@mallenellam your attack has advantage, so reroll that attack roll. You may hit!
Watching his dwarven brother take an axe to the knee, Lakor shouts out, "Ye'll regret that, beastie!", pushing the Minotaur with his shield and using the opening to bring his warhammer home!
Halath loads and slings another stone at the big bovine behemoth.
Since even if mallenellam hits with his second attack roll, I don't think he's going to do 18 damage, I'll go ahead and throw down.
Geth roll 2d20k1+5 for Sling Stone to the Head
Geth roll 1d4+2d6+3 for Head Trauma @Denada
Aaaaand that's one dead minotaur. Truly a fearsome beast.
The minotaur begins to dissolve into purple smoke. The walls of the maze dissolve as well, as though both the labyrinth and its lord were part of the same conjuration. Anyway, there's nothing else dangerous in here, so you're free to proceed. The next area is where the basilisk was defeated, and beyond that is where your former companions were lost to brain-eating monsters from another dimension.
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
"How's everyone's health after that? Those blows were brutal." Seamus looks around to see if anything ELSE odd is sneaking up on them, or if any items of note are lying around.
Should we take a short rest? A few people could probably stand to top off their hit points.
Lakor is still 40/40, unless I missed something. He could rest if others need it, but he doesn't. And I'd rather not spend any spells on healing right now, as I am down to 2/4 Level 1 and 1/3 Level 2 spells.
Other than the five of you and the pillars in the hall, there's nothing of interest here. The pillars aren't particularly interesting either unless you're really into dwarven family history.
The basilisk in the next hallway is still there and is still petrified. Perhaps one of you will pause to consider how these creatures mate if they can't look at each other, or how they raise their young, or why they petrify anything at all if they eat meat. Or perhaps you'll just chalk it up to the fact that monsters are weird and instead look for a safe place to rest before pressing on.
On the resting front, the two rooms that are connected to the basilisk hallway appear to be relatively safe. The doors can be closed and barricaded if need be, and each room has enough space for the five of you to fit comfortably.
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
"I think we should hole up somewhere, if only for a spell, to catch our breath and reassess."
Tal, Halath, and myself are all down ~10+ hit points, and I could stand to get my short cooldowns back. We also don't want to waste any healing spells, like am0n said. Unless someone objects strenuously, I think barricading ourselves in for an hour to short rest seems like a good plan.
"So, you're suggesting that there is an evil being sleeping in these ruins and we're fighting its dreams? I guess that makes as much sense as any other explanation."
Lakor lets out a chuckle, "Ay, boy. Ye be listening to children's tales. There be one around my parts about a Reddy Jaeger. Story goes he was burned alive and attached knives to his hands! Crawled through dreams to kill little boys and girls, he did. In the end, it was all just a story. But that beastie out there? The one that almost killed ye? That was no dream. I'm not sure what kind of magic it was, but a dream it was not."
Halath shakes his head, "I'm sure that you don't think elven myths are actually children's stories. I think what you meant to say was Fairy tales. Your Reddy Jaeger for instance, is a dwarvenized version of the tale we call the Red Hunter. He was a Fae of the Summer court, who was betrayed by humans and suffered greatly under the priests of their village. Once he freed himself and made his way back to the Feywild, he swore vengeance on the people of Elmwood. Using powerful Fae magics, he would invade the dreams of the sleeping children and slaughter them. He would then invade the parents dreams and show them the torment they brought down on their children. Not until every last human had suffered from his invasions did he finally allow himself to die."
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited October 2014
"Hmm, enough of telling stories, it's time to go make our own. Does anyone else need to rest or bandage themselves before we go?"
Seamus collects all his equipment and begins to open to barricaded doors.
Those of you that were here before know that, beyond this point, thing start to get weird. The carefully crafted stone walls of the barrow begin to take on a soft, almost flesh-like quality as you progress deeper. The air turns humid. Strange sounds can be heard in the distance, but you never seem to catch up to whatever is making them. Everything around you becomes something out of a nightmare, as though you were wandering down into the belly of some great beast.
