Ezren rushes into the room, knowing they'll be picked off if they stay in the corridor. "Kyra, help Mary! Valeros, take these things out!" He waves his staff and electricity arcs out at the two kobolds.
The green kobold isn't paying attention to Ezren, focusing on Mary. As Ezren shoots the arc of electricity, the kobold sizzles! The arc jumps over to the blue kobold who is more prepared and shrugs off the electricity.
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[u]Round 1[/u]
Blue kobold (-3 hp)
Mary (0/15 hp, dying 1)
Green kobold (-12 hp)
Kyra (21/21 hp)
Valeros (24/24 hp)
Ezren (16/16 hp)
Kyra walks over to Mary, crouches down, and stabilizes the downed rogue. Mary's breathing returns to normal, but is still unconscious.
Valeros rushes in, angry at the kobolds for downing his friends. He slashes and slices the kobold until it's barely recognizable.
The blue kobold drops it's crossbow, draws its sword, and rushes up to Valeros. "You killed my best friend! DIE!!!"
It finds a gap in Valeros's armor and shoves its sword deep, drawing blood. It attempts to stab again, but no luck.
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[u]Round 2[/u]
Blue kobold (-3 hp)
Mary (0/15 hp, wounded 1, unconscious)
Green kobold
Kyra (21/21 hp)
Valeros (21/24 hp)
Ezren (16/16 hp)
Ezren continues to summon lightning from his staff to lash at the remaining kobold.
Kyra strides up to the remaining kobold in the room. Channeling the power of Sarenrae, she slices the creature across the face. Ezren joins in, summoning an arc of electricity.
And the kobold takes the full force of the electricity.
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[u]Round 2[/u]
Blue kobold (-10 hp)
Mary (0/15 hp, wounded 1, unconscious)
Green kobold
Kyra (21/21 hp)
Valeros (21/24 hp)
Ezren (16/16 hp)
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Dying, Mary's soul was freed to wander through the ether. At first she felt drawn to a vast river of souls heading to the top of a tall spire in the distance, but after a while, the compulsion left her and she returned. Floating above her body now, she watched without much interest as others fought with the creatures that had tried to kill her. Her mind wandered to happier times stowing away on ships with her old friends; old friends that had grown old and long ago joined the river that had so recently called to her.
Valeros moves to the other kobold and it cowers in fear as the fighter slashes again. The kobold falls to the ground in a heap!
Kyra peers over Valeros's shoulder at the barricade in the northern part of the room. She sniffs the air... and it's the worst smell she's smelled in ages. Like rotten fish and sweat. She also hears a very faint sound of dripping water coming from somewhere in the distance.
The barricade here is shoddily put together.
There is also a room to the west. It is too dark in there to see anything of note.
Ezren goes to check the kobold bodies while the others secure the room and help Mary. The smell assaults him. "Good gods, what could that be?"
Ezren searches the kobolds. Each has a crossbow with 20 bolts, leather armor, a shortsword, and matching eggshell necklaces.
The eggs are similar color and size but don't match up like a puzzle.
Mary (15/15 hp, wounded 1)
Kyra (21/21 hp)
Valeros (24/24 hp)
Ezren (16/16 hp)
Kyra channels the holy power of Sarenrae. Mary's wounds start to close and push out the crossbow bolts buried inside her. The rogue slowly wakes up as Kyra continues to treat her, stitching up any remaining wounds.
Ezren points to the west. "Let's see what's in there first." He tries to cover his nose and mouth from the smell.
Mary’s eyes pop open and it takes her a second to remember where she was and what had happened to her. She quickly grabs hold of her rapier and scrambles to her feet looking wildly around the room for targets. ”Blasted sneaky little kobolds! Where are they? Let me at ‘em.” She notices the two corpses and the lack of concern from her companions and deflates visibly. ”Dang it! I missed all the excitement. I hate it when that happens.” Turning to Kyra, she says, ”Thanks for bringing me back, Kyra. When that second bolt punched into my chest I thought for sure I was a goner.”
Mary then examines the barricade and recoils from the smell. ”Pee-yew! That reeks! I think a lot of those fish of Tamily’s ended up somewhere back there, but I really don’t like the feeling I’m getting from the other side. Smells and sounds like a large creature’s lair or something. I wonder if that’s where the kobolds are keeping their new friend.” She points to the eggshell necklaces hanging from their necks to indicate she means whatever came out of that egg.
”I’ll try to take down this barricade in case we decide to check out where all that smell is coming from later.” Without further ado, she gets down to carefully taking the barricade apart.
"Practice makes perfect, I guess," she says, remembering the fiasco that resulted when she tried to take down the last barricade.
