Roccavisk says, "Ah yes, combat!" and casts Acid Arrow at the final shadow beast.
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Roccavisk makes no move to ease Wynnstan's fall. 'The four relics of the shipwreck we used on Slymr, so we must gather items important to the individual for the ritual to be conducted. To cleanse Kamalani's second spirit, we will need Tolk's objects as well as these four relics. This ritual will also take longer, I fear, and draw in many devils and demons while the purification spell is cast."
Roccavisk raises her sword and says, "A clarion call to action! Let us make haste (though not literally through magic, ah ha). Shall we endeavor to first remove the evils here and learn the nature of the remaining two relics, or shall we scour the countryside first? Either way, my blade hungers."
Roccavisk says, "Ever since Slymr's spirit was cleansed from that wicked monastery, I have felt a weakening of the abilities within these relics I carry."
EDIT
"One must destroy the monster with slashing and magic, you fools! Beware, for the abomination may also elect to summon more undead, or shatter our resolve with fear. But take heart! I know how to defeat such a creature. Because being decapitated... is the pits!" She casts create pit in the back part of the headless minotaur's room.
The headless minotaur falls into the pit and takes
Roccavisk moves to kill the last champion by the door.
And misses.
Roccavisk points her sword and says, "Channel Iomedae's divinity! If fear grips your heart, another can charge in and assault the very walls themselves. My blade has no qualms against striking such defenseless objects." Roccavisk is ready to charge in and blindly attack the walls if no one else wants to.
Roccavisk is bemused at the Prioress's struggles. "Magic circles are how the weak fight Evil. Why not rush head on? But for the sake of this temple's clergy there should be some protection."
"Fear not, Brag. This temple shall remain free of undead menace as long as this merfolk stands tall."
Roccavisk draws her sword and raises it high, saying, "Yes, let us fight! We grow older with each passing moment; let us slay some foe directly and feel life surge through our gills once again. Whether of the land, sea, or air matters not, as long as my sword can pierce its flesh.
Roccavisk says, "The bad news. I can already see you have lost Brag, though I know not why you have given his few belongings to this halfling monk you rescued." Upon hearing the actual news, Roccavisk is startled and eyes Bragoleb again. She lifts one of his eyelids, smells his underarm, and plucks a strand of hair from his head before nodding. "You speak truth; this is Bragoleb," she says to Lem as if Bragoleb were not right there. Looking down at Bragoleb, an angle she always excelled at regardless of height, she asks, "Speak to me of death. The pain, the despair. Did you meet Pharasma in her Boneyard? Or Iomedae directly, perhaps?"
As she stands, watching you get ready, Roccavisk calls out, "Wait! After a night full of thought, There may be a way for me to assist with regards to the task at hand..." She digs into the snow until she finds soil, and mixes the cold earth with the slush of the snow. She casts Mud Buddy. A small muddy blob shifts and forms into the shape of a Small, merfolk-shaped creature. Its arms and fin is ooze black mud, and two large eyes made of a bubble of thin mud bat their nonexistent eyes at you. "This is Gloop. He is my muddy buddy. He can run and fetch things, open unstuck doors, and hold chairs, as well as clean and mend. Gloop, listen to these four and do as they say." She gives Gloop a slorpy pat on the head before sending him off to follow you. The mud buddy squelches along to stand beside the party, big eyes staring unblinking at you.
"A climb?" Roccavisk says. She would look sweaty were she not already wet from her constant castings of create water. "Danger lies afoot here in the monastery. A guard shall be needed for these monks, acolytes, and travelers, against whatever evils still lurk here."
"Two can swim in those waters," Roccavisk says. She summons a small water elemental adjacent to the dire bat. The elemental misses the bat.
Roccavisk 5' steps away from the dire bat and casts mudball at the bat wizard.
Roccavisk glides down the stairs and attempts to trip the fox.
"Lem and I have this one covered," she says.
Roccavisk casts Grease beneath the wolf and the monkey.
Roccavisk examines the dead devils. "These infernal beasts are in league with those that haunt me. As Arbaro said, separating the relics ceased their honing in on our location, but now it seems they are using other means to search for clues about the Venerable Theseus wreck. We are not the only ones investigating this strange occurrence."
AC 13; hp 13/13 The squid's tentacles glow with divine light and it slaps the bearded devil to the south.
The tentacles wrap around the devil's hooved feet, suctioning to its coal-red fur.
