can it be opened?
The large metallic stopper on top of the keg has rusted to the keg itself, but it could probably be yanked off with the application of enough force.
"Can someone give me a hand?"
Teral looks around at the warriors of the group, shrugs, and steps forward. "Let's see what we can do."
He takes a moment to peer at the keg, looking for a spot where he might shove the blade of his spear into a crack or a spot where the rust hadn't yet sealed the lid. Finding a likely spot, he lines the weapon up and gives it a hefty whack on the butt to set it in place. He jerks his head to the others, waits for anyone else to step up, then gives a quick count. "One...two...heave!"
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Unsure of what the others are trying to accomplish, Akshara sits cross-legged on the floor nearby with her hands planted on her knees and tail swishing back and forth excitedly as she watches the others struggle with the rusted stopper.
Her gaze does flit to Meepo, momentarily, watching him the way a well-behaved dog might watch a rabbit.
Anton stays back at first, before remembering the relative youth of his current body.
Leynus looks on for a moment, slightly amused by the group piled onto the spear before shrugging. He grabs an available bit of spear and tries to help pry the keg open. "There's already four on it; I can't see why a fifth would be overly crowding."
Val continues to wait near the door, watching both the kobold and her companions' efforts to open the strange cask. Her lip is curled in an inscrutable half-grin. She still holds her starknife at her side, although not in an overtly threatening pose.
With your combined efforts you manage to pry the lid off of the strange metal container. It clatters to the floor and you hear the sound of water rushing through pipes - suddenly, water gushes forth from the container and starts to splash across the floor, and a gurgling voice calls out seemingly from inside the pipes, "Who dares disturb the Dragons' Drink?!" The keg tips over and waters sprays forth, drenching everyone in the room and even those standing outside of it. Moments later, a tiny creature resembling a wet blue demon sticks its head up out of the keg and cackles. "See how you like it! Time for you to take a turn in the Drink! Heeeeeheheheheheeeee!!!"
Leynus stares at the little demon, somewhat perplexed. "Are we under attack? By something so... entertaining?" The elf sighs, and his eyes roll beneath his mess of hair. He bends his head slightly, and begins to tap lightly on his drums. A slow, unintelligible tune drifts out from under his hood.
After finishing, he draws his shortsword.
"AHHHH! So scary!!!" the creature yells, though its devilish grin betrays its lack of true fear. With another cackle, it sticks out its hands and begins to spin around. The water in the keg bubbles and hisses, sending fog into the air. Then the creature starts to belch obnoxiously, and the fog turns to an ugly brownish-green color. A disgusting smell - like nothing you've ever encountered before - suddenly fills your nostrils.
"Blurrrrghh! Gross!" Meepo stumbles around and curls up against the wall, choking on the rather smelly (you might say stinking) cloud.
Coughing in the disgusting cloud, but managing to suppress her gag reflex, Val wonders if she ever had ever heard tale of such a creature before among the numerous religious stories she knows...
Finding that she cannot see the foul creature to target it with either her starknife or a spell, Val moves back toward the large round room, in search of fresher air.
Elion will take a stab at the creature;
Before tumbling out of the way (move to D1)
*edit*
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Akshara recoils when the barrel explodes with water, soaking her fur and quilted jacket. But she hardly has time to even react before the fiendish creature unleashes that horrific, roiling cloud of noxious gas from the keg. Akshara lets out a choking cough, her sharpened senses turned back on her as a weapon. The demon-woman's eyes water, her tail thrashes around wildly and she fumbles through the greenish fog with her ears folded back on her head and snot bubbling out of her nose, gagging and choking at every step.
Eventually Akshara stumbles out of the fog and finds herself pressed into a corner, turning her back to it and still retching from exposure to the gas. She drops to her knees, hunched over and vomiting on the floor like a sick animal.
__________
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Bellicus chokes as the monster in the barrel belches out a noxious cloud of miasma, his grimace deepening as he pulls his blade. "A flatulence demon?", he says, his voice a mixture of incredulity and derision. "No matter - you'll die like anything else." He thrusts his blade at the creature, swinging wildly to power through any resistance to mortal weapons the beast may have.
