"Ready" - Garrosh nodded at Ann with a smile, impressed by the woman's decisive action.
Ann solidifies again, then falls behind her steel wall of a brother, direction him in the direction the mage went, stopping on the door leading to the battlements. "The stone attacked me right out there. I don't know it if was animated or thrown or somekind of creature, so be ready."
Baldhart sheathes her weapon and asks, “Mr-r-r?” She pats the bow, then pats the hilt of her sword.
She then thinks a moment and asks another “Mr-r-r?”, this time flapping her wings once and pointing to the ceiling.
"The stone?" Kilarra asks, confused.
Hanako asks a question in Sylvan. When Baldhart responds with a bright green flash, Hanako then asks Ann, “About how high are the ceilings up there? Baldhart can fly at this size and loose arrows from above.”
Kilarra has not heard anything of attacking rocks before.
"It's the battlements, so no ceiling" Ann answers the little faery "Fly as high as you wish" she adds with a smile.
Baldhart unshoulders her bow. She smiles at her chosen weapon and, with her right hand, she points toward the exit, makes a counterclockwise motion, and points up. When the party is ready to move, she flies through all of the open doors that lead back outside.
Kilarra heads up stairs
This room is furnished with a large table, a few comfortable chairs and a standing mirror. The room appears reasonably clean compared to the rest of the fort. A fireplace sits in the corner and a pile of books and folios is spread across the table.
Heavily weather-beaten, the open space on top of the fort and the walkways that connect the towers looks bare and bleak. An external wooden stairway leads up to the donjon, ending in the door to the magistrate’s apartment.
What looks like part of the battlements animates, but Garrosh and Kilarra have no idea what it is.
"Right, I think I need to conserve divine energies - not sure how much more of this place there is to clean up.." Winter says as she casts guidance on Piotr.
Hanako begins to sing some inspiring words to instill her friends with courage.
Baldhart hears Hanako’s lyrics carry over the rooftop:
People in roofless houses
Shouldn’t throw stones
The bodies of dead investigators
Are not yours to own
Who is the necromancer
Where’s the puppeteer
Somewhere behind a wall of minions
Cowering in fear
Baldhart despises cowardice. Thus, the giant-size fairy rises up with her bow ready. But where is the enemy?
Piotr looks a bit confused on what to attack, but Ann shrugs "Attack what is attacking you." she guess, so the siblings go after the animated battlements.
Baldhart sends an arrow sticking out of what appears to be a piece of battlements except its quivering.
Piotr slices into the battlements but it doesn't seem that there's anything vital to hit. It seems however that the battlements are highly acidic but Piotr manages to pull his blade out before it suffers any damage.
Ann stabs the battlements with one of her green spectral daggers.
Garrosh moves up behind Ann, and fires a shot at the animated stone.
Garrosh manages to stick an arrow into the animated stone.
The animated stone tries to roll onto Piotr, but Piotr steps out of the way.
Hanako sings to the animated wood and stone.
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But not if I break you first
Animate Object, moving on your own
I dare you to do your worst
You’re just another hassle here in this castle
A bother I won’t bother to bemoan
We’ll break you on our way to whatever asshoIe’s
Seated atop the throne
Having sung her inspiring, courageous words, Hanako looses an arrow.
Baldhart hums along as Hanako sings, swaying in the air as she nocks her next arrow.
"Attacking rock, is this making any sense." Ann snarked as she hacks at it with her green daggers. Piotr continues to stab and hack as well.
Kilarra tries the good ol' reliable
"I hear you Piotr - no idea if this is doing anything at all" - Garrosh complains, and shoots two arrows in quick succession.
Hanako and Baldhart send two arrows sticking into the wobbly rock, as Piotr slashes into it, then it stops moving, becoming a transparent jelly.
Hanako giggles with delight as Baldhart descends. She is like a lanky angel!
“I did not expect to see a mound of jelly. But we still have not caught up to the runaway frog. Shall we head upstairs to the magistrate’s room?”
"Why not?" Kilarra answers, heading upstairs
Baldhart considers not one, but two reasons why not.
“Mr-r-r-r, gr-mr-r grrm.”
Having said her piece, Baldhart shoulders her bow, draws her sword and follows Kilarra.
Ann looks down with concern, jelly is always worrisome. Gets everywhere, sticky icky but don't be picky, her mother would sing. Still as Piotr raises an eyebrow at her, she shrugs and follows him up the stairs.
"This mad dash up the tower endanger us all tremendously" - Garrosh growls - "If there are enemies left behind, and they come up after us, we will be trapped" - he comments - "Even worse, we cannot be sure if Accuser Omari is up or down"
"Yet at this time, we need to risk a direction. so let us push upward" - he ends up agreeing though, and following the others.