The devil prances free from the squid's grasp, but still takes full damage from the smiting tentacles.
"Devils! Like those that have plagued me since the wreck! Face the wrath of the sea!"
You hear a soft pop and a dark orange-red squid plops onto the snow between the party and the yeti and devil to the east. "Hmm..." Roccavisk says. "The snow may not be the best place for such a creature..." Celestial squid AC 13, hp 15/15; can smite evil AC 21, hp 36/36
After Arbaro hits with one of his arrows, Roccavisk casts acid arrow and leaps down the hill.
Roccavisk casts stone call in a 40' radius around the three yetis to the right. A rain of pebbles, rocks, and stone litter the area, pines cracking and crashing, powdered snow flying into the air.
She slithers toward the two yetis and yells, "The time for diplomacy has flown with Brag's first arrow, Thurl. All that remains is to crush them!"
Roccavisk laughs at Bragoleb's fall. "That was even better than watching you dry-legs trip. Two legs above water? What were the gods thinking? Always shifting your entire weight from foot to foot, a balancing act about to topple with the slightest interference..." She takes a deep breath and says, "But to the matter at hand, I, too, would have fallen from such a height. When we are at a place of purchasing, let me buy you some Boots of the Cat."
"I am glad I did not waste my time," Roccavisk says to Thurl. "But Thurl, in Aquan, the nickname is taken from the last few syllables, not the first. Proper etiquette would render my nickname Lb'p'p." To Arbaro, she says, "The Sycophants of Roccavisk, of course."
Roccavisk creates saltwater on herself and breathes a contented sigh. "Ah, this chill is bracing. The temperature here is similar to the cold we get on the ocean floor. I almost feel at home again. Thank you for the healing, Bragoleb. "As for the task at hand, I am already of diminished use on land. Scaling a wall would be a sight most unseemly."
Roccavisk looks up before the dragon's breath, "What? Where? This sound much larger than a duck, Thurl." Round 2, because I forgot to give her a turn earlier... She pulls at the compass on her person and points it at the dragon, an arrow of acid flinging from her arm.
"He's almost dead, one more shot Lem!" AC 21, hp 16/36
"Hey, what about me?!" Roccavisk shouts. She slithers through the snow to barely get out of the fog. AC 21, hp 16/36
"I do not need to conform to any societal standards; society should conform to logic and honesty instead of hiding behind veneers of decency or propriety," she says to Arbaro, getting angry. At Bragoleb's words, Roccavisk sighs and looks out at the horizon. "Before all this," she says, weary, her veneer of confidence down. She gathers herself, preparing to go against her natural instincts. "I was called... Quashishilb'p'p." She is too focused on herself to notice any reactions from the party. After her reverie she takes a deep breath and hears Lem's words. She slaps him on the shoulder and says, "I too have learned to appreciate you. Your anger is out of concern for your friends, not from deep-seated father issues as I secretly feared."
Roccavisk openly stares at Thurl in disgust as he dries his clothes. "My memory of how ugly you dry-legs are had thankfully slipped away," she says before turning her head. "Now the night must be spent trying to forget again..." Seeing Arbaro's suggestions, Roccavisk shakes her head. "There is no use for such a thing," she says. "As for the headband of social competence, this object is best suited for..." she scans all four of you. "Well, all of you. I wish there were four of them. As for walking, my tail can slither along quite fine. River or rock is of no matter to this fish." She pauses with a look of curiosity before saying, "You do know that is what my moniker means, do you not? Roccavisk, Rockfish. It is a cruel label merfolk give those banished from the sea."
"Gratitude, Wisdombringer," Roccavisk says. She 5' swims away from the mother troll's reach and splashes Lem's pulpy mess of a troll. "I have gleaned wisdom from the relics of shipwrecks, can conjure beasts from the planes at my whim, studied the arts of unbalancing my opponents, and yet here I am, playing mop up like some kind of acidic maintenance worker," she says through her scowl. Though when I learned the art of tripping, I did so under the assumption that my banishment would have me fighting *out* of the water more often than not, but, well, here we are...
"Brilliant plan, stoneman," she says. "Lure them into the boat and capsize it." It's hard to tell whether she is being serious or not through the heat of battle.
"Trolls, what foul beasts," Roccavisk says, popping her head out of the water. "Melt their wounds before they clot. Use corrosion or flame; the difference is meaningless." She casts acid arrow on the troll in the water.
