The Necromancer's Tower - Group 2 IC

[Mr Adventurer]

"Unfortunately that is a luxury we do not have. Due to our lack of a scout, we will always be on the back foot when it comes to tactical positioning."

"Nonsense dear fellow! While it is of course impossible to plan for everything, we can agree on simple things like 'it is a bad idea to stand in front of hails of deadly spines'; wouldn't you agree K'thil?" He waves a hand, "Of course, sometimes a bad idea will be the only one we have, but we can at least hope otherwise, hmm?"

"I am ready to proceed. I am, however, not certain of the injuries of the eccentric one." He says in a humming tone, pointing at Xenolph.

"Well, it seems that is taken care of; so, shall we proceed? With caution of course?" Mortheon bows slightly to Penance and gestures him on.

[Idares]

Penance stares a few seconds after Mortheon finishes, leaving him in an awkward pause while he remained bowed. Then, without a word, Penance flings the gargantuan maul over his shoulder and proceeds past the vine door.

[Mr Adventurer]

"Stalwart fellow..." Mortheon mutters to himself.

[Archwizard]

Penance leans into the gate, it resists for a bit but finally it opens with a loud screech. Vines ripe apart and fall to the ground as the gate swings inward. The main doors are 30' beyond the gate and appear to be made from iron with brass and gold inlays. The engravings are rather intricate, and a clear crest in relief can be seen on them.

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Obviously, it's not in color on the door

[Mr Adventurer]

"A quick circumambulation of the building, to see what's around it?" Mortheon suggests. "We might get some useful intelligence."

[Idares]

Penance glares at the symbol for a couple of minutes: "The family crest, most disconcerting. The failure of the Ogdenhall people to inform us of it, even more so..."

He then shifts his gaze to the necromancer "We press on to the surrounding then?"

[Mr Adventurer]

"That is what I suggest, yes. Take a look around before heading on in."

[Archwizard]

The group proceeds west, scouting the area between the wall and the tower. Both seem to be in excellent condition with vines covering the outer wall. No movement can be seen. The grass is pretty uniformly dead in this area. The group turns north around the corner of the tower and about 80'-150' after the corner Naesri notices a series of what appear to be drains and vents cut into the stone of the tower.

[Archwizard]

The group continues north and then turns east to follow the tower. The outer wall and tower wall appear unchanging, and still no signs of activity or acknowledgment of your presence. As the group gets to the northeast corner, another series of drains and vents are noticed by Xenolph and K'thil.

[Archwizard]

The group finishes the circuit around the tower, all the while the eerie lack of activity or acknowledgement of their presence continues. As the group gets to the front door, Mortheon happens to glace around and notices a pile of bones under the vines at the corner of the gate.

[Aldurin]

"Into the tower! I refuse to sleep outside for another night!" Xenolph says aloud, doing nothing to indicate that he wants someone else to open the door.

[Mr Adventurer]

"Into the tower! I refuse to sleep outside for another night!" Xenolph says aloud, doing nothing to indicate that he wants someone else to open the door.

"I agree in principle - and there is still plenty of daylight left, to boot!" Mortheon nods. "Hold one moment further, however - see there? In the vines? There is a pile of bones - let me investigate." He steps over to the pile, and examines it closely.

[Mr Adventurer]

He takes a good look, and thinks carefully about what it is that he's seeing.

OOC

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Please only take the results of these if they are relevant - it wouldn't be fair to e.g. penalise me for rolling a 1 just because I was trying to be helpful and pre-emptively get the dice out of the way! :)

Search (1d20+4)[18]
Heal (to e.g. determine cause of death) (1d20+6)[14]
Knowledge (religion) (to determine if undead) (1d20+14)[27]
Knowledge (arcana) (just in case) (1d20+14)[26]
Spellcraft (in case it is an ongoing spell effect I can recognise or such) (1d20+16)[25]
Spot (in case of general shenaniganry) (1d20+1)[18]

[Archwizard]

Mortheon goes over to the bones and begins to examine them. They're almost certainly human, and given the neck, skull and spinal damage, probably a previous victim of the vines. They don't appear to have been used for anything after death.

As he is finishing up, Mortheon notices one bone, about 12" long, that is almost certainly actually a wand of some sort.

[Mr Adventurer]

"Aha!" Mortheon reaches out and picks up the bone wand.

