Hagrym again summons Torag’s holy blessings and firesthem in a direct line at the fly.
Attack
Damage
Round 2: Mac
◆ Draw ◆ Ranged Attack ◆ Grip Halberd
Mac holds the halberd in one hand and draws his light hammer and flings it at Buzzybuzz.
Mac then grips his halberd again looking at the ceiling and the insect, "Stay away you maggot or I'm going to have to end ya!"
Penflower sheathes his sword and casts Slashing Gust but missed.
Hagrym, who is currently Sickened 2, misses with Divine Lance.
Mac's flying hammer also misses the giant fly.
Round 2: Buzzybuzz
Having the intelligence of well, an insect, Buzzybuzz flies down to bite Mac, provoking the dwarven warrior's strike and instead catches a halberd to the face that slices him in two!
The room where the gremlins were:
The interior of this watch post still has a wooden ceiling high above, but a thick mound of filth and animal carcasses heaped on the floor make the room anything but inviting.
You find nothing else of interest in this room. Hagrym's sickened condition goes away and Penflower recharges his Spellstrike.
Mac grunts, "Good riddance!" He wipes the fly's blood off his halberd and picks up his thrown light hammer. After giving the room a good lookover for any hidden secrets, he heads back into the frog room. "Maggots, gremlins, and a fly? Any of you know what those blue gremlin creatures were? Also, I think we should head north."
”Wonder how those little creatures trained that big fly like that? It’d have been real easy for the fly to snatch them up and eat’em real quick like. Well, nonetheless, I’m fine with heading north as Cousin Maclin suggests!”
Penflower leads the party to the northern room.
The collapsed ceiling at the middle of this room has left a ragged hole in the wooden roof. Rotten tapestries, their designs completely obscured by mold, hang in tatters on the walls between arrow slits and ruined side tables. The remains of a fancy dining table lie mostly pulverized by the fallen ceiling.
Willorn peeks through the door then turns to the others.
"Pretty empty for a change. Think we should have a look at the rubble there though. Might be we find something of value. Agreed?"
Jon stows his pistol and whip and says, "Agreed."
Jon does a sweep of the room with his arcane sense to detect magic.
Hagrym stays quiet and helps look for anything out of the ordinary.
Mac agrees, "Let's check out the rubble."
The party moves into the room and begins exploring the rubble. As you do so, six ghostly kobolds surge out of the rubble with eerie yowls!
Jon's detect magic senses magic emanating from somewhere in the rubble.
Will save
Initiative
”Whoa! What in the blue hells,” the cleric grunts, seeing the ghostly apparitions jump out at the group.
"Hagrym, a little help here. You're the expert on religion, right?"
Jon draws his pistol, but leaves his other hand free for now.
"There's something magical in that rubble. Do you reckon it's the source of those ghostbolds?"
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Penflower is taken aback by the ghosts. He says to Willorn "You had to say something, didn't you?" He also, without any pause, moves on to sheathe his sword and hang his shield on his back. Then he starts to clear the rubble with both hands and says "Jon, let us know when we find it." He could cast Detect Magic himself, but he didn't want to give time to the ghosts do anything to them.
Know. Religion to figure more about the haunt if possible
Round 1: Haunt
The spirits swoop together toward Willorn, instilling feelings of betrayal and confusion.
Hagrym grabs ahold of his holy symbol and calls on the power of Torag to exorcise this place!
Know. Religion with frightened 1
Mac tries to remember his cousin's teachings and tries to aid his cousin's check.
The two dwarves combine to elicit phrases from Torag's book of blessings to exorcise the spirits for now, as the kobbld spirits dissipate into nothingness for now.
You search the rubble and find bones of kobold skeletons. You spend 30 minutes and uncover the skeletal corpses of six kobolds. Hagrym deduces the connection between the bones and the haunt and he realizes that removing the bones from the rubble pile will ensure that the spectral kobolds will not rise again.
There is a door to the east from this room that joins up with the corridor.
"Great job, cuz! That was mighty impressive, how you dispelled the ghosts."
Later, upon finding the bones, Mac's eyebrows perk up,"Ah, now it makes sense why the kobold spirits were bound to this room."
Later, upon finding the treasures, he warns the party, "Be careful drinking that black liquid. Might be someone's bad idea of a joke."
Willorn is still visibly shaken by the experience, teeth shattering, muscles cramped. It takes a moment before he succeeds in calming himself.Then, without being able to look anyone in the eyes, he nods his thanks to Hagrym.
"Second trap I sprang today, need to be more careful." he mutters to himself. Then he lines behind Mac, for once content to follow someone else's lead.
Hagrym took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ”I wasn’t sure that would work! Torah’s strong as all get out, thankfully,” he explains, reassuring himself as much as the others while getting himself together.
He points at Maclin. ”Cousin, you gotta tell the family about that when we get out of this place!”
Jon screamed at the invasion of his mind by the specters, but thankfully it was disarmed before he could do anything crazy because of it. Jon holsters his pistol and uses his sleeve to wipe off the cold sweat from his face.
