The Emerald Spire

Game Master Stormstrider

"To the west, Chalkou, I believe. If that lever blocked our way, we can return to move it back in the other direction. I hope."

”Very well.” the Hellknight Armiger says, before leading the way that direction.

Someone move me, I’m posting from my phone. If we hit any open doorways, let’s stop there and clear the room before we go any farther.

... Someone move me, ...

Move you to ... ??? Where do you want to be moved to? Through the open doorway to next room to the west? Or back out to the submerged hallway? Or what? COMMUNICATION PLEASE FOLKS!

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On a separate note, who is Todd David? And why was the base of the map moved over so far AND not put back?!? - I have corrected the map, but that should not have happened.

That's me. Sorry, didnt realize it moved. Working off phone, remember, so I try not to touch the map.

I moved Chalkou into the most immediate western access, the passage to our immediate west.

Ok Ilya, thanks for letting me know. Not a huge deal anyways.

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At first Chalkou, gets an impression of looking into a mirror copy of the same room he just came from, but then realizes there are differences, such as the platform ledge extending further around to include 3 sides of the room, a door in the western wall, and no obvious levers anywhere. He sees nothing in the water either.

Chalkou wrote:

... Someone move me, ...

Move you to ... ??? Where do you want to be moved to? Through the open doorway to next room to the west? Or back out to the submerged hallway? Or what? COMMUNICATION PLEASE FOLKS!

I thought it was pretty clear. "If we hit any open doorways, let’s stop there and clear the room before we go any farther." So I'm moving west until we hit a doorway.

As Chalkou leads the way into the room, Uriel follows along at the rear of the party. When he has a clear view of the new room, he will sweep it with Detect Evil.

Lonam waits to hear a description of what Chalkou can see.

I thought it was pretty clear. "If we hit any open doorways, let’s stop there and clear the room before we go any farther." So I'm moving west until we hit a doorway.

Yes, heading west to an open doorway, BUT you had THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO HEAD WEST! 1. Open doorway on the platform in this room, 2. The submerged hallway, or 3. The submerged passage under the platform. At this point others have decided it for you, so it is a mute point at this time, but for future reference, (I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a pain,) your post was not clear about which of the 3 westward options to take.

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Lonam, I'm not sure what you are saying? I already gave a report of what Chalkou sees.

"At first Chalkou, gets an impression of looking into a mirror copy of the same room he just came from, but then realizes there are differences, such as the platform ledge extending further around to include 3 sides of the room, a door in the western wall, and no obvious levers anywhere. He sees nothing in the water either."

Or are you waiting for Chalkou to pass it along?

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I have already described the room, so the next action is up to the party. *** Uriel will not sense any evil whenever he gets in there.

Chalkou, are you wanting to switch out who takes point with Uriel? I think we are all waiting for you to move forward into the room.

Yes, let's do that.

By mutual agreement, Uriel and Chalkou switch places. Uriel sheathes his sword but draws his shield and heads into the room (E9). He goes to the northern door, saying, ”Let me check and see if this connects to the hallway.” Uriel will crack open the door, braced to slam it shut if water starts pouring in.

Looking at the rest of the group, Uriel asks, ”Did anyone see what that lever did when Lonam activated it?”

If it connects to the hallway with the same strange water barrier as the previous room, he will shut the door and ask, ”Raziel, would you like to help me check out the door to the west?”

Uriel finds that the northern door seems to have the same magical effect on it of holding back the water from the hallway. No matter how wide he opens it, the water in the hallway just continues flowing past as if there were a solid pane of glass between this room (E9) and the hallway.

Now Uriel awaits a response from the party about seeing what the lever did or not, and also from Raziel about checking the next western door.

Boudacia & Chalkou both manage to spot a portcullis drop closed in the submerged passage to the west...

FYI, Boudacia and Chalkou are the ones who saw the lever results...

"I wonder if this room (E8) or the next room (E9) would be a good place to hold up and defend ourselves long enough to recover spells?"

Sorry, meant to say that before Uriel moved away.

"A rest would be useful. I worry we might be attacked in the night, but having a full complement of spells would make me much more valuable in combat."

