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Seeing Garen is BADLY hurt Didn't I just clean these people up recently? the noble and selfless gnome How am I gonna get myself in the stories if all I do is tend to boo boos? keeps singing, and then moves to the Paladin and heals him as best she can. "Don't die, Garen! It's too soon in the story for that!"
Prisoner Pits - Round 3 - continued
20 Ari
15 Isidiana
11 Grod (7/18hp remain)
10 Koruvus (4hp dmg)
10 Garen (13/22hp remain; smite vs Koruvus)
9 Tot
5 Zombies
Moving lithely for a big fellow in heavy armor, Grod moves to flank the blue sinspawn. As he moves the horrible creature bites Grod but the warpriest finishes the beast off with another mighty axe-blow. The bite damages Grod, but worse, it enflames his mind, sending it reeling through all the distorted memories of wrathfulness.
From the rear, Izzy provides some musical healing to Garen who is narrowly hanging in his fight against the mutant goblin.
Backed into a corner, the mutant sidesteps slightly and then launches a series of attacks against Garen. The paladin's divine blessings protect from what surely would've been lethal attacks, and he takes no damage at all.
Tot finds herself overextended after her rush. She manages to bat away the clawed strikes without getting hurt, but the monster lunges forward before she can get her sword arm back behind her shield. She grimaces in pain as the teeth sink deep and her mind reels as a boiling, white-hot rage wells up within her. Pent up emotions and repressed memories of her life before running away mix with her anger at what had happened to Ameiko thanks to the innkeeper's treacherous brother and the residual self-incriminations for not being able to stop it or do much against the quasit in the party's fight against it into a potent and dangerous brew, but Tot's mind proves to be of sterner stuff than her self-confidence. She wrenches her arm free and shakes away the thoughts and the rage as Grod draws the thing's attention. By the time she's cleared her mind, the monster is down, leaving only the goblin.
Ignoring the pain from the bite, she moves to where she can help Garen flank it.
"Garen! Box it in," she calls out, daring the goblin to do its worse as she gets into position and waits for Garen to get across the horrid mutant from where she stands before striking.
Thoughts of wrath rush through Grod's mind, but as a warpriest of Gorum, that's normal. His priestly training allows him to maintain his focus with barely any effort.
Prisoner Pits - Round 3 - concluded
20 Ari
15 Isidiana
11 Grod (7/18hp remain)
10 Koruvus (15hp dmg)
10 Garen (13/22hp remain; smite vs Koruvus)
9 Tot (15/21hp remain)
5 Zombies
Grod and Tot are both able to fight off effects of the wrath that threaten to overwhelm them.
Tot slides over to set up flanking with Garen, and scores her own hit, damaging the strange goblin.
Garen steps into the invited flanking, then continues smiting Koruvus who is looking pretty ragged.
The zombies continue to flail but cannot escape their pits.
End of Round 3
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The gnome calls out a joke in goblin, a joke so profane, so inappropriately funny, that it includes at least two bleeps and a reference to Koruvus' mother.
Ari sees a clear shot at the strange goblin and sends an arrow at it....
Weaving around the rickety-looking wooden grates, Grod arrives next to Tot and takes a swing at the goblin.
Prisoner Pits - Round 4 - concluded
Grod ends the fight with one massive axe blow that cuts the mutated goblin completely in half.
End of Combat
Izzy tells the joke but stop the release of it's power and blinks as Grod BISECTS the freaky goblin.
Now she gawks, "Kneel before Grod." Then she coughs "I mean, nice shot. Glad my song helped."
With the fight over, Tot lets out a sigh of relief. For a moment, she thought the goblin monstrosity had gotten the better of Garen.
"I hope we're coming to the end of the monsters in this place," she says. "I don't think Garen nor Grod can survive another fight like that one."
As she talks, she shifts to put her wounded sword arm out of sight of the others. Better that healing spells be used on those who are effective in a fight, not on someone who struggles to even hurt her opponents, she thinks.
Ari moves over to one of the pits and looks down in it.
