Saria moves around the ant as well, flanking the creature with Doc, and stabs at the ant as well.
Saria's maneuver pays off as she punches a hole in the ant's side.
Round 2
Arodus 14, 4712
1930, 73 degrees, humid (outside)
Shathee 19/19
Aurie 20/26;
Doc adams 28/28
Saria 25/25
Cimrodel 18/18
Ant -6 moderately injured<<<
The ant spins around, moving inside Saria's guard and snaps at her. It misses.
Around the corner, Shathee and Aurie can see a group of three battling a giant ant. They recognize the three as being other young apprentices from the Pathfinder lodge.
Round 3
Arodus 14, 4712
1930, 73 degrees, humid (outside)
Shathee 19/19<<<
Aurie 20/26;<<<
Doc adams 28/28<<<
Saria 25/25<<<
Cimrodel 18/18<<<
Ant -6 moderately injured
Relieved that the ant is both focusing on her, rather than her companions, and missing with its attacks, Saria presses on, taking a step back and thrusting at it again.
Cimrôdel keeps his sharp eyes out for additional ants as he fires another ray at the one attacking Saria.
vs Touch
"One would assume there are thousands more where this came from, so having an efficient means of killing them seems our best defense."
Likely allies, moving to assist
Aurie whispers to shathee, as she charges in
Out of the shadows, figure with a flowing mane of red hair charges at the ant and likely lands a serious blow
Fellow pathfinders? We are glad to have reinforcements.
Doc steps forward to stab at the ant again with his rapier.
He hears Aurie charge in and braces himself for the ambush, throwing his hands up to try and defend himself. He exhales loudly when he realizes she is not attacking him and instead of answering gasps hard to try and catch his breath.
Seeing the oncoming figures emerging from the shadows, Cimrôdel is briefly concerned that this is an ambush. The reassuring words of the human, as well as recognizing the face as a local Pathfinder reassures him, however.
"Indeed we are, and reinforcements are most welcome."
With a jab, a splash, a slash, and a stab the four pathfinders kill the last remaining ant. They wait a moment but no new ants arrive on the scene.
After confirming that the last visible ant is dead, Cimrôdel nods at the newcomers and introduces himself, ”Cimrôdel.” Without waiting for a response, he moves to the nearest dead ant and starts mumbling to himself, ”type three? Hmmm, perhaps an open ended scale? Maybe find sevens and eights on some elemental or aligned plane, who knows.”
Saria chuckles as she sees Cimrôdel getting easily sidetracked to his thoughts on how best to classify the ants they just fought, and turns to the newcomers with a smile.
"And I'm Saria. Thanks for the help with the ant. We should probably be on the lookout for more, I guess. Are you here looking into those abductions, as well?"
Doc turns to the newcomers and gives a weak salute with his weapon. "They call me Doc. Maybe I'm wrong, but weren't you a Serpent Runner a couple of years ago?" He directs this question to Aurie. "I think I remember seein' you, and cleanin' up the effects of your blade skills on my crew. Glad to see we're on the same team now." He chuckles uncomfortably, sheathing his rapier and running his hand across his cheek to remove the bead of sweat dripping from his helmet.
He squints at the dead ant, and murmurs to Cimrôdel, "Are these classifications simply by size, or are there more complicated factors? If we are measuring the difficulty that Pathfinders will have defeatin' it-- its 'challenge rating' for lack of a better term-- then probably we'll have to rate our own capabilities as well to have any kind of meaningful scale."
Shathee steps forward and sheathes his weapon. "Greetings, I am Shathee. Yes, Saria, we have been looking into those in addition to a few other items. We've had some trouble with the Tower Girls but nothing too bad. I am glad to see a face that is not threatening nor attached to a swarm of bats." he adds with a visible shiver.
Doc grimaces. "Bats? I hate bats. But ants ain't much better, truth be told."
Cimrôdel turns to the others. "What is a Tower Girl?"
He looks at Doc and observes, "my quick assessment of your 'challenge rating' as you suggest would be a one. That is not what I was going for here, really. But maybe your idea has more merit."
The tower girls are a group of thieves led by a wererat with the fashion sense of a drunk dretch on demon drugs. They had set up shop here, and we have taken out their leader, after subdueing most of the rest of them. In the next room, there is weird magic stuff that disappeared 2 other pathfinders. The graceful redhead says with a slight shudder.
