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Still maintaining his inspiration, Jym fires of a shot from his cause fear wand at one of the bullywugs attacking Uro. If he can't see one due to the fog, he'll target the shaman, instead.
It is still a feat but Uro doesn't have it, unfortunately.
Rather than fire his new wand blindly into the fog, Jym decides that targeting the brains of the operation -- while certainly not anything he would want his enemies to do, of course -- might in this case be a prudent thing for him to do.
The wily shaman shows that he's not always slow and lackadaisical, as he turns a fast pair of heels and hops madly away, heading for the break in the wall where the stream comes in, croaking in dismay. The bullywug hunters, unable to see him, croak inquisitively; receiving no reply, they remember the shaman complacently allowing Ixotl to kill the supervisor, and wonder if he has abandoned them to their fate.
Not wanting to share the fate of their comrades under the edge of Uro's axe, they break and flee . Those in melee notice that the bullywugs' vision is not at all impeded by the mists, and you are suddenly very glad you didn't have to fight them in the fog.
Prerequisite: Imbue Item.
Benefit: When placed into an item, an amplified spell functions at the activator’s caster level, rather than at the item’s. In addition, the save DC (if applicable) is calculated using the activator’s Charisma modifier. This feat has no effect on spells that are not imbued into items.
Metamagic Cost: +1 level.
Source: Use this feat for staves, for example, pricing them at the minimum caster level to use the highest-level spell, after applying this feat to each spell. Such items will generally also use the Restricted Spell feat, requiring a particular casting type and level, for a -1 spell level adjustment that offsets the cost of this feat.
Jym calls down to Bal. "Hey, can you heal the guy in the tree and Uro? If not, I can toss down some of my potions!"
He looks at the hole in the manor wall.
"Do you think they'll come back?" he asks Elebrin and Lady V.
Once the frogmen turn tail and run, Uro leans forward on his axe. "And stay gone.." Then falls face first into the ground.
"Do you think they'll come back?" he asks Elebrin and Lady V.
Lady Vanderboren, visibly relieved at their departure, suddenly looks tense again. "In honesty, I wasn't sure why they left, until I looked at the wand in your hand long enough and belatedly figured it out. I don't think their panic will last long, and as soon as the shaman recovers his senses and rallies the others, I fear they'll come back to finish what they started here."
Elebrin shakes her head as though coming out of a fog, That was...disconcertingly more difficult than I anticipated...
If we do not think we have long then we best decide how to use the time we have to best effect...
Uro is out of both. When I was planning my actions, I forgot how dying worked in 3.x.
Pretty sure Uro is dead. :-(
Jym is silent for a long moment as he stares at Uro's unmoviing body. He looks accusingly at Lady Vanderboren before reminding Bal to heal Ixotl before the Bullywugs come back.
Lady Vanderboren catches Jym's look and ignores it for now, in favor of tossing a vial down into the quickly-dissipating fog.
"Bal! Catch this, for love the gods! If you can feed it to Uro within the next few seconds, he might yet live!"
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Bal nearly fumbles the vial, as the remnants of the fog make vision uncertain. The bottle bounces off his gloved hand, and he somehow traps it between his hand and leg, just before it shatters on the pavement. Popping the cork with his teeth, he quickly forces the liquid down Uro's throat, tilting the orc's head back at just the right angle to facilitate flow and prevent choking. Then he waits...
The huge corpse chokes loudly, sputters, and sits bolt upright, like an OD victim receiving a shot of adrenaline directly into the heart. The orc's eyes open wide enough to show the whites all around, and slowly he lifts a hand to feel his face, as if amazed it's still there.
The orc rolls over and groans. "Ouch. Did we win?"
"No! There's still a very good chance that you'll die again in the next few minutes! But you're alive for now! Hooray!"
Jym un-self-consciously give Lavinia a hug.
Jym long-windedly questions whether it was wise to split up so much during the first wave of attacks while comparing the situation to his 3rd cousins (on his brother's girlfriend's side) who were conjoined at the hip. Also, let's get our elf guy out of the tree.
Breath of Life: Spark of life (1st level) + Cascade Spell (remove condition; +2 levels) + Crippling Debilitation (+1 level) = 4th level; heals up to 10d6 hp (if would restore person killed by hp damage within the last round to enough hp to survive, that person is resuscitated, but has one temporary negative level).
Bal calls up to Jym something to the effect of: "No way I can climb up to our tree-hugger in this armor without snapping a limb and dropping him to the ground (which would probably kill him), and I don't fancy stripping down if the frog-people are coming back, so for now I'll continue to tend to this patient, and defer the elf's care to you."
Jym hustles downstairs and outside. He asks Uro to give him a boost up the tree. Assuming he does, and Jym doesn't need to climb higher than the boost, he pours four clw potions into Ixotl's throat.