Mary then does a quick search of the room and its contents.
When Ezren suggests going west, Mary agrees. "Yeah, I'm in no hurry to run into our large friend just yet." She heads over to the western opening and quietly looks through.
Mary easily dismantles the barrier to the north by carefully unstacking the large barrels. Though it's shoddily built, it does not collapse! Instead of going north, she inspects the room they're in. The crates and barrels in the room are mostly empty, except for some rotten cloth and other worthless items.
Following Ezren's suggestion, Mary peers into the dark room to the west. With the light from Ezren's staff and Valeros's shield, she can see easily into the room. While much of the rectangular chamber is in ruins, the center contains a fountain of pristine water with something glittering at the bottom. In the middle of the fountain is a marble statue of a mermaid, her lips pursed as if she were about to blow a kiss, or maybe a whistle. Each corner of the pool has some sort of mechanism embedded in the stones, but the one in the southwest corner appears to be smashed.
Mary, still lightheaded from her recent bout with death unconsciousness, doesn't notice a thing. But Kyra does. This is a trap! Kyra takes one look at the mermaid. It's not blowing a kiss. It's designed to blow water! Taking a closer look at the fountain, Kyra things that anyone walking near the fountain () will trigger the mermaid. It could just spray one person, but there is a chance it could spray the whole room. It's possible to disable the fountain. The three working mechanisms can be disabled through a Thievery check or by destroying them.
"Wow, Kyra! You seem to have this whole trap-finding thing down pat. Good thing too, as I seem to have gone half-blind or something."
Mary looks over the situation. "So it looks like we need to take out the triggers on the remaining three corners, but without getting too close to the fountain. Unfortunately, for me to disable them I need to get my hands on them, so that's out unless there's no other way to do it."
She thinks a little. "Hey, maybe we can destroy them from a distance? Val, you haven't tried that bow of yours yet. Any chance you can shoot the triggers from here? What about you, Ez? Got a spell in there that can smash them without getting close?"
Ezren shakes his head. "Nothing to smash the stones physically, though maybe you could destroy them with force magic." He examines the mermaid statue. "Does it just shoot water? That doesn't seem so horrible..."
Mary ponders the situation further. She kicks herself for not having brought some sort of ranged weapon. She could throw her dagger, but even if it hit, it would probably end up in the fountain and be unrecoverable. She liked her dagger too much to throw it away so casually.
An idea forms and she snaps her fingers in excitement. "I know! Hold on." She goes back into the room with the kobolds and grabs one of their crossbows and a bunch of bolts before returning to the fountain room. "Kyra, you may want to leave the room while I try this experiment. It may trigger the trap."
Mary loads the crossbow and gives Kyra time to clear the room. "Let's see if this does anything." Taking careful aim, she shoots several bolts at the triggers.
Mary pulls out her crossbow. She takes careful aim and each of the corners. Taking her time, Mary fires a bolt! But no luck. Each bolt hits, but the bolt doesn't make a dent, nor does it activate the trap.
"Yeah, I think you're right, Val. We're probably not going to smash those triggers with normal missiles. I suspect that Ez's magic bolts and invisible hand probably won't work either. Dang it!"
Mimi's eyes scan the room for possible options and then fall onto the glittering object at the bottom of the pool. "Not sure I see many options here; either I get my hands dirty and take a mermaid shower or we skip past the whole thing." Her eyes try to make out what the glittering object might be. "I don't know about you guys, but I am mighty curious about whatever is at the bottom of this pool, so I'm inclined to take my chances here."
She prepares her thieves’ tools. "Ok now. Anyone who doesn't want to take a shower with me should clear the room." Mary waits for the others to move out of the room before moving into position near the southeastern trigger . "Here goes nothing," she says and steps lightly but carefully up to the corner of the pool .
Mary says, "How refreshing. Time for the plumber to turn you off I think," and gets to work disabling the trigger.
Everyone exits the room as Mary steps forward towards the fountain. But before Mary has a chance to do anything....
The Mermaid starts spinning, spraying the eastern half with water. The water sprays at Mary as she takes 9 points of damage. ().
()
()
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[u]Round 1[/u]
Mermaid
Mary (6/15 hp or 11/15 on a successful save)
Mary is expecting some sort of waterworks to take place once she steps onto the trap, but even so, the speed of the mermaid's reaction catches her a little by surprise. "Uh oh. Duck!"
As the spray of water shoots her way, Mary's sharply honed reflexes kick in and she unconsciously ducks under the worst of the onslaught. Spitting out a mouthful of water, she says, "Phew! That could have been worse." She immediately gets to work disabling the trigger before another spray from the Mermaid comes her way.
