If Félicité didn't do the Doctor's Visitation, she had two actions left; she would have attempted Disturbing Knowledge (and not have moved).
vs the one that was more damaged on Félicité's turn, I think it was still Red
The flames dancing up and down the blade in Gregoth’s hand have lost their white-hot brilliance, but they still leave a trail of glowing embers in the air as the large man walks around the pair of spirits. His eyes, now grey instead of bone-white, stare unflinchingly at the ghost between him and Kaldren. His arm rises, then falls.
Turrey sings a song of courage, attempting to inspire his companions to victory. As he does, he weaves in a thunderous shout, aiming to disrupt the banshee that's attempting to conceal itself.
Félicité managed to break through the banshee's fury enough to frighten her slightly.
Gregoth repositions and strikes, and finds his sword swishing through the banshee who screams in pain as well as rage.
Bellaluna is fooled by the strange Spectral Ripple of the banshee, and finds she was aiming at the wrong place.
Turrey targets the same one with a spirit blast, and the banshee's form is almost blasted out of existence. She hangs on though, fuelled by anger.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
Inspire Courage: Everyone has +1 status bonus to attack and damage rolls, and to saves against fear effects (until Turrey's turn on round 3)
Félicité
Red Banshee
Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
➤Kaldren
Blue Banshee
Kaldren moves to a more advantageous position and unleashes another wave of positive energy at the ghostly creatures.
◆ Stride
◆◆ Eradicate Undeath Fort Save DC 37,
Kaldren burns the Banshees with holy energy. The more injured one resists burns away to almost nothing, but the other seems to resist some of it. She turns to Kaldren with hatred in her eyes and tries to attack him! As she moves she also ripples strangely.
◆ Stride
◆ Strike
◆ Strike
She can't seem to push her hand through his magical armour though, which only makes her angrier.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
Inspire Courage: Everyone has +1 status bonus to attack and damage rolls, and to saves against fear effects (until Turrey's turn on round 3)
➤Félicité
Red Banshee
Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
Kaldren
Blue Banshee
Félicité moves in and heals Gregoth.
◆ Doctor's Visitation
She wonders if she could possible strike through the Red banshee's defenses.
◆
With Red's defenses up, she defers the shot, and instead, she ◆ Guides Kaldren.
Gregoth blades slices through the banshee as she moves, and disrupts some of her ghostly form. At the same time Félicité quickly patches up his negative energy damage and gives Kaldren some Guidance.
The more injured banshee strikes at Kaldren.
◆ Strike
As her touch chills his heart, he feels Turrey's inspiring song fading into the background, too distant to help him.
Kaldren feels despair start to overtake him at the banshee's terrifying touch.
◆ Strike
Restless, she then moves in a small circle, causing her rippling form to become indistinct again.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
Inspire Courage: Everyone has +1 status bonus to attack and damage rolls, and to saves against fear effects (until Turrey's turn on round 3)
Félicité
Red Banshee
➤Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
Kaldren
Blue Banshee
Gregoth’s feet drag him after the wounded spirit. As his arm rises, brilliant flames race up it and lick the sword in his hand hungrily. Bone-white eyes stare flatly at the ghost, then soften into pity and sorrow as shining tears leak from their corners. The sword falls.
Turrey continues to sing of hope, as he shoots twice at the unconcealed banshee.
Turrey maintains his song and fires a pair of quick shots. One hits, but despite the bang it doesn't seem to faze the banshee at all.
Gregoth moves and swipes at the almost gone banshee, and as his sword passes through her, the rest of her form dissipates, and then coalesces into a small shining ball. It seems to exude peace, and it languidly moves back through the weak wall.
Bellaluna fires a pair of shots at the remaining banshee. The hits explode spectral matter, and the banshee looks back at her spitefully.
↺ Vengeful Spite
Bellaluna feels a pulsing explosion of pain in her head when she meets the banshee's gaze, and rising feeling of dread.
Kaldren ◆ Smites the remaining banshee, then strikes at her.
◆ Strike
His flail smashes through her ghostly form, and she reacts angrily as if injured. She flies toward Bellaluna , and wails again!
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
Inspire Courage: Everyone has +1 status bonus to attack and damage rolls, and to saves against fear effects (until Turrey's turn on round 4)
Félicité
Red Banshee
Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
Kaldren
Blue Banshee
As soon as the banshee approaches her and wails, Bellaluna moves to get some distance between them as she reloads both of her crossbows.
