|
Laesah looks at the “dead” students, then sighs. She murmurs to herself.
She pulls out some rope from her pack and calls over the anadi.
”Goss, could you please fetch Master Ot or some other senior teacher here, please? We need to find out what they were doing here. They cast some sort of mind-control on me when we first encountered them so we definitely need to stifle their senses, too.”
”Threads, Ducreyi - we need to see what’s further on in this place. Would you take the honour of guarding these two until a senior teacher arrives?”
Laesah winces at the haughty answer she’s expecting from Dookie. She tries to mask it by getting out her healer’s tools and tending to Haunt.
"I don’t want to run into their buddies at half strength."
Much rubs her ribs and droops her ears in commiseration with Haunt.
"I've been better as well. That said, I think these two were guarding something. And I'd bet that killing them is going to warn whatever is on the other side of that trap door. Whatever happens next, it probably needs to happen now. Shall we heal Haunt and push forward?"
As you look over the bodies - The thoroughly smashed and dead bodies - you see signs of snake like features. And more signs appear slowly as you watch and heal hourselves. Teeth lengthen, pupils become vertical slits, and the scales start to emerge in patches on the skin. There are no signs of the beads or masks you might see on a student.
Goss nearly trips over himself as he backs out of the door. "Sure! I'll go get Master Ot! Of course!" He then runs out the door.
Ducreyi is not so eager to comply. "I am not yours to command, Laesah. Everywhere you go is chaos. Everywhere you go is death, weranga tukutuku. Threads, come with me. Or haven't you noticed that every time something tries to kill you, it's when these ones are around?"
Ducreyi leaves. Threads looks conflicted for a second then sighs, shrugs at you apologetically, and follows Ducreyi out the door. "Hope we see you around. Don't die, alright?"
While looking over the room and the bodies, the pack finds: a warcaller’s chime of destruction, two vials of hunting spider poison, two short swords, two hand crossbows, and two sets of thieves tools. The short swords and the bolts loaded in each hand crossbow appear poisoned already.
|
|
Laesah sighs at Dookie’s temper tantrum.
”I wasn’t expecting more from that petulant brat.” She rubs her forehead and looks at the dead sekmin. ”I guess guarding two corpses isn’t an honoured duty, in all honesty.”
At the discovery of their equipment, Laesah frowns. ”Why did these intruders have items used to shatter things?”
She swiftly agrees with Much.
Much drops to her knees near the trap door and begins sniffing intently around the edges.
Much doesn't detect anything out of the ordinary. The trap door smells of wood and the dirty trash that was parked on top of it. It's also locked, and the lock looks pretty complicated. You don't notice any traps though.
Maddox takes the lockpicks and gets to work on the trap door...
It takes some effort, but eventually there is a pronounced CLICK and the door is open. Maddox looks up at you blankly, awaiting more ideas.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
....There are no signs of the beads or masks you might see on a student.
Goss nearly trips over himself as he backs out of the door. "Sure! I'll go get Master Ot! Of course!" He then runs out the door.
Ducreyi is not so eager to comply. "I am not yours to command, Laesah. Everywhere you go is chaos. Everywhere you go is death, weranga tukutuku. Threads, come with me. Or haven't you noticed that every time something tries to kill you, it's when these ones are around?"
Ducreyi leaves. Threads looks conflicted for a second then sighs, shrugs at you apologetically, and follows Ducreyi out the door. "Hope we see you around. Don't die, alright?"
Before Ducreyi and Threads get more than a step past the door, Haunt - still crouched over Oyo's corpse - calls after them, "Hey, Ducreyi, you don't get to talk to Laesah - or anybody else - like that! Maybe you'll fight when it's your own butt on the line, but it sure seems like you don't care about anything or anybody else. You're the wererat ticktock, not Laesah."
"Threads, you and Goss are good people. Don't worry about us, we'll see you around."
Laesah sighs at Dookie’s temper tantrum.