Ilyanaro follows the rest, glowing staff held aloft and eyes scanning for threats.

"I was paying attention to the things trying to kill us, I don't have any idea if the lever did anything at all." the big half-orc says gruffly.

Let's just help this get to moving along here shall we?

"I was paying attention to the things trying to kill us, I don't have any idea if the lever did anything at all." the big half-orc says gruffly.

Actually Chalkou I did bot that perception check for you, and as Uriel pointed out, you did see: "a portcullis drop closed in the submerged passage to the west." - For the sake of time:

Chalkou mentions that he did see a portcullis drop closed in the submerged passageway.

When Uriel turns to look in that direction, he can see an underwater passage in the wall that is currently to his east, and which would match up with the underwater passageway he saw from the other side.

"If we need a rest, we can take one," starts Uriel, "but I worry about that sorceress on the loose popping up again."

Looking around, Uriel says, "If we can clear that door to the west, this may be a decent place to rest. Raziel, can you check the western door please?"

"I do have a spell in my book that might help. A rope trick could give us a hidden place to stay, for five hours or so ay least. We would be giving up my second water breathing, but if we are to stay here, that seems less pressing of an issue."

Uriel will also check out the door to the west, listening and detecting evil through the door (hopefully Raziel will pop in from vacation and/or get botted for the door investigation).

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (4) + 5 = 9

No post from Raziel in several days now & since he's still on his vacation, I'll go ahead and bot him for the door check.

"Sure thing." says Raziel as he walks over to check the door leading west.

Perception + 1 for traps: 1d20 + 11 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 11 + 1 = 18

"I'm not finding any kind of traps, and the door has no lock on it. Shall I open it while you stand at the ready for the attack Uriel?"

”Sounds good to me, Raziel. Hopefully we can clear this area so we can rest safely.”

Uriel draws his sword and waits until the others are ready, then nods at Raziel to open the door.

Raziel opens the door and the two see a 25 ft hallway heading west. There are 2 doors heading south, 1 door at the end continuing west, and an opening heading north.

(What was that? A secure place? Rest? Hahaha! :-D Nope! 4 more pathways instead!)

”Ilyanaro, will five hours rest be enough for you to recover your spells? Or should we investigate the side doors to see if there is a more defensible room here?”

Too many openings to this set of rooms and too little dry ‘land’ to rest on. Good resting areas would either be in a room off this hallway or back the way we came against the current.

Raziel opens the door and the two see a 25 ft hallway heading west. There are 2 doors heading south, 1 door at the end continuing west, and an opening heading north.

My apologies, I forgot the following:

When Raziel opens the door he also finds another window-like surface of water completely filling the hall. There appears to be no strong current here however.

That's what I get for trying to do too many things at once. Post here, watch training videos for my new job as a cook at Wendy's, play a game on Facebook, AND play a game on my phone! Oh, and keep up with a chat with my DM advising friend! By the way, have I mentioned I'm a gamer? Hahaha!

"No, I will require eight hours of rest, then time to read and prepare my spells after that. If we can find a safe space, good. If not, I can continue to fight a bit further, at least for some time."

There goes that idea!

”It looks like the eastern room (E8) is our best bet. Raziel, can we block/lock/trap the doors in these two rooms so we have some notice if someone is trying to break in? Then we can have a rest. I don’t mind taking a watch, if others want to rest first.”

Uriel will assist as needed with the doors and setting up camp.

Uriel is okay either way. How badly do the rest of you need a rest? It might be nice to have more magic that gives us underwater mobility.

”I can stand a watch as well. I have need of rest, to be sure, but no concern for spells.”

"Although I have healing available if we press on, I would like to pray for new spells and to consider spells that might be more helpful to the party. I can wait if we need to keep going."

It seems like everyone is okay with a rest, so let’s settle in...

