Tolvan shaked his head for a moment to clear it before creating a flaming sphere in the creatures square. He then steps back a few steps.
Anna tries to move into a flanking position against the giant, but she is just not agile enough to avoid getting hit. The ship's mast that the giant uses as a great club hit her in the back, sending waves of pain throughout her body. Danica continues attacking with her sword and get another hit. Tolvan summon a ball of fire that the giant can't avoid and the smell of burnt flesh can now be smelled.
Attacked from both sides, the giant moves off the flaming sphere to at least avoid some damage. She focuses her assault on the small rogue behind her, but can't seem to get another hit. Meanwhile, at the entrance of the room, Ananias seems to wake up from whatever was affecting him and charges at the creature. He hits her square on and inflict a severe blow. As for Kimberly, she still seems to be fighting what ever is going on in her head.
Anna redoubles her attack after the giant nearly brained her twice more. She slashes again with her dagger, taking advantage of the distraction Danica is causing on the flank.
Danica continues to press her attacks on the marsh giant.
"Hey giantess.... why don't you pull those tactics on me?"
The last series of attacks down the giant foe. As you appreciate a battle well fought, Kimberly finally snaps out of whatever was affecting her... and start punching herself?!? Ananias looks at the young priest. "What is going on with her?
She is confused. It will wear off but she might start attacking us. I'll fix it. Tolvan waves his hands in complex arcane gestures and speaks an impossible word, targeting the inflicting magic.
Anna watches closely to see if Tolvan's spell worked. "You feeling better? I hope so, since I feel a little rough. That giant tagged me good," she says while wincing and rubbing her back.
Danica approaches the body of the giantess and casts Detect Magic on the body and in the surrounding area.
She also approaches Kimberly to ensure that the negative effects of the confusion spell is gone. <<Kimberly, can you heal some of Anna's wounds? If not then we will use the potions.>>
<<Let's compose ourselves quickly. The giantess mentioned about a busy priest. Fun time is probably not over.>>
Tolvan successfully disrupted the magic that was affecting Kimberly's mind. Anna gets closer, hoping for some healing and trying to judge if Kimberly was back to normal. During that time, Danica uses one of her orison to see if the giant had any magical gear on her. Ananias eyes the doors and stairs warily, expecting danger to come out at any moment. Kimberly, finally able to act normally walks up to Anna and uses one of her healing spells to mend some of her wounds.
Curious about the stones Tolvan comes in and begins examining them.
Anna gives Kimberly a big smile and tousels her hair in thanks for the healing. She moves to the doors and does her own examination, looking for traps.
Danica walks over to Kimberly as Tolvan and Anna start inspecting the room. Everything is going well until Ananias seem to snap and attack the closest person to him. Screaming, he swings his scimitar in a perfect form, cutting a gash in the mage's flesh. The attack is so sudden that there is a pause in the air. Kimberly finally reacts with a spell. "He is still other the influence of the spell." She finishes her spell and it almost look like some magical aura is lifted from the ancient warrior. Ananias shakes his head and then look from his scimitar to Tolvan's fresh wound. Dropping his weapon, he looks at the elf. "I am so sorry..."
Taken by surprise Tolvan angers for a moment at the act of betrayal. As the reason sinks in he chides himself for not predicting such a thing but asks the man This was your doing. Can you repair it. indicating his wound.
Ananias looks at the blood dripping from Tolvan's wound. "I'm sorry, I got nothing that can fix that." Kimberly walks next to the wizard. "Don't worry, I can." Using magic, she seals the wounds and only a small scratch is left.
Looking towards Tolvan, <<I detected a magical aura from the northeast wall. Do you think you can provide further insight?>>
"No traps-- oh!" Anna exclaims as Ananias strikes Tolvan, but calms when Kimberly steps in.
"Whew. That wasn't good. Anyway, like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I don't see any traps." She hangs back and watches as Tolvan inspects the magical wall.
What have we here. Tolvan says after getting his healing. He releases a latch and opens a hidden compartment on the bottom of the center stone and peers in.
He then casts his own detect magic and studies the magical aura on the northeast wall with arcane interest.
Tolvan opens the hidden storage compartment. Within it lies a strange ovoid object of any hard brown material with a rough texture and dozens of tiny pores on its surface. The magical aura comes from a permanent phased door spell. From your study, you know that you need to have some sort of preset characteristic to be able to pass through. You also notice a depression next to it, it is a complex shape and is probably a key liked with the door.
Studying the object for a moment Tolvan wonders An egg perhaps?
When studying the phase door Tolvan notes [b]We need a key of some sort, but even then it might not work for us. Its theoretically possible to set these things to discriminate based or a number of criteria, including race.[/ooc]
"You don't need a key; you have me." Anna cracks her knuckles and checks out the mysterious spot. She works through her repertoire of tricks and skills.
Danica goes into her backpack and pulls forth one of the amulets she found on the cultists from the temple encounter. "Guys, do you remember these amulets we found when we took out those cultists back in the temple? Do you think this can be the key?"
