Tina glowers at Claudette's (temporary) fate, and attempts to console Snowball "It's alright little one, that's happened before. Not exactly like that, but the whole dying thing, definitely not the first time."
She continues to float around inside Bob, and decides to grant him a as she continues her song "How could something so familiar be so strange?"
Alloura's eyes roll in her head and she falls unconscious under the thing's powerful grip.
Goldslip comes back to herself and stops her sword arm mid-swing. "Geez, what am I doing? Sorry, Cindy." Then she turns and starts moving toward everyone else, drops her short sword, and draws her crossbow.
Sendi looked at the corpse of the princess in disappointment. Broken toys weren’t fun. But she had something else to play with! She flew over to the choker and lashed out with it, pretending to be a knight, saving a beautiful dragon from a princess intent on defiling it. ”En garde!” Sounded like a very knightly thing to say. Her smile returned, as the game wasn’t over yet.
Staring at Goldslip, ready to dodge under her sword and go for the eyes, Cindy's eyes open wide as she realizes what has been happening. She quickly stops herself and looks around the room, heading towards the commotion in the doorway
Feeling his mistress moving closer, Mr. Snuggles calms slightly and follows the last opponent towards the door, snapping at it as it tries to escape.
Bob surges after the choker and swings at it but can't quite connect.
Sendi flies over and stabs it hard. Then Snuggles ambles after the choker and bites its head off!
You have defeated the enemies but now you realize that the dragon you came to save is bleeding out on the ground!
Leave the bodies as they are. For a little bit at least. If we're to thwart my brother's plans, we'll need to gather some information from them. In the meantime, Goldslip, could you help this dragon? It would be nice to have one who owes us its life.
"No eat girlfriend!" Snowball screeches at Bob before trying to bite him.
"Snowball! No! No eat Bob! If you eat Bob I will feed you to Mr. Snuggles!"
"NO!" Snowball retorts, continuing to snap at the poor abused cube-shaped ooze.
|
Bob is confused himself, at why Snowie is trying to tickle him so much.
He tries to engulf the dragon to slow him down.
engulf:
Although it moves slowly, a gelatinous cube can simply engulf Large or smaller creatures in its path as a standard action. It cannot make a slam attack during a round in which it engulfs. The gelatinous cube merely has to move over the opponents, affecting as many as it can cover. Opponents can make attacks of opportunity against the cube, but if they do so they are not entitled to a saving throw. Those who do not attempt attacks of opportunity can attempt a DC9 Reflex (DC 12 base creature) save to avoid being engulfed—on a success, they are pushed back or aside (opponent’s choice) as the cube moves forward. Engulfed creatures are subject to the cube’s paralysis and acid, gain the pinned condition, are in danger of suffocating, and are trapped within its body until they are no longer pinned. The save DC is Strength-based.
Tina summons her cleric again. As she steps into the longhouse, she rushes to the fallen princess, then looks around for Tina. Disappointed, but not surprised at finding her summoner bobbing gently upside down inside a gelatinous cube, she says "Look lady, I may be a miracle worker, but there are limits."[./b]
Tina rights herself, and manages to break the weakened twine. She points at larger dragon, and says [b]"No Miriam, I'm not paying to bring her back. But that dragon could use some work." The cleric's eyes go wide. "No. Absolutely not. The bear was bad enough, but now a dragon?" As her eyes grow used to the light, she looks around and sees Mr Snuggles assessing her, and Snowball babbling. Tina emerges from Bob, and simply says, "We made a deal long ago. If you want me to stop holding up my end of the deal, You're free to leave." Tina open a portal nearby. Miriam stares daggers at the little fey, to no great effect, before saying a few prayers over Alloura, and stepping through the portal as quickly as possible.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alloura is quickly healed and regains consciousness!
It takes a while, but Bob, Cindy, and Snowball work out their differences.
With Alloura healed and things calm again, you realize there are several things you should do. You need to obtain the shard of the ancient artifact to defeat the Shadow-being in Sevren. The shard was rumored to be part of Alloura's horde at some point. It should look like a small golden shard of metal. In addition, you may want to take a peak around your current location.
No longer magically confused, but still not quite all there, Snowball asks "girlfriend better? Pretty dragon my girlfriend?"
Rather than wait politely for the answer by sitting still attentively, she then chews off a few half melted scales to make room for new ones to grow in, which startlingly quickly do so.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bob ejects Snowball once he starts acting normal, well before suffocation would have been an issue.
And he hasn't forgotten about.... that door.
Wondering what other enemies may be hiding behind it, Bob goes to the main entrance to the castle and starts beating on it with his acid slams. He knows no fatigue and no boredom. It is only him and the door, and Bob does not stop until it is brought down.
