Samnell's Writhing Coast (Inactive)

Game Master Samnell

Chaïa peered down at the spheres, and tried to figure out if they, or getting to them, would be dangerous, calling on her arcane senses as well as her ordinary vision. Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9 With detect magic going, just because one never knows, and with that roll if there's no magic hereabouts Chaïa's hopeless.

"I don't suppose we have any rope left?" she asked, after a moment.

If not, and/or if the beam looks solid enough, and if everyone doesn't tell her that it would be a very bad idea, yes, Chaïa will ask the strongest person around - Lu, I guess - to dangle her by the ankles to see if she can reach one of the spheres. It's too much to hope that it's a ball pit for mages who are young at heart, isn't it?

"Totally doesn't look like a trap. Yay.", Janus comments sarcastically, then, while standing back in the corridor, attempts to put some pressure on the beam...if it WAS a trap, it was unlikely to trigger like that, but it could possibly allow them to climb down and take a closer look at the floor and walls.

The beam appeared secure and strong.

Chaïa peered down at the spheres, and tried to figure out if they, or getting to them, would be dangerous, calling on her arcane senses as well as her ordinary vision. [dice=Perception]1d20+1 With detect magic going, just because one never knows, and with that roll if there's no magic hereabouts Chaïa's hopeless.

"I don't suppose we have any rope left?" she asked, after a moment.

If not, and/or if the beam looks solid enough, and if everyone doesn't tell her that it would be a very bad idea, yes, Chaïa will ask the strongest person around - Lu, I guess - to dangle her by the ankles to see if she can reach one of the spheres. It's too much to hope that it's a ball pit for mages who are young at heart, isn't it?

Chaïa detected no magic about the chamber.

"Um." Saeri said, looking up at the darkness, then at the walls, then at the floor of the area. "Yeah, I am not walking out there until we prove it's safe."

Are there any particular Knowledge checks we can roll to get more information about whatever this place is?

There's nothing specifically magical, so arcana is out. You might be able to get something from history (situating this chamber in the traditional works of its builders, who you know from a prior check) but the DC would be pretty hefty.

Oh, i'm afraid it's a ball pit for all ages. Just one that's not very fun.
Janus: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24 I should really start with that Guidance-Cheese
Janus holds Chaia back before she manages to get down...:"Hm, before we jump down and learn about it that way, let me think for a moment...after what happened to Jaina I read up a lot about these old ruins, and I think there was something similar described in one of YK's books..."

Unless the water somehow dissolved Lu's rope we should have plenty : )

"Yeah we do." Lu nodded and dug trough her pack for the rope. She looked around for some secure spot to tie it down before simply wrapping it around the walkway. "Fancy a ride down? After Janus tells us what sort of doom we are expecting of course."

Oh, i'm afraid it's a ball pit for all ages. Just one that's not very fun.

[dice=Janus]1d20+6 I should really start with that Guidance-Cheese
Janus holds Chaia back before she manages to get down...:"Hm, before we jump down and learn about it that way, let me think for a moment...after what happened to Jaina I read up a lot about these old ruins, and I think there was something similar described in one of YK's books..."

Janus thinks that patterns like the one on the walls are often used to conceal the business ends of traps. Concealed arrows, darts (often loaded with poison) or javelins would be most likely. Were they upon the floor, he could add spears. More worrisome still, they might conceal some form of magical trap with its auras concealed by the thick stone or metal sheeting embedded within.

Unless the water somehow dissolved Lu's rope we should have plenty : )

It takes a lot of rope to keep Chaia behaving herself. If you ran out, I'd let you know. :)

"So, good odds it's basically a room to murder intruders, then." Saeri said, continuing to stay well back. "I suppose there's always setting things off on purpose and seeing if they can be exhausted."

"Yeah...or, you know, try and not walk on the beam...just one person with a rope trying to make their way across on those balls...and if something bad happens, the others retrieve them instantly.", Janus suggests..."Or go down and try to remove some of those iron spheres, see if there's a floor below or some diabolical murder machine."
If those balls are the ammunition of the traps, they could be magically reloaded by a diabolical machine that would shred anybody falling into the pit below...oh jeez, what fun did I get myself involved with here...

"Traps eh?" Lu sighs and starts to rub her temple. "Well. Presumably zose lanterns do unlock something more zen a deathtrap for curious looters and zat means ze trap can be bypassed somehow. But let's start by trying to figure out what's actually going on. Hmm. Maybe we could get a butterfly net on a really long stick? Zat way we could examine ze iron balls without getting too close..."

"Of all the days not to have prepared a mage hand," Chaïa fumed, annoyed at the bit of bad luck. She turned hopefully to the others, "Would anyone else have happened to? In which case, we could try that, and in the meantime I'm willing to test that plank."

