Sorry, it's the party's turn.
"There ya go!" - Herzag roars at those on board, manning the heavy weapons - "Keep at it!"
Asheli's spell just manages to singe a few leaves off the creature as it seems to resist most of her fire damage.
Percival's first strike pierces the creature's side gouging a deep furrow, which weeps a greenish ichor as it bleeds. His second attack isn't as fortunate as it misses it's target.
Neela swoops and turns in midair, laughing hysterically to keep her magic going.
Randall continues his climb to the canopy as the battle rages overhead.
Rhialla and the other sailors hack at the now inert vines, slicing them off with relative ease.
Herzag, looking skyward, exhorts the gunnery crews to keep firing.
Following Herzag's instructions the two ballista crews, now unmolested by the vines, continue to fire their bolts at the creature. Both crews, wary of hitting their captain and bosun, shoot their missiles wide missing the creature entirely.
The four Rahadoumi sailors and Sandara shoot their heavy crossbows into the mass of vines. Unfortunately all of them, while trying to avoid hitting Percival and AShlei, shoot wide of the mark.
Aaron, spans and loads his crossbow as he too shoots at the creature above, but he too misses.
Full ATTACK(Melee Starknife!)
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"Die you mangy plant! I refuse to be eaten by a flower!"
Ashlei's first swing with the starknife cuts another gash in the creature's side but her second swing fails to connect.
The creeper turns to face Percival as it lunges at him and tries to bite him with it's beak but Neela's magic continues to confound it's attack.
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Randall finally reaches the web of vines overhead. Drawing his rapier he looks at Ashlei "Then, what exactly would you let eat you?" he asks quizzically before lunging at the plant creature.
Looking up at the battle against the plant monster, Rhialla exhorts the crew in her goddess' name. "By Besmara's t*@$ put some teeth into your attacks!"
"Put your heart into it, you sea dogs!" - Herzag continues pressing the sailors to fire the ballistae.
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Percival jabs the Creeper again and again with his pike
Rosie directs her gunnery crews as they take aim to avoid hitting those fighting in the vines above, but in their caution they completely miss their intended target as well.
Everyone on the deck aims their crossbows skyward, hoping to hit with the "Golden BB", to no avail.
"To the DEATH!"
Full ATTACK(Melee Starknife!)
+
Ashlei and Percival continue to slash at the plant creature continues to seep resin.
Angered by the ontinual attacks the Creeper lashes out at Percival trying to bite him with it's hardened beak, fortunately Neela's hex keeps the creature from piericng Percival's hide.
Randall begins another song to inspire Ashlei, Percival, and himself to take heart and defeat the beast before them.
Percival dives and rolls to position himself on the opposite side of the creature from Ashlei, hoping to divide the Creepers attention, but the springy vines prove too treacherous as he slips as he goes by, opening himself up to attack.
Springing to his feet, Percival grips his cutlass with both hands as he slashes at the creeper, slicing deep into the carnivorous plant's hide.
From down below the crew cheers as the officers above finally seem to have the creature on the ropes. "Keep Firing" Rosie growls "It ain't dead yet"
No sooner than Rosie utters those words a ballista bolt from one of the crews pierces the creature and it finally goes still. a shout of "Hip, Hip, Hooray!" arises from one of the crew and is taken up by the others as soon the whole boat is shouting with gusto.
"Dang!" - Herzag roars - "I think you took it out boys and girls" - he compliments the crew - "And don't go overboard with the cheering, there are still critters in the water wanting to take a chunk out of us, and what the hell else out there" - the half-orc adds - "Stand sharp, check weapons, and sort out the deck! Now!"
Joining the crew in a brief round of cheering, Rhiallah grins as Herzag starts barking orders. "Fishmen, killer plants, it doesn't matter... We show those #%!@ers what happens when you set foot on Besmara's Bounty!" she shouts keeping the energy of the fight to direct thier alertness to their tasks.
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High up in the canopy he gave the plant creature one more good slash and then took a deep breath trying to clear his mind. With the Adrinilin gone, looking down certainly made him wonder what in the hell had compelled him to climb up here like that. He did his best to clean the blade on the plant creatures body before sheathing it.
Taking hold of the same tenticle that brought him up he began to slowly carefully climb his way down. He could hear the officers below taking order of things.
"So nice of you to join me up here Burnout, Neela Careful on the way down girls, wouldnt do to splatter ourselves after the fight eh?"
He called out.
With the Canopy Creeper defeated the bobbing heads of the Sahuagin soon disappear beneath the water, never to return. Despite that the remainder of the night's watch keep a watchful eye on the sea and the vegetation above.
As the first light of dawn peeks into the darkened cove from the east, the jungle cliffs come alive with patterns of shadow and light in a thousand fanciful, ever-shifting shapes. When the sun is fully up, the cliffs will return to their normal appearance, but for these few moments they are almost magical with this display of shadow art. In the shadowy half light, a group of caves and crevices on the cliff face takes on the appearance of a grinning skull. As the morning sun illuminates the shadow that resembles the skull’s mouth, a previously unseen glint of gold sparkles brightly in the sunlight, as if the skull has a gold tooth. A small sandy beach lies just below the the skull's "mouth" and the "eye sockets" are roughly 30 feet above this beach.
From blue bight’s embrace,
Spy the Grave Lady’s prize tooth,
With the Dawnflower’s first kiss,
Climb the Captain’s wayward orb,
To claim old king’s hoard.
