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Drazh stepped to the side and then brought his hammer around into the giant's shin. The bone shattered under the impact, sending the giant falling to the ground. With a satisfied grunt, Drazh casually walked forward and brought the hammer down on the back of the giant's neck, bringing instant death.
Ferocia attacks the remaining giant.
Marten tsks at his questionee turning into a frog. Very inefficient.
He distractedly casts magic missile at the remaining giant.
Ferocia attacks the remaining giant.
Azalia steps back and reluctantly shoots at a giant, since she didn't want to disillusion frog-girl.
Marten tsks at his questionee turning into a frog. Very inefficient.
He distractedly casts magic missile at the remaining giant.
Drazh stepped to the side and then brought his hammer around into the giant's shin. The bone shattered under the impact, sending the giant falling to the ground. With a satisfied grunt, Drazh casually walked forward and brought the hammer down on the back of the giant's neck, bringing instant death.
The remaining giant begins to flee leaving you with an icy frog woman.
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Ferocia slashes with her claws.
"Drazh, you missed one."
Marten casts telekinetic charge on Drazh Anvilhammer, and the dwarf flies through the air toward the fleeing giant like an anvil with a hammer. That's named Drazh.
You're left with a slowly freezing frog woman once an the dwarves are done with the final giant.
Huge Size +4 full plate x3
Sihedron ring x3
On the frog woman...
potions of cure serious wounds (5)
+5 full plate
+5 heavy steel shield
Mysterious Blade... that's an artefact...
+1 composite longbow (+10 Str) with 20 arrows
belt of physical might +6 (Str, Con)
Boots of teleportation
Cloak of minor displacement
Headband of inspired wisdom +6
Ring of freedom of movement (I forgot about this one... obviously the frog thing meant she didn't understand she could walk out of the icy prison)
Scarab of protection (10 charges)
Sihedron ring
Vibrant purple ioun stone (contains a fly spell)
A single dedicated looter can spend an hour prying up gems, scraping gold plating, and otherwise scavenging wealth to the amount of 1d6 × 1,000 gp per hour spent working in this room, to a maximum amount of looted wealth equal to 60,000 gp.
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Marten confers with the others in the group where a tactically sound place for the getaway spell would be and casts it on the entire group at that location.
Afterwards, he casts Marten's magnificent mansion in the back of the room where they defeated the frog woman. (Who was she, anyway?) Stepping through the invisible doorway to the extradimensional mansion, the group is met by oer 30 near-transparent servants that await the groups arrival. Looking closely at the servants, one can tell that they are dressed in the school colors of the Acadamae.
Dinner is a delicious affair of a large smoke turkey with stuffing, roast vegetables, a mushroom quiche, and mashed potatoes. Dessert is a strawberry rhubarb pie. The wine is an excellent Chellish red, and there's an ale that Marten heard of once a long time ago.
Marten tries to strike up a conversation of what the blade the group found could be. After dinner and conversation, it's off to bed.
Marten's room takes up the entire 3rd floor of the mansion. Everyone else's guest suites are on the second floor.
Drazh's bedroom has a cheery fireplace, his own keg of ale, and lots of silver and gold leaf paneling on the walls. There is not a book in sight.
Ferocia's bedroom has two beds: One is a frilly canopy bed with lots of lace duvets and covers, pink sheets, and far too many pillows. The other bed is a pile of hay in one corner with a pillow tossed on top of it. Her room's walls are covered in wallpaper with a bunch of trees or whatever.
Anneka's room is a bright cheery room with a bookshelf stocked with aspirational self-help books.
Azalia's room is furnished in dark colors giving the room a gloomy feel, accentuated by a curtained window that looks out into an ethereal void. There is a large plush couch with a reading lamp next to it. Nearby is a bookshelf stocked with Marten's selection of arcane treatises that Marten has discovered while at the Acadamae.
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Ferocia stuffs herself — especially at dinner — but isn't one for conversation. Later she tosses herself into bed with gusto. Emriss makes a nest from the hay and settles in for a long sleep. He packs at the wallpaper a few times, not quite sure if it's a wall or the forest, but eventually deduces that no, he should not attempt to fly through the wall.
