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Daria surges towards the brimorak ahead of her and slashes into it. The strikes leave it heavily wounded. Kemat unleashes her spell, and as it washes over the brimoraks it seems to fizzle, leaving them unaffected.
Arloric steps up behind Darya, and taps her as he casts his spell. Uriel surges forward with incredible speed and hammers his target furiously. All but one of his blows land, and the brimorak is gravely wounded.
The two brimoraks gesture with their hands, and send small beads towards the party. Each one bursts into a ball of fire.
Then they advance towards Uriel and Darya, who stand over the body of the fallen vrock. They stop 10' away, and brandish flaming longswords. As they get in range, Telerin channels energy.
Both brimorak's feel the impact of the positive energy, though one is clearly more affected than the other.
Updating tonight. Apologies for delays.
Urial and Darya slash furiously at the Vrock. Uriel lands a blow and Darya follows that up with two slices that nearly cut it apart. The vrock collapses to the ground, dead.
The Vrock screeches in anger, and a cloud of spores sprays out from its body, enveloping Daria and Uriel.
It claws at Darya.
Then bites at Uriel.
Then it rakes at each of the Paladins with its talons.
Alexa and Arloric recover from the ear-piercing screech.
You see two Brimoraks enter the hallway behind the vrock.
The Vrock swipes at Uriel but the paladin ducks under the attacks, gets in close, and slashes into it.
The Vrock clumsily swipes at Darya with its claws and misses by a wide margin. Darya gets in close and lands a solid blow.
The Vrock advances down the corridor towards you and lets out a shrill, ear-piercing screech. The deafening sound echoes throughout the hall.
Alexa identifies it as a type of demon called a vrock. They are immune to electricity and poison, and resistant to just about everything else.
The chime echoes down the hallway, but the doors remain completely motionless. A few seconds later, a large creature that appears to be half vulture, half man steps into the hallway at the far end.
You detect an illusion aura beyond the doors, but it's well beyond them and not likely on the doors themselves.
Arloric, make a caster level check for the chime. CL is 11.
The doors aren't locked, but they don't move at all, either. There's not even any give when you push on them. It's like pressing on a wall. Something appears to have the doors bound very tightly on the other side.
The door opens easily and does not appear to be trapped. You step through into a long hallway that's 10' wide and over 70' long. YOu can see large, stone double doors to your right. At the end of the hall is another set of stone doors on the left, and a passageway across from it on the right.
The rest of the L-shaped room more or less matches what you saw through the door. It's lined with storage shelves and racks that have been emptied out. Some grains scattered around the floor suggest that dried foods were some of what was kept here. Empty barrels in the middle were probably used for water. Having spent time with an army for several weeks, it is reminiscent of the kind of stores you'd need to feed a large number of people. There's another door to the east that is closed but not locked.
This room looks like it was used as a barracks at some point, with beds packed rather tightly in the room. It's been cleared out except for the straw mattresses. There's a door on the far side of the room that is partly ajar. It looks like it leads to a large storage room, though the shelves and racks you can see through the door appear empty. >>> Map <<<
The eastern door is unlocked.
Checking in since folks have been quiet. You have two doors to the north and a door to the east. There is also a room to the west but it is filled with rubble.
Jestak gathers up a large pack and bedroll--suggesting she was making plans to leave long before you arrived--and exits the castle through the doors opposite the ones you came in. She seems unconcerned that she is walking outside, where your army has the fortress surrounded.
As you start to leave she calls out, "Arloric. Watch out for the shadow demon. Vhane pretends to be in charge, but it's the demon that is the true power here. You'll find him in the dungeons." She points to the north-northeast.
"I let you go, and we go our separate ways. Maybe this is my chance to leave, while they are busy dealing with you."
"I am Jestak. I want to believe you can take this place, Arloric. But I will not wait for their punishment in case you fail. This," she says, nearly spitting out the words as she gestures to the dead tieflings behind her "was a kindness. "I will make a truce with you, kinsman. You leave, and I'll leave. Those are my terms."
