Vildran is hesitant to run down the hall and put himself within arms length of their latest horror.
Though it’s hard to see the battle from her vantage point at the rear, Autumn does catch a glimpse of the rascal attacking Morga, and that’s enough. She gives it an intimidating glare and with a twist of her outstretched fingers, she pries into the creature’s mind with dark tendrils of magic. Like Vildran, she stays put, away from direct harm and out of the worst of the heat.
Frustrated his arrows are ineffective once again, San swaps his bow for his warhammer and moves to support Morga. Kicking at the things legs, he attempts to bring it down before positioning for a swing from the hammer.
Woozy from the spells and the hits and wondering why everything else is moving so dang fast, Morga steps into a flanking position and raises her shield once again. "Wwwwhhhaaattt'sss hhhhaaapppppeeeennnnniiiiinnnnngggg?" Her hand is moving agonizingly slowly toward the light hammer at her waist, but she hasn't grasped it yet.
What if we backed up through this passage and forced them to pursue us back to the last room? We could surround that door and let them have it one by one! Jevar suggests as the chaos continues. He's not sure who will hear him or if he's talking to himself as they defect themselves in the next room.
The two rascals begin laughing in unison, a strange, high pitched sound that doesn't match their bodies. Without even getting up, the blue rascal bangs twice on the nearby anvil with its hot poker before spinning it down at San's feet . The other rascal takes its sweet time coming to the aid of its fellow, making a racket as it does. It seems more interested in enjoying the show than exerting itself to kill you.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
Vildran (stupefied 1)
San (7 dmg, stupefied 1)
Morga (14 dmg, slowed 1)
??? Yellow Rascal
??? Blue Rascal (20 dmg, prone)
"These things are insane! Give 'em some space, make them come to you."
Following his own advice, San brings the warhammer down twice on the prone creature before backing off.
Autumn quickly nods in agreement with the elves, glad that Vildran has snapped out his earlier daze. “Morga, get back here!” she calls while thrusting one of her patented phase bolts through her companions and at the yellow rascal. Then she retreats to make room in the narrow corridor.
Vildran focuses on his staff, but not to conjure its flames.
Another barrage of blunt force shards speed towards the visible creature.
Vildran waits for the others to continue backing up and pass him.
The world slows down again. Or maybe she speeds up? Morga's not sure, but time seems to be normal now, for what it's worth. Normal enough for her to realize she's been left alone in this room, heavily wounded, with Thing 1 and Thing 2 blocking her preferred exit. Sure, there's another door, but she has no idea what's on the other side of it. "I'd love to, Autumn, but Bonkers and Clonkers here have other ideas!" She growls, stepping back and ducking back behind her shield before slapping a poultice on the worst of her wounds.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help. Oh no. She gets a sinking feeling that soon she'll be floating in the dark again, just like all the other times she's been dead. Will she be pulled back to the light again this time? Or will her allies be too late?
On the other side the yellow rascal is struck by a phase bolt from Autumn. Morga's defensive stance leaves the creature uninterested in her - it instead ambles leisurely after San, stabbing at him with a hot poker that he deftly avoids.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
Vildran (stupefied 1)
San (7 dmg, stupefied 1)
Morga (14 dmg)
??? Yellow Rascal (8 dmg)
It's leaving Morga alone! Good...
Vildran's staff thrusts past San and shoots a bolt of fire at the remaining... rascal?
He then backs away into the prior room.
"I'd love to, Autumn, but Bonkers and Clonkers here have other ideas!"
“Then help San!” Autumn counters—it would be hard for the strangely playful creature to defend itself from simultaneous attacks from opposite sides. She gives the remaining rat-thing an absolutely withering glare, then flings a phase bolt at it. The magical bolt momentarily stutters out of existence to pass through San, but doesn't materialize again until after it passes through her target too.
Dodging the poker, San repeats the strategy that worked on the other creature then backs away again.
“Then help San!”
"Working on it!" Exasperated, because she can't heal and attack and defend at the same time (gosh, that would be a great trick to learn!), Morga draws her new light hammer, dashes after the remaining creature, and tries to cause a dent in its skull.