I am Aurie de Valois, duelist, I occassionally perform in the serpents run too, in that capacity.
She says by way of introduction.
There is a bat swarm roaming about, we did not have the tools to deal with it.
Cimrôdel considers this new information. "A swarm of bats you say. Well, I don't know much about bats, to be sure, but swarms are not easy to deal with. I would say that I cannot help with that. Perhaps an issue I should work to solve in my spellbook for the future. How did you escape them, if I may inquire?"
By taking a not entirely voluntary bath
"We cannot fly, but they cannot swim," Shathee said in agreement. "We waited them out under water and have avoided that area since."
Shathee kept his eyes sharp, wary of ants or anything else surprising them while they were conversing.
"I do not know how safe this area is, but am grateful to have fellow Pathfinders here. Can we join our strengths and assist one another? Maybe we can find our missing companions and see what else we can find before heading back to Heidmarch Manor."
"I am not opposed to you all joining us in our mission."
Cimrôdel looks to his companions for confirmation.
"I am very concerned about the disappearance of your friends though. I assume they were also Pathfinders?"
"Joining up seems like the best option." Saria nods at the suggestion. "Easier to protect each other that way, and it's not like our goals are too different, if you're also looking onto those abductions. Your companions' disappearance worries me, though. Think it might be related?"
"As for the bat swarm you mentioned... I might be able to help a bit. I did bring some vials of alchemist fire along, just in case, and with some minutes of focus, I think I can prepare a couple of spells to try and hit the things, too."
"I mixed up some alchemist's fire before I came here, so I've got a few flasks as well. But unless we're sure we've got to go that way, I'd rather we didn't." Doc's lamp waves around the room as he looks in different directions and gestures while he speaks. "What's down that way, where you came from?" he asks.
Shathee points over his shoulder, "Back there was a triangular room with a mural on the wall. That's where our parties disappeared with a flash of light from the floor. We should probably go there and see if we can determine where they went."
Maybe it didnt disappear me because I am red haired? As was the redhead that supposedly ran this place, although I strongly believe to be far more pleseant company. Yikes, that face on the mural looks angrier then a hungover Balor who accidently made his nailclipper vorpal and is now missing a limb.
Aurie offers
"Show me where this happened, and I will see if my arcane sight can discern the nature of what has happened."
If we get there, Cimrôdel will cast detect magic and try to discern the nature of any magical there...
+2 to ID magic item properties
Looking over the site Cimrodel can see the magical outline of intersecting magic circles with a strong conjuration aura. This was on the side opposite from where Aurie and Shathee so that is likely why they did not suffer a similar fate.
The newcomers see the stairs to the south.
You hear movement and the noise of soft talking periodically come from down the stairs.
"Also a small tunnel to the south in the ant room," Doc points out. "We'd have to crawl to get through it, but if'n we get stuck goin' this way, we can always double back."
"I am able to see the remnants of a fairly powerful aura of Conjuration. Conjuration spells include those associated with Calling, Summoning, and Teleportation spells. There are others, but they seem to not be involved here. Perhaps your companions were teleported, or summoned. It seems likely that they were not immolated or disintegrated. I have heard it debated that just as a caster on our plane of existence can summon creatures and beings from the elemental and outer planes, that the laws of magical reciprocity would require that beings on those planes could also summon us to their aid. If that is the case, your friends could be fighting for their lives right now, but even if they fall in that endeavor, they will return, unharmed, when their service ends."
Hmm, people from the material plane can certainly travel to other planes in the flesh, but if they die there they tend to stay dead, although yes, summoned beings vanish instead of remaining slain. she pauses
The thought that some devil could summon me is... deeply unpleseant.
engrossed in the conversation, she notices nothing else
Shathee's eyes begin to gloss over a bit as Cimrôdel explains the details of the magic. Several unfamiliar words cloud a bit of his understanding, but he nods with understanding at the end. He looks around a bit more hesitantly and begins closely examining the area of the circle from a distance so he can possibly spot them before anyone steps on the next one.
"We will need to be more cautious with our steps." Nodding to the mage he asks, "I may be able to spot them, but your magic sight could help the rest of us avoid them as well."
"As you say. I can continue to concentrate on this spell, but I may appear distracted otherwise and not able to walk as fast. I will need the rest of you to pay attention to our surroundings as we go. I will admit to never having tried maintaining this spell for such a long period though. It should work."