After brooding for a bit, embarrassed by how she was confused into attacking her own friend, Goldslip acquiesces and links her life to Alloura's.
With the battle over, as well as the confusion, Sendi descended to the ground and sat in a contented ball. This group was certainly fun, and that counted for a lot. She had already forgotten the details of their quest, but she hoped it wasn’t over. Or at the very least that they wouldn’t ask her to leave. She watched expectantly to see what they would say that they’d do next.
Alloura's beautiful eyes flutter open. She stretches her lithe body like a cat waking up from a nap and unfurls herself into a standing position.
She is still in pain but the feeling of the Princess being defeated alleviates that pain more so than any amount of treasure for her horde. Well, almost any.
"Hardly. But thank you, its nice to have the offer." she says.
Taking in the motley crew, she wonders if she could have conceived of a more ghastly group of misfits to be her rescuers. But then, beggars can't be choosers. Though she would never beg. How demeaning, and she shudders at the thought.
"Who are you 'people?'
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Hello, I'm Piedmontina Mumblethunder!" Dancing lights flash and spin behind centimeters-tall fey lich, in a complicated pattern. "We're here to thwart my brother's plan, even though it's actually my plan. Because if he executes my plan, I'll be even angrier with him than I am now for stealing my plan. But the chances of him successfully executing it are tiny, because he's such an idiot that he can't even come up with his own plan, and has to steal mine."
Tina calms herself, and takes a tiny flask out of her robes, capable of holding but a few drops. She takes a deep swig from it. "Anyway, even though he's a fool, and can't assemble the right parts, he's gotten close enough that he may start triggering some of the next steps.
Tina flits over to the corpse of the enemy princess. I mean look at this, he's tried to replace what is clearly stated in the plan as a white dragon, with some combination of a silver dragon and a drake? I'm not sure how that would even work. Well, I have some ideas, but none of them are good. And this princess, if she is even that. Her bone structure indicates that she's from the Northern lands, and the plan absolutely demands that the child be an heir to a Southern Kingdom. Although, with a silver dragon..." Tina trails off, then spins to Alloura, You two, did you ever... She waggles an eyebrow over one of her dimly lit ruby eyes. "I mean, are you carrying this human's child?"
Without particularly waiting for the answer, Tina continues, Anyway, We know my brother is involved in all this, because one of my previous associates, was destroyed in what I can only assume was an act of sabotage during one of her arcane experiments. Her son too. Good kid. Unfortunate that he got possessed by whatever that was. And I know that it's my brother, because unleashing a hell demon is one of his old tricks of 'misdirection'. He's hoping that we won't know it's him, because we're too busy playing Paladin. But as usual, now we need to both stop him, and clean up this ridiculous mess he's made. She takes a long swig from the flask, realizes it's empty, and dips it into Bob for a refill, while looking around the room.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Bob takes his time and eventually destroys the large, strong wooden door and finds a variety of rooms with (unlocked) doors accessible throughout the keep up a flight of stairs.
Halfway through Tina's exposition, Alloura yawns loudly and obviously. As she does so you see the occasional glitter of coins, gems and other things tucked into her scales. It gives her already beautiful countenance a shimmer in the light which, frankly, is dizzying.
"I'm sure that's all very interesting for you, Pee Montana." the dragon says to the .... girl?
"I'm just glad this witch is dead. And not a moment too soon. Your incompetent bumbling in gave me the opportunity to finally strike. Although keeping me out of the clutches of that dirty choker was very kind of you. It's good that you appreciate one such as I should not be touched by one such as it."
Cindy listens to the conversation as she floats down to the ground and toddles over to the bear, keeping an eye on Goldslip with what would be a shamed expression (if she had a face capable of making expressions).
As the others speak to the big snowball-y lady, Cindy strokes Mr. Snuggles's head. "That's a good bear. You bit that thing good. I'm going to have to get you a nice present"
The rest of the group keeps conversing with Alloura while Bob explores the keep. He finds a lot of interesting-looking things! There is a top hat made of obsidian, a small pretty bow with red lines inscribed on it, an icy bracelet, a small, shining diadem, and a long robe of ever-shifting colors. Bob also finds 10,000 gp worth of fine goods and coins.
These are all rare and unusual magic items, no doubt kept by the princess as novelties.
Hat of destruction: This obsidian hat is resistant to weathering and corrosion and grants the wearer the ability to use their constitution modifier in place of strength modifier for melee attack rolls (but not damage).
Ribbon of terror: This small pretty ribbon allows the wearer to cast blistering invective at will. CL equals CR.