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Drazh laughed heartedly at the opulence before them. "And this, me friends, is why it is always good to be friends with an archmage! And to think, this is the same man that we met after the Swallowtail Festival!" Drazh exclaimed as he took a bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. "Oi, Professor! If I remember right, ye were apprenticed, aye? One of yer uncle's friends? Sittin' here in this bloody miracle, got me wonderin'. What was he like? That retired mage ye studied under. Ye should give him a visit ye know, when this is done. Pay yer respects and show him what his student has become."
Wine goblet in hand, Marten leans back, reminiscing about his old teacher.
"Ah, yes, he was thrown out of the Stone of the Seers in Magnimar, I believe, so not exactly 'retired,' per se. He was cantankerous and argumentative, which was a shame." Marten shrugged.
"However, he understood the nature of power, and how to use power to accomplish your ends, which is a facet of magic that all apprentices need to learn, eventually.
"Anyway, I'd look him up, but the old man would think I would just be there to gloat." Marten chuckles good-naturedly.
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"Ach! Any teacher worth the name would be right glad to see his pupil gloat!" Drazh exclaimed, reaching for his drink. "Why, when we're done with the murderin' and lootin', why I'm gonna take the time to make this armor of mine somethin' of bloody legend." When he said it, he made the armor revert to it's natural form, showing it to be mithril plate with gold filigree. "Nay there yet, but it will be. Gonna go right over to me old man and show him what his son did! Will rub it right in his smug and cantankerous face! He'll be right mad, he will be. But he'll be proud too, I know." Taking a swing, he finished "He'll be the same, aye? After he kicks yer arse out, he'll be right proud on what he forged!"
"Just don't tell him you've learned to read!"
Marten chuckles obnoxiously at his own joke before quickly turning speculative.
"I'll... I'll be honest with you, Drazh. With all of you.
"Those I'm primarily concerned with impressing... even influencing if you will, are my brother's family. Specifically my niece and nephew. The world is a dangerous place, and if I can show them that they need to develop the skills to withstand the Mokmurans or the Aldern Foxgloves in the world, I would consider that a worthy contribution to my legacy."
Azalia is surprised and pleased to learn that Marten is motivated by something besides himself, and when she goes to bed she happily reads for a while and then drifts off to sleep. What a nice break.
As your respite begins to come to an end Marten begins to notice things are a little off... twisted in small ways only he would notice. He's not entirely sure the spell worked as intended... it might be best to avoid availing of it again inside the Spire of Avarice.
After time spent looting the room last night and this morning. Azalia sits down to try to identify the mysterious blade again.
But fails again. She doesn't want to ask Marten, but since he was nice enough to set up that house for them, she decides she can swallow her pride. She takes the blade over to him and says
Hey... I can't tell what this is. Can you?
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"Ah, yes. The golden blade. I thought magic items were your 'thing,' Azalia! Aha ha ha!
"No matter. I was thinking it over after dinner last night, and..."
Examining it Marten feels some contempt coming from the blade, almost as if it deems him unworthy. He suspect it is actually an intelligent artifact but it hasn't tried to posses any of the group so is clearly unimpressed. It may or may not be able to communicate but so far has chosen not to do so.
The magical energies reveal it to be what would be considered to be a major magical artifact. It is extremely dense and heavy, likely a potent weapon but to figure out more would require wielding it in combat... which might rouse the items ego into action.
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Once stripped of gear you notice a few quite modern looking tattoos on the woman, favoured by sailors and other coastal people, especially those or riddleport.
"An intelligent weapon?" Ferocia remarks with raised eyebrow. "What's the point of that?" She shrugs and rolls her eyes, clearly deciding it must be some other weird quirk of wizards or something. "You sure you want to mess with it?" she asks Marten.
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"You sure you want to mess with it?" she asks Marten.
Marten rolls his eyes at Ferocia.
