Jan rushes into the room and swing his shield in an upward motion catching the human under his chin with lip shield. The man's eyes glaze over as the uppercut knocks him out!
Starchaser reacts quickly to the fire, dousing it with a torrent of water as he questions Zirt's tactics!
Thrash begins making for the human, but sees the man fall and looks around the room for another opponent.
Thrash redirects his attack, moving toward one of the crossbow wielding halfings and delivers a solid strike against the man!
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"القرص الصلب الاحتكاك الحركي!" retorts the gnome, guiding Gregarious forward next to Thrash. "Hi, Thrash!" she cries cheerily, as she surreptitiously replaces the sword on the halfling's belt with a piece of paper.
Seeing his master struggling, the big doggie attempts to help by chewing on the prey!
Thrash redirects his semi-charge and wounds one of the halflings!
Farg tries to stab a halfling, but misses!
Zirt tries to steal one of the halfling's weapons, but the halfling merely sneers at her. Her pal, Gregarious, tries to bite the halfling, but misses as well!
Odd continues the comedy of misses, as she too misses with her dagger strike!
The halfing in blue drops his crossbow, draws a short sword and stabs Thrash!
Meanwhile, the green clothed halfling cirlces to the south, dropping his ranged weapon in favor of a blade!
The other halfling charges Jan, but triops over the rug and misses badly with a lunging attack!
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Thrash examines the battlefield, and begins raining powerful blows on the halfling in front of him. Last turn I forgot heroism. I'm guessing my 40 minutes isn't quite up yet, so I'll factor it in this time. If I don't have it, just take 2 off the attack rolls.
If the halfling goes down to this attack, Thrash moves 20' to the square SW of green (provoking an AoO from him) to allow Farg to 5' step into flanking, and uses a swift action to switch the party over to Outflank (as he has felt the wrath of these halflings and is more concerned with handling them swiftly than defending against their blows). If he's still up, I continue whacking him.
If Blue wasn't down before, but is now, I 5' step into his square, but do not switch over to Outflank.
Thrash tears into the halfling next to him, dropping the man, bleeding in a pool of his own blood!
Odd whips around and stabs at the other halfling, getting her dagger into the side, once!
Jan slams his shield into the other halfling, causing the little man to wince!
Zirt tires to distract the halfling, but fails to catch his attention!
Farg moves south and claws into the other halfling!
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Star Chaser has absolutely no idea what Zirt's on about now since she's speaking some foreign language or something. Seeing how the combatants are spreading out, he decides he has a better shot at the one facing off against Jan. He raises a hand and fires a Snowball at the halfling there while keeping himself in range to be able to lend aid against the other if needed - also unsure what Thrash is shouting about as well.
(DC 18 Fort Save or Staggered for 1 round, if that was a hit)
Star Chaser flings a snowball at the halfling near Jan. The ball of ice smacks the man in the face, leaving a red mark on his cheek! The halfling reels from the hit!
Zirt's dog bites the halfling, and drags it to the ground!
The western halfling tries to stab Jan, but his short sword is delfected by the man's metal armor!
The other halfling quickly jumps to his feet and tries to attack!
Picking the weakest looking foe, the halfling stabs out at Zirt!
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The big dog growls in agreement, stepping to the side and biting at the foe's exposed kidney-area. Zirt, meanwhile, continues to try to 'help'.
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If only one Halfling remains up, Star Chaser will utilize his Staff of Entwined Serpents to strike at him/her with two magic missiles, one in the form of a black snake, the other a white snake!
If both enemies are still engaged when Star Chaser's turn comes up, he will do something else instead. If neither are still ambulatory, he will instead go to the notes that the Aspis attempted to burn to make sure they survived alright.
Zirt and her faithful mount tear into halfing, with Odd helping put the man down!
Thrash and Farg charge over an deasily help Jan take down the remaining halfling, allowing Star Chaser to save his magic!
Searching the bodies, you find each halfling carries two potions of cure light wounds, potion of invisibility, masterwork studded leather, +1 short sword, masterwork hand crossbow with 20 bolts,
masterwork thieves’ tools, five tindertwigs, and 60 gp.
The human carries a potion of cure moderate wounds, potion of invisibility[i/], two [i]scrolls of levitate, scroll of ray of exhaustion, scroll of silent image, wand of entangle (20 charges), smokestick, masterwork light crossbow with 10 bolts, masterwork light mace, cloak of resistance +1, and 190 gp.
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Star Chaser casts Detect Magic and studies the scrolls and potions to help identify them (will roll if you'd like, GM), and will comment;
"The only item here I can make use of is the wand, in an emergency. The rest are potions of healing and invisibility, which I feel should go to those more likely to be hit by blades and bows for the former, and to those in the heaviest armor for the latter."
The half-elf then tilts his head to one side, locks of his hair obscuring one of his bright blue eyes as he looks at Zirt.
