"That would be an extraordinary gift, good sir. Anything could be of tremendous help. You have my thanks."
Wilhaim clapped Grooklepop on the shoulder.
"And yes, free spells are always a boon."
He stretches his arms about, making sure he's still limber after having to sit around waiting for the wizard training session to come to completion. Oddly, he feels both more confident when it comes to spells and more intimidating... Probably just the drink starting to get to him. Hasn't been much to do besides drink and wait around.
"We all good? 'Cause we're here to fight an evil wizzer and I'm pretty eager to try out those 'trials' he mentioned, even if is just the snobbish prick playing around with us."
"We might as well head on in while we have an entrance. "
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"Weird set-up innit?" He mutters, looking around.
Search the room.
Nastarok looks to see if any of the items are marked with a symbol of Desna.
And he moves to listen at the iron door.
Grookle would look for anything particularly interesting hanging around.
Afterwards, he might as well aid with the door check.
Since it seems to be the trendy thing to do, Omar will also listen at the door.
I also have urban and forest.
Omar will put on his gloves of reconnaissance and spend one of the minutes looking through the door.
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Omar looks into the door, and through it, he sees a small chamber, with smooth walls and a large arch leading into another area. At first, in the nearest room, you can see a campfire in the center, an X carved above the arch, and a small sign near the arch that states:
A triangle shape indicates a saferoom, a square shape indicates a starway down, and an X indicates danger ahead.
Looking into the arch, you can see the legs and hanging arms of a tall troll.
He switches back to his deliquescent gloves and announces quietly "Something really big past the next room. Probably a troll. "
Grookle literally squeals in excitement. "What are we waiting for then?! Let's go go go!"
Omar opens the door to let the bull at it. "Toro!"
He proceeds to rush into the room without much regard for his safety, but he does at least manages to stop himself before rushing straight into danger. "...Eh? What's with the campfire?"
Omar will follow him into the room, but well behind the gnome.
Nastarok stands next to the doorway as the gnome rushes through, then he looks around the edge of the door to see what he can see.
Wilhaim casts Detect Magic, and investigates both the arch and campfire.
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The troll, hearing the gnome, roars and tries to crouch down to get through the arch, seeming very angry. His huge claws bared, he stands on the other side of the fire, just about ten feet from the gnome, his shadow now covering the arch, his skin orange from the fire.
He grins wide, holding Trefeller high. "You're a big tree. It'll be fun knocking you down."
If Nastarok goes first, he will run towards the troll, dodging past its claws and somersaulting into a diving roll to get into position behind it.
No map, but I'm guessing it'll take 3 or 4 acrobatics tests to move past/through the troll.
The 5th rank skill unlock for Acrobatics lets me move at normal speed by taking a penalty of 5 on the checks (instead of 10)
Wilhaim sighs.
"Time to go to work, then."
Omar will perforate the troll.
deadly aim, rapid shot, point blank shot, clustered shot, manyshot
Grookle enters a rage, growing in size to resemble a deformed human with short limbs, yet still standing at six feet. He moves to attack, avoiding any reach the Troll possesses.
If successful, he intimidates as a free action.
If demoralized, another attack as a swift.
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The arrows firmly stuck into the troll's back, he roars in pain, and is cut twice in the back before being cut in half by the gnome's giant axe, the acid in the arrows preventing the two halves from healing. The troll topples, its legs falling forward and its torso backward. The hair of the troll begins burning from the fire as well.
Grookle exits his rage rather promptly,shrinking back to normal size. "Wow, that warrior in the elf's party musta been a pansy if he almost got killed by that thing." He start's whistling, and begins dragging the troll's various bits into the big fire. Wouldn't do to leave parts of it around to regrow another one.
"Think we're just warming up. The guy said their first tussle was easy"
"True true, we can't get too cocky I suppose. Oh, and very fine use of arrows as always. The bastard never saw it coming! ...Woulda liked to see his face when he got hit. Oi oi, Nastarok, what'd the thing look like from your angle? Did it make a face like, 'Oh crap!' Or was it more along the lines of, 'I made a horrible mistake.'?"
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As the troll's hair continues to burn, you notice the strands turning white, quickly passing through his head, turning it into a shiny white substance. As the white passes through his torso, his legs also appear to be changing. This white envelopes the troll, and as the fire burns, you notice the shape melt. This troll has transformed into snow, and quickly melts into nothingness in the gnome's grip.
Nastarok scans the area for anything of interest.
To the others he says:
"It wasn't very tough, but it was faster and nimbler than I would have expected from one of its ilk."
He stares dumbfounded at the snow. "That's... not a normal thing for a troll to do, right? Correct me if I'm wrong there."
"Nope never saw that happen before. I've killed trolls before. That has not happened. "
"Yeah, didn't think so. None of the trees I've chopped down before turned into something else. Wilhaim, this some sort of magic thing?"
Wilhaim stares at Grooklepop.
"You don't truly mean to suggest that it turning into snow was a natural occurrence, did you?"
The sarcasm in his voice was evident.
"Yes, indeed it was. Truthfully, it is actually more terrifying, in a different manner, than one might think. If our "host" can animate snow into a full-blown troll, it is no wonder we are in for a wild ride. The bastard can make enemies out of the world around him. That is far more dangerous that something a summoner could normally produce.
"Whatever the case, we must be vigiliant. Good showing boys, as always."
Grookle frowns, leaning on his axe. "Guess that means we have to use caution then..." Caution, Grookle's least favorite activity. "Really though, this fire? What's up with that."
"The fire is another matter entirely. It is only partially arcane, and means that either our wizard "friend" is more accomplished in the divine magics than we first realized, or else there is something else at work here. Regardless, I can only get a vague sense of what it does. Also, those trinkets back there on the wall radiate magic. It may be worth investigating, now that the threat of danger has passed."
He walks back to the previous room, and double checks the trinkets.
He shrugs, and sits down near the fire. "If any of it looks valuable or useful, let us know."
WIlhaim explains a brief rundown of what he knows about scrying magic to the group, and some various magic theories pertaining to scying magic applied to enchanted items.
It is very droll.
And boring.
Grookle falls asleep within three minutes.
Omar takes our a rather lurid book written by some trashy bard in Oparra.
Still looking to see if any of the trinkets are marked with a symbol of Desna.
Before the Gnome's snoring gets too loud and wakes up everything in the complex, Omar starts scouting ahead a bit to see where the path goes.
He can hide without cover underground. Depending on the lighting, he will swap into his goggles of dark if needed.
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None of the trinkets are marked with any holy symbol. Omar, you open the next door silently before stepping inside. Ahead of you is a long, pitch-dark corridor, but with your goggles, you see that a figure stands a small distance away. It appears to be a tall, hooded figure like the one you saw on the stone house. The figure looks up, and through a crude mask, you see glowing blue eyes.
"Hello," it whispers, its eyes trained on you.