Zilean's Revenge (Part 3)

As Rabiah flies closer, she sees the man drench the cloths he shoved inside the bottles with some sort of liquid. He doesn't appear to have noticed her approaching yet.

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Clarify whether you spoke to him or not. And what are the others doing?

Going to check out our new secret base I guess?

"Sir?" She poked the guy with a stick.

If you're doing that, Kris, make either a stealth check or an acrobatics check (flying).

Do stealth, so when you crit succeed and talk to him, he doesn't see you, loses his shit and falls off the roof.

Horizon is making his way to the designated Extended Rest area.

Zarhon wrote:If you're doing that, Kris, make either a stealth check or an acrobatics check (flying).

*face palm* I got a natural twenty doing a acrobatics check.
20 + 11 = 31
Why do I keep getting lucky!? I don't want to be this lucky!

Rolf is going to start heading to the secret room as well (assuming nothing drastic happens).

As Rabiah pokes the cultist, she startles him, causing him to loudly yell a curse in surprise and spring backwards, dropping and breaking one of his bottles on the floor. The people in the street below then start shouting.

"Someone is on the roofs! Get someone up there!"

The cultist curses to himself again, and redirects his attention at Rabiah, with a very angry expression lining his face.

"Blast it all! You... You feather-brained airhead!"

He takes another bottle, and with a quick gesture of his fingers, its rag catches fires by magic, burning with a strong flame.

"Burn, you hag!"

He throws the bottle at Rabiah. Amazingly, not only does she succeed in moving out of its way, but she succeeds in grabbing the burning bottle in the process as well, still lit up, but unbroken. It's starting to get hotter and hotter, though, and she won't be able to hold it for long...

Meanwhile...

As the group moves towards the storeroom, they can hear and see through a nearby window that the guards outside have been roused into activity by something.

---

Rabiah is holding a burning rag-bottle. The cultist is pretty much staring dumbfounded at her.

What do you do?

Skitter stops to look to see what's going on.

"Ow! Ow! Hot!" She screeched before throwing the bottle at the ground. Kind of in the direction of the other bottles. Oops.
In fairness, she wasn't thinking clearly do to holding a bottle which was rapidly heating up.
Whitfoot on the other hand, did start to panic on her head.

---

Rolled a 2 for Acrobatics...

2+11 = 13

Um.... that 18 is for Perception. Rabiah's Acrobatics bonus is 11.

Changed it. *goes to bonk head on a hard back book*

The bottle crashes amongst the other bottles, spilling its flammable contents. In the process, it lights the already-spilled liquid next to the purple-robed man ablaze, much to his dismay. The rest of the bottles start breaking from the heat, creating a massive blaze that Rabiah barely flies away from. The cultist can only trash around in a wild panic, fire engulfing him from all angles. The situation reaches a climactic end as the man, in midst of the blazing madness, goes over the edge of the roof, falling screaming down into the "nest" to his doom.

Cultist:

Meanwhile....

As the group moves outside to see what the commotion is about, they catch a glimpse of the most unusual sight: a purple-robed man, fully ablaze, falls from the sky with a sickening crunch. The smoldering body on the floor, and the confusion surrounding its unexpected appearance, is quickly dismissed with a glance upwards: there is a sudden, awkward silence, as everyone gazes upwards at a avian humanoid, a Hawkling, to be precise. She is steadily flapping her winged arms, her brown dress and brown-green plumage illuminated by the flames consuming the roof of the building she is floating over, staring back at her sudden audience in equal, stunned silence.

"PURPLE IS NOT A GOOD COLOR TO WEAR TODAY, IT SEEMS."

---

Group can consider itself outside, looking at Rabiah. Also, a big chunk of the roof is on fire, and it's spreading around. The guards are a bit too stunned to react immediately, both to the fire and Rabiah.

Rabiah, meet party. Party, meet Rabiah!

Skitter pauses for a moment to snicker at this then notices the guards aren't doing anything about the fire and (opens the window if it isn't already and) shouts, "Yes, fire pretty but it burns! Don't let it spread you fools!"

"...Well, if she's against the cultists, she can't be all bad." Rolf tried using his wand of frost to try and stop the flames. "Hawkling, could you try grabbing a blanket or something to try and smother out the flames?"

I think Rolf needs to outright shout that to her, she's more than a building's length up.

And you might want to say something to the soldiers as well, considering their view of events (shouting/seeing a cultist, roof set ablaze, cultist falls down in flames, strange Hawkling triumphantly floats overhead, her intentions unknown).

And personally, I think blankets would be rather inefficient in countering such a fuel-fed fire. Then again, I'm not quite savvy on how strong or how long an average Molotov Cocktail would burn, let alone 10+ of them bunched up, so feel free to prove me wrong with SCIENCE.

He probably doesn't have to, it's unlikely Rabiah can see any blankets from up there.

