Artyom grits his teeth as he's attacked and his strength is drained. He's had enough. "Everyone! Out of the room or to a safe area!" He moves back and begins casting. Soon, a 20 foot radius of churning sand appears, gouts of flame spewing from time to time.
The group continues wildly squishing everything in sight, and the ARtyom suddenly blows burning hot sand over the place. The remaining spiders try to bite the place up, but fail to do so, and are then consumed by the burning sand as he kills the last three.
End of Combat
You quickly rush out of the sand before you're injured by it.
Alara shivers in disgust and fear.
"I. HATE. SPIDERS."
”Thankfuklly lass, they are all dead now.”
Malvo looks at Artyom. "That was effective! I don't suppose that's something you can repeat if it comes up again, is it?"
He checks around the room, watching for where more spiders might come from, and inspects the exits.
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Stupid spiders. Anybody particularly hit hard by that venom? I can repair a bit of the damage. Anyone who makes a career from their strength?"
Malvo looks at the bite marks on his arms and legs. "Yeah, it hurts but I think I'm solid at the moment. If you could do something about the bleeding, though, that would be nice."
"I'm, uh... I'm okay. Just a scratch." Alara shudders and retreats to a corner of the room, away from the spider corpses.
Malvo gives the door a listen. It is eerily silent. He hears nothing.
Artyom groans in pain as the venom takes hold. ”Ow, ow, ow. That was a nightmare.”
Malvo looks at Artyom. "That was effective! I don't suppose that's something you can repeat if it comes up again, is it?"
Artyom shakes his head. ”Unfortunately, I’ve only prepared that spell once. I would need to fully rest again to prepare it again.”
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Stupid spiders. Anybody particularly hit hard by that venom? I can repair a bit of the damage. Anyone who makes a career from their strength?"
Artyom replies, ”I don’t. However, this pack is getting heavy for me.” He sighs in relief as Tornell unleashes a healing wave.
Tornell heals the group - at least a little and everyone looks around miserably and covered in spider bites.
YHou can go through the very spooky quiet door or backtrack.
"Alright, let's see where it went." Malvo waits for everyone to get into position, then uses his magic to open the door.
Artyom readies himself as Malvo opens the door.
Alara finds a place to hide.
You open the door and it is completely black inside. Weirdly so. You glance in, see nothing, and take a step in.
Malvo heads in first... and walks right back out!
You try again, and it becomes immediately apparent that as you walk into this door, you're exiting as quickly as you enter. It's a rather strange sensation and very disorienting.
Rather perplexed, Alara tries walking through the door backwards.
Tornell sighs at yet another bit of extraplanar weirdness.
"If that doesn't work... Try closing your eyes? I dunno."
You take a little while to try other ways of going through the door and as soon as you walk through, you exit. The door appears to be some sort of portal where the exit and entrance are the same place.
"Well, that's lovely. I'd say let's not waste time on it unless we can't find what we're looking for otherwise. " He points to the northern exit.
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Feeling a bit silly, Alara finds another place to hide while the rest of the party gets in position.
"...why does she even have that door?" She whispers to herself.
Malvo gets the group in an orderly line because he's good at that sort of thing, and you listen to the north without hearing much. The door swings open easily.
This long room has a narrow table with several comfortable-looking chairs around it. A few shelves contain pottery, serving dishes, and heavy books. Doors lead out from each direction, including several doors standing in the east wall.
Two small humanoids stand in the room, both of them look up the moment you enter and are apparently prepared for you. Weirdly, they appear to have two additional sets of hands attached at their elbows that look like new grafts of some kind. However as you enter, they both look at each other and leap to attack!
Alara (stealthed)
Artyom
Ridill
---
Wyrwoods
---
Malvo
Tornell
Stepping into the doorway Riddill readies to hack into kindling the first creature with a bad idea.
Alara waits behind the corner for Ridill to engage.
Artyom clearly identifies the creatures as wyrwoods. They are constructs originally created as a race of skilled workers for their wizarding masters who eventually rebelled, broke free, and became self-aware. They are noted for being secretive if not xenophobic and somewhat cold to creatures of meatkind.
They are immune to the normal sorts of things constructs are immune to (they have no organic body or mind) but otherwise can be killed like anything else.
Artyom can clearly tell that it looks like the forearms of other wyrwoods have been attached to the elbows of these two. It looks recent and somewhat unsettling.
Artyom scowls. "Wyrwoods! They're constructs. So mind-affecting abilities or necromancy won't work on them/ The arms look like they have been recently attached to them from other wyrwoods." He steps a bit closer and begins to chant. With a gesture, a 10 foot square of grease appears under the wyrwood on the right.