OOC

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Presuming nothing bad happens as a result of touching or picking up the wand, Mortheon will use his skills to try and identify the function of the wand, as per page 217 of the Spell Compendium:

Knowledge (arcana) (1d20+14)[16] vs DC 30
Search (1d20+4)[8] vs DC 15

[Mr Adventurer]

Mortheon examines the wand for a moment before shrugging and pushing it into his belt. "I'll have to take a proper look at this later, I think. For now, onward! Penance, would you be so kind as to knock?"

[Idares]

Without saying a word Penance proceeds closer ot the door. He first searches the door to see how it works to open it.

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If there is no obvious mechanism, he pushes against it to try and force it open three times. If still not, he takes out his Maul.
Search (1d20-2)[8]
Str check: (1d20+4)[9]
(1d20+4)[24]
(1d20+4)[8]

[Archwizard]

The door seems to be a standard door and it opens easily with the first push. It appears to be on a very smooth mechanism given its apparent weight.

As the door opens, a waft of stale air comes out carrying with it the familiar smells of death and decay. Beyond the doorway, Penance sees a 10'x20' corridor that leads to a four-way intersection. At the edge of the watch lamp's glow, Penance can just barely make out what appear to be two open doorways, one on each side of the corridor.

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Unless otherwise noted, all ceilings are 15' high.

Map is coming soon.

[Morcleon]

Naesri

Peeking in, the frail scholar frowns. "Hmm... needs some light."

She takes out a small orb, glowing with a bright golden light, illuminating a 20' radius around her. "That should help!"

[Idares]

Penance glares intently into the dark for 20secs or so. He lifts his maul to his chest and proceeds caustiously forward.

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He activates detect evil and stares forward for 3 rounds. He then takes a total defence action and moves 20' closer.

edit: Ive just realised its pointless to total defence. If its surprise round, I dont get bonus because Im flatfooted and if its the 1st round Im flatfooted until its my turn anyway.

[Archwizard]

As Penance focuses on the evil nature of this place, a wave of of revulsion and hate overwhelms him, stunning him for a moment and causing him to lose his focus on his detection efforts.

Recovering and exercising extra caution, Penance approaches the intersection. Looking quickly down each corridor, Penance sees that each one goes at least 50' then has an opening to the south. There are also doorways along the south wall in each direction about 45' down.

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As a bit of a 'spell it out' here, Detect Evil is basically useless in this tower, it's just too damned evil at this point.

[Idares]

Penance peeks around the left most corner to see down the passage then the right most corner. After that he slowly proceeds down the left most corner, slowly enough for his fellow adventurers to catch up.

[Mr Adventurer]

"Good man," Mortheon mutters under his breath, and follows the warforged, a few steps behind. He stays wary.

[Archwizard]

As the group moves forward, they clearly see that the corridor in fact turns south after 50' The doorway on the left right before the turn is open, and there's a closed door straight ahead. The door appears to be steel.

[Idares]

The paladin proceeds to peek around the corner of the first open door while saying a prayer under his voice.

[Archwizard]

Naesri hears a slight moaning sound as Penance moves and looks around the corner. Penance is confronted by the sight of a mummy right in front of him, and he hears moaning off in the darkness....

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Okay, so surprise round!
Penance, Mummy(ies), and Naesri get to act.

[Idares]

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Whoops
ToHit: (1d20+10)[14]
CritConf: (1d20+10)[18]
Dmg:(1d10+9)[17] + (1d6)[5] (flaming)

Not sure if we need to include critconf?

Edit: Ive made a serious mistake of acting a fullround instead of surprise round, I kept my fail roll for my next attack just to be fair.

So for my Surprise round: Penance will activate his Amulet as a swift action to gain 12 TempHP and as a Std Action go Total Defence and remain where I am to block their advance.

[Archwizard]

As Penance sets himself up to block the doorway, the mummy moves up to the doorway as two others come into view!

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Mummies 2 and 3 have cover relative to everyone and every square in the hallway. Penance has cover relative to mummy 2 (well and 3, but that's pretty irrelevant.

[Morcleon]

Naesri

Frowning at the moans, Naesri takes a step to the side to see what she's up against... and promptly freezes. She stares at the mummy, her mind trying futilely to fight the raw fear permeating the room.

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Fear duration: (1d4)[1]

Swift Action: Continue maintaining Recitation of the Unclouded Eye.

5' step so mummy is visible.

[Archwizard]

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Okay, Surprise Round over, Start Round 1:


Penance has no init!


Okay block 1 is up: K'thil/Naesri/Mortheon

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* post roll count doesn't match database