I was trying to allow a full 24 hrs to pass for those who have not posted (Especially those from whom a specific request has been made; Example: Raziel jamming the doors) from the time the request was made to give them a chance to play their characters. Also trying to see if Boudacia is still with us or not? She/he didn't say they were quitting or leaving the game, but has not made a post since the angry post on July 5th, so going on 6 days now. Boudacia has 'ghosted' for that and more before with internet issues or some other issue, so I can't say for sure at this time. And Boudacia? If you are reading this I would appreciate it if you would do the kindness of letting us know one way or the other please? *** And I got called in to work 'closing' last night, didn't get home until about 1:10 am, exhausted, but could not sleep right away, and then busy morning with another job interview- open house, so spent 2 hours standing around (NO seating!) waiting to have a 2 minute interview. About 30 people in that group. As I walked out, I saw they already had another even larger group waiting for the next batch of interviews! So anywho ...

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Is anyone doing anything in particular for their sleep period? How many watches, whose on what watch, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada.

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Raziel's Disable Device to jam the door in E8: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (12) + 16 = 28
Raziel's Disable Device to jam the northern door in E9: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (5) + 16 = 21
Raziel's Disable Device to jam the western door in E9: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (8) + 16 = 24

I'm fairly certain the door in E8 is well jammed. ;-)

Uriel doesn’t need to have uninterrupted sleep for spells, so he will take the middle watch.

Ilyanaro takes last watch, that way he can sleep longest and prepare spells while on watch.

Lonham only needs one hour to pray, so he will take the first watch, pray, then rest.

Chalkou can take whatever watch, he doesn't have a preference.

I want to clarify that my comment about the door being well jammed, was just that, just a comment, more focused on the roll & total numbers. I meant nothing gamewise! Sorry if I caused any confusion!

Resting: I just want to confirm, it sounds like you all need a total of 9 hours? Between sleeping and spell prep correct? *** So all spread out in a line, sleeping on a 5 ft wide platform, hanging over the water (with 2 open water portals) correct? Any other special preparations?

And sorry for any delays, but I am going to wait 'til ... ummm ... I close the next three nights at work, so either late (VERY early am?) of Friday night/Saturday morning, or sometime later Saturday morning, to give others a chance to post as well. Hopefully after Raziel gets back from his vacation on the 15th, we will know better about Boudacia, and we can get to a little more stable posting? I hope?

We might as well close the portcullis to keep anything that comes in from at least one of the portals from getting to us from underwater. And maybe Ilyanaro does his rope trick of part of the night so we can at least get 5 hours of sleep not on a catwalk over water.

My vote goes for the rope trick - no point in risking ;)

Otherwise for his turn, Raziel finds a dark place to hide and watches from there.

To be clear, the Portcullis dropped closed when Lonam pulled on the lever, and no one has pulled the lever again to open the portcullis. *** So, nine hours for resting & preparing spells. 5 hrs or Rope trick, so only 4 hrs of watch needed. Uriel & Chalkou will split that. Lonam had said pray 1st, & Ilya had said last watch, so I'll put Boudacia & Raziel with him during the last hour. Uriel will take the first 2 hrs of the 4 hr watch (closest to the middle watch) & Chalkou will take the last 2 hours. So now for some DM rolls ...

That's a LOT of yes's! Makes the DM happy! :-D

Lonam's Perception check: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22

Both Lonam sees a Water Mephit come swimming through the portal ...

Water Mephit's Perception to see if he notices the rope of 'Rope Trick': 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (11) + 6 = 17

The Mephit sees the rope, and he has seen wizard's use this trick before (He is smart enough to know this.) but he also knows there is nothing he can really do about it for now, so he just swims around in the water occasionally flying up and out of sight - possibly into the other room?

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At the end of the 5 hrs of the Rope Trick, Uriel is the first to come down so as to start his watch, and he sees there is another bunyip in the water, as well as a Water Mephit, and a Large Water Elemental. The hostiles immediately move to the attack upon seeing you all!

Everybody else had to come out since the time is up, so for simplicity sake I went ahead and placed everyone on the platform anyways.

