The other looks around at the four Pathfinders still visible on the rock as it slowly continues to move. Words slide out of the corpse’s throat as it clenches its bony fists.
Get…OUT!
Everyone but Crios and Kivuli need a DC 16 will save as you feel space itself shoving you somewhere else.
If you failed the Will save:
In an instant, you find yourselves staring at a different but familiar scene. Looking around, you realize the undead cultist’s burst has transported you back at the edge of the tunnels you so recently raced through. You’re standing on a ledge high up in the hollow cavern. Off in the distance, some 300 feet down, you see the crypt things and your companions still struggling on the rock as it drifts slowly away.
You should be able to climb down, but time is of the essence! (Or just jump, but without some sort of ‘snapping leaf’ that could be dangerous)
Initiative
Bless is up
Raging Song is up
Crios, frightened 1 round
Jade (need Will save) Green crypt thing
Red Crypt thing Keriassa (need Will save)
Kivuli 25/31
Professor 55/58, prone (need Will save)
Blanmieux 78/83 (need Will save)
Grasping the ground with her toes curled, Keriassa scoots back and launches a volley at the skeletal mage. The verses of her skald song become particularly grotesque as she spurs her companions to fight for their lives.
the song:
Widely is flung, warning of slaughter,the weaver’s-beam’s-web’t is wet with blood is spread now, grey, the spear-thing before, the woof-of-the-warriors which they fill with the red-warp-of-Grandal’s-banesman!
Is this web woven and wound of entrails, and heavy weighted with heads of slain; are blood-bespattered spears the treadles, iron-bound the beams, the battens, and arrows! Let us weave with our swords this web of righteous victory!
It's a Tale of Two Archers, as while Keriassa's shots fail to connect, Jades first shot pummels the crypt thing, enough so that her second easily finishes it off.
Blanmieux, you can spend your turn climbing down, jumping, or another set of actions if you would prefer.
Aasimar Staff Magus/Monk/Occultist 7: HP: 51/51 DR 5/blunt | AC 23(24),16T,18(19)FF, CMD:24 | Fort:+10*(15vs poison/disease) Ref:+8 Will:+8 | Init:+7, Perception:+11 | Arcane Pool: 4/7 |Mental Focus 5/6 |Condition:| Effects: Resist Energy 5 vs Acid/Cold/Electricity(Celestial), defending bone, barkskin,mage armor,antitoxin, antiplague
Crios continues his frantic flight from perceived peril. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Come on now. Calm yourself. Your friends need you.
With that thought, even as deep as it is, his breathing slows as he comes to a halt. He turns, the effects of the magical fear subsiding, and looks back on the scene that he fled. Oh damn. Well at least they dropped one.
The Professor avoids being shunted anywhere far and manages to right himself as he scrambles to his feet (move action to stand). He barely gains a few inches as he does so, though.
"Well, then."
Just green crypt-monster left, yes?
The Professor squints at the lone adversary remaining and opts to ask it a question.
"You're not... resistant or immune to fire, are you? Good."
As Blanmieux slowly makes his way down tot he rest of the party, the crypt thin is scorched by the professor's bolt. It begins to whirl towards the octogenarian, but the distraction lets the wayang get in a solid blow.
The undead spins towards the rogue and strikes out with both claws, hissing You will not get past. It will not be freed.
Bolts of force and stabs of metal further soften the last crypt thing, enough so that Jade’s pair of arrows (yet another aimed perfectly)bludgeon it until the undead falls.
COMBAT OVER!!!! (but…)
While the five of you catch your breath and begin to calm down, high above you Blanmieux continues to scamper down the ledges and face of the caverns’ edge towards you. However, your group’s rocky transport isn’t standing still, as it’s orbit begins to drift closer towards the central fortress – and away from the dangling ropes above!
Unless I’m missing something, Blanmieux’s strong enough to make his way 30 feet back down towards you each round. From 270 feet away, he should be back with the rest of the gang in 9 rounds. Unfortunately, the current pace of the rock’s movement waits for no man, and in 6 rounds those hanging ropes will be suspended over open air. I need to know how Blamnieux’s getting down. Just pure jumping and crashing at one point is an option (a possibly painful option), as are potential spells or items that could assist
The provided snapleaf proves its worth, and Blanmieux manages to gracefully touch down on the floating rock as it begins its journey drifting towards the central fortress.
