Jon clutches the sizable gash in his side. He retreats◆ behind Hagrym and takes a shot◆ at the skeleton.
Then he steps◆ north out of sight to catch his breath.
Poor Pen...
Garidan thinks harder about the giant, then decides to trip him! Either way, he'll piece him with his inefficient spear, but not before pouring a drop of healing potion on it.◆[dice =Recall Knowledge] 1d20 +8+1-4
◆[dice=Athletics to trip] 1d20+7
◆[dice=Spear] 1d20+7-5
[dice=Piercing] 1d6+3+2+3
Hagrym uses one of his heal spells, trying to both heal his friends and damage the undead enemy.
Hit points healed/harmed
Mac's attack finishes the weakened skeleton! Two of your companions are wounded, one of them has 1 hp currently. The green ribbon of energy snaked under the western door 2 rounds ago. You have a bunch of places (doors) to explore before you started following the ribbon.
Jon sighs in relief, sagging to the floor with his back to the wall. He stows his whip and reloads his empty barrel before stowing his pistol in its holster. He says, "Once you've seen to Pen, I'd appreciate some more healing too. And what do you say we retrace our steps and continue checking the doors that way? I have a crazy hunch that green ribbon thing might be leading us into a trap."
"Oh man, Pen. These monsters seem to like your shiny armor or something. You attract hits like flys. But a wise man once said "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Garidan helps the fallen man.
"Yeah, let's track back and finish the eastern part of this maze. Is anyone drawing a map pr something?"
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Penflower wakes from Hagrym's spell in time to see the monster get felled by Mac. He says "I wonder if there was ever a time in elven history, where one of us was this thankful to dwarves. Thank you."
He replies to Garidan, still stretching his muscles to see if he can move them "Thank you. I suppose I signed up to this as I decided to specialize in shield wielding." This prompts him to look at his shield and say "I need a moment to fix my shield." He is still unaware of how hurt he is, only knows that he wants to press forward.
Mac looks at the edge of his warpick. "For a moment, I thought it had dulled out. Apologies all, for some reason, it was not penetrating as well as it normally does. Hey Pen, no worries, we all, especially me, appreciate your willingness to hold the front line. You're doing great, these things just hit hard."
Hearing everyone's comments, Mac nods, "Yeah, following that ribbon led us astray. At least we know, it headed west so hopefully we can piece where it may have gone later. Let's head back. Jon, let me see if I can patch you up. Grym, you take care of Pen." Mac spends 10 minutes treating Jon's wounds.
Hagrym takes a look at Pen, pulling an off a long piece of tape to bind the gash on his thigh.
Medicine
Heal
If asked about resting an hour for more healing, Jon looks a bit uncomfortable. "An hour's an awful long time in a place as dangerous as this. Do we want to give our enemies that much time to prepare another ambush? I'll try to stay out of the front lines. I should be okay."
Garidan suggests the secret door.
”Secret door sounds like a good idea to me! I’m sure nothing could go wrong in there,” the cleric laughs as he follows the others.
The hallway past the secret door is 5' wide and ends at a wall 15' away. 10' south, there is a passageway heading west. Mac's keen eyes spot a secret door at the southern wall. Investigating, you find two wall stones, which when pushed in unison, cause the secret door to swing open. Inside, you find a plain, circular room with the single image of a moss-caked skull adorning the eastern wall - the symbol of Nhimbaloth that you have seen before in this dungeon. You deduce that when the secret door is closed and you touch the skull on the wall, this room is in fact an elevator that leads down to a lower level.
Deciding to remain on the current level for the time being, you follow the passageway west, which leads to a door revealing:
The walls of this circular room are smooth and gray. A ribbon of pale blue light coils and slithers through the air, connecting the floor at the center of the room to the ceiling fifteen feet above. The points where this light touches the stone above and below seethe and writhe, as if the stone itself were suffering from an infection. The desiccated remains of an enormous worm lie slumped around the ribbon, forming a crescent of shriveled and tattered red and purple flesh.
There is a door in the southern section of the room.
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As they deduce the elevator, Penflower casually says "This will be useful later, despite the ominous and creepy design." However, he has much trouble hiding the fact that he thinks it is very cool.
As they find the dead worm, he says "So, this room seems to be connected to the light that shone over Otari!" He is about to touch the worm when he says "So, my guess is that this work touched something wrong and died a horrible death. Maybe we should study this room for a bit."
Pen determines that the source of the pale blue light is deadly necromantic energy, which would harm living things and heal undead, if one were to stand in the center of the room.
