Roy breathes heavily for a few more moments after sidestepping the falling ogre, then puts a final bullet in its head for good measure. He quickly reloads his revolver and rifle and nods to Ashlyn. "Good shooting, Deppie. Let's get rid of this fane and then figure out what the hell's going on so we can get out of each other's hair as soon as we can."
Alisha says, "You alright Roy? You took quite a wallop from that Ogre. Indeed let us continue on and get to that Fane. We'll need to bring an end to it and quickly."
"Glad I could help. I have my men going around scouting out this ruin."
Her radio buzzes and you hear a man. "Looks like two more ogres are patrolling the area outside. They heard the gunfire and are heading that way, but are moving slow, they will be there in a few minutes. We also spotted what looked like a giant old woman inside the tower."
Roy rubs his shoulder, but nods. "Yeah, I'm fine. Let's get this over with." He quickly begins moving forward, rifle again in hand, his mind working to see if he knows anything about a giant old woman...
You consider it and thinking back to the forest fane you recall it was guarded by a sea hag and the Annis Hag is know to resemble a giant old woman. Hags are also knows to often come in groups of three...
...Hag. Roy scowls under his bandana and double checks that the rifle is loaded. "This is gonna be ugly."
"Another hag. This is going to be difficult. We had more than enough trouble with the first hag we faced. If only I had some magic to counter their magical tricks. We're going into this like sheep with guns. It appears all the foes we face tend to have the edge in terms of supernatural power."
Dom awoke uneasily. He looked around and saw Xannder. Hovering over him looking at his wound.
"What - what happened?" he asked, sounding weak.
When Xannder finally explains, Dom nods and says, "Sit me up against that tree."
Once that's done, he tells Xannder, "Alright, now go help them."
When Xannder protests he puts his Beretta against his own head.
"Go now. Before I pull this trigger, splatter my brains and take away your only reason for staying. "
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Wow bro, pretty melodramatic don't you think? You keep talking like that, and people will think you're crazy. If I come back to your half eaten corpse, don't come crying to me!
Xannder takes off in the direction of the others.
"we could use a distraction boys, keep those ogres busy." says ashlyn
Shortly after some flares are fired from somewhere to the south of the tower.
"That should get those ogres going that way."
"Lets see whats in the tower."
You head over to the tower and go in trough the door. On the bottom floor is a large runestone surrounded by glowing runes like the one you found in the forest.
Roy immediately begins looking around. "Alisha, get to work on that stone if you think you know what to do. I'll keep lookout."
You see stairs going up the stone tower and you can hear heavy footsteps above.
Roy quickly kneels at the base of the stairs and prepares to fire as soon as the creature comes into view. He also readies to shut his eyes as soon as he sees movement--even a foot or arm--and then fire, risking a miss to save himself the sight of the horrendous creature.
Alisha gets to working on that stone using her vast arcane knowledge skill to work with it.
Arcane Lore
Alisha with her vast knowledge of arcane runes is able to decipher the magical properties of this fane and perhaps find a way to disable it safely.
Examining the runes you see a pattern and recall a passage you read in the tome given to you by the witch. The stone is attuned to a guardian most likely the hag if the guardian is slay and her blood smear on the stone it's power will become dormant. There is also a ritual to make it dormant but it requires 8 hours to complete. Destroying the stone would also make it useless but it is highly resistant to damage.
Alisha looks to the others and says, "We got a few options here. There is a ritual that can be done to de-power this rune but it will take 8 hours, far more time than we have. The safest way to deal with it would be to kill the Hag that is bound to the runestone and smear it with her blood. We also could try and destroy the stone but we'll need something pretty powerful to damage it and destroying the stone means that we won't be able to use it ourselves."
"Safe? That's a laugh. Let's just do it..." he mutters.
The hag finally comes down the stairs to investigate and Roy takes a shot but while hiding his eyes the shot goes wide.
The hag is surprised and Ashlyn takes a shot as well catching the hag in the shoulder.
The hag comes down the stairs and attacks Roy with her massive claws but Roy ducks just in time.
You can post, unfortunately Xannder wont arrive for a while still.
Amanda readies the rifle and takes a shot at the hag hopefully putting a bullet in its back while avoiding hitting Roy in the process.
The bullet misses the target by a long shot and embeds itself into the wall.
Hearing gunfire echoing around him, Roy grabs his baton, flicks it open, and swings at the hag, mostly trying to just keep it back from the shooters.
