DM Delmoth's Planescape (Inactive)

Game Master Delmoth

Round 3

With Arty safely in Suzuka's arms they can move as one.

Jorian needs to make his Str checks and if he does he gets to the portal.

If Tim makes his checks or Suzuka makes her checks they can join forces. Arty takes damage if Suzuka fails her checks and doesn't need to make her own.

I’m not comfortable with tempting fate so much being so close and fairly weak, I’m gonna pop my cyclops helm and take a 20 on this DC 15 check. Probably not the best use but I’ll just have to live without an auto crit today
DC 10: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (17) + 2 = 19

Calling on his own strength and pulling magic from his mask Jorian pushes through and out of the hurricane wings only to have a snake’s teeth rebound off his dragonscale breastplate.

”That is rude.” he hisses as he considers the recoiling beast.

After a quick hug, Tim stuffs Snowball unceremoniously into his haversack, hoping the extra-dimensional space won't be too uncomfortable.

DC 15 Str Check + Clover: 1d20 + 1 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 + 2 + 1 = 15
and fate's favored + clover finally pays off~

Tim looks around for a way to avoid the snake and notices Suzuka carrying Kid Artemis. It takes him a moment to remember that Suzuka can teleport like his cat, but maybe she can bring others with her!

DC 10 Str Check + Clover: 1d20 + 1 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 1 + 2 + 1 = 21
poop, I knew I didn't need the clover...
He pushes his way through the roaring gale towards Oni-chan.

Mishap?: 1d100 ⇒ 4 On target

With Tim and Arty in tow Suzuka manages to teleport to the door right after Jorian fends off the Wraithworm.

Fall damage: 1d6 ⇒ 4

As you tumble through the portal you fall a bit leaving bruises and perhaps a broken bone.

After the horrible ordeal with the swirling storm and giant serpent, you’ve finally reached what appears to be a place of safety. A large room sprawls ahead of you, and as you gather yourselves together, you notice strange symbols on the walls. Each symbol forms words in your mind, words that’re wholly unfamiliar but somehow painful, causing you to look away before you can fully comprehend them.

that's for all of us carried by Suzuka, right? 3->7 nonlethal

Timothy the Beautiful quickly brushes himself off and retrieves a rather upset and not-quite-incorporeal cat from his bag.
"Sorry, didn't want to risk you getting bit again."

"Thanks." Snowball replies grumpily.

"Ow-" Tim explains as he looks around and then down.
"Maybe we don't look around the walls too much." he suggests.

Everyone takes the fall damage as you tumble out of the portal, I suppose Snowball is safe

Arty’s robe fluffs up a bit as she falls, seemingly in slow motion. Her boots touch the ground noiselessly. She offers a hand to the woman who carried her (not the she needs help up).

She might pull me down by accident with those arms.

The Kid plants her feet, for safety’s sake.

“I don’t know why these words sadden me. I can’t read them. Can you?” Her question is directed at the cat!

"Hierarchy reinstated!" 11T7 chirps upon seeing its teammates survived.

It casts Detect Magic.

11T7 feels immense pain as it looks upon the words with its magical sight.

Anyone looking at the words at length make a Will save DC 20

"Sad?" Snowball asks, looking at Kid Artemis.

"Sad?" Tim asks, suddenly very curious about the symbols.

I just remembered that Tim has *all the saves*: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (10) + 15 = 25

"Ow- ow- ooooooooooooowwwwww. That hurts so much. Don't look at the words. Just don't. Ow."
Tim keeps on head on his temple, channels some healing energy, casts Lucky Number a couple of 3 times, and tries to find a way forward without looking at the walls.

Channel Energy Healing for everyone: 4d6 ⇒ (2, 3, 3, 5) = 13

Martial Flex for Arcane Armor Training so I can get 0% spell failure on Lucky Number even in Mithral Breastplate :3
Tim's Lucky Number: 1d20 ⇒ 20
11T7's Lucky Number: 1d20 ⇒ 7
20 is the worst Lucky Number, new number for Tim: 1d20 ⇒ 7

Prescience: 1d20 ⇒ 2
:(

Will vs DC 20 (+2 vs Death): 1d20 + 8 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 8 + 2 = 28

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

11T7 clutches its eyes and falls prone.

the AoE channel should heal 13 hp and Tim can heal 2 hp whenever he casts a 1st level spell. 11T7 can have those 6 hp, for a total of +19 xD

”Interesting.” Jorian hisses as he looks around the room, still walking a few feet above the ground, staff still thumping on naked air like it was solid stone. Briefly he glances at the words on the walls but intuition keeps him from looking too hard, and at the reaction from a few of his companions, he realizes that was probably a good idea.

He moves to the stricken companions as they are given some healing aid.

