Not certain she isn't in the way in the cramped hallway, Flo sends Desna's favor to Colvyn as well before taking a step back. Don't seem too strong, bet this is the easy part. Clean up, as it were!
________
"I told you to stay up there! Now look what you are making me do! I'm smacking you with my bow!" Colvyn changes his stance and smack the ogrekin with his bow instead of firing arrows. His hope is that the one in front of him fall so that Guiness can move in front.
Colvyn's first strike with his bow sends the green ogrekin slumping to the ground, while the lucky shot that follows sends an arrow straight through the skull of the ogrekin a few steps behind. It lets out a groan and falls a moment later.
Out of Combat!
You pause a little after the two ogrekin are down and don't hear any other movement upstairs, it seems the way is clear.
|
"Nicely done, Colvyn," says Guiness with awe at the archer's skill. "Do you have healing available for Kargas, Floredana?" asks the dwarf, moving back to the room with the re-dead zombies and the ogre matron, looking to see if there was any treasure worth having while their cursed barbarian was tended to.
"Only if we have the time, Kellek mentioned that he's been cursed. I can try to counteract it, but it will take some time for me to accept the power to do so," Flo explains. At least they fell quickly...
________
Guiness does a quick sweep of Mammy's bedroom and finds that hidden among the nauseating "art" there are a few items of interest. Quite a few more are also trapped within the ogrekin matriarch's rolls of flesh.
1x Potion of cure moderate
1x Wand of magic missile (CL3, 44 charges)
1x Wand of ray of enfeeblement (28 charges)
1x Wand of vampiric touch (33 charges)
1x Potion of barkskin (CL6)
1x masterwork quarterstaff engraved with laughing skulls
1x scroll of animate dead
1x scroll of ray of enfeeblement
1x scroll of horrid wilting
While Floredana prepare her spell, Colvyn moves up stair and listens to the two doors, just to make sure there are no other nasty surprises. If there is no sounds, he waits in the corridor, waiting on the group to catch up.
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While Kargas is being tended to and Kellek is (probably) playing with his new magic items, Guiness checks out the remaining door (to a closet or stairwell, perhaps), then moves to the base of the steps and waits to back up Colvyn if he needs it, whispering, "Let me know if you need my help, Colvyn" as his stealthy ally moves past.
Once Flo converts her faith into the appropriate magic, she has Kargas lay down in a clearing of soft grass nearby. "Alright, don't move!" she instructs.
Both hands hovering over the Half-Orc's well-muscled chest, several gentle insects flutter and crawl over to lend their will to the curse's removal. Before a court of caterpillars, butterflies, crickets, and beetles, her hands glow white as the darkness of Mammy's curse splits away from Kargas in fits and spurts. Finally, a large, writhing mass of mouthed darkness rises from his chest and dissipates into the light of her hands.
"How's that? Looked like it worked!" she asks, patting Kargas on the chest before offering to help him up.
________
Kargas goes his eyes and lets out a deep relieved sigh as the supernatural hunger leaves him. He lays there a moment before grasping Flo's hand and letting her help him up. "Thank you," he whispers.
"Alright, let's find the Black Arrows' stuff and burn this sh*thole to the ground," he says more loudly, heading back inside to assist the search.
"You know what? They'll find it," the half-orc changes his mind, sitting back down on the grass.
While Flo focuses on imploring Desna for the exact right kind of aid, Colvyn is able to slip upstairs and scout out the top floor of the farmhouse. The top floor consists of two large rooms that Colvyn is able to quickly search through. To the east sits a massive attic space with a low, partially caved in ceiling. Crates serve as tables and chairs and are strewn with beakers, glass vials, old tin cans, rope, animal traps, spikes, bones and all manner of other junk. In one corner sits some old furniture and other keepsakes.
Among the various tools and junk in the eastern attic room, Colvyn recovers five flasks of acid and three sets of masterwork thieves tools.
In the western room, Colvyn finds a large but cramped bedroom that is filled with an unpleasant stench. Large, filthy beds sized for the malformed ogrekin sit in this room. Human skulls fitted with antlers have been mounted on bedposts and headboards. Against the west wall sits a large cedar chest. It does not have a lock.
Back on the ground floor, Guiness opens the door off Mammy's room and finds a closet well packed with "spare" human body parts in various stages of decay. Beyond the gruesome sight, there doesn't appear to be anything else within.
Flo's magic defeats the curse with ease.
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Scowling in disgust at the macabre scene before him, Guiness' first instinct is to pull out the body parts for proper burial, but he quickly remembers they plan to burn this place to the ground--a fitting funeral pyre.
With Colvyn not needing help upstairs, Guiness goes out and checks on Floredana and Kargas, relieved to see the big warrior returned to normal. Taking a deep breath of the outside fresh air, he says, "The main floor and upper floor are clear--no sign of the Ranger's equipment, though. That leaves the basement--ready to go when you are."
"Colvyn, did you check out that chest or would you rather someone else do it?" Flo asks genuinely.