Once he's composed himself, Jon picks up the "Yum" vial with interest. "Give me about 10 minutes with my alchemist's kit, and I might be able to identify this, assuming it's alchemical in nature of course."
While Penflower is attempting to identify the wolf fang, Jon puts on some gloves and takes out his alchemist's toolkit to begin running tests on the substance.
Penflower identifies the wolf canine as a Wolf Fang.
Jon, unfortunately, cannot identify the black liquid. You can try again as long as you wait 10 minutes.
Jon identifies the black liquid as Black Adder Venom.
The party heads east through the door into the ruined corridor, pushing through some rubble.
Piles of rotting timbers and loose stones lie in heaps throughout this large, L-shaped hall. Clumps of moss and tangled vines spill down from gaps in the wooden ceiling above each pile of rubble. Several doors lead out to all sides, most barely clinging to their hinges and frames. Debris completely blocks a wooden stairwell that leads up to a large hole in the ceiling. Here and there, the stone walls bear the scars of fire or damage from an ancient battle.
The room is covered with rubble and in the far eastern corridor, you see three more gremlins (Mitflits) apparently training another giant maggot, when they notice the party coming out of the ghost kobold room! Hagrym knows fully well now that Mitflits have an affinity for controlling maggots and insects.
Hagrym almost felt guilty calling upon Torag’s advice and guidance yet again, but against this group of foes, he thought it prudent. ”Bless our weapon arms against these vile creatures, Mighty Torag,” he calls out.
Hagrym, if you could move further into the passageway, would be great,
Round 1: Mac
Mac strides three times closer to the enemies to bait them into triggering his reactionary strike.
Willorn grips his Axe and follows Mac, staying a bit behind him not to go into his way.
Round 1: Giant Maggot
The creature moves in, at the direction of the mitflits, to attack and engages the closest enemy: Mac, provoking his reactionary strike, though it is only a minor wound.
◆ Stride ◆ Attack ◆ Attack
The maggot attempts to bite Mac but misses twice.
Round 2: Mitflits
The blue-skinned gremlins yell angrily in some unknown language, when Mac harms their pet.
Blue:
◆ Stride ◆ Interact ◆ Attack
The blue-coded mitflit moves in, draws his short sword, and attacks Mac, causing a minor wound!
Yellow:
The yellow-coded mitflit draws a dart, launches it at Mac striking him despite the cover from the maggot, and draws another dart.
◆ Interact ◆ Attack ◆ Interact
Red:
The red-coded mitflit strides closer, draws a dart, launches it at the approaching Penflower.
◆ Stride ◆ Interact ◆ Attack
Willorn takes a Step forward, striking at the Misflit directly in front of him.
◆ Step
◆
◆
Harm uses two stride actions to move 30’ closer to the group and concentrates on the bless spell, increasing its range by an extra 10’.
Jon has his pistol and whip in hand◇ at the first sign of danger and runs closer◇, then Strides◆ past Penflower into the fray 10 feet in front of Misflit Red. He fires his pistol at Red◆, then whips them with his Reloading Strike◆.
Round 2: Mac
With so many enemies around, Mac goes on the offensive, first focusing on the wounded maggot () and then on the Red Mitflit, who is within reach of his halberd.
The maggot and red mitflit are cut down (die) at the hands of Mac.
The orange mitflit stares at Penflower, while not understanding him.
The orange mitflit dies a painful burning death, as he collapses to the ground.
”This place is crawling with those little critters! Cousin, think we could make some extra gold as mitflit exterminators?”
Hagrym nods to the third dwarf. ”What do you say we clear the room to the south before we head north with any of those doors? Might as well make sure nothing sneaks up from behind us,” he offers to Willorn.
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Penflower redraws his sword. He doesn't say anything to the dwarves about coordinating their attacks better, since he is not the best communicator and he finds dwarf logic to be a little stiff. He will learn how to say this in time.
The elf says "I agree with clearing the way. But I also think we should find a way to communicate with these creatures. Even if they don't want to be helpful, we can... convince... them to talk. They live here. They know better than anyone if something strange is happening here. And what."
He also gets ready to lead the way to the southern door once all are ready .
Mac wipes the blood of his halberd on the dead mitflits. "I doubt anyone would be willing to pay for killing these gremlins and their maggots, cuz."
"South is a valid option. As for communicating with them, it would be great if we knew their language, but it does not appear that anyone does, so until they offer to parley instead of attack us, we will meet violence with violence."
Jon holsters his weapons and considers. "Seems wise to clear the room behind us. I'd hate to get ambushed on our way deeper in."
Jon considers Mac's words, "You're right that it appears they have no interest in parleying for the moment. Perhaps once we have subdued a number of their brethren they may make some overtures towards peace."
Penflower opens the door to the south and enters to reveal:
Almost the entire ceiling of this room has collapsed, while below, the floor has crumbled into a sinkhole filled with rubble, mud, and glistening patches of fungus. Evidence of ancient damage—burn scars and acid scorch marks—decorate the walls and much of the rubble.
You hear the the sound of high-pitched squeals and shrieks from multiple mitflits coming from the sinkhole. They do not appear to be aware of you. You also cannot currently see them.