Illthir circles around and takes a swipe at the "back" of the figure. It was a bit hard to tell which end was which but... Other side?
Round 1:
"Cool it? You mean, it's vulnerable to cold?", Alia inquires of Dool, but doesn't wait for an answer, instead pointing a finger at the Golem, firing a Ray of Frost at it.
With some help from Dool's haste spell, Serena manages to ship the golem, while the wizard Fergus manages to prod out a few panes with his weapon. Durgan connects once but for less effect than he had hoped. Alia's spells go wide as she tries to avoid her allies involved in the melee. Matheus tries to shield her and the other casters in the party with fancy blade-work. Dool clears out of the room, while Longtooth launches another attack at the thing's flank shattering a few more panes.
The creature swings it's glass sword about in a reaping arc opening huge gashes in Illthir and Matheus both.
Round 4(ish)! (Theme ♬)
The Bold May Act!
_________________
__ Alak Dool
__ Durgan -3 hp (corrected)
__ Fergus
__ Serena
__ Illthir -17 hp, bleed 4
__ Alia -22 hp
__ Longtooth
__ Matheus -16 hp, bleed 6
__ Stained glass golem -68 hp
Durgan again accepts the Raging Song and tries to smash the golem to pieces.
Fergus allows the inner flames of anger stocked by the song to take hold as he stabs at the creature again.
Ow! The song was approaching its last verse - Illthir just hoped there would be room for an encore and not a swan song. She steeled herself and swung at the angry piece of art. Die?!
After striking, Illthir takes as step back out of the range of the monster.
"This better be worth it over some arrows", Alia states to no one in particular, but in Dools general direction, as she fires another freezing Ray at the Golem, taking some time to correct her aim and waiting until no one was in a position to block her shot.
Serena controls her emotions, mastering her feelings rather than letting the song work its magic.
KRAK! Whiff! Wiff! Wiff!
Ow! The song was approaching its last verse - Illthir just hoped there would be room for an encore and not a swan song. She steeled herself and swung at the angry piece of art. Die?!
There is another faint Wiff followed by a second loud KRAK!
"This better be worth it over some arrows", Alia states to no one in particular, but in Dools general direction, as she fires another freezing Ray at the Golem, taking some time to correct her aim and waiting until no one was in a position to block her shot.
The precisely aimed ray of cold seems to slow the creature!
Allowing Serena to come in and clank! hit it !
With his sword held aloft it is hard to see Longtooth smile in the shadows.
Even slowed the golem manages to turn quick enough to provide a too narrow target for most of the old rogue's blows to land squarely.
The golem turns on it's remaining foes. It's sword arm grinds slowly upward casting a colorful pattern over Serena. At the apex of its movement the glass arm comes free and falls to the floor in big glass chunks that shatter more of its lower structure until at last the entire thing collapses in a noisy heap .
The darkness continues to persist.
RESULTS!
_________________
__ Alak Dool
__ Durgan -3 hp
__ Fergus
__ Serena
__ Illthir -19 hp, bleed 4
__ Alia -22 hp
__ Longtooth
__ Matheus -22 hp, bleed 6
"Well that didn't seem so hard." Alak Dool says from just outside the doorway.
"..Yeah.." Illthir sighs looks down. She was *fairly* sure the glass shard knight had crashed. Even if that wasn't the case they'd hardly be helpful leaking their bodily fluids all over the place. Unfortunately she wasn't entirely unfamiliar with such situations; giving herself a few more moments at least. Wasn't sure about Matheus though so let's start there.
Fighting the pain and worrying flow of red liquid out of her wound Illthir grabs a scroll of Cure Light Wounds from her handy box and attempts to use it at Matheus.
Seeing it mildly successful she attempts to repeat the process for herself.
"Welp. Let's agree to disagree." Illthir notes sourly as she emerges from her tactical retreat/panicked hiding place. She wasn't in the greatest of shapes even before all this; now she could add exhaustion and injury to her list of complaints.
"The amount of preparations that went into making basically every location on the premises a kill zone astonishes me. By what you told me nowhere seems to be safe. We can't continue recklessly - so far we have not encountered any roaming dangers but ran into them. We should do the smart thing, establish some sort of safe zone, rest up, heal, then venture out and look for other survivors. At this point, I believe everybody who was attacked either is dead already, or was smart enough to stay in place and wait for rescue. Which we can't provide if we perish first.", Alia states while staying safely away from the sharp-edged remains of the glass golem. "And we should all stay together. Wandering off alone seems likely to be a death sentence for most who would try. Lets hunker down and reflect on our options and next steps - and contemplate our recent experiences."
"And the door?" Longtooth says hitching a thumb toward the room's locked door. "That thing was guarding something. My nose is sure of it."
"I'm half expecting it to bite us to be honest." Illthir replies to Longtooth. Though the man might be right - he certainly had the experience. Most of the places had only had one main course? Hmm. Wasn't sure if she'd want to risk her limbs though. "Maybe just a peek ... And then we can mend our wounds."
"I trust your experience on that, Longtooth. We already defeated this guardian, may as well take a look. But if there's more unpleasantness behind that door, I say we back up and regroup."
As she speaks, Alia unslings Zokons bow, notching an arrow and aiming in the general direction of the door, not drawing the string back just yet.
Longtooth sets to work on the lock.
And a moment later there is an audible click.
He gives the door a tug. It resists at first before swinging open upon a vault chamber filled with prone humanoids.
"Uhh what?" Illthir looks over the shoulders of her companions into the vault chamber. That wasn't what she had expected ... Not at all. But uhhm...