"Ready, Guiness. Hopefully that'll be the last of it and we can just light this place up. I'm all for repurposing things, especially buildings, but this... this needs to go."
Unconcerned, Kellek rummages through the mess moving any arms and spleens aside with clinical nonchalance. He just through a pellet of bat sh*t he'd been carrying in his competent pouch for a week after all.
Colvyn opens the chest and pulls out... A bag of sand? With nothing else of note, he walks back down stairs and gives the bag to Floredana. "No idea what this is, didn't check inside." He turns to the rest of the group. "There are seven beds up there. We killed one on the way here, then four mores from the barn. With the two in the stairs, this should make a full count, that is unless there are beds in the basement. Oh and no sign of the black arrows gear so far, but I did find some vial of acid and some thieves tools."
Kellek's inspection of the grisly closet turns up no magic auras or objects of interest. Meanwhile, Colvyn pulls out the sack and takes it with him.
Other than the mix of sand and spores, the sack is empty of any contents of value.
Resolving yourselves to face the basement, you return back to the kitchen and descend down the stairs. The smell of musty, wet earth only grows stronger as you take the steps down into an unlit basement. For those of you who can see in the dark (and for those that brought along some light), you can make out a short hallway ahead once the stairs end. Three closed doors lie ahead, once to the north, one to the south and one to the west. All three appear to be made of soggy, mossy wood and have rusty iron handles with no locks.
Guiness breathes in the spores, but manages to quickly cough them out, and his hearty dwarven constitution prevents any of the fiendish little spores from taking root within his lungs.
Down in the basement, Guiness doesn't spot any traps on the door and after a bit of trial and error in attempting to free the swollen door from its frame, he swings it open.
Heaped up in one corner of the room are a pile of bloody clothes. When you take a look at them you see more patches with the Black Arrow insignia - likely these clothes belonged to the three Black Arrows you rescued above. Unfortunately, there's no sign of their armor or weapons here.
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Looking at the clothes, Guiness says, "Do you have any magic to quickly clean those clothes for our Black Arrow allies, Kellek?" Guiness waits for the others to search the room if they like and will fold up and store the clothes if Kellek quickly cleans them.
Once that is done, he asks Kargas, "So if I get the door on the other side of the hallway, do you want the one at the end?" and checks the door on the south wall of the hallway for traps.
Flo backs the others up, offering her own inspection of the room Guiness has stepped in. Having seen enough of this place, through sheer force of will, she blocks out as much of the visual stimuli as she can. And I see fire...
________
Still wary of the doorways, Kargas moves into the larger room after Guiness and starts carving through the wall into the space beyond.
Guiness doesn't spot any traps on the door south from the hallway. While he searches, Flo gives the northern room a once over, but doesn't spot anything beyond what was visible at first glance. Kargas slowly saws his way through the south-western corner of the northern room.
The wooden wall gives way quickly to his adamantine blade, and with a kick he's able to smash open a doorway! The low-ceilinged room beyond features a floor of rocky earth stained with blood and mold. A lumpy mattress lies piled up in one corner, but the majority of the room is filled with several half-finished chairs made of bleached bone. Standing near the south end of the room is a hunch-backed ogrekin. hairless except for the second head growing sideways out of his neck, he wields a sharpened hook on one hand. Closer to the new entrance into the room sit two giant, mutated rats with goblin-like faces.
The rats hiss at Kargas.
----
-
|||| INIT ||||
Guiness (7 dmg, 3 Dex dmg)
Kargas (8 dmg)
Colvyn (1 Str dmg)
Kellek
Flo
Blue Mutant Rat
Green Mutant Rat
Red Ogrekin "Craftsman"
Everyone Up!
Looking at the clothes, Guiness says, "Do you have any magic to quickly clean those clothes for our Black Arrow allies, Kellek?"
"Of course. I always keep a second fireball spell handy in scroll form." He says pulling a scroll from his scroll box. "Now step aside."
As combat begins Kellek follows Guiness into the hall.
"Close the doors when I tell you!"
"What do you see, Kargas?" Flo calls out as she hears his armor fend off teeth. Bringing her attention to the mask on her face, she waits for another one of those furry blurs to have a go at her friend again. Ok, let's see what it's like dishing some of this out.
"Sorry Colvyn!" she whispers in advance.
________
"Their faces are all f!cked up!" Kargas almost-but-not-quite screams as the goblin-faced rats hiss at him. Throwing out a hand, palm open, the scars on his arms thrum with power as sheets of lightning spray from his hand!
Moving as far away from the door that he can, Colvyn takes aim at the goblin/rat that he can see.
-
-
-
Guiness opens the room's eastern door, letting him see the malformed creatures within. Flo readies the medusa mask's magic. Kargas delivers a spray of electricity that cascades over one of the rats and the ogrekin. Both dodge out of the way of the worst of the lightning, the rat getting singed and the ogrekin entirely pulling clear with preternatural quickness. A fireball from Kellek follows after Kargas leaves the room.
