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Despite the ants crawling and biting, Each maintains his concentration and shakes free his pistol of ants. With practiced speed he reaches into a pocket, draws a wrapped something, and shoves it into the upturned barrel. He then re-aims the barrel in the same direction, pulls back the hammer with his thumb, and pulls the trigger once more. A gout of flame spews forth again.
Adumariel feels nauseated and runs off. She tries to brush off the clinging ants, but she doesn't have the energy. Once out of the cloud, she feels better.
As she leaves the swarm, it takes damage due to the loss of ants.
The clinging ants bite her!
Suussmaar throws more acid.
Another loud blast rings through the library, and a cone of flame envelops the swarm.
Tsadoc tries to run, but the clinging clay hinders his movement.
The swarms continue munching on Tsadoc and Each.
plus distraction
plus distraction
Round 2/3!
Commodore Each (-24 hp, Fort save)
Tsadoc (-19 hp, entangled, Fort save)
Suussmaar
Red Ants (-12 hp)
Blue Ants (-29 hp)
Adumariel (-22 hp)
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Doing her best to ignore the last few ants biting her, Adumariel races over to a stop near the bookshelves and points her umbrella toward the ants. She tries to aim it to avoid as many books as possible, and remembers the smell of petrichor and the feel of rain droplets from her last thunderstorm. Suddenly the crystal in the handle of the umbrella glows and a lightning bolt shoots out through both swarms with an deafening
+50% vs. swarms = 42
The blue swarm dissipates.
Suussmaar's flask does a little.
Round 2/3!
Commodore Each (-24 hp, nauseated)
Tsadoc (-19 hp, entangled, nauseated)
Suussmaar
Red Ants (-34 hp)
Blue Ants (-71 hp)
Adumariel (-22 hp)
All Tsadoc can hear is the chattering of ants crawling in his ears as the swarm moves back over him and begins biting again.
plus distraction
Round 3/4!
Commodore Each (-24 hp)
Tsadoc (-32 hp, entangled, DC 17 Fort save vs nauseated)
Suussmaar
Red Ants (-34 hp)
Blue Ants (-71 hp)
Adumariel (-22 hp)
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If only there were room in here for a bit of flame, but I can't risk setting fire to the library!
Adumariel takes a step, levels her umbrella again, and conjures another blast, wincing at the property damage.
"Hold still!"
She tries to weave this one down the tiny gap between Tsadoc and Sussmaar and the bookshelves
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Tsadoc is entangled in the dirt!
An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) or lose the spell.
The druid tries moving again, but the multitude of scurrying feet throw his belly, head and his own feet in different and disturbing directions.
[ooc[Update in a bit.[/ooc]
Adumariel's spell, and Suussmaar's flask finally scatter the ants.
Eventually, Tsadoc is freed from the sticky clay. Apparently it was mixed with glue.
Final tally:
Commodore Each (-24 hp)
Tsadoc (-32 hp)
Suussmaar
Adumariel (-22 hp)
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"Everyone knows about honey," Tsadoc says, cleaning mud from his gear, "Or the honeydew of aphids, but many insects excrete something sticky. Ants & termites use it to create vast networks of tunnels. Sometimes they can stretch for miles! It's so cool!
Meanwhile Martin ambles over. He uses a long blue tongue to clean the druid's ear, causing Tsadoc to laugh which in turn causes the dino's tail to wag happily back and forth.
For saving the day, Adumaral is first.
The Commodore & his fire spitting dragon
Lastly, Tsadoc the useless *cough cough* the entangled & nauseated. ,
The remains of several mostly-eaten kobolds have been piled in the southwest corner of this section. Among their discarded belongings are a pair of trapspringer’s gloves, a scroll of mage armor, and two potions of cure moderate wounds.
A shard of amber glass, one piece of the mirror of translocation, is propped up on a bookshelf.
Administering to Public Health in Large Cities, one of the books on Hao Jin’s list, can be found in this section.
DC 18 Linguistics:
The group pulls 250 lbs of books, but nobody can make heads or tails of which ones are the most valuable.
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Statues and paintings depicting divine heralds, miracles, and ghosts decorate this section. Many of the books here look especially old or ornate.
A sign reads, in Tien, "720-729: Architecture and Religious Architecture".
Everyone spies an image of a librarian in the reflective surface of the handrail, waiting for the group to approach. She notices that you noticed, and flees.
Adumariel and Tsadoc look a little more carefully and spot a trap - several small arrow launchers have been set up at the east end to fire a volley of arrows toward the west (red box). The tripwire that triggers the arrow launchers runs north-south across the hallway (yellow line).
