Tallis once again tries to beat the plants with his staff.
[ooc]Flurry of Blows: 1d20+5=14, 1d6+3=9, 1d20+5=6, 1d6+3=6 Confirming the fail: One of these days, the stars shall align, the rest of Baator will freeze over, and I WILL FINALLY HIT SOMETHING.
Tallis once again tries to beat the plants with his staff.
Tallis once again tries to beat the plants with his staff.
Tallis' staff breaks.
EDIT: hehehe.
Taking a deep breath, I strive to find my focus.
"NOISY CRICKET!"
I slam my right foot forward, twisting and then following it with a roundhouse kick from my left foot.
Flurry of Blows: (1d20+6=25, 1d20+6=19)
Damage: (1d4=3, 1d4=1)
Lord Flash turns to his next opponent and delivers a glancing blow to the wooden foe, watching the others and their feeble attempts to subdue the plant being.
Kill 'em all and let the Gods sort 'em out. (1d20+6=8, 1d20+6=21)
Damage. (1d6=2)
Seeing the the creature is not effected by his pointy projectiles, Bandle leaps at it with a rather innefectual combo.
"HII-YAA!!" he cries with gusto.
"What are these things?" I ask no one in particular.
"What are these things?" I ask no one in particular.
With LJ's successful combination of attacks, another of the creatures -- the one he injured earlier -- is broken. Red sap sprays from the stump of a limb.
Bandle and Lord Flash wound, but do not destroy, two other plant creatures.
When the plant creatures hiss, it sounds like a cold wind rustling the leaves in an otherwise silent forest. One turns on Bandle, smacking him with a thorny branch.
Another continues to scrape at Tallis, adding more poisoned thorns to the monk-turned-pin-cushion.
Lord Flash is scraped across the face, a thorn coming dangerously close to an eye.
LJ, however, manages to dodge attacks from two separate creatures whose branches become entangled.
Tallis half-remembers some reference blood drinking plants from 'the garden of Zura'.
At least I am hale and hearty.
Tallis, enraged by the shattering of his overly-expensive piece of wood, launchs a flurry of blows at the plants. Meaning, of course, that he missed and punched a nearby shrub.
Encouraged by my opponents clumsy fumbles, I shout out "NOISY CRICKET!" and focus my attacks on one of the creatures.
Flurry of Blows: (1d20+6=19, 1d20+6=14)
Damage: (1d4=2, 1d4=1)
1d20+3=7(Fort save)
Bandle feels the sting of the plant creatures
1d20+3=7(Fort save)
Bandle feels the sting of the plant creatures
1d20+2=4, 1d4=3, 1d20+2=14, 1d4=3
Bandle throws another awkward como at the bristling thorn creature.
His brow furrows as he proclaims "Allright, you asked for it...you know my uncle was a garden gnome!!"
Lord Flash once again silently lays into the wooden creatures, a cruel smile on his face and oblivious to the splinters he is picking up.
Flurry again. (1d20+6=15, 1d20+6=19)
Damage. (1d6=2, 1d6=4)
Bandle finishes his wounded plant-creature off with another punch. LJ snaps a branch but does not kill one of the creatures. Lord Flash snaps a main branch, causing more red sap to spray from the gash.
Now that a few of the creatures have been killed, it is easier to make out how many there are. What seemed to be an indiscriminate mass of branches can now be recognized as three creatures. Five have fallen.
Of those three, only one is able to attack this round.
At least I can still make these.
Tallis launches another flurry of blows at the plant, and for once he actually hits it.
Attack (Flurry of Blows): (1d20+6=10, 1d20+6=7)
"We can do this!" I shout encouragingly but in doing so, I lose my focus on actually attacking.
Attack (Flurry of Blows): (1d20+6=10, 1d20+6=7)
"We can do this!" I shout encouragingly but in doing so, I lose my focus on actually attacking.
LJ manages to punch himself in the face.
Now able to distinctly see the plant creatures before him, Lord concentrates his attacks on those that look the most damaged.
Flurry on Dead Wood... (1d20+6=25, 1d20+6=18)
Damage. (1d6=3, 1d6=2)
"Umph..."