As the flames clear, you can see all three foes successfully shielded themselves from the blast by diving under half-built chairs. The two rats look burned and uglier than ever, but the ogrekin seems healthy still. Colvyn's arrow sinks deep into the blue mutant rat, but doesn't bring it down.
The blue rat springs forward after Kargas, gets caught in the gaze from the medusa mask but shrugs it off, and delivers a powerful bite. Its sharp incisors tear flesh before it springs away from him to make space. The green rat follows immediately afterward, but has less luck as Kargas fends it off. It skitters around him and ends up next to Flo. You can't help but notice that the rats move with the cunning of a wolf or other pack animal.
The ogrekin guffaws "Tuh-toasty. Ya'll 'll make goooood chairs. Comfy." His side-head starts screaming in delight. He stomps through the new northern doorway and swings his ogre hook around and stabs it deep into Kargas' side. He snarls and tugs it free, leaving a gaping, bleeding wound.
|||| INIT ||||
Guiness (7 dmg, 3 Dex dmg)
Kargas (50 dmg, 3 bleed)
Colvyn (1 Str dmg)
Kellek
Flo
Blue Mutant Rat (24 dmg)
Green Mutant Rat (17 dmg)
Red Ogrekin "Craftsman"
Everyone Up!
Colvyn seems to hesitate between the rat or the ogrekin. Finaly, he takes a step back, empower himself with divine energy and sends two arrows at the rat. Got to reduce the number of foes quickly if we want to survive this.
Flo winces as Kargas gets ripped to pieces quite quickly. "Go fish, Kargas!" she shouts, funneling her stream of butterflies around the warrior.
________
Guiness moves in and readies an attack, while Colvyn steps back and manages to pierce the blue mutant rat's hide with one of the two arrows he fires. The rat, disturbingly resilient, still stands.
|||| INIT ||||
Guiness (7 dmg, 3 Dex dmg, readied)
Kargas (50 dmg, 3 bleed, luck)
Colvyn (1 Str dmg)
Kellek
Flo
Blue Mutant Rat (35 dmg)
Green Mutant Rat (17 dmg)
Red Ogrekin "Craftsman"
Everyone Up!
Feeling light-headed from the sudden shock of his injuries, Kargas feels the familiar magic flood his body in response. Trying to free up some space to maneuver in, the half-orc lashes out at the hideous rat-thing nipping at his flanks.
Moments after fending off Kargas' strike, the ogrekin sweeps his hook over and just barely blocks Dragonfist coming in. The ogrekin whistles, and the blue mutant rat creature immediately raises its face into the air. It looks around for a second, and then leaps at Colvyn burying incisors into his leg before springing away. It skitters over the table, around Flo, and into a position flanking Kargas.
The ogrekin grunts "Chuckles woz my best friend, ya'll payin' for-" He's drowned out by the second head on his neck bawling at the top of its lungs. He delivers a brutally powerful swing of his ogre hook once more, breaking Kargas' guard and tearing down into his shoulder.
|||| INIT ||||
Guiness (7 dmg, 3 Dex dmg)
Kargas (81 dmg?, 3 bleed)
Colvyn (10 dmg, 1 Str dmg)
Kellek x2
Flo
Blue Mutant Rat (35 dmg)
Red Ogrekin "Craftsman"
Everyone Up!
"Where--*cough*--where exactly do you want me to go, dwarf?!" Kargas growls, blood flecking his lips.
"Oh, I guess here works," Kargas moves to flank the mutant ogre with Guiness. "Will you shut up?!" he howls at the wordlessly screaming vestigial twin.
"Yeah, Chuckles is dead now. And guess what... We also killed that big fat ugly blob that was upstairs. Was that thing your mom? Wife? Both?"
Flo tries to sneak a slice into the rat as it zooms by, but it is simply too fast for her. Even as she begins to move, she already knows she is too late.
With Kargas bleeding a lot she backs away from the gruesome rat and pulls out one of her metal rods. Holding it in the air, she points a finger at the Half-Orc and sends a beam of healing light at him. "Not today Kargas!"
________
-
Flo's healing pulls Kargas away from the brink of death. The ogrekin bellows in his own pained rage, swinging down with the hook once more, this time aiming right for Kargas' head. Kargas manages to deflect it just enough that it only tears into his chest, but the wound in grievous regardless.
The ogrekin backs itself into the corner, very badly injured himself, and heaves heavy breaths. He lets out a piercing whistle, attracting the remaining rat to cover him. The blue rat springs in at Guiness, but isn't able to get its fangs past his armor.
|||| INIT ||||
Guiness (7 dmg, 3 Dex dmg)
Kargas (94 dmg, unconscious, prone, dying (-9))
Colvyn (10 dmg, 1 Str dmg)
Kellek x2
Flo
Blue Mutant Rat (35 dmg)
Red Ogrekin "Craftsman" (67 dmg)
Everyone Up!
With Kargas down, Colvyn tries to finish the fight by sending arrows into the ogrekin. His aims isn't what he would like, but still, one of those should find the target.