With that, she tied off the other end of the rope around her waist so that she could be caught if the beam gave way, and advanced gingerly, feeling her way forward for the first few steps before trusting her full weight to the old wood.

"Hm...worth a shot, I guess...I figured they'd be too heavy...-", Janus attempts to Mage Hand one of the iron spheres up for Chaia to take a look at...then, regardless of success, to 'pull' on the wall pattern, as in, reveal whats beneath if it really is a cover for a trap.

"Hm...worth a shot, I guess...I figured they'd be too heavy...-", Janus attempts to Mage Hand one of the iron spheres up for Chaia to take a look at...then, regardless of success, to 'pull' on the wall pattern, as in, reveal whats beneath if it really is a cover for a trap.

The spell trembled under the weight of the sphere, which was just at its limit. Twice Janus almost lost it before he finally got one in hand. It seemed to be an entirely ordinary sphere of iron.

His second cantrip failed at once when he tried to pull away part of the wall.

Saeri watched with no small amount of interest, given what the stakes currently were. "Do you think these got launched? It is pretty weird for iron spheres to be lying around for no reason..." Or maybe they were part of some system that would raise them up and fling them around? Ah, imagination. Both a blessing and a curse.

"Gas canisters maybe?" Lu speculates. "But I can't see any broken ones. Hmm. Maybe zey add spice to ze wind trap?"

"Eh I suppose we find out soon." She grins and moves a few steps back from the walking plank and makes sure she has a good grip on her end of the rope. "Good luck Chaïa!"

“Thanks,” she said. After a couple of steps out on the beam, she called back, “Or could this shaft have gone somewhere, originally? In terms of ruthless efficiency, burying someone in a pit underneath a ton of iron balls seems like one way of making sure a tomb-breaker doesn’t make it back out again.”

“Thanks,” she said. After a couple of steps out on the beam, she called back, “Or could this shaft have gone somewhere, originally? In terms of ruthless efficiency, burying someone in a pit underneath a ton of iron balls seems like one way of making sure a tomb-breaker doesn’t make it back out again.”

So I have this right, we're fishing with Chaïa tied to the beam and then walking across it?

That's the plan as I understand it! Or rather, since Janus was able to fish up one of the spheres with a spell to examine it, Chaïa's just walking across the beam - so still fishing, but more like flicking Chaïa around like a fly at the end of the line, only hoping that nothing actually decides it wants to take a bite.

Aye. The other 3 have the rope ready to pull her back, and Janus is prepared to give first aid!
(Realistically, he would volunteer to go ahead, rather than let Chaia do it. But if Janus ALWAYS goes first on basis of being a gentleman, thats spotlight-hogging, so yeah, we're alternating among all those who want to risk their lives, Chaia gets to take a look because...she has disable device, so if she finds something to disable...?)

Yep! With Janus mage handing a sphere we don't need Chaïa to fish that up so we are using her for trap bait instead : )

Aye. The other 3 have the rope ready to pull her back, and Janus is prepared to give first aid!

(Realistically, he would volunteer to go ahead, rather than let Chaia do it. But if Janus ALWAYS goes first on basis of being a gentleman, thats spotlight-hogging, so yeah, we're alternating among all those who want to risk their lives, Chaia gets to take a look because...she has disable device, so if she finds something to disable...?)

Chaia finds a device insider her chest. It appears to be moving and could be dangerous but is at least fascinating. She'll need a knife to disable it properly. :)

Not a joking matter.. - Janus hands a knife to Chaia...(unless she would get to play it, then thats totally cool.)

Chaia set out across the beam, carefully keeping centered over it as she went. Soon the far side of the chamber came into view. The beam led straight to a stone door in a wall covered with the same mosaics, if in better repair, that the explorers had seen elsewhere in the tomb.

She made it halfway across before an iron sphere shot from one of the walls and nearly caught her in the side of the head. Only a moment's hesitation saved her from a painful impact.

Hmm. I hadn't expected to be much of a heart-breaker. Since I’ll need one hand to hold the knife and another to hold the charge on a cure spell, it will have to wait until we can find a mirror that’s the right size / hanging at the right height / in a suitable frame. There is a method to my madness. :)

Whipping her body away as she felt the ball whiz by her head, Chaïa called back to the others, “I guess that settles how this thing works! Let me see if I can get the next door open!” She did not verbalize the rest of her uneasy thoughts: Either this place is actually quite insecure, or else any moment a lot more of those things are going to start flying.

Since she had made it so far, she hurried ahead as quickly as she could towards the other end of the beam. The mosaics would have to wait for a proper look until she got the door open…

"How much force do you think those spheres have?" Saeri inquired. With the right defenses, you could probably deflect the spheres well enough on your way across. Or, of course, just look for a way to safely disable them... which was probably the wiser course of action.