AC 21, hp 36/36
Roccavisk leaps out over the rapids, doing so quite gracefully until she slams into the rocks, having misjudged the distance to the top of the falls. She struggles like a bird out of air but manages to make it to the next level.
"The rapids look rougher ahead," she says.
Now that everyone is healed and the boat is headed back to Pridon's Hearth, Brag asks Roccavisk, "I've heard that merfolk are the world's most wonderful singers. Why don't you like to sing? Is it that you have a different gift than singing? Is that why you travel alone?" "There is a yearly coming-of-age singing ceremony every young merfolk must perform. When I sang, everyone laughed. Except my family, who were so ashamed they had me banished and have not seen me since. I have spent time with other merfolk settlements, but those relationships always end the same; I never fit the shell they would have me wear. Mr. Pluploodeep was one such of those people who I thought I had a future with, but he was as rigid as the rest. One day I will tell you more of him, but not today." She straightens up and looks out at the horizon ahead, saying "But remember, Bragoleb, I have no been sentenced to exile; they have been sentenced to stay at home."
Roccavisk says, "The way back to Pridon's Hearth is known. Let us return there, if no one objects."
Roccavisk, without warning, rips the bolt out of Bragoleb in one motion and tosses it into the sea.
She nods at Thurl's request to keep the money. "You are the most intelligent, and therefore the most responsible. I know not how you divide your spoils, but desire nothing of coinage. The odd unclaimed trinket will be enough to satisfy my curiosity."
Roccavisk swims around the ship and hurls an arrow of acid at the sahuagin.
The green acid skips across the water. AC 24 (barkskin, 60 minutes), hp 30/36
Round 1, AC 24 (barkskin, 60 minutes), hp 30/36
"Birds should fly, as fish should swim. Be free, feathered friends," Roccavisk says. She casts grease on the net, coating the quite large rope with oily black grease,
Surprise Round | AC 24 (barkskin, 60 minutes) | hp 30/36
"Ha ha, enough talk with Pluploodeep's lackeys! We have a saying in Aquan: The shark outswims its roar, the lightning outpaces the thunder, and the spear outstrikes the speech!" Roccavisk dashes forward and casts grease under the two northern sahuagin.
The northern sahuagin falls prone.
Roccavisk swims beside Bragoleb and hits him on the shoulder. "Brag," she says, not unfriendly. "Will you stand there, slack-jawed, and refrain from using your Goz Mask? Or will you relinquish it to someone smarter than yourself?" The paladin failed to mention he owned the mask when they purchased those scrolls. The mask lets him breathe underwater already! I cannot read this man's intentions, but surely he is not that forgetful.
"I too have the splash of acid. But more than that I can call forth stones to rain down on our enemies," Roccavisk says. LINK Stone Call, 2d6 area damage. "Our friends from the ocean can also be called forth to aid our attack."
Roccavisk charges in, swimming around the surprised wood golem to flank with Lem. "Of course crabs can swim, Braggadocio! But this will keep them out of the fight." She casts fog cloud centered on the crabs, granting total concealment to anything within/without the fog. AC 21, hp 36/36
Thurl ponders this new information from Roccavisk and slowly starts talking, "Perhaps we should have a conversation with this Plupploodeep. Do you think he would be open to discussing this particular wreckage? Can we communicate with his golem? Might he be nearby? There is so much we don't know. We don't even know what we are looking for, just knowing what was aboard might help us." As he talks, the questions come faster and Thurl gets more animated. Roccavisks bristles at the mention of meeting Plupploodeep. "I avoid meeting with that man at all costs, even when mandated by the courts. Your association with me will nullify any leeway you might have had. And searching for him could take days; time you do not have." She relaxes a little when Thurl says he does not know what they are looking for. "Ha! You expect me to know what you are looking for? I told you I already examined this wreck. Nothing is here! Now there are golems and crabs!"
Roccavisk sees the golem and shakes her head. "As I suspected. Mr. Plupploodeep is scavenging these waters. I used to explore wrecks with him, long, long ago. Golems do the merman's dirty work, for he is afraid to soil his own hands. He is an unimaginative man of rigid lawfulness. "As for the wreck, I found nothing else of value inside. But... the hole was not here when last I laid on this wreck a year ago. The name painted on the side of the ship is gone with it, which may have aided our search back ashore. What could have done this?"