The rascal scrambles awkwardly to its feet and hisses at Morga. It summons up reserves of motivation and strikes twice at her with its hot poker. She easily knocks the first swing aside, while it almost impales its own foot with the second. It cackles at that particular turn of events.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
Vildran (stupefied 1)
San (7 dmg, stupefied 1)
Morga (14 dmg)
??? Yellow Rascal (22 dmg)
Is it over yet?
Vildran rushes around the corner and into the passage one last time to see, and this time doesn't hold back at all when he throws his staff forward.
Following up the gout of flame, San comes in to knock the creature down again before following up with another hammer strike.
Pressing their combined attacks, Autumn gives their remaining foe the evil eye, then thrusts another phase bolt at it. This time she times it perfectly—the arcane energy blinks out as it passes through the two elves, but then rematerializes into a deadly magical shard that impales the rat-like rascal.
With each swing of her hammer, Morga grunts: "Vectors of...disease will... be put DOWN!"
With the strange, erratic creature caught between you, the team barrages it with attacks. Morga and San smash it with their hammers as Autumn blasts it in the chest with her phase bolt and Vildran scorches it with a wave of flame. Crushed and burned, the creature collapses. A few moments later, both rascals turn to black dust, leaving only the hot pokers behind.
Combat Over! You each gain 80 XP.
You look into the smithy now that its been cleared of its boisterous fiendish occupants. The forges here are very much still functional, though there's signs of damage from the creatures playing with them a little too violently. Atop the larger of the two anvils sits a dwarven longhammer made of cold iron. Its rugged make has clearly spared it damage.
That hammer looks nice. Morga, you might have a whole collection of hammers by the time we're done!
He turns to focus on it...
Vildran doesn't detect any magic from the room or the hammer.
Not expecting a plethora of bookshelves in this smithy, Vildran frowns slightly as he takes another look around the room. He won’t say out loud how boring he now finds it.
Given the opportunity he will refocus.
Even with the incurred injuries, San seems to be bouncing on his toes. Like that last fight was energizing rather than taxing. Calming down a bit he stows the hammer and helps with the investigation. Rather obviously, he comments, "This must be where they did the actual working of skymetal. I wonder if Rusthenge is that skymetal they worked..."
With the last whatever-it-was definitively defeated—and disintegrated into dust for good measure—Autumn ventures slowly into the smithy, more from distaste for the infernal heat than from caution. Now that she has time to think properly, she wonders out loud about the strange bloated creatures. “What were those things? They were having far too much fun, at their own misfortune as much as ours. And why would they be here?”
Unlike Vildran, she ignores the hammer and instead searches the room for anything else that might be of use, albeit without much hope.
"I second all your questions and statements, Autumn." Morga grumbles, grimacing as she begins treating her wounds.
"Gah! I can't even reach them." She gripes. Shaking her head ruefully, she casts a couple of spells to heal herself and San.
Sighing heavily, she shakes her head again. Why's it gotta be so weak now?
While Morga patches her own wounds and slightly alleviates San's ones, the rest of you are able to rest and refocus. Autumn briefly searches the room, but finds nothing more of interest. Just a lot of rusted scrap and a few simple tools for working the forges here.
“What were those things? They were having far too much fun, at their own misfortune as much as ours. And why would they be here?”
It's hard to say why much of anything is here at the moment, aside from the cultists. The rascals, the magic absorbing ooze.
He shudders visibly at the last one.
I suppose it's fortunate that the townspeople hadn't stumbled upon this place before the cultists arrived.
Vildran looks towards the closed door that leads Eastward out of this smithy.
There is little space left in this complex to explore. If we're fortunate we could make short work of these final rooms and obtain peace of mind to explore at a more leisurely pace, heal our wounded freed townsfolk, and so on. Everything will be better once we are rid of cultists!
Perhaps overly-optimistic, he's feeling somewhat energized by how little he perceives is left of this floor. He cautiously listens at the Eastern door. While he does so he fishes the wand of grease out of his belt.
“So much better,” Autumn nods in agreement with Vildran, though she doesn't necessarily share his rosy optimism. “Let’s do this.” Eager to get away from the uncomfortable heat, she also listens at the door and, should she hear nothing, cautiously opens it a crack to peek beyond.
