Zilean's Revenge

Zarhon wrote:Tiffany

Tiffany hears a pair of booming sounds to her right. Moments later, the room shudders. She hears the sound of crumbling dirt and rocks somewhere in the distance behind you.

Sorry I've been gone. I had College to go too.

Tiffany spun around. "Oh, that doesn't sound good." She muttered before getting to the hole and yelling, "Skitter! Something's in here with me!" She turned around with her hammer out, scanning the area, hopping to see what's there.

Kris_The_Guest wrote:Tiffany spun around. "Oh, that doesn't sound good." She muttered before getting to the hole and yelling, "Skitter! Something's in here with me!" She turned around with her hammer out, scanning the area, hopping to see what's there.

Swing and a miss.

Rolf leaned over one of the fences and looked down. Hopefully he would be able to climb down directly into the wine ritual room and ring it directly. But first he had to check something.

He looked at the cord hanging from the bell that led into the room below. He knew that one of the cords was loose, and he didn't want to have to go through this process twice if he could help it. Unwilling to lean out over the hole too far to try and grab it, he tried to use Mage Hand to bring the cord to him. Then he could inspect the length of the cord for any defects.

Roll for Mage Hand (and Perception if necessary).

Couple questions, Zarhon.
1. I know that there's the trapdoor I came in, and the hatch that leads to the roof. Which door has the stained windows that can be opened from the inside?
2. By the Grand Hallway, did the cleric mean the hallway where Rolf and Skitter first entered the temple? (Rolf would have asked for that clarification).

Lyntermas wrote: Rolf leaned over one of the fences and looked down. Hopefully he would be able to climb down directly into the wine ritual room and ring it directly. But first he had to check something.

He looked at the cord hanging from the bell that led into the room below. He knew that one of the cords was loose, and he didn't want to have to go through this process twice if he could help it. Unwilling to lean out over the hole too far to try and grab it, he tried to use Mage Hand to bring the cord to him. Then he could inspect the length of the cord for any defects.

Roll for Mage Hand (and Perception if necessary).

Couple questions, Zarhon.
1. I know that there's the trapdoor I came in, and the hatch that leads to the roof. Which door has the stained windows that can be opened from the inside?
2. By the Grand Hallway, did the cleric mean the hallway where Rolf and Skitter first entered the temple? (Rolf would have asked for that clarification).

1 - You entered through a trapdoor in the floor. All 4 walls of the room have stained windows to look outside through. You can see the whole town in all 4 directions from them. The bars are to prevent people falling through the windows by accident, since the windows can be opened to let fresh air in or make the bells more audible to the outside. The hatch in the roof is same as the roof, no windows.

2 - No, I mean the Grand/Great Hall, where the the balconies are.

Edit: I see I made a typo. Edited for clarity.

Ohhhh. So in the Great Hall, there are two sets of stairs that lead to the balconies, and one that leads directly into the attic? I'm just trying to figure out where everything leads so we don't have any unchecked rooms.

You've ran out of unchecked rooms (well, apart from Skitter's current adventure time trip and a room you haven't inspected properly yet).

Rolf

Mage hand -> 12 + 8 = 20

Grab and pull both ropes up to himself, Rolf inspects both of them for irregularities.

Perception -> 12

Neither of the ropes looks damaged or weak, at least, not the area that he checked. He tests this by pulling it against his mage hand, both ropes holding strong. Maybe the rope itself isn't the problem?

Sleeeep

Hmm. A room that was never inspected properly...Oh, that was probably the food storage room in the attic. Meh, we might look at it anyway to get a snack for Matilda, but considering LIZZIE was in it at the time, I sincerely doubt there are any cultists in there. Well, living ones at least.

Although I think there were two doors in the dormitories that Skitter and I never got around to opening (Of the five doors that Skitter and I saw when we first went in, one led to the hall where all the captured cultists are, one was the room that the cultists came out of, and one was the room where my cleric buddy was sleeping). But I'll assume they aren't exactly "high priority" and get on with it.