Bellaluna and Félicité steel themselves against the banshee's wail, but Turrey was taken by surprise and feels like he's aged 30 years in a heartbeat.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
Inspire Courage: Everyone has +1 status bonus to attack and damage rolls, and to saves against fear effects (until Turrey's turn on round 4)
➤Félicité
Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
Kaldren
Blue Banshee
The white flames wreathing the sword in Gregoth’s hand leave a harsh afterglow in the air as the large man walks around the ghost. He pauses for a moment. Burning tears leave burning trails on his cheeks and through his beard. The sword rises, and falls.
Kaldren tries to pursue the banshee but the touch of the creature seems to have taken its toll on him and he stumbles. He swings his flail toward the creature but is off balance and his strike lakes his usual precision.
◆ Stride
◆ Smite Evil vs Blue
◆
◆
Félicité has no good shot, but she blocks the banshee's path towards Turrey and Bellaluna. ◆
◆ Shield
A dry gasp escapes Turrey's mouth, as he struggles to keep singing in the face of the banshee's life-sucking wail. Using all he's got, he attempts to overwhelm the hateful sound with Shelyn's beauty.
He continues to sing of courage, and makes one more attempt to damage the banshee with an arrow.
The interaction between Greater Juggernaut and Counter Performance is a bit of a head-scratcher. Normally I'd say that any of these "When you roll a success you get a critical success instead" apply to just rolling the save, not taking the result. So Gregoth wouldn't get a critical success from this Counter Performance, he'd take the Success rather than his own Failure, but not a critical success because Juggernaut wouldn't kick in.
However for this spell, Success is arguably worse for him than Failure, because he takes half damage when he rolls a Failure, but you take full damage on a Success (that Gregoth would normally not be able to get). That makes me think the only consistent ruling is to allow the Counter Performance to count as having been rolled. Now going back to the text it seems like a plausible reading (where result of the performance check means numerical value), so I'll go with that for now. i.e Gregoth and Kaldren both get Critical Successes because of that Counter Performance
Turrey's note of defiance rings out pure and true, drowning out the banshee's wail and lifting everyone's hearts at the same time.
Félicité bravely stands in the way of the undead horror while she struggles to calculate the best way of attacking.
Turrey continues his song and weaves his musical bow into the performance. He strikes true, but his arrows pass through harmlessly.
Gregoth strikes at the banshee, and her rippling form almost dodges it. His blade sears through her ghostly form as if she were flesh, and she screams even louder in pain and fury. Very little of her remains.
Kaldren moves up into flank and strikes.
With a mighty swing, Kaldren sends the angry spirit on to the afterlife.
Félicité
Turrey
Gregoth
Bellaluna
Kaldren
Kaldren takes a moment to catch his breath and then turns to the rest of the group "I apologise, I did not expect breaking the magical glyph would release such undead horrors. I still think we need to know what is behind this wall however."
Félicité would need one hour to clear drained. (Legendary Medic)
vs Turrey -43, Bellaluna -45
After the battle, and with the screams ringing in your ears, Félicité tends to the injured. Kaldren needs the most care, his very life essence has been drained away from him.
After enough time recuperating though, he feels much better, as does everyone else.
Afterwards, Kaldren easily breaks down the flimsy recently-erected wall, and finds the broken corpses of the two tortured elves. One is dressed more finely than the other. The more finely dressed corpse is glowing with a faint, flickering light.
Kaldren recognises the light as coming from a fragment of a spirit, still clinging to the material plane. He calms it with a few simple pharasmin rites, and the corpse speaks a final time.
"Thank you. I have lingered to warn you. The worm at Galt’s heart rises! It has three priests here in these crypts, enacting a dire ritual with the other Gray Gardeners. They seek to complete the evil scheme the worm began. Defeating the worm’s priests will delay it, but to stop it entirely, you must defeat the worm here in the crypts. End its murderous reign of terror!"
With that last, the light fades. Félicité finds it trivial to discern that the corpse was that of a diplomat from Kyonin and her assistant, and that they were both subjected to torture before being bricked up in this room alive and left to die of thirst.
The diplomat's corpse has a magical bracelet, and both corpses have exquisite brooches worth 1800GP each.
Félicité, Turrey and Kaldren all agree that it is a Dispelling Sliver
Afterwards, you choose a door and venture forth!
Beyond the door is a short hallway that turns to the right. After about 20 feet or so you come to another door, which after careful examination turns out to be unlocked. When you open it though, on the other side you find only blackness. The sounds of groaning come from somewhere within, and you all recognise it as your friendly alchemist Keznin Nevarmo.