Is the Mephit currently in this room? 1-50 yes: 1d100 ⇒ 33 Yes
Is the Large Water Elemental currently in this room? 1-50 yes: 1d100 ⇒ 44 Yes

CURRENT INITIATIVE:

Block 1:
Raziel {Full HP} & Boudacia {HP = 26 of 32}

No rest completed, so Arcane casters have NOT regained any spells or SLA's! And Lonam I forgot, as a cleric, you have to choose a time off day for your prayers, and it then is at the same time every day. You cannot be changing the time from day to day, except marginally within the game.

Thanks for that explanation, it's my first cleric.

Boudacia will employ her Slumber Hex on the Bunyip.

There are no ikons for the enemies on the map, or not on the one on my screen. So maybe that should read "Boudacia move so she has line of sight on the Bunyip and then will employ her Slumber Hex on it." If for some reason I can't get where I can hex the Bunyip I will do the same thing to the Water Mephit. Incidentally Boudacia is at fill HPs, Uriel healed me after the last Bunyip bit me. Thanks.

My apologies for my delay in posting. Sunday afternoon is my RL live tabletop and that will ALWAYS take precedence over this game since it is live, and not run on a delayed action like this is. Then I also had to work 5-12:30 am Saturday night, and got called into work 5-8:45 on Sunday night. By the time I got home, I was very tired & fighting a migraine, so went to bed at 10 pm. Woke up at 3:30 am so here I am, at first opportunity. At least it all worked out in allowing Boudacia's ghost to magically reappear! ;-)

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There are no ikons for the enemies on the map, ... Incidentally Boudacia is at fill HPs, Uriel healed me after the last Bunyip bit me. Thanks.

My apologies on both accounts. HP fixed & I will place enemy icons after making die rolls for random placements, using the E8 center as my base point.

So, the Bunyip is in the first 5 ft cube under the water surface, the Mephit is in the 5 ft cube 10 ft above the water & at ceiling level, and the Elemental is in the first 5 ft cube above the water surface. *** I should have used random die rolls to place you all on the platform, but didn't think of it.

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And I will now bot Raziel since it has been well over 24 hrs.

Seeing several hostiles in the room Raziel will fire a Scorching Ray at the nearest, being the water elemental.

Ranged Touch attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24 Uh, yeah, I think that's a hit!!! ;-)

Damage: 4d6 + 1 ⇒ (5, 4, 6, 5) + 1 = 21 Yowzers! :-O The dice are in your favor!

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Bunyip's Will save vrs Boudacia's Slumber: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 = 12 Nope. AGAIN.

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CURRENT INITIATIVE:

Block 3:
Ilyanaro {Full HP} & Uriel {Full HP}

Seeing both watery enemies above the surface of the water, Ilyanaro launches his fireball towards the back corner of the room. A bead of glowing red shoots out and detonates into a spectacular blast of flame that covers both mephit and elemental.

5d6 ⇒ (3, 4, 3, 5, 2) = 17 fire damage, DC 20 Reflex for half, Elemental takes +2 damage from intense spells ability.

Ilya, why do you specify the elemental? As I read the definition of the Intense Spells ability, I see yes, it applies only once to the spell, but it does not say only to one target or any such. I interpret it means only one Magic Missile could get the bonus, but the bonus applies to your entire Fireball, not just one part of your fireball. So by my interpretation it will apply to the Mephit as well. If I am wrong someone please explain it to me. Otherwise, I suspect I'll get no argument. :-) I am too generous!

Elemental's reflex save: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

Aha! The water elemental laughs at your Fireball! - Not really of course, but the DM does! Hahaha! ;-)

Mephit's reflex save: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10

The Water Mephit vanishes from sight after the fiery explosion, but the Elemental still ... floats(?).

Seeing that there is little to no room on the catwalk in the eastern room, Uriel draws a javelin and scans the western room for threats, saying over his shoulder to Chalkou, "I have your back."

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7

Huh. I was imagining the extra damage only applies to 1 target, not to all in the AoE. Guess it does, cool.

Huh. I was imagining the extra damage only applies to 1 target, not to all in the AoE. Guess it does, cool.

I believe the bonus is to one damage roll. For example, a Fireball is one damage roll (bonus damage applied to the only damage roll), but a Magic Missile at level 5 would be 3 damage rolls (choose one Missile to add the damage to).