"It looks like those things, zombies?, are trapped. But how can we destroy them without releasing them first? Arrows don't do much against undead."
He turns back to the group and the strange goblin. Remembering the glowing sword he casts detect magic, first scanning the goblin for any other magic, then studying the sword.
"Light a fire and drop it on them," Tot says, sounding as if she's done that before.
"As long as we don't let the smoke overwhelm us, that should work. Cheaper than holy water too."
Ari considers the options and nods. "The smoke would drive us out, and I don't see any way to vent it out. Maybe we could go and get a couple long spears and drive them through the frames over the pits. Run them through a few times. The creatures are resistant to spears, but a strong thrust will still do some damage."
Realizing that they weren't at the end of the corridors Ari moves across to the other door. "But we can destroy the zombies later. The haven't escaped yet so I don't think there's much chance. Let's see what is that way."
"Honestly, I think the smell would drive us out before the smoke would," Tot admits when the others point out more sensible ways to deal with the undead. Once everyone's ready, she joins Ari at the door, in case something beyond it needed to be thwacked or held off while Grod and Garen come in to finish it off.
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"Okay, later for the Zombies," She strains her ear muscles, the mightiest muscles in the gnome body besides the mouth ones.
Grod shrugs and heads out with the others. A few zombies won't trouble us, no need to overcomplicate things.
The (now) 2 halves of the goblin carry a silver dagger, a masterwork handaxe, and the faintly glowing longsword that Ari sees radiates magical aura. It does not have any other coins or loot on its person.
While the group contemplates how to dispatch the zombies, some peer through the open doorway to the south. It seem to lead to a long hallway which seems to have one side passage to the east about 60' down. A little further one, the hall ends in a single door. Nothing untoward (relative to the location, that is) is seen heard or smelled from the hallway.
Ari moves carefully down the hallway, searching for any dangers. If no dangers are found he examines the door carefully. He waves Tot along with him so she can back him up.
"Oh Tot, you should take it and name it. Maybe Sinslicer! Or Blue Ribbon, since it is a prize!" She suggests.
Despite herself, she smiles at Izzy's suggestions.
"Thank you," she says. "I'll take it for now. We'll see about giving it a name."
Tot, newly acquired sword in hand, hurries to catch up with Ari.
The passage to the left seems to lead to stairs that descend, but you pass them by quickly. The door at the end of the hall is unremarkable, no traps or writing is seen, and no sounds are heard from beyond.
Given the all-clear by Ari, Tot shifts her new sword to her shield hand and opens the door, making certain that her shield is between whatever may be on the other side and Ari and herself.
Opening the door reveals a strange room that is a 15' diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space as if weightless - a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of wriggling maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of this room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red metal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.
Not seeing anything overtly threatening, Tot looks to Ari.
"I'll go first," she says before bracing herself for a slide to the bottom of the sphere and stepping through the door.
As Tot crosses the threshold, she has a giddy sensation as her feet leave the ground, and she floats into the spherical space. She immediately beings levitating, floating in the sphere along with the other items in a slow orbit.
Tot yelps as she finds herself floating several feet from the floor. She looks about as her breath comes fast and shallow. She shivers and curls into a tight ball when she sees that Ari and the hallway where things are normal and not some mad mage's idea of fun are too far for her to reach.
[b]"Get me down. Get me down! Gimme down! She cries and closes her eyes, but she still feels the the giddy sensation of floating through the air like a mote of dust on an updraft.
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"That is AWESOME! Me next , me next!" The gnome jumps in, not really thinking that this could be dangerous! "Wheee!"
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Seeing Tot's panic Ari doesn't consider the dangers. Since she floated, he jumps in, trying to angle past her to the far wall. If he reaches it he pushes off trying to go straight at her and push her back to the doorway. "Hold on Tot. I'm going to push you back to the hallway."
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Grod likewise digs a rope out of his pack and stands by, ready to throw a lifeline when needed. For the moment, he watches Izzy merrily floating through the room, shaking his head with an amused smile.