”I wasn’t expecting more from that petulant brat.” She rubs her forehead and looks at the dead sekmin. ”I guess guarding two corpses isn’t an honoured duty, in all honesty.”
At the discovery of their equipment, Laesah frowns. ”Why did these intruders have items used to shatter things?”
She swiftly agrees with Much. ”Let’s advance,” she says, making eyes at her trio of compadres, then opening the trapdoor.
Haunt nods. After scooping the tools, weapons, and warcaller's chime of destruction into his magic bookbag until the Pack can get them back to the Stump for examination, the amurrun gets up and brushes ineffectively at his blood-matted fur. "Yeah, let's what these jerks were hiding. 'Hello, fellow students, we are hiding behind the death trap to avoid annoying teachers!' I can't believe I bought that from these... these... beadless bozos! Maskless mooks?"
He wipes his rapier blade on Oyo's robes to clean it then reluctantly sheaths it. "Don't like going down there without a blade in my hand, but I can't climb a ladder with my teeth." He peers through the open trapdoor.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Much begins stowing her stone rope to free her hands for the descent.
"I can go down first, if it helps."
She looks up to her friends and shows her fangs in a large grin.
"A Kholo is always armed, after all."
You make your way down the trap door ladder and find a tunnel. It's cramped but you can squeeze your way through in a single file. After a couple minutes of travel the pack reaches another door. Maddox steps up with his lock picks.
After a fair amount of fiddling, the door opens and he peeks out, then steps back and makes way for Much to take point. Much steps through and finds that the tunnel lead them to a knot out of the way shrubs - still on the campus, but in a deserted side street.
“Well, this isn’t what I expected to find on the other end of the tunnel. So it’s a secret entrance for murderous snake-men to sneak into an unused building and … play cards?” Haunt looks around in confusion.
“Should we go back and check those crates? And make sure those guys don’t have any friends hiding in the other rooms of the building?”
He scans the area for any sign of where Oyo and Mtembe came from, what the tunnel has been used for, or how many people have been using it.
It's hard to tell how much this has been used, or by how many people. You do know that there are at least a couple doors you haven't been through back in the storage building.
“Well, this isn’t what I expected to find on the other end of the tunnel... "
Much scowls and sniffs the air.
"I wasn't expecting to be outside either.
Much gets a better sense of things. It looks like only ONE set of tracks come and go this way, and they aren't the same size as Mtembe or Oyo's (though they do belong to a medium creature).
”Agreed.”
The pack makes its way back to the room with the trap door and finds Goss looking panicked. As soon as he sees you he sighs in relief. "I couldn't find you guys, and I didn't know if they got you somehow. I grabbed the first teacher I could find."
Next to him is Koride, wearing her typical aloof near-sneer. "What have you gotten yourselves into now?" She asks, gesturing at the dead bodies. The bodies have finished their transformation and are now fully snake men.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
“Goss and his friends told us there was something weird happening in this building, so we decided to check it out. We were attacked by animated statues before we even got to the door. Once we got past those, we spotted a secret door on one side of the first room inside, but the door to this room had a Serpent Ward trap on it! We disarmed it, and when we got inside we found two apparently “normal” humans in vaguely student-ish robes sitting around playing cards. They claimed they were just relaxing, hiding out from their teachers. It seemed fishy - if I’m going to dodge animated constructs and poison death traps, it’s going to be for a better reason that playing copper-ante card games with a buddy - but whatever, we aren’t the fun police. So we started to leave, figuring we’d ask around or come back later, but they attacked us as we walked out the door! They shifted into some kind of in-between shape, still looking more human than not but their fangs were long enough to rip my neck wide open and give me a nasty dose of venom on top of it. I went down hard and fast and would have bled out in seconds if Maddox here hadn’t patched me up almost as soon as I hit the ground. Much and Laesah did most of the work in taking them down and only then did they change shape to look like … well, like that!”
