The group leaves Boss Skrawng to his own devices and heads back to the main courtyard of the keep. Kka talks as they walk. "The mitflits said something about the scorpion being up north, so it's got to be somewhere behind one of the two doors we haven't tried yet."
She scoots ahead to the first of the doors. "Let's try this one. The other one's blocked with rubble so we'll need to climb up through the hole in the ceiling to get to the other side." "aaaand... I hate climbing"
Kka does her usual door checking and finds no traps and the door unlocked. She pulls out her shortword and stands aside. "Okaay Lough, looks like it's a little stuck like all the others, but nothing that you caan't handle."
Cherry Berry watches as Lough forces another door. Outloud they say. "We really need to get Lough a crowbar."
The ceiling of this room has fallen in two places. A smaller collapse destroyed a flight of stairs that once led up to the now‑ruined upper floor. A larger collapse mostly buried the southern double door, leaving a hole in the roof partially blocked with several crossed timbers. A second double door to the north has a stone face carved with skulls caked with tangles of moss.
Inside the room is a horse-sized scorpion with enormous pincers, and a stinger the size of a human's hand. Mitflit limbs and body parts are also scattered across the room. The scorpion looks up in surprise as Lough comes crashing in and snips its pincers in anticipation of lunch.
Kvit
Sam
Scorpion
Kka
Lough
Cherry Berry
Kvit and Sam may act! Lough may make a free Intimidate check because he crashed through that door so smoothly.
Kvit moves to see what the situation is as Lough bursts open the door. Seeing the huge scorpion, his baser instincts almost kick in as his whiskers and tail twitches in preparation to run away. He tries to regain his composure and raises his staff. "We gotta slow that thing down! Watch out for the slick areas, I'm casting grease in its path."
When Lough uses his shoulder to smash open the door as if it were made of balsa wood, Kka is impressed. "Criiikey Lough! I don't think we'll be closing that door behind us."
She spots the scorpion beyond and feigns surprise. In a flat voice totally devoid of any actual astonishment, she says, "Oh look! It's a giaant scorpion. How unexpected."
Sam drops into her Archer stance and unleashes two arrows at the scorpion.
She will fire a third shot at the creature.
Lough bursts through the door and automatically falls in a defensive crouch. With the door open, Kvit launches a glob of grease at the floor, making the scorpion lose its footing and fall prone. Sam follows it up with several arrows, of which only the first hits.
Frustrated by the sudden assault, the scorpion gets up and tries to move out of the Grease.
Several of its feet skitter below it, but enough find purchase that it isn't off balance. It ends right at the other side of the door and tries to poke a pincer through at Lough, but luckily, Lough's shield is in the way.
Kvit
Sam
Scorpion - 8 damage
Kka
Lough
Cherry Berry
Giyozara
Everyone may act!
Sam fires twice more.
She then runs back behind Kvit to keep her distance from the large scorpion.
Kka kicks herself for not having gotten the drop on the scorpion. "Dang it! That thing is faster than it looks." Then carefully ducking under the probing pincer, Kka steps spryly into the doorway and quickly jams her shortsword into the scorpion's maw before ducking out to Lough's other side where she has more cover from the creature.
Cherry spends a thought to try to identify this specific kind of giant scorpion even as they draw and fire their bow at it.
◆
◆Interact, Draw longow
◆
Grabbing is an action, and constriction is also an action, so if it hits with its first action, it'll probably go for a constrict.
Sam's first arrow hits the scorpion right next to the previous arrow. Cherry Berry's arrow also hits, piercing its exoskeleton and dealing extra damage!
Kvit
Sam
Scorpion - 27 damage
Kka - actions pending
Lough
Cherry Berry
Giyozara
Bold may act! Scorpion is bloodied!
DODON-PA!
cold damage.
One thing though, since it's a hard corner, I don't think you can Step around it, you'll have to Stride. Or Step twice, ending up right in front of it.
Kka kicks herself for not having gotten the drop on the scorpion. "Dang it! That thing is faster than it looks." Kka then quickly pokes her head around the corner to see if there's a way for her to get close enough to attack the scorpion without her almost immediate (or proximate future) death as a consequence. She sees no such approach. "Argh! I really have to get myself a bow to go with all these nice arrows I'm carrying about."
