Dreadfulness in Dunwich PF1e+ (Inactive)

Game Master DeJoker

The Grippli present turns to Shekla, "What they say?"

Shekla waited patiently for Salaha's return, pondering what she might know about the nearby flora and the arcane energy surrounding this place. Once the guide returned she simply nodded her acceptance, but her attention was caught by the Grippli seeking a translation. Shekla pointed to Salaha and introduced her by name as she spoke.

Dain tries picking out what looks to be treacherous ground and keeps an eye on the surroundings.

Know-Geography: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16
Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (6) + 8 = 14

"Becareful, Dain, this is wetland," William warns. William has his swamp boots on.

Knowledge: Geography: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

Don't remind me. Ach..I need to keep a potion of swimming at hand

"Why do you need potion? Just use arms and legs. Just because you can not breathe does not mean you can not swim. But here, let us proceed slowly, following this route. Just appear competent but harmless." Salaha was sure the witch was paying more attention than anyone knew, but was unsure how much that was. To have such a people leave one alone meant something after all

Dain just shakes his head at her not noticing his armor and gear Plus the fact he is a dwarf.

"I hope the witch isn't hostile," William muttered to himself. He was hoping nobody heard that.

The group, except for Lars, Vilma and the Grippli leave the boat and start walking down the long questionable looking dock. It obviously looks like it has not seen any repairs in a rather long time. Further quite a few boards now and begin sag dangerously under Dáin's armored weight causing for brief moments of slower more careful progression.

After several hundred feet or so, shadowy image of a large tree looms ominiously through the fog.

OCC:I could use a marching order about now, and it looks like we might have lost Brand before they even got started. If not please chime in Brand. The dock is about 5 feet wide or so which means pretty much a single file order.

So as of right now we definitely have William, Dáin, Travoril, Shekla, and Salaha with a possible Brand. I am assuming Salaha is traveling via water, but please let me know if you are not.

The group, except for Lars, Vilma and the Grippli leave the boat and start walking down the long questionable looking dock. It obviously looks like it has not seen any repairs in a rather long time. Further quite a few boards, now and again, sag dangerously under Dáin's armored weight causing for brief moments of slower more careful progression (which is to say Dáin has to walk very close to the edge for solid support which gives Dáin a better view of those dark waters. Most likely more than he probably cares for.

After several hundred feet or so, the shadowy image of a large tree looms ominiously through the fog and marsh grasses begin wane.

OCC:I could use a marching order about now, and it looks like we might have lost Brand before they even got started. If not please chime in Brand.

The dock is about 5 feet wide or so which means pretty much a single file order.

So as of right now we definitely have William, Dáin, Travoril, Shekla, and Salaha with a possible Brand. I am assuming Salaha is traveling via water, but please let me know if she is not.

Sorry got pulled away during the fixing of the initial post, this post will constitute the official one.

Dain is really regretting his life choices right now.

*Creak*

Oh Lord Moradin...

Keeping close to Dain, clearly curious as to his adversion to the water a strange thing, Salaha would indeed swim next to him. She would on chance point out different swamp life in the water, such as frogs that made good to eat, or other smaller things. Perhaps that would help. Otherwise she would help guide the party slowly but surely just to make sure that everyone was safe and on the right pathway

"I'll help you if you fall through, Dain," William offered.

That would be like trying to swim with an anchor.

With Salaha in the water, Shekla stayed at the front of the procession on land. She might not have been the toughest, but she wasn't jittery and was comfortable enough in the swamp and the fog. She remained mindful of Dáin, and kept a steady enough pace with her hand outstretched for him to grab.

Let's call out and announce ourselves.

"I think she knows that we are here already," William said grimly. Still, the dwarf might shout.

Helllooooo! We seek to speak with you about a matter of great importance! A sickness is upon our village, and we petition your aid!

The group is standing perhaps about 60 feet from the base of the large tree but in the quiet of the marsh, Dáin's voice carries quite well. Stil the large willow-like tree stands motionless and quiet and the barely discernable windows of the large tree house remain vacant. Either no one heard Dáin's call, they are ignoring Dáin's call, or no one is at home to hear Dáin's call.

OCC: Okay since no one has given me a marching order I will do my best to make one with those who are present.

-------------------
. W . T . D . S
-------------------
.................. E

Ignore the . they are just for spacing. The --- are the edges of the dock most are standing on. W = William, T = Travoril, D = Dáin, S = Shekla and E = Salaha (aka Elf) best way I could come up with single letters for each.

Shekla snorted and shooed away a bug while waiting for a response to Dáin's call. "Thank you for trying, it was a good effort." She said, and slinked about five feet closer before lending her own voice to one-sided 'discussion'.

"Ulizmila! I am Shekla Stygg of Dunwich, my companions and I beseech you! Yes, even though the Grippli told us you have been missing for several seasons! We call out, just in case you might be back, and maybe sleeping, because we don't want to startle you! Ok? Awake now? Or at least still missing? Here we come!"

Shekla took a few stubborn steps closer to the building, and waved for the others to follow. She tried to stick to whatever might have looked like a path; and if there wasn't one, she chose a route that gave the tree a wide berth.