Know. Religion
Hagrym wonders if any of his divine powers could have an affect on the necromantic blue light.
Hagrym determines that the surge of the necromantic energy is coming from below, leading the dwarf to deduce that the energy may be originating from a lower level.
Garidan investigates the scene.
"Wow, that is intense," Jon says, transfixed by the power surging in front of them. After a few minutes, he blinks and clears his throat. "Before we take the elevator down, should we finish clearing the rest of the rooms up here? If we're going to be ambushed, I'd prefer it were now while we're wary and fairly fresh than in whatever shape we'll be in when we come back from dealing with everything down there."
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Penflower warns "Don't stand in the middle of the room! It's going to hurt." He wonders if there isn't anything useful to find in this room, but he thinks it's too dangerous to look.
Finally he agrees with Jon "Yes, we should clear the entire level. Also, I keep thinking of the swamp drake outside."
”Yeah, there are probably things up here that we need to deal with first before heading down,” the dwarf agrees. He doesn’t tell the others that another reason this could be helpful is that when they need to retreat, less enemies remaining to get through is always good.
"Good to know to avoid the center of the room. Unless someone wants to go digging in the worm's gullet for some undissolved treasure, I say we continue to check this level out. We have doors south from this room, SW from the hall near the entrance, and north from the green energy bathroom. I say, we clear the northern door first and then head back south and west."
"Sounds good, Mac. And we shouldn't approach something dead that's being constantly pelted with necromantic energy. That worm could come al--er, unalive, at any moment and we don't want to go near it until the power is turned off."
You leave this room and approach the northern door next to the bathroom and open it to reveal:
Several wide alcoves adorn the walls of this L-shaped hallway. Each alcove contains a small diorama of the same city facing different perils— the two you can see, to the east and west, immediately are a massive fire and a devastating tsunami.
As you enter the hallway, Mac's keen eyes spot trapped pressure plates down the hallway. Jon, the only person trained in thievery, senses that the pressure plates are tied to the dioramas.
"Well, Jon, unless you're certain, you can disable them, we might as well come back here later. I wouldn't want to run into a dead end only to face the traps again."
Garidan was about to turn around, when he had another idea. "There was a lot of big stuff in the torture room and the broom closet. Could we maybe throw or push something in front of us to safely activate the traps?" He avoided suggesting the Morlock's corpses.
Jon rubs his chin and looks back over the pressure plates and the diorama. "This kind of setup, I'd say it's a bit more likely I wouldn't disable them in time than it is I would. I agree with Garidan. We might as well come back later. It's too risky without knowing if what's on the other side is worth it. Maybe we'll find an operator's manual in here somewhere that will give us an edge in disabling the traps."
At Garidan's other idea, "I have a feeling the traps are going to be as bombastic as the things we've fought in here, and 5' behind the plate might not be far enough to avoid being hit. Throwing would be better, or making a long pole to try to trip them from 10' or 15' back."
To the best of your knowledge, all of the squares are trapped. Jon estimates that each square is tied to one diorama. If you plan to set off the traps with debris, please let me know how you're doing so and what square. There is plenty of debris on this level, such as in the minotaur room and other places.
”Your call, Jon. Im not volunteering you to get your beard singed off if you had a beard, that is. You can give it a try or we can head somewhere else. That’s your decision!”
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As the others discuss, Penflower tries something simple which should help them get some more information. He casts a simple spell that allows him to see magic in the world. His thought process is that, if the traps are magical in nature, then they'll probably reset after being sprung. If they're mechanical, there's less chance of that happening.
The traps are definitely magical in nature.
"Oh, what the hell. Just make sure you heal me if I pass out."
After Garidan casts Guidance Jon grabs his thieves' tools, clomps over the pressure plates and begins work on the diorama on the left.
Working feverishly, Jon senses the diorama powering up and getting ready to fire on him, just as he is able to deactivate the trap in the nick of time! In doing so, the first four pressure plates, counting from the party's entrance, on the western side of the hallway are deactivated.
More pressure plates await to the north....
"Even if there is, we'd still have to deactivate the plates as we go to get there. Alright, Pen. Stand back. We don't know how big the blast zone is if I fail."
Jon takes a steadying breath, holds his thieves' tools in hand, and rushes to the next diorama on the left.
Jon shows his skills as he deactivates another trapped diorama before the trap can go off! Looking around the corner, you the eastern hallway ends at a set of double doors. Job cab either try deactivating one more diorama or if you can leap 20' without a running start, you can safely reach the doors.