One of the elementals gets the brunt of the blast and looks badly melted. The other one manages to get mostly out of the way.
The red and yellow elementals are engulfed in flames, but his allies are unharmed.
Two elementals rise from underneath the ice. One grabs Mr Whiskers, the other tries pound Greta.
The elemental tries to grapple Mr Whiskers, but his talisman triggers and Mr Whiskers slips out of the way!
Greta gets hit rather hard by one of the elementals coming up from the ground.
The red elemental continues maintaining its grapple on Dimitri.
Dimitri is grappled, and squeezed in its icy embrace. The chill of its embrace is absorbed by Mr Whiskers's protections.
One of the other elementals starts pounding on Greta. The second blow is turned by her leathery hide, though the first blow hits her hard.
The other elementals strike at Einar.
Einar loses 3 of his doppelgangers but is otherwise unharmed.
Greta begins trying to free Dimitri from his elemental, by bashing it to pieces.
She bashes it down to ice cubes in two strikes, then turns to the orange elemental and destroys it with her hammer.
The elemental east of Einar is very badly damaged but still up.
Mr. Whiskers once again adjusts his position slightly, breaths deeply, then releases a cone of fire that washes over the Yellow and Green elementals.
Dimitri attempts to blow-up yellow...
...whilst Crummock moves forward, and casts Divine Favor on Geist, who then pounces on the one to the West of Greta, launching himself through the air!
Green melts under Mr Whiskers breath, and yellow manages to get mostly out of the way.
Dimitri fires 3 bullets at it, shattering it, then shoots for the blue. But blue is still up!
Geist bites and claws at his elemental, but doesn't manage to finish it off.
The elementals continue to pound Greta, one of them shattering her skull and she collapses, dead, on the icy floor.
Then she is enshrounded in an icy cool mist.
Greta starts breathing again, but decides to play possum, considering she has two hulking elementals over her, for now.
Einar moves up and scoups the large winter wolf up from the icy floor and deposits her away from the elementals.
At the moment when the ice elemental shatters Greta’s skull, her gargoyle form shimmers then returns back to her winter wolf form.
Dimitri pumps 4 bullets into the ice elemental, shattering it.
Mr. Whiskers adjusts his position slightly so as to get the last two into a cone and breaths out.
Mr Whiskers shifts slightly in the air then breathes out a cone of flame.
Both of the elementals do not get out of the way in time. One of them looks like on the verge of melting, the other just looks pissed at Mr Whiskers.
Dimitri starts shooting at blue, determined to put it down...
...whilst Geist continues to bite and claw at his own target.
Dimitri shoots at the blue, shattering it into pieces.
Geist finally manages to put down his elemental as well.
Greta's eyes flicker open, and she gives a pained whimper."Oh m' 'ead,' she groans. Her pupils are dilated and her gaze unfocused. There is a large lump on the side of her head, the fur caked with blood, where the ice elemental clobbered her. She squints at the party without any sign of recognition, "Wh' 'r yu?"
Crummock breathes a sigh of relief.
"Those things were nasty!"
He then starts healing Greta, and Dimitri.
Once Greta is fully healed, he (carefully) pats her shoulder.
"Are ye feelin' better now? Those elemental beasties gave ye quite a poundin'!"
He then sets about searching the area, before moving on.
Greta looks confused as Crummock starts healing her, but as the healing starts taking effect she becomes more lucid. ”Oh sh*t.” She exclaims as her memories return. ”Oh my god, I freaking died..good grief, that was my brains they splattered on the floor.” She look a rather shaken for a moment before she regains her composure. ”I was floating off towards the light when I heard Baba Yaga yelling that no slacking was allowed on the job. Then something grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and flung me back here. And I woke up with the biggest headache I ever had in my life, like someone split my skull open.” Then she looks at the aftermath of the battle, ”Yep, I think some elemental did just that.”
She takes a deep breath, and nods. "Yeah I'm fine now, thanks to your healing." Then she shifts back to human form and picks up her lucerne hammer."And I don't ever want to be the centre of attention again."
Searching the ice elementals yields no loot.
The matryoshka doll makes a sniffing noise. ”The cold queens live some distance ahead. Though maybe ‘live’ isn’t the best word for it. But they’re very, very angry. And you’re not the first. I smell the blood of my grandchildren ahead as well. “ Baba Yaga projects into the party's minds.
The party finds an organized camp, devoid of people. Various items of equipment and supplies are stacked neatly on the floor as if someone expected to be returning here soon. Searching the gear reveals the group apparently consists of five individuals, at least one of whom is likely Large. The equipment is mundane adventuring gear consisting of ropes, packs, food and water, and other assorted items that could come in handy. Mr Whiskers recognizes that the gear is Irriseni in origin. Among the items left behind are an ale jack carved from ivory (worth 125 gp) and a saltcellar composed entirely of magical ice (worth 500 gp) which has a faint conjuration aura. Mr Whiskers determines that the saltcellar came from the Royal Palace of Whitethrone and was used as a magical key to bring its bearer to this dungeon without traveling through other areas of the Dancing Hut, though it no longer possesses the ability to do so.
