Elisai glides lightly across the room, before quietly opening the next door
Following after the Skald Sunday quickly looks about the room, particularly at seeing more statues with polearms.
Ignoring Kiley, the half-elf continues hir rutine checking everything.
Once the room is declared safe, Jessica takes a look at the statues with their glaives to see if they are real, if the glaives can be removed, and if any of them are better than hers.
Delendir swiftly checks the room for traps and other interesting things, finding none.
Tal enacts a spell, trying to detect magical properties. Like Delendir, he comes up empty-handed.
Sunday and Jessica both inspect the statues, more looking for useful things than any actual information on the statue itself. Unfortunately, it seems the glaives wielded by these statues are of the stone variety.
Elisai swiftly steps across the room, waiting a moment before opening the eastern door.
"Huh, that's funny. Why is the floor polished here and not elsewhere?"
Kiley scratches her head as she looks around Elisai into the hall beyond.
"Newer?.. Or much older." Sunday muses as he steps around the fighter and skald into the hallway to check the carved door before Elisai hastily opens it.
As Sunday starts to head down the corridor, his sharp eyes catch something that draws his gaze upwards. Overhead, there are two cleverly hidden portcullises hidden on either side of the polished spot on the floor. Scrutinizing further, he finds that that section of the floor appears to contain a pressure plate of some sort.
Pointing down at the floor he turns back to Kiley with a smile. "Vhat vas zhat about traps?"
"The question is, is it active," Kiley says as she returns the smile with a grin. She carefully positions her hands on the head of her halberd and puts the butt of the shaft on the spot Sunday pointed out while staying clear of the portcullis.
Sunday quickly steps to her side as the cute girl with questionable sanity taps the plate.
Once everything is set, she then puts all of her weight on the weapon,
Kiley begins to apply pressure to the tip of her halberd. All of a sudden, the portcullises slam shut on either side of the plate.
The pint-sized warrior hurriedly yanks her weapon back as the metal contraptions slam down. Almost immediately, the statues on either side of the area start to manically jab their glaives at the area where the polished floor is. As Kiley lifts her glaive off, the frantic slashing of the glaives stops, but the portcullises remain down.
"So do ve break zhem down or lift zhem up?" Sunday asks while looking the trap over.
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"Perhaps next time we do not wildly activate traps when we find them. What if there was a jet of fire or acid? Any number of horrifying magical spells could be triggered. Think about that before you act so impulsively. Next time let Delendir try to deactivate it."
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"He can still try vith zhis one." Sunday bluntly offers.
Startled out of her examination, Jessica looks around for a threat and then sees what happened, "What was that?"
"Excellent", Elisai says brightly "I always love it when we make loud noises to announce our presence to whoever we are trying to kill...perhaps we should bring some trumpets next time?"
"Well, we could use an orchestra to accompany us." Grace notes to Elisai. "That doesn't seem like a goblin built trap now, does it?"
Without saying anything Delendir gets Tsuto's masterwork tools from his backpack and approaches the trap.
Noding to Tal and Elisai comments he starts working in the statues then the plates saying "Stay back just in case."
If necesary he also unlocks the portculis.
As Delendir finishes his work with the trap, the northern stone door to the east opens, and out of it steps a beautiful woman. Thick silver hair falls nearly to her waist, violet eyes peer out of a lovely visage. The strange armor she wears can not hide the shapely and alluring figure beneath. There are a couple of rather unsettling things that take away from this, however. Her exposed belly has a series of hideous scars upon it, set in a criss-crossed pattern. More importantly, her left arm is completely exposed and is red, with a thick carapace over it. The arm itself ends in a talon, not a hand.
Her purple eyes narrow, hatred evident as she gets the large sword at her side at the ready.
Having been alerted by the trap, the mostly gorgeous woman acts first, her face impassive except for those burning eyes. She swings her sword heavily at Delendir. The ranger takes a grievous hit, being caught flat-footed as he is.
As the woman strikes Delendir, a hideous dog-like creature comes out of the northern room behind the striking female. It stops in the hallway, letting loose a baleful howl. The party feels its thoughts scattering, pure panic and terror starting to override any good sense.
Initiative:
Round 1: Bad Guys, Kiley, Grace, Tal, Delendir, Elisai, Sunday, Jessica
Something about the baying of that horrible hound reminds Grace of the worst aspects of home. Of the state-sponsored torture and the cries of the damned as they danced on the tines, dying by inches.
Blind panic overcomes her. Grace turns and runs stumbling through the door and half-crawling up the stairs. She must escape.
Be it the dog, be it Nualia's blow, Delendir retreats in panic leaving everything behind.