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Tot is removed from the chamber fairly easily by Ari's acrobatic maneuver. Izzy is not so easy to dislodge. After the initial disorientation the small gnome determines that she has some control over movement and direction simply by thinking about it. Soon enough she is turning mid-air flips, laughing the whole time.
Once Tot is out, the diminutive fighter clings to Ari. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears burn a dull crimson as she does her best to hide her face in Ari's chest. A part of her resents Izzy's carefree play in the chamber, but a much larger part is grateful to be out of there.
"Th-th-thank y-you," Tot says when she's certain she can trust her voice again.
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"Hey, if I think 'thataway' I drift 'thataway'..." She tells them.
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Ari keeps a hand on Tot's shoulder as she recovers. "Of course. It's a valid fear. If you can't fly, falling can kill you and you can't do anything about it. Strength doesn't matter. The fear can be overcome. And this room might be a good thing if you want to. It seems to be safe.... But maybe later? Not while Izzy is having so much fun."
"Hey Izzy? Could you gather the stuff in there? Not the maggots though, unless you know anyone with a pet bird that might want them?"
ragged book
a scroll - Using Read Magic for this.
a bottle of wine
a dead raven surrounded by a halo of wriggling maggots
a twisted iron wand with a forked tip
Rolls for any of that?
"Oh, I can try that." Avoiding the maggots and raven, she reaches first for the ragged book.
Ari keeps a hand on Tot's shoulder as she recovers. "Of course. It's a valid fear. If you can't fly, falling can kill you and you can't do anything about it. Strength doesn't matter. The fear can be overcome. And this room might be a good thing if you want to. It seems to be safe.... But maybe later? Not while Izzy is having so much fun."
"I envy her for that," Tot says softly. She looks up at Ari, the blush in her cheeks and ears fading, though not completely. "Maybe we should start with the horse?"
As she watches Izzy having fun while grabbing the items from the room, Tot smiles. The gnome's wonder and excitement chase away the resentment.
"We still have the stairs. Maybe we should see if there is more to this place," she says after Ari has had a chance to look over everything.
Ari grins and puts his arm around Tot's shoulders. He's glad that she's a bit shorter than him since she is so much stronger than he is. Maybe later he could rub her shoulders, but it doesn't do much to rub armor....
"Good point. I glanced at them as we passed but it was just stairs down. No guard or anything attacking so I wanted to check the door. Let's go look now. We search together. You've got good eyes for spotting dangers."
Moving back to the stairs and searching carefully as the move in.
Tot nods and follows Ari to the stairs, carefully looking it over for any signs of danger before proceeding down.
Izzy makes sure she grabs the things asked for first! and only then gets yoinked back.
The stairs at the last branch are a circular stone staircase that leads downwards. However only a few steps from the level you are on, a enormous pile of debris, delivered from some earthquake or similar ages ago, blocks the stairs completely. Even if you had the tools, it looks like it would take weeks or even months to clear the debris here and make the stairs passable.
Ari investigates the items recovered from the levitation room. First is a bottle of wine, surprisingly a recent vintage and from a local winery. It is about half consumed with the cork back in it as a stopper. Then the scroll turn out to be a magical scroll of burning hands (CL3).
The book is not magical but written a language that Ari doesn't understand, but it includes numerous woodcut illustrations of horrific and cruel monsters consuming people in different ways. It appears perhaps to be a book honoring Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters, but the rest is indecipherable at this point. It's fine pages and binding make it likely worth something to the right buyer.
The forked iron wand is a wand of shocking grasp (28 charges).
With the items mostly figured out Ari shrugs. "I think we've cleared this place out. We should report back to the town and figure out our next steps. Tsuto's journal...." Ari pauses, thinking. "I think the next answers are at Thistletop. But I think maybe we should ask around before we approach there. The ramblings in the journal sounded like they were about a cleric of Lamashtu or something. And, maybe a demon? That quasit was tough. I wouldn't want to face something much harder!"