Kicking at the bodies of the two slain crypt things, you see that amongst their tattered clothes are icons on a jagged dinosaur tooth – Ayrzul’s smbol. One still bears a dagger with the same symbol etched in its blade, though the weapon seems otherwise normal. Your rock slowly moves through the massive open cavern towards your destination, as if pulled there by some massive force. The air about you feels heavier as you move, the lightness to your bones and gear fading the closer you get to Aucturn’s Tear’s central building. We are entering a normal-gravity zone once more.
In the dim light, you see several other groups of Pathfinders had the same idea as they grab and stand on other rocks gravitating towards the fortress ahead. Dozens, if not hundreds of massive slabs orbit the place, each eventually closing enough to slam into the armored metal walls to further bury and encase the suspended sphere in a rocky shell. Periodically you notice a rock or two blasted back from their approach by a massive gust of air billowing from the fortress, but each gust seems weaker than the one before.
I’m out until tomorrow with IRL gaming, sleep, etc. Feel free to heal up: it will be several minutes of in-game time before you get close to the fortress
You drift closer and closer as the minutes go by. Looming large before you as you approach, the six of you see the floating Vault is nearly a half-mile wide with defenses established in every direction. An adamantine shell encloses the structure; however this has been ruptured in several places, and strands of the sky metal practically bleed from the holes in a vain attempt to repair the damage and reseal the area completely. The ground bulges all about, and chunks of earth and metal explode periodically as blasts of air billow out from within, driven by an unseen force.
At this last leg of the journey, the rock you're on starts to accelerate, moving towards the Vault with greater speed as the gravity seem to momentarily claw at it. From a nearby rock undergoing the same pull, you hear a halfling Pathfinder call out to you and her own crew. "This is it! Find a breach and get in there!" Her voice is cut off quickly as the miniature mountain she is on crashes into the side of the fortress.
And in moments, your own blasted-off lump is set to do the same!
So, your ride got you across the massive cavern. But now its set to slam into the fortress itself: less good.
I need two checks from each of you now. First, either a Perception, Know Engineering, or Survival check to try and fine a possible opening in the fortresses defenses that you could scamper into. Second, ether a Climb, Acrobatics, or Reflex save as each of you tries to quickly scamper to that entrance and get inside before being pummeled by the fortresses outer defenses or the many rocks that keep crashing into it.
The Professor sees where he plans to go, its just his leap takes him a distance of about nine inches from where he leapt versus the nine feet that he intended to cover.
too bad blan is gone already(two twenties!)or I would suggest he carry the professor. Seeing his jump of less than a foot, what would I need for Crios to do that? A strength check?
STR:1d20 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4well I guess he slips through my fingers as I try to grab him.
Keriassa scans the ridges and openings in the shell for a favorable place to land. When she spots a likely refuge, she leaps and rolls into a crevasse.
Just as the floating rock shoots towards the fortress, Kivulia nd Blanmieux notice a small gap not far from where you are about to crash. With a destination in mind, the six of you leap off the rock and roll onto the fortresses outer shell, then scramble towards to opening as the colliding rocks scatter debris and stone hail all around you.
Most of you manage to make it through the breach quickly, and little the worse for wear except for a minor scrape and dusty clothes. The professor however, pikcs the wrong time to fall asleep on the job. The old man eventually reaches you, but his poorly executed movements cause him to be battered by debris and cut on the sharp outer shell of the fortress along the way. Professor, take 4d6 ⇒ (6, 3, 5, 5) = 19 damage.
When the wounded cleric catches up, the six of you can duck a bit further into the fortress to get cover from the chaotic outside. Looking forward, ahead of you are a series of extremely narrow tunnels that seem to twist and turn until they are eaten by the pitch black darkness ahead. Even more ominous, out of the corner of your eyes you see the inner stone walls of this fortress seem to slowly shift.
I need a series of three Knowledge Dungeoneering or Survival checks from one of you. Unfortunately, the tunnels ahead are extremely narrow: only three of you can get close enough to the front at a time in order to help navigate. Please let me know who will be the primary for this and which two are aiding (and then roll, of course). Given the context, you can aid with either skill (so if primary is Survival, I'm fine with using Know Dungeon to aid)
With Kivuli taking the lead, the six of you head forth into the tunnels.