Laying within the party finds:
Sandralane of Rahadoum,
Imeckus Stroon,
Samuel Renault,
And Lord Varn!
All of them crumpled against the walls and door as if felled in the act of trying to escape.
"It's a trap!" Illthir yells and grabs Matheus collar. She didn't actually know that - but everything else had been a trap so far! Her eyes narrowed and she glared at the room. "Probably... Just give us one moment to check."
"I agree - most certainly not what I had expected...are they...gone?"
Alia returns the arrow to the quiver, then retrieves her wand of detect magic, burning a charge before taking another look through the open door, without stepping inside the room.
|
"I agree - most certainly not what I had expected...are they...gone?"
Alia returns the arrow to the quiver, then retrieves her wand of detect magic, burning a charge before taking another look through the open door, without stepping inside the room.
Matheus looks up from Lord Varn's side and says "He's alive!"
"Well, there's that, at least."
"Serena, can you channel to heal? My powers are exhausted."
"Let's see if we can get them out as well ..." Illthir wasn't quite convinced something terrible wouldn't happen. But maybe they were in luck. Or the glass knight had been dreadful enough!
"Let's see if we can get them out as well ..."
And they can!
Serena gathers those who are injured around her and calls upon the light of Sarenrae.
"And that's all I can do," she says apologetically.
"Air. At last." says a groggy Lord Varn from the floor. "I had thought never to see my home and child again."
The others in the room slowly regain consciousness.
After helping dragging out the last of the trapped, Illthir sighs in relief when the healing energy washes over her. That felt... Better. "Thank you Serena." Also that nothing terrible seemed to happen right now.
At the sword-lords comment she glances at the door. Had it been sealed that tightly? Hmm. Impressive workmanship if that was the case. This would have had to been planned a long time - or this place had been warped by dark magic as well. Which seemed to be the most obvious answer. Didn't really matter right now though.
"Welcome to the world of the mostly living." Illthir offers some water as they stir. "How soon can you walk?"
"We need to find a safe place to rest. We have no good options.
There would likely be more attacks and ambushes on our way out. And yet resting on this estate poses its own challenges.
I think Ser Richard is long since dead and replaced by the undead that Fergus and I (mostly Fergus) destroyed."
"We don't know what became of his seneschal, who claimed to be Szam Tass. That was an illusion, but there may have been a real being as well.
They (the one or two of them) seemed to be upset about the earlier Charter holders stealing from some old temple of Erastil in the woods. And for that, they went through an immense amount of effort to gather all the potential settlers of the Stolen Lands and try to wipe them out.
A golem?? That is no trivial thing to construct. It takes time and money.
Add to that the services of an Efreet.
A huge number of monsters.
The animated suits of armor that slew other guardsmen.
This was planned for a long time. So any place that we choose to rest could also be a death-trap; we'll have to search carefully before making camp."
After helping dragging out the last of the trapped, Illthir sighs in relief when the healing energy washes over her. That felt... Better. "Thank you Serena." Also that nothing terrible seemed to happen right now.
At the sword-lords comment she glances at the door. Had it been sealed that tightly? Hmm. Impressive workmanship if that was the case. This would have had to been planned a long time - or this place had been warped by dark magic as well. Which seemed to be the most obvious answer. Didn't really matter right now though.
They (the one or two of them) seemed to be upset about the earlier Charter holders stealing from some old temple of Erastil in the woods. And for that, they went through an immense amount of effort to gather all the potential settlers of the Stolen Lands and try to wipe them out.
Alia looks around:"It is good that you are alive, but not everybody is accounted for. Alas, our resources are spent. Drasven is right in that we have to be cautious when resting, but rest, we'll need. We should also align what we learned. Breathe, drink some water, collect yourselves, then tell us what you remember before you awoke in this chamber.", Alia addresses the survivors, avoiding eye contact with Imeckus.
"Why *does* someone have a vault of papers?" Guess books could be worth a pretty penny. Especially if they contained stuff you didn't want anyone to see like "evil plots to trap people in hedge mazes". Hmm. Illthir takes a quick peek at the paperwork just in case. It was *probably* correspondence, records or deals of some sort. But maybe there'd be clues?
"Why *does* someone have a vault of papers?" Guess books could be worth a pretty penny. Especially if they contained stuff you didn't want anyone to see like "evil plots to trap people in hedge mazes". Hmm. Illthir takes a quick peek at the paperwork just in case. It was *probably* correspondence, records or deals of some sort. But maybe there'd be clues?
The little bit she looks at seems to relate to the estate's income (from farmland, vineyards, sheep, other vassals, hosting young noblemen interested in learning bladework from a Swordlord, etc...) and taxes (going back more than two centuries).
Alia looks around:"It is good that you are alive, but not everybody is accounted for. Alas, our resources are spent. Drasven is right in that we have to be cautious when resting, but rest, we'll need. We should also align what we learned. Breathe, drink some water, collect yourselves, then tell us what you remember before you awoke in this chamber.", Alia addresses the survivors, avoiding eye contact with Imeckus.
After a quick glance around his surrounding Imeckus Stroon says "Where is my sister?" The way he says it makes it sound like a command as much as a question.
....
"And the rest of the men?" adds Varn. His answer comes from Matheus's downcast countenance. "I see.... And the others? The Lord Mayor? Lord Orlovsky?"
"Is anyone injured?" asks the cleric from Rahadoum.
"The ones we've found are upstairs." She wasn't quite brave enough to add "go fish!" to Stroon's question. But he was (probably?) smart enough to put two and two together.