Seeing his opportunity to help his companions with their deadly adversaries, Adarion moves forward, straddling the downed body of the warrior. He thrusts his arm out towards Tsuto, a mesmerizing ball of light forming in his hand and flying towards the half-elf.
While Nyx maintains his inspiring words for the others Adarion, finally with an opening, moves into the room and casts a spell at Tsuto. The half-elf seems to shrug off the effects though, his natural resistance to enchantments helping him avoid the magical attack. Out of nowhere the door in the eastern wall opens up and you see stairs leading up, from the stairwell you hear the voice of the woman who had been casting spells as she shouts to Tsuto "Run, while you can dear Tsuto!"
Tsuto looks toward the stairs for a moment, then at the group, then let's out a frustrated sigh as he tries to tumble past everyone and run for the stairs.
With a snap of his fingers, Sven dismisses his spell, roaring, "DO NOT LET THAT F*@&ING GUY GET AWAY AGAIN" and points a frustrated Naesehorn toward the fleeing half-elf, who follows up the stairs.
Sven is frustrated and tries to follow past Uvara. "Bart, you can splash Naesehorn with your bombs, just everyone follow and try to knock him out!" He glares towards the door.
But he makes no progress getting past the grease.
Negative Effects: None (In Grease)
HP: 23/23
AC: 20 (Base 18, 2 barkskin)
Spells Memorized
. . 2nd—
. . 1st—obscuring mist
. . 0 (at will)—detect magic, grasp, guidance, light
Naesehorn
Negative Effects: None
Positive Effects: Enlarge Person
HP: 19/19
AC: 21 (Base 20, 1 shield companion) 13 Touch (Base 12, 1 shield companion,)
Bartholomew shrugs, walks around the table, and tosses a smoking bottle after the woolly rhino.
Adarion tries to keep up with the others as they chase Tsuto.
...Adarion stops briefly thrusting out his arm as another ball of mesmerizing light flies towards Tsuto.
Sven spurs Naesehorn on to chase after the fleeing half-elf while the others follow behind. Naesehorn with her faster speed catches up to Tsuto and gores him in the side.
Bart tosses a bomb toward Neashorn hoping to hit Tsuto. Bart hears the man curse but it isn't the cream of pain he had been expecting. However, Naeshorn isn't as lucky and takes the full brunt of the explosion splashing onto her. You hear footsteps ahead and a door opening as it is apparent Tsuto is still attempting to flee.
Sven grunts as he tries to follow, feeling some burning, and hearing Naeshorn moan in pain, trying to move over the grease.
He grits his teeth and gets over it, saying "I am coming friend!"
Sven moves forward trying to catch up with everyone.
Naesehorn moves forward seeking to gore the fleeing villain if she can.
As Tsuto continues to run in half a panic, Neasehorn finds an opening and jabs the half-elf once more, dropping him to his knees before he collapses on the ground bleeding out.
Naesehorn gores the prone form of the half-elf for good measure by the time Sven gets up there, leaving a corpse with holes in it. She snuffs, angrily, pawing at the ground, looking for the woman.
Sven guffaws, "hah, good job Naesehorn. Finally he will not run away, the coward. Come all, Tsuto is dead." He pets his rhino a bit, and finds a carrot for her as a reward, which she gobbles up eagerly.
Adarion finally catches up with the group, panting as he does so. He pats Naesehorn on her enlarged side, gasping "Well done Naesehorn!" in between laboured breaths.
Adarion can't hear much over his panting after the run. "We might be able to catch her if we quickly head back along the path, her spell won't be active forever and we can see if the woman tries to open any doors.
Naeshorn sniffs around but doesn't seem to pick up anything up here and Adarion doesn't see or hear anything either.
After spending a bit of time searching where Tsuto ran it becomes clear that you can't locate where the woman went. As you head back downstairs though you see the door in the SW corner of the room now stands open and a secret door in the room, leading down, is open as well.
"Huh, maybe we follow her after all. Let us get valuables from these two bad guys."
Sven strips the bad guys of valuables and makes a pile on the broken table.
"Who wants what treasure? We can use for our fighting."
On the heavily armored man you find a potion of cure moderate wounds, +1 banded mail, a masterwork heavy steel shield, a composite longbow with 20 arrows, a masterwork bastard sword, an everburning torch, 2 pp, and 95 gp. Tsuto has a potion of cure light wounds, a composite shortbow with 20 arrows, a ring of protection +1, a set of masterwork thieves’ tools, a masterwork flute, silver earrings (25 gp for the
pair), 6 pouches of gold dust worth 50 gp each, 8 pouches of silver dust worth 5 gp each, and 10 pp.
”Fascinating.” Bartholomew watches with interest as Tsuto’s breathing becomes irregular. ”Though I suppose he would be less able to answer questions if dead. Perhaps... Nyx, could you help this man stop losing so much blood?” There is no emotion in the scientist’s voice - only clinical detachment.
Sven piles up an absolutely huge amount of broken furniture, barrels, and the like in the path of the door, taking only a few minutes with fits and starts of help from Naesehorn. Afterwards he turns and says ”Let us kill all of the monsters on this floor,” and walks back with Uvara towards the central branching-off location.