"Mad dash?" Ann frowned at the growl, wondering how scouting ahead and then walking up a set of stairs constituted a mad dash. She repeated her brother's worry he stated before, that she can feel bleeding off him. "If the frogman is running somewhere, it might prove to be Omari, and if we took the time to search each room downstairs, it might be too late."
"If the frogman is running somewhere, it might prove to be Omari, and if we took the time to search each room downstairs, it might be too late."
"I have just agreed with that" - Garrosh replies - "It is still a mad dash"
Ann rolls her eyes, shifts to ghost form to peek her head into the magistrate's office as Garrosh checks for traps.
The party comes to a closed door in which Garrosh checks for traps. Garrosh does not think the door is trapped.
Furnished with a double bed, two chests of drawers, a small table, and a couple of stools, this room also contains a bulky steel safe, its door standing open. A cold fireplace occupies the northeast corner of the chamber. The shutters of the three windows here have been torn from their hinges and lie broken on the floor. The smell of briny water is strong in the still air. There are three frogmen in the room. One of them being the frog mage, the other being another frogman - however he does not have a trident, while the third frogman is wearing a clamshell amulet.
The frogman bites and claws at Ann but passes through her insubstantial form.
Ann slips back out of the door.
"Three of them, one is our mage. Another without a trident, and the third with some kind of clamshell amulet. And they know we are here."
Since it is not trapped, Piotr will pause and ask "Everyone ready?" and if so will open the door.
Hanako will cast Biting Words before entering, and will have her viol in hand.
"Not yet. Garrosh, let Piotr take your place, and I'll take his."
Piotr opens the door and surprisingly, or not, doesn't get blasted into oblivion.
Furnished with a double bed, two chests of drawers, a small table, and a couple of stools, this room also contains a bulky steel safe, its door standing open. A cold fireplace occupies the northeast corner of the chamber. The shutters of the three windows here have been torn from their hinges and lie broken on the floor. The smell of briny water is strong in the still air. There are three frogmen in the room. One of them being the frog mage, the other being another frogman - however he does not have a trident, while the third frogman is wearing a clamshell amulet.
The unarmed frogman stands a bit oddly and from Kilarra's description, Garrosh figures it is a doppeldrek in disguise - it is not a true frogman. Doppeldreks are oozes that can assume, and then take the form of another creature, mimicking how it acts.
"That unarmed one is probably not a true frogman" - Garrosh warns - "Most likely a Doppeldrek - an ooze that can assume, and then take the form of another creature, mimicking them. I wonder if these frog creatures are aware of it..."
Hanako asks, “Can a doppeldrek understand the common tongue?” she asks, adding in Aklo, <Or the tongue of beasts?>
The doppeldrek moves forward then bites and claws at Piotr, landing 2 solid blows.
Before the plan sounded pretty good, push in and make it so they can get to the enemy. But now he's bleeding from bites and claws, and worries this will end badly.
He glances back at the packed hallway and knows there isn't really a chance to rethink this. Gripping his shield he tries to bash his way forward.
The doppelskum stands, solid as a mountain and bites Piotr as he tries to rush through, but Piotr manages to hide behind his shield.
The frogman with a clam shell amulet moves up to the insubstantial Ann and bites and claws at her.
A bite and a claw get through insubstantial Ann, surprising the crap out of her that she jumps out of the way of the last claw.
"Uh...whats going on out there?" Winter asks a bit nervously seeing Piotr bloodied and unable to break into the room. "Do you think we should get off the stairs?"
Baldhart dances and adds vocals to match the tune emanating from Hanako’s viol.
Hanako pushes ahead and, having already cast her Biting Words spell outside, she‘s ready to improv some very clever lyrics. Only she can’t play her viol because there’s no friggin’ room! She loses the mood to sing at all and just shouts at the door-blocking frog, “MOVE YOUR ASS!”
Without any time to waste, Kilarra rages and pushes herself into the dopplegoop like a minotaur's final charge.
Kilarra shoves the doppelgoop back as Hanako squeezes past Piotr telling the doppelgoop to move its sorry @rse. The doppelgoop does not seem to understand Hanako, but is sliced by her words, but not very severely as she sees those words cut, but instead of any anatomy - she sees only goop.
The frog mage moves out of Ann's reach, then causes his trident to glow with electricity, causing the clam amulet wearing frogman to gurgle at him.
Winter hearing Kilarra's successful bullrush questions, "Is the doorway clear now?" , as she casts bless on the party.