No damage here, but we've been hit with that same storm. Thankfully didn't lose power or anything, and I work Wednesday-Saturday, so I wasn't having to go to work in it. Supposed to get back above freezing tomorrow (for the first time since saturday!) so maybe some of it will have melted by the time I get off work. Sounds like you made it through mostly unscathed? If so, glad to hear it.
The second tree came the rest of the way down, wrecking half of a decorative rock wall when the roots pulled out of the ground and damaging the wood frame steps that lead down our slope in back. The tree scraped down the side of a maple tree as it fell, pushing against the base of that tree and knocking it 10 to 15 degrees off of vertical. So, in all, we lost three trees, a 20' section of fencing, half of the rock wall, suffered minor damage to the steps, and have a gaping cavity in the ground where the roots used to be. Most of that has been cleared but the tree service will have to come back (when they are done with the dozens of other emergencies) to take care of the stumps and roots. And I apologize for the delays to the game. I just wasn't up to it.
The barbarian woman backs away, keeping a watchful eye on Darya on the other doorway. Switching to common, she glances to Arloric and says, "So, kinsman. What do we do now?"
Here are photos showing the damage. No one was hurt and they fell away from the house.
Apologies for the delays. We are in the middle of a nasty winter storm here. We also had two 70' pine trees come down in our backyard: one smashed through the fence, and the other is propped up at an angle against other trees in the greenspace behind us. It's been a rough week.
Uriel lands one of three blows against the barbarian woman, who grunts as these are followed Telerin's force bolts.
But it's Arloric that she focuses on, her eyes widening as she hears him speaking Hallit. She steps back from the doorway, pointing her sword at him. She seems to calm down a little, though she is still tense and angry. "Ní thuigeann tú!" she says. "Rugadh mé sa rud atá fágtha de Sarkoris. Ba é seo go léir a bhí againn. Ba é gach rud a bhí againn ag caitheamh isteach leo! Hallit:
"You don't understand!" she says. "I was born in what's left of Sarkoris. This was all we had. Throwing in with them was all we had!"
Hope all of you that celebrate it had a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! I'll be back tomorrow to get us moving again.
The berserker woman continues to pound on Uriel, beating over and over again with her greatsword.
Kemat steps over to Uriel and casts Cure Light Wounds.
The acid splashes against the Barbarian and sizzles. It's a mild burn, but a burn nonetheless.
Uriel retaliates, but neither swing hits. Darya moves to engage but she is unable to connect. On the other side of Uriel, Arloric attacks as well and also fails to land a blow.
The woman unleashes crazed battle cry as she charges towards Uriel.
Her sword slams into him with considerable force, dealing a brutal blow.
Initiative:
Uriel tries the door and finds it's not locked. He opens it and reveals a gruesome sight. A very tall, muscular, human woman has just buried a greatsword into a tiefling. Some forty or fifty beds line either side of what appears to be barracks, and a dozen teifling corpses--some without their heads--are splayed across them. There is blood everywhere, all of it fresh. The woman turns to face you, and her expression is crazed. "You!", she cries out. "YOU! You are responsible! Better they die by my hands than face them, but you are the cause of it all!" She pulls her sword out of the tiefling. Her crazed expression turns to one of seething rage.
The left-most door opens easily from this side. You see exactly what you expect to see: a mirror image of the entrance you just came through. You hear sounds coming through the closed doors to the south. It almost sounds like a fight of some sort. It's very muffled and difficult to hear, but occasionally there's someone shouting, or possibly crying out.
You scan the area but you don't see any auras in range.
Alexa pops the lock on the third try, and the doors open up to reveal a large hall leading north. The southern wall continues west towards an identical set of double doors. There are two more single doors set into the wall, spaced 10 feet apart.
You cautiously follow Alexa into the citadel, descending the steps ahead of you. The wide passageway makes a left turn, descends another set of stairs, and ends in double metal doors as impressive as the ones outside. They are also locked.
Alexa gives the lock another go, and it pops open with an audible click. You push the doors open, revealing a zig-zag corridor that descends into the citadel.
Alexa gets to work on the lock, but the mechanism is quite resistant to being forced open.
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