The near endless twisting passages prove difficult to grasp at first. Even with his badge of affiliation/compass out and assistance from Jade and Crios, the wayang leads you down a series of curving trails and cramped corridors of stone. After five minutes, t your party turns a corner only to be faced with a dead end. As you pause trying to recenter your bearing, the passage around you begins to squeeze and you hear a faint roaring laughter echo around you. Each of you frenetically backtrack to escape the compressed tunnel before being crushed, but not before the shifting walls slam into you. For 6 damage each
After that however, shaken from the experience but still determined, Kivuli's guidance appears to take better stock of your paths. Five minutes pass, then ten, as you move what you confidently feel is closer towards the fortresses center. As you go, the air in the tunnel seems to get slightly stronger, and at certain points you think you detect a faint breeze if only for a moment.
First check failed, but the latter two were successful. So I need one more Know Dungeon or Survival check. Again: one can Primary and up to two can attempt to aid.
Aasimar Staff Magus/Monk/Occultist 7: HP: 51/51 DR 5/blunt | AC 23(24),16T,18(19)FF, CMD:24 | Fort:+10*(15vs poison/disease) Ref:+8 Will:+8 | Init:+7, Perception:+11 | Arcane Pool: 4/7 |Mental Focus 5/6 |Condition:| Effects: Resist Energy 5 vs Acid/Cold/Electricity(Celestial), defending bone, barkskin,mage armor,antitoxin, antiplague
Oh I forgot to say, I offer the Prof 2 charges from my wand of infernal healing, to heal to full. If he doesn't want it for any reason that is fine, but I just want to put that out there.
"I can take the lead here friends. I think I have the understanding of this place now. Just help me keep an eye out for those shifts and we will make it out of here."
Know Dungeon primary:1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26 Auto aid from Jade gives us a 28 plus anything from anyone else that cares to chime in.
that was an aid roll. Can't seem to edit after posting in Wayfinder. BTW, not certain if it matters, but I did not include the +2 in my earlier roll. That would have put us at a 23. Still probably a fail, but just in case...
Cries decides to take the lead this time, with backup form the others. On a roll at this point, you make your way further into the depths of the floating fortress, following the sound of blasts of air until finally you emerge into a stunning chamber.
The tunnel you’ve been traveling in ends in a heavily worn set of stairs that lead into an eroded cavern studded with sand-scoured crystals that emit cool, faint light. The jagged foundations are all that’s left of metal walls—the fragments of which now jut from the wall like throwing knives. An immense, intricate, thousand-sided polyhedron made of sky metals oats within a tight series of binding circles. As blasts of air erupt from the polyhedron, the surface’s shattered facets regenerate before being blasted apart on another side.
Several other Pathfinder agents are already in the room, diligently studying the multi-faceted structure. One turns to you as you enter. ”Oh, thank the gods! We weren’t sure anyone else would make it. Our bodyguards got crushed on the way here.” The Relish woman quickly points towards the polyhedron that dominates the room.
”This ‘orb’ here is something I’ve never seen before. Look at the sides: each of them is entirely different. Some talk aboutextraplanar truths, others are questions about mineral compositions, there’s even a koan or two around here. We’ve managed to solve a couple. And when we do that facet seems to change and weaken. I think each of these is a lock of some sort - working together to trap whatever thing we’ve been looking for. But the magnitude of it. What could possible require such security…”
The woman snaps back at points at the five glowing runic circles that surround the quasi-sphere. ”Oh, I almost forgot. Even on top of all of these locks, the orb is being protected by these too. We haven’t been able to figure out exactly what each of them do yet, but they seem to be an extra layer of defenses.”
The Professor however, does manage to recognize the nature of the magical defenses.
There are five magic runic circles around the orb.
Blue: These two are Warding circles: they strengthen the hardness of the three other circles and mend damage done to the circles when they are partially broken.
Yellow: a Fear circle, which assaults those attempting to solve the puzzle orb with the terrible sensation of being buried alive, possibly shaking you or even causing you to begin to suffocate.
Green: an Earth circle, this empowers and strengthens earthen creatures around it.
Red: this Distortion circle plays with your perception, making it harder to identify and solve each facet of the puzzle orb.