Seething in frustration, she opens her beak and emits an ungodly screech in the direction of the scorpion that puts the hairs up of anyone within hearing range.
Seeing that the spellcasters and arrow shooters have the situation under control, Kka then steps back out of possible range of the scorpion and tries to blend into the shadows to prepare in case the creature breaks out of the room.
|
Lough's panicky reaction defensive coordination prevented him from coming to harm, and, bolstered by the luck, he advances into position to engage the nasty bug, struggling against every natural instinct to run!
◆) Raise Shield
◆) Step
◆) Snagging Strike
{Fighter}
Requirements You have one hand free, and your target is within reach of that hand.
You combine an attack with quick grappling moves to throw an enemy off balance as long as it stays in your reach. Make a Strike while keeping one hand free. If this Strike hits, the target is flat-footed until the start of your next turn or until it’s no longer within the reach of your hand, whichever comes first.
Kvit stays well away from the door and slings a bolt of electricity towards the scorpion. Then raises a shield of force... Just in case.
DC 17.
Giyozara's Ray of Frost hits the scorpion right in the face, slowing it down somewhat. Kka yells at it, but it's not very impressed. Lough hits hard and puts the creature off balance. Kvit follows it up with a lightning zap. It barely evades, but it's still hurt by the sparks. Hurt enough that its legs give out under it and it collapses in a big heap on the ground, unconscious.
The ceiling of this room has fallen in two places. A smaller collapse destroyed a flight of stairs that once led up to the now‑ruined upper floor. A larger collapse mostly buried the southern double door, leaving a hole in the roof partially blocked with several crossed timbers. A second double door to the north has a stone face carved with skulls caked with tangles of moss.
|
|
Lough reflexively feels for holes in his torso with his free hand, instead finding himself fully intact.
Grinning, he turns to Kvit "Remind me not to mess with you" and enters the room careful to walk around the greasy floor, assessing the viability of being able to jump up and climb over the sundered stairwell to the second floor (if need be)...
Once convinced that the scorpion is actually dead, Kka follows Lough into the room. She carefully steps around the still slippery areas of the floor but notices that the grease was already dissipating and would soon be gone. She looks down at the giant corpse and gives it a solid kick with her hoof just to make sure. "Thaat'll teach you to mess with us." She is still a little rankled that she was unable to help expedite the creature's demise and gives it another even harder kick to vent some of her frustration. The rogue then gets down to searching the room thoroughly.
When they finish searching the room for anything of interest, Kaa goes to the northern door and carries out her usual examination.
You all notice a weird tingling sensation in the air. The whole room suddenly spins around until it's only a blur, then suddenly stops, having changed dimensions and composition altogether. The dead scorpion is nowhere to be found.
The ceiling has collapsed in the southwest corner of this room. The walls bear several shelves, but the books and papers once kept here have rotted to ruin long ago, as have the desk and chair in an alcove to the northeast
You look through the room. The remains of the desk have mostly rotten away, but a drawer has been left untouched by the elements, and contain three flasks, each with a neatly hand-written label. You find a lesser comprehension elixir, a minor elixir of life, and a lesser skeptic's elixir.
Kka feels dizzy for a moment and then notices that the scorpion's corpse has disappeared. "Thaat's odd. Where did he get to?" When no answers are forthcoming, she shrugs. "Oh well. Maaybe we'll run into it again sometime." Adding to herself, "...still dead, I hope," though a little part of her wouldn't mind it coming back to life to give her another shot at it.
Kka also gets a Hero Point for correcting the GM!
Kvit's whiskers twitch erratically for a moment as if something was wrong but then settles. "Where'd it go then? Huh, this place is giving me the creeps even more. Let's see if there's anything else useful. Nice find there Kka."
Cherry Berry looks around, but eventually nods and put their bow away before entering the room.
"Anything interesting Kvit?
Kvit pokes around the room when he feels a slight breeze on his whiskers. Looking around more closely he finds a seam that would probably indicate a secret door. "Aha, There seems to be another secret door here. If we can just- find- the. Ah, here. This stone is a bit loose and is probably the mechanism to open it. Everyone ready? In case some more "scary" mitflits are hiding in it?"
Kvit pushes the block in towards the wall to activate the mechanism.