Bracelet of sheer cold: This bracelet empowers cold damage dealt by the wearer but does not apply to spells or SLAs that deal cold damage.
Diadem of radiance: This diadem allows the wearer, if a divine spellcaster, to cast burst of radiance with CL equal to CR at will. DC keys off of wis or cha.
Robe of the flexible summoner: This robe grants its wearer the "evolved summoned monster" feat.
|
|
"Holy hat! Holy moley kablooey! Slow Bob is now to be named Hat Bob again. Slow Bob found a hat made of shiny stone and then Slow Bob put this hat on Slow Bob's top and it didn't melt and it makes Slow Bob feel so happy to have a hat on top that his name shall now be Top-Hat-Bob because the hat is on top!"
)
Top-Hat-Bob dumps everything else he finds on the ground but continues to slide around gloating for quite some time.
Cindy sees the pretty bow lying on the floor, and quickly picks it up, playing with it for a bit before she puts it haphazardly on top of Mr. Snuggles's head, and after taking a critical look at it, she moves it to her head. "oooooh it's so preeeettty! Can I keep it guys? Pleeeeeaaaase?"
She moves it around a bit, trying different places, but it keeps just falling off and landing on the floor. "um. Does anyone know how to put a pretty ribbon in a pretty girl's hair?"
Goldslip comes into a room that Bob has already left and spies a faint shimmering light. She is drawn to it, and moves closer out of curiosity. The source of light is revealed to be a beautiful crown! The little nixie picks it up gingerly and gazes at it a while. Then she tries it on. It seems to rest easily there. She smiles, and it's a smile of innocent happiness, not like the satisfaction she found such a short time ago when she ended the life of Gorthug's destroyer.
Then she hears Cindy from another room asking about putting a pretty ribbon in her hair. "Coming, Cindy! I'll be happy to help you," she calls back.
Snowball, too busy failing to understand explanations about who she's going to marry and the rest of Tina's wonderfully insane plan to steal all the shiny magical objects. Eventually she finds the bracelet. "MINE!"
She pounces on it and fails several times to wear it like a necklace before placing her head on the ground, level with it, staring daggers at it.
Tina hears the commotion from the other room. "I'll be right back. I just need to make sure there's nothing dangerous." She zips over to the other room and sees everyone already wearing their new trinkets. "You all know that there is a treasure room back at Last Hill that I keep stocked exclusively with cursed items, to deal with overeager adventurers and light-fingered goblins."
After checking out the robe extensively, she tries to slip it over her shoulders, and manages to raise herself to a respectable height, the full robe trailing below her.Then a slight breeze blows through the door and the robe billows briefly before beign carried away like a sail, taking Tina with it. She considers it for a moment, before pointing at it, and shrinking it down to a more manageable size.
Secure in her new, well-fitted robe, she returns to Alloura, "Indeed I completely understand the need to not be touched by mere royalty. In the meantime, who brought you and this false princess together? I need information about my brother's latest form. And did he provide you with any magical items for safe keeping?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
As Goldslip ties the ribbon into Cindy's hair, the doll turns her blank face up and stares into the nixie's eyes. "Um. I don't know what happened back there but I really didn't mean those things I said. You're still my sister."
With the ribbon properly affixed, she feels it and her eyes sparkle a bit with what seems like joy.
Returning to the rest of the group she catches the end of Tina's question and waits a second before interjecting "There's all of that, but wasn't there another reason why we came here? Those people we left back at the cave said there was something here we could use to help Sevren. I didn't really get the words they used but it was some kind of star that knows facts about art or something?"
"I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Brother.... ? No idea. This witch was jealous of my beauty all along. I mean, who wouldn't be. But she captured me...." Alloura spits through her teeth, the words sibilant and hateful. "Kept me imprisoned behind these cold walls, robbing the world of my magnificence - that was the real crime."
She looks up at mention of the star and her claws hug her body like a lady caught in the nude. Jewels and coins and things beside glitter between her stunning scales.
"A star. What would you want with the... a star?"
|
|
Well... old master ripped hole in the world and out popped a demon, who killed her and took body of master's son and flew flew flew away. Old wizard, who became friend like all old wizards, told find pieces of artifact that can banish demon before he eat the world.
For Bob, such a speech incredibly stretches his intelligence. He oozes into a puddle to recover.
”A fun quest! Let’s do it!” Sendi exclaimed, happily. ”It is going to be amazing, I just know it.”
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"What Bob says is true," Goldslip adds. She looks at Alloura with big, sincere eyes. "This demon threatens the whole world, Your Magnificence," the nixie says, "and if we can't stop it, then there will be no one left to enjoy your great beauty. Please help us. We need the artifact shard that you have, if there is to be any hope."