After descending a few more levels, you're standing on a moist, leathery floor. A low fog hangs over the ground. The walls are entirely organic-looking, and you're pretty sure they're gently pulsating in certain places. Not far from here is where you ran into the intellect devourers.
Seamus, there is nothing about your environment that feels natural. Well, okay, I guess the skin-like walls feel like skin, but usually walls don't feel like skin, so that's kind of weird.
Jelenneth, you're asking the right questions. The presence of magical forces is abundant down here, but they're strange and unfamiliar to you. You're definitely still on the prime material plane, but much of what is around you is from somewhere else. Not the astral plane, or the abyss, or something recognizable like that. This is from a far realm, and its aberrant nature leaves your magical senses feeling jarred and twisted. On the plus side you can feel what you think is a source of this intrusion, and as long as you're careful you should be able to find your way to it without getting lost.
"Well we seem to be at some kind of, break in reality. Like an alien world is bleeding into this one." She points in the general direction of what she thinks is the source. "If we head in that way and keep on high alert, we might get to the bottom of this."
With Jelenneth guiding you and the dwarves acting as a mobile shield-wall, you press forward through the other-worldly tunnels, drawing ever closer to the source of all this strangeness. Eventually you come to a large chamber with a recessed floor. The path you're on is above that floor, and it intersects with a few other paths the lead to other tunnels.
A low fog hangs over the recessed areas of the chamber, where you can see what look like rows of large, leathery eggs. Their mottled black covering is moist from the fog. There are easily hundreds of eggs here. At least two of them have split open, though if anything came out, you don't see it nearby.
There are five tunnels here. The south tunnel is the one you came in through. The other four are west, north-west, north-east, and east. Jelenneth's arcane senses indicate that you should go either north-west or north-east, but she can't pinpoint which one.
It's a 10 foot drop to the recessed floor, but there are ladders placed at the intersections of the various paths.
Seamus, the handaxe sinks into the side of one of the eggs. Some greenish ooze comes out of the ... I guess you could call it a wound. The egg doesn't explode and nothing comes out of it, other than said ooze.
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Seamus examines a bit of the ooze dripping off the Handaxe he recalled back. I'm guessing a little got on the axe? "What in the nine hells IS this stuff?"
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Seamus takes out his other handaxe and some rope. He hacks a length of the rope off, and tries to sop up some of the ooze, without letting it touch himself. "Where's my ten foot pole when I need it."
The ooze has an acrid smell, but doesn't react to the metal of your axe or the fibers of the rope in any unusual way. You do get the feeling that you wouldn't want to touch it with your bare skin though. And definitely don't eat it.
One thing your nature skills tell you, is that things that hatch out of eggs generally need to start eating soon if they don't want to die. So what's going to hatch out of these? And where is their food?
Posts
Geth roll 1d20+9;1d6+5 for attack; damage
@am0n, you're up.
Watching his dwarven brother take an axe to the knee, Lakor shouts out, "Ye'll regret that, beastie!", pushing the Minotaur with his shield and using the opening to bring his warhammer home!
Geth roll 2d20k1+4;1d8+2 for Attack;Damage
@Denada
Since even if mallenellam hits with his second attack roll, I don't think he's going to do 18 damage, I'll go ahead and throw down.
Geth roll 2d20k1+5 for Sling Stone to the Head
Geth roll 1d4+2d6+3 for Head Trauma
@Denada
Geth roll 1d20+9;1d6+5 for attack; damage
The minotaur begins to dissolve into purple smoke. The walls of the maze dissolve as well, as though both the labyrinth and its lord were part of the same conjuration. Anyway, there's nothing else dangerous in here, so you're free to proceed. The next area is where the basilisk was defeated, and beyond that is where your former companions were lost to brain-eating monsters from another dimension.
