Drusk the Bear is now level 4. For some reason, I allowed myself to be dragged through a subtier 6-7 with a Fighter 7, Cleric 5/Ranger 1, Rogue 6, and Magus 5.
Yes, we all survived. Barely. And creatively. I'm happy to report that Drusk is now eligible to join the Blakros family whenever he obtains the requisite 20 PP. That'll probably happen.
As always, I'm not spoilering. Read at your own peril, Pathfinders!
Drandle Dreng (that rascal!) wakes us up in the middle of the night to do paperwork, as he is wont to do, then hurriedly sends us to the Blakros Museum. We opt to skip the exposition here. I'm tired, so I take a backseat on the RP train while the foppish Elf Magus does much of the talking/doing.
First encounter: Robots! With DR 15/Adamantine! As I could not bypass this with my pitiful claws and bite, I pulled out the greataxe and went to town. Fighter had an adamantine weapon, Magus did his thing with Shocking Grasp. I opted to conserve my Trances in case I need them later and we quickly disable these menaces.
The rogue successfully diplomances the Technic lady (Diplomancy being the least appreciated school of magic), so she gives us a gun and a flashbang. We successfully locate all of the secrets in all of the land, including all of the emergency kits and the secret stairwell. The Magus steals Nigel's nameplate and breaks it in half out of spite, as he has previously been here for Mists of Mwangi.
Encounter the second: PLANT! The GM allowed me to Survival to discern if it was dangerous, which went well. The Cleric/Ranger got a little gung-ho and started the encounter. The plant blinds the Rogue and me, who get max rounds and proceed to hide in a hallway. Fighter gets swallowed. Magus and Cleric/Ranger pretend to be useful for a few rounds until we're all back up, save for the poor Fighter. I cast Enlarge on myself just in time for the Magus to obliterate the plant. The fighter is healed from -14 (15 CON baby!) back to full.
Encounter 3: LOL, there's a robot we skipped because we came up the secret stairwell and didn't go into the other area. Good on us because we still ran over.
Encounter 4: OOZE! I decided that natural weapons seemed ill-advised for things with tumors, so I re-Enlarge myself. I attack one with my greataxe, see it heal, and decide to improvise a blunt weapon by using some of the taxidermy in the hall. That worked remarkably well. I left said taxidermy on top of the Tyrant Lizard after the oozes were slain. No growths, thankfully.
Encounter 5: Magus starts this encounter by wandering up the stairs out of boredom, sees the robot and Pendleton, and starts out with Glitterdust. Both fail and are blind. I trance into Big Sky for the DR/Hardness ignoring. Magus had used the token for the dancing whip, which trips the robot. I move into a flank, then unload with naturals, not quite realizing how robust the DR happens to be. We still smoosh it. Cleric and Fighter decide to fight the machine on the wall, much like Durkon from OotS and the trees. Magus and I move to Pendleton. I initiate a grapple, succeeding with a natural 20. Swarm-thing dives out, attacks me, hits, and I fail my Fort save. GM plays some games with me, trying to get to the robot to revive it, but the swarm is forced out by the Remove Disease wand. Then comes the part we were afraid of: in the course of fighting the plant, we utilized a number of our splash weapons already. Magus brilliantly suggests using flasks of oil, which he and the Rogue have a few of, to keep the thing lit on fire. I uselessly limp to the corner, having been brutalized by AoOs, and contribute my last Acid Flask to the war effort. The GM accepts this, in part due to time constraints, and we walk out like a boss.
Thoughts:
Big Sky is good. Like, really good. If I could have Spirit Specialization as a PFS character, I'd have it if only to better leverage Big Sky. It's going to be my permanent secondary spirit. While I had problems with the DR, that was largely a function of the subtier we played. Note: this marks my first use of Trance.
I continued to contribute as one might expect an under-tiered melee character to do. While I was playing the Dwarven Door Game in Emerald Spire 2, I was quite conservative in this scenario for fear of instadeath. That could have been forthcoming quite easily, given the circumstance. I'm pleased with my survival and the advent of out-of-subtier gold.
Even though it was just Enlarge Person, I was happy to finally have spells to use. It was a nice change of pace.