Steave slashes down from the high guard position with power. The blade slices open the demon.
When it starts to hurt even through the rage, you know you are hurt badly. Still, the spirits within him cannot penetrate his rage again. So he fights on.
Yridhrennor fires his crossbow at the rat demons seeing as his friends a have hinges in hand.
Galin struck, badly wounding the prone rat demon as it slipped and scrabbled on the ground.
"They say not to hit a man while he's down, but you're no man, so I'm in the clear, I reckon," Abelard pondered, before bringing his blade down on the same demon and slaying it.
Steave leveled his own powerful blow, dispatching a second demon.
Undaunted by his pain, Theran pressed the attack. His earthbreaker struck sparks and boiling ichor flew, filling the chamber with the reek of sewage for a moment as the demon rotted to a thin slick of scum.
Theran will slump down, tired and wounded. "Just a minute."
"Here." Abelard's healing magic restores Theran.
While everyone takes a breather, Steave looks for hidden evil.
While everyone takes a breather, Steave looks for hidden evil.
Steave didn't detect anything, but he knows that the walls of the Gray Garrison are thick enough to block the magic.
When everyone is ready, Steave opens the door.
Steave opened the door through which the rat demons had surged and found the ruin of a museum beyond, the contents smashed and scattered across the floor. Even the shelves were torn down. The decapitated bodies of two knights, the armor and bodies broken and mangled, lay amid the debris. Steave recognized one of them by a distinctive tattoo on his arm. Isembart was a crusader he'd seen about town a few times, one of those stronghearted, reliable types that probably would never have made a great name for himself but was always at the heart of a strong unit.
"Clear, but two decapitated knights." Steave announces after he opens the door to the museum.
"Let's go finish this." The old crusader walks to and opens the door that he was protecting during the recent battle.
Theran continues along, ready to clear this building.
Steave found a wide hallway that he recalled used for musters in better days. It had a few overturned chairs and other indications of recent flight, but was otherwise unremarkable.
Well done everyone!
Falfaerel snorts, but remains silent as the Elf and his familiar follow the crusaders into the room.
"Clear," Steave announces after he opens the door to the hallway.
The old crusader walks into the hallway and opens the far door that doesn't lead to stairs.
The crusaders found a desecrated temple. Blood and filth smeared the floor. Six white stone statues of crusading heroes lined the hall, each clawed, bloodstained, broken, and otherwise defaced. At the far end, a raised dais held an upturned alabastar altar. Sitting atop the upended altar was a hideous mass of severed limbs, stitched together in an insectoid shape. Before the dais, ratty bedrolls lay on the floor.
A pair of cultists, their eyes mad with fright, charged the crusaders. Their madness made their attacks wild and drove them past all caution, making them no real threat. In only moments they were slain.
Abelard wipes his blade clean. It doesn't count for much, but good habits and good discipline are ways of dealing with the sheer madness that's descended on his city. "Gotta admit, feels a little like we're just spittin' into the wind here," he confesses.
"Stay frosty." Steave replies to Abelard. Then, when they're ready he opens the next door.
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Ya, stay whelmed. Falfaerel chortles and flutters up to hide near the rafters to get a better view of the area.
Yridhrennor looks at his bird aghast. Whelmed? What... He shuts his mouth and shakes his head. I will never understand that bird.
Soooo that's a no, then? The bird shrugs. Should I explore the area
How will you open the doors?
Oh. Curse you humans and your need for doors!
Now who isn't whelmed?
i could do the same as I did in the tower... I could make myself invisible and then scout ahead. The closed doors may help me, actually I can use.. Other skills and spells to discern what's on the other side
and.. Yridhrennor does that thing. I'm about to fall asleep so, no pretty pretty words. but he winks out of sight and starts to investigate the building ahead of the group.
Let's go left
Yridhrennor came to the door to the west and listened closely at it. Hearing nothing and spell-cloaked, he tried to swing it open. The door proved barred against him.
Abelard shrugs as he hears the news. "No bother. Bunch of us should be able to knock through a door."
"We've a battering ram at the entrance." Steave comments with a smile.
He smiles, "Then let's get knocking." He'll head back to get the ram with Steave.
He smiles, "Then let's get knocking." He'll head back to get the ram with Steave.
A generous, if loud, application of the battering ram threw open the barred door. It flew open to reveal a fair-sized room empty save for a smashed sideboard and stairs ascending to the second floor.
Invisible, Yridhrennor whispers that he'll move up the stairs, and then.. does so.
Unseen, Yridhrennor made his way up the stairs. On the Gray Garrison's second floor, he found a long hallway. There a pair of emaciated demons, horned skeletons with a layer of greasy leather stretched over their bones, stood over the bodies of a few freshly-slain cultists. Each held a lengthy spear, using it to mutilate a corpse as they chatted with one another.
"Love when they run."[
"Always surprised. See the face on mine?"
"Shame they didn't scream so much, though."
"Not like those crusaders..."
"The righteous have the best screams; it's true."
"Think we should tell Jeslyn?
