Search Posts
The bones seem to be mostly of small animals, although there are a few kobold bone littered about as well. As Ustemir moves close to pick a bone up, what at first seems to be another small boulder begins to stir. Grey, leathery, bat-like wings open to reveal a menacing horned humanoid figure who lashes out hungrily. Initiatives:
Luckily, Stepnik and Waedin are quick to respond to the perilous situation.
The east tunnel turns south suddenly before opening up into another wide cavern chamber. This one is filled with heavyset boulders along the walls. Almost immediately above you is a fissure in the rock ceiling, from which a reddish fiery glow can be seen. The crack can be reachable from a stone column that reaches from floor to ceiling. At the far end of the chamber is a large squat boulder, around which the floor is littered with animal bones.
While everyone's being patched up, Sebastien scouts ahead, following the exit of the kobolds. He finds a tunnel that curves almost immediately back around towards the south, but can't see further around the bend. A small alcove appears at the far north if the mining operation, and another tunnel leads to the west.
Waedin and Ustemir quickly take down the remaining kobold.
With the mining supervisor in a firm headlock, Ustemir exacts revenge, pounding stone fist again and again into the kobold's face, until his head explodes into gore! With their superintendent disposed of thusly, the remaining kobolds experience a loyalty cascade.
The first three squeal and flee at the sight of their bosses grisly demise. They run north then turn left towards a western tunnel. In his flight, the burning kobold douses the flames. One brave, stupid, kobold remains, and, in a fit of madness, swings wildly at Stepnik.
But, he's able to nail the leader with a bomb.
Waedin snaps her eyes open, grabs her hammer and heals Ustemir. The boss tries to break free of Ustemir's grip!
In Draconic:
"Don't just stand there! Get 'im!" Things aren't going the mining bosses way, and he continues to burn, grappled in Ustemir's arms.
Sebastine moves down the tunnel, closer to the action, and revives Waedin. Ustemir calls Kolek to his side and grabs at the kobold in charge. He catches the mining boss in his mighty stone fist. The kobold miners turn their attention on the others after Waedin falls.
The last two focus on Stepnik.
Stepnik stabs the kobold, who looks hurt, but also angry.
The mining boss ◆Barks a Command at the first miner,
In Draconic:
"Hold off that big fella!" The underling immediately takes a step, interposing themselves between Waedin and Ustemir. With a menacing grin, the boss continues to pick away at Waedin! Waedin crumples to the cavern floor, a victim yet again of another pick crit! With a proud grunt, the boss then steps over Waedin's impaled body and ◆situates himself next to Ustemir.
Waedin retaliates and strikes true, bashing the supervisor in the face! Ustemir tries to take out the first miner and punches them once.
Sebastien tries to make himself useful beyond inspiring Ustemir's fists, but just barely misses. Being free of Ustemir's grasp, the first miner strikes back!
The second kobold closes in on Waedin with one stride, then attacks!
The third miner also backs up their boss and closes on Waedin, pick in hand!
From the back of the cavern, the fourth miner sprints into the fray. Seeing as how Waedin is occupied, it picks out Stepnik for a target, but will have to wait.
Stepnik blasts one of the kobold miners with a fire grenade. The mining supervisor grunts at Waedin's approach, hops off his rocky pedestal and moves towards her. He hefts his mighty greatpick and swings!
As Waedin moves forward, she can see a little further still. There's one more kobold miner on the far back wall.
As Ustemir rushes in and grabs the kobold , he gets a better view of the cavern. Two more miners work at the far wall, while a short but muscular kobold with a greatpick stands atop a flat boulder near the cavern's center, shouting out orders to the workers. He sneers and spits as the first kobold is apprehended:
In Draconic:
"Get them! Protect the King's shiny stuff!" More Initiatives:
The first kobold miner tries to wrest free from Ustemir's grip.
As Waedin approaches the northern tunnel, she hears the sounds of labor, the *tink, tink, tink* of metal on stone, and the crumbling of dirt and rubble. Her innate dwarven intuition may tell her there's a mining operation ahead. She also hears the sounds of a kobold shouting:
In Draconic:
"Get back to work you runts! You're next on the chopping block if you don't find more shiny bits for the King's crown!" The cramped tunnel ahead opens into a large cavern filled with jutting rocky overhangs and large boulders. A single kobold miner works near a pile of rubble just at the cavern's entrance, and although you can't see much beyond that, by the sounds of it, you can assume more kobolds are working deeper within. The kobold miner startles at your approach! Initiatives:
Stepnik surmises that the issue with the elevator lies in the crank mechanism up top. The chains remain intact, and so it is operable, but if there is too much weight, the winch fails. GM Screen:
[/dice] As Ustemir patches everyone up, further shouting and noises can be heard echoing down the cavern tunnels. The kobolds are not attacking, but you may assume they are on high alert and shoring up their defenses.
