Shadows Across Etouli [Group 1]

[Zimmia]

Katryn

"A comprimise then? Stick close and if something nasty comes around the corner I'll get out of your way," she says with a smile. Unless he objects, she will enter the passageway.

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SSL checks, checking for traps along the way. If something nasty appears Katryn will try either to get right up against the passageway wall, or if necessary go turtle on the ground so he can step over her.
Search: (1d20+6)[19]
Spot: (1d20+6)[22]
Listen: (1d20+2)[6]
Hide: (1d20+3)[23]
Move silently: (1d20+3)[5]

[stimpius]

DM

Turning the corner Katryn sees the tunnel follow much the same route for around 20 feet before ending in a solid wooden oak door.

Listening at the door she hears....

Nothing.

Examining the door however does reveal a spring loaded poison needle in the lock, and looking through the keyhole she can see that the room beyond is in pitch blackness.

[Zimmia]

Katryn

Katryn motions to Barlak behind her as she pulls out her tools and goes to work on the trap.

Either because of the loss of her father in law or the dark, Katryn slips as she goes to disable the needle trap and it releases. With a grunt of pain the needle pricks her. Shaking her head in disgust, she shrugs it off and works on the lock.

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If the disable roll goes badly, I'll edit the above post:
Disable: (1d20+8)[11]
Open Lock: (1d20+6)[24]

Made my save for the trap with a 16

HP now 7/8

[headwarpage]

Barlak

Barlak snorts. "If I'd known you were going to get stuck anyway, I'd have done that." He smiles as he says it, though.

[Tacitus]

Norian

He continues to follow along with his blade at the ready, though it lacks the golden luster that usually obscures the faint blue veins across the surface.

[Zimmia]

Katryn

With her back to him, Norian can't see her roll her eyes although she doens't particularly hide the emotion from her speech. "Let's see you at a hundred percent when your father-in-law has just been poisoned and your husband is about to become king," she whispers with sarcasm but no malace.

After opening the lock she smooshes herself against the passageway so that he can go first.

[stimpius]

DM

Im assuming Barlak goes in first, if its anyone else, disregard the next few lines.

Opening the door, the first thing you notice is an absolute blackness, as if the room doesn't exist at all, waiting for a few seconds your darkvision picks out a table in the middle of the room with two wooden chairs around it.

On one sits Lord Dresmun a hand crossbow in his hand. In the other sits no one.

He appears to have disregarded his set of courtly blue robes and instead is sat in a suit of chainmail.

Against the backwall you can barely pick out another figure roughly 90 foot away you would estimate and half hidden behind another chair or it is possibly a barrel.

About the same time you take all this in the handcrossbow fires and hits Barlak square in the forehead drawing blood and causing a look of pain to spasm across his face.

{{Sorry for not replying yesterday i couldn't get on the forums. I want initiatives, along with 1 rounds worth of actions here - then a second in the OOC thread to keep this moving in 2 round bursts. Damage and other notes in the OOC thread for players. :)}}

[headwarpage]

Barlak

Barlak slumps to the floor as his limbs go numb. Cursing, he struggles to regain his feet, but with no success. Finally admitting the futility of his efforts, he takes a deep breath.

"TO ARMS!" he bellows in a voice that should carry at least as far as the room the others are waiting in, if not to the entire castle.

[Tacitus]

Norian
HP: 14/14 AC: 18(13/15)+1 (Insight) Init: (1d20+3)[8]

Seeing his compatriot fall to the ground he drops his shield and slips his hand to his belt and draws forth a small stick with a strange crystal stuck to one end. With a sharp crack against his thigh a bright light erupts around him as the alchemical substance within the Sunrod is released. He grips the light tightly in his left hand as he hefts the blade up and charges into the room but not to make a direct attack. He'd rather get as far in as he can so his light will cover the largest area possible.

((OOC for round 2 to come later))

[Zimmia]

Katryn

Shocked as Barlak is hit right in front of her, Katryn tries in vain to see who or what is in the room and casts her spell again, sending it into the room.

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Initiative: (1d20+3)[9]
Cast dancing lights and send them into the room
spells cast: 2/5 zero, 1/4 1st
HP 7/8
AC 17

[XiaoTie]

Ian Dasmith

The young cartographer kept following Maredan, as he seemed like a bright person despite his similar young age. Although silent, he paid attention to every detail during his time inside the manor. The lass seemed to be a bit too uptight and too sure of herself for her own good if she were to take part on the expedition, but if she was chosen by the Prince she was sure to be of a great aid in the expedition.

It wasn’t with much surprise that his ears received the dwarf’s warning, and as soon as he was able to go inside the room he did so with his longbow in hand. “The assassins, we found them”, were his words, spoken (more to himself than to anyone else) before loosing an arrow at Lord Dresmun.

Rolls

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Initiative : (1d20+2)[12]
Attack roll : (1d20+2)[9]
Damage (if needed) : [roll]1d8[/b]

[kamikasei]

Maredan

Maredan's indifferent calm drops away at the emergence of a clear threat. Shifting his staff to a one-handed grip he drops forward onto all fours and seems to melt and shift before your eyes. In a heartbeat the man's figure is gone and a large, untamed wolf stands in his place.

With a snarl he springs into the room and tackles Dresmun, biting at his crossbow arm.

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Initiative - (1d20+2)[22]
Swift action: assume predator form
Move action: move up to 50' to engage Dresmun. (Given the speed, will try to come at him from the side so as to leave him open to other party members.)
Standard action: attack: Bite - (1d20+4)[18], Damage - (1d6+4)[9].

