”Centipedes! They’re venomous!”
Jaeqil moves up towards the centipedes
"Nonsense Tabein! Rolf eis strong. I can help carry Boy down below. He eis good boy No? Of course he eis! He should could weith us."
”Big bugs!” Primketh moves in behind Jaeqil and makes the party #blessed.
"Haha! Now we fight!" Rolf squeals with glee at the sight of combat.
The skinny ulfen skitters forward in the rubble, keeping a little distance between himself and the bugs, allowing his companions to engage them in melee.
"Pack snow vermin!" he yells, spitting with his heavy accent on the 'v' in vermin. Cocking his right arm back, a ball of ice coalesces into his hand, and the man whips the ball across the room. He puts a little spin, hoping the iceball will curve around his friends and smack the bug with the blue hued carapace.
for
Both Tarbin's arrow and Rolf's snowball miss the centipedes. Hissing, they attack Jaeqil...
...but only one nibbles the ghoran. Jaeqil feels something toxic from the wound...
...and it gets into his blood ! He tries to resist its effects...
...but he feels his limbs stiffening!
Round 2! Bold may act!
Tabin
Rolf
Primketh
Jaeqil (-4, -1 Dex, Poisoned)
Red
Blue
Tabin moves around into the room.
He lets another arrow fly at the closest centipede.
Cursing his poor aim, Rolf swings his crossbow from his hip and into his hands. With only a little clumsiness, he pulls a bolt from its case and loads the ammunition.
"Steady comrades! Don't let them bite you!" he says, rather untimely for Jaeqil.
Jaeqil glares at Rolf.
”Don’t make me hit you for that one!”
He then turns to thwack the centipede that bit him!
Tarbin's arrow strikes the wall, but Jaeqil brings his club down with a satisfying crunch on the blueish centipede, which sways slightly as if staggered by the blow.
Round 2! Bold may act!
Tabin
Rolf
Primketh
Jaeqil (-4, -1 Dex, Poisoned)
Red
Blue (-5)
Primketh puts a paw on Jaeqil's shoulder and whispers, "The heavens are watching over you!" before stepping back towards Rolf. Somehow, his words seem to be just the guidance Jaeqil needs as the centipedes attack him again...
...but neither can touch the ghoran, and the blueish centipede collapses from the effort.
Jaeqil tries again to resist the poison...
...and with the strength from Primketh's words, pushes past it and feels it leave his system.
Round 3! Bold may act!
Tabin
Rolf
Primketh
Jaeqil (-4, -1 Dex)
Red
Blue (-6)
The eventually needed Fort against the poison: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7
Jaeqil grits his teeth and swings at the other centipede in frustration!
"Here is pointy bolt for creepy bug!" Rolf chuckles, moving to a position where he doesn't have to aim over Jaeqil's shoulder and taking close aim. He squints his right eye, confident he won't hit his companion and then looses the loaded bolt from his crossbow.
for
With another satisfying crunch, Jaeqil bashes in the head of the other centipede. The room fall silent, save for the adventurer's breathing.
"Everyone more or less alright?"
Tabin retrieves the (durable) arrows he fired and takes a look around the room.
Tabin finds several rusted weapons and ruined fragments of armor in the western wing of the room, as well as a tightly-latched iron case containing a pair of mithral daggers with a strange series of notches carved into the flat of each blade.
Additionally, on closer inspection the grinning iron statue is actually an iron maiden, with not rust, but blood decorating the front.
"Let me take a close look at those daggers." Rolf says, curiosity as thick as his accent. He spins his fingers, casting the familiar detect magic spell as he turns the blades over in his hands, trying to decipher what the notches might mean.
"Probably marking kills! Strange place to do it, on the blade and all." he shrugs his shoulders. "Mind eif I keep these? For now at least." he asks the others.
With the inspection of the blades complete, he spins his detect magic eyes on other areas of the room before moving to inspect the bloody statue.
"Theis place eis very strange..." he mutters to himself.
Jaeqil stands impatiently at the door but says nothing.
As Rolf opens the iron maiden, a clatter of bones tumble out and roll around on the floor.
