From this chamber there is an unopened Western door (which will probably lead to a defensive tower) and another Southern door (other than the one you entered from).
Search Posts
And in a last swirling fight, the last of the savage men hit the sand dead. The Battle is over. The newcomers eye each others warily as the late morning clouds gather rapidly, and warm rain starts to come down; slowly at first, with big fat drops, then gathering into monsoon level torrential downpour.
Opening the door, Grey is greeted by a foul stench of decay. Inside there is blood spatter and ichor, and around the corner are the piled bodies of captured crusaders, apparently tortured to death. There are apparently no other exits to this chamber.
I've noticed we are incredibly melee-heavy. DM-Camris, assuming we survive to make it to some downtime, what are your rules for retraining things like feats & such? After you recover the Sword of Valor, there is substantial downtime which can be used for retraining if people feel the need. You guys look fairly well balanced to me. Maybe a little Cleric heavy, but overall a nicely combined-arms powerful party.
Grey hears nothing at the Eastern door.
Each of the Thoxel demons had a set of chainmail armor, a composite Longbow with 20 arrows, a masterwork two bladed sword and 65 crowns worth of various coinage.
Round 2 completed______________________ Grey takes the opportunity to seek new prey. Seeing one final foe almost unscathed, he tumbles 'twixt Knaves paws to slash at this new target.
Quickly moving into the room, Alorah strikes with her cold iron mace, attempting to put the foul demon down. She hit his center torso for moderate damage. Taedric spins Knave to have the wolf try to pull down a demon before he strikes.
Kelden let out a slight sound of pain as his two quick counter strikes were far too hurried to be effectual. Thrall blew apart Thoxel 1
Kyra gracefully dances around the barricades towards one of the last demons not surrounded by her companions and slices through it with an ease that defies the violence behind the cut! Sapphiria starts a bit, surprised that her spell worked. She moves up to provide tactical support, but it proved unnecessary. The battle is over.
Moving over to the Eastern exposed secret door, you are easily able to trip the exposed mechanism and the door swung open. In this chamber, tiny, intricate carvings line the walls, forming great columns of text.
The Text, if Deciphered: The Aklo text describes the history of this clan of Derros--lavishly colored by drug addiction and insanity--upon the walls here. The story describes their ascent from the darkness deep below and their cowering from the great torch in the daytime sky above.
It also describes how the derros opened a "puzzle door" to pray at the feet of something called the Excavator. "...grandmother, in seeking the Excavator, turned her eyes to the Stone, and to the Steel, and finally to Woe."
Round 2______________________ Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last.
Round 1 completed_______________________________ Thrall adjusts this position and, with a brutal downward slash, tried to eliminate the other demon.
Grey's normally puckish demeanor drops, revealing a cold implacability as he almost mechanically acts to dispatch the foe 'twixt himself & Taedric. He hit hard, leaving the demon critically wounded and bewildered. Kyra imbues the weapon with some of her own magical essence before rushing forward in a graceful dance, whirling around her companions before slicing through the air quickly into the side of one of the demons!
Sapphiria launches a holy smite to soften up the demons in the initial strike.
Kelden struck at the wounded demon left to him hard, and wounded him for moderate damage. (npc) Taedric lashed out with Radiance at number 4, but missed wildly. Knave tried to bite/trip number 4, but missed wildly. (npc) Alorah reached out and fired a Heavenly Fire ray at number 4, torching him instantly. Thrall and Kelden, standing next to Thoxel 1 are subjected to its Aura of Insolance, and they feel a wave of antipathy for each other.
Thoxel 1 attacks Kelden thrice with it’s mwk two bladed sword.
Thoxel 5, blind, stumbled over to Knave and attacked.
Thoxel 6 snarled in rage and ran over to where Taedric was to attack!
Round 7__________________ Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last.
Round 6 completed__________________ Shaedeen takes a crafty step backward. When she judges the savage to be sufficiently distracted, the tricky teen flashes out her blade.
Leaning into his shield as the broken cutlass cuts into his leg, Seadreamer grins at the savage, and brings his axe around to decapitate the man.
