not very friendly. Ah well. Looks like I'll be meltin' ya down and either spendin' ya or makin' me a nice set of armor out of ya! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! It's funny 'cause it's true! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! okay, 'nuff laughin'." The dwarf pulls out his Commanding longaxe. "Yer really not that funny anyway, silver lad. Time ta die. Like... finally. Ten thousand years is just waaaaaaaay to long ta be livin'. 'Sides, ya must be really bored. I mean, what by Torag's hammer have ya been doin' down here all this time? Nothin'? Just... standin' there lookin' at yer papers? I'd recommend ya gettin' out more but it's just too late for all that now," he says as a matter of fact, shrugging.
Veronica twirls into a gentle dance as she casts a spell.
It's a twist of irony that what does in the Master of the Vault of Greed is not the arrows from Praxim, nor the Dispel Magics cast upon him, but a transmutation. For ten thousand years Ordikon has practiced the art of transmuting, even changing himself into an immortal mithril being. Now he is no more than a silver turtle, flat on it's shell, legs waving futilely in the air.
”Did we do that, or did he? Assuming we did, if he dies like that, is all his magical stuff gone?”
Aurora giggles. "The great and powerful transmuter done in by a transmutation."
"The spell can be dispelled."
Lym … bursts into laughter. She even doubles over with the intensity of it. "That," she manages to say, "that was..." Then she has to laugh again.
When she is finally finished, the Wizard wipes tears from her eyes. "Hoooo, that's amazing," she says. "Well, I say we take him, keep him like that and put him in a terrarium. He'll make quite the centerpiece for Castle Lym. Tie him up and shove him in a bag for now, poke in some air-holes. Then we ransack the place and move on."
”Is he still...aware? Is he a man in a mithral turtle’s body, or is he just a turtle with the mind of a reptile?”
Veronica gapes for a moment and then laughs as well. "Wow, his immense ego was definitely not earned. I agree with Lym. Keep him as a pet." She laughs some more.
"If the spell is dispelled, won't he return at full potency? Plus he'll have all his items available to him. I'm pretty sure it's not wise to keep him as a pet, especially not in Castle Lym.'
Veronica frowns. "Yeah, that's a good point. What do we do with him then? Kill him? It's hard to look at him as anything other than a poor, defenseless turtle right now."
Praxim scans the turtle to see if it’s still evil.
"Let's loot the place, then leave him. He'll have a job righting himself, let alone avoiding the mephits. If we take everything he could use to restore himself, that should be that. He clearly doesn't have the means to... heh, 'hand' now, or he'd have used it."
”Again, I ask, what about what was on him? I think you know me well enough by now to know that I’m not a treasure junkie, but he have many hard battles ahead, and gear he was wearing could prove to be useful.”
Ready to bring the pain to the metal man, Thordak watches the tall mithral man shrink down to the size of a turtle. Taken aback by the event, he calmly sheathes his weapon. He looks over at Lym as she busts out laughing before turning back to the flailing turtle. He stares at it a moment as the party goes back and forth on what to do with it. Shaking his head and rolling his eyes he walks over to the turtle, bends down and flips him over. "There ya go, mithral turtle lad. Better be glad yer a turtle. I'd've cut ya into fairly even pieces and made all kinds of armor and weapons out of ya. Aye it would've been grand times. Ah well." The dwarf sighs before rising and looking around. "Alright, they'll be no killin' the turtle lad. At least, not while he's a turtle anyway. Now... let's see if this place has anything useful so we can keep movin'."
"Alright," Lym says, as she claps her hands. "Less chatter, more looting. Let's strip this place of everything valuable and/or useful. Silver tortoise over there boasted he'd been researching magic for thousands of years; his spellbooks are going to be a treasure trove for our battle against Greedy. Look out for magical traps, though."
You estimate that the research books scattered around this room are worth a total of 10,000 gp. They detail various experiments and partial notes on the conundrum of transmuting lead into gold.
Also present here are Ordikon’s spellbooks; a wizard who examines these finds them to be particularly unusual in that many of the notes and formulae within are redundant. Spells generally take up twice as much room as they need to in these books, as if the wizard who recorded them had a habit of repeating himself in various ways without realizing it.
I guess through this next door. They still need to find something that looks like talismans of greed to protect them in the circle.
"We should try to shift this lot to Castle Lym for closer study. Rexil, would you mind carrying the books?" Lym asks, politely.
Rexil looks around for something to contain the books. Spotting the sacks, he begins tossing in books until he sees Lym’s pained expression, at which point he starts placing them in the sacks with exaggerated care.
As Rexil goes behind a Thordak, pulling books off the shelves, Praxim tries to subtly point to the dwarf and a sack, but, fortunately, Rexil is just too dense to get the meaning of the paladin’s rather juvenile prank.
This wide hall is floored in polished wooden planks, its walls covered in colorful jade tiles. The ceiling is made of lustrous stone that reflects the light of three decorative lanterns that brightly illuminate ten gleaming golden statues of men and women in various poses of combat readiness that stand along the walls.
EDIT: an open hallway exits this room at the far end. A deep cyan light flickers from the furthest reach of this passage.
"Now taking wagers that the statues will animate and attack us as soon as we enter the room," Lym says.
As Rexil goes behind a Thordak, pulling books off the shelves, Praxim tries to subtly point to the dwarf and a sack, but, fortunately, Rexil is just too dense to get the meaning of the paladin’s rather juvenile prank.
"Now taking wagers that the statues will animate and attack us as soon as we enter the room," Lym says.
"I'll take that bet!" the dwarf cries. He then pauses a moment and considers it. "Wait a minute. Which part am I bettin' on again? Is it the...," he says, mumbling through it once again. Eventually he just shrugs and says, "You're on! Now... let's go take us down some inanimate objects." He then turns and begins to head down the hallway before abruptly stopping. Turning back to the others, "Inanimate objects that are animate, I should say. No, wait! Inanimate objects that are goin' ta become animate, is what I be meanin'. Yes... that's it. Finally! Man I never seem ta be able ta get that right the first time. I can't understand why either. It's definitely a mystery," he mumbles to himself as he starts back up and begins heading down the hallway barring any objections.
How wide is the hall? How long is it?
My thoughts are to either use Stoneshape (from the Staff of Heaven and Earth) or Wall of Stone (from scrolls) to create a 'safe' corridor for us to walk through.
"By the way, we should kill that turtle."
Thordak heads down the hallway, mumbling to himself...
Nothing happens.
Lym cautiously starts to float after him.
"Leave the turtle," she says. "It's... Well, just a turtle now."
”I have to agree with Tomaru. Karzoug might be able to undo this enchantment and then he’s not helpless anymore. Anyway, won’t it just turn to dust an die as soon as we leave like Thordak’s naked buddy?”
Tomaru begins smashing the turtle until it's dead.