Before they start north, Molasbar mentally touches his arcane armor to make sure it is still in effect, resigned to the fact that it will probably run its course before the next engagement. For a moment he tries to figure out if that is a good thing or not.
"North it is then... - Zeltor mutters as he turns to face the northern passage.
Happy to scout, Corporal Black stalks out down the north passage ahead of the rest of the group whiskers flicking as he peers into the black.
Ninivic sneaks ahead down the northern passage, checking carefully for any signs of trouble. He does, in fact, notice a concealed pit trap; the pit has a stone-grey leather covering tacked above it in the hopes of deceiving unaware adventurers. Ninivic points it out to the rest of the group, allowing them to mark it and cross over it with relative ease. Beyond the intersection is two doors in a Y-shaped formation.
The left door is unlocked, and you can hear nothing beyond it. The room is almost completely empty and is covered with dust and cobwebs. A small pile of humanoid skulls sits in the northeastern corner, arranged in a row from smallest (a child-sized cranium) to largest. Each skull has a small hole bored into the top.
The right door is currently locked; however, Ninivic can hear the unmistakable sound of voices coming from beyond. In fact, there seems to be some kind of argument going on between a woman and some kind of yappy-sounding creature.
Kasuri's ears perk up and she begins to display an agitated pacing behavior, which Zahar is quick to pick up on. He softly strokes the length of her back and kneels down alongside her, becoming too distracted by the act of placating his companion to discern any specifics about the voices.
Ninivic puts his ear up against the door, curious what might be going on. Last time we did this it was bandits...
He slips back away to where the rest of the group awaits. "Sounds like two people. Something funny about the high-pitched one. Doesn't sound like Taldan is its native language. Knock, break in or move on?"
Zeltor listens intently at the voices, trying to discern the nature of the voices.
But he cannot discern any additional details...
"Shall we go in?" - he whispers to his companions.
Raseri marks the trap on all sides before catching up with the rest of the group.
"Considering our luck so far, breaking in or just leaving may be the wiser decision."
Once again Olo is happy that his companions are there to point out the dangers of this dungeon. He is suprised with how easy a jump it is to get over the pit trap and chides himself for literally breaking out in a sweat. When the Corporal reports back to them, Olo has a strong and definitive reply (almost unusual for him),"Break in and prepare for a fight. We can only leave so many dangers at our back as we continue in this place."
"Agreed. Let's enter decisively."
Zeltor remains poised next to the door, waiting for someone to bust the door open, bow ready in hand.
"If you believe that is wise, then I will trust your judgement. By all means, kick the door in and let us see what lies on the other side."
Raseri valiantly attempts to bash the door down, but simply bounces back off the door frame with a grunt. The sound apparently alerts the occupants of the room beyond--there's a flurry of noise, with a couple of alerts shouted in a foreign tongue by the speaker with the yappy voice, and similar voices - at least two separate individuals - respond back to him.
"Yes, boss! Heard it!"
"Someone breaking in, boss!"
"Then go do something about it! See who's there!"
"Yes, boss!"
After a few clicks of the lock, the door swings open to reveal a motley bunch of reptilian humanoids - kobolds - and a trio of humans. The brown-scaled reptiles are small and frail-looking, maybe the size of a child, and each are wearing a close-fitting helmet crafted from bone. They each hold either a spear crafted from flint and decorated with small, coloured pebbles, and have a sling affixed to their simple loin cloths. Their leader has bright red scales and is wearing a headdress decorated with chicken feathers. The humans, two men and a woman, look similar to the bandits you encountered elsewhere - scrappy-looking and equipped with swords and bows.
"What you do here?!" the kobold leader shouts angrily. "This your trap, Ol-iva?!"
"Of course not! These are probably those g%%-d+!ned adventurers Jack warned us about!"
"Yes, boss!"
Initiative: Raseri | Ninivic | Zahar & Kasuri | Olofire | Zeltor | Molasbar | Kobolds | Bandits
This room is lit by a couple of lanterns placed along the far wall, so you don't need to worry about dancing lights.
OOC
Zahar, I basically imagined Kasuri to look like a snow leopard - largely because I couldn't find a single pure-white large cat image... :P If you've got a better picture to represent her, link it and I'll use that for the future!
"Great, more bandits."
Raseri's sword shatters bone and rends flesh as it splatters blood over the floor. The northerner doesn't miss a step and moves into the room. Her eyes lock onto the woman's.
"You can yield or you can die. Those are the only options I give bandits."