Haunt may be fully healed, but he is still covered with dried blood, most of it his own. He gestures to his blood-matted fur and points to the signs of the battle on his comrades as supporting evidence.
“Anyway, Laesah spotted this trap door, so once we were all back on our feet we went down to check out where it went. There’s a tunnel that leads all the way to the outskirts of campus, I think - it was pretty deserted. It looked like only one person had been using the tunnel, which means maybe these guys got in a different way. We haven’t checked out the whole place yet, so we came back to do that and to see if Goss had managed to bring back a teacher for us to report to - which he did! Thanks, Goss!”
Koride takes her glasses off, closes her eyes, and rubs at the bridge of her nose. "How can you be so careless, annoying, and somehow in the midst of all of that so impressive. A serpent ward is no simple thing, and serpentfolk have been a challenge for even the most adept. We've had them here before, of course. A school like ours has too much power to not accumulate spies. Still...
She looks around the room at the garbage and mess. ...an interesting location, to be sure.
With a brusque incantation, Koride casts heal to top off the party. "I can't have Ot saying I left his students injured," she says, then points at the bodies. "Those are your responsibility though. Report them and see they are disposed of."
With that she turns to leave unless you intend to stop her.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Much watches Koride's back disappear out the entrance.
"I appreciate the healing, but she's a b@#$!"
Her eyes go from the blood on Haunt and then trail down to the blood in her own fur before she sighs.
"Right. Next door then?"
The pack moves through the secret door in Delta Formation and sees a small room containing cleaning supplies. Slumped in the corner is the corpse of a lithe woman with a snake head, her face is locked in a look of terror. There are no obvious signs of violence. No blood, no wounds.
Otherwise nothing is remarkable about the room. There is a door to the north and a door to the west,
Haunt shakes his head in confusion. “So, this is what? Those two a$$hats were playing cards in the next room while another one of their group was literally scared to death in here?“
He looks around the room for any sign of what could have been so frightening.
You don't find anything in the room that strikes you as particularly frightening, and checking her body confirms what you suspect. She died of some sort of fright, and while there are no other signs of bodily injury, there is some sign of mental trauma, with bloodshot eyes and some traces of blood inside the nose that wasn't immediately visible.
Maddox also has no additional observations about the room and thinks everything is as it appears. He does take a moment to set "What killed this woman" as a lead.
[ooc]What now? To reiterate, there is a door to the North and a door to the West. The map should now be updated (and I just realized I wasn't doing fog of war).[ooc]
“Let’s start with the door to the west. That room probably connects to the room with the trapdoor.”
Haunt listens at the west door for sounds of gambling snake-men and/or horrors beyond the limits of what the humanoid mind can tolerate.
Much follows the group to the western door, briefly breaking Delta formation to drop on her belly at the door, listening and sniffing at the gap above the floor.
Bouncing to her feet, Much recasts shield, and plays a bit of rope out on her weapon before nodding her readiness to the group.
The pack uses all their senses and wiles to learn more about what is beyond the door, but they don't gain any new information.
The door pushes open and they enter in Delta formation.
Scraps of wood, feathers, and bones litter the floor and the shelves of this room. Atop a heap of wood are a few exquisitely carved pieces, as though from a disassembled wooden statue: muscled arms, broad feet, and a scowling face of excellent artistry.
Maddox says, "There's something interesting about those wooden pieces. It's like they are made to fit together..."
He's interrupted when the pieces begin to vibrate and snap together forming a wooden man that immediately lumbers forward to attack.
..."Oh, never mind." Maddox concludes.
The wooden man turns turns towards you and swings his arm towards Laesah and a long, jagged splinter flies towards her.
And misses. It then windmills the same arm and a series of splinters go flying, one at each of you.
The hissing sound of flying splinters is punctuated by snap of wood hitting stone and sinking into flesh.
Much leaps forward, closing to striking range and unleashing Flight of Starlings.