Bandle spins and kicks and spins and kicks then hops up and down on one foot, "Ow! A splinter! A splinter!! Someone pull it out! Not you Mr. Thornyhands ... someone else."
Mr. Thornyhands collapses in a heap of wood oozing red sap.
The sole remaining plant creature flails at LJ but misses. He emits a high pitched whine that sounds like branches creaking on a windy day.
Emberassed, I cry out, "NOISY CRICKET!"
I kick out with a left and then let fly with a spinning right kick.
Flurry of Blows: (1d20+6=20, 1d20+6=26)
Confirm Critical: (1d20+6=16)
Damage: (1d4=3, 1d4=4, 1d4=1)
And with that, LJ brings down the last of the thorny, walking plants. The clearing is covered with thorny branches. Watch where you step.
"Ugh, where did these things come from? Magic apples?"
"Whew. Who is hurt?"
Tallis takes out a glass vial and drinks the contents, his wounds healing. "I'll be fine. Come on, let's keep going."
"I'll be fine. Come on, let's keep going."
"But what about my donkey whistle?" asks Bandle concerned.
"I'll be fine. Come on, let's keep going.""But what about my donkey whistle?" asks Bandle concerned.
Tallis sighs. "We don't have a donkey, the plants don't have a donkey, the gnolls don't have a donkey, why would any of us want or need a donkey whistle? Now come on, or you're getting left behind."
Bandle firmly plants his feet on the ground, steps on a thorn, swoons, hops in a circle, and firmly plants his feet in the exact same place. Repeats. "Not until you find me my donkey whistle. If we had a donkey whistle we might be able to find a donkey!!"
Bandle firmly plants his feet on the ground, steps on a thorn, swoons, hops in a circle, and firmly plants his feet in the exact same place. Repeats. "Not until you find me my donkey whistle. If we had a donkey whistle we might be able to find a donkey!!"
Tallis picks up a shard of his former quarterstaff and tosses a piece at Bandle. "You have something sharp, don't you? Whittle a donkey whistle if you want one so bad."
Lord looks at Bandle as if he would enjoy nothing more than ramming a donkey whistle down the annoying little Gnome's throat, but refrains from saying anything.
"Well at least it seems these things weren't sent by the Gnolls, judging from the state those ones are in. Should we search them or just move on? If they are a scoutig party then they may have a map of the Gnoll's Camp."
He begins picking his way through the shattered reamins of the woody creatures to join the others.
Leaving the searching of the wooden corpses to Flash, I instead decide to search the area from which the monsters came.
"You never know what you will find," I say to Tallis.
Leaving the searching of the wooden corpses to Flash.
The search of the gnoll corpses reveals that, though their armour is ruined, they each carry a longsword and a pouch. Gems found in the six pouches are worth a total of 150 gp. One wears a small symbol of Lamashtu (20 gp). You find yet another climber's kit.
On the ground near the bodies, LJ finds a very expensive looking whistle shaped like a donkey (50 gp). You blow in the rump and the sound comes out of the donkey's mouth.
I look at the whistle in disbelief. Look over to the gnome quizzically. Look back at the whistle.
Then I toss it to the gnome, "Here, its for you."
Bandle is ecstatic. He begins to blow loudly on the whistle.
The fact that clouds of birds are not sent flying into the air is a sign of just how unwelcoming this forest is.
"Shall we continue?" I ask, "Those plant things were poisonous, but I think I can still cross the river today. It will be nice to make a camp and rest."
Lord finishes going over the bodies, putting the gems into one pouch and sliding both it and the climber's kit into his pack.
"I too would like to move on sand get as far as we can before making camp. If noone wants any of these weapons or the symbol of the Beast B i t c h, then I say let's be off. Lead on little one."
Although the trail stays close to the edge of the forest, the forest remains gloomy and deathly quiet. It takes only a couple hours to reach the point at which the trail breaks from the forest and turns towards the river.
Ahead, light sparkles off the water in the wide, shallow, boulder-strewn part of the river known as "Hope's Crossing."