Well if you want science... Molotovs don't "explode", per se. They are thrown in glass bottles so that the containers can break and the flame at the end of the rag can ignite the volatile mixture, and the "blast" is just the chemicals being splashed and igniting simultaneously- therefore, a molotov thrown at a pile of other molotovs would only be as effective as the first molotov bursting, plus one or two others if they break on impact as well- though it's more likely that they would just crack and leak. The other part to consider is that the chemicals inside the glass are more or less fireproof- the fumes are what ignite. So if the bottles were full and stuffed with the rag, then they wouldn't be able to breathe, and the rag burning up would not cause ignition. So, only if the bottles were left considerably empty would the first molotov cause the rest to explode, and only after their rags had burned up sufficiently. Molotovs are firebombs, they are designed to scare, burn or kill people and ignite other objects, not for heavy demolition.

This, however, is just science, which does not hold up to well when faced with "because magic", so the DM can easily point out that the mixture isn't general gasoline and alcohol, but in fact something that will actually explode, especially if under pressure. But if they aren't incendiary hand grenades, and are meant to act like molotovs, then the biggest thing to worry about is the chemical runoff. As the fumes burn, the chemicals run and pool, just like any other liquid, and bring the flames with them. Sitting atop a roof, it is highly likely that errant streams of chemicals would begin running down the walls and spreading rather quickly.

Blankets could be used to snuff the flames, but if they aren't specially designed or flame retardant (or magic), then they will most likely end up enflamed as well. Water may or may not work, depending on the mixture: safe bet is that it won't work, but keep it on hand anyway. The best idea is to dry to control or contain it and let it burn out. Assuming it isn't on a fuel source or somthing flammable, the chemical mixture itself should be quick to evaporate under its own heat, and once its done, the fumes and the flames are done, too. Then remaining is dousing any nonchemical fires left, which is fairly straightforward.

...And lets say that Horizon's alchemical knowledge and familiarity with such things led him to tell everyone that. Much more concise, of course, since they are under duress, but more or less that.

I figure smothering the flames would at least help. Though sand would be better than water for that.

As far as the "multiple bottles chain reaction" goes, yeah, I didn't expect an explosion so much as "big fire gets bigger and gets more liquid fuel from each bottle". The heat of the fire would potentially melt/break the glass, or cause the liquid within the glass to heat up and build pressure, entering its dangerous gaseous form in the process, which in turn would either build up enough to break the bottle, or slip through the likely non-hermetically sealed bottleneck, igniting on the burning rag in the process. Most of the rags would have been ignited by the initial blast (they are highly flammable due to their soaking).

In any case, the question you should be asking/putting into practice is how to stop it, or hasten its stopping, before said liquid mixtures lead and provide the fire a more rigid fuel source.

Rolf looked around at the soldiers. "Alright, everyone! We need to contain this fire! Find some rags, blankets, or whatever, get them wet, then bring them back here! The hawkling can then place them around the fire to keep it from spreading! Let's move it!"

Persuasion:

Rolf then started using Mage Hand to pick up piles of dirt and fling them at the source of the flames. "Hawkling!" he shouted. "When the soldiers get back, I need you to pick up the wet rags and blankets and place them around where the fire is spreading! Can you do that?"

And by Mage Hand I mean:

"You heard the man!" Jeraylia shouted, moving towards the fire and pushing soldiers she met along the way into motion. "Hustle! Hustle!" Nearing the flames, she took off her cloak and started carefully trying to lessen the blaze.

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Assist Rolf's persuasion check (for a +3): 23 (9 + 14 persuasion)
Fire-fighting check: 16 (8 + 8 endurance?)

"I-um-I-okay!" She went and got closer to the closer to the group and guards so she could get the wet stuff.

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Watching a lot of Slenderman stuff so now I want at least one subplot or fanfiction where the story of the slenderman is told and the group reacts differently to it.

Horizon, much more apt to starting fires than putting them out, does his best to stay out of the way. He does this by walking over to where the cultist fell to check his body.

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I assume he died on impact or was swarmed by soldiers and was killed. Whatever the case, pushing his way through to the body (if there's anyone to push through), checking for signs of life, and searching/disarming the body. He will then begin to contemplate how he made it to the roof and almost launched his attack without being detected.

Spoiler:

Or if he's still alive and not being attacked, then time to fight.

Kris_The_Guest wrote:Watching a lot of Slenderman stuff so now I want at least one subplot or fanfiction where the story of the slenderman is told and the group reacts differently to it.

Idk about a whole story, but Horizon would probably die first on account of, "What's so scary about that? Let's kill it."

Bronymous wrote:

Kris_The_Guest wrote:Watching a lot of Slenderman stuff so now I want at least one subplot or fanfiction where the story of the slenderman is told and the group reacts differently to it.

Idk about a whole story, but Horizon would probably die first on account of, "What's so scary about that? Let's kill it."

Of course, Rabiah would just offer him some food while sitting in front of a fire.
That or fly up out of reach.