Dain follows.

William looks about, still. This part of the swamp was unfamiliar to him. "I hope she's here," he says.

The path was basically the dock which would deposit one fairly close to the tree and the ladder that ascended up to the tree house. However, Shekla is not able to get to the ladder she makes it about 30 feet, with the others following when she is attacked by one of the willow-like limbs which has a venus fly trap like mouth with long near-needle-like teeth with raspy edges. Along with the attack upon her there is an attack upon the rest of the group as well.

Dain moves up to help Shekla, drawing his holy book for some tree whacking.

Salaha gets out her trident, but instead of attacking calls out " If we try for the climb up, it may not attack us there on the tree itself!'

She then moves towards the tree, hoping to get close enough to get on the tree and climb up

William
To Hit: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 5 = 23
Damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5
Grab: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (4) + 9 = 13

He's been hit and taken some damage, and I think he's been grabbed.

"Ah, evil has reared it ugly head!" says William, and he casts magic missile at the plant.

Magic Missile damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

OCC: William unless I incorrectly recorded your CMD your character was not grabbed. Can you please validate that your character has a CMD of 15

Further I seriously hope we have not dropped to just 3 players, not that I cannot go forward with just three as I can it just reduces the flavor of the game.

Salaha keep in mind you have a -2 DEX from the poison you took earlier

Also, I still need Initiative rolls from Salaha and Travoril within the Discussion thread.

Also keep in mind you are on a dock that is not much wider than 5 feet and your assailants are attacking from overhead and they do appear to have a limited range, that is unless their vine like bodies are infinitely extendible. They also tend to recoil, like a spring, and then attack.

Lastly please make any attacks you wish to make, I will sort out the results based on Initiatives after the fact. There is no need to delay the game. Further its only 6 seconds so not a lot of time to dally on what your character chooses to do.

OCC: William unless I incorrectly recorded your CMD your character was not grabbed. Can you please validate that your character has a CMD of 15

I think you're right. William sidestep being grabbed and casts his magic missile at the plant. Whom he thinks is evil.

Dain will swat at anything getting close. Death to trees!

book of grudges: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 71d8 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

It seems Miradin is a tree lover.

Shekla growled at the tree. It was not her finest moment. Her Uriak blood boiled, she instinctively pressed her thumbs together and spread her fingers reader blast sheets of flame at the foul tree! But it was Ulizmila's tree -- destroying the thing, with fire in particular, probably wouldn't improve their odds of the witch helping them...

"Stupid...tree!" She cursed, and instead tried to pry the the fly trap off of her.

CMB to escape: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

Halp! :'(

cut the tree down!

OCC: It is a pretty massive tree being about 10ft diameter or so. As such it could take a good while to cut down.

Without much thought, Salaha tries touching the tree at the base. Maybe a calming hand touching it will help?

I'm trying to like calm the tree with touch... But I don't speak tree yet. What roll.

Travoril moves 30 ft back along the dock, trying to get out of range of the grasping tendrils, then fires a shot from his crossbow into the tree. "Ilyandrosara edarok! What in the Tarterian Depths of Carceri is this thing?"

Crossbow Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
Crossbow Damage: 1d10 ⇒ 2
Travoril's CMD is 15, so the tree barely missed grappling him. With luck, it shouldn't get another chance.

OOC: Okay Salaha that is trying to Influence a target. Which is part of the Diplomacy skill. However, when dealing with animals or plants, one may use their Animals skill (aka Handle Animals) instead of Diplomacy. However, as the skill states this requires a minimum of 1 minute of interaction, attempting to do it faster incurs a major penalty. Further because the character cannot communicate naturally with the target this incurs a major penalty.

Still I will say what Salaha is attempting, because she is a Druid, is to spiritually influence that target. Now, if the target were Aquatic in nature I would give you a bonus, but sadly it is not an Aquatic creature. As such yes you may make an Animals or Diplomacy check in an attempt to influence the tree but your odds are not going to be good. But as always I will let the dice speak, who knows you might succeed, as a Nat 20 always succeeds and a Nat 1 always fails.

Also, so you folks know I generally use your Passive Perception to determine how much you notice during combat. However, instead of moving during a round you can make an Active Perception check if you think you want to take a chance that you will roll better than a 10 and not worse.

OCC: As soon as I get Salaha's influence check I will post the results of the current round and move us to the next round.

Also for clarification, to use Active Perception during a single round, it will either take your Movement or a Standard Action to make that Perception check, otherwise I use your Passive Perception for that round.

Further, you are in fog which means anything beyond 30 feet has concealment. Of course concealing a non-moving collossal tree is kind of moot, I mean can you hit the broad side of a barn? Okay, maybe not quite that easy but pretty dang close.

However on the flip-side, the Tentacles are smaller and moving targets and right now the tree itself is not attacking just its tentacles. Yeah, of course, the tentacles are part of the tree, but damaging a 10 foot diameter trunk is going to be a lot harder than damaging about 1 inch diameter tentacle.

handle Animal for the hope: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (12) + 7 = 19

Dian holds his smacking for now.

