Slithering to Battle

Sensing a new threat, and inevitable pain, Kaspar decided to forgo further inspection of the ruins. With but a few moments before the tentacled beast compromised the room, the thief holed up in the darkness next to the hallway's approach. Meanwhile, Castille, still suffering a tinge of cowardice, readied his crossbow from across the way. Pillar too, knew that a fight was approaching, but nevertheless emanated steadfast silence. The trio entered into battle with the mass of tentacles, only to be surprised by the lack of any central body from which the snake-like arms should have extended.

Crossbow bolts hammered at the fleshy, but powerful mass. Kaspar's dark corner proved worthless as the beast had no eyes from which to hide from. Instead, Kaspar discovered that, like foes past, the tentacles were attracted to the tremors of his feet. The tentacles lashed out, bashing and cutting through the heros. As the headless mass reared its many arms, Castille was treated to the feast of prickly spikes guarding the creature's underbelly. Castille, though, found his weapon of choice in a thunderstone and hurled it successfully at the back of the beast. With a deafening boom, the tentacles suddenly seemed confused, utterly without orientation.

Sword strikes and arrows further wounded the monster, and it finally retreated. An ancient creature, it wasn't used to pain.

Kaspar then took time to investigate the sarcophagi lining the room. In the back of his mind he knew that the tentacles were still lurking. Out of impatience he ran the length of the room, setting off the hidden traps. Nevertheless, he was able to rely on his speed to dodge the ill effects. As a reward, or perhaps out of arrogant luck, he located the treasures hidden within each tomb. But as he lifted the last scrap of gold, the scrap of prickly tentacles neared.

Again, the team readied themselves for a battle. Again, the beast groped and beat its targets. With the gentle tap tap of its spike-laden arms the beast scoured the floor in search of any movement. Pillar suffered an early defeat when a tentacle entangled him and his sword. Kaspar too, fell victim to the squeeze of stray tentacles. Only Castille was left to drill bolt after bolt from his crossbow into the thing.

The team did not fall. Both Kaspar and Pillar managed deep cuts with their bastard swords. Unable to really move, they merely needed to push their blades into the aged skin of their foe. The beast fell, this time without life.

Pillar, Warforged Fighter 5th

Named for the fact that he never fled in combat, even when surrounded by a horde of enemies, this somber construct was first leased by House Cannith to fight for various sides, then finally sold to the Kingdom of Aundair (despite the fact that he had slain three of their battle wizards when he had been leased to Thrane).

For the last year of the Last War he fought the Karrnathi undead troops, and grew disatisfied with being treated as an object. When the Treaty of Thronehold granted him citizenship, he wandered through Aundair looking for purpose, but finding himself to be an object of ridicule. An Aundarian elf called Pilalr out one day, ordering the warforged to follow him home. "You are my property, fool!" the elf claimed, holding up some document. Pillar shoved the elf, and the elf drew a wand, unleashing a burst of flame. Fearful for his life Pilalr struck, and the elf was severed into two parts.

Not trusting the Aundarian Courts, Pillar fled to the Eldeen Reaches, thinking that the government of the Reaches (such as it was) would not heed an Aundarian summons too well, as they had broken away from Aundair. Pillar's luck was only margianlly better in the Reaches, but aside from an attack on his person by some Ashbound fanatics it wasn't that bad. He eventually found himself in Varna where he worked as a mercenary. Eventually House Vadalis contacted him about a secret mission. He joined a cranky beasthide shifter cleric in a courtyard and quickly grew bored when the shfiter tried to convert him. Some ten minutes later, however, a half-orc in a mithril chain shirt, and a half-elf with a crossbow and a definite presence, came into the courtyard with the human woman who had hired Pillar...

Pillar, Medium Construct (Living Construct)
Fighter 5th, AL N

Str 18, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 6
HD 5d10+10, hp 43
AC = 21 (Adamantine Body, heavy mithril shield, Dex), ACP = -5
Touch AC 11, Flat-footed AC 20
Init +5, Move 20, SV F+6, R+2, W+0
BAB +5, Grp +9

Melee bastard sword +11, d10+7
Melee unarmed strike +9, d4+4
Ranged javelin +6, d6+4

SQ: DR 2/adamantine, living construct traits
Skills: Craft Stonemasonry (and self-repair) +11, Climb +7, Escape Artist +1, Jump +5
Feats: Adamantine Body, Exotic Weapon Proficiency Bastard Sword, Weapon Focus Bastard Sword, Improved Initative, Weapon Specialization Bastard Sword

Equipment: Mwk artisan's tools stonemasonry, 2 mwk javelins, +1 Bastard Sword, heavy mithril shield, Slippery Quality magical enhancement to adamantine body (+5 to Escape Artist checks), Backpack, 2 bags of clatrops, sunrod, dagger, Climber's Kit

Synopsis Part 1 Of Who Knows How Many Parts

(So Tim and I weren't studying the various rules of enemy combatants all that much. What follows is a synopsis of the gaming session, fast and dirty.)

Kaspar did not notice the poison mine until it detonated into the First Mate's face. The cloud of poison gas surrounded the First Mate, the half-elf's Constitution score plummeted as he keeled over. Kaspar held his breath, rushed in, and hauled the dying half-elf out of the cloud. The half-orc rogue plucked his last potion of neutralize poison from his pack and poured it down the man's lips. In moments the First Mate's eyes were blinking open, and Kaspar then heard a commotion from the deck below.