Chaia pressed on, taking a bone-cracking strike to the shoulder that almost bowled her over into the iron spheres below. Still, she reached the door and found it shut and locked tight against her. Another sphere whizzed just past her head.

She can try to disable, but she'll be subject to ball fire whilst doing so.

What the heck, we’ll give it the old college try!

Managing to retain her footing even as she discovered that the room was persistently unwelcoming, Chaïa kept her ears open for signs of danger while she sized up the door face-to-face. Snapping the odd goggles the group had found the day before over her eyes, she got a pick ready in one hand while the other searched the door’s surface for a clue as to how it opened. “Come on,” she crooned softly, “be a darling and let us in, please?”

Disable Device: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (12) + 11 = 23That's including the +5 for the goggles of minute seeing.

As the metal spheres started raining down on Chaïa Lu cautiously glanced down at the sea of balls. "Uh oh. How many corpses do you zink zere are underneath all zat?"

Maybe someone should grab a bat and go over to cover Chaïa :P?

Janus grips the rope more tightly when Chaia decides to press on, watching in equal parts awe and horror, responding to Lu:"I am more concerned about the implied amount of people who made it that far judging by the number of spheres, but failed here."

... watching in equal parts awe and horror,

That is more or less the response we're hoping for. Well, ideally more awe than horror, but we'll take what we can get. :)

"You're going to be happier if you stop having an imagination." Saeri told Janus. Then, after a pause, "Although your life might be shorter. I wonder which is really better..." Philosophers could probably debate that sort of thing for days if they really wanted to. She'd rather be creative about finding ways to enjoy life.

What the heck, we’ll give it the old college try!

Managing to retain her footing even as she discovered that the room was persistently unwelcoming, Chaïa kept her ears open for signs of danger while she sized up the door face-to-face. Snapping the odd goggles the group had found the day before over her eyes, she got a pick ready in one hand while the other searched the door’s surface for a clue as to how it opened. “Come on,” she crooned softly, “be a darling and let us in, please?”

Chaia went to work with her tools, searching for something that would let her at the door's inner works. Twice spheres struck her with bone-jarring force. The third time they bowled her over and into the pit. With a moment's thought she called on her magic to bring her safely to the uneven ground.

Yikes! Just so I can hopefully better adjust to the trapspringer role (I'm new to it, really), could you break down what's going on behind the short notes in your spoiler? Are the spheres coming faster and faster, or how long is it taking Chaïa to do her thing? I thought it was only a full-round action to try to open a lock, though you would know better if it's a particularly diabolically clever door. :)
Also, this is going to hurt, but Chaïa's already used her prepared feather fall, so she's going for a tumble. (I've gone back and added a strikethrough to the spells used for the day on my character sheet.)

Janus starts frantically pulling on the rope...what little more damage rough handling would do was irrelevant compared to what this trap could do if the balls on the floor weren't just used up ammunition-
She needed healing, and fast!

From behind, Saeri helped Janus tug, putting her decent - albeit not fantastic - strength to work hauling Chaia up. Well, at least they had confirmation of exactly what they'd suspected... this room was bad, bad news.

Yikes! Just so I can hopefully better adjust to the trapspringer role (I'm new to it, really), could you break down what's going on behind the short notes in your spoiler? Are the spheres coming faster and faster, or how long is it taking Chaïa to do her thing? I thought it was only a full-round action to try to open a lock, though you would know better if it's a particularly diabolically clever door. :)

Also, this is going to hurt, but Chaïa's already used her prepared feather fall, so she's going for a tumble. (I've gone back and added a strikethrough to the spells used for the day on my character sheet.)

Explanations first, then a small retcon.

Explanations! Disabling a device takes 2d4 rounds. Chaia faces attack by a flying sphere once a round. Every time she's hit, she takes damage and rolls Acro to keep her footing on the beam. When she blows the Acro, she falls. She did use feather fall, but now she didn't so she has damage coming, which will put her in negs. However, while down below she does not face sphere attack.

Retcon:

Chaia hit the bed of spheres hard and did not move, bleeding from a wound where her head struck one.

Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Chaia is at -2 and dying.

When Janus realizes that the spheres stop firing and the ground is not up to something fishy, he let's go of the rope and jumps down into the pit.
Acrobatics to jump down: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21
Landing next to her, he rubbed his hands, charging up a healing spell, then discharged it into Chaia.
Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3 Shakes fist at dice!

"Maybe not the best plan..." Lu observes as their brave, but battered, mage fell down into the sea of spheres. Resisting the urge to pull back the rope - might make things worse - she waited for Janus to do his work and report back. "She's okay? Maybe we should try zat with a long stick instead yeah?!"

That is - if we are trying for another disable. Maybe we could also find some way of deflecting the spheres?