Cimrôdel will keep the spell up for its full 2 minutes, and then recast. This will use up my standard actions, which out of combat probably has the effect of slowing me down by half.
Saria listens intently to the conversation as it plays out. "While the summoned idea is interesting, Cimrôdel, don't the magic circles run counter to it? I'll admit I don't know as much about magic as you, but I thought those types of spells didn't require their targets to be standing somewhere specific? Sounds more like a magical trap to me. And don't worry about not paying attention, I'll keep an eye on things for you, so just focus on spotting more magic as we go along."
"And on that note" She turns to face the rest "do we keep going along this path, or should we go pack and explore the small tunnel Doc was talking about?"
"Given the choice," Doc mutters, "I'd rather not crawl through a tunnel unless we gotta. I can just imagine all the creepy crawly bugs and things that are down there waitin' for us. Even if they're only class 1 vermin!" He smirks at Cimrôdel, though he knows the elf is busy concentrating.
”Magic circle are sometimes part of the spell, and sometimes they are just for show. With that said, they do appear to have been integral to this particular casting. Again though, there are immutable laws of magic, to be sure, but there are also grey areas. Despite what Maester Finranth would have said, not everything there is to know about magic can be learned from a book. The very existence of hedge wizards and sorcerers is evidence enough of this. Now, am I explaining magic, or concentrating on this spell?”
Affirmative, protecting the magic specialist Aurie stays close to Cimrodel, weapon drawn.
Shathee nods and moves to the front of the group so he can keep an eye out for anything else as he moves forward down the stairs, eyes sharp and footsteps light.
About halfway down the stairs you start to notice spiderwebs. As you descend further the proliferation of webs and their size increases. At the bottom thick sheets of spiderwebs hang from the walls and ceiling of this filthy rubble- and trash-strewn room. In places, the rubble and garbage have been heaped up into mounds and shapes that almost look like undersized furniture—beds and tables and chairs sized for small humanoids. Down amongst this "furniture" you see little blue 'people' standing very still looking toward the light coming down the steps (doc's lantern). They stand about two feet tall and have very large heads for their size. They must have seen or heard you coming as the three you can see have their knives out already.
What are these? Aurie snarls but does not yet attack
Likely giant spiders too, watch the ceiling
Aurie advances to the front next to shathee, blades drawn.
Do you understand us? State your intentions. She states calmy, before switching to a melodic but dangerous sounding language.
Вы нас понимаете? Изложите свои намерения.
She asks, pronouncing each word as if it is both a lure and a threat.
Do you understand us? State your intentions.
Her intonation changes, and her vocal level gets about one octave higher, this tounge is much lighter, less emotive, and sounds mostly pleseant, a bit like raindrops falling on leaves.
我々を理解しているか？あなたの意図を述べなさい。
Do you understand us? State your intentions.
Before switching once more, into a rapid fire burst of sound, lively, quick, but not as melodic as the languages before.
Vai jūs mūs saprotat? Norādiet savus nodomus.
Do you understand us? State your intentions.
If its intimidate my modifier for that is the same
At the question, Cimrôdel will stop concentrating on his spell, and will study the creatures the group has encountered to determine what they are...
Shathee holds up. Not understanding Aurie's words and neither seeing nor hearing an immediate response from the small folk, he asks.
Vriende?
Te mau hoa?
Saria moves up next to Shantee and stands ready in case they move to attack.
"We're just passing through here and do not mean to harm you. But we will fight you, if you give us a reason to." She adds to the various words spoken by the others.
Doc tries a few of the languages he has that haven't been tried yet.
"Το καταλαβαίνεις αυτό Ποιες είναι οι προθέσεις σου?"
"האם אתה מבין את זה מה הכוונות שלך"
"tsi ir farshteyn dem vos zenen deyn intentshanz"
If the creatures show any understanding of anything he says, he will translate what Saria added.
The one nearest the steps looks quizzically at the others but answers Doc.
We wish for you to leave and not bother us.
He then waves to some others in the back of the room and several approach, two riding on spiders.
Doc conveys what the creature says to the others. "He says he wishes for us to leave and not bother them. I'll ask him if he's their leader." He turns back to the blue person. "tsi ir redn far di andere? zent ir der firer?"