Kaldren casts a powerful light spell on his flail, but that too fails to penetrate the darkness.
Bellaluna looks at the magical darkness, then down at her crossbow.
I mean…can’t hurt to TRY.
She then walks up and plunges her Brilliant crossbow into the darkness.
And if that doesn’t work, she tries again. And again.
Félicité puts a hand on Bellaluna's shoulder as Bella plunges her crossbow into the darkness (presumably) unsuccessfully. Then, she rotates the lenses in her glasses (goggles of night (greater)) 90 degrees, and peers into the darkness with greater darkvision, describing with detail what she sees.
Bellaluna's crossbow winks out and back on again each time as she plunges it into the darkness, and she eventually gives up.
After spending ten minutes composing the beginnings of a hopefully melody, and an hour of Félicité's ministrations, Turrey feels himself again.
Turrey says, "Hold on a moment," and then begins to sing.
"O fair auroral skies—O morning dew upon the grass!
The wet of woods through the early hours,
The forenoon purple of the hills,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
In the freshness the soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west."
As Turrey sings, the darkness seems to swim and shudder like a living thing, and by the time he is sustaining the last note, it has burned away like mist on sunny morning.
The room is revealed by Kaldren's light now to be large and circular, with a yawning pit in the centre. Five stone platforms hang over it, each anchored to the ceiling thirty feet above by heavy chains. Each platform bears dried bloodstains. One has a suit of broken and empty armor on it, and another contains the slumped figure of Keznin Nevarmo, groaning feebly. He is chained to the platform by heavy chains secured with manacles.
The broken armour seems oddly to be in two separate pieces, almost as if it had been cleaved in half in a single stroke.
Turrey detects a powerful aura of abjuration magic in the room, but while neither he nor Félicité can discern its function, both Bellaluna and Kaldren have religious inspiration and understand that this effect will block all teleportation in this room, and in the pit.
Kaldren moves around the room to the passage nearest to Keznin and judges the distance between the ledge and the hanging platform. "I will go get him."
He leans his flail against the wall and backs up the passage way to get a running start.
As Kalder prepares toleap, Turrey pull out the priceless violin, and proceeds to play a soaring violin solo.
[/ooc]Woot! That might be a +4?[/ooc]
With Turrey's guidance, Kaldren takes a running jump, and gracefully leaps onto the platform with Keznin. The instant he lands, a deep rumble issues from below and the whole room starts to rotate around the hanging platforms, causing the exit archways to face stone walls instead of exits, and blocking you in!
In the same moment a huge pendulum blade forms in the air, and arcs toward the platform with the armour on it, knocking it into the pit before disappearing again. The armour falls, and you don't hear any sound of it hitting the bottom. The pendulum then winks out of existence as wisps of magic suggest others are about to form.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
➤Félicité
Pendulum Pit
Kaldren
Bellaluna
Gregoth
Turrey
This is a bit awkward to represent. I made a copy of the map before Kaldren's leap in the slides, and then the room rotated so the exits face stone. I've marked the exits with white boxes, the location of the exits previously are just wall now but they still look a bit like exits because I'm bad at photoshop / gimp. I hope that's clear!
Félicité will activate the winged rune on her armor, and flies over to Kaldren.
"The platforms may be magical, but the rotating room is probably mechanical - Gregoth and Bella, see if there's an 'off' switch!"
Two huge feathered wings unfurl behind Félicité, and she flies over the pit next to Kaldren. A dizzying sense of depth comes from the pit as Kaldren's light illuminates only the upper part.
Five pendulums made of pure force shimmer into existence, and arc inexorably toward the platforms, one pendulum for each platform. The arcs seem chosen to be the most deadly, and everyone has to react to keep their skin!
The first Pendulum slashes a horrendous slice along Kaldren's arm and knocks him off the platform!
↺ Grab an Edge
He manages to grab onto the platform with both hands and dangles down, his fresh wound dripping blood into the pit below.
The evil blade continues in its arc and also gives Félicité a grievous wound, but she manages to avoid being dragged along.
The other blades slam into the other heroes, it's all they can do to avoid them just enough to keep their limbs attached. Just after impact the pendulums vanish, and you can all see sparkles on the other side of the room as they start to be summoned once again.
Active Effects:
Psychic Pressure: Recall Knowledge DCs are increased by +2 and Stupefied DC is increased by stupefied value.