Ninivic sighs, "More bandits. Give our regards to Jack...oh...sorry, you won't be able to. You'll be dead." Ninivic crosses the threshold following Raseri. He lifts his pistol to shoot the kobold next to him in the head with an explosion of fire and smoke.
Olo watches as Raseri literally cleaves the kobold in half and walks in the room unfazed. He follows as best he can. Once in the room he scans it quickly. The brightly colored kolbold has the trapping of their chief and it is he that Olofire targets with his curses...
Seeing Ninivic cleverly distract the kobold with a flash of gunpowder, Molasbar takes advantage of his tactics and tries to narrow the foes' numbers with an arcane bolt.
Force missile at the kobold in F4, because I'm assuming it is just fine beyond having wet itself...
Damage
Zeltor's bow immediately goes to work, while he pumps two arrows at one of the opposing creatures in quick succession.
The monk curses under his breath at his own inneficiency.
Initiative: Raseri | Ninivic | Zahar & Kasuri | Olofire | Zeltor | Molasbar | Kobolds | Bandits
Status
Kobold Leader (Red): Misfortune (1 round).
Kobold (Orange): DEAD!
Kobold (Yellow): DEAD!
Kobold (Green): 4 damage.Zahar: 3 strain.
Zahar, Ninivic, Raseri, and Olofire: Please make a DC 13 Reflex save. If you fail, you take 6 points of fire damage (injury). If you succeed, you take 3 points of fire damage (strain).
OOC
Moving for Zahar.
Ninivic, you regain the grit point.
Raseri neatly eviscerates the unlucky door-opener and makes her way into the meeting room with a threat. Ninivic follows close by, but his pistol shot ricochets off the kobold's bone helmet to no effect. The kobold stabs him in retaliation, but the simple weapon isn't strong enough to pierce through the ratfolk's leather armor.
Zahar and Kasuri move almost as one to attack, although the druid overestimates his target's quickness; the kobold completely ducks under his swinging club. The snow-white jaguar's teeth very nearly snap the green kobold in two, and he escapes becoming cat food by - almost quite literally - the skin of his teeth.
Olo successfully places a malignant curse on the kobold's leader; he starts shouting all manner of obscenities the witch's way in his native tongue, gesticulating wildly. Zeltor finds it incredibly difficult to aim his arrows in such cramped confines, and both of his arrows smash into the wall and shatter. Molasbar is much more efficient, using auto-homing magic missiles, and pierces a hole from one side of the orange kobold to the other. It gurgles blood and collapses on the ground.
The kobold leader shouts something to his brethren--
--and the brown kobold very hurriedly scrambles to flatten itself along the far wall before a great gout of flame erupts from the red kobold's mouth, singeing everyone inside the room but Kasuri. The leader then takes up his spear and holds it up in what might be a threatening display if his knees weren't obviously shaking.
"Y-you leave Yikyap and Kalaka alone!" he shouts at the adventurers, attempting to seem resolute, and jabs his spear at Kasuri to punctuate his point. Luckily, Olo's curse causes the red kobold's hands to suddenly become extra clammy, and he almost drops his spear before the attack lands.
Still, his remaining two lackeys take heed in his courage and turn back to attack the druid and his companion. The green one's fear of being eaten causes it to miss completely, but the brown one's spear actually catches Zahar by surprise, and he barely avoids getting gouged through the thigh by kicking the kobold away.
The bandits seem to have been muttering amongst themselves during all this, and have come to the conclusion that their only way out of this problem is to attack. The men draw bows and fire upon Raseri - she's far too quick for them though, and ducks out of the way - while the female grabs her short sword and advances on Kasuri. The jaguar snarls a warning at the bandit, and she flinches for just a moment, unable to finish her attack.
The quasi real tentacles that snaked from Olofire's out-stretched hand being to whirl around the red-scaled kobold. Flickers of gnome heads materialize to mock the creature. Despite this the creature let's forth a burst of fire. Being at the rear of the group a few flames lick at his torso but he could have been much worse off had he been closer.
A gurgling laugh begins to grow in his throat. He focuses to maintain the spiritual gnomes while turning his attention to the humans. He puts a hand forward and looks at the man against the wall. He maks no gestures nor does he say a word but there is madness in his eyes.
Zahar winces as he's forced to exert a considerable effort to avoid injury, but finds himself taking the full force of the flames in the process. His subsequent attack meets nothing but the wall behind the quickly ducking kobold in front of him. Kasuri's assault fares slightly better, and though the kobold can fend off some one of her swiping paws, it is ultimately savagely bitten and clawed.
"Uh oh, seen this one before! Duck!" The ratfolk gunner begins a roll to his right to get under the flames, but still gets partially singed in the process.