"Hey look! A key!"
Wait, before we do anything with the door let me see if it is rigged with any dangerous mechanisms."
Primketh's light goes out a few times as he studies the door, but he does not find anything dangerous about it. It is locked, but the key Tabin found opens the door after a bit of effort and squealing of rusty hinges. Beyond, numerous jail cells line the long-abandoned corridors. Each of their solid iron doors hangs ajar, and includes both a peephole at eye level - covered with a piece of sliding metal - and a smaller slot for food and water at floor level. A curious semicircular stone ridge runs along the ceiling of the hallway .
"Where to next?" Jaeqil grunts.
"Look here at these secret doors! I am leike dwarven stonemason ya? Ha!" Rolf chuckles, proud of his keen observation.
"Theis ridge eis most curious. I weill make mind note of eit."
"I am theinking we should be trying the secret doors. Sound ok?"
”Oooh, secret doors...sounds exciting! ’Ei am agreiing with oor leider Rolf’” Primketh says in more gentle, questionable impressions of the Ulfen’s accent.
Yeah, secret doors sound good. Any idea if they might have been opened recently?
Moving through the not-so-secret door, the adventurers find more prison cells. The doors here are still barred shut, but as they approach one of the larger cells a pale face appears in the cell door's window and filthy hands grip the bars.
"Oh, gods, kind faces!" the man inside cries out. "Aroden bless you, noble souls! I ain't seen the jailers in ages, I think they forgot about us! We ain't eaten in days and the water's all but gone - my cousins're both sick. I swear we'd give ack the boar if we could, but we ate it, starvin' as we was. We didn't even know it was the baron's lands, didn't know we was poachin'! I beg you, we're all gonna die in here! Kindness, noble souls, we've suffered awful! Good Baron Sarvo wills it!"
Jaeqil grips his club harder as he stares at the begging man; speaking before his companions have a chance to.
"How are you still alive if you haven't eaten in days?"
"I beg your pardon, but Aroden hasn't blessed anyone in quite some time, unfortunately. And also, I can't help notice that you're, well, not all there?"
The man listens with wide eyes as Jaeqil and Primketh ask questions, then repeats, "Water! Food! Good Baron Sarvo wills it!"
Rolf squints his right eye while raising his left eyebrow, regarding this poor prisoner with skepticism and curiosity.
"Fear not my good friend." Rolf smiles, reaching into his pack. "Baron Sarvo eis dead. Here, have some water."
Rolf first fingers his vial of holy water, but offers his waterskin to the strange man... thing.
"You haeve been here long time, no? Maybe you tell us about family and delicious boar you ate while we let you out? Here, drink."
"Oh, bless you kind sir," the man says to Rolf, tears leaking from his eyes as he accepts the waterskin. He moves out of sight from the narrow viewing window in the door as he raises the skin to his lips and falls silent.
hmmm...
"Peerhaps a leetle beit of food? Do not eat eit to fast..." Rolf offers some of his dried trail rations then looks for a way to open the door.
"The Baron lived here back ein 4500 AR, long teime ago. Theis is ghost man for sure." Rolf tells his comrades.
”Really?! You don’t say?!” Jaeqil says very sarcastically.
”Hm. I think we should see if there’s any magic afoot. Rolf, my fearless leader, a man of your skill must have a spell for detecting magic auras, yes? That’s something I’d like to learn to do one day but haven’t just yet.”
From this side, the door could be easily unbarred and opened. There is no response to Rolf's question or offer.
"Perhaps we should see what that, um, entity is doing in there with your waterskin?"
Rolf nods, stretching his arms, spitting on his hands, and gripping the bar.
He grunts and strains for a few moments before waving to Primketh.
"Stuck." he shrugs.
Primketh does not see anything dangerous on the cell door, nor does Rolf detect any magical auras. As the two of them unbar and open the door, they see Rolf's waterskin sitting innocently on the floor in the middle of the room. The prisoner is nowhere to be found.
Rolf walks into the room, bending down to pick up his discarded waterskin. "Theis eis strange." he says, furrowing his eyebrows as he inspects the leather bladder.