Elebrin blanches slightly at the almost death but then not quite death of those around her, I'll see what I can come up with from the Lady's stores while we rest a moment and consider our next options...
Elebrin hurriedly departs to see what magic she can find...
"Alright, let back up into the manor. Let them come to us."
With Uro's help, you manage to get Ixotl safely out of the tree, and re-convene inside. Lavinia keeps shaking her head, thinking about the blood all over the courtyard and the corpses in the basement that will somehow need to be removed.
After a long and sleepless period, it occurs to everyone that the shaman and remaining grunts have probably cut their losses and returned to the swamps. The Siege of Vanderboren Manor is ended!
***LEVEL UP!!!***
The Siege of Vanderboren Manor is ended!
***LEVEL UP!!!***
Loot from the dead, if anyone checks, consists of the following:
All the numen costs would count against your maximum (overflow), not your par. To save people looking it up, numen at 4th level for PCs is 5,400 discretionary at par, with another 5,100 in overflow for looted or crafted items = 10,500 max.
All yours Jym!
Elebrin, if you are going to be fighting up close, I'd say definitely take the gauntlets. Otherwise, I'd think either Uro or Bal would do well with them.
Elebrin I am more than happy for you to claim to those gauntlets.
Bal will take his place at the end of the queue, inwardly chastising himself for his lapse of concentration at the crux of the conflict and vowing to do better in future. Well done all!
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Ixotl spends what seems like an eternity wandering through Mictlantecuhtli's realm, looking for the path the sun follows as it travels beneath the world. Ahead of him, the winged one flies, nameless in the darkness. He can hear the soft sound of the wind in its feathers, but can catch no glimpse of it through the gloom. After many hours, a great thirst overtakes him, and though he knows better, he stops and drinks from a darkened stream. The cool water bites into his veins like ice, paralyzing him momentarily and inspiring instant regret. When the paralysis has passed, he dips his sling in the stream and ties it about his forehead before continuing on his trek. This time, he seems to catch sight of a familiar hulking silhouette and hurries onward, trying to catch the lumbering figure. The shifting branches and dreary surroundings drain his spirit, and he never draws closer. Eventually he loses his quarry altogether and slumps, defeated, among the gnarled roots of some twisted mangrove. Resigned to his fate, he closes his eyes.
He opens them again at the base of a different tree, sputtering out the last drops of a slightly bitter elixir and looking upward into the ugly mug of the scarred orc. Giving Uro an hearty handshake, he rights himself and stands revitalized.
"I thought I saw your shade, wandering with me in the lands of the Lord of Death. Glad to see you made it out." He retrieves his sling from the ground nearby and receives an icy jolt as his fingers pluck it from among the torn branches. "It seems I have brought something else back with me. A dangerous omen, to be sure."
Uro puts a huge hand on Ixotl's shoulder. "It is good to see you well friend. I am sorry that we couldn't get to you before those frogman were able to ascend the tree. Perhaps as a group we should rethink our tactics." The orc draws in a long breath. Though his wounds are healed, he is clearly still exhausted from his brush with death. "For now though, we have a very unconscious bullywug in the basement that should be questioned."
"Yes, you should do that. I'm going to look around the grounds for the shaman's trail. His magic was particularly foul and there is a chance it lingers still. If we can follow it back to their lair, we could surprise them before they had a chance to regroup."
He pauses, considering the first part of Uro's statement.
"It is true that I am used to hunting alone - not fighting, and never against so many at once. There is wisdom in what you say. I will think on it as I search for the trail and you have the chat with your captive."
Uro nods to the elf. "This sort of thing is new to all of us. We had no real plan when we engaged the enemy. We can all work on it together." As the orc moves off, he picks up the hand axe and the healing potion from the pile. As Uro attaches the axe to his belt, though a strange thing happens. It's curves become more sharp and it's grip darkens to a blood red. It becomes a match to his great axe. "The goddess strengthens me." Uro says under his breath, almost imperceptibly. With that, he moves back in and toeard the basement. "If anyone has questions for our prisoner, now is the time."
As Uro attaches the axe to his belt, though a strange thing happens. Its curves become more sharp and it's grip darkens to a blood red. It becomes a match to his great axe.
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"Yes, you should do that. I'm going to look around the grounds for the shaman's trail. His magic was particularly foul and there is a chance it lingers still."
