Mezdav lands a stab on the plant.
Marz does a sidestep and tries to shoot again, focusing on the enemy not currently engaged in melee and without cover to her attacks.
Marz's arrow wounds the more humanoid-looking of the plants and Whisken scampers up
The plant totters on its roots, almost finished!
The plants renew their assault! The bush lashes out at Mohk and tears into his skin while wrapping a vine around him! Poison leaks from the vines into Mohk's founds (DC 14 fort save or be dazed).
The humanoid-one attacks Mezdav and slams its needly arms into him twice (4 and 4 damage). Things are looking a lot more dangerous!
"Aauhh!" The plant isn't the only one tottering, Mezdav is as well! He takes a step to flank the green beast and unleashes his inner wounded animal, punching and biting at the thing...
+3 str +2 flank
+4 str*1.5
+3 str +2 flanking -5 secondary natural attack
+3 str
Mezdav takes down the more humanoid-looking of the plants with a spiked, metallic punch!
Jermaine races closer to Mezdav, ready to keep him alive if he goes down, or at least try.
Mohk tried to break free of the plant. The poison was difficult to resist, but he just about managed. Still, he was leaking a worrying amount...
Mohk breaks free from the deadly plant!
Crenshaw tries to stab the plant twice but just gives it a tiny nick.
Marz drops her bow, pulls her rapier, and advances to help deal with the last standing enemy.
Whisken shoots another little jet of acid. "Yikes! Don't die, Mohk!!"
The plant thrashes its vines, trying to tear Mohk apart again. This time, the blind bard narrowly dodges its barbed, grasping tendrils!
"All my big spells are gone" Jermaine admits as he moves closer for another acid splash attempt.
And he tries not to wince as his aim is .. not great. At least I sapped some of it's strength earlier
Mezdav is hurting but game, "Urgh" he grunts with effort as he moves to flank the thing, and tries to drive home a longspear thrust as it distracts itself with Mohk.
+3 str +2 flanking
+4 str*1.5
Mezdav stabs into the plant but barely scratches it. Seems his spear is less effective than Mohk's blade.
"Trying!" Mohk agreed as he tried to keep out of the tendrils. He took another slash at the thing, hoping to fell it soon. Fighting was difficult, with so much sound and information coming from so many places...
Mohk's scimitar takes a HUGE chunk of the bush. Enfeebled and bleeding sap, it's not much longer for this plane!
Professor Crenshaw nods approvingly at Jermaine and calls out as she tries with her dagger "Excellent use of magic with that ray! If I hadn't run out of magic four hours ago, I'd show you young ones a thing or two myself!"
But reduced as she is by whatever bizarre, grueling experience she had in the First World, she simply slices a tiny bit off the plant.
"Thanks." Jermaine puffs up with pride, then remembers the thing is still alive
Marz five-foot-steps towards north, then loops around and swings her rapier in a stabbing movement against the creature.
Her attack is beautifully precise, but yet the rogue isn't sure of how effective her weapon actually is.
Marz's blade does indeed pierce the plant beautifully but barely makes any impression. The plant just lacks the vital organs that make piercing weapons useful.
Whisken fires another little spray of acid, too beat up to attempt much more. "At least I'm getting good practice at what I read in Caustic Fundamentals..." she mutters.
The acid jet whizzes right over Mohk's head and hits the wall, sizzling a tiny bit.
Desperate, the plant lashes out at the one right next to it, who has been actually damaging it seriously. But Mohk hears the vines whistling through the air toward his legs and jumps deftly over them!
"Please die already!" He lines up a shot and tries again with the acid splash.
Mezdav can see his longspear is making no real impression on this leafy foe, so rather than stab it again, he tries something different; with a wide sweep of the long pole, he tries to knock it's legs from under it!
+3 str +2 flanking
Jermaine lands another splash of acid while the canny Mezdav knocks the plant down! Unfortunately, its multi-directional assortment of branches and roots don't seem to be affected at all by Mezdav's clever maneuver.
Well, hacking the thing apart seemed to be going well so far, so why stop a good thing? Mohk tried again.