Rolf tips the waterskin back, seeing if there is still water inside it.
"Definitely ghost man." he finally adds, matter-of-factly.
"So what now? We look for more secret doors? Or go to door we haven't seen yet?"
”Let’s just move!”
"Comrades! There appears to be a well-concealed doorway in this cell!" Primketh will point out the secret door. "Perhaps the Aroden-worshipping ghost-man has gone that way? I feel like we should investigate...unless you'd all prefer to explore further? What say you, fearless leader Rolf?"
"Preimketh! We are same! Ha!" Rolf lets out a hearty laugh, clapping his open palm on the catfolk's shoulder. "You are sure we are not brothers of not same mother?" he asks, suddenly serious and with a single raised eyebrow.
"Preimketh and Rolf. Dwarven eye'd finders of secret doors."
Chuckling, Rolf pockets his waterskin and follows his comrades through the hidden door.
Sharp eyes there Primketh! Let's have a look.
As Primketh opens the secret door, the adventurers see a long hallway. In the room at the end of the corridor is a strange metallic contraption of gears and chains. A large lever extends out at a 45 degree angle from the front of it, with a small roiling cloud of energy surrounding it. Periodically sparks leap from the cloud onto the lever and surrounding chains.
That cloud looks like a lightning elemental - but a small one. These elementals are immune to electricity and generate their own to shock those they strike. Additionally, the electricity they are made from is highly attracted to metal, and anyone wearing metal armor is likely to find themselves hit more often by such creatures. They fly incredibly fast with exquisite precision, and are immune to bleed, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, stunning, flanking, and precision damage.
Theis eis eincredible! I have not seen one of these ein very long time. Electricity elemental." he says in a forced whisper that isnt any quieter than his normal speaking voice.
"Nasty creitters eif you wear metal. Very fast. Hard to keill. I wonder if fleipping of leaver will turn eit off? Get ready for lightning shock ein case eit wants to fight us."
Rolf carefully loads a bolt into his crossbow, unsure how it will even help against the creature.
"Jaeqil and Tabin, what say you? Should we approach 'sparky'? Here, let me give us all a bit of magical guidance."
Primketh casts guidance on everyone.
Sparky seems like he could be a touch dangerous, but perhaps freeing him from whatever that is could stabilize the place. I'll cover whoever wants to go ahead in case Sparky bites.
The cloud continues to send sparks onto the chain and does not respond to the adventurers.
Rolf sighs and grits his teeth.
"I weill do eit." he says resolutely. His loaded crossbow dangles at his side, the skinny ulfen not paying any mind to likely how useless the weapon really might be against a being such as this.
Slowly, one foot at a time, Rolf approaches the lightning elemental, as if each step closer might be the thing that launches it from it's resting place.
"Heaaaaay Sparky sparky sparky..." he coos at the elemental. His voice is soft and gentle, almost quiet enough to not carry down the hall. "EIt eis ok. I am Rolf. Rolf the Unworthy. My people theink I am not so strong. Maybe they are right."
Rolf continues to step forward, speaking softly. It doesn't occur to him that he is speaking to hear himself speak, the sound comforting him against the possible sudden retaliation from the elemental.
"I may not be worthy for games of strong arm and hearty men, but Rolf eis not so bad. Maybe you are stuck? Peerhaps eif I fleip this levar you are not so stuck? Rolf eis here to help..."
Rolf continues to approach, slowly holding one hand outstretched, reaching for the lever and hoping he can pull it without any shocking developments.
Jaeqil grabs Rolf by the collar of his cloak as the ulfen begins down the corridor.
”Don’t do anything stupid, human.”
The ghoran pulls Rolf back with the rest of the group and moves over to ‘Sparky’ in Rolf’s place. He lightly pounds his greatclub in his hand, as if to threaten the elemental (if only he weren’t a plant he might be intimidating).
”Alright, buddy, we can do this the easy way or the hard way…”
Jaeqil, much more hardy than the puny human wizard, reaches for the lever—his gaze never leaving from the lighting.