Artyom quickly weaves a spell and with a "dwah!" one of the wyrwoods crashes to the ground! Which is odd, you've never heard a wooden man yell dwah before. The wyrwood gets back to his feet and crashes down again. The second one doesn't charge in on Ridill and instead grabs a loaded crossbow from the table, firing it! Ridill slaps the bolt out of the air.
Malvo stays back, letting Ridill take the lead and hoping Alara can make use of her hidden position for a sneak attack. "Get in there, team! These oafs are nothing compared to what we've taken out in the past!"
Fed up with waiting, Alara stealths her way into the room...
...and tries to smack a wyrwood!
Artyom, still trying to get used to his heavier pack, moves forward a bit and throws his quarterstaff at the downed wyrwood.
Annoyed at the creature for trying to play it clever Ridill marches over to the one of the left, kicking the chairs out of his way as he does.
As Ridill irritably gets into range with a wyrwood, Alara appears out of nowhere and completely caves in its head. It collapses to the ground, all six hands twitching. The other wyrwood tries to get to its feet, and slips on the grease spell once more as a staff flies over its head at the last minute.
As Malvo strides confidently into the room, his inspiring words echo in the minds of his companions.
Alara walks over to the last wyrwood and brings her nunchaku down.
Tornell calls out (Though not sure if the thing even speaks common) "STAND DOWN! YOU'VE LOST!"
He'll still advance, to accent his point with the threat of violence. And actual violence, if need be.
Alara and Tornell rush in on the fallen wyrwood and with two mighty thwacks, put it out of everyone's misery. What a jerk.
You take a look over the room with its guardians having fallen. Artyom notices two thigns.
The first is confirmation that the wyrwoods have had the hands of... what looks like other wyrwoods attached to them quite clumsily. Someone good with tools could remove them if anyone wanted to.
But more interestingly, a book on the bookshelf is a spellbook!
[spoiler=Spellbook]
alarm, erase, feather fall, glitterdust, gust of wind, jump, lightning bolt, mount, see invisibility, shield, shocking grasp, sleep, summon swarm, and web
Alar's eyes notice that there's some very expensive-looking silverware here. If someone wanted to loot and sell the silverware of the lands of the dead.
A series of doors are along the east wall, and there are also doors to the west and north.
Artyom walks into the room and looks over the wyrwoods. "Hmm... Are any of you good with tools? With how clumsily these extra arms are attached, we could remove them." He's interrupted with a loud cawing. The wizard turns his head turns to Ricky, who is sitting on the book shelf, pecking at a specific book. Artyom moves to the bookshelf and pulls down the book. Opening it, his eyes go immediately go wide. "This... This is a spellbook!" He looks at the group. "I'm taking this. If I get the time, I can copy the spells I don't know into my book." He places the other spellbook into his pack. He rubs his shoulders at the discomfort he's feeling from the medium load. Looking at the doors, Artyom asks, "So, which way?"
Alara looks around before trying to discreetly stuff the silverware into her satchel.
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Malvo raises an eyebrow as Alara steps directly in front of him to pocket the valuables. He shakes his head slightly, but says nothing.
To Artyom's question, he points to the row of slightly smaller doors. "Those look like closets or side rooms, let's give those a quick sweep then work our way around."
"Aight," Ridill calls out as he heads for the door once everyone has finished in this room.
Alara sidles up next to Ridill and goes quiet.
Alara manages to detach and pocket the extra hands. Whoi knows maybe they could come in... as useful objects for later. She also snatches the silverware.
You check the eastern doors which are all private chambers for scribes. The fact the beds are stored and disassembled indicates what Salighara was using the wyrwoods for. Scribes that never sleep are clearly of great use to such an obsessive personality.
The western door leads to a little kitchen and pantry which looks like it hasn't been used in forever.
Finally, there's the north door. YOu all line up, and Ridill swings it open.
As he does, he sees his hand fly off of his wrist and sail into the room with an unpleasant 'pop'.
Thankfully, he manages to recover from the weird illusion and realizes his hands are just in place.
A round table dominates the north end of this large room, with many mismatched wooden chairs around it. Stacks of handwritten notes, books, and dice in various denominations litter the stained wood.
21
More than a dozen doors exit from this room, most of them identical, narrow wooden doors to the north and east.
Four wyrwoods are sitting despondently at the table, resting their heads on stumps that once held hands. They look very sad. They all look up at you. One calls out in a weirdly wooden voice.
"INTRUDERS! WE CAN PROVE OUR WORTH! KILL THEM!"