Lorenzo was badly wounded, but he could see the warrior had also taken wounds as he pulled away. He quickly mended his own wounds with his innate magic and stepped towards the doorway.
Combat Round 4
#1 - 11/19 hp - AC 16 T 12 FF 14 CMD 14 Fort +4 Ref +5 Will -1
#2 - 12/12 hp - AC 11 T 11 FF 10 CMD 10 Fort +2 Ref +1 Will +3
#3 - unconscious, dying
The nearest drow again reaches for a vial, sprinkles powder into the top, and throws it, this time at Robert. The explosive catches him squarely, the fire sending him crashing to the ground, unconscious. The flame bursts outward, catching Alec and the drow in the doorway.
The other drow says a few words in their language.
She then begins casting a spell.
XP total: 1200
This encounter: 1100 XP
Vezem: -9 hp
Lorenzo recalled little of what he once knew about spell casting and the magical theory behind it; but he knew that another spell cast in battle was unlikely to end in roses and trick doves. The gentleman was intent on disrupting it. Rushing the warrior with a feinted low swing, the agile dancer tumbled over his back.
Landing neatly, Lorenzo tried to disrupt the spell by using the subtle art of mace to face. Instead of landing the blunt instrument to her jaw, he succeeded only in clipping her shoulder; and even then only because she seemed to stumble into its path at the last moment.
___________________________________________________________________________
Nareth quickly moves forward, dragging Robert back and casting a cure light wounds on him.
Alec has freaking nothing to do here...
Soothed by Nareth's healing magic, Robert stirs groggily. He tries to stand, but feels woozy, the room spinning alarmingly fast. He holds his head in his hands as he tries to right himself. "Many thanks. Damn that dwarf and damn that grease. I don't suppose you have any way to get Alec upright?"
"I might be able to pull him out with some rope."
Alec is angry. His face is red from the funny situation he's got himself into, while his companions need him. He is almost shouting when complaining back.
"Don't be ridiculous! This is just a minor mishap that I'll overcome in a second!"
Meanwhile, while his three companions seemed utterly foiled by a single spell, Lorenzo realised that, perhaps, he may have been a tad reckless. He was now fighting between two wounded, angry Drow.
Combat Round 5
#1 - 16/19 hp - AC 16 T 10 FF 15 CMD 17 Fort +4 Ref +4 Will -1
#2 - 8/12 hp - AC 11 T 11 FF 10 CMD 10 Fort +2 Ref +1 Will +3
#3 - unconscious, dying
Though the pain of Lorenzo's attack clearly bothers the drow, she grits her teeth and continues casting her spell.
The other drow steps to the south and draws his shortsword while pulling out another vial. This vial, however, he quaffs quickly. The results are seen immediately - his muscles bulge, and some of the wounds on his body close.
The situation gets worse, however, as the female drow finishes casting her spell. The male drow grows larger still, until he's the size of an ogre. His chuckles as he grows, a glint of madness in his eyes.
The female drow, having finished her spell, opens the door behind her and steps into the doorway. She casts another spell, and a ball of acid bursts from her hand. The acid splashes against the wall, however.
XP total: 1200
This encounter: 1100 XP
Vezem: -9 hp
"Get back Lorenzo, let them be." Nareth takes out his length of rope and tosses one end to Alec. After the dwarf grabs on Nareth hauls the rope back to drag him out of the grease.
"Let a drow be and you will die sleeping!" Alec ignores the thrown rope and finally manages to push a foot against the western wall, getting enough momentum to get out of the slicked area and finally join the combat, but his short legs do not favor his timing and he gets there on the enemies' turn!
"Get the mage Lorenzo!"
As Alec steps through the doorway, the enormous drow stabs at him with his shortsword, but the dwarf handily blocks the attack with his shield.
Working on it... Lorenzo muttered, with a wary eye on the heavily transmuted warrior behind him. He followed the female Drow, continuing his attempts to strike the mage down. Stepping in close, he wrong-footed the woman and reverse-swept his light mace into her abdomen, crushing several ribs in an attempt to bring her down. Although he left a telling wound on her, she did not yet fall.