Adarion nods at Sven and begins to follow the half-orc, understanding his logic that it's better to not leave any enemies at their back.
Once the group is ready they head down the stairs with Uvara in the lead. A stone door just around the corner from the steps hangs slightly ajar, the detailed carvings that once covered its surface defaced by chisel marks and hammer blows to the extent that only a few remnants of images (mostly of gemstones and crowns) remain. The floor here is slanted downward toward the west.
Opening the door, two pillars support the ceiling in here. In many places the stone walls, floor, and ceiling are caked with ancient grime and soot. Alcoves in the north and south walls contain partially damaged statues of a man in robes clutching a book and a glaive. The entire room is canted toward the west, and whatever ancient upheaval caused the complex to tilt knocked the statues from their bases so that now they lean against the western walls of their alcoves. A closed door sits in the western wall.
The group heads back to the branch leaving the lower level for now. Turning east, they check the door there. Finding no traps Uvara opens it up. The room opens into a natural caver. The floor of this cavern seems strangely polished and smooth. To the east, a thick curtain of vines and nettles hangs down over a wide opening overlooking the Varisian Gulf.
Not far from the nettles on the ceiling you all see a dark blue creature that has a conical body covered in angry red eyes and numerous tentacles, two of which are longer than the rest.
Sven whispers to everyone, "tentacle monster on the ceiling. We hit it from far I think?" He gestures towards the others who own ranged weapons, and readies his spear.
Adarion nods at Sven's words, waiting for the others to attack while readying his own bow for use.
Bartholomew thanks Sven for his assistance, wiping the blood off his clothes with a damp rag. ”Fascinating that you can produce that chemical reaction with just a stick,” he comments.
”Fascinating. A tentamort. Ambush predators.” The chemist looks around. ”Are we its prey though?”
Sven shrugs, "will be if we want to get some treasures. Maybe there is treasure here from other people it ate. It is a lump of flesh, I think we should kill it. Probably very stupid." He draws and then throws his club at it.
The group starts attacking the tantamort and after the first volley it climbs away and exits out the vine covered opening. After the thing seems to have left for good the group checks the area. The bodies of some goblins who fell victim to the tentamort were never recovered, and their armor and weapons lie in rotting, rusty heaps. One of the bodies belongs still wears a suit of +1 hide armor (made from dogs) and bears a dirty but masterwork horsechopper and a masterwork short bow.
Adarion looks around at the others, "Should we try the vine-covered exit the tentamort went through? It could still be there waiting for us."
Sven shrugs, "we got treasure, the creature left? So we win. Unless the creature will move to Sandpoint, maybe Bart is right and we just leave it alone." Sven sniff around, looking for any remaining treasure. "unless there is treasure through the opening..." Sven looks to see if there are any treasure-covered corpses out there.
The opening leads to a cliff with a sharp dropoff into the sea below.
Sven grabs the treasure and nods at Adarion, ”just a cliff. Bye tentamort!”
——————
When they get downstairs, Gudada starts the process of searching for traps.
"A pity the 'simple' creature showed more intelligence than most of the humanoids we've encountered here," Bartholomew comments as he follows.
Before the Heroes of Sandpoint advance much further into the lower level, Nyx asks, "Might I have a bit of room? Best see if there's magic about." Then he casts detect magic into the room.
Checking the room Gudada doesn't find any traps and Nyx doesn't see any magic. Checking the closed door he doesn't see any threats and let's Uvara open it.
The door leads to a short hallway that rises in a slope to the east. Five feet from the door, the floor is polished and shiny, unlike the dusty floor elsewhere. A pair of stone statues depicting stern men wielding glaives stand in alcoves north and south of this section of the hallway. At the eastern end stand two stone doors, their faces carved with strange runes. Just past the doors is a third alcove in which a partially collapsed statue sits. The top half of the statue is missing, leaving behind a ragged stump of a torso. The southern door is slightly ajar.
Uvara and Gudada lead the way towards the doors.
Noticing the door ajar, Sven says, "witch lady?" then he thinks better of it and says. "maybe witch lady, but maybe it is a trick." He points to the north door.
Gudada checks both doors for traps, and Uvara gets ready to open the north one.
Gudada continues looking for traps and finds one in the polished tile.
He manages to jam the pressure plate, making it safe for everyone to pass. He checks both doors, neither are trapped. However, he does hear noise coming from the southern door.
Adarion follows along, looking at Gudada's skilled checks with respect. He tries to help the others by looking around with detect magic, being helped by Nyx of course.
Adarion pauses, looking to the others as Gudada mentions the noise in a whisper.
”Does it sound like more goblins, or something else?” Bartholomew asks curiously. ”We’re how far underground now?”
Does Gudada hear anything in particular (shuffling, growling, something being bumped etc.) Dak?
Gudada hears something moving around, maybe the occasional growl.
Sven pats Gudada on the back, "good job finding the trap!" he says, cheerfully.
Sven shrugs, "about twenty of feet, I think, Bart. Ahh, if growling - we should fight it. My Naeshorn is stronger than all growling things." He gets ready to push open the ajar southern door should the others agree.