Another blast of air shoots out from the polyhedron vault. ”Please” the Relish Pathfinder says. ”I don’t think we have much time. Whatever’s inside there wants to get out. We need to break as many of these facets as possible in order to help it!”
So, for this section it’s operating a bit more in ‘phases’ than specific rounds. Right now, each of you can attempt one of the tasks before you: either attempt to solve some of the orb’s puzzles or try and break one of the protective circles. Each of you can choose a different option for now, or even aid another on one if you would like.
Solve puzzles: you can attempt to solve one or more o the orb’s facets by attempting one of the below checks: Appraise, Disable Device, Knowledge Religion, Use Magic Device, an Intelligence check, or a Wisdom check. You can also attempt this with another Knowledge skill, or Linguistics or Perception, but these may be trickier methods.
Break a circle: If you want to try and break one of the circles, please let me know which one you are targeting. you can either attempt a Disable Device check, or take a full round of actions to attempt to destroy the circles carved into the stone through other means (full attack with weapon, disintegrate it, etc).
Just to clarify: if youre trying to handle a circle, the only skill option is Disable Device. The other checks - Perception, Knowledges, etc - would be for the orb itself.
With two potential tasks at hand, the party splits off, half attempting to decipher the puzzle-orb’s secrets while the other three tackle the magic rings surrounding it.
The Professor and Kivuli both get to work on depowering the Fear circle. The gnome finds himself somewhat stumped by the abjuration and necromantic runes etched in the stone, but the wayang proves more fearless. Kivuli attacks the magic markings with surgical precision causing the Fear circle to first sputter and then fade and its yellow light dims into nothing. Nearby, Blanmieux attempts the Barbarian’s Disable, and smashes one of the warding lines to bits.
Fear and one Warding circle have been disabled/destroyed. Earth, Distortion, and another Warding circle remain.
At the polyhedron itself, the archers and the aasimar each pore over the many facets of the vault. Keriassa and Crios spy a series of clustered inscriptions that seem to allude to archaic forms of worship amongst the planes, but can’t quite make sense of them. Trying to stare close to the orb, the letters and markings seem to blur and shift, and a reddish tint muddles your vision. At the other end however, Jade’s eyes land on a pair of facets with a familiar riddle on it: one of exacts puzzles on the parchment that the efreet Fahaz had gifted you with. Smiling, she quickly traces the answer on the sides, which glow before shattering to create another pinprick hole in the shell. Remember how a few of your previous nice chats with some of the outsiders mentioned overhearing strange and puzzling things? Well some of those clues are turning out to pay off.
As a few of you are flush with success, a rumbling sound rings out from the chamber’s walls. The other Pathfinder researchers flee as from the earth around you two creatures break forth from the stone. Roughly humanoid in shape and with a head of a massive tyrannosaur, both lurch forwards towards you with a wickedly spiked mace in hand. As they emerges, the Earth circle flares green, and several chunks of rock fuse with them and give the guardians a sickly green glow.
Red guardian:1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15 Green guardian:1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9
Knowledge Arcana to ID these
Initiative
Keriassa
Jade
Crios
Kivuli Red thing
Green thing
Professor
Blanmieux
A reminder: the room is naturally dimly lit. The few walls on the map have been almost entirely demolished: they do not provide cover or difficult terrain.
Also (and unfortunate for the archers), the orb continues to intermittently shoot out gusts of wind that through off your shots’ aim. Ranged attacks have a -2 penalty.
Aasimar Staff Magus/Monk/Occultist 7: HP: 51/51 DR 5/blunt | AC 23(24),16T,18(19)FF, CMD:24 | Fort:+10*(15vs poison/disease) Ref:+8 Will:+8 | Init:+7, Perception:+11 | Arcane Pool: 4/7 |Mental Focus 5/6 |Condition:| Effects: Resist Energy 5 vs Acid/Cold/Electricity(Celestial), defending bone, barkskin,mage armor,antitoxin, antiplague
know arcane:1d20 + 10 ⇒ (3) + 10 = 13
Crios wrinkles his face, tapping his chin in frustrated thought. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it quickly shaking his head.
Almost had it, but I just can't place these things. It's on the tip of my tongue. I'll be kicking myself when I think of it later. Oh well, time to fight.
Gripping his staff tightly, he steps forward to do battle with the monstrosity before him, swiftly borrowing from his arcane pool of power to further enchant his staff.