The hag attacks Roy once more lashing out with her claws.
Ashlyn fire again landing another hit.
Amanda seeing the technique of the Hag in combat attempts to find a weak point to shoot it.
Finding a weak point she exploits it taking an aimed shot at the hag.
And she hits home doing damage
Alisha lands a good hit on the hag.
Ashlyn fires once more and hits but the shot seems to have no effect.
Roy attacks using his club and taking care to avoid those claws but he is too focused on defense and cant land a solid hit.
The hag attacks once more but Roy manages to escape her grasp.
"I'm going to skin you alive and eat your skin when I catch you!" she says growing irritated.
Your go again.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Roy swings again, still focused on avoiding claws rather than actually landing a damaging blow.
The baton actually connects...
"Yeah, good luck with that, b*tch," Roy mutters, feeling the shock of impact travel up his arm.
Having exploited her weakness Alisha continues to hit the weak point on the Hag, hoping to take it down with a hail of gunfire while avoiding hitting allies in the process
Another bullet hits home doing damage
The hag is pretty severally injured. She hesitates and mumbles "Were the blazes did those boys go?
She retreats back up the stairs provoking an attack for Roy.
Roy swings as the hag moves away. "Boys? You mean the ogres we killed outside?" he taunts, standing at the foot of the stairs. Going after her is a poor move; get her mad, she'll come back here. He readies to attack if she does, still focused on defense.
She flees upstairs and Roy smacks her as she does.
"You said you need to destroy this stone right? I have some c4 I was going to use to blast my way into the castle. We could use it on this stone istead or we could go after her."
Realizing the hag isn't likely to come back down, Roy snaps his baton shut and lifts his rifle. "Let's just kill this thing, save the explosives for when we need 'em."
Alisha says, "The explosives seem somewhat of an overkill in this situation. It would be better to use them on the Vampire's Castle in case we need to blow open a sealed door. Lets kill that Hag!"
You go up the stairs and as you arrive the hag picks up a clay jar from a shelf and trows it at you. It hits the wall and shatters releasing a thick purple smoke.
Make will saves. dc 14, if you fail you hallucinate and most likely lose your turn I will give you the details.
Then your turn if you made the save act normally.
Roy instantly inhales the fumes and his eyes go wide.
Alisha moves up the stairs and inhales the strange fumes and fights hard to overcome its effects while yelling, "Roy! Watch out!
But she also gets enraptured by the fumes as she follows him in.
The could persist for 4 rounds.
1 You're sinking in quicksand! Fall prone and spend 1 round flailing your arms and legs as if trying to swim.
2 Attacked by a swarm of spiders! Spend a full round action to attack the floor near you with your weapon.
3 An item you hold has turned into a viper! Drop it and flee from the item at top speed for 1 round.
4 You're suffocating! Stand in place, hold your breath, and clutch at your throat for 1 round.
5 You've shrunk to 1/10th your normal size! Take no actions for 1 round and monsters won't see you.
6 You're melting! Grasp hold of yourself in an attempt to hold yourself together, and take no actions for 1 round.
Ashlyn moves up to be in front of the group and out of the cloud. She fires on the hag but misses.
Your go make new saves.
Alisha falls to the ground but knowing struggling is bad in quicksand merely lies on her back to avoid sinking. She then tries to focus her thoughts back to the situation.
Save aginst the effect
Alisha works her way to consciousness, fighting off the madness of the mists telling herself it is not real. She gets to her feet and quickly moves to get out of the fog while holding her breath.
The hag attacks Ashlyn but misses both times as Ashlyn avoids the blows.
Alisha moves out of the cloud keeping her distance from the hag.
Roy also falls to the ground, flailing about, trying to grab onto something to pull himself free.
The mist still gripping his mind, Roy begins trying to "escape" by pushing along the ground with his rifle, kicking his legs in a slow motion.
Ashlyn fires her weapon once more
but once again misses...
The hag attacks and Ashlyn is hit by one of the claws.
Your go again if you fail another will save roll a new d6 to determine the effect
Suddenly Roy's eyes go wide in horror as he stares at the rifle in his hand. He tosses it away from him and backpedals, trying to find his feet as he moves to run down the stairs.
Alisha exits the cloud and takes a shot at the Hag.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Ahslyn attacks once more shoot the hag in the head.
The hag goes down and not long after Xannder shows up and not long after that Dom arrives looking much better.
Ashlyn's people arrive as well having taken down the two ogres.
