The group beds down for the night and rests peacefully, well as peacefully as a forest full of nocturnal creatures can be. They awake in the morning and prepare their spells for the day.
Alwin inspects the path to the door and then, once he reaches the door, begins searching it for traps.
Felos can only take move actions which means slow moving and taking it easy.
Tore will use his staff as a walking staff and stay towards the front of the group as they venture towards the monastery.
As everyone finishes preparing spells in the morning, John touches Felos with the now familiar warm white flame.
When the group sets out, he stays near the back with his two patients.
Before entering the yard, the path passes between a pair of old stone statues. While one of them is little more than rubble, the other is relatively intact. The 5-foottall statue is incredibly worn but it can still be made out as a dwarf holding aloft a great stone hammer. Moss and creeper vines cover most of its surface.
Tall grasses and chunks of stone debris have all but overtaken this small yard. Off to one side, a wooden stable has collapsed into a mound of rotting timbers and moldy straw. The outer wall on the east side has also collapsed, leaving a ragged hole. Three doors exit into this yard—a pair of double doors to the east, a single door to the north, and a lone door leading into the squat tower in the southeast corner.
Torgald grew silent as he looked at the statue. The dwarf knelt down beside it reverently removed the worst of the vines. ”We’re on the right path.” He said quietly. Then, louder ”To the tower. Keep eyes sharp and watch the ceiling. Who knows what beasts have moved in?”
As Torgald removes the vines he sees "“All praise, ......" Unfortunately the name was scratched out long ago.
Alwin begins moving carefully towards the tower door. Once there he begins searching the door and the area around it.
John does his best to stay right between Felos and Torgald as they carefully move forward.
Alwin searches the door and finds nothing but he does discover it is stuck shut.
"It would seem that this door is a bit stuck." Alwin states as he pushes his shoulder into the door.
Alwin pushes on the door and it pops open. Thick webs cover much of the ancient crates and barrels stored inside the base of the tower. A rickety wooden staircase ascends along one wall to reach an open trapdoor above.
Alphonso, Alwin and Felos see a spider up in it's web that drops down as soon as the door opens. The spider sinks it's teeth into Alwin. Alwin feels a burning in his veins.
Strength damage
Round 1
Party Up
Some acid flies high and sizzles against the far wall.
Alwin cringes as he feels the poison coursing through his system.
After recovering from the arachnid's terrible bite, Alwin steps back and fires an arrow directly at the spider.
”Make way. There be plenty of grudges against these eight legged fookers.” Torgald said, as he strode forward and proceeded to pummel the spider with his enchanted book.
oh, for f#ck sake…
John hurries after the impetuous dwarf and touches him to impart temporary health.
Alphonso will withdraw from the spiders reach backward out of it's reach and fire his crossbow
Caught off guard Felos only manages to hit the wall with his acid. Alwin jumps back and puts an arrow into the spider. Torgald then rushes forward and slams the spider hard. Tore swings at the spider and cracks it in the head. Torgald and Tore then turn the spider into mush.
Immediately after finishing the spider, Alwin drops his pack and appears to be exhausted. "That spider's poisonous bit has stolen my strength and left me in a very weekend state. I will need a few minutes to regain my breath."
Torgald prestidigitated his book clean. ”Aye lad, catch yer breath. Hopefully a creature of this size would defend it’s lair against competition. But we need to be on our guard nonetheless. Both from more and from what it hunts.”
After taking a few moments to catch his breath, Alwin gets up, retrieves his pack, and begins carefully inspecting the entrance of the tower to make sure there are no more critters inside. Noting that he observed the spider drop from above he spends extra time visually examining that area before entering the tower. Once he feels confident that their are no more spiders close at hand, he enters the tower.
Felos will stay outside in a nice sunny patch to keep watch while the others explore the tower.
He absolutely does NOT nap, though he may be more preoccupied with prestidigitating his fur clean than watching for creepy crawlies.
Alphonso will enter and search for any traps as he moves forward keeping an eye out for any more creatures as well.
Alwin and Alphonso have a look around and then enter the tower. As the walk around the old crates a barrels they find nothing of value.
After fully inspecting the inside of the tower, Alwin steps back out of the building's main doorway. "Seems the tower is small and vacant of anything useful. Where should be head next?" He asks while looking at Torgald.
Torgald opened the doors to the north and entered the building.
Glancing over at Torgald, Alwin points at the stairs. "Do you think those will hold a man's weight?
Whiles waiting for Torgalds response, Alwin begins inspecting the stairs for stability and traps.
John nervously follows behind Torgald, hoping to keep the impetuous dwarf alive.
Torgald shrugged. ”Dwarven craft will last. But this area was destroyed by some of the worst earthquakes since the Earthfall. It is anyone’s guess on how anything here is when it comes to safety.”
Alphonso doesn't know Dwarven engineering but he knows rickety stairs when he sees them and will wait and see if they hold hey let's try to keep everyone here and together? Every step of the way crazy things have been almost killing us
The stairs go up 30 feet to the open trapdoor and they appear to be untrapped.
Torgald walks into a long hallway ending in a ruined statue on one end and looking like it curves to south on the other. There are three doors to the north in this corridor. One barely to his right the others down to his left.
"Those stairs go up quite high and I'm thinking it looks like a thirty foot fall if things go wrong. Perhaps we should leave this as an option to come back to if we don't have any success in other parts of the ruin. For now, I think we should join Torgald."
After making his suggestion, Alwin heads north to join Torgald.
John eyes the doors with growing concern then looks over his shoulder, back towards the others they left behind. “Perhaps we should wait for our companions to catch up,” he suggests to the dwarf.
Alphonso works his way to Torgald as well.
Felos follows the group from tower to north doors.
”Aye. Come on lads! We can fall to our deaths later.”
After leaving his pack with the group in order to mitigate his weakened state, Alwin quietly attempts to move ahead and listen at each of the three doors.
Alwin starts at the closest door and moves down the hall. Behind the first door he might have heard some high pitched screeches and wing sounds. Behind the other two doors he hears nothing.
After inspecting each door Alwin reports back to the group. "One of the doors has obvious critter sounds behind it. If they heard me or not, I'm not sure. I'm not that good at being sneaky. The other two where silent, but that doesn't guarantee that there isn't something behind those doors. Do we wish to press on? If so, do we want to contend with the critters first? If we do then we could set something up on this side of the door and draw them into it. Any idea's at this point are welcome."
someone can pull the door open and I can color spray the room? Alphonso says with a shrug
”Colour spray won’t work if it’s just overgrown bugs,” Felos reminds him.
I was thinking more on the lines of melee on one side of the door and ranged attackers some distance away on the other side of the door. This would eliminate having to fire through comrades in order to land a ranged attack on the bugs.
If everyone is ok with this plan let me know and I will open the door once everyone is in place.
"Whatever we're going to do," John answers quietly, "we should do it quickly. If we wait too long the extra durability I gave Torgald will end before we find what we're looking for."
Alwin nods in agreement. Once everyone seems ready to go, he opens the door and steps back ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.