The Lost (IC)

[dauphinous]

Beleg steps out and starts casting, Diedre starts casting, and Antiope steps back to be with Beleg. The two spells begin cleaning their clothing, though they are not able to do anything about the liquid in hair and on flesh, and it can really only affect with their torsos and arms before something sets the substance on fire.

It looks like hundreds of tiny candle flames shoot out of the walls on both sides of them, hitting their bodies and igniting their legs and heads. Just beyond them, the hallway looks like a firestorm as an inferno rages, fire spraying down from the ceiling, licking the walls, and swirling on the floor.

[Daryk]

Beleg

"Antiope, your decanter! Quickly!" Beleg cried, batting his free hand at the flames as he continued to use the charm to clean the oil from his hair.

[Wiz]

Diedre

Diedre arrives too late to prestidigitate off the oil before the flames begin, so instead she gestures with her gloved hand and her staff reappears, she is preparing to use it cast resist fire when Alistair snuffs out the flames except on the tunnel walls.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

Alastair reaches for his back and pulls out his greatsword. He points it at the fire and lets the magic of his weapon attempt to put out the fire.

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From SRD:
A frost brand extinguishes all nonmagical fires in its area. As a standard action, it can also dispel lasting fire spells, but not instantaneous effects, though you must succeed on a dispel check (1d20 +14) against each spell to dispel it. The DC to dispel such spells is 11 + the caster level of the fire spell.

Dispel Check (1d20+14=31)

[dauphinous]

As Antiope is fumbling her decanter out of her pack, Diedre runs up and Alastair narrowly misses decapitating her as he pulls his sword and also rushes up. Once he reaches them, the flames on Beleg and Antiope fizzle to just a bunch of tiny orange motes crawling all over them. The tiny motes look like candle flames, but they are moving about. The intensity of the little lights makes them difficult to really see, but close up, there is a suggestion of several legs, and they are scampering frantically across Beleg's and Antiope's clothes. The sword prevents them from igniting anything at this point, but they are still there.

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What kind of a lame-ass indication of AoE is "in its area"?
I'm going to say that this means "in the area you threaten while wielding it".
That, as a side effect, means the tunnel is still on fire at this point.

[Alicorn]

Annika/Persis

"Aww. Firebugs. Does anybody have a little glass bottle that's empty, that I could have? I want to catch one," coos Annika, watching the now-harmless creatures scurry around.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

These flaming things are moving! I can keep the fire at bay with my sword, but it looks like I can't do more than that.

Alastair will encourage the others to get behind him.

[Alicorn]

Annika/Persis

"We could use the decanter of endless water to fill up the pit back there and try to herd them into it, see if they drown or go out or something. I mean, except for one. I think they're cute, and if somebody has something I can keep one in I want to snag one," the halfling clarifies.

[wxdruid]

Gwen

Gwen and Rain have remained in the back, watching behind the group.

[Loghren the Barbarian]

Peter / Meredzul

Peter looks at the chasm in front of him, as the rest of the party rushes forward to deal with the fire.
You know, maybe I should memorize some spells that are a bit more utilitarian. Blowing things up is fun and all, but I feel like a moron staring down at this pit.

Peter looks at the rope set for climbing past the pit.
Mumbling, "Well, here goes nothing," Peter begins to slowly and methodically climb hand over hand.

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Sorry for the delay. Near as I can tell, there is a rope present for climbing across. If I'm wrong, let me know and I will do my best to correct (or will try to pantomime to Diedre that Peter need to borrow her slippers). Peter takes 10 for a total of . . . 10. Yeah - maybe I need more utility spells. =P

[Daryk]

Beleg

The flames extinguished, Beleg heaved a sigh of relief and continued to remove the oil from himself with the charm he'd cast. He winced a bit at his burns, and swatted one of the creatures that had been the proximate cause before finishing with the oil.

[dauphinous]

When Alastair gets close enough for the 10 foot radius of his sword's fire extinguishing effect to affect what is happening in the tunnel beyond Beleg and Antiope, he learns what the two scouts already knew. The fire is extinguished, but the oily substance is still spraying, and there are dozens of the little fire bugs-things scurrying around in it. It is clear that as soon as his sword's effect leaves the area, it will ignite into a storm of fire once more.

As Beleg cleans the oil off of himself, the bugs vacate his clothing, choosing to either move to body parts that are not clean, or to leave the spot for the oiled area of the tunnel.

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As discussed with mdsoze, the radius of the Frost Brand flame extinguishing effect has been determined to be 10 feet.

It is my reading of Prestidigitation that you cannot clean living creatures with it, nor can you clean attached body parts, no matter how dead they are. So, you'll have to get the oil off of body parts and hair some other way, but clothes/armor/weapons/gear can be cleaned with the spell just fine.

[Daryk]

Beleg

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Ah... I've been operating under a misapprehension then. I was figuring Beleg was using Prestidigitation for his daily ablutions. In fact, if it can't clean people, then I probably wouldn't have cast it in the first place. Being that I have however, Beleg will continue to clean his gear.

Noting the difficulty Alastair was having trying to use his sword, Beleg again suggested, "Antiope, I believe your decanter might be better able to extinguish the flames, or at least make life more difficult for those who set this trap."

[Alicorn]

Annika/Persis

"You do not extinguish a grease fire with water. The decanter's fine to drown the weeny firebugs, but if you spray water on the oil it'll just float around and spread. As long as you've got Prestidigitation going on, can you use the "make stuff dirty" function to heap some nice suffocating dirt on the oily bits that are on fire?"