Power attack! No time to draw my shield right now, so two-handing my sword.
Valeria has unfortunately never heard of such a creature in her religious studies.
Bellicus and Anton do not manage to strike the little imp-thing. Elion manages to nick the creature with his dagger, causing it to yelp in pain. It resumes cackling, however, as water from the keg soaks into the small wound - Teral and Bellicus are near enough to see this strange occurrence through the disgusting cloud.
"You can't hurt water, you fools! But it can hurt YOU!" The creature lashes out with vicious claws at Bellicus and Teral.
However, even without the fog to block its vision, the creature is quite out of practice, having been trapped here for gods-know-how-long.
The creature quickly realizes its error: in playing its favorite stinky trick, it's made itself sick! It groans and makes a disgusted face, sagging a little in the keg.
Leynus, initially starting to make strong gagging sounds, jerks his head up in horror as his face turns green. He stumbles back, trying to escape. When he breaches the cloud, he bends double, one hand against the wall, and vomits. The sound he makes echoes off the stone walls, a cringe worthy splattering accompanying it. The moans of suffering following soon after are almost as disturbing.
Nah you're good... just in a weird position because you were singled out on top of the initiative. You could've acted again before the monster did in Rd 2... I might've jumped the gun a bit but I wanted to keep things moving... :)
"Foul abortion! You'll be purged!" he gets out in-between barfs.
"Damn, everyone pull back out of this fog."
Moves to J1, draws sling
Meepo continues to hiccup and belch in a manner almost as disgusting as the "demon" in the keg. "What... blurgk... that... thing?!"
Coughing, blinking his eyes against the horrible stench, Teral nonetheless remains on his feet after swaying for a moment. Through the disgusting cloud, he somehow manages to notice the creature absorbing some of the liquid from the keg to heal its wounds. With a grimace, he plants his left foot and lashes out with his right, giving the container a solid kick in an attempt to knock it over.
That attempt made, he then cautiously starts to back away from the creature, hoping his allies managed to make way.
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"Retreat?", Bellicus scoffs between coughs. "I have this thing right where I want him." He spits as the stench threatens to overbear him, and his eyes are blurred from watering, but he steels himself and slashes at the creature again. Still, he had to admit that the elf had a solid plan, so as he struck at the creature he began to slowly back away, hoping to draw the creature towards him. "Come on, ugly, give me your best shot. You can't be that powerful if kobolds and goblins stuck you in a keg."
So, same setup as last round, only with less bad rolling, hopefully. After my attack, 5' step to C3, since I'll need to get to the door to leave the room.
Stupid fog.
Standing outside of the noxious cloud, Val is frustrated that she can't see what's going on, and is now wondering if her friends are in trouble. Sighing deeply, she mutters, "I hope I don't regret this..." She closes her eyes a moment, praying to the Dawnflower to protect her, as she re-enters the cloud.
Val is overcome by the fumes almost as soon as she steps into them. Unable to keep herself from vomiting, she steps back out into fresher air. As she continues to retch, and the contents of her stomach splatter on the dungeon floor, she thinks to herself, I was aftraid of that. Curse you Palid Princess! I hope this doesn't get on my skirt....
The creature continues to splutter and belch in between cackles, clearly amused at your predicament despite being sick itself.
Leynus remains bent over, though thankfully his stomach has emptied. Still, the ache in his gut and throat is tremendous. He groans slightly and turns back towards the fight, but can't find the will to reenter the horror of the cloud. Instead he tries to focus, thinking on anything that might help against such a foe.
"Um, get out of the noxious fog, please?"
Elion will ready an action to sling a stone at the creature if it appears.
Still violently ill, Val staggers out of the miasma.
Foot still smarting from his failed attempt to kick over the urn, Teral swears under his breath. "Elion's right! Get out of this disgusting mess, we can deal with it once this clears!"
As he speaks, he makes the easy mistake of breathing in through his nose, and immediately retches, staggering towards the east and respite.