[b]"And ruin our fun? I can practically smell them below. Let them past, she dies, we get the reward for killing them."
They had their backs to Yridhrennor.
Cautiously, oh so very cautiously, Yridhrennor backs away and heads to his compatriots to warn them of the danger.
Cautiously, oh so very cautiously, Yridhrennor backs away and heads to his compatriots to warn them of the danger.
[dice=knowledge Planes]1d20+11
Yridhrennor slips away without being noticed.
Yridhrennor recognized the demons as babau, stealthy assassins. They had a preternatural sense that guided their blows to vulnerable spots, the kind of thing that mortal assassins trained for years to master. While generally hard to harm, their many defenses can be pierced by blessed weapons and those of cold iron. Their acidic coating could do great harm to weapons, or anyone foolish enough to strike the babau with a bare hand.
"Babau. Very dangerous. We cannot let them flank one of us. And use cold iron weapons." Steave summarizes. "I'll take point."
When everyone is ready to go, he gets focused and heads upstairs. Sword and shield in hands.
Theran will follow after. Mubling to himself.
Galin follows after the other two, holding his rapier by his side as he prays to Arqueros for strength.
Abelard nods, and heads up with the others.
Yridhrennor follows as well, although he places a magic warding about Staeve (protection from evil)
The crusaders girded themselves to face fresh horrors and mounted the stairs. They emerged to find the babau wheeling to face them, long spears at the ready.
Party Stealths, rolling until someone gets beat.
Ok then. :) That's enough to hear you a good ways off, so let's say neither party is surprised and go straight to regular rounds.
always acts in surprise
Total 76, average 15.2. Party wins!
Theran will move up to go for the one on the right. His hammer is made of the dark bones of the earth and It's power would fell the demons.
Steave steadily moves up to the demon trying to avoid the long spear and slashes at it with his cold iron longsword.
Abelard runs in to the attack.
Sadly, running in armour is tricky, particularly when you are - at best - partially sighted. He misses.
Yridhrennor winks back into existence as he mumbles a few words and a patch of oil slick appears beneath the demons' feet.
Theran rushed forward, earthbreaker in hand and swung it in a heavy blow that the babau expertly dodged. Steave had better luck with his blade, slicing unnatural flesh. Abelard clambered up the stairs in their wake, but his heavy armor and poor sight got the better of him and his falchion swung wide of its mark.
Yridhrennor chanted and an oil slick appeared beneath one of the demons. It stood unmoved by the magic, clawed feet easily shifting with the slick beneath them.
Galin came in last, blade forward and divine blessing guiding him. He stabbed deep into the arm of the babau Steave wounded.
The babau made no sound, not even when taking their wounds. The one on Yridhrennor's oil slick stepped back and vanished in a roiling darkness, only to emerge at the elf's side, leering intensely and brandishing its long spear. The other dropped its weapon and put claws and teeth to use. The crusader's shield interposed twice in quick succession, blocking claws. Then the babau lunged forward, farther than its bones ought to have allowed, unhinging its jaw and plunging teeth path armor and into tender flesh.
nevermind
Grease saves, DC 16
oh well
Vs. Steave.
Abelard doesn't waste words on the demon; he instead contents himself with some swordplay at their expense. His cold iron falchion cuts into its flesh with ease.
Galin strikes again at the nearest babau, but is too cautious in his attempt to ensure that he avoids the slippery parts of the ground, and misses.
Savaged by the demon, Steave slashes and takes a step back to avoid being the target. His swing goes wide as he winces in pain.
Annoyed, he throws his weight into the blow. If he's not going to hit much, he needs to hit them hard.
Yridhrennor lets out a peep and stumbles backwards a step in fear. Then, he rights himself, arcane words slipping from his lips. HE blows a handful of multicolored sand at the babau.
Silent, Abelard cleaved demon flesh with his blade. The skeletal babau remained eerily silent, its features twisted into a rictus leer.
Taking care to avoid the slippery ground, Galin made his own attack. His care cost him, as it gave the babau an instant's warning. The fiend twisted unnaturally back from his searching steel.
Wounded, Steave swung wide as he pulled back from the fray to heal himself.
Putting his full weight behind the swing, Theran brought his earthbreaker up in a stunning blow. The demon staggered back a half-step under the force.
Making a frightened noise, Yridhrennor stepped back from the other demon and cast a quick spell. A riot of color burst from his hands, but flickered away on touching the demon's oily hide. It answered the attack by drawing back and exhaling an unnatural pall that spread across the corridor, replacing the Gray Garrison's normal lantern and torchlight with a dim morass that turned the demons near to invisible.
Undaunted by the preternatural dark, the other demon turned on Abelard and spent its wrath in a furious assault that ended with the crusader torn by claws and fangs, falling in a bloody heap to the floor.
no love
Y's demon first. Casts darkness. Area is marked on the map. It takes normal light down to dim, so everyone gets a 20% miss chance unless you've got darkvision.
And the other guy lays into Abelard.
37 total. Abelard is at -7 and dying.