Ixotl touches the flagstones of the courtyard, and quickly turns and walks to the stream bed. The spirits of the stream whisper to him like the running of water, and he easily follows the panicked traces of the shaman, and the timid hoppings of the grunts -- seeing that the latter veer off, leaving muddy traces. He ignores that and continues tracking the shaman, who was clearly swimming and left little trace, but Ixotl imagines a bird (an owl?) watching the shaman's flight, and can tell almost to the foot where the panic abruptly ends and the shaman leaves the stream. He proceeds to that spot, circles a bit, touching the cobbles of the streets, and eventually feels where some minor magic was worked. Nodding, he picks up the muddy tracks of the grunts again, and knows this is where the shaman caught up with them. Whatever spell was cast apparently worked, because the grunts' tracks fall in behind the shaman's, like baby ducks following a mother in a line, and their trail heads out of the city and east, back towards the trackless marshes that lie between Sasserine and Pirate's Cove.
Ixotl pauses, and considers the need to continue following them. The various possible pathways and timetables, based on the speed an armored orc could manage in that terrain, come together in his head, and the elf suddenly realizes it's a matter of distances and rates -- vectors, if he knew that term -- all of which will lead him to a few miles of the bullywugs' home, if he cares to go there. His subconscious and uncanny direction sense having done the work, he has no inkling that, for others, this would constitute a complex algebra problem. All he knows is that he's pretty sure they're headed back where they came from, and he's equally sure he knows, more or less, where that generally must be.
Satisfied to be back on the hunt and secure in the knowledge that he can exact his vengeance on the shaman at a time of his choosing, Ix returns to the manor house. He drags the bodies of the attackers into the garden and buries them without ceremony. He does not desecrate the enemy's dead, but neither does he venerate them. Afterwards, he will carry buckets of water from the stream and scrub the flagstones in front of the doorway where the darkened pools of blood congealed until only the most stubborn crevices hold any sign of the attack. With that laborious task completed, he will bathe himself in the stream, washing away the dirt and grime and dry himself on the manor roof, where he takes a well-earned nap.
Waking later and stretching the stiffness from his muscles, he climbs down off the roof and goes inside to speak with Uro.
"Have you gotten the answers you seek from the prisoner?"
Bal deals with the post-action stress through a flurry of apparently aimless physical activity. He first enters the manor workshop and forge, lighting the forge fire for the first time in at least a year, possibly longer, judging by the thin layer of dust coating the tools. Emerging a day later, he then disappears into the basement and amidst much banging of mops, buckets, brushes and other assorted cleaning paraphenalia he returns the basement to some semblance of its original condition. The flowing stream provides a convenient water source, and flows red while he cleans. During this work, a hastily fashioned bright brass symbol of a half sun above a crudely chiselled phrase "Oritur Sol Semper" can be seen around his neck on a chain. Once the basement is returned to good order, a brief period of calm ensues before another bout of activity, this time focusing on the second floor window frame and broken glass window. After inadvertently breaking two replacement panes on his early attempts at repair, he finally succeeds in neatly making the window good. Any attempts to get him to stop, distract him with hot or cold beverages, or to encourage him to enlist a professional to do the work are firmly rebuffed, although a professional would certainly complete the repairs in a fraction of the time and with much less high volume questioning of the motives and intimate relationships of various inanimate tools and materials. At night, he practices his sword forms by candlelight, and is now always seen wearing at his side the simple but well balanced straight-bladed weapon he seized from the weapon rack during the assault. Bal is also curious about the recently defeated enemy, bringing the bullywug food and water, but does not attempt to converse directly with it.
"Have you gotten the answers you seek from the prisoner?"
Sadly, no (intelligible) answers have been forthcoming. The prisoner answers questions only in croaks and grunts, when it answers at all -- you're not sure it understands a word of what you're saying. At one point is breaks into a series of reptilian grunting and hissing -- clearly attempting to communicate something -- but none of you understand any of the sounds, although Jym at least recognizes that it is an actual language, as opposed to a coughing fit.
Bal deals with the post-action stress through a flurry of apparently aimless physical activity...
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Uro is initially frustrated by the Bullywugs nonsensical speech, but remembers a detail from earlier. "Lavinia, didn't you say that there was a scroll of comprehend languages in your stash?"
No one is able to make any sense of the scroll, either, until Jym picks it up and, looking it over, shares an exceptionally long and rambling story that may or may not have anything to do deciphering scrolls. In the end he manages to cast the spell on Uro, who in turn can now understand the bullwug.
The gist of the frog-man's remarks is that Uro is obviously a greater war chieftain than Chief Lorpth was, and a more powerful pirate than Drevoraz -- who was the toughest being they knew, and an orc to boot. With "Lorb-Lorb Tub" (evidently the supervisor) also dead, the Trub Glorp tribe's leadership is decimated, so the long and short of it is that he wants to serve Uro now. He is also hungry, and asks if it's OK to eat Jym.
"I tracked the shaman and the surviving cronies to the edge of Sasserine. They fled into the swamp, and I don't think they are coming back. Was this assault orchestrated by Vanthus or Vark? Or someone else entirely?"