Round 4
The glitter flies into the eyes of the aurochs attacking Torvi. The beast bellows in anger, fear, frustration. It begins to kick and spin, lashing out in defense.
Seeing as Torvi is hit again, Snorri leaps into the fray, whirling down the Dammerhall ancestral axe against the beast in a cleaving blow.
Snorri’s axe sinks into the thick skull of the beast. The auroch sinks to the soft floor, breathing it’s last.
Round 5
Sensing the arcane threads of his first spell rapidly unraveling, Dasur moves towards the pit he created. He takes a handful of multi-colored sand and waits for their quarry to rise from its depths.
Moved Glenda and Moved Dasur up. Assuming Glenda was keeping up, we could probably bot Glenda to heal Torvi.
The third aurochs flees from the bloodshed.
Bracing a foot against the animal, Snorri yanks the greataxe from its cranium before hurrying back towards Dasur and the ensorcelled auroch.
"Glenda, please care for Torvi! Dasur, take cover!"
Finally able to help Nalnera growl at the auroch, "Focus on me you ugly thing"
Rushing out and slamming into the auroch.
Torvi double moves down to the pit and will swing away at the critter when it is next her turn.
The aurochs takes no actions, being stunned and blind. So everyone should now get a Round 6 to act.
Round 6
Torvi swings at the stunned and blinded mindless animal that she considers her next couple days of food!
Bludgeon
Tovi's blow crushes the skull of the powerful bovine. For the moment, the jungle settles into its relative silence, broken only by the echoes of battle and dripping water.
"Shall we get to the butchery and see about lunch? Do you think that hide will tan up well? How about some jerky? Have we seen any sources of salt down here?"
Dasur is about to reply to Snorri that he sees no danger in the place he is currently standing, but it is made obvious when TOrvi crashes the skull of the blinded animal in front of him.
He looks at the large beast for several moments, putting a hand on his beard. "More importantly, how did these beasts come down here? Are they not surface creatures? They do not seem adapted to the Azathhyr, like the White Hunters." Dasur drones, completely ignoring Torvi's more practical questions.
Turning on his heel, the wizard walks back to the wagon and opens up his spellbook to refresh the spells he just expended. "If you need the services of my Unseen Servant, do not hesitate to interrupt my study." Is about the extent of the help he's willing to offer with the butchery, considering Snorri's massive size should greatly assist in the moving and butchering of the Aurochs.
Slightly winded, Snorri wipes blood off the greataxe. "Excellent job, everyone. Torvi, you are bleeding, be granted respite."
Moving the large beasts together, the enlarged ancestral Tharnhammer axe cleaves the corpses into four quarters, blood draining in the ground. "Alas, none of us are skilled butchers. Nor cooks. I still have that burned reptile's foul taste in my mouth. But we have magic to keep it from spoiling."
At Snorri's pointing out her wounds, Torvi seems surprised to realize she is injured.
She quickly spells herself to relative health.
Frowning at the now dead creature and turning to glare at Regnir before he even speaks.
Crossing his arms while little bits of red start to seep into the green, resembling blood rolling off of him. Lifting his head arrogantly, "I said nothing."
Turning around to address Snorri, "That might have been something to discover before slaughtering three large creatures instead of either capturing them or leaving them be."
"Luckily, we HAVE discovered it before slaughtering three large creatures."
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"I don't wish to disrespect you, Ancestor, but old wisdom says that a bad meal made of meat is better than a bad meal made of mushrooms."
Green shifts to blue so he is a pale blue with crimson dripping off of him as he opens his mouth only to vanishs
Pinching her nose and groaning, "So sorry death has robbed Regnir of any civility."
Wincing at the screaming in her head as Rrgnir continues to berate her, "He and I will continue to work on that if he wants anyone but me to talk to."
Sighing at the mental silence, "Sorry again. Umm, so who wants cut of the soon to be food. I can help some." Shifting on her feet and clearly embarrassed by Regnir.