Should we take a short rest? A few people could probably stand to top off their hit points.
Geth roll 1d20+2 for Seamus's Perception
The basilisk in the next hallway is still there and is still petrified. Perhaps one of you will pause to consider how these creatures mate if they can't look at each other, or how they raise their young, or why they petrify anything at all if they eat meat. Or perhaps you'll just chalk it up to the fact that monsters are weird and instead look for a safe place to rest before pressing on.
On the resting front, the two rooms that are connected to the basilisk hallway appear to be relatively safe. The doors can be closed and barricaded if need be, and each room has enough space for the five of you to fit comfortably.
Tal, Halath, and myself are all down ~10+ hit points, and I could stand to get my short cooldowns back. We also don't want to waste any healing spells, like am0n said. Unless someone objects strenuously, I think barricading ourselves in for an hour to short rest seems like a good plan.
He then picks up his longbow. He sets it aside as he begins to bandage his wounds.
Geth roll 2d8+2
Current Hit Points= 27
I agree that a short rest should help. I vote for barricading ourselves and patching up.
Halath will relate the story of the Dreaming Dark to the rest of the group. http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/29081319/#Comment_29081319
Hit points at start of short rest: 36
Hit points after rest: 46
Remaining hit die: 3
Geth roll 1d10+3 for Short Rest Hit Dice recovery
Seamus collects all his equipment and begins to open to barricaded doors.
"Let's get moving then."
Those of you that were here before know that, beyond this point, thing start to get weird. The carefully crafted stone walls of the barrow begin to take on a soft, almost flesh-like quality as you progress deeper. The air turns humid. Strange sounds can be heard in the distance, but you never seem to catch up to whatever is making them. Everything around you becomes something out of a nightmare, as though you were wandering down into the belly of some great beast.
After descending a few more levels, you're standing on a moist, leathery floor. A low fog hangs over the ground. The walls are entirely organic-looking, and you're pretty sure they're gently pulsating in certain places. Not far from here is where you ran into the intellect devourers.
What do you do?
Geth roll 1d20+2 for Seamus's Nature check
E: Whelp
geth roll 1d20+3 for Arcana check
Jelenneth, you're asking the right questions. The presence of magical forces is abundant down here, but they're strange and unfamiliar to you. You're definitely still on the prime material plane, but much of what is around you is from somewhere else. Not the astral plane, or the abyss, or something recognizable like that. This is from a far realm, and its aberrant nature leaves your magical senses feeling jarred and twisted. On the plus side you can feel what you think is a source of this intrusion, and as long as you're careful you should be able to find your way to it without getting lost.
But, not really. Let's press on!
A low fog hangs over the recessed areas of the chamber, where you can see what look like rows of large, leathery eggs. Their mottled black covering is moist from the fog. There are easily hundreds of eggs here. At least two of them have split open, though if anything came out, you don't see it nearby.
There are five tunnels here. The south tunnel is the one you came in through. The other four are west, north-west, north-east, and east. Jelenneth's arcane senses indicate that you should go either north-west or north-east, but she can't pinpoint which one.
I can summon it back to my hand as a bonus action, so I do it repeatedly until I crack one open/realize it's unbreakable.
Is it a drop or a decline to the recessed floor?
Seamus, the handaxe sinks into the side of one of the eggs. Some greenish ooze comes out of the ... I guess you could call it a wound. The egg doesn't explode and nothing comes out of it, other than said ooze.
Geth roll 1d20+2 for Seamus's Nature check
No way no how am I touching any ooze.
The ooze has an acrid smell, but doesn't react to the metal of your axe or the fibers of the rope in any unusual way. You do get the feeling that you wouldn't want to touch it with your bare skin though. And definitely don't eat it.
One thing your nature skills tell you, is that things that hatch out of eggs generally need to start eating soon if they don't want to die. So what's going to hatch out of these? And where is their food?