Im going with high wisdom intuiting that reading those words is probably a bad thing

Kid Artemis isn’t really sure how to handle that feeling she had. The pain was physical, but the memory triggered was her brothers and sisters being shot dead by arrows from the sky.

Artemis spared the girls physical pain. But it was still painful to see one after the other fall into eternal slumber. The corpses appeared to be sleeping, except for the bloodied chitons and hairdos, depending whether the archer-goddess struck the heart or the head.

Don’t look, Tim says.

Arty’s mind’s-eye focuses on the worst moment of her life. From the way Tim and 11T7 are reacting, the strange words will hurt more than her memory.

Two curious men approach you from the far end of the vast room, where you apparently couldn’t see them. One is short and slightly portly, with unkempt brown hair and beard. The other, who seems a bit older, is tall, thin, balding, and clean shaven. Both wear simple elegant clothing, though the shorter man’s garments appear slightly rumpled.

”Hello,” the round-faced basher says, almost making the greeting a question, ”What are you doing here?”

The tall, slim man says nothing, but sneers almost imperceptibly.

"Trying not to look at the walls. Also we came here on a quest." Tim explains, still rubbing his temple.

The shorter smiles with a bit of mirth, ”I see.”

He continues, ”My name is Tchunum, this is what we call the Chamber of Secrets. Each of the symbols you see represents one of the True Words. These words can-”

”Come now, my dear,” the taller man interrupts. ”I’m sure that brave and powerful heroes such as these wouldn’t have just stumbled in here without knowing where they were.” The condescension in his voice is so thick you can practically feel it like a barbed whip.

Rowling was cribbing this adventure, it was published prior to the Hairy Potters.

The Kid replies, “We don’t know, and what bothers me particularly is that the men we asked answered with arrows. I tried sparing them, despite being jabbed by their pointy sticks. But the second one I shot in the leg was hit in the femoral artery.

“Just because I killed in self-defense, doesn’t mean I feel good about it. I sure as hell ain’t a hero! I never killed a person before today, and it sucks.” She looks at the taller man, not with anger, but humility. By killing, Arty questions whether she’s really any better than the aunt she’s named for.

“I really appreciate your partner giving us straight answers whether we deserve them or not. Please… educate us.”

Diplo, Affable: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (10) + 15 = 25

"We didn't know exactly what we'd find here. Would you be kind enough to tell us about what these words can do?"

Diplomacy (aid?): 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (8) + 19 = 27

”Yes, we seek only knowledge and our motives are goodly.” Jorian whispers in his broken voice.

I have a +13 in diplomacy so I think that’s an auto aid

Going to summarize if that's alright

Tchunim edifies you on the nature of the Words and the Last Spire with genuine enthusiasm while Evreth smiles with superiority and derision. Its apparent the pair tolerate each other, but just barely.

You learn the following:

The Kid isn’t sure what to do with all of this information—

“Thank you.”

—other than show some gratitude to those who gave it.

“It must be overwhelming… to k ow the cause of the corrupt fluid, but there isn’t much we can do about it, is there? I mean, you can’t tell evil people to stop being evil because it pollutes the water. If they cared, they wouldn’t be doing evil stuff in the first place.”

Being a naiad, Arty probably cares about clean water more than most. Step away from the soapbox, she tells herself.

“So what are we even doing here? Did I kill that guy for nothing?”

11T7 listens intently while slowly healing itself with its wand.

"Cursed knowledge..." It remarks. "Immeasurable threat."

The modron approaches Tchunim.

"Inquiry: Do you remain here to contain this knowledge?"

”What … happens if this tower is forgotten and falls into ruin? What becomes of these words of power?” the Druid hisses in his strange manner.

Suzuka rubs her bruises after tumbling through the portal and nods her thanks quietly to Tim for the healing. She takes in the knowledge imparted by the two men without immediate comment. It made sense that such words existed - there is a fundamental order to things, after all, and such a framework demands a method to control it at the most basic level. It disappoints her that she probably doesn't possess the power to command these words.

"Do you command these words? Is there any way to transcribe them, to retain their knowledge after this place is gone?"

"Inquiry: Do you remain here to contain this knowledge?"

"We are not the words guardians. I doubt we could stop you from attempting to take the words even if we tried."

”What … happens if this tower is forgotten and falls into ruin? What becomes of these words of power?”

"I don't know what will happen once all is forgotten. Perhaps we will remain or become as dust."

"Do you command these words? Is there any way to transcribe them, to retain their knowledge after this place is gone?"

"It might be possible but it would also be very dangerous."

"Do the words have guardians?" Tim asks.
"Besides that snake back there." he clarifies.

Suzuka whispers "Obscurity."

She asks the two men, "How and why are you here? How did you learn all of this?"