"Done, and gone!" Once the trigger is disabled, Mary decides that discretion is the better part of valor and high-tails it out to join the others in the next room...
...where she stays until the mermaid shower stops and the trap resets.
The mermaid focuses it's nozzle. Instead of spraying the entirety of the eastern room, it targets just one creature: Mary. Being in the other room does not stop it from targeting, but Mary does have the benefit of some cover.
And only due to the cover of the hallway, Mary *barely* escapes the stream of water.
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[u]Round 2[/u]
Mermaid
Mary (11/15)
Valeros
Mary thought she was pretty safe around the corner in the other room, but the spray of water that powered through the doorway nearly took her head off. "Sheesh! Can't a girl get a break?"
She turns to Kyra and the others. "Looks to me like she's randomly targeting people she can see. I think you've just been lucky up till now Kyra. I'm not sure I can finish the job before she takes me out unless some of you go back in there with me and distract her."
When Val volunteers, she says, "Thanks, Val." Then to the others, she adds, "I could probably use your help in there too guys, the water hits hard but we should each be able to take at least one hit before going down."
"Let me try this first. A little application of ingenuity..." Ezren tries to fire a cold ray at the mermaid statue to freeze the water coming out of it.
"Way to go bat for the team there Kyra. Ok, you're up Val."
Mary watches as Ezren fires a cold ray at the mermaid. It looks like a good shot, but she's guessing it won't be enough to freeze the wet girl in her tracks.
"All right, Ez. I'm going in again. If I end up in the Boneyard, then at least I'll be clean.
Once in position, she gets to work disabling the trigger before the mermaid starts spraying again.
Ezren takes aim at the mermaid and blasts it with a blast of cold air. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be effective - the water is too fast.
()
As the wizard takes aim, Kyra moves in to the room and raises her shield()
Then Mary strides in and disables the northeast mechanism! Only one more to go.
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[u]Round 2[/u]
Mermaid
Ezren
Kyra
Mary (11/15)
Valeros
Valeros moves in with his shield raised.
The Mermaid focuses in on Mary and blasts her with a spray of cold water!
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[u]Round 3[/u]
Mermaid
Ezren
Kyra (8/21 hp)
Mary (11/15)
Valeros
The Mermaid focuses in on Mary and blasts her with a spray of cold water!
After successfully disabling the trigger, Mary prepares herself for the inevitable blast of water. Fortunately for her, the mermaid decides to go after Kyra instead. "Thanks for taking that one for me, Kyra. Let's see if I can turn this thing off once and for all."
Mary quickly slides across to get to the last active trigger.
And once again gets to work on trying to disable it. "Fingers crossed. Here goes."
Ezren (16/16 hp)
Kyra (16/21 hp)
Mary (15/15)
Valeros (24/24 hp)
Mary manages to move in and disable the last of the triggering mechanisms for the mermaid fountain. She looks into the fountain and see the shimmers of several coins down at the bottom. The water is very cold and about 1 feet deep.
Kyra channels Sarenrae and everyone's wounds slowly stitch up.
There is a door to the north.
After a quick rest and more of Kyra's ministrations, Mary looks into the pool to see what the mermaid was so assiduously defending. She sees some coins and gets excited. "Come to mama," she says and since she's soaked anyway, hops in and wades over to collect the loot.
Holding the puny haul in her hands for all to see, she frowns and purses her lips. "That's it?! I am seriously disappointed." Nevertheless, she pockets the coins and gets out of the cold water to dry off.
She notices that Kyra's bruising from the water blast wasn't completely taken care of by her spell. "Kyra, come over here. Let's see if I can do anything about that damage." Assuming Kyra is willing, Mary pulls out her healer's tools and gets to work.
"There. That took care of most of it."
She makes one more loop of the fountain room to make sure they didn't miss anything.
"OK, I guess we're done in here. Let's move on." Mary then pulls out her rapier and heads quietly to the northern entrance expecting her companions to fall in behind her in the usual manner.
Mary picks up the scattered coins throughout the fountain, but a chill runs down her spine as the water is barely above freezing.
She attempts to heal Kyra, who is still somewhat wounded. Kyra's bruises slowly start to fade as the two of them work.
After taking some time to relax (), the group decides to check out the door to the north. Does not seem trapped or anything of that nature.
While Mary and Kyra heal, Ezren examines the fountain, interested to see if the kobolds mad this too. This did not seem to be their style.
Once they are ready, the wizard takes up a position near the door. "Excellent. Onward to see what these kobolds have down here."