◆ Stride
◆◆ Flight of Starlings (Slam down)
|
|
Laesah winces at the deadly splinter that plunges into her ribs. Taking a ragged breath, the anadi assumes her favourite winged stance and rushes forward, flanking the wooden thing with Much.
”It likely has considerable resistances, but if I remember much from elemental magic class, it likely is vulnerable to fire.” Laesah guesses.
Haunt nods. “Fire makes sense, let me get a better look at it to be sure, though.” The amurrun glares at the wooden man for a moment before pulling a handful of ashes from an old campfire out of a pocket of his vest and wiping them along the edge of his sword and running at their opponent.
You can find the one weak point in a creature’s scales, wards, or armor to get past its resistances. When you succeed at Exploit Vulnerability, you learn about the highest of the creature’s resistances that can be bypassed (for example, if the creature has resistance to physical damage except silver), if the creature has one. If you prefer, you can choose the following benefit instead of one of the usual two benefits from Exploit Vulnerability.
Breached Defenses You can choose this benefit only if you succeeded at Exploit Vulnerability and learned the creature has at least one resistance that can be bypassed. Choose one such resistance. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes bypass the chosen resistance.
Much connects with the wooden enemy, sending chunks flying. One of those chunks flies directly at Much.
Which connects and leaves a bloody furrow in her shoulder, the pain dulled by Haunt's amulet.
-------
Haunt doesn't immediately recall much about this creature. He seems to remember that it is indeed vulnerable to fire attacks as well as lightning.
His attack scratches into the wooden hide, but does almost no damage.
-------
Maddox then rushes up to take a position between the group so he can heal effectively, reaching out to patch up Haunt first.
Seeing how little damage Haunt did with his rapier, Maddox then produces an unlit torch from his pack with his final action.
-------
Then the creature lashes out, sending attacks at all the people that struck at him.
Missing with most of it but landing a glancing backhand on Laesah.
Much looks down at the vicious splinter in her shoulders and feels queasy.
She swings out and around to flank with Laesah and resumes her assault on their attacker.
“Thanks, Maddox. Now what makes this thing so tough?”
Swap Item as a single Interact action is one of the best changes in the Remaster.
Much's attack again knocks off a splinter that flies towards her...
...But this time she ducks out of the way.
-----
Haunt still isn't sure exactly what's going on with this guy, but he feels like he ALMOST had it... He's not quite as close with his attack, which glances off of the creature harmlessly.
-----
Maddox lights the torch, hands it to Laesah, and then prepares to help the next person who attacks the creature, threatening it with sparks from his flint.
-----
Then the creature attacks, going for Much, since she keeps hitting it, and Laesah, who has fire in her hands.
It might be your imaginations, but the scowl on the wooden face seems to deepen as all the attacks miss terribly.
Much watches Laesah burning attacks blur across her vision and rethinks her own strategy.
Her eyes flick to Maddox,
"Maddox, torch please!"
The Wooden creature absorbs all the damage from the impact, but reacts terribly to the fire, it's carapace curling and scarring.
Maddox hastily produces another torch, lights it, then hands it to Much.
The impact from the torch sends another chunk of monster flying, this time at Laesah...
...Who effortlessly ducks under the projectile.
Much drops a hand from her stone rope to receive the torch from Maddox and then moves in to strike.
◆ Step
◆ Strike
◆ Strike
More smoke fills the air as Much burns the beast.
“You’re doing great, Much! And great effort, Laesah!”
Why am I having so much trouble reading this wood thing? Maybe it’ll be easier to understand what makes it tick when it’s in splinters!
Haunt's rapier scratches a thin line in the wooden hide, but most of the damage is turned away.
Enraged, the monster focuses on the ones who harmed it.
And again makes a fool of itself, flailing wildly.
Laesah dodges the attacks but fails to connect with her counter.
Maddox produces a third torch, lights it, then threatens the creature with it to aid the next attacker...
...and manages to get its attention.