Or, you know, a way to disable/sabotage the launching mechanism? Or, for that matter, tie a chainmail-bag of potatotes tightly to the beam and wait until either the thing runs out of ammo, or the iron spheres provide a level floor next to the beam :P

Ditch the plot and start our careers as steel sphere pedlers :P?

Sure, we can also clean the place up a bit and run a spa. The interesting design of dressing rooms after the pools and direct access to a loo right next to the pool are sure to draw the crowds in. At least until some kids get smashed when they try and use the wrong elevator.
Janus heals Chaia some more.
CLW: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
CLW: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
Because I would do so anyway, don't have to wait until she wakes...so thats 13 total(yay, 6 of those by level)...leaves me with one Level 1 spell...I'm pretty much spent so lets be careful.

Eh I'm sure the Wall of Iron caster's union would shut us down even faster if we were too obvious. Gotta find a sneaky way to sell our metal so they don't notice :P

Explanations first, then a small retcon.

Explanations! Disabling a device takes 2d4 rounds. Chaia faces attack by a flying sphere once a round. Every time she's hit, she takes damage and rolls Acro to keep her footing on the beam. When she blows the Acro, she falls. She did use feather fall, but now she didn't so she has damage coming, which will put her in negs. However, while down below she does not face sphere attack.

Thanks. For a moment, I was afraid there might be an arithmetic progression to how many spheres were being launched each round, which would quickly get messy! My characters also normally lurk in the back lobbing occasional fireballs or something, so I’m rapidly acquiring a far better sense of the courage of the lunatics who decide, no, they want to be in front poking at doors and other locked things. :)

After Janus’ first spell, Chaïa’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up, puzzled, at the young swordsman from where she was sprawled inelegantly on the pile of old iron spheres.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she offered dazedly, her brush with unconsciousness throwing off her sense of the events of the last few moments. Once her head had cleared a bit, she cautiously stood up, flinching nervously as if she expected another sphere to fly at her any second.

“Sorry about this,” she said, shaking her head. “I think we need to get out of here and think about this for a bit.” Skittishly, she headed towards the open end of the passage, trying to keep the plank above and between her and where the spheres were being launched from. She would worry about climbing back up once she was likelier to be able to duck safely into the hallway the group had come from.

Hmm. Could we muck around with our thieves’ tools with mage hand from where it’s safe? It will take a rest for Chaïa to prepare it, but at this point it might be wise to take a break anyway. I don’t think any of us is good enough with tower shields for those to help. Failing that, cudgel our brains for creative use of spells? At this rate, Chaïa will be tempted to bop Yellowknife on the head as soon as she can get away with it and abscond with his spellbook, if he’s so keen on what’s in this place.

I don't believe we can do that kind of fine handling without ranged legerdomain...but a nice idea - that said, I second the "get rest" part, but we may want to see if we can disable the launch mechanisms...
"Glad to have you back. Before we leave, though, we should take a look at those walls...maybe we could block the openings that launch the iron spheres somehow? If we could disable the trap, we'd have all the time we need to work on the door-", Janus suggests, indicating the areas where the Spheres launched from, then his shoulders:"I'll give you a lift, and if there's trouble, we'll stop and take a break from all of this!"
The elven woman didn't seem to be particulary heavy, or to carry a heavy load. Janus wasn't very strong, but he was confident he could serve as a platform for a little while, with a wall to brace against-

There is always that earlier mentioned really long stick. Just tie the tools to it and poke away!*

*penalties may apply

"We could just shove a decent rock or somezing on ze trigger and wait for it to run dry." Lu suggests looking down over the edge. With a small grin she wiggled the rope next to them. "Why don't you grab a better hold of zat and we can pull you up."

I feel like I should try to prepare more healing as a witch tomorrow... XD

When Janus realizes that the spheres stop firing and the ground is not up to something fishy, he let's go of the rope and jumps down into the pit.

[dice=Acrobatics to jump down]1d20+5
Landing next to her, he rubbed his hands, charging up a healing spell, then discharged it into Chaia.
[dice=Cure Light Wounds]1d8+2 Shakes fist at dice!

Janus is the full length of the iron sphere bed away from Chaia, unless he wants to drag her bleeding body across the rough, rough ground and hope for the best. :) Do you want to dive in the near side and run across to her, or try going over the beam to reach her? Either way, you need a touch to deliver the CLW.

I expected we were dragging with the rope beforehand and I could run in and jump next to her(basically saving the time of pulling her up from the iron sphere bed) - but I can jump down and run across the spheres, reaching her one round later, meaning one less hp unless she makes the stabilization check, I guess? I did not move my icon because I did not know how far we dragged her in that first round when she fell, because it seems she's still at the far end.

Hmm. Hang on a sec! I seem to recall one round of spheres triggering about halfway trough the room. What if they are triggered by a magical sensor (likely) rather then some sort of pressure plate on the beam? That might mean the dragged body gets shot and I don't think we'd want that!