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"Damnable thing!", the warrior cries as he tries to focus upon the monster before him, his vision swimming as the horrible stench continues unabated. Frustration was building in his breast, as he knew that given equal footing this malformed creature would hold little threat. He heard Teral echo the elf's retreat, but he continued to slowly draw the creature out of its hole. "It can probably belch more putrid gas whenever it wants! No, it dies this day!" He swung his sword again, his vision so blurred that he is mostly guessing where the creature actually is, but he continued to try to draw the beast from its lair.
Round 3, same tactics! Assuming that Anton will get out of my way, I'll 5' into C2.
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There may be a battle going on, but all Akshara can do is stay pressed into that corner, eyes wrenched shut and arms wrapped around her midsection. Her eyes are bleary and soggy with tears, mucus streams out of her nose in long, stringy threads that touch the floor and drip off of her chin, and a pile of half digested meat and other fluids lays in a pool at her knees.
Meepo and the monster continue to cough and retch. From this position, Bellicus has a good view of the door and is also preventing the creature from easily leaving the room.
Leynus thinks that this creature is no demon at all, but a mischievous elemental creature known as a mephit. Though not evil, they are often bound by more powerful creatures to perform some service (like a genie might be), and are strongly tied to a particular element, which determines their powers.
Water continues to gush forth from the keg when Teral kicks it. The source of the water must be quite plentiful, considering the force with which it exits the pipes.
Elion will move to H2 and draw a dagger, "Draw it out! Um, I mean draw it out please.
Gagging intermittently, Leynus can't manage to belt out what he knows. Thankfully, he feels the nausea finally starting to wear off, and takes a few breaths, readying himself to reenter the cloud if necessary. He wants a piece of the little elemental.
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Bellicus' grimace deepens as he notices the monster remaining in the room. I need to get it to follow me, where it doesn't have the advantage...
"Is this the best that you can do, demonspawn? I see now why you left the Abyss; tired of being a demon's chewtoy? I mean, the best you can do to hinder a mortal is belch out a noxious cloud of gas. Our rats were more dangerous than you! You're a worthless beast, hardly worth the time to fight!" As he speaks, he continues to slowly withdraw, increasing the mocking tone in his voice as he goes, hoping to goad the beast into making a mistake.
Move to D2. Ready an action to strike at the monster if it gets adjacent to me. I'm not sure if you'll want me to roll something for this taunt, so here's a random d20 roll!
The mephit growls at Bellicus and says, still coughing and spluttering, "Demonspawn? Wrech... fools! You know not what hrrrck you've freed! Heheheheherkkk... You must fight me or flee ack this place! I cannot let you live!!" The creature stumbles down out of the keg, which is still gushing water, and staggers towards the door, trying to keep an eye on where you're going --- only to be struck a heavy blow by Bellicus's blade. With a cry and a gurgle, the creature kneels down and tries to press its body into the water, but it is not deep enough -- the wound does not seem to heal.
Val straightens up from being doubled over, waving her hand as if to dismiss someone. "It's okay... I think I'm getting better, and..." Her face turns greenish and she doubles over again. *cough* "Urk..."
Leynus wipes his mouth and stands up straight. "It's not a demon! It's a mephit - an elemental of some sort! It might be in the service of some stronger creature, be wary!" Leynus decides that reentering the cloud is not worth it, and begins to instead play the now familiar tune of his eerily calming drums.
Spittle and bile still hanging from his face, Anton slashes out with his scythe.
Teral, stumbling out of the putrid cloud, leans heavily on the wall, gagging as tears stream from his eyes. Unable to bring even the barest glimmer of magic to mind through his condition, he stumbles out of the room, simply doing his best to get out of the way of his companions that can still fight.
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On all fours in the corner of the room, Akshara is not even aware now that there is a fight going on. Her whole world has become a hacking, coughing, retching mess that has turned her stomach into an aching mass of knotted muscles, burned her throat and blurred her vision beyond sight. Unable to think clearly or do anything other than stay slumped on the floor, the crippled tiefling struggles for breaths between involuntary lurching motions of her esophagus.