"Hoowie! Glad we got out of that one. It's been a pleasure and honour, everyone. Especially you, Hakky. Thanks for letting me hitch a ride on you through all of this. I'll adventure with any of you guys anyday!"
"Those crazy women will do more damage than you can heal. We're best off taking them down as quickly as possible!" Twitter chirps as she fires a dark-orange ray at the green Arodeth.
Twitter will direct his last 2 special attacks at red, trusting Blan to finish off Blue and start on green.
"That's the last of my heavy hits, guys. It's back to little splashes of acid after this..." the little bird pants, ostensibly weary by the constant battling.
Idea! Can our action for the 'downtime' be readying an action to attack when the Arodeths arrive? Since we know they are going to emerge from the walls again, can we get a surprise round?
Twitter spends her time waiting for new Arodeths to show up and to attack with the last of her power as soon as any appear.
"I did it, guys! The real Arodeth is going to help us get back home! Errm... problem is, these copies of Arodeth are copies of her from before I spoke to her and want to get in her way, so we gotta take them out. Say... does anyone else feel this place getting warmer? I wonder if it's because oh gosh there's more of them!"
Twitter fixes her pouch back at Hakime's waist, and trusting Blan and
Blan, think if you take a 5ft directly to the right, you can full attack blue anyway, and still cover Hakime from green. Wanna just do that?
Twitter reckons that even if Blue survives Blan's attacks, Van's lightning bolt will probably finish it off. She instead works her magic on green as she appears to be the biggest threat to Hakime.
Your personal copy of Kreighton Shaine will be traveling with you, but he is not much of a warrior in his current condition, nor can he help you with skills. He can cast any combination of the following spells up to a maximum combined spell level total of 6, at CL 10. He will need protection, and if you allow him to die, you will lose a valuable source of information and assistance. Use him wisely. 4th—greater invisibility, solid fog, wall of stone
3rd—fly, haste, tongues
2nd—bear’s endurance, bull’s strength, resist energy
1st—enlarge person, identify, shield
Can I post if it's not about the persuasion attempt? I just want to suggest that it would be a good idea to use Shaine to cast enlarge person on Blan before the fight, and then haste on the group in round 1. If we're low on time, we might as well burn everything we have left to maximise our damage.
You know what? if things are this bad, I'm going for divide and conquer. I've got a couple of boons I can burn to help on skill checks. I'm also going to use some abilities that will reveal some of my secrets, so I wanna fly this solo. Worst case, if I don't get enough successes, I'll come back out to ask for help.
Sean, we're going to blitz this in a private channel. I see you on discord, so you better not be afk.
"You guys heal up and get ready to keep fighting the crazy-women. I'm going to see if I can't talk some sense into the main crazy woman! If I don't come out... well if I don't come out we're all probably screwed anyway. You guys rest up here and and wish me luck!"
Twitter grabs the pouch at Hakime's waist and flies into the room beyond.
We're not too bad at combat either, and I have a decent amount of firepower left available for use. If we're pressed for time I think combat might be quicker, so I'm leaning more towards stay and fight. If time was not a factor, I'd be keen to try talking...
Especially since if we fail to persuade her, we might end up in a fight we can't win.
Since these are just copies, there are no alignment repercussions for killing destroying them, right?
"Lacsuhnollo is doomed, but you can still save yourself! The green magical energy around you is binding you to this place. Relinquish it and you can avoid sharing the fate of this doomed place! Cling to it, and perish with the others!"
I'm going to go ahead and try a diplomatic soft approach first, then again more forcefully with intimidation. I think the context kinda suits both approaches evenly?
"Besides, that green energy is causes sterility, and worse still, it clings to things after prolonged exposure - meaning that if you keep it around that treasure for too long, the treasure will acquire that energy field and cause sterility in anyone who keeps the treasure for too long. That's gonna de-value the treasure, and unlike you, the treasure will not have the sentience to give up the energy! If you want to preserve the value of your treasure, or your virility for that matter, you're really gonna need to pass on that energy field asap."
Ugh... I feel dirty. Well, the GM did say we were running out of time and that lives were at stake... Attempting to deal NLD would have been nice though.
Anyway, the looter guy looks like it will be more straight-forward encounter if we are going to favour the guns-blazing approach? Also, it looks like he's the only so far who might actually be a danger to others.
Oooch, long weekend, but it seems I didn't miss too much. It looks like we ain't getting anywhere by talking.... I'm not keen on this approach, but it's not like Twitter is physically capable of stopping Blan...
