Snowball casts Guidance on Tim.
Tim drops the rope, draws his bow, steps around 11T7, and takes a shot at the closer of the two new elves.
Kid Artemis tries to shoot down the elf without killing him.
Noticing the commotion behind him, and relatively safe from his perch in the sky, Jorian walks a few steps back away from the closest elf, drawing his staff as he does so. Locating the figure Tim is shooting at, he points the glowing tip of his staff at him and unleashes a bolt of lightning.
Suzuka seizes the elf in front of them leaving an opening for Artemis to shoot an arrow straight into the elf's crotch, he immediately passes out from the pain. Artemis whips around and fires at the other two elves sniping them but her arrows hit the dirt harmlessly. Tim's arrow grazes his target and Jorian follows up with a blast of lightning from his staff. The elf ducks just in time and avoids the bolt completely.
"Arrow misinstalled. Retraining advised."
11T7 turns to see its attackers
"Undermining elf."
and casts Create Pit.
The spry elf manages to grab the edge of the unexpected pit with one hand, he swings fluidly doing a single loop in the air before landing on his feet.
Hopping back he and his companion take another shot…
A single arrow thunks into the Kid’s shoulder and the other bounces off the tower behind them way too high to be a threat.
11T7 makes a metallic clinking sound as it claps its gnomish hands with joy.
"Escalating difficulty!"
It casts Persistent Create Pit
With the nearby elf dealt with, Suzuka turns her attention to the northernmost elf who is not beleaguered by pits. She diverts the telekinetic force to her new target and attempts to yank its bow from its hands.
She begins to advance on the elf.
Kid Arty rushes the foe by the tree!
But her attempt to show mercy results in a wide shot!
"Give Oni-chan a bit of luck?" Tim asks his cat before firing another two arrows.
Snowball lands next to Suzuka and places a paw on her calf.
Jorian frowns behind his mask as the elf dodges his lightning bolt, then starts walking toward that elf, still 10’ above the ground.
Just as the elf steps clear of the first hole another hole opens beneath it, he nearly jumps clear of that one too but the hold moves along with him guaranteeing a broken coccyx.
Suzuka attempts to pull away the other elf’s bow but his grip holds.
Both of Tim’s arrows hit the remaining elf but only one draws blood, the other merely tears leather armor.
Another arrow fails to hit its mark.
The Kid remains in position. She shoots.
“I only miss because I hope to spare you,” she says to the deaf elf, “despite your failure to reciprocate the courtesy.”
Her words seem to focus her next shot.
That’s how you do it. Don’t become the very thing you hate.
Despite Artemis's eagle eye'd aim or perhaps because of it the remaining elf falls over from a mortal wound.
"Shall we head into the tower, then? Before more of them show up. The one in the hole can probably help his two friends."
or maybe one friend...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Snowball flies to the one that just fell and casts Stabilize before returning and doing the same for the first elf that collapsed.
"That arrow looked like it hit something important." he comments.
Seeing the elves incapacitated for the moment, the Druid turns back to tower and asks, somehow being both loud and whispering at the same time.
”Shall I proceed?”
Artemis feels bad about the groin shot; worse about the death. I’m still not HER, she tells herself. My sisters were unarmed.
The excuses make her no less a hypocrite. Admitting to hypocrisy brings her aunt no closer to forgiveness.
“If you can’t get in, I’ll be forced to shoot the other one.”
She waits by the tower hoping she won’t have to.
Suzuka will head back to the tower and look to Jorian with a small nod.
"Please." Timothy replies.
Jorian pries open the panels, and the secret door. A vile greenish gas billows out of the opening but the fallen Eladrin is completely unaffected by the poison. He discovers not a door but two more inscriptions.
Behind the smaller panel, "Nor are they for those below."
The larger one reads, "Look upon that which is first to be false."
"Huh, not for those above or those below... maybe the entrance is in the middle somewhere?" Tim muses aloud, looking up at the tower.