Crummock frowns.
"Aye? Well, if yer daughter's children have been here afore us, we should make haste..."
He then stops for a moment, considers, and casts Freedom of Movement on Dimitri, before continuing deeper into the complex.
An icy ledge overlooks a rocky cavern filled with foul-smelling smoke.
Crummock, however sees a jumble of broken stone and debris covers the floor., 60 ft below and the celling of this chamber is 100ft high. Crummock also sees an amorphous blob of violet energy rippling like a globe of floating liquid flying in the smoke cloud, that is beside the remains of a partially digested hummanoid next to another humanoid, clearly dead, with a gaping, cauterized hole in his chest. The source of the smoke is a smoking bottle, opposite the ledge
To the southeast, Crummock sees a ledge 70 feet above the floor leading away from the cavern.
Listening to Crummock's description of the globe of floating liquid, Greta and Mr Whiskers try to identify the creature.
Mr Whiskers and Greta identify the creature as a plasma ooze. It has blindsight 60 feet, DR 15/-, splits when slashing damage is applied to it.
Split (Ex) The creature splits into two identical copies of itself if subject to certain attacks or effects. Each copy has half the original's current hit points (rounded down). A creature reduced below the listed hit points (46) cannot be further split and can be killed normally.
Crummock mounts Geist , who then double moves across the chamber. Crummock then picks up the bottle that the smoke is coming from .
"So what does that do?" Dimitri asks Crummock when he casts Freedom of Movement on him.
Crummock grins.
"Well, amongst other things, it will stop anythin' from grabbin' ye, and ward off paralysis..."
"That's helpful. At least I don't get squeezed to death by some too-big hulking things."Dimitri thanks Crummock.
Dimitri also diplomatically refrains from telling Greta that's how he felt about the baykoks.
"Actually, I'd put it down to having a really bad concussion. Baba Yaga's magic did bring me back but I was seeing double for a while. Couldn't think straight either, but again blows to your head do that."Greta answers Einar clinically. "I still have some ringing in the ears, and I'm feeling a bit off, but I don't think anyone can do anything about it, can they?"Greta looks at Crummock hopefully.
Welcome back, we should start keeping a tally, see who's actually died the most.
Greta makes an exasperated noise. "Really, Einar, the strangest things amuse you. You sure Crummock didn't take too long to resuscitate you the last time you died? Or a water elemental hit you on the head after I went down?"
Greta looks at the camp thoughtfully. "If I don't guess wrong, this looks like the camp of Queen Elvanna's Winter Guards. I wager she sent them here for some reason." She points out the booted prints and claw prints in ice leading to the ledge . "Looks like they went that way."
"And judging from all the shattered ice elementals we saw before we entered the cavern, I'd say they ran into the ice elementals as well."
Once Greta is back up, Mr. Whiskers asks "Would you like me to renew the Mage Armor?"
--- Camp --
"It seems they didn't encounter quite enough of the Ice Elementals."
--- Now ---
Looking to Greta, he says "Would you mind making sure nothing gets to me while I take care of the smoke?" He then starts casting a summoning spell.
"No need, I spend most of the day in human form and I have my chain mail."Greta answers.
"Sure, no problem. I don't want to go into a roomful of smoke with a plasma ooze within." Greta agrees to guard Mr Whiskers.
Mr. Whiskers starts his summoning, planning to bring in a large air elemental to clear the smoke.
The ooze begins to emit a strange pulse, attracting all metal objects nearby.
Crummock's starknife flies out of his hand and adheres to the ooze and Geist is pulled into the ooze.
Geist manages to resist getting engulfed by the ooze.
It tries to slam Crummock, but Crummock dodges,
"Oh if I'm to get to that flying ooze thing, I'll need to fly. I could shoot it from here, but I don't think it'd do very much."Greta tells Mr Whiskers.
Mr. Whiskers instructs the large air elemental to clear away the smoke so all the bipeds can see and after it finishes that attack the ooze.
Then he turns Greta into her preferred combat form -- a four armed gargoyle.
"Watch out! Something is weird, see Crummock's star knife stuck to the creature?"
Einar is pulled 10 ft closer to the ooze but does not lose his weapon.
Einar then clobbers the ooze but oozes have no vital spots to hit! His hammer does not seem to be fully effective but he does a good job smacking up the ooze.
Greta flies in to clobber some ooze!