Sunny suddenly erupted out of the retreating wave, to throw a handful of sand into the savage man’s face, only to see him fall to the surf off of Shaedeen’s rapier, quite dead. Terry lashes out at the injured savage on the ship side of the two of them.
Reijo stares down the other treasure-taking native down. Hearing his old companion call out a live one as he swings his blade, he succeeds only in fanning the man.
"Bop ta th' head! Comin' up!" Wheezed Bellamy, who then swung his belaying pin into his savage man's left leg, Eliciting a furious howl as the savage man started hopping around on one leg. Sasha lept to her feet again, wet and sandy, swinging her mean looking sawtooth saber around, only to see the last savage man near them drop to the sand off of Shaedeen's rapier.
(npc) Dess thrust her quarterstaff at the savage man 10…
Savage man 9 lashed out at Reijo.
Savage man 10 lashed out at Terry.
Savage man 11 lashed out at No-Eyes.
Having dealt with the lock (at 11), you can proceed down a short tunnel to a 30 foot diameter pit.
You have a chilling realization that this is how Olangru feeds his baboon subjects, imprisoning the still-living food in this chamber and then opening the grate remotely for the troop to swarm down and tear the victims apart. Int Check DC15: Tracing out the opening mechanism, you realize if you had some living bait in here, you could open the grate via it's pully, the troop would swarm down here, then you could close the grate via it's pully system and trap them in here. But who would act as bait?
The four skeletons were wielding masterwork Aklys. Aklys:
Aklys
Cost 5 gp Weight 2 lbs. Damage 1d4 (small), 1d6 (medium) Critical x2 Type bludgeoning Range Increment 20 ft. (thrown) Category light Proficiency exotic Weapon Groups hammers, thrown Special performance, trip The aklys is a hooked throwing club with a 20-foot-long cord, usually of woven leather. Some aklyses have holes drilled through them and whistle when flung. You can retrieve the aklys after throwing it as a move action. The hook allows you to make trip attacks at range. Searching the place turns up two sets of masterwork smithing tools and one set of masterwork mining tools in the rubble. Perception DC20:
You find a Shield, Light Steel, +1. It's slightly rusted, but it can be easily polished up. Know:Dungeoneering DC15 or Know:Arcana DC20: You realize that these skeletons are of Degenerate Derro, a branch of the dwarven folk.
Making a long story short, you blitz the short statured skeletons, and they go down quickly.
Thrall's swing missed the Demon completely, shattering part of the barricade next to him instead.
Round 1_______________________________ Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last. Enemies are currently flatfooted. And numbered now, to distinguish between them. Alorah has a Magic Circle against Evil on self.
SURPRISE ROUND completed___________________________ Heedless of the possible danger, Grey nimbly slips up to the nearest foe. Kelden rushed in after Grey, only just clearing the doors sword and shield at the ready....
Hearing Kelden's warning, Alorah casts a spell to generate a degree of divine protection for herself and her allies that remain in close proximity. Cast Magic Circle against Evil on self.
Thrall rushes through the doorstep, dodging the barricades to reach a pair of demons, and launches a big thrust at one of them. He ran it through, but it still lives! Kyra immediately shifts into her battle dance, the wordless tune humming across her lips as she prepares to launch into the fray! Taedric directs Knave forward, and the wolf squeezes through the barriers, giving himself room to fight, even as his master swings the sword.
Round 6__________________ Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last.
Round 5 completed__________________ Seadreamer now in a bit of a fury, tries to drive the one in front of him into the dirt with his axe.
Shaedeen easily dodges her foe's counter-attack and tries to again jab her rapier into the man's ribcage. She ran him through and he drops where he stood. Then she takes a careful step backwards, closer to the other nearby scrum. Terry tries to force this last savage to stop pursuing him, but he lazily knocked the thrust aside.
Sunny frowns for but a moment as her new plaything slips away. Before simply flipping and tumbling back between his legs to again bring him down.