[Daryk]

Beleg

"I assure you the charm is less than effective against the bugs. And how many raging infernos have you extinguished, Persis? The tunnel slopes down here, so at least the oil and bugs will be encouraged away from... Wait a minute. Could the trap be an illusion?" Beleg said, squinting at the flames.

[Wiz]

Diedre

Diedre shrugs, "What I was about to do with Antiope was cast Resist Fire on her, I can do it on all of us with the staff - of course that will use up quite a few charges... but if you want, that's one way through the fire with less damage."

[Alicorn]

Annika/Persis

"You can skip me, my armor comes with fire resistance," Annika tells Diedre. "Look, Beleg, I don't think this deserves the title "raging inferno". And they probably don't cover this in whatever limited education your fabricated memory includes, but you do not use water on a grease fire. Or a fire involving a live electrical appliance, although we're less likely to run into those here. You have to smother it with something else - something that won't splash the grease or let it float on top and spread. If Prestidigitation can't come up with enough dirt to stop the fire, that's fine, but you don't have to be snippy about it."

[Loghren the Barbarian]

Peter / Meredzul

Finally catching up to the group:
What Annik . . . er, Persis said. Water plus grease equals problem. We don't want to do that. Dirt is the way to go.

Also, if I run into an electrical appliance, I'm thinking I'm just gonna run like hell. I don't care how much I'm wishing for a good piece of toast."

[Alicorn]

Annika/Persis

Annika frowns when Peter switches gears midway through saying her name, but doesn't mention it. "Toast existed before toasters," she says instead, "hence toasting forks, or probably melee weapons in a pinch. If you have a loaf of bread in your handy haversack you may as well break it out. Marshmallows and Hershey bars and graham crackers, too, what the hell."

[Daryk]

Beleg

"Sn-" was all Beleg said before shaking his head and shrugging. The others seemed to have an idea how to deal with the obstacle, so he resumed cleaning his gear.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

What the heck are these things?

Alastair grabs one off of Antiope's arm and throws it on the ground, stepping on it, seeing what kind of guts this thing has.

[dauphinous]

When Alastair stomps, there is a light crunch noise. When he lifts his foot, there is a pasty, bright orange smear on his boot and the floor. The flame is gone, and it clearly has eight legs. Whatever else its anatomy may specifically look like is not obvious with the damage, but it's rather arachnoid in general shape.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

They look like spiders. Flaming spiders.

The oil is coming from the ceiling. There has to be a finite amount up there. Let's pull back and wait for this thing to burn itself out. That's what they do with oil rig fires when they can't fight them.

[Santanya]

Quanos

Quanos eyes the bugs and oil for a moment, then grins. He produces two small vials from his pack and holds one out towards Beleg and Antiope. "Drink these," he says, his eyes looking up to where the oil is coming from. "Healing potions. Then, since you've already been gotten, could you," he says as he motions towards Antiope, "Fill yours with that?" He points up towards the oil.

He waits patently for Beleg to quaff the potion, then kneels over, carefully scooping two or three of the bugs into the second vial, grinning to himself. "Ignitors would be terribly difficult to come up with," he explains as he does it. "And they seem to eat the oil there, so..." he trails off as he works on his task.

He adds, "You do know that we are currently losing all forms of any element of surprise we have, correct?"

[Daryk]

Beleg

Beleg gladly took the potion from Quanos and drank it down. Handing the vial back to his fellow elf, he said, "I think we lost that at the pit. I'm becoming more and more skeptical of the bandits' story. Traps like these are well beyond their capability."

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Healing potion: (1d8+1)[8]

[Wiz]

Diedre

Diedre nods, <English>"Of course, we can stop telling them we know they are watching us... I agree, let it burn out while we think of what to do."<English>

[dauphinous]

Antiope nods and fills the vial up for Quanos, getting her arm and shoulder soaked to the point of dripping again. "You," she says with a nod of her chin to Beleg, "can clean my armor also, right?" She bends over and starts using the decanter at its lowest flow rate to wash off her head and hair, letting gravity do some of the work for her.

As the used water runs downhill through the fire, the bugs that can be seen in the extinguished section scuttle away from it. It continues to flow down the tunnel and into the fire, cutting a very small path through it, maybe 2 inches wide and a few inches tall.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

Alastair notices the path forming through the fire.

The water seems to repel them. Seems like Beleg had the right of it. Care to turn up the flow, Kim?

[dauphinous]

With no other suggestions being brought forth, and no other arguments against it, Antiope switches the decanter to it's medium setting and starts spraying the hallway. The bugs flee from the water, scurrying away with remarkable speed. Antiope kicks it up to the geyser notch, which is sufficient to wash away the bugs. When she stops the flow form it, the oil stops spraying, with the tiny holes in the ceiling dripping a little bit before they stop completely.

Antiope waits for Beleg to wash the oily stuff off of her armor and boots and such before starting down the hallway again. She steps carefully through the wet area, checking the ground. Just ten feet beyond the section of the tunnel that was immolated, she points to the side up ahead, calling everyone's attention to the fact that there is a door there.

The door fits the hole it covers poorly, like it was taken from a building and stuck into a hole ill suited to it without modification. Antiope checks it carefully, then nods. "It is clear," she says quietly when she's done.

[mdsoze]

Alastair

Well... if it's all clear, should I throw it open and we see what's next?