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Adumariel takes off her existing gloves and gives them to Tsadoc, showing him how to active the power contained in the sapphires on each finger.
"It takes all five from one hand to have a chance at bringing back someone who has died, and it will only work seconds after the event. Anything less than death we can deal with, these are just a fallback. And thank you"
She then dons her new magical gloves to aid with her trap disabling, and gets to work on disarming this arrow trap.
Adumariel carefully removes the tripwire. A stash of 12 steam mephit-head arrows were stashed behind the arrow launchers as extra ammunition, with another 12 in the launchers themselves.
A shard of amber glass, one piece of the mirror of translocation, is located in the corner.
A rare edition of The Manual of City-Building, one of the books on Hao Jin’s list, can be found in this section. It is padlocked to the bookshelf on a heavy chain.
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Adumariel grabs up the arrows, then starts looking at the books with an appraising eye.
Afterwards, she looks at the padlock on the Manual of City-Building.
"It would be a shame to leave this here when the whole dimension is doomed wouldn't it?"
She winks at Commodore Each and takes out her thieves tools again, making sure to scan the area it for traps.
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Adumariel doesn't spot any traps, so she begins picking the locks. The chain opens, and the Manual of City-Building is now in the Pathfinders' possession.
The Pathfinders find an additional shard of amber glass on the way there.
A huge clockwork orrery occupies the center of the building’s main floor. Broken glass is scattered around the base of the device.
Commodore Each, Suussmaar, and Tsadoc all search and find nothing. They're about to step in to investigate the planets when Adumariel stops them: while the orrery was designed to detect nearby library patrons and only orbit when approached, someone has modified the orrery’s clockwork to fling out bear traps attached to chains.
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"It's been a while since I've had reason to use my tools so often!"
Adumariel thinks back to her first mission where she used her hairpin to jimmy open a lock and free some captured teenagers. She smiles as she takes out her leather roll of exquisite thieves tools once again to try to disable the trap flinging mechanism
Adumariel disconnects the bear traps from the whirling arms, and the group safely enters the section marked "340-349: Law".
The final amber shard still rests in a mirror frame, which hangs on the wall by the orrery.
The Application of Justice in a Well-Ordered Society, one of the books on Hao Jin’s list, is sitting on the shelf.
Your character spots it first! You call dibs and grab it before anyone else can!
Adumariel:
Commodore, Suussmaar, Tsadoc:
Tsadoc picks up the book and it explodes, covering him with lawful fire (-11 hp).
Suussmaar ignores Tsadoc's suffering and calmly selects 250 lbs of the best books.
When the mirror is assembled, it hums with power. The brave adventurers step through ...
In the center of the room, two staircases descend to a lower level set six feet below the main floor. A glass railing like the ones in the rest of the library encircles the lower level. A large mirror is inlaid into the floor on the lower level and surrounded by bookshelves set into the walls, with standing mirrors in the corners. On the upper level, fragments of broken mirrors sparkle in the aisles between the shelves, and in the corners, folding screens partly conceal more private spaces.
The party emerges not from a single mirror, but each from a different mirror.
The group is not alone. Four smooth-featured, humanoid creatures that appear to have skin made entirely of mirrored glass also inhabit this space.
The creatures get the jump on you. Raging, they charge and try to push you back into the mirrors.
Tsadoc, Suussmaar, and Adumariel resist, but Commodore is slammed back against the mirrors, taking 6 damage. Worse yet, he feels the mirror sucking him back in.
Round 1
Red Soulsilver (raging 1/13)
Orange Soulsilver (raging 1/13)
Green Soulsilver (raging 1/13)
Blue Soulsilver (raging 1/13)
Commodore (-6 hp, DC 18 Will save vs trapped in the mirror 0/?)
Suussmaar
Tsadoc / Martin (squeezed)
Adumariel
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Earlier Adumariel made sure that Tsadoc was fully healed from the trap.
After dodging her attacker, Adumariel draws her thornblade and ejects the wand of shout from her wrist-sheathe into her other hand in one smooth motion. She points the wand and shouts the command word as loud as she can.
"FUSROHDAH!"
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Each nearly loses his balance as he holds his arms to the sides to try and stop himself. His reaction is not enough though and his body hits the mirror/portal. His eyes widen and he grits his teeth. The magical forces are held at bay however and Each remains.
The Commodore gets his footing back and grins at the creature as he reaches his hands to his sides. "It was wise o' ye teh try and get rid o' me."
With a blur of movement he counter attacks...