Anna looks up at Danica in annoyance. "Okay, maybe those'll work." She'll try out one of the amulets as well, but will remain confident that she'd have opened it herself if they work.
Tolvan of the object reveals that is is similar to a seedpod. But it doesn't feel natural and it doesn't seem to be from this world. Anna tries her best to bypass the magical door, but nothing seems to work. At Danica's comment, she decides to try the amulet of the priest of the temple, but it proves to be too small to fill the spot. Maybe if you had a bigger one.
I suspect we will find the right object for this spell further into this old house. this seedpod like object does not feel right. I am loath to even carry it. I am going to put it back for now and retrieve it before we leave. It seems quite secure here. He does so.
Anna stands up and stretches, clearly unhappy with being unable to crack the code of the magical door.
She furrows her brow at Tolvan's dislike of the seedpod. "Well, take it from the farmer's daughter when it comes to seed pods. Kill it with fire."
Anna, lead us forward. I have learned to trust your intuition in such matters.
Anna quirks a smile at Tolvan's statement of faith, but she doesn't feel like she should be the one guiding them around. "Okay, let's go check out the main entrance, then work our way deeper into the house," she suggests. Rather than go all the way outside and then back in, she tries the side door to the entry foyer.
Opening the door, Anna finds another small room. This time she has a choice of three doors to open.
The eastern wall and ceiling of this room have collapsed, and the grand table in the center has been smashed beneath the weight of a ruined lead and glass chandelier that fell atop it long ago.
This bedroom’s furniture is soaked and reduced to rotten heaps of wood. Portions of the ceiling and east wall have collapsed, revealing the swamp outside and the room above.
Though the walls of this room are still intact, it is clear that the roof above has sustained damage. The floor of the chamber bears a sizable puddle in which the rotten remnants of a settee still sit.
"What's behind the doors?" she mutters to herself. Waiting until the others were behind her, Anna does a quick examination for traps , then pushes open the first door.
"Big mess. One we didn't create this time."
Then she moves to the second door.
Finally, she checks out the third door.
She quickly slams that door shut and backs away from it. "Oh, crap. Swarm!"
Yes, I see them Anna. Best kill them quickly. Tolvan quickly blasts the room with an ice storm, unwilling to use a fireball in the house, despite the wetness of the room.
Danica steps back to let Tolvan handle the swarm.
"Yikes!!! Let's leave these rooms for later. Looks like the environments have taken its toll on these rooms."
The swarm takes some damage from the ice storm created but Tolvan. Within a second, Anna closes the door, hoping in a way that the swarm wouldn't be able to follow. Sadly for her, the mass of tick starts spreading from under the door into the room where the group is.
"I draw the line at blood-sucking bugs!" Anna shrieks and continues to move well away from the teeming mass of parasites.
She digs into her satchel and produces a couple flasks of alchemist's fire in case the swarm continues to move towards her.
Tolvan backs with Anna and lifts off the ground so as not to be tic bait and lets loose a blast of fire this time. Get away from them Anna. You can not hurt them with weapons.
Danica does the same, grabbing Kimberly and keeping her behind her. She also goes into her backpack and grabs at one of her flasks of alchemist's fire in which she prepares to throw.
Tolvan uses magic again to fight back the swarm. The fireball has a better impact on the swarm and clear a big section of the swarm on this side of the door. Happy with result, Tolvan is about to walk away, when he notices that even more ticks are pouring through the door.
Anna flings one of the flasks at the swarm and scurries farther away from it.
On his turn Tolvan flies back and conjures a flaming sphere into the midst of the tick swarm.
Danica hold back throwing her flask hoping that Tolvan's Flaming Sphere kills the swarm.
Ananias and Kimberly stays out of the way since they have nothing to fight the swarm. Danica gets ready to intervene if more fire is needed. Tolvan summon more magical fire as Anna throws an alchemist's fire vial. This time, The fire seems enough to stop the advance of the swarm. For a moment it tries to find a way around the fire, but as more ticks dies, it just disperses out of sight.
As Anna checks the doors Tolvan rolls the sphere of fire over the remaining ticks a few times before having it follow along, while making sure it burns nothing important or starts any fires.
"Hallway," Anna announces. "Another door at the end.
"This goes outside. There's another building back there. We'll check it out later, I guess."
She pauses, though, to look for signs of movement in the decrepit building and the old well.
"Another hallway. More doors. I think one would connect with that door," she points to the last unopened door. "Lemme check."
"Yep. Lotsa doors."
Anna takes a quick look at the building outside. It looks like an old outside kitchen. Since it is mainly built with wood, the place didn't weather the passage of time as well as the main building. From what Anna can see, no one seems to have set foot in there for a while, probably because it looks like the roof might collapse any moment now.
As Danica moves around with the others she will look around for secret doors or passages.
Danica doesn't find any other secret door than what was found in the main room with the standing stones.
"Okay, let's keep the same pattern going. I think there's only a few rooms left on this level." Anna decides to start with the northeastern door.
She inspects for traps and then pushes the door open slightly to peek inside if the door's clear of threats.