Combat Round 6
#1 - 16/19 hp - AC 16 T 10 FF 15 CMD 17 Fort +4 Ref +4 Will -1
#2 - unconscious
#3 - dead
Robert readies to cast an acid splash at any enemy that comes into his vision.
The large drow stabs at Lorenzo, but he is clearly not used to his new size, and the attack is way off the mark. After missing, he shuffles closer to his ally.
The badly wounded female drow feints to Lorenzo's left and tries to slip away, but he's not fooled by her clumsy maneuver, and his light mace crashes into the woman's head, sending her tumbling into unconsciousness.
XP total: 1200
This encounter: 1100 XP
Vezem: dead
Pilashi: -7 hp, stable
Alec 5-foot-steps south to almost flank with Lorenzo and strikes at the devilish-image-of-satan drow that he so hates, almost finishing the sworn enemy!
!
Taking advantage of Alec's sword leaving a deep slash on the Drow, Lorenzo whirled his mace in a twirling arc that smashed the Drow's kneecap and finally brought him down.
As the enlarged warrior fell, Lorenzo nodded deeply in gratitude to the Dwarven Stonelord in a gesture of thanks and respect.
Nareth must have had a truly harrowing experience with Drow in his past. Or perhaps he just really hates getting grease on his clothes he sniggered, gesturing at the Dwarf's filthy form.
I'm inclined to question their purpose in this place. But I wouldn't especially object to killing them now, just to be on the safe side.
The enlarge drow crashes to the ground, unconscious.
XP total: 2300
Javishan: -3 hp, stable
Pilashi: -7 hp, stable
Nareth slowly but surely crosses the grease, frowning at Lorenzo. "I'm just not very balanced and would hate for two of our group to be helplessly on the ground." He looks down at the drow. "Either should kill them or question them." He raises a glowing hand, placing it on Alec.
Lorenzo shrugged.
Or both.
"Please close that door behind you, and bring the drow, Lorenzo." The party drag the unconscious drow back to the greased room where, if by a miracle they wake up, they will have trouble doing anything on the greased area, while the party remains on the safe area.
The dwarf scratches his beard, thinking for a bit. "Thanks for the healing, Nareth. I feel much better. Considering this place and what we have seen so far, I see no reason in questioning the drow. Their appearance here probably won't be related to anything we found or will find, so it doesn't really matter, I think." Alec does not seem like a merciful paladin. "They are treacherous, vile and definitely our enemies, who attacked us for no reason. They deserve a quick death, and if we wake them up they will want our word that we will release them in reward for the information they provide. If it comes to that, I will not trick them."
Alec detects evil on them, just to be sure.
Nareth takes out some rope, typing up the drow before they wake up.
Seeing few calls for mercy from the group, Lorenzo waited a moment for signs of objection before plunging his rapier into both of the Drow's necks, one after another.
Nareth puts a hand on Lorenzo's arm to stop him. He looks at Alec. "Let me handle this. You don't need to be in the room if you don't wish to be."
"If we're speaking to them I'm staying right here, but yes, go ahead and do this."
Robert snorts, smirking, "It's rather hard to speak with a hole in your throat. If you truly wished to speak with them, you'd be hard pressed to do so with Lorenzo's rapier opening their throats like that."
He kneels next to the corpses and begins going through their belongings. "Might as well see what we can get off of them..." Robert muses, letting his words trail off.
"Than keep quiet. Normally I like a darker environment but against drows it would probably do little." Nareth takes away all weapons on the drows, as well as magical gear and anything else short of their clothes. He double checks that their hands are tied tightly, then stands up solemnly. Fezory ab swy ifkuefr." Nareth's skin seems to shrink, and he begins to look corpse-like. Once the transformation is complete he kneels down, slapping one of the drow awake.
The male drow that dropped first is already dead, but the other two are stable. Stripping them of their gear, you find:
3 silver daggers
1 short sword
1 chain shirt
3 potions
1 alchemy crafting kit
1 scroll
1 wand
1 spell component pouch
1 traveling spellbook
1 masterwork rapier
1 masterwork breastplate
When Nareth brings the drow to consciousness, it quickly becomes clear that he and they share no language.
