Chuckling as magic fails to take hold of him, William lines up another shot. "Why, thank you for getting out of cover!"
Radosek, for that is the foe that you face, spreads his hands before him in a twisted fan. A flurry of snowballs materializes and flies from his outstreched hands, pelting you with an unnatural cold.
The two ice creatures lash out at Tallak, slamming against his defenses ineffectively.
From the room to the southwest, you hear a bleating sound. Somewhat to your surprise, a billy goat charges into the room toward Haamid.
Round 3 Heroes turn.
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Haamid at first looks confused by the goat attacking him, and then decides its chow time
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William tries to get some cover, but the innatural cold bites at his flesh. With trembling hands, he still lines up another shot. "Let's take down this floating git and we'll warm up!"
"Ow! Magic is lousy!"
Walter grunted as the full force of the frosty attack pelted him, and tried once more to attack the ice contructs, hoping that this time he would actually hit something.
Under Sir Walter's assault, one of the ice creatures crumbles into chunks of ice.
Two shots worry at Radosek's robes, but for the moment he is not mortally wounded.
Haamid's claw swipes across the goat's flank as it dances away.
Radosek waves what appears to be a foot long icicle toward William. A stalagmite-like spear of ice bursts from the ground.
The ice spear knocks William off balance, knocking him to the ground.
The ice monster lashes out at Tallak, striking his armor ineffectively.
Your turn, William is prone unless I missed something.
Tallak attempts to take cover behind his shield from the snowballs.
He then drops that shield and his axe to draw a longbow and aim up at the wizard, holding an arrow to string and waiting silently.
On noticing the man start to work magic, Tallak looses an arrow to try and ruin his concentration!
Sent sprawling on the ground, William has no time to heal himself. Instead he turns to the side, bracing against the icy floor, and shoots once more at the wizard.
"Little help here, please?"
Naajy continues to fire at the flying guy while poor Haamid faces what is a surprisingly close fight with a Goat. A Goat, of all things. Its embarrassing
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Humming cheerfully, Walter moved closer to the master of this place, but focused on shattering the last of his icy guards and leaving his allies a clean shot.
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A barrage of noise assaults your ears as firearms bark and Haamid coughs at the bleating goat. In an instant, Sir Walter crushes the ice creature, Haamid grasps the goat by the throat, and Naajy, William, and Tallak blast the floating Radosek. Ridddled with bullet and arrow, the long haired man falls to the icy floor.
For the moment, all resistance has been vanquished.
Tallak stows his bow and picks up his shield and axe, holstering the latter, strapping the former to his arm, and walking over to Dr. Johnson to help him up. "Well. I don't think my ears will ever forget the strange way you people fight," the Ulfen man jokes as he pulls the doctor to his feet. "Can you still stand?"
William grabs the man's arm. "I think so, thank you."
As the danger seems to have vanished for the moment, the doctor does a quick triage of his companions. Naajy and Tallak have exposed wounds, easy to treat, but the rest of them seems to be suffering from subdual damage, slower to heal.
Walter leaned against a wall as he got patched up. "Well, that magic is certainly...exciting. Like a living artillery battery." He shuddered at that mental image.
Haamid looks over at the doctor with pussy cat eyes
"Would you possibly be able to heal Haamid a little as well? He'll be good, I promise you"
With that,. Naajy holds onto the tigers shoulder.
"So, now what? Is there any opposition left here in the tower? I'm starting to run low on ammunution, too. I think we're going to have to learn to use the natives weapons very, very soon"
"Jesus Mary and Joseph! That was crazy!"
"I'm a doctor, not a vet." grumbles William, cautiously spraying disinfectant on the tiger's goat-inflicted wounds.
"Double, double, toil and trouble." quotes the doctor, perusing the books and scrolls in search of indications on whatever is going on in here. "This looks like a complex setup, and something dangerous if interacted with. But maybe it has something to do with those portals that brought us here."
Walter remained quiet, for the most part. He really didn't want to poke something and get turned into a frog or the like. They didn't get to have nearly as much fun. He did look around for anything that might be of interest in this place.
"Thanks. He appreciates it"
Naajy studies the globe, trying to figure out what it may be
William and Walter move about the room, finding a wide variety of dried herbs, metals, packets, herbs, glasswork.
There are several items with careful labels:
Naajy focuses himself as he reaches his hands into the glowing image of the earth globe. His mind is overwhelmed with flashes of portals across the globe. He sees the portal in New York, another in a jungle that looks suspiciously familiar to him, a portal in a frozen sandy desert that might be in Northern Africa, a portal in No Man's Land between two barb wired trench positions, difficult to tell the exact location, and another atop an unfamiliar stepped pyramid surrounded by dense jungle, and another atop a wall that stretches to the horizon. This must be the Great Wall that Naajy has read about. The last portal is atop a tall mountain shrouded in permanent winter.