Captain Wolfe is known to have lost an eye in battle.
It was his right eye.
With a large smile, Ashlei looks to Herzag, and nods at the shining tooth.
"By Besmara's perky ones, there be our prize my friend! Lets get tooth it!"
Turning to the crew, she continues.
"Men, ready a boat for a shore party! Look alert! Those shark-men might try hitting us again while some of us are away."
Scratching her chin she then looks to the Captain.
"Sir? Should we make ready to sail and leave as soon as we get back? Unless the trove here is larger than we guess, I would rather not dally here too long for fear of reprisals from our lagoon friends. Its too bad we can't force them to leave either. This island would make a great hidden port!"
"Wayward orb..the captain's wayward orb." Randall mutters to himself as he tries to puzzle out the last clue "I've got it. I remember a story about Captain Wolfe losing an eye in a fight, but I can't recall which one. " He shrugs, apologetically "Stands to reason that the treasure is probably buried in one of those eye sockets, your guess is as good as mine" he says before pulling out a gold coin "Heads, right, tails, left"
Tossing the coin in the air, he grabs it and slams it on the rail before lifting his hand "Tails. Left it is, then." he pronounces.
"It's the right one. Captain Wolfe lost his right eye" - Herzag stands back twirling his dagger - "No coin toss you crazy lad" - he adds with a chuckle.
Sauntering over to the rail, Ashlei smiles again.
"Just remember that any pirate worth his salt that buries a treasure is sure to leave a trap or something behind to protect it. Anybody want to bet coin it? Is our captain that paranoid? I hope not."
"I bet if there is a trap, I can disarm it" - Herzag leans over the rail, next to Ash - "If you wanna gamble on something" - he chuckles, still looking straight ahead at the skull lookalike grotto structures.
"Oh there'll definitely be a trap, wouldn't be much fun if there wasn't would there?' Rhialla says with a chuckle, coming up alongside the others.
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"Im hoping the death salad above us was the trap but we will see. Rosie, keep a gun crew looking torwards the bastards under the sea staring at us, Sandara keep the rest of the crew readying us to leave but give me four sailors to crew the shore boats."
He ordered gazing at the skull cave with a slight grin.
Launching the jollyboats you soon arrive at a small beach in front of the "mouth" of the skull. Searching, you find a deposit of pyrite, fool's gold, that has been placed in crevice of the cave's mouth to catch the morning sun.
Thirty feet above the beach two caves open into the cliff face where the eye sockets would be. The dense vegetation makes for an easy climb .
Eyeing the vines with trepidation one of the sailors who rowed the boat pauses "Um, yeah." he says nervously "We'll be staying here Cap'n?" he asks. Another quickly chimes in "To guard the boats" he offers, helpfully "wouldn't do for those fishmen to steal and scuttle our launches, now would it."
Unless directed otherwise, Ashlei will grab Herzag with a twinkle in her eye and starts climbing to the right eye.
"Let's go see what's there first? I smell a treasure!"
"Not sounding like a landslide you won't girl..." - the experienced half-orc picks his way up much more carefully, trying not to cause a racket.
The reckless Ifrit outraces the more cautious half orc to the caves entrance. As they climb they notice the rotted remains of what appears to have been a wooden boom, all but hidden from view below, between the two caves. Vines and roots hang down over a narrow entrance into the cliff face. It looks to be a tight fit but accessible with a little effort.
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Ashlei looks down at her chest and then back up at Herzag with wide eyes and fake seriousness. She suddenly grabs her-self defensively.
"I didn't think these boulders made that much noise! I bet those little rocks in your sack are much louder in the end!"
Chuckling at the suggestive banter between the new officers, Rhialla joins Percy in making the climb doing better than one would expect.
"You guessed it girl - they are known to cause a ruckus" - he retorts without skipping a beat, and continuing to move toward the cave with a smug look on his face - "Nice boulders though..."
Squeezing
In some cases, you may have to squeeze into or through an area that isn’t as wide as the space you take up. You can squeeze through or into a space that is at least half as wide as your normal space. Each move into or through a narrow space counts as if it were 2 squares, and while squeezed in a narrow space, you take a –4 penalty on attack rolls and a –4 penalty to AC.
When a Large creature (which normally takes up 4 squares) squeezes into a space that’s 1 square wide, the creature’s miniature figure occupies 2 squares, centered on the line between the 2 squares. For a bigger creature, center the creature likewise in the area it squeezes into.
A creature can squeeze past a creature while moving but it can’t end its movement in an occupied square.
To squeeze through or into a space less than half your space’s width, you must use the Escape Artist skill. You can’t attack while using Escape Artist to squeeze through or into a narrow space, you take a –4 penalty to AC, and you lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.
Herzag approaches the entrance slowly, searching the area around it, and the few feet right after the 'threshold'
Herzag searches the cavern opening and a little bit beyond but can find no indication of a trap.
"Clear" - he returns to the others - "Should I head on up ahead Cap?"
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"Yes, we will be just a few feet behind you, if you have to come back in a hurry i dont want you boxed in"
He answered drawing his cutlass.
"Burnout you follow him, Ill follow you, Rhialla after me...then Randall. Miss Neela bring up the rear, since if something goes terrible wrong you can fly down to the ship in a hurry."