Waedin decides to check out the room to the south before pushing further into kobold territory.
As you recover from the fight, you may be surprised to find no further retaliation from the kobolds, although they must assuredly be aware of your presence by now.
From here there are three exits. The fleeing kobold ran down the tunnel to the west, another tunnel leads north, and a large open door frame opens to a room to the south.
The cauldron lays tilted to one side on the broken cavern floor. The cahins are still connected and climb up to the winch above. However, the winch can only be operated from the floor above.
Waedin finally is able to bash the slurk, her warhammer shattering its skull.
The little halfling pokes his head from the cauldron and scares the oversized slimey toad! Waedin gets to her feet and continues to approach the slurk through the puddle of slick. Stepnik lobs two flaming vials at the slurk which burn against its thick slimey skin. The slurk is hurt badly, but it remains stalwart, guarding the tunnel, trained to fight to the death. It lurches its tusks against Waedin again and again.
I promise I'll update tomorrow. I think Stepnik may still act!
The slurk lets out a painful croak as two arrows pierce its slimey, leathery hide. The fleeing kobold does not reappear.
Sebastien decides to shed some further light on the situation. Waedin moves towards the crouching slurk. As she nears, she steps into the slimey puddle.
Stepnik lobs an ice grenade at the slurk, and nails it smack in the face. The slurk tries to gore Waedin with its tusks!
Step lit a torch last turn.
Ustemir returns to the safety of the cauldron. Seeing the other two kobolds fall so quickly, the remaining kobold shouts:
In Draconic:
"The intruders are here! Protect the King!" And then turns to run down the tunnels behind him. The kobold manages to not fall in the puddle of slime and disappears down the dark tunnel to the west.
Waedin snaps her shield in place to block the incoming bolt. Ustemir pummels the next kobold, who falls in a bloodied heap at his feet.
Sebastien whispers a soothing word towards Waedin and her wounds magically heal. As Waedin pops out of the cauldron, the readied kobold takes his shot.
Despite the pain, Waedin stomps after the fleeing kobold and whomps it to death. Stepnik continues to recover and shed some light on the situation. From its squatting position, the slurk constricts its back postules and squirts globs of slime in Waedin's direction.
Ustemir follows Waedin's lead and punches over the edge of the cauldron, smacking a kobold in the face, knocking out a few teeth. The crossbow wielding kobold readies his crossbow, waiting for a clear shot. The other two continues to stab away at Waedin and Ustemir.
Waedin is able to whomp one of the kobolds with her hammer from inside the cauldron. Sebastien mentally flings a rock across the room in retaliation.
Stepnik takes a sip and covers his head. Outside, in the distance, the slurk squats low to the floor and secretes a brown, viscous ooze from glands on its back. The ooze puddles on the floor around it and the crossbow kobold.
Ustemir climbs down 10ft of chain and falls the rest. Sebastien hears something big fall past him and land in the pot with a thunk.
The first kobold loads a crossbow and takes a shot at Sebastien hanging on the chain.
The other two kobolds close in on the crashed elevator, swords drawn.
Sebastien then hears a screaming Stepnik fall past him in the darkness.
After Waedin returns and makes her report, Sebastien climbs into the cauldron elevator to join her. At that moment, with his added weight, the repairs Ustemir and Stepnik made fail and the cauldron suddenly drops out at an astonishing 9.8 m/s^2.
Feeling the floor drop out from under his feet, Sebastien deftly jumps and, after some free fall, grabs on to a chain.
The heavy steel cauldron, with Waedin in it, falls 30 ft and clangs to the floor below with a resonating boom.
As Waedin shakes the ringing from her ears, she hears the shouts of kobolds as they come running into the room from their hiding places. Initiatives:
Waedin steps into the cauldron and it doesn't fall. She and Ustemir each grab opposite ends of a rope, just in case. Stepnik begins turning the crank, and with a jolt, the cauldron begins descending down into the hole. Waedin descends into darkness, but her dwarven eyes adjust just fine. After 36 seconds of chains rumbling and jangling, the cauldron lands with a thud. GM Screen:
As Waedin peers over the edge of the cauldron she sees she's in a large, mostly rectangular room. The southern, eastern, and most of the northern wall is worked stone masonry, while the western wall is a natural stone cavern formation. A stone archway opens to the south, and cramped, narrow tunnels lead out the natural rock face to the west and north. Strewn about the room are piles of broken rubble and rubbish. Squatting near the mouth of the tunnel leading west, Waedin spots a strange creature, like a giant white, slimy toad with long tusks. Recall Knowledge: Animal (Nature) DC 16, Unspecific Lore DC 14, Specific Lore DC 11: This is a Slurk, a subterranean tusked frog-beast. Slurks have special slime glands on their skin they can use both defensively and offensively. Many subterranean peoples train slurks as guard-animals for their lairs.