Iverna extracts herself from behind a mushroom stem, piping in. "By the fish lord, do you dwarves do nothing on the surface but walk and kill things? You can't just start hacking at it. You need to hoist it up and get the blood out first. If you like that can be collected and mixed with mushrooms to make blood sausage or just gelled. We could smoke the meat if we want to take the time, but maybe we don't. In any case, I can't move the monsters, but I can help you not make such a mess of it."
And Erebos shimmers into existence at Dasur's elbow, "Our histories say that this vault was once open to the surface, Dasur, and that some of the surface creatures were trapped here and made a living. The aurochs can certainly see, at least here in the Jungle. Perhaps they were altered by the magic of the place."
"Two hundred days of meat... it will take some time to smoke and prepare it," says Glenda dryly. "Bringing butchers and cooks on this endeavor seems to have sadly slipped by the wayside. We shall do our best with our limited skills."
"We do many things, this is just me showing a lack of subtlety. But I bow to your expertise, Iverna. Smoking would possibly take too long, and we have no aromatic wood, but we can certainly make camp here and prepare the meat. How can I help?"
Dasur doesn't seem surprised as Erebos materializes into existance next to him, instead looking up from his spellbook and nodding slowly. "I see. Their adaption to the Jungle is remarkable, considering the sheer number voracious predators present."
Shifting in his seat, Dasur turns to blank pages in his spellbook. "Seeing you reappear from invisibility reminds me- I believe I have come to understand the machinations of the magical energies of the Azathyr enough to master that spell. May I have a few hours with your spellbook to copy it and a few others?"
Iverna instructs you in hoisting the carcasses by their rear legs, draining the blood into a pot. Then she instructs you in splitting them in half, removing the offal.
Erebos observes, occasionally answering a query from Dasur about his arcane notation.
He says,
"Tis a shame we don't have an alchemist. I do not know the means of producing it, but the auroch's liver can be processed into a potent hallucinogenic compound. It has something to do with the diet of the creatures here in the Jungle"
Torvi will count her blessings that she survived another battle, taking some of the blood of the beasts, and painting blood stripes across her face.
As you process the aurochs, you find that you are gathering an audience. Small pteranodons swoop nearby, even landing on the tops of fungi nearby, chirping to each other.
After an hour of studying Erebos' spellbook and speaking with him about the way he weaves arcana, Dasur belives he has finally started to grasp the nature of magic within the Azathyr. He prepares the spell from Erebos' spellbook to test out the newly acquired magic.
The pteranodons flitting about overhead make for a perfect, live-fire exercise.
Dasur quickly flicks his fingers in a series of complicated signs and motions before pointing a digit at one of the flying lizards perched on a mushroom. The spell is activated by a powerful trigger word, spoken with clear enunciation and conviction. "ໄຟສາຍ"
A blinding ray of concentrated, rapidly oxidizing fire shoots from Dasur's fingertip, blasting off a chunk of mushroom cap right below an innocently squawking, and now panickingly squawking, pteranodon.
"Ah, I missed." He mutters. The wizard lowers his hand, head tracking the falling piece of burnt mushroom as it careens to the ground. The charred mycelium lands a few feet away, but Dasur seems unconcerned. "Given my natural affinity to the elemental planes I normally enjoy adding my own twist to spells, typically a link to an outer plane, to increase their effectiveness." He explains to Erebos as the smell of burnt organic matter begins to compete with the scent of blood and offal from the butchering.
"But I often find offensive spells such as this one have been honed so finely for their combat-specific purposes that tampering with their execution only decreases their lethality. It is truly amazing what we can accomplish using the latent energies of the material plane alone." Dasur continues, placing both hands on his staff and leaning against it in thought. "I believe I will copy this spell as you have it written. I must applaud the Drow for developing such an effective weapon."
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"Converting magical energy directly into heat is nearly the simplest of battle magic, perhaps even easier than simply creating magical force. The challenge is in directing the fire. Of course, you will see that what is actually being done is that a matrix of magical energy is actually being traced through the ether and then ignited. The ray effect is as much for targeting as anything, the line of fire does no damage to anything along its ..."