Reijo gazes intently at the closer of the two men. He swings his own well crafted and not broken cutlass two-handed at him. He connected perfectly, hacking down the savage dead. Dess would make note to give thanks to the old man. In the meantime, she got herself enough distance to stand up again. Casting Bless, reaching Terry, No-Eyes and Reijo. Sasha attacked Sunny’s savage viciously, but slipped in the wave and sprawled at the savage’s feet. The savage lashed out at her as she went down, but missed wide. Not seeing Sunny, the savage moved over to Shaedeen and lashed out at her.
Laughing at Seadreamer, the savage man lashed out at him.
Madder than a wet hen, the savage man pursued Terry and lunged at him.
The savage man stood up and chased after Dess. (Double move) The savage man rolled around and hacked at No-Eyes, who blocked it with his trusty belaying pin before rolling to his feet.
The other savage man, enraged now, hacked back at Reijo.
When you examine the small door up close, you see that it has an external lock (a key lock) on this side. There is a small grate you can look through, though you see only endless darkness. The rotting flesh smell is ominous though.
Manipulating the now obvious western secret door, Moragul feels hot air gust against him as the door pivots smoothly open. The chamber beyond the hidden door is all but buried in a pile of rubble.
Standing more actively, four short statured skeletons continue to work as they have for millenia now since they died, pounding and working the items of metal over and over again... Know:Arcane DC20 or Know:Nature DC20: They are skeletons of ancient Derro; unbelievably hostile offshoots of the dwarven people.
Know:Religion DC20: The hallway full of savage baboons... it matches in a horrible twisted way a court with courtiers (the baboons) facing a throne (the religious leader position). There is likely some kind of altar or nave behind the throne that is hidden.
Perception DC20: You see a semi-hidden doorway in the eastern wall of the cavern, you realize it leads into a tunnel leading under the hall filled full of savage baboons.
Peeking through the far south doorway of the cavern, you see an empty hallway.
It takes a full minute and a half before tingling feeling comes back into Farieth's limbs, the numbness leaves and she is able to recover mobility again. Moragul:
Listening to the Western secret door, you hear a distant *thump* *thump* *thump*...
Taedric: In this case, squeeze away! The barriers are only about six feet high and the ceiling is like 30 feet up, so one could conceivably climb or jump them.
When Marius peeked through the door up on the shelf overhead, he sees a large chamber, six columns run down the length of the room, flanking a pit covered by a rusted iron grate.
Once secret doors to east and west are easy to discern now that much of the walls have been dissolved over time.
The remnants of the cube still holds your weapons, except for the arrows, which had the wooden shafts dissolved.
Round 2 completed______________ As the barely visible mass rushes forward, engulfing her, she is suddenly without air, the creature's acidic touch burning, before fading to numbness and an inability to move. Paralyzed for 13 rounds. Antoni backs up a step, continuing to point the wand at the shimmering, acidic mass, and fires again. The magic dart struck it, creating a little shockwave, but nothing else. Moragul slices into the cube again, letting out a great gout of the gelatinous insides. It wobbles a bit, visibly shrinking a foot or two, but it continues to slide forward. Yaron begins to recite another set of limericks to aid his companions, We have to get her out of there before she's a skeleton like the other..., and having no idea if it's helping, fires his bow again.
As Moragul stood in front of the gelatinous monster, preparing to let it engulf him to do some great damage, Darry rode forward and plunged his lance deep inside the cube. And that did it. The cube burst like a water balloon, flooding the chamber ankle deep in numbing acid, before it slowly drained out through hundreds of small fissures in the walls and floor.
I'm assuming from your phrasing I can move or attack, not both? This is correct. The usual Surprise round rules.
SURPRISE ROUND Players may take a single standard action or short charge. Enemies are flat footed.
When you open the door, you see a long gallery supported by pillars down the middle of it. Doors flank the West, East and Southern walls. Arrow slits are inset into the northern wall. Rubble has been piled six feet high, leaving only narrow ways past them. You can see humanoid figures in partial cover, flanking the narrow ways past the rubble and pillars. These figures have dead white scars and raw red flesh crisscrossing the creatures scorched and sallow skin as though it has been flogged and branded a thousand times.
Know:Religion DC20: These are Thoxel Demons. They are relatively low level demons, have the usual immunity to electricity and poison, resistant to acid, cold and fire, but they are skilled in magically influencing allies to become enemies.
