And WE'RE BACK, BABY!
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Also, particularly if you live in the States, be prepared for the big toddler in charge of the country to try and punish us all for hurting his feelings yesterday. I don't think any of us are in the direct line of fire, but toddlers having a meltdown in their highchair throw their food everywhere.
Quick reminder: The details of the various leadership roles can be found beginning on page 201 of Ultimate Campaign, linked at the top of this page.
Part of all this traveling has to do with getting the kingdom in order and filling out all the administrative positions as well. Shepherd Jhod had been having dreams about the Temple of the Elk/that hillside cave with the cursed bear in it and the dungeon beneath (where the party is now).
The unseen servants provide a sumptuous meal served upon a series of silver platters, that they silently remove from the courtyard as soon as the diner's attention turns away. Tamris and his big speckled wolf, Rain, eat together quietly, almost broodingly.
No rush. You'll have us lapped soon. ;)
Teenagers happen like that or so I am told. Glad to hear that and that you're doing well. And of course I can always use another poster... or three. ;)
Quiet for the most part.
(Zokon's still "king" btw). Working on writing today. Maybe paint some Warhammer 40k orks later, and maybe a protest sign for the next No Kings protest. ;) How's things on the other side of the globe in Australia?
How long are you planning on staying inside Eldiocesan's Magnificent Mansion? There is a second closer entrance to the dungeon that comes out behind the hill you are currently under that doesn't involve any stairs. The passages could fit your horses (although they would feel claustrophobic to horses and in game terms result in them being 'squeezed'). Other than that there is the very tight spiral stairwell from the big cave/temple above.
Eldiocesan stares intensely at Illthir like a stern statue set outside of a courthouse or military academy. For his part, Tamris, looks as if he is trying to will himself into disappear. The wizard had ushered the party into a delightful ivy-covered courtyard somewhere inside Eldicesan's Magnificent Mansion. The walls around the garden were rung with three stories of balcony walkways all crowned with a clear blue, late-summer, afternoon sky (or at least that is what it looked like). He invited them to tea, and seemed to take the group's order, but when he was done he just sat and began to listen to their tale. Now a small silver tray was floating leisurely toward them out of one of the house's arched entrances full of tea cups
Little rough on my timelines, but if I remember correctly it ought to be more then a couple of weeks since the manor attack? Though news may not travel fast or far. That's about right. You had to hang around for the construction crews to show up and then it would have been about week to travel back from Brevoy to the outpost, and then a couple of days since.
There was a passage (with a Temple of Doom-style mine cart chase) beneath the Sootscale Kobolds' silver mine lair about 12 miles south of your present position (see the Regional Map). The party chased Tartuk, the tribe's sorcerer down into the Darklands beneath the Narlmarches where he disappeared through the gates of what looked to be a huge underground settlement, though whether or not he found any sort of help within is unknown as he didn't look happy as the heavily armored troglodyte guards dragged him inside. According to a journal that party member Numalar had discovered, Tartuk was originally a gnome who was killed when his village was attacked by a giant. The villagers (not really knowing what a monster he was yet) had him reincarnated. He returned as a kobold (a species Tartuk deeply hates). As revenge for this humiliation, he roused a tribe of kobolds into attacking the gnomes. The resulting battle ended with both sides nearly wiped out and both of their settlements abandoned. Since then he has been traveling the Stolen Land, ingratiating himself into various groups of kobolds, raising to a position of power using his magic, and then rousing the kobolds into suicidal wars against their neighbors. He had set the Sootscale kobolds against the Mites of the Ol' Sycamore Tree (see Illthir's earliest posts), and probably would have (if he hadn't already) set them against the people of Samuel Renault's farming settlement to the north.
Yeah, I'm "under the weather" too, although the high-temperature I working my way through is purely external. Whew! Get well soon! (And everyone keep cool if you need to. ;))
But this wasn't really her area of expertise. She was all about the heroic deeds and good stories. *Glup* She grabbed her spare sidearm and reached out to poke the disc.
Illthir inspects the hazy disc. It's definitely something magical. The area of the distortion appears to be about 8-feet-tall and about 4-feet-wide. There are a couple of auras. One strong one matching the exact position of the disc and another emanating from the door in the southwest of the room. This second much weaker aura overlaps with the entire room. Concentrating on the upright disc, there's nothing in Illthir's knowledge of spellcraft to help her identify what, if anything, it does, nor even what school of magic it belongs too. It is a strong aura though.