Erebos' voice trails off just as smaller pteranodons disappear. Dasur looks to see what has taken Erebos' tongue and sees the drow uncharacteristically slackjawed. Following the drow's gaze, Dasur turns to see a hulking humanoid, at least nine feet tall. This bulky creature has beady eyes, and rocky skin studded with small crystals. Its jutting underbite holds large, crystalline teeth.
It roars in animalistic challenge, hot air blasting from its mouth.
Torvi isn’t giving up the kill. She hefts her weapon and commences a raging song, to include giving Lesser Celestial Totem (healing will be more effective on you). You need not accept the song on any given round, for say casting, or whatever.
"Dasur, by the Earth, could you give some warn-"
Snorri trails off as the new menace enters the fray, rising to meet the troll's challenge with one of its own. This is a hardier foe, stay behind me.
"Oh." Dasur mutters in surprise as he lays eyes on the rock troll, shifting his staff from one hand to the other.
The troll roars. It is big... very, very big.
"Oh." Is reapeated in a much more dire fashion, and the dwarf swallows a knot that had spontaneously formed in his throat. "That... is a rock troll, correct? You were talking about them a few days ago?"
Having spent the past two hours studying new spells with Erebos instead of refreshing himself, Dasur finds his arcane repertoire severly limited from their Auroch hunting.
Being familar with the Giant langauge, he would attempt to speak to the troll under normal circumstances. But right now Dasur thinks it's in his best interests to not be noticed by the nine foot monstrosity.
Snorri is holding his ground, and so Dasur does the same.
Glenda moves up behind Snorri, and says, "Best we strike quickly, my liege!"
From his conversations with Erebos, Dasur is aware that rock trolls are a particularly vile form of fleshwarping created by drow. The trolls were bred for attack and defense, but some of them have escaped and gone feral. While he doesn't know much about their specific strengths, he is aware that the drow bred the fire vulnerability out of them. Their fusion with crystals allows their regeneration to ignore fire damage.
The troll, like many trolls, is not a smart troll. But he is smart enough to take Snorri literally. The troll runs straight at the dwarven lord, lowering its head, only at the last minute remembering to bite.
The troll's empty jaws snap over Snorri's head.
Erebos snaps from his reverie. "Ah, now we will have our answer. How do the dwarves fare against the Rock troll?"
Iverna, attempting to be more helpful, moves to flank the troll.
Round 2 dwarves turn.
Remember: Raging song: +2 STR/CON, +1 Will Save, -1 AC, Cannot use CHA, DEX, or INT based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride), or any ability that requires patience or concentration.
Torvi's rage envelops her, and her eyes gloss over slightly, she swings at the troll...
Bludgeon
...smashing it with the might of her dwarven weapon.
Can someone slide Torvi 5' to the east, so she can work on flanking the beast please?
Dasur shouts relevant information to the brave dwarves on the frontlines. "A rock troll is unlike its surface cousins! It is not vulnerabble to fire!"
The wizard moves forward and grasps his amulet, drawing on the power within. "Lend us your aid, Zhashilgeax..." He intones to the ruby within, causing the gem to glow a dull blood-red. The magical energies of the ether flow through Dasur's bonded object, and he masterfully weaves the built-up arcane energies into a shape familar to him.
With the spell complete, he thrusts a hand forward and swirls it around in the direction of the troll. Microscopic particles of mica burst from the ground around the troll, flashing blinding light directly into its face.
Glenda moves up behind Snorri as he charges at the troll, and draws her own warhammer in preparation for joining the fray.
The dust blinds the troll.
The beast's bite, although not strong enough to penetrate through the armor, twists Snorri's arm as he's readying a swing, throwing off his aim. With a jerking motion, the dwarf frees himself from the grasp as Dasur's spell distracts the beast, charging another blow.
The troll snaps again at empty air while its claws dig into the dirt around Snorri.
Iverna steps up to the legs of the troll, attempting to deflect any attacks.
Erebos:
"Excellent work, Dasur. The troll is especially susceptible to magic that attacks the mind. Now it is up to the more martially inclined to beat the thing to a pulp."