Strength increases to 19, AC 16, touch 12, ff 14. HP 10/10.

[stimpius]

DM

As Barlak slumps to the floor the party react immediatley.

Maredan changes infront of your very eyes, he swaps from a human in clothing to a fully furred and pelted fighting machine. A wolf leaps past the party into the room and bites Dresmun, hard. A liberal amount of blood flows from the bite wound on his leg, as he slumps backwards, not out of the fight but not looking well.

Going simultaneously, Katryn and Ian react before those inside the room, ahead of Katryn rush some little blobs of light, lighting up the room so you can see clearly how much of a mess this room is in, and just what squalour these three have been waiting in. Wait, three you say, yes wel, with the lights now showing the room, the one robed and hooded figure at the back, actually has someone dressed identically next to him. Ian walks into the room, nocks an arrow, fires at Dresmun and misses.

Norian seeing the need for more light rushes into the room and stands in the middle taking in a full survey, the room is roughly the size Barlak had thought it was, there are tables and chairs smashed and scattered all around along with piles of dust and crap. There is what appears to be rodent droppings and piles of discared string. Taking another look at the two figures at the back, nothing can be discerend anymore. They are both roughly human height and weight dressed in completley black robes.

Staggered from the rapid assault on his body Dresmun draws a longsword from a side scabbard and drops his hand crossbow, taking a diagonal slicing cut downwards at Maredan. slicing through the wolfs shoulder bone and drawing blood in a scarlet line.

Cumanas and Karsa seem to have been to far back to have heard Barlaks call properly.

-------------------------------

Wondering why the two figures hadn't taken any actions last round get answered now as two burst shaped spells go off in the vicinity of the room centered on the party, but not wide enough to catch Norian. Falling prey to these spells are; Ian. {{Sorry your the only one whos save failed from my rolls =[}}

Mareden still in wolf form notices that our dear friend Dresmun hasn't fallen over and spends all round attacking him, the first attack from his bite misses but his claw hits and scores a jagged wound across Dresmun's thigh. Dresmun seem's incapacitated as if one more move or attack would finish him off.

Katryn sensing that a bigger threat is now posed from the two robed figures over the lord who seems as if he will start to bleed to death shortly, moves in and throws a handfull of coloured sand acros both of the enemy. One of them falls down unconscious yet the second seems unfazed by this new assault. Ian taking a leaf out of Katryns book moves across the room a bit to get a clear shot to the back and looses an arrows at the robed figure still standing, unfortunatley the figure twists and turns out of the way of the arrow.

Norian moves up and starts to interfere with the caster at the back of the room still stood, although in a non sexual manner. He takes a swing with his golden sword but seems to miss.

Dresmun knowing his strength will fail, launches one more blow against Mareden putting all his effort behind the blow, or so it would seem, but at the last moment he quickdraws a knife from his leg sheath and throws it across the room at Ian, hitting him in the shoulder before slumping unconscious.

Cumanus and Karsa are nowhere to be seen.

{{Stuff in the OOC thread for damage etc. :)}}

[dabone]

At the moment the dwarf screams his battlecry, Cumanus looks up.

"seems they found something, pretty sure that Karsa and the rest is capable of handling them. If it really goed bad, I'll hear my name soon enough."

Cumanus quickly resumes his work with the bodies, but keeps his attention at the hole the party vanquised in.

[kamikasei]

Maredan

The wolf snarls as Dresmun drops. I will need to look at him after the fight, an inner voice points out. He will be needed alive for questioning.

The same is arguably true of the still-standing robed figure at the back of the room, but his counterpart is already unconscious, and he is still a clear threat - so Maredan feels no hesitation in bounding across the room to attack.

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He's a caster, so better to get in his face than snipe from a distance I guess. I'm assuming he's close enough for a 50' move to close the gap.

HP: 4/10.

Bite - (1d20+4)[16]
[roll=Damage[1d20+4[/roll]

[stimpius]

DM

Can everyone check the OOC thread please, fairly important message there.

[Grishnakh]

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sorry for the late response, didn't really have time the last few days.

Karsa Orlong

Being the rearguard of the group Karsa had fallen a bit behind and when he heard the alarm cry, found himself almost completly in the dark again. Having some trouble stumbling through the passageway he now stumbles into the room and without a pause charges at the last standing opponent, his axe raised high above his head.

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Initiative: (1d20+3)[11]
AC: 18 (now 16 because of charge)
Hp: 14/14

Charge: (1d20+7)[22]
Damage: (1d12+6)[8]

[Tacitus]

Norian

Stepping to one side to be to one side of the mage in order to allow (or complete) and flanking maneuvers anyone else might attempt the man swings his gleaming blade once again.

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Attack: (1d20+5)[6]
Damage: (1d8+4)[10]

[stimpius]

Okay boys and girls im back! Lets get these actions in so i can do an update before bed. The trip was brilliant - sorry for making you wait so long.

Tactius - make a confirm see if you double fumble or just miss horribly. :P

[Zimmia]

Katryn

Still just as confused as to what is actually happening here, but knowing that if the people are dead they can't give them as many clues, Katryn moves to cast another spell, trying to stop the man in armor.

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AC 17
HP 7/8
Cast 'charm person' on the man left standing, will DC 15 negates

Spells cast:
0 - 1/5
1 - 2/4

[Tacitus]

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Right then, as long as Fumble's Fumble Chart is not involved.(1d20+5)[17]