Aquatic:
"Here's mud in your eye!" Roccavisk swims within melee range and draws her short sword, Spells: 1st 5/6; 2nd 3/3; Mental Focus 10/10
"I was unconcerned with looking at the scenery," Roccavisk says, falling behind Thurl. I should be leading, but no matter. As long as my view is unimpeded I shall not complain.
Roccavisk, ignoring the shark, swims circles and corkscrews around you as you descend, playing in the water like a dolphin, but with a sneer instead of a smile. Her swimming funnels you in a particular direction as she looks for the wreck. "Here, beyond the coral rock," she says. She points over a rock covered in red and yellow coral, thousands of vibrant fish darting in and out of the plant life.
Roccavisk watches Brag and says, "You will brave the crushing depths without your armor? Ah, no, you will you stow it in that extradimensional container of the fat halfling." She motions to Thurl. "You are not that fearless." "As for depth," she says to Lem, "We are going where the light is dim, though still visible. The pressure and the cold will not be enough to kill you. As for the rest... "
Roccavisk is distrusting of the sahuagin from the start. "I dislike sahuagin. They raided my shoal when I was a juvenile more times than I can count. Evil, murderous, and greedy. Though I have never known one to lie, let alone ask for something instead of simply taking it by force. Perhaps he is telling the truth." When the sahuagin mentions the area they patrol she sighs and says, "Alas, the shipwreck lies between the Farswell Current and the Great Turgid Spot." "As for working for a merfolk, I can only hope a baser race like the sahuagin have finally learned to take commands from a superior species. But we have no settlements nearby and care nothing for what goes on above the waves. Only one merfolk I know of would ask for tolls to sail on the one part of water we merfolk care nothing about... Mr. Plupploodeep." "But if instead he is taking commands from an aboleth..." she draws her sword. "We should have killed him at first sight."
Climbing into the boat, Roccavisk sits circle-tailed and tells a story. "Merfolk do not tell stories; they sing. Ballads, shanties, and the like. But singing is vain, unsubstantial, boring, and slow, and those that enjoy music are as well. I do not enjoy singing, and neither do those who hear me sing. It is one of the many reasons I... left." She looks uncomfortably down the side of the boat and into the ocean before continuing. "So instead of singing I will tell a song to you, a ditty sung for children called "Beneath the Ocean."
"It begins: beneath the ocean, we eat the kelp, clam, and krill given to us. Look not to the air above, for their food shall appear desirable, while yours undesirable in comparison. She instead should have looked beneath the ocean around her and seen the wondrous things she already possessed. "I forgot to tell you: the song is about a woman (you would say mermaid) who desired to see the surface. The song does not state who the song is about explicitly, but instead assumes the listener knows the background, which is presumptuous and sectarian. "It continues by explaining how the ocean was good to her. How the saltwater soaked her skin and scales, how she did not have to toil away under an oppressive sun that would dry out her scales. How water above the ocean must be carried, caught, or dug and then kept hidden, or it will float away into nothingness." Roccavisk casts create water on herself, breathing in the water before contuining. "How a fish or a merfolk, when it goes ashore, will be imprisoned in tiny glass tombs until it dies. Worst of all, how some fish are taken and eaten by the dry-legs. But beneath the ocean, we are not eaten. "I also forgot: a ruddy crab, though some say it is a ruby-red lobster, told the woman all this. He is the singer. "Finally the singer, as the crustacean, says how merfolk do not eat other fish, which is of course a lie. The song is very stupid. The song ends by stating how merfolk and fish sing songs and make music together, going on and on, fish after fish, even detailing what instruments they each play, one by one. I will not bore you with the details. "And the song does not even tell what happened to the woman, or the crustacean, afterward. It is not a very good song, having no real beginning or ending to it. Many children like it, however. I even disagree with the sentiment; one should leave home if it does not suit them. This is not foolish, but wise. Fear nothing, not even death by being eaten. "I should not have told you it," she says, and shakes her head. "I should have told you of the Cecaelia witch's song. It is much truer, though darker."
During the voyage, Roccavisk spears marlin, yellow heart tuna, king mackerel, eldritch sailfish, dire wahoo, and mahi-mahi for the group's dinners. She even dredges up seaweed and oysters from the ocean floor. At Thurl's request, Roccavisk smiles and says, "You want to speak the language of true nobility? I will gladly teach you, but know this: Aquan is best learned beneath the waves."
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