"I think the Varisian guy's on the cards. Let's go say 'harrow' to him?" Twitter quips, then purses her beak as her body rocks with ill-contained laughter.
"Hey guys, I think that little fireball 's gonna do a number on that ooze, so what say we just keep our distance and pelt it with acid and magic missiles, hey? I'm kinda liking that idea."
"Say...this guy ain't playing with a full deck, is he? Hmm... I got an idea. Just keep him occupied, don't do anything threatening, don't do anything to piss him off, just humour him for awhile," Twitter chirps as she ducks into the pouch at Hakky's side. Lights flash from within the pouch for a moment as she pokes her head out and chirps as softly as she can.
GM read this, the rest need a DC25 Perception check:
You hear a whisper from within the pouch.
"Hear me, oh my grandson. Hear the voice of Aroden! These people are here to bring my voice to you. The green energy that surrounds you is part of a remnant of Tar-Baphon's power, sent from him to harm my progeny. It may appear to be a gift, but in fact it will corrupt those who seek to cling to it or use it. These agents of mine come with a warning - recant that magic! Purge it by your will!"
"Contrary to appearances, I don't have any special affinity with peacocks. But I think you got this, Hakky. We'll follow your lead. Peacock-man it is!"
Torrag and Van only have 20ft move speeds, so I don't think we can outrun them. On the other hand, if Torrag has a pit spell and we drop the blast shadow into a pit, I could drop crap on it from above until it blows up, and the pit could contain the blast.
If it makes its reflex save, we may need Blan to bull rush it into the pit, but he's going to be in deep trouble if he falls in as well.
Oooh, some of those spells will be very useful to have on tap.
After reporting back about the 5 glowing people and the 5 possible locations of the vault, Twitter tells the group, "hey guys, I think I have an idea for telling which one the vault is most likely to be at. Just give me 5 minutes. Hakky, I'll be taking that pouch with me. I might need some of my tools in there."
GM, I've PMed you my plan.
After about 5 minutes, Twitter returns to the group again...
Hang on, Torrag. I have an alternate idea that might save you your arcane bond use. Those things are precious.
Instead of burrowing down, how about we look for things burrowing up? GM, my reasoning is that if there is something generating noise and electricity below the ground, it is going to disturb the creepy crawlies underground and drive them up nearer to the surface, meaning one of the 5 locations should have a greater concentration of creepy crawlies near or on the surface than the others. Would a perception or survival check do the job, or if I had a way to give myself scent temporarily, would I be able to sniff out which location smells the most of things that should be further below ground?
If that won't work, then let's go with the earth elementals.
Twitter defers to Torrag's intelligence and starts checking out the buildings and terrain for unusual displacements.
knowledge engineering:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23
About "creative skill uses", after Twitter and Torrag compare notes about the terrain and structures and backtracking, can I use that as a basis to conduct an aerial inspection? Will that allow me to use perception to gain another success? If yes: perception:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (19) + 6 = 25
DO the successes need to be unique? If not: knowledge geography:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23 Int check:1d20 ⇒ 4
"So, um... why are there, like, hundreds of you running around? Could we possible try to talk to these Harbinger idiots since they're about to get themselves killed as well as us? Any ideas on how to find the vault or cut those tethers?"
"Basically, what the hell are we supposed to do?"
As she speaks, Twitter hops onto the Kreighton Shaine talking to us to see if he is an illusion.
"Hey guys? So that big rock coming down from the sky at us? Psst. Brace yourselves, some of you may not have realised, but it is NOT A GOOD THING! Oh hey, lookie! Azlanti architecture! If only I had a device that I could use to take a picture of myself with all these buildings! I mean seriously, we have spells to raise people from the dead, but not capture images?"
Twitter flies up into the air, then dives back down and grabs Hakime's sleeve, vainly flapping her little wings to try to help arrest her fall. No real effect.
"Hmm... let's see what this thing's all about, hey?" Twitter muses as she hops over the remains of the statues and starts poking at the remains with her beak.
Seeing as the next statue is a little out of range, Twitter readies an action to fire another acid splash at it as soon as it is within range (whether due to movement by it or by Hakime).
"You guys keep doing your thing. I'll just keep firing from the hip," Twitter chirps.
Yeah... construct traits. I hate construct traits.... If they have fast healing, we should focus fire on one of them at a time... At least all our acid splashes will ignore their SR and do damage easily...
Twitter readies an action to shoot acid at the first one that comes into range, favouring one that is already hurt by his allies.