Dáin standing next to Shekla is not so lucky as a tentacle mouth not only bites him but is able to sink its teeth in.

William blasts an incoming tentacle right in its open mouth and while it definitely had an affect it does not stop its forward momentum and he finds himself having not only been bitten but the creature sinking its teeth deeply into his flesh.

A tentacle attempts to bite Salaha but she manages to avoid it and get to the base of the tree and place her hands upon it in an attempt to influence its behavior.

Travoril moves away and is pursued by a tentacle mouth, however it stops short as Travoril has apparently exceeded its range. He then fires his crossbow at the distant shadowy bulk of the tree, and while he cannot see if he hit, he does here a solid thunk. How effective his shot was is unclear but he is pretty sure he hit it.

William tries to grab his wand of fireballs so he could blast the tree with a fireball.

William's grapple thing: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (18) + 15 = 33

OCC: Okay I will point out that what you were sent here to find resides within the treehouse, which resides within the tree and of the two the one most flamable would be the treehouse as its made of non-living aged wood. Something, I am sure William would be fairly aware of, although I do grant you perhaps he forgot about this in the heat of the situation. Still I will not tell you not to do something, but being as we are just getting to know each others play styles, I felt I should mention this.

Of course, if you have something up your sleeve that I did not take into context, then please ignore my comments. Players, surprise me all the time with wonderful ideas and creativeness.

Salaha keeps her efforts up to calm the tree, knowing they may not need to fight something that may be a friend to their end goal of the swamp visit. That doesn't guarantee that their query was here, but it was a good bet.

Hold off on attacking the tree! Let Salaha try!

Dain goes full defense +4 ac

He also tries to yank free.

cmb: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12

William holds off on attacking the tree.

As Shekla and William are mauled by the tree's mouth, Travoril hesitates, torn between fleeing and leaving his companions to die or standing firm and risking death himself. After a moment, however, he rushes back under the tree's boughs, trying to recall the words for a spell that might save the two battle-mages. "Here, Mister William! I can help!"

Cure Moderate Wounds HP Restored: 2d8 + 3 ⇒ (6, 3) + 3 = 12

After he heals William, he turns to the Uriak sorcerer in the tree's grip. "Hold on, Miss Shekla! I will come to your aid as soon as I can!"

Close to his previous position in the marching order. Turn and cast Cure Moderate Wounds on William.
I'll try and get to you next round, Shekla.

OCC: My most sincerest apologies for the delay, between unexpected work issues and family issues while I tried to post I would fall asleep at the keyboard in mid-process. To speed things up and get us back on track I am short circuiting the combat based on the current situation and moving things forward.

While Salaha works at communicating spiritually with the tree, she finds a mouth poised to strike but does not. She is able to call out to the others to retreat until she can hopefully make the situation better. In the back of her mind she cannot help but think or at least sacrifice herself so that the others would live.

The others fight to break free and soon find out that the stalks of the mouths are not overly strong versus slashing weapons and manage to cut themselves free and get back out of range.

While nursing wounds, all they can do is watch as Salaha seems to hug the tree while numerous mouthes poise over her ready to devour her.

After what seems like forever, but was probably no more than a couple of minutes Salaha reaches a seeming agreement with the tree. Granted she must stay in contact with the tree until the others can come in and climb the ladder to the tree house before she herself can ascend, it at least is a resolution that prevents any more injuries.

Soon the group finds themselves within the tree house proper, the main room is packed with numerous things of an alchemical herbologist nature which is often simply referred to as a witch. However the most striking element within the room is the dried husk of a humanoid sitting in a chair.

Then an eerie voice, as if speaking from beyond the grave says, "Be forwarned if you attempt to touch or take that which resides within this house you will fail. Still, I sense among you one that could inherit my estate, provided they are willing to take responsibility for the proper disposal of this husk that was once my body. If you agree, child of darkness champion of light I will gift this place to you. Do you accept?" The corpse's lips do not move and while at first it seems to eminate from the corpse a light eminating from a shrunken head-like talisman dangling from the corpses hand seems to be the actual source of the voice. This is evident mainly due to the light from its eyes slightly flairing with each word spoken.

OCC: To make it clear if Shekla is still with us she is to whom the spirit is speaking, if she is not William would be the next target, then perhaps Travoril. Still here is hoping Shekla is still with us and if she is -- change child to daughter

"Hmm," started William. "It's not evil to bury a corpse."

Proper burial so that a spirit may rest is a worthy goal.

Shekla stood back and let Salaha do the negotiating, once she was free of the biting vine. She was less inclined to trust the offered ladder after the attack, but only gave a gruff snort before making her ascent into Ulizmila's home.

The corpse in the chair was a bad omen on finding Ulizmila alive, however. Shekla listened to the amulet -- something in her blood told her she was 'daughter of darkness' it mentioned. Though champion of light didn't seem like a good match.

Shekla shrugged, and knelt down by the corpse. She didn't take the amulet, but she angled it up towards her face to look it in the eyes. "Okay. Proper disposal sounds fair. Necklace? How would Ulizmila want to be disposed of? Burial, pyre? Any special religion words?"