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Ethan moves forward to the entryway and pauses, unwilling to test his weapon against the defences of the creature. He breathes deeply and begins to focus, come to me, in is minds eye he starts to construct a form, a shape, into which he pours his will, come to me
As he does a shape rises up out of the floor, vaguely humanoid, squat and made of compact earth. It swings a single rocky arm at the statue!
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Ethan and Sparkle-Weave both work their summoning magics as soon as Flyn's first arrows fly. The earth elemental flails at the statue, but is unable to connect.
Meanwhile, Flyn and Narayan rain fury down upon the slowly moving statue! Though Flyn's arrows are shattering on impact, they are still ripping chunks of the statue off with them. And nothing can stop the avalanche of Narayan's body parts. Many large chunks of stone are shattered away, leaving but a shell of the beautiful statue that stood before.
The statue is not finished, though. It steps away from Narayan and holds its head out, as if it is trying to show you something. Then, the eyes on the stone head snap open and stare deeply at each one of you!
You feel the eyes boring into your soul, judging your intentions in this place. Thankfully, you manage to wrench your eyes away in time, before it's judgement is passed. Unfortunately, the thought of that thing inside your mind is distracting and takes you out of the moment.
You feel the eyes boring into your soul, judging your intentions in this place. You hear a loud voice echoing inside your mind. "BEGONE! " The sound, and the accompanying horror, is stunning.
Sparkle-Weave (blur)
Flyndyngylyn (blur)
Ethan (blur)
Narayan (blur)
Pigglevitch (blur)
Luurg (blur)
Cephalophore 80 dmg
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Luurg looks around at the others as some start to get nervous "What's up? Dat statue ting skurry? Better go take a looky!" He hustles into the room and has a quick look "Don't seem so skuury, kinda looks beat up n junky... lez see how it like coconuts!"
Luurg lets his crossbow dangle in one hand as he plucks one of his coconuts from his belt. He pushes a small nub down into it and shakes it hard, real hard. "Coconut away!" He shouts as he lobs the overgrown tasty nut at the statue.
Splash DC13 for 4.
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COMBAT OVER
Despite his ancestors behind him, Pigglevitch's fingers tremble and his shot misses. Luurg ambles into the room and tosses his coconut in a perfect arc onto the statue's back. It explodes in a flash, removing more hunks of stone.
Ethan and Narayan watch in awe as Ethan's earth pet flails at the air. It would be cute, if it wasn't risking your lives. Meanwhile, another, slightly larger, earth elemental rises from the ground beneath the ancient guardian. With a solid shoulder slam to the leg, the elemental breaks through and the Cephalophore crashes to the floor. It breaks into a hundred pieces, just like the other statue on the floor.
Stepping over the rubble, you peer into the room beyond. It is a stairwell down, presumably to a lower level. However, it is choked by rubble, from an earthquake long ago. The way forward is the corridor to the West.
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Flyn peers into the room ahead as the group assembles in the room behind. A rectangular basin of clear, warm water fills most of this room, leaving only a five-foot walkway around the edge. The humid air rising from the pool keeps plants, including forms of moss and fungi, alive along the room’s walls and ceiling. The floor is covered in slime. It will probably be quite difficult to walk on... What is that? A dirty pool, sure, but that looks like... the floor is a pressure plate covered by that slime! Flyn realizes that the whole room is rigged. Seeing no sign of a mechanical trap, the trap probably involves a chemical attack...
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Flyndyngylyn takes a moment to analyze the trap then gets down to work. There is a very small handle set into the wall which appears to disable the trap. He flips it and then takes a cautious step onto one of the floor panels...
After a tense moment he realizes that he was successful! Nothing happens, he has disabled the trap. After looking around the room a little more, he sees that there are small ports beneath the surface of the dirty pool which would have expelled some sort of chemical vapor...
He waves the group through the door, and you all gingerly step over the disgusting slime. A few of the more well-armored slip a few times, eliciting quiet giggles from the rest of the group.
Mext, you all enter a room which contains the statue of a dwarven man strangling a snake.
This chamber shows evidence of several triggered and disabled traps. A heavy steel door used to seal a passageway to the west but hangs open. Flyndyngylyn pauses at the door, taken aback by all of the previously sprung traps. After a moment of examination, he sees that there is still a trap left which is still set! The wall in front of the metal door contains a wall scythe trap which is still ready to go! There is a large amount of orange goo covering the visible portion of the scythe, perhaps some sort of rust.
That's no ordinary trap! That's a Deathtrap Ooze, in trap form! A deathtrap ooze is a disgusting mass of brown-orange sludge that moves and hunts of its own volition. It exists only to feed. Deathtrap oozes are less inclined to look for prey than are other oozes—they prefer to hunt by ambush. They do so via a strange ability to emulate objects, and traps, they encounter.
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Ethan steps up to Flyn to look over what he has found. Hmm, this place was built by dwarves yes? This is Kols, one of the children of Torag and the other figure is Droskar after Kols turning him into a snake...