Ghina instead tries to protect the ranger with mighty rage, attacking whatever enemy is the closest.
Hearing the baying and screaming tear into his already unhinged sanity he shakes his head to steady himself, he couldn't run away now. He wouldn't run away. Not again.
Finding the courage to ignore the frightening howl, Jessica readies her glaive in preparation to attack an enemy that comes within reach.
"Why?"
Kiley's question is drowned out by the baying of the demonic hound behind Nualia, but the young woman barely even hears it. Her mind is elsewhere, remembering the day she first met Nualia. Remembering the fire. Remembering when the town mourned her loss.
"Why did you betray us?"
The fire had started in her room, and it was there it had burned hottest. Had she started it? Was Kiley's mother's death no accident?
"Why Nualia? Why did you do it? We loved you. We mourned you, and this is how you return it?"
Rage. Hot, boiling, incandescent rage fills Kiley's heart. Her voice turning to a snarl, her eyes burning bright, and her hands trembling with barely restrained fury.
"Why did you kill them?! Why did you kill my momma?!"
She screams as she launches herself at Nualia.
Kiley screams out her hurt, frustration, and anger at Nualia, looking for an opening to get at the beautiful b+*$% as her emotional state overcomes the fearful yapping of the hound.
Grace has no such luck, however, the normally calm and collected diva driven to sheer panic by the baying of the dog. She turns about, nearly falling over multiple times in her attempts to get away.
Tal easily throws off the fearful effects of the howl, his study of magic giving him an advantage against such things. He then pulls forth a small amount of butter, quickly casting a spell, then pointing at the woman's weapon. The woman gives the elf a baleful glare as the weapon slips from her grasp, otherwise she gives no indication she is unnerved.
Delendir, reacting to the howl as Grace did, turns about and attempts to flee. The woman reaches out with her clawed hand, attempting to rake it across the fleeing ranger. She almost manages to bring down the grizzled veteran as he dashes across the room for the exit.
Meanwhile, Ghina extends her talons, descending towards the lovely freak. Her beak and a talon both find purchase, giving the woman a couple of additional scars.
Kiley charges forward, now that Delendir has fled, but is unable to capitalize, her emotions getting the better of her as her wild swing is easily avoided.
Summary:
Delendir - 26 damage
Mystery Woman (JK, it's Nualia) - 3 damage
Remembering himself getting yelled at for bottlenecking in the cave he calls out to the Fighter. "Kiley, step back so ve can both take her!"
Elisai shrugs off the howling noise and swiftly uses the mental assault into motivation for her Rage Song, as she feels herself grow in strength.
Elisai starts to sing, the missing accompaniment of Grace's softer notes telling. Still, the skald feels her blood stirring, the offering of her barbaric song available to those who wish to accept its advantages and drawbacks.
Sunday implores Kiley to retreat a few steps, to open up a few more attack avenues for the companions.
Jessica withstands the fearful howling, setting her glaive in a defensive gesture, ready to impale any enemies who come within reach.
The woman continues to glare at Tal, words finally escaping her lips. "Feel the might of the Mother of Monsters!" All of you (except Delendir & Grace) feel a wave of negative energy wash over you, sapping your strength. She backs off a few feet, allowing the strange dog-like creature to pass her.
The dog lunges at Kiley, attempting to clamp its jaws down on her. The fighter grits her teeth as the dogs teeth dig deeply into her leg, but manages to plant her legs and resist the beast's efforts to drag her down. She feels a sense of fear try to again overcome her, but again heroically shakes it off.
Summary:
Delendir - 26 damage
Nualia - 3 damage
Kiley - 17 damage
Sunday - 6 damage
Elisai - 3 damage
Tal - 3 damage
Jessica - 3 damage
Initiative:
Round 2: Bad Guys, Kiley, Grace, Tal, Delendir, Elisai, Sunday, Jessica
Jessica moves a little closer and prepares to attack what ever comes down the hall again.
Delendir looks for a save place with Grace while Ghina keeps fighting in the melee entangle.
Kiley screams in rage and pain as dozens of cuts open on her skin. The demonic hound's bite turns her leg bloody. She brings her halberd down like a thunderbolt, aiming to drive the spike opposite of the blade through the thing's skull.
She's hurt, but she doesn't panic. She steps back though the door, her eyes boring into Nualia's
"What's the matter? Afraid your b@++@ goddess won't protect you from a Desnan with naught but a halberd," she growls.
Letting Elisai's voice eat away at his mind Sunday flows with the rage and readies to strike whatever steps up into range.
Also since Round 1 ended, I healed 2 HP due to fast healing, which means I only have lost 1 HP heading into the start of R2.