XP total: 2300
Nareth looks at the others to see if there are any languages they share.
After a few minutes of speaking, Robert recognizes some of the words the drow speak as an extremely archaic dialect of Elven. It is difficult to piece together much of what they say, but the gist of it is that they attacked you for destroying their master's creation.
"Ask him what that was." Nareth grabs the drow by his shirt, lifting him up. "And tell him to be thorough."
Robert looks up from the spellbook he had been perusing, trying to figure out what he could add to his repertoire from their newest acquisition. He had managed to get the majority, but two pages eluded his understanding at the moment. One seemed just out of reach, as though he almost understood the esoteric workings described on the page, but his understanding fell just short. The other though simply befuddled him. He had no explanation then simple exhaustion and distraction. He figured he'd have time to go over these pages again once they decided to break for a rest.
A few of the words the drow had spat out reminded him of an archaic form of Elven he had read once. "Hmm, so something about a master, our destruction, and his creation. Does this mean the master needs to be created or he is creating something? Ugh, walking this gibberish through ancient elven loses something of its meaning. I doubt we'll get much more from them, but it was good we tried. I believe we may safely dispatch them now."
With that he returned to pouring over the travelling spellbook.
Meanwhile Alec takes a small sip of each potion, trying to identify what do they do, but apparently the constant ingestion of Ale makes the dwarf lose his sensibility in this kind of subject.
"Are you done? May I pass the sentence, now?"
Lorenzo picked up the rapier, replacing the more mundane one in his sheath with the master-crafted one the Drow had wielded.
After several more minutes of attempted communication, all Robert is able to decipher is something about the master's experiment and revenge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After disposing of the drow and claiming their equipment, the party moves forward, continuing on through the next door, which leads to another small room. This one is empty save for an incredibly old skeleton slumped against the east wall. A badly corroded chisel lies next to the bones, and the words, "Ran out of time" are chiseled into the rock above the skeleton.
XP total: 2300
Fatigue checks: 8:15 PM
Nareth has them go on their knees and bend over, giving them quick clean deaths by beheading with his greatsword.
"Time... Did he run out of time to complete the test, I wonder?" Reality hits him in the face, warning his senses. "Or perhaps there's some kind of trap in this room!"
Robert muses on the sight of this grim tableau for a moment. "I'm inclined to assume the latter, rather than the former. Best to stay on our toes."
After a thorough search of the room, nothing is turned up - no traps, no secret doors. The party moves on, going to the next unexplored door, which leads to an empty room with one door. That door leads into yet another empty room, although this one has no further door to explore.
Just before you leave the room...
XP total: 2300
Fatigue checks: 8:15 PM
Nareth frowns at the speech, pointing that direction silently.
Lorenzo moved closer to the speech's source.
Straining to hear what everyone else seems to be indicating, Robert slowly follows behind Lorenzo, trying to make out what is being said.
Straining your ears, you can just make out the words, coming at a frantic pace.
"Time, no time. Must make time. Is it over, friend? Yes. No. Yes. Time now, never time. It said more time. It lied. Never. Time is up. More time. Please, more time. Yes. Yes. Need more. In time, out of time. With time, death. Without time, death. Time is death? NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, not right! Liar! It spoke the truth. No, it lied. More time, need more time."
The voice seems to be coming from the western wall in the north corner of the room.
Alec gets close and starts to look for a secret door nearby.
Alec thoroughly searches the northwest corner of the room for several minutes, and indeed finds the outline of a secret door. However, he is unable to find a mechanism to open the door.
While Alec searches, the voice continues.
"What time? None. Nothing. Everything. Time is time. Time is infinite, yes friend? No. No time, never time. Time is a limit. Limits the mind. Limits thoughts. Limits life. Time is life. Life is time. With time, death. With death, life. Time forever. Time never. Need more time. More time. More!"
Perhaps it only opens from the inside... Lorenzo said quietly. He addressed the voice beyond the secret door in a loud voice that would surely carry.
"Did you hear that? No. It spoke. No. No time. No time to hear. No time to speak. See? No. No time to see. See time. Time gone. Gone."
"Or maybe we just didn't search enough. Is there magic in the door?"