Near each of the portals is a camp of blue humanoids and bestial giant men.
"This makes sense!" William exclaims cheerfully, taking stock of all the material organized on the table. "It's basically chemistry, although some of the compounds are quite unusual. This one is just marked as acid, maybe hydrocloric or sulfuric. Then we have alchemist's fire... phosphorus-based, I think, with an accelerant I don't recognize. Something like Greek Fire, perhaps. Four sticks, three grey and one tipped with gold, that will require more examination... These bags seem to be filled with tree sap. Three stones of some sort, maybe they are ingredients? Then these sticks seem to be primitive matches, and there's a kind of metallic paint. Too bad the only person with an inchling of the workings of science is lying dead on this floor."
"He's dead, isn't he? Can someone make sure of it?"
Walter walked over to the man's body. Since checking for signs of life seemed a waste, he grabbed something suitably blunt and slammed it into the wizards skull. "Reasonably sure, old boy."
Naajy staggers back
"There is a massive invasion of our world going on, an invasion attacking many points throughout the world.
Who knows how much trouble they could cause? Especially if they ally with the Hun.
We have to shut it down. I'm not totally sure but I think shutting it down should shunt us back to our world and the invading sources back here"
Walter looked over at Naajy, but nodded. "You're gifts are better than mine for knowledge of this, old bean. If you say we must destroy these portals and then we can return to our world, then we can try it. A bit of a shame...I would have liked to explore this realm more, but I'd rather not tip the balance of the War."
"I'm just along for the ride, fellas."
William frowns while looking at Naajy as he speaks. "Shameful. There is much to be learned in these surroundings. Though I assume it won't be easy to undo such a work, with our limited understanding of the arcane. Mister Naajy, could you come here a moment before we proceed? I am uncertain about these... alchemical reagents."
"Your words were convincing, but your body language wasn't. Which part of it was a lie?"
Naajy comes over and whispers to William
"I think there is an invasion and that we can shut it down from here. That was all true. But we'll be trapped. As will the enemy forces already in our world. At least, the doors will shut with us on this side. I'm hoping that we'll eventually be able to find another way home but that is pure hope on my part. I thought it would be easier on everybody if they just assumed I'd made a mistake"
"I have no problem with being stuck here for a while! So much to learn! But we shouldn't lie to them, or you'll just give them false hope. But, more pressingly, do you actually know how to turn this thing off?"
Digger seems to think it's obvious how the device works, eventually.
Cannot fail the perception check
"I'm pretty sure I know HOW to shut the thing down. Not totally sure that I CAN do it but I'm certainly willing to try.
William also wants me to tell you all the truth. I think that shutting the device down will trap us all here. Well, trap us until we can find a way home. If they can open all these gates everywhere hopefully we'll be able to, eventually, figure out how to open one gate.
So, the question is : do we TRY and shut the gate down? We have to ...
Its hard to translate. In Hindi its "
गेट की ध्रुवीयता को उलट दें"
Not sure if Digger's UMD suffices (assuming people agree) or if the same person needs to make the UMD check and the Knowledge Arcana check.
And should probably wait to see if people agree anyway :-)
Digger thinks that, yes, it is just a matter of pushing a few of the energy connections around, redirecting the flow, so to speak.
"There is much to see around this place, and I want to learn all I can. I'm staying."
As it looks like the Indian man has the theoretical bases covered, William realizes that they hadn't checked Radosek for valuables, and goes to inspect the corpse.
Radosek wears a rich blue wool cloak with a fur mantle. He also wears a blue robe of heavy wool, perfect for keeping off the chill. At his belt, he wears a fine dagger with a rhomboid cross section of some strange dark metal. Tucked into a pouch are two steel vials that contain an amber liquid. He also has a scroll of paper scribed with arcane symbols. At his neck he wears a dark claw on a leather thong, perhaps the claw of a large bear. His left hand sports a finely crafted gold ring. He also carries a pouch of strange ingredients carefully sorted into small pockets.
The strangest thing he carries is an 18 inch bluish icicle that hums faintly with some sort of energy.
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Walter shrugged at the dead man's items. He was unclear as to how magic worked - if you needed to have magic to use magic items, for example, or if you needed to know the local lingo to turn them on. Since he had no idea how to use them he also had no idea how to use them safely, so he let it be.
"Whoa! Neat!" Digger grabs the icicle.
"Watch out, Mister Brautigan, lest the sorcery freezes your fingers solid." muses William, unclasping the wizard's cloak. After a moment of hesitation, he starts removing and sorting all of the possessions on the body, including the robe.
"Ugh, I feel like I'm robbing a grave. This glorified dress had better have magical properties."