"Palla di Neve, maybe take a closer look at some of that exposed brickwork up there?"
After looking at the pit, Snowball nods and flies up.
The gnome removes its had and resumes being a modron.
"Conclusion: The secrets found within ARE for those above but not for those below. Ascend Tower."
Jorian frowns at the inscription behind his mask and grumbles, ”I hate puzzles.”
The Kid attaches a grappling arrow to a rope, and looses it.
“Going up?” she asks, as she climbs her own rope. She will leave it for others who may need it.
As Artemis climbs the tower she is harassed by the elf they let live.
The Kid climbs fast, hoping not to kill again.
Suzuka walks 60 ft up the side of the tower.
“Hey,” Artemis says with a friendly wave as Suzuka effortlessly catches up—though unlike the oni, the Kid needs to grab onto her rope before making another vertical stride!
Seeing everyone heading up, Jorian also starts walking straight up the tower.
Tim takes one last shot at the elf before heading to the base of the tower where Kid Artemis's rope is.
"Top of the tower, huh?" Snowball asks rhetorically. He flies up to the apex of the tower for a closer look.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
11T7 walks up to the tower and begins walking up it without pausing.
With the last elf defeated with arrow and magic you can ascend unmolested. One by one you reach the apex of the tower and as you reach it they disappear.
At your feet is a large brass blug 4 feet across, with a runic inscription engraved upon its smooth, shiny surface. There is no apparent exit from this chamber.
As the others gain their eyesight one by one, Snowball is already studying an inscription.
After reading it through a couple of times he realizes that everyone else is already present, and he reads it aloud.
"Here in the Bright World shall trod the feet of ineffable Darkness. A great lord of the infinite pit, once brought low, shall find his way here, having pulled himself from death's cold embrace. Beyond, he will find the means for his goal, but the price of vengeance is death again - unless he can find that which was his, now lost."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Suzuka tries to pull out the plug.
Suzuka strains as she gets her fingertips under the plug and lifts with all her might. Her fingers slip and she nearly tips over.
Tim, seeing his unreasonably strong teammate struggle to pull up the blug plug, pulls out his Adamantine dagger.
"Maybe cut around the edges with this first, Suzuka." he suggests, offering the dagger.
He also pulls out an arrow and casts Daylight on it, curious if a stronger light spell might accomplish anything.
before this post
Daily Use Items
. 2/3 Rod of Extend, Lesser
. 3/3 Four-leaf Clover (+2 luck bonus on a single ability check, saving throw, or skill check)
Extraordinary Abilities
. 3/4 Martial FlexMartial Flex (plus arcane Arcane Strike & Combat Casting)
Supernatural Abilities
. 3/3 Smite Evil (swift; +5 attack & +7 damage; bypass all DR; double damage on first attack against undead/evil outsiders/evil dragons; net +4 bonus to AC)
. 8/8 Lay On Hands (3d6 hp + mercies)
. (2 uses of Lay on Hands) Channel Positive Energy (4d6 hp)
Spell-like Abilities
. 0/1 Daylight (or 1d8+5 CLW that deals half the amount healed in nonlethal to the caster)
. at will Detect Evil (or as a move action for the strength of a single person/item's aura within 60')
Paladin Spells Prepared:
. 2nd (1/day) Paladin's Sacrifice
. 1st (3/day) Hero's Defiance, Unbreakable Heart, Restoration, Lesser
Sorcerer Spells:
. 1st 3/5 Lucky Number, Mount
. cantrips (at will) Acid Splash, Light, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
You are slowly able to cut away chunks of the plug but carving through it is slow work. The light spell does not function.
Having no ideas or better tools available, Jorian simply stands and watches the work.
11T7 carefully examines the room.
It focuses on the brass plug. "Lever desired." It then gestures to the bottom "Notch here. Fulcrum there. Insert lever. Apply team."
11T7 determines that the brass plug is enchanted to be heavier than normal.