He finishes the roll and comes up next to the kobold reloading his pistol as he comes up. "Ok, let's see you try that again with this in your face." He fires the pistol at the kobold from point blank range, but yet again the shot goes awry.
Raseri was normally quick on her feet. The sight of a kobold belching flame causes her to hesitate just a moment too long. she takes the full brunt of the blast, but she does manage to cover her mouth, nose and eyes before being burned. Once the flames clear, her face is bright and red, while everywhere else skin shows it is the red of raw, burned flesh. She takes stock of the situation around her before coming around Ninivic. She brings her sword whipping around, with only one word of warning to the ratfolk.
"Duck."
Unfortunately, she's lucky to still have her sword and Ninivic his head as pain-numbed fingers fumble the swing.
Molasbar advances and casts Color Spray, trying to reduce the number of foes they face in half with one bold move.
Targeting squares G3, H2-4, I2-4.
Initiative: Raseri | Ninivic | Zahar & Kasuri | Olofire | Zeltor | Molasbar | Kobolds | Bandits
Status
Kobold Leader (Red): DEAD!
Kobold (Orange): DEAD!
Kobold (Yellow): DEAD!
Kobold (Green): 4 damage; prone, cowering.
Kobold (Brown): Prone, cowering.Bandit (Purple): misfortune (1 round); unconscious, blinded, stunned (7 rounds); blinded, stunned (1 round); stunned (1 round).
Ninivic: 3 strain.
Olofire: 3 strain.
Raseri: 2 strain, 6 injury.
Zahar: 3 strain, 6 injury.OOC
Moving for Zeltor.Raseri, no, I'm not using fumbles, although I do love the Critical Hit/Fumble decks. :P
Molasbar, Raseri and Ninivic tried to move to the same square so there's a bit of a cock-up with your targeting. I moved you to H-4, and normally your cone wouldn't affect the pink bandit from here, but I'll allow it because it's mostly a mess-up from the others. Try to keep track of where everyone is going, guys!
Raseri moves in to challenge the kobolds' leader, but she does more damage to Ninivic's heart out of that close call past his whiskers than she does her true opponent. So shocked by the sudden hunk of metal flying past his face, Ninivic's shot goes completely awry, and he's closer to shooting the warrior woman in the side than he is the kobold leader. The red-scaled kobold tries to take advantage of the chaos, but he can't make it through the chain links of Raseri's armor.
Zahar tries another swing with his club, but he whacks into the far wall instead and completely ruins his momentum. Kasuri, however, has far more luck--and she promptly slashes a nasty gash down the kobold's front and then tears out his innards. The leader goes down in a mess of blood-covered chicken feathers and gore.
Olofire begins to laugh like a maniac, and strange visions begin to haunt the nearest bow-toting bandit. He seems to frown a little, lowering his weapon and glancing around as if hearing something in the distance or seeing something out of the corner of his eye. "You hear that?" he mutters to the other bandit who simply blinks and shrugs in response. Zeltor fires a couple more arrows at the kobolds on the far side of the room, but both shots miss completely; maybe if they were human-sized enemies!
Molasbar daringly steps forward, conjuring a burst of bright rainbow colours over the cursed bandit and the female bandit. The former collapses on the spot, although the latter was apparently quick enough to duck beneath her hood and hair and come out from the spell with little more than stars in her eyes thereafter.
The two little kobolds remaining, having seen their leader torn apart by the big kitty, let out a wail of fright and chuck their feeble weapons to the ground. They cower in the corner, clutching to each other and weeping loudly. The bandits, however, seem unlikely to give up. The woman lashes out at Raseri, mocking her for her clumsy display of swordship; Raseri manages to use the hilt of her greatsword to block the thrust aimed at her lesser-protected arms, but the sword nicks her left hand in the process. The other bandit still standing fires an arrow at Molasbar, but the half-orc's invisible barrier of force stops it in its tracks before it comes even close to him.
Olo begins to rock back-and-forth in glee as he sees his magic wrack havoc on their enemies. Almost dancing in a circle he begins to call out towards the female bandit, but certainly not in any tongue of this world. From her feet, a spectral, roaring demon bursts forth. It then become gaseous before disappearing down her throat.
Ninvic ducks Raseri's wild blow, "Yaaah!" Reloading his gun again, the determined ratfolk ducks back under her blades and moves next to the female bandit. Am I ever going to hit something in here? Damn demon hole has a hold on me. He fires again.
Zahar's wounds threaten to overcome him, and he retreats a short distance to the western wall and kneels behind his oaken shield as he tries to catch his breath. Kasuri continues her assault on the nearest foe.