Guessing that little bits of stuff can land anywhere in the room itself given that the the floor is covered in the debris of a couple exploded barrels Illthir tosses a bit of rock shifted from the walls in the same explosion into the intriguingly door-sized glowing magical disc rather than anywhere else in the room. The stone passes through the faintly shimmering air and hits the stone wall behind it and tumbles to the increasingly cluttered floor.
"Time to fling another rock?"
Rounding the corner into the area proper the party finds a faintly glowing oval disk floating perpendicular to the floor a few inches off the ground in one corner.
With the help of Jhod's magical light, Serena can see into what appears to be a room divided by cage bars with a door set near the center. There's also a bunch of scattered wood and huge puddle of water, the remains of a couple of barrels blown to bits in the explosion.
Anyone with Detect Magic running for a couple of rounds: There's still another aura there Fergus can tell you it's an abjuration with a 40' diameter centered on the northeast corner of the hall.
Stepping up to the wall to trace the unreadable magic words on the wall, Serena is enveloped by an expanding globe of light and fire. The blast wave sends dust and debris in all directions. The explosion buckles the corridor and brings down small stones and grit from between the ceiling slabs and chars black everything in its radius.
The hot wind blows Fergus's and Jhod's hair back.
Serena steps away from the magical writing on the far wall.
If you like your eggs scrambled hand them over to a rabbit to deliver. ;)
The runes themselves are almost invisible, but he can make out that they are there from one space south of Johd, just north of the open pit trap. He cannot however make out the exact shape of the characters from there. Fergus (or anyone else using detect magic): After staring into the corridor for a few seconds, Fergus spies with his inner eye the telltale signs of magic ahead. There are two distinct auras. Both are faint and centered upon the 5' x 5' area on that map that corresponds to the bend in the hall. One of the auras encompasses the, floor, walls and ceiling of the area as well. The other seems to emanate outward 20' from the furthest corner of the hallway and now encompasses the area Serena is in and ends just before Fergus's space. It also looks as though it extends down the hall toward the west the same way. At this point, anyone with detect magic running and a rank or more in Knowledge (arcana) can attempt the following skill checks: The 20' radius aura - Knowledge (arcana) DC 13 Spoiler:
This aura is an abjuration. The aura concentrated on corner space - Knowledge (arcana) DC 13 Spoiler: This aura is an abjuration.
The pebble smacks against the stone wall and falls to the floor without any obvious effect upon the nearly invisible arcane letters.
Dice:
Illthir and Serena's elven eyes note a faint glossy outline of a series of arcane symbols on the opposing wall revealed by the light of the shepherd's glowing longbow.
The stone wall parts.... The passageway continues on for about 10 feet before turning left.
Fergus finds a 'loose brick.'
The party makes it's way through the torture chamber and it's broken iron maiden and northward through a with an open pit trap full of foot-long metal spikes at the bottom. Ahead they come to a perfectly blank wall that according to the map is secret door .
Re mending + hair - that's an interesting question... It is technically hp damage, and Serena was only damaged not 'destroyed,' but aligning all the individual hairs to their original stems.... ;p Fortunately Serena keeps her hair numbered for just such a situation. At present her hair probably looks like a really lopsided pageboy cut. The sort of thing that would have looked really cool in the 90's.
"I agree that we should continue," Serena says, brushing herself off and straightening what's left of her hair.
RESULTS!
ROUND 6! (Theme ♬)
Fergus smacks one out of the air as it tries passing over him.
ROUND 5! (Theme ♬)
The remaining mephits fly through the door at Fergus but instead of attacking the dwarf they flee past him down the sloping corridor the party previously found to go on and on deeper into the earth.
ROUND 5! (Theme ♬)
dice:
The room fills with explosive fire. Serena feels the door at her back nearly buckle under the force of the explosion just beyond. As the smoke clears Fergus sees that the most of the dust mephits have been blown to discreet piles of smoldering ash on the floor, and the three still in the air are both blackened and dazed. So powerful is the blast that dust falls from the ceiling around the corner upon Illthir and Jhod.
ROUND 5! (Theme ♬)
At Fergus's urging the shepherd takes cover behind a corner. Serena avoids the worst of the dust storm, but the other mephit avoids Serena's reactive swing and tugs harder on her long red hair. ROUND 4! (Theme ♬)
[/ooc]Before we go any further I need a Reflex save from Serena vs the dusty breath weapon, and decisions on Serena's possible AoOs. In that order.[/ooc]
ROUND 4! (Theme ♬)
If Serena has time, before the blast, she lays hands on herself to recover 1d6 hp.
ROUND 4! (Theme ♬)
ROUND 4! (Theme ♬)
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