Greta smacks the ooze up a little more.
Dimitri fires at the ooze, shooting it until it grows dim and falls to the cavern floor. Crummock then pulls off his starknife off its dead body.
The partially digested humanoid still has his suit of +1 dwarvern plate, a +1 light steel shield, a +2 greatsword and a ring of counterspells(baleful polymorph). The body is too far digested for Greta to determine any details on it. The body with a gaping, cauterized hole in his chest, which Greta identifies as one of the Winter Guard, has a +1 cold resistance banded mail and a +2 greataxe. His pouch contains a potion of bear’s endurance, a potion of remove blindness/deafness, a ruby worth 500 gp and 35 gold pieces.
When Crummock takes out the bottle out of his now extremely smoky bag of holding, Mr Whiskers identifies it as an eversmoking bottle.
Einar airlifts Dimitri down into the cavern, after checking the place is clear.
In the south west corner is a large sinkhole. A piton has been driven into the stone at the edge of the sinkhole, supporting a series of ropes knotted together that descend down into the darkness. One of the ropes leading down into the sinkhole is a rope of climbing. Throwing down a lighted rock indicates that it’s about 150 ft down.
The ledges leading away from the cavern have a large formation of beautiful faceted crystals, and if the crystals are removed, they are worth a total of 5000 gp.
Crummock chews his lip thoughtfully.
"There be no tellin' what is down there, but I doubt it be friendly..."
He then casts Air Walk on Dimitri (so that he doesn't need to use the rope).
He then cautiously heads down.
Dimitri thanks Crummock for the airwalk as he doesn't really feel too comfortable climbing down the rope with god knows what the heck waiting down there.
Small burning gas vents provide dim light in this vast chamber, and the air is noticeably warmer. The walls are broken and crumbling, rising in a series of crags around the edges of the chamber, some nearly climbing to the celling. The floor is covered in fine black sand intersperse with chunks of brittle stone. Near the bottom of the rope lies the charred and still smouldering carcass of some large humanoid-shaped creature. Another corpse, this one less badly burned, lies wedged among the rocks at the base of a nearby crag. Far to the north is a pair of tall bronze doors. One of them stands ajar. In the chamber itself there are two immense, wingless green dragons with triple tails and powerful talents flying in the air.
Mr Whiskers recognizes them as Crag Linnorms. They have DR 15/cold iron, regen 10/cold iron and they have a breath weapon. They have true seeing.
Once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action, a crag linnorm can expel a 120-foot line of magma, dealing 15d8 points of fire damage to all creatures struck (Reflex saves halves). This line of magma remains red-hot for 1 round after the linnorm creates it. Creatures that took damage on the first round take 6d6 fire damage the second round (Reflex save negates), as does any creature that walks across the line of magma. If the magma was expelled while the linnorm was airborne, it instead rains downward during the second round as a sheet of fire no more than 60 feet high that does 6d6 damage (Reflex save negates) to any creature that passes through it. On the third round, the line of magma cools to a thin layer of brittle stone that quickly degrades to powder and sand over the course of several hours; magma that’s turned to a sheet of fire is consumed entirely during the second round, leaving behind only a stain of smoke in the air that swiftly disperses.
"Ummm...Einar your mirror image will not work against these. Remember to use cold iron too!"
Oops, too late!
"My name is Mizora, and that's my brother Fafnir. And you do not go through a dragons lair without bringing...proper gifts."One of the dragons looks pointedly at the charred bodies on the floor.
"Oh, so thats how it is then. Have it your way." It gives a draconic equivalent of a shrug, then one of them flames Geist, Mr Whiskers and Greta, then flies to one corner, while the other flames Crummock, Geist, Mr Whiskers and Greta and squeezes its way through the half opened door.
Geist manages to get clean out of the way, but Greta and Mr Whiskers are not so fortunate and get the full brunt of the blast.
Geist manages to dodge the bursts all together, while Crummock manages to get mostly out of the way. Mr Whiskers and Greta are less fortunate and their charred bodies tumble to the ground, 30 ft below. Mr Whiskers briefly feels a blinding flash of heat and searing pain...then oblivion.
"We'll take care of your friends, then we'll take care of you."
An icy cool mist envelops Mr Whiskers on the ground, 30 feet below.
Mr Whiskers sees his charred body on the cavern floor. "Oh quit slacking around when the job isn't done," He hears Baba Yaga's voice in his mind, then he feels himself violently shoved back into his scorched body.
He awakens to find himself pretty much poached and badly singed on the ground, with a blackened winterwolf corpse beside him.
Dimitri, rather unhappy with what just happened, runs forward, whilst Geist likewise bounds down to where he can see some dragons.
Dodging the falling magma, Crummock slaps Mr Whiskers across the shoulder, Healing him.