Once again, Kka is flabbergasted that she missed the now obvious secret door during her search. "What's going on here!? I'm supposed to be the one finding the secret hidden stuff. How embarassing." Her mood, already darkened by her inability to do anything against the now missing scorpion, does not improve.
She comes over to have a closer look at the door. A little grumpilly she says, "Yeah, yeah. Secret door. Good job there Kvit." She gives it the once-over for traps and then stands aside for Lough. "Right behind you big man"
A stairs down reveals itself. Probably where the mitflits came from.
Kka looks down the stairs. "Nice of them to provide us with a civilized waay to get down to the lower level. I was not looking forward to climbing down that sinkhole in the other room." She turns back to the group. "How about we leave that for another daay; we still have quite a bit to deal with up here..." and then glancing up through the hole in the ceiling at the eerie Gauntlight looming above them, adds, "... including an evil mist to taake caare of."
She goes back to the northern door she was examining when Kvit found the secret one. Patting it with her hand, she says, "Let's see whaat's behind this one next, shaall we?"
Kvit nods and hits the mechanism again. "Yeah, let's not mess with the "mushroom people" today"
"Yeah, we need to clear out this floor and deal with that evil bleeding mist upstairs first."
When Lough moves into position to go through the door, Kka grips her shortsword tightly and slides in right behind him. "Ready when you are, Lough. A one! A two! A three..."
Cherry has their bow out and ready this time. Having learned that so far, almost everything in the tower has been immune to their cleric spells.
With a bit of effort, Lough pushes open the next door.
This triangular room might have once seemed comfortable, but after years of rain and exposure to the elements through the two arrow slits in the northwestern wall, the room’s divan, armoire, and tapestries have fallen to decay.
Under the divan, something metallic is clearly visible.
Kka notices a secret door behind the remains of a crumpled wall tapestry.
"Hey, anyone notice something shiny under that divan?"
Kka's bad mood disappears in a fit of excitement when she finds the secret door. She does a little cloppy dance in place and thrusts her arm up into the air in triumph. "Ha! Gotcha!" "... and about time too. Sheesh!"
Noticing Lough looking under the divan at something, her interest is piqued. "What it is Lough? Anything valuable?"
Seeing no other way forward, Kka checks the door for traps.
Cherry walks over and looks at the divan before shrugging and pulling it aside.
Cherry Berry finds a ring of keys. Rust has taken its toll on six of them, but two bronze keys remain intact.
”Hmm, looks like we won’t need to pick some of the locks. Wonder where that secret door leads. Man they were fond of their secret doors here, eh?”
Kka listens gravely at the grimy door. She hears nothing and grins. The rogue then gracefully grips the edge, grits her beak and grinds the door open slightly with a grimace. Glancing through the gap she sees a small grubby closet, which she inspects closely.
When everyone is finished with the keys, Kka snags them for a better look. "I better hold onto these. If we come across any doors with locks, I'll give them a try."
As Lough tries to open the second door (the door handle is a skull you have to turn), he notices this door is slightly ajar, as if someone left it open last time they passed through. Right on the other side is a dead dwarf slumped against the wall, a hand outstretched, but just can't reach the door handle.
The air in this large chapel feels colder and damper than elsewhere in the ruins. Condensed beads on the walls run in rivulets across the countless skulls carved into the stone. A moldering human corpse lies slumped against a wall, his hands wedged into a crack as if he died trying to pry a brick loose. Three short flights of steps lead upward to a wider chamber to the north, where a semicircular dais supports an altar of white stone. Beyond the altar loom four stained‑glass windows, each twenty feet tall and depicting four haunting scenes of ghosts rising from overgrown graveyards toward a four‑pointed orange star above.
Near the back of the room, two other corpses are also slumped against the wall. When Lough spots the yellow one, pale blue flames flicker in its eyesockets and rises up with clear hostile intent. From several holes and gashes in its body, the same pale blue light emits, as if a flame is burning within the body.
Yellow
Kka
Blue
Lough
Kvit
Cherry Berry
Giyozara
Sam
Yellow staggers forward, then tries to bite Lough. It clearly hasn't had practice in a while, and it instead headbutts the wall.
"Soooooo...... Hungry....." seems to emanate from within the body.
Kka can act!