GM Screen:
Ustemir spends 10 minutes shoring up the chain and pulley system until he believes it should hold more weight.
Anyone trained in Thievery or Crafting: You surmise the elevator can be improved upon to hold 4 medium creatures.
After going on 2 hours of rest and recuperation, the team decides to finally take the cauldron elevator into the level below. Once again, a ten foot wide pit lies in the floor of this chamber, descending 30 feet into the levels below. Suspended over the pit is an elevator haphazardly rigged out of a large cauldron, and a system of chains and pulleys. A single crank operates the elevator from this level. The cauldron appears large enough to hold 4 (medium) creatures, but you have been warned by the turncoat Kerrdremak that the elevator can only hold 2 (small) or 1 (medium) creature at a time.
After facing the wrath of the Forge spirit and his hound, the group barely makes it out intact. As you escape down the smoke filled tunnels you feel the heat of the furnace singing the hairs on the back of your necks. As you emerge out of the tunnels and back into the chamber with the cauldron elevator, you realize no guardian nor hound are following you. You are likely thankful to take your next breath and fill your lungs with clear air once again.
It may seem the cauldron before you.remains the only way down, but you have been warned that only one (Medium sized) creature can ride it at a time.
Waedin and Stepnik both scramble out of the room, meeting up with Sebastien back in the smoke filled tunnels and leaving Ustemir and Kolek behind. The fire dog takes a cue from its master and opens wide its maw, spewing forth a gout of hell fire.
Sebastien bravely jumps into the action, boosts Ustemir's chances of survival, and jumps back out. Ustemir pushes the flaming dog out of the way, giving Waedin an opportunity for escape. Kolek clears out as commanded.
The Forge spirit considers Stepnik, and sees those that had fallen start to get to their feet. He takes a step towards his forge and inhales, drawing in a cloud of ash and cinders from the furnace into his bellows-like chest.
Stepnik launches some smithing tools towards the forge spirit, barely missing by an inch! The fire dog, not entirely lacking in intelligence, notices Waedin channel healing energy, and snaps its jaws towards her.
Ustemir heroically pulls through, while his ursine companion is slightly less at risk. The forge spirit's eyes burn as those around him fall.
In Dwarven:
"Souls! Souls I need! Kamus demands it!" He ◆◆stomps across the room towards Stepnik hiding amongst his tool racks, his sinister chain rattling across the floor as he drags it behind him. The red hot chain whips around and smacks into Stepnik, crushing bones and searing flesh alike.
Sebastien fries and cries in the searing blast , before the lingering heat dissipates. For those conscious enough to hear it, they find his act inspiring, somehow. Waedin is awakened through the soothing whispers of Sebastien's voice in her mind.
Ok, we have one (maybe more) permadeath situation on the line so I want to really slow things down and think this through carefully. For one, everyone should have gone into this fight with 3 Hero Points. You earned a lot by completing several quests while in town. Second, seeing the fire dog rolling two consecutive 20s, I also tested out Stepnik's theory and the next 2 d20 rolls with exact wording were a 17 and 14.
Or, in reading carefully the text of Hero Points, "Spend all your Hero Points (minimum 1) to avoid death. You can do this when your dying condition would increase. You lose the dying condition entirely and stabilize with 0 Hit Points. You don't gain the wounded condition or increase its value from losing the dying condition in this way, but if you already had that condition, you don't lose it or decrease its value." So, if we let Waedin go before Sebastien, her Dying condition would increase by crit failing her save, which means she could use her remaining Hero Points in that moment to stabilize WITHOUT the Wounded condition. Then Sebastien could heal her and hopefully not go down again before she can heal Ustemir and Kolek. Of course, Sebastien still has to take his turn, which means he has to roll his Reflex save first. That's how I see things standing, any other ideas?
Kolek is caught in the heat wave
Stepnik nimbly avoids even a single spark.
The flaming dog snarls and snaps its jaws at Waedin!
Waedin can not identify the angry guardian spirit, but is able to whomp it with her hammer. Sebastien fights through bouts of gagging and choking to inspire his comrades, then lobs a stone into the acrid fumes.
The Forge spirit then ◆◆exhales and unleashes a cloud of burning soot that envelopes Waedin, Kolek, Stepnik, and Sebastien. Afterwards it smacks Ustemir with its chain!
|