Grey works methodically, searching the complex walls and doors to the north. Passing by the blocked doors, he finds a north door that doesn't look locked or blocked somehow.
Grey: You can tell that this doorway is not locked and not blocked on the other side.
You can just barely hear small scuffs and almost imperceptible word or two beyond. You conclude that there is more than one person beyond the unlocked door to the north.
The doors marked in red are oversized armored bronze dwarven ceremonial doors. They either have rubble piled up in front of them, or something monstrously heavy is blocking them from the other side.
The door Grey is at now is not locked. Inside is an old fletchers manufacture, where projectiles from blowgun darts to Balistae bolts are made. Most of the stocks there are empty, but if you search you can still find 1d100 of whatever (nonmagical) projectile you might care to look for.
Round 1 completed______________ Ach, undead? I'm not very good against undead... Easy Caleb, you stay with me. Antoni says, pulling out one of the new wands and sending a dart of magical force into the skeleton. Faerieth casts a spell, sending a thrum of power through her staff as she steps forward, bringing more light forward. Antoni's magic missile disappeared with a flash a couple feet away from the skeleton. The waves rippling through the almost invisible flesh due to the impact revealed the presence of an Gelatinous Cube! "Some kind of... blob." Moragul says, unimpressed. He drops his spear since the blob clearly isn't a troglodyte, draws his greataxe, and swings it through the gelatinous body of the thing with great strength. A great gout of gelatinous spatter jetted out, and it sagged a little. A hiss of acid sizzled along the edge of the axe and an acrid smell drifted from it. Yaron says, "Anyone know the best way to kill an invisible jelly-coated skeleton?" as he raises his bow to take a shot anyway. The arrow shot into the body of the cube, slowed and hung up in the middle of it, not appearing to have done much damage. Darry keeps Sebastion on a short leash and tossed a dagger at the monster.
The huge gelatinous cube slid inexorably forward, engulfing Faerieth and bouncing Moragul aside and threatening the rest of the team beyond. Faerieth takes acid damage, gains the pinned condition, are in danger of suffocating, and are trapped within its body until they are no longer pinned. She must make a DC20 fort save or be paralyzed 3d6 rounds.
Round 5__________________ Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last.
Round 4 completed__________________ Shaedeen she shifts closer to Sunny and tries to again stab the grabby fellow. The rapier is hard to maneuver in a grapple, but she managed to finally stab him good in the stomache for serious damage.
Sunny laughs merrily at the whirlwind of grappling in the dry sand. Seeming to find it all terrific fun.
Terry attempts to stop the one in front of him, but missed as the internal confines of the hulk interfere with his slash.
Seeing terry go Seadreamer sets himself and tries to bring down the hurt one he is facing
Reijo catches up to the pair of savages carrying the treasure off. He draws his cutlass as he goes.
No-Eyes huffed down the sandy beach after Reijo. ”Slow up Reijo boy!” But is unable to catch up with the long legged galoot. Des fought back. And fight back she did. She even landed a punch on the shoulder. Unfortunately, it was hardly enough for the brutes to stop either of them from grabbing them by the arms and pull her way. Her attempts to escape are completely pitiful. Sasha hustled up to where one of the savage men was trying to pin Sunny.
Sunny’s savage man rolled to his feet (avoiding Sasha’s AoO), pulling his broken cutlass and lashing out at Sasha in a rage.
Shaedeen’s savage man lashed out at her.
Seadreamer’s savage man pulled out his broken cutlass and lashed out at Seadreamer.
Terry’s savage man roared and charged after him, lashing out with his broken cutlass.
The savage men bearing Dess away somehow ran into No-Eyes, the blind man chasing after Reijo.
The savages bearing the treasure chest dropped it, drew their broken cutlasses and laid into Reijo.
When you finally open that door, you discover an old armory!
Battleaxe, Adamantine
Deciding to continue, Grey listened at the doors, heard nothing and opened them.
Antoni's magic missile disappeared with a flash a couple feet away from the skeleton. The waves rippling through the almost invisible flesh due to the impact revealed the presence of an Gelatinous Cube!
|