Smiling as Suzuka adds her own speculation to Tim's question, "We were charged by the powers that have now abandoned Pelion."

Kid Arty almost turns to look about the room—but reminds herself to keep eye-contact, and not look back at the deadly words.

“So if the powers abandoned, why… and how long were y—?” Arty has heard of immortals. They’re supposedly common where she’s from. “Well… what do you do here? Like for fun, or for food?”

The shorter man laughs, "Mostly I try not to look up too much. My neck only hurts a little for my eons of service."

Time to decide what to do now.

Tim shrugs.
"Well, I suppose we could try to take one before we go. Snowball, think you could fly up and grab one without looking at it too carefully?"

"I really don't. Besides, we're not here to steal them." Snowball chides.
"Lemme just let my boss know what we found before we go..."

Snowball attempts to use Commune at CL 12 with 6 questions:
1) Can we take a True Word from the Chamber of Secrets?
2) Are they safe to touch?
3) Should we?
4) If we do, can we stick it in a Handy Haversack?
5) Can Snowball just fly up and grab one?
6) Should we beat these two innocent seeming guys up?

I vote we simply leave without further incident unless we get a yes for at least the first 3 of those questions xD

1. Unclear
2. Unclear
3. No
4. Unclear
5. Unclear
6. No

You walk through the corridor to the exit at the end and pass through the portal there. You find yourselves back at the entrance of the Last Spire, the darkened doorway behind you.

Before you stands a small army of alabaster elves, their weapons are drawn and ready for you...

...and then you open your eyes, back in the skeleton of a gigantic, unknown beast that died in the desert of Pelion centuries ago. The theif's horde still surrounds you but the thief is no where to be seen. Your body aches and is stiff from holding your position for some time.

Nik soon determines that the orb is not dissimilar to a Society of Sensation, sensory stone. A stone is able to store the experiences of someone so that others may experience it.

Back to A team.

"Stupid Sensate magic..." Nik mutters as he starts digging around for his (or anyone else's) gemstones.

Lunk blinks as he is snapped back into reality.

Who was that girl? She is way better than Princess Celda. For one, she isn’t f&*&ing Tim the Enchanter. And two—she has a HOOK SHOT!

Savi flutters about touching her butt.

“It felt so REAL! Rinika! I had a tail—a CAT tail! I was, like, in the mind of a flying cat!”

She wills a toy cat to appear and has it hover about for several seconds. She giggles as it drops to the ground. Springs pop out, stuffing bursts like confetti, and the broken toy-parts tumble and crumble to dust, thin air, nothing.

“Do flying cats eat flying squirrels? This whole experience leaves me with more questions than answers!”

Baraxx snaps awake with a snort and a growl.

"What in the Nine Hell's was that. Why was is some stupid ugly elf thing that just walked around and didn't DO anything with all that magic he had. Man, take me back he was just about to lay waste to that army of albino elves. Bang, Pow, Fiss" he finishes making hand gestures and spell sounds with his mouth, complete with small screams from the fantasy elves getting immolated or whatever.

Looking around, he sees Nik digging around and asks, "You find our stuff?'

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16 Good question! I forgot to roll, so I don't know yet xD

Jek looks around in wide-eyed panic.

"Plan after plan after plan..." Jek shudders. "I can't even tell if it cared about them or just wanted praise..."

He takes a moment to calm down while listening to his companions.

"Wait... so we were all there?"

"Aha!" Nik says, finding some of his missing shambler-fuel.

He holds up the peridot and rubs some dust off of it as he explains "We weren't there, those other guys were. We just saw- er- experienced everything through them. It's the sort of magic those annoying Sensate guys would do. As if their stupid parties weren't bad enough."

Nik shakes his head.

"Annoying" he explains again.

...maybe a good way to annoy someone else though...

"Think we can steal anything here? Feels like a trap."

Treasures

11349cp 2668sp 1560gp

25 gp Steel orb engraved with runes
250 gp Silver Censer set with rosette of white pearl
50 gp Steel bracer engraved with dragon scales
75 gp Wooden medallion engraved with floral vines
125 gp Linen gown trimmed with squirrel fur
300 gp Toy warhammer made from electrum
50 gp Earthenware vase painted with skeletal imagery
25 gp Brass Torc
300 gp Puzzle box with orichalcum filigree
200 gp Gold salt cellar

I have not added these to the loot yet.

added! ish xD
Also, I vote Rinika get the
linen gown trimmed with squirrel fur
you know, in rememberance of glittereye, the squirrel she didn't quite murder xD

300 gp Toy warhammer made from electrum

If this is tiny and finnesse-able, Savi will yoink it as her liminal sprite form weapon.

Warhammers are not normally finessable. Is there some rule would allow such?