"I can't effectively harness destructive arcane energies if I'm holding a sword, now can I. Do whatever you want with it."
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Ferocia shrugs as she plucks the sword away from Marten and passes it to Azalia. "Sorry. I thought you said you were good at magic."
She nods at Drazh. "Let's go."
Azalia takes the sword and sheathes it at her side, noticing that it looked more curved than the sword it was replacing. She'd have to practice with it and see what the differences were. She guessed that she would find out soon.
Then she headed out with the rest.
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Ferocia shrugs as she plucks the sword away from Marten and passes it to Azalia. "Sorry. I thought you said you were good at magic."
"I AM good at magic! You know this! But just because some sharp piece of metal has magic doesn't mean that--"
She nods at Drazh. "Let's go."
"Wha-- You're being rude! Ferocia! I said you're being rude!
"Oh, fine."
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Marten and Azalia notice a segment of the room radiating magical energy which bears similarities to where Karzoug appeared and mocked ye before... it's likely he can do similarily here if he chooses. Perhaps you're making him nervous after revealing you've forged a weapon to be his bane and bested his champion, as he is not appearing.
A pair of outrageously sized beds, each over forty feet long, lie against the far wall of this enormous chamber. A towering stone table flanked by equally oversized chairs sits in the center of the room.
Inside one of the beds is a particularly large giant...This giant’s skin is black and pitted, like roughly cast iron, and etched with glowing red runes. Seeing the runes prior to not having been pulverized or torn asunder by a dwarf some of you might recognize similarities between these tattoos and those made by the Varisian culture.
Marten interlocks his fingers to provide a step for Drazh and 'alley-oops' him up so he can reach the giant.
This exquisitely decorated chamber contains thick carpeting on the floor, a flickering fireplace along the northern wall, and several large nests of fine furs and cushions.
Many of the furs on the f loors here are quite fine examples of exotic pelts, ranging from snow leopard to yeti. In all, there are 20 pelts, each being worth 250gp.
Amid one of the pelts lies a forgotten periapt of proof against poison fitted into a short hair pin...
Azalia, suddenly remembering she needed to practice with her new sword, drops back behind the group (so she doesn't accidentally slice them up), and pulls it out, doing her sword forms with it and trying to adjust to the differences between the regular swords that she was used to and this more curved form that was only sharp on one side. Stabbing seemed to be very similar, but slicing was somewhat different. She found that she actually liked it better than her old sword... just had a better feel in her hand.
Because she wasn't particularly paying attention to anything but her sword, she just walked right by the pelts before her internal treasure alarm went off and she turned back...
Oh, pelts. We should take those. Probably worth like...
Oh, you know... 100 gold each.
Uncharacteristically, she didn't instantly gather them all up, but kept practicing the sword, waiting for someone else to do it, since she was obviously busy.
Azalia pauses her practice to take a look.
Ah, good find. That's worth, like...
I'd say a little over 25 thousand gold. Good eyes, Drazh.
Azalia gets the distinct impression from the blade that it finds her unworthy... and will likely try to posses her in a real fight... but it really is an excellent blade.
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This foul-smelling abattoir of a room is empty of furniture—it would appear that whatever lives here prefers to use the half-gnawed bodies of
previous meals as bedding.
The decor of this large room is quite comfortable— thick carpeting covers the floor, while delicate chandeliers hang from the ceiling. Several large nests of furs and cushions lie about the room.
The stone walls of this chamber are stark and undecorated—even the floor is merely functional in appearance. Two iron doors face each other across the room to the west.
Azalia and Marten both see abjuration auras and quickly realize the cells are protected with antimagic fields.
Azalia concentrates, trying to determine the answer to Drazh's question.
As Azalia scans the room, Marten theorizes about the empty "bedrooms" they passed through.
"It seems to me that whomever sleeps in those bedrooms are probably waiting for us with this Karzoug."
The doors and part of the wall are likely under the effect protecting it from magic. But the walls themselves are sturdy, unless something like an adamantine weapon going through the walls would take some time.