"Holy shit, Archy. That is awesome."
The capstan won't budge.
You would guess the damage to the portcullis has it jammed shut.
Maria closes her eyes.
"By the will or air, by the will of the sky..."
She then touches Klor, who seems, by far, the strongest of them all. He starts hovering a feet above the ground.
"Master dwarf, please carry Phillip in your arms."
When he gets Phillip, she makes him float to the top of the wall.
"Please pull yourself over the wall, and I'll get you down. Leave Phillip and I'll return you here."
She plans to do the same with everybody, leaving her for the last.
hmmm, wouldn't hurt to take a look at the windows in the portcullis before we go back to the front gate.
"give me just a moment just ta see what I can see, blokes"
Moving to the portcullis Trib attempts to climb it to get a closer look at the windows.
seeing Maria's Idea Trib says
"Mam I'll go Last with you, after I get off this portcullis"
once Trib gets a quick look at the portcullis windows he climbs back down ready to be carried by a levitating companion.
Archy will fly back over and carry people over the wall..
10 strength carrying capacity is 100 lbs for a heavy load. No, you can't shuttle people across flying. You could manage the halfling, and maybe the sorceress, but the rest will definitely be too heavy.
Klor practically shrieks when he starts to lift off the ground What is all the nine hells ya doing ta me lass.
as he starts to lift up a little more he remembers the task to get Phillip. He grabs him by the scruff of his neck, [b]come on boy yer gonna go airborne fer a bit. and quit yer squirmin ya ugly wee haggis
He does as he is requested but as he goes over he checks ou the bars and the mechanisim,
he also tries to size up the bars to see if tarnack can bust through them.
(adamantine waraxe)
Trib can climb up the outside wall just fine and get around the gatehouse. Climbing up a portcullis gets you to the inside of what is essentially a tunnel, and you would have to climb to the ceiling upside down for a while, so no go on that.
Thus you are inside, just not via the portcullis.
"Actually, I know a pretty great haggis recipe ...a bit of foie gras, some mushroom, and the right spices ..."
Once inside Maria closes her eyes again.
"Make our voice become familiar to our ears..."
She touches each one of her companions, while asking them to say their name very quietly.
"Now you can whisper and I will hear you, even if you are far away. And I can relay your messages to the others."
The area you find yourselves in is 90x50. It is an open area, and the sky is showing. The ground is covered in grass. There are two doors on the north wall. One single door is to the west, while the other is a double door about dead center in the wall.
As Trib is being carried over the wall, he squirms as little as possible, trying to make it as smooth as he can.
being carried over by someone flying is a little humbling, but at least were learning to work as a team
"well folks double door ta the dead center or single door ta the west first?"
"The small one... we are preferring the back entrances..."
the Lady asked for the small door, the small door she gets
Trib quickly approaches the single door to the west and searches it for traps and style of locks. Once he is confident that the door is free of traps he attempts to open it.
The door is not locked nor trapped.
The rooms looks to be a tack room, though all the riding harness seems to have rotted away with age. There is a ladder up to a hayloft in the northern area of the room.
tack room, aren't these usually near the barn
Trib draws his rapier and drops his shield in place, just in case, by the light cast from his sword he inspects the tack room. having a gift for stating the obvious he says
"Saddle's ain't worth much now"
He quickly inspects the first level then going up the ladder he inspects the loft, looking for any possible hidden doorways.
If you're going up a ladder, there is no way you can be wearing a shield and holding a weapon (you can do one or the other, weapon or shield).
Once you get to the top, something tosses a hayfork at you.
miss.
The attacker appears to be a cloaked and hooded figure who is coalescing out of a dark cloud.
Gregor follows the halfling into the room. While Trib goes up to the loft, Gregor looks for the entrance to the stables (as assumes most tack rooms have one).
Odly enough, there is only the door you entered through.
You can't see what did it without going up into the hayloft.
as Trib finishes climbing the ladder, something tosses a hayfork at him. Looking up as the attacker appears to be a cloaked and hooded figure who is coalescing out of a dark cloud. Trib drops his shield in place and not too terribly frightened by a pitchfork says,
"come out of tha darkness and let me see ya's"
There is nothing special you will notice with a perception check. Only things up here are moldy hay, and the critter.
You can see it just fine. It coalesced out of a dark cloud, not the darkness.
Trib looks at the critter for a moment trying to recognize who or what it is
stepping closer to illuminate the creature better and to see what it will do, he repeats himself
"I said come out's of tha darkness and let me see ya's"
Not dungeoneering.
It holws, moves up, and attacks you.
but misses
trib, deflecting its attack with the shield, quickly strikes twice at the creature. calling down the ladder
"OY, we got's a live one!"
You stick it twice and seem to hurt it pretty well.
It tries to attack you again. fail.
Maria quickly go up the stair, and send a glob of acid towards the creature.
Klor calls up, OY! Peck, lure the thing down ere, where the real warrior's can take care of it.
there is too much congestion on the ladder at the moment, and luring the creature below seemed the best course of action.
he had to give the peck credit though, he was far braver than most any other Peck he's met. maybe he was part dwarf?
at least they did not hang me out to dry
as Trib considers his best attack option he calls down
"In good time my bearded friend in good time"
You cannot make an untrained knowledge check if the DC is above 10. Hence you cannot identify critters untrained.
The knowledge skill in this case is religion (which does tend to give things away).
The critter has SR, so you need to roll for that.
stupid thing, I hate not knowing what I'm fighting
moving to attack again,
"hold on Klor, I'll toss it's carcass down in a second"
It's dead now, so a fairly moot point.
Tribim stabs it a couple more down and it screeches once more, and collapses. Then it disperses into a black cloud and dissipates.
glad Maria was up here, no one would have believed otherwise.
watching the thing dissipate Trib calls down to Klor
"Sorry Klor, I lied, it's gone now.
Trib quickly finishes searching for any other doorway into the monastery.
obviously the fight disturbed Trib's focus more than he realized
<harrumph> Guess it knew it had ta be facin a Kragsson and done fled back ta where ever it be from.
You search comes up fruitless.
Maria examines the place where the creature disappeared.
"Evil always vanish, only to reappear anew where you least expect it. Good work Tribim."
She comes down after the halfling.
"Let's try the big door now."
"Well, never saw a tack room that didn't have an entrance into the stables before...."
He looks up to the loft.
"A lot of noise, but no body? You sure you're completely recovered from last night, Tribim?" Gregor says with a grin.
Archy follows along.. "What happened? Did I miss something?"
Since you don't have a lot of options, you head back out and through the double doors.
This is obviously the stables. There are 14 stalls in this large room. In each of the stalls is a misty warhorse, stamping and snorting at the party, obviously interested in seeing humans again.
There is a door on the east wall.
well if the entire building disappears why am I surprised that a body does?
Trib sheathing his rapier and shouldering his shield, nods at Maria as he pass her to go down the ladder, he returns Gregor’s smile as he heads out the door but doesn’t say anything, answering Archy on the way past
”not a thing Archy not a bloody thing, let’s go check out tha double doors.
Trib goes to the set of double doors, opening and finding a stable and a door to the east. Trib goes to the door and repeating the process of looking for traps and trying to identify the locking mechanism.
"Are these horses alive? They seems feed! how old do you thing they are? Could it be that time in the monastery has not elapsed as it has done outside of it?"
A knowledge planes check would be good here.