Crenshaw slices into the plant a tiny bit more. She puffs "Goodness these old bones are tired."
Despite the inefficacy of her weapon, Marz doesn't have anything better to try - so she insists on attacking again.
This time, however, her rapier absolutely misses any spots.
Whisken zips a little more acid at the plant but she misses again with all of her allies crowding around it!
The plant tries once more to finish off the pesky Mohk but can't manage it! It's hanging on by the threads of its roots...
Frustrated, Mezdav goes back to old reliable, putting his back into it as he drives his spear into the core of the brush...
+3 str +2 flanking -2 PA
+4 str*1.5 +3 PA
Mezdav absolutely HEAVES his spear into the core of the bush. Despite his weapon being far from ideal, he uses enough brute force to tear up a little bit of the main trunk. All of the bloodbrush's branches droop and it stops moving!
The old master of artifice heaves and wheezes, slowly catching her breath. Then she grins at all of you "Well done, students! Not many first years could have kept their cool, much less actually helped! I would like to reward each of you, personally." She winks. "Especially if you can be discrete about my little experiments here."
"Master Creenshaw, thank you for the praise , and given my prior education and the fact we may have broken a rule or two to rescue Whisken and stop this, I suppose I can't fuss about how bribing us seems a bit shady, but more than one of us nearly died because of these little experiments. Some are hurt, Mezdav is nearly dead.. how are we supposed to cover up their wounds? And what if this sort of thing happens again?" Jermaine is a bit shaken, and a straight laced fellow, finds this ethically dubious though he looks to his peers to see what they think of all this.
"I can do discreet, but there may be a problem with being discreet. Clearly, these two followed you through your portal. The grimples followed you through the portal as well. How many times have you used the portal? What else may have followed you through? There might be a few more loose ends."
Crenshaw nods to Jermaine. "Oh yes, yes. I can help with any wounds now that I have some time to breathe." She reaches into a bag and pulls out a half dozen healing potions (CLW at CL 1) and hands them around. Then she pulls out a half dozen more and chugs them all herself, starting to look a lot less frazzled.
"Ah! Much better. I have used it a half dozen times on my very important project, young Mezdav. I'll admit I got a little distracted in the past and did not always watch the portal until it closed. From now on, I will be much, much more careful! I swear!"
Then she scratches her chin. "As to more infestations, I will personally search the campus and surrounding grounds before resuming my experiment."
Marz collects her weapons and organizes her gear again, silently looking at the ratfolk and analyzing what's going on. She isn't fully convinced of the purity of intentions...
"Professor, you have to get the Gremlins back home. Can you send them back?" Jermaine says sounding decided about this at least, "We promised them we'd try to help them.. and frankly back to their home is safest for us all."
"No more outbreaks of rashes, at least," said in a dry tone, resisting the urge to scratch.
Mezdav slugs back his potion while thinking...
then he speaks up: "Yeah, we promised to send the Grimples home. But perhaps not right now. The Maester has used most of her stuff for the day , and I am also mostly out of tricks. If we open that portal, something else could come through. So let's wait until tomorrow and be ready for trouble when the Maester opens it..."
Crenshaw tugs on one of her ears, thinking. "Yes... yes... tomorrow would be better. Can we convince them to stay put in the meantime? I imagine part of why they have been a problem so far is that gremlins are so small they can slip under doors and through other small cracks." She beams at Mezdav. "As to assistance, yes! I would be happy to have you search some of the less... er... sensitive parts of the campus! And I'm sure we could agree to some satisfactory compensation."
Marz crosses her arms behind the back, and nods peacefully.
I believe we can talk them as such, or at least I hope. Considering what's going on, we don't even actually have to argue for it.
The rogue looks tired, resources fully worn off, but somehow accomplished - she was considering a bonus if she even left the place breathing, as her main concern was rescuing Whisken.
Jermaine looks dubious but says "Let's hope they don't attack again, or cause chaos but ... you do have some good points." He looks over at others "Someone else will have to translate"
...He looks over at others "Someone else will have to translate"
"Don't look at me, I don't speak their gabble."
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...
Hello! I'm Jon, and I'll be running the second part later.