He moves over to examine the scythe, careful not to get too close. Hmm, he takes a small book from his pack and begins flipping through it, the spine reads The adventures of Nieford Sharrowsmith, wait a minute, I think..., he takes a step back dropping the book, watch out, that's a deathtrap ooze! he shouts hoping to alert everyone to the danger.
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Luurg watches on as Flynn works to disable the trap in the warm and cozy wet room. "Luurg good with traps if you need help mang?" You can tell he's itching to wiggle his toes in the warm slime and pool in the room, something he does after the group moves through. "Nobudy else wanna warm yer feet in dis nice water? You guys is weird!" You've noticed Luurg doesn't wear shoes and ALWAYS stops by anything mud or water on the trek here to dip his feet in.
On to the next room Luurg looks around as the others are busy calling out this and that, all of which Luurg has never heard of. "I guess me an half man wid da ladder stay ober ear outta da way agin." He gives Piggle a sad look, then offers him a perfect little apple to pass the time, eating his own in two bites. "Whatsa deathtrap ooze anywho?" He whispers with his mouth half full.
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"I'm just glad I don't have to activate traps with my face again like last time," Pigglevitch stated. "That was a real bummer."
He listens to the explanation of the meaning of the statue and perks up with the mention of an ooze. Pigglevitch takes the apple from Luurg. "I can fight oozes. I can definitely fight oozes." Pigglevitch said, his tone almost breaking out of its morose nature and showing some excitement before biting into the apple. He peaked around the corner to get a better view of the enemy.
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After the group takes a moment to prep, Flyn lets off a fiery arrow! It hits the stone wall exactly where he intended. But, instead of the clang you expect, the arrow sinks into the wall as if it were made of gelatin! Within moments, the wall begins morphing and changing until you see before you a large blob of orange goo, with pieces of traps stuck inside!
Sparkle-Weave (blur)
Flyndyngylyn (blur)
Ethan (blur)
Narayan (blur)
Pigglevitch (blur)
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Deathtrap Ooze! 21 dmg
Luurg (blur)
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Pigglevitch casts a spell through his ladder, burning a use of his Fervor in order to gain favor from Cayden Cailean so that he may better smite this foe, as he had not been able to previously.
He laid into the ooze, spinning and twirling his ladder this way and that, doing what he could to do what harm his little body was capable of.
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Luurg sneaks up closer with everyone else, and as they do so he pulls a banana from his belt and with a squeeze it pops up in the air and then down his gullet in one swallow "Naners are gud too, not as gud as apples doh, but a different gud!" As he speaks his arms grow longer and longer and start to drag on the ground.
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COMBAT OVER
The Pathfinders launch a barrage of arrows, ladders, fists, swords and elementals into the enormous orange ooze as it transforms from one killing machine into another. The three earth elementals surround the ooze, dealing a final death blow. Within a few seconds it rapidly changes from containing a cluster of arrows to holding an axe, then a scythe and finally a large block of sandstone. Then, it tenses up and collapses into the floor, sinking into the ground...
The group takes a breath, spinning in place, eyes on the used traps strewn throughout the room. Nothing moves, and you let out a sigh of relief.
Eventually, you all walk through the thick metal door to the West. Lead sheets line portions of the stone walls, floor, and ceiling of this damp chamber; many more sheets lie on the floor, bent. Arcane runes are inscribed on the stone. Patches of fungal growth are fed by a slow trickle of water dripping into the room’s cracked ceiling. More orc graffiti lines these walls. Besides the more raunchy expletives, Luurg translates that apparently "Groblek has an enormous longsword."
Moving on, the group passes the dwarven statue and finds a new room. Imagery of skulls, dwarves in burial shrouds, and young dwarves praying adorn this long hall. Heraldic charts from several dwarven clans cover the southern wall. The skeleton of a large, serpentine creature is coiled on a stone pedestal in the eastern alcove. Another smashed dwarven statue lies beneath the skeleton.
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Luurg's extra long arms slump to the floor as the overgrown fruit cake is melted by the others "Oh. Well den, least now I can scratch dat spot on my back gud." He proceeds to reach around and scratch his hard to reach shoulder vigorously as they make their way through some more rooms.
"Heh, dis Groblek, he n I we lots the same." Luurg moves quickly through the room with the arcane writing, a nervous look on his face. Dat stuff never good!
Luurg nods at Narayan "Dunno, Luurg n Dwarfs not best of friends most times. Dey nebber invite me home for supper."
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With the destruction of the ooze Ethan steps back and deflates a little. Well, that was fortunate, those things can be nasty
Before heading out he refreshes his heightened awareness wand.
As they head through the chambers with the dwarven imagery he stops occasionally to take notes or check something in a pathfinder chronicle. If only this place wasn't in Belkzen it would make a great place for further study of dwarven culture. Probably too dangerous to bring a bunch of researchers here though.
As he turns the corridor to confront the skeleton he lets out a long, low whistle, well, that's something you don't see every day.. He stops and focuses for a moment, his eyes flash a deep blue and he peers suspiciously at it.