"Hold it, you two. Let me go first." Morga hefts her shield up and leads the way out the door .
San nods in agreement, hammer at the ready. Shrugging, "This place is too cramped to make good use of the bow."
Continuing eastward, you open into a passage that looks somewhat familiar. The door to the north end of the passage is closed, but the one to the south is quite alarming. It appears to have once been iron, but between the rust across its surface and truly horrific tears and dents, it is clearly no longer functional. Beyond, you can see it looks into a corridor leading south - at the end of that corridor a heavy barricade of furniture and loose stone has been erected to block entrance to what must be another room.
Morga checks the door to the north and finds it secured by a heavy padlock.
When she notices Morga tugging at a padlock, Autumn confidently strides forward and gently motions for the dwarf to step aside. “Let me handle this,” she says, putting away her crossbow and pulling out a small tool roll. “I found these at Elsie’s,” she explains innocently, selecting a slender lock pick, “and thought it might help disable the apparatus in the …” Her voice trails off when she glances at the remains of the southern door.
Concealing a worried gulp, she suggests “Why don’t you figure out what happened there, and I’ll deal with this?” Regaining her composure with a deep breath, she bends down and begins fiddling with the padlock.
“Or not,” she grimaces when her tool abruptly snaps in half.
The barricade against the far door at first puzzles Morga, but after staring at it for a moment, an uneasy thought dawns on her. "What were they trying to keep from getting out of there?" Considering how often the denizens of this dungeon have managed to take out the members of this team, she's not confident that she wants to know what's on the other side of that door. Even so, she cautiously approaches, watching each step for traps, and inspects the barricade, walls, door, and ceiling for any clues as to what may be found on the other side.
Vildran smiles and holds out his hand for Autumn to hand the tools over.
Well, what better place to get a look at these than a smithy?
Of course he'll use his own repair kit, but that room is certainly conducive to the activity. On the way by Morga he stops, asking
Do you want to blow on these for good luck?
Absentmindedly, Morga casts Guidance on Vildran. She does *not* blow on the tools.
“Thanks.” Autumn gives Vildran a little nod and gets back to work on the padlock.
Almost immediately, the same lockpick snaps in half again. "Heinous," the sorceress scowls in an annoyed voice, though she refrains from blaming the wizard for a faulty repair job. Bowing to this sign from the gods, she leaves her tools on the floor. Evidently she's had her fill of the lock.
"Not like there are cultists in there anyway, with a padlock on the outside," she spins her failure as unimportant. "Or in there," she gestures beyond the barricade, "and we are so not releasing whatever did this." She looks meaningfully at the terrifying tears and dents gouged in the iron door.
"I think all the cultists are gone, from this level at least. Shall we check to make sure there's none in any of the rooms we searched before?"
Vildran hears another crack and heads over to the door. He makes sure not to make eye contact when he takes the picks.
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Not wanting to waste the wizard's efforts at repairing the picks again, Autumn grudgingly accepts the tools from Vildran and, with a sigh, tries to pick the lock again ...
... only for the defective pick to snap for a third time.
"No," she glares at Vildran as she quickly rolls up her tools and puts them away in her pack, "we are so done here."
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San stands by as the lock seems to continually foil Autumn's efforts. Staying with Morga, he also checks out the door. His curiosity seems to be matched by whatever is on the other side of the door. As the shenanigans with the lock seems to be coming to a close he returns to the door and call out. "Hello in there! Do you need assistance?"
Morga nearly jumps out of her skin when San calls out loudly to whatever is on the other side of the barricaded door. Eyes wide, her head slowly turns upward to give him a look that says: "Are you out of your *mind*?!"
Like Morga, Autumn doubts the wisdom of San’s attempt at parley, but unlike the dwarf, her reaction is more muted—she simply arches a quizzical eyebrow in response.
"What if they couldn't handle Ordwi and they stuck her in the room?" San shrugs as he gives his explanation.
Leaving aside the locked room, Autumn sneaks around the check the other nearby rooms. The cage room is empty and the hallway to the north connects back to the lab and ritual room that you'd already explored. She doesn't come across any cultists. Everything seems mostly quiet.