Castille (who was invisible) had followed Clippy the warforged to the deck below and saw Clippy planting more of the poison mines. Castille rushed the warforged and tagged him with a shocking grasp spell, which damaged Clippy badly but also caused the living construct to drop the remaining mine. Castille made the resultant Fortitude save but bolted up to where Kaspar was coming down. Informing Kaspar it was indeed Clippy the warforged who was the murderer, the two descended, but the other mines ahd gone off. Kaspar ran to get some water from the galley to weight the cloud down, the First mate ran to get the captain, and Castille stayed and ehard the sound of a battle. The dwarven woman, the reclusive man, and the hobgoblin adept were all slain by the gas, but Clippy seemed to be in battle with Grarr, the shfiter barbarian. Upstairs Kaspar was fumbling at the lock to the galley when the clouds finally broke up. Not waiting for his musclebound comrade, Castille moved forward. He foudn the dead, but no warforged. Suspecting a sound in the shifter's alvoratory, he prepared a crossbow bolt. It was clipped. Castille opened the door and got his shot off first, injuring the warforged. Clippy returned shot was just as deadly, and carried fire damage.

Kaspar showed up and attempted to get in with his sword, but the cabin was too narrow. Clippy began to get desperate and attempted to bluff them into believing that he would bring the airship down via another device but they Sense Motived that one down. Clippy then cast a Sleep spell. Kaspar made his save but faked falling for it. When Clippy drew an AoO by moving past the 'sleeping' Kaspar, the resulting blow from the sabotaging bastard sword shredded the living construct to scrap.

The ship's crew then looked at Clippy's cargo. 8 Emerald Claw terrorists in suspended animation. A knife through the heart for each one was then followed by the bodies being tossed overboard. An Emerald Claw plot to steal the airship had been thwarted. Our heros earned the financial and diplomatic gratitude of House Lyarandar.

The rest of the trip to Passage was uneventful, and by noon the next day the airship docked in the Eldeen Reaches town of Varna, where Kaspar and Castille got off, moving towards an appointment with a House Orien earth sled that was to take them north. A notice was up that the earth sled had been detained and would be a day late. Needing shelter, the two decided to visit the headquarters of House Vadalis and show their friendship token.

House Vadalis was glad to take them in, and provide them with comfort and pampering. But then a matter of a side quest (because the DM wanted to get them up to level 5 - assuming that they survived) came up. A bit of trouble in the forest. Two mercenaries had already been hired, a warforged fighter and a shifter cleric. Were the PCs interested? Oh and there would be great monetary reward as well.

Ferala - the shifter cleric - was a pain, quite frankly, constantly trying to prosletyze to Kaspar and Castille, who couldn't have cared less. Matters were not helped when Kaspar, born and raised in the Shadow Marches, kept referring to Ferala as a druid. (While the agitated cleric had a nature domain, he was most emphatically not a druid and the accusation seemed to set him off.) Pillar, on the other hand, was a typically impassive waforged, speaking little and emoting less. The one point the warforged raised was that it was odd that a dragonmarked house wanted four complete strangers to deal with a task so close to their headquarters.

According to the estate manager (and Kaspar rolled a rather high Sense Motive check which said that she was definitely leaving some things out), some House Vadalis employees had been looking to trap some wild animals in the forest, and had traveled near a cave not far from the town of Varna. The cave had long been sealed by a rockfall, but now it was open. The men reported that a 'dark shadowy thing' had erupted from the cave mouth and grabbed a man. The man was now in a coma.

House Vadalis provided a carriage to transport the four, and they entered the cave, cracking sunrods that the Vadalis henchmen had provided them with. No sooner did they enter the cave then a wraith flew out fo the wall, through the warforged, and tagged Castille with a negative level. Even the magical swords of Kaspar and Pillar failed to touch the wraith, but some magical missiles did and then Ferala successfully turned it, making it flee. Ferala restored Castille's negative level, and then the party advanced to a deep hole that consisted of a concentric series of 10 foot steps. It was there that they tripped a Fireball trap. Some members of the party made their saves, some failed them. Not only did Ferala fail his save, but the 3 flasks of alchemist's fire he had on him went up, and Ferala was no more. With no cleric the team wanted to leave, but the mouth of the cave closed like the mouth of a living thing, and the wraith returned. After nearly tagging Castille again, Pillar's magical sword shattered the undead thing's evil existence.

Now chastened, the team descended, and a small room with stone doors proved loaded with magical glyph traps. Kaspar removed some of them to allow access to a dusty hall that had odd points of distrubance in the dust. With no ranks in Survival they could determine little else. Pillar, who has ranks in Craft Masonwork, noted new arches (or relatively new, they were 50 years old as opposed to the indeterminate age of the rest of the place) that were to support the ceiling. Several sarcophagi were in the alcoves of the room, as well as an enormous door made of Byshek, and a side tunnel. While examining the room, a mass of tentacles with spiny needles came slithering towards those who had invaded its domain...

(To be continued, possibly even soon.)

The Prolific Writer Values Spells of Silence

In anticipation of our face-to-face session, I've decided to at least post a couple of die rolls to set my mind in motion.

Castille scores a 6 on his spot, and 8 on his listen check. Kaspar is at 8 with his spot, and a whopping 5 with his listen check.

The team is groggy after their long hiatus. I trust their sense to return by tomorrow night.