...
➤Kaldren
Bellaluna
Gregoth
Turrey
Félicité
Pendulum Pit
Bellaluna instinctively draws her other crossbow, but is blown back against the wall as several pounds of pure force just impact with her, opening a large gash on her chest! She glances behind her at the vaguely elf-shaped imprint in the wall where she impacted.
”Welp. Let’s try to not have that happen again.”
Bellaluna stores both of her crossbows and grabs onto the wall to get some height.
Turrey gasps in pain as the pendulum nearly bisects him.
I'm not sure I could take another of those. Time to end this!
He attempts to fly above the reach of the blades on his trusty flying carpet, considers how much arcane might he needs to dispel these, and then sings out a song to disperse their magic.
Félicité will drop down a little into the pit so she can duck under the pendulum.
She attempts to disable the scythe.
Gregoth watches Bellaluna ascend and nods. The sword slides back into its sheath, the shield clanks as it hits the stone floor, and the man springs up and grabs the wall as though suddenly possessed by the spirit of a spider.
Gregoth and Bellaluna both scramble to get out of the way of the pendulums, with Gregoth's leap seeming to defy gravity.
Turrey unwinds the magic of one of the pendulums with a soaring song as he shoots upward. Félicité goes the other way and drops beneath the platform, where she can scratch out key runes along the edge. While there she tells Kaldren to hold on a few more seconds.
Three force pendulums shimmer into existence and swing across the platforms, but they cut only air before disappearing, and Félicité quickly disarms the remaining platforms. When she disables the last one, the room rotates back into the original position, revealing the four passageways again.
With a nod from Félicité Kaldren pulls himself up and tears Keznin's manacles apart with his bare hands. Keznin is drifting in and out of consciousness and badly wounded. The only thing saving him from those pendulums was being so tightly bound to the platform.
Turrey picks up Kaldren and Keznin on his carpet and carefully deposits them on the outer edge, before leading a retreat to regroup and heal.
As Keznin receives Félicité's ministrations he comes round to full consciousness with an alarmed shout.
"By the lady, I feel like I've the most awful nightmare. Where am I?"
It quickly becomes clear that he doesn't remember much after some Gardeners burst into his shop yesterday evening, which Félicité judges to be the result of head trauma. He's lucky to be alive.
"Wait, I do remember something. Someone in my dream said that there was three groups were performing a ritual and they mustn't be disturbed, or the Great Worm wouldn't be able to enact its plans for Galt"
He shakes his head and scratches at his beak.
"It can't have been Great Worm though can it? That must have been dream logic. Probably Great One?"
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Félicité Treats Wounds (Ward Medic: 8 per 10 minutes)
0-10 min:
Kaldren 183/278
Bellaluna 140/222
Gregoth 214/314
Turrey 105/204
Félicité 143/242
10-20 min:
Kaldren 233/278
Bellaluna 190/222
Gregoth 264/314
Turrey 155/204
Félicité 193/242
20 min:
Kaldren 278/278
Bellaluna 22/222
Gregoth 314/314
Turrey 204/204
Félicité 242/242
Turrey gives their host a rueful smile. "Thank the Eternal Rose, it's a miracle you survived that ordeal. Truly, you're made of sturdy stuff. And I'm afraid your dream was correct. There's a horrid wurm that these cultists are attempting to summon.
"I'm not sure what the safest course is for you now...but perhaps you should just come along 10 paces behind us? Hopefully, we'll deal with any foe before they can get to you."
Gregoth shakes his head. “If we find more screaming ghosts, it could be your death. The priest of Pharasma would be safer.”
after Félicité's demonstrates her astounding medical knowledge to heal the party quickly to full health, you send Keznin to safety and press on, eager to put an end to the Worm's reign of terror.
Returning to the pit room to find it much as you left it, you proceed down the north-eastern passage, and carefully open a stone door into a chamber beyond, where you find another bare burial chamber. The one has several metal doors lining the walls, one of which is ajar and a stone sarcophagus appears to have been dragged into the middle of the room. The room is dark, but the rim of a double door to the east is illuminated with the flickering light of candles and the familiar sounds of chanting.
You carefully search around before deciding what to do.
The lid of the sarcophagus is slightly ajar and within you detect the aura of a magical blindfold within, and the room from which it has been dragged has a carefully concealed secret door that leads into a passage to the south.
Turrey nods. "If we can get you to Nellibet, I agree that that's the safer course."