"I am not sure I caught all of what you were saying during the confusion of battle, dear one...after my comment that you were too cute to potentially scare members of the Aspis Consortium, you said something I could not comprehend and then tried to steal a weapon. I know little of the ways of halflings or Aspis agents, and so I am curious for future tactical considerations...is such an act thought to be intimidating to those such as they?"
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Zirt frowns as she tries to follow the half-elf's logic, opening her mouth three times as he's speaking (but each time managing to refrain from interrupting him). When he's finished, she sighs. "Mister Star Chaser, if they don't have a weapon, they can't very well hurt us with one, now can they? Besides, I would've given him a crossword puzzle so that he still had something to do while we convinced his friends to leave us alone."
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Thrash begins chugging down the halflings' healing potions until he feels at his best, critiquing his allies' performances between draughts. Thrash obviously wants to help everyone perform to the best of their abilities, but feels a bit awkwardly verbalizing his suggestions.
Farg, you done good. Don't know why you stopped biting though. Yer' pretty darn good at givin' 'em the business with them tusks o' yer's when ye' put yer mind to it.
Star Chaser, keep in mind how we're all a bit tougher with you close by. Even what with yer talkin' all gibberishness ye' can hopefully recall sticking close.
Zirt...Well, dunno how to tell you this, but...you ain't the terrifying sort. Matter of fact, you're adorable. Ain't hardly a soul is gonna worry awful much about hurtin' us on account of a scary face from ya', and not for long if'n they do. Yeh seem not too subtle a soul either, what with fumblin' after that feller's knife and all. Tell you what though, yer a damned inspirational sort with yer speeches and such from earlier and that magic you done put in me. I feel just as primed as peaches! Hope to hear more of yer stories soon.
Odd, try to get behind 'em. Me, Farg, and Jan can hold their attention, but we could all use someone to harry 'em from the back. You done good though, all told.
As for me, I'll keep up the phalanx fer now. If'n we pay attention to what others are likely to do, we'll have the snakes licked in no time at all.
Oh, and Jan? Fine work. Fine work indeed.
As everyone heals and searches the room, Farg finds a hollowed out book in which Zey's notes on the Hao Jin Tapestry have been hidden.
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Odd wipes her daggers on her sleeve and sheathes them temporarily. She says a quiet prayer over the dead and collects a potion of invisibility from the pile of loot. [ooc]She'll throw everything unclaimed into her pack afterwards.
Odd considers Thrash's proposal. "Hmm. Perhaps we should make use of those notes and head for the Tapestry instead... but either goal is admirable, I suppose."
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Jan is as right as can be expected ma'am. While his Taldane is rusty I assure you his mind works just fine. Any other difference can likely be attributed to his childhood being raised in the North to follow Desna and his desire to show that Desna is a strong enough protector for men and women not just those of the fairer sex. But enough of this, it seems to me you all must be off, more people to protect and all that.
Jan will blush at such talk about him, and keep Gamin out until Gamin is done speaking as it seems he is enjoying the interactions. When the party goes marching off he will sheathe the sword (mostly to have a hand free if he needs to cast).
After healing and looting the Aspis, the party decides to ascend to the room containing the Sky Key. As you ascend, you hear the voice of Farabellus boom throughout the halls.
Entering the room containing the Sky Key, you see this tall library is ringed by a walkway around its perimeter, which provides access to a second level of towering bookshelves. A broad Qadiran rug leads to a short pedestal within a tall glass case that itself sits within an inscribed circle—all cordoned off by a velvet rope suspended by brass poles. Several plush chairs and a few low tables bearing curios line the lower floor, and two decorative suits of armor stand at attention, each with a crossbow resting against its shoulder. Heatless torches blaze with remarkably even light in sconces throughout the room, and a tall pendulum clock against the eastern wall ticks each passing second as its hands move erratically.
As you step across the thresold, a ghostly image of a Pathfinder appears in the center of the room, where his likeness eerily begins to slide through the display case. His voice echoes as he speaks to an unseen party. “Oh no, they’ve stolen the Sky Key. It also appears they disrupted the auxiliary stabilizer, too.” He pauses before continuing. “Do you feel that? I feel kind of sick all of a sudden. I hope they didn’t try to disassemble it—or worse, bring it too close to the tapestry. Wasn’t that why Zey kept them so far—” The figure’s words go unfinished as he begins to scream and dissolve, fading from view in a matter of seconds.
As the image fades, you notice two flame-red humanoids, appearing to be a strange mix of insect and reptile, with four arms and twitching, fanged mandibles, within the room. The immediately begin moving in your direction!
Farg knows that xill are typically evil.
As Farg readies, and Thrash delays, the xill dart forward.
The southern xill circles south, dodges Farg's jab, then rushes the tiefling, biting him!
The northern xill darts in and gets speared by Farg, then returns the blow, slashing at the tiefling!
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Star Chaser will intone a spell, placing a hand on Odd's shoulder, casting Shield of Faith on her before she undoubtedly will seek to rush forward into the fray.
He will then adjust five feet forward to get adjacent to Jan, planning on moving further once the rest of the phalanx does.