Rolf let the ropes fall back into their respective holes. Huh, he could have sworn there was something wrong with the bells. As he pondered this, he went around to the windows and started opening them one by one, in order for the sound to be clearly heard.

Then it struck him. That notice on the wall had said that one of the TOUNGES was out of commission. He went back to the bells and peered beneath each of them to see if the clappers looked operational or not.

Roll for Perception.

Good thing we have EVERYTHING in written form. Good night Zarhon.

Horizon waits impatiently for the worthless old nun to finish.

Srsly, nothing to do here.

Oh yeah, your right, you didn't inspect that one. I meant the wine rite room though, but you'll get on with that soon anyway. As for the dormitories, I'll just say you can skip those, as they are locked/belong to the High Priests paladins.

Rolf

Perception -> 2

Rolf inspect the bells from underneath, but can't find what would be wrong with them. It seems he doesn't have professional (read: any) knowledge of bell ends tongues to figure out which bell is in working condition.

Horizon

Horizon asks the nurse to hurry up with healing as long as it lets him fight properly. She obliges, healing it slightly faster. At this point, the wound still hurts whenever you move, but not enough to hinder your fighting, though). It's also a fairly obvious to anyone and would be a weak spot: A good hit and he'll probably fall over from pain/shock, whilst a serious injury in the same spot might undo all the healing that was done or make the damage worse than before.


@ Kris/Tiffany: Feel free to abandon Skitter for now since you can't reach him anyway. And monsters don't make "crumbling sounds".

Edit: Probably wont be updating further tonight.

Rolf wasn't happy at what he had found. He had hoped there was something obviously wrong with one of the tongues, like a crack or something, but he couldn't see what was wrong with either of them. Well, there was really only one way to figure it out now: process of elimination.

He attached the dove device to one of the bells, making sure that it was firmly in place. He then cast Spider Climb on himself and climbed over the fence and down the hole. The hole eventually opened up into the wine ritual room he had seen before. He carefully climbed down the walls until he was safely on the ground. He then went up next to the cord of the bell he had attached the device to.

He put his hands on the cord. This was the big moment. This bell would be a warning to the townspeople, a cry for help to the clerics and paladins, and a declaration of war to all of Zilean's followers (We know you are here, and we are coming for you).

Rolf gripped the cord tightly and pulled down until he could hear the bell sound.

He then ran away from the cord in case the tongue fell down on him.

...Flip a coin?

Hell's Bells? I would have gone with this.

Horizon, finally done with healing, got up and headed towards the Wine Ritual room, in search of the supposed Bell Ringer. The fact that he hadn't yet heard anything was starting to annoy him.

Nothing today? Really?

Bronymous wrote:Nothing today? Really?

Have a pony tales session right now. I'll reply after its done.

EDIT: Update!

Rolf & Horizon

Heads (1) - Yay
Tails (2) - Boo

1d2 -> 2

Perception -> 9

After a bit of searching, Horizon enters the wine ritual room, entering just in time to see Rolf pull on a rope. As he goes over and gives the rope a strong tug, Rolf feels a sudden chill. He quickly moves away from the hole the rope goes up into. The bell starts ringing. In addition to its normal ringing, the whole thing rings a booming sequence of notes, sounding like a pipe organ. About 10 seconds after the sequence started, the bell ringing abruptly stops (the booming melody sequence continues, now slightly more audible without the bell ringing) and the rope falls to the ground, piling up onto itself.

Everyone else

You hear a ringing of a bell and a strange organ pipe tune.

"I'm...going to assume that was what was supposed to happen," said Rolf. "The melody, I mean, not the rope coming down. I'd, uh, stay away from that area if I were you."

He turned to Horizon. "Well, now all the holy folk should be on their way back now. I think there might be a bomb on one of these pillars, so I'll do a quick search. After that we have a few options.

1. Interrogate the cultists. We have five of them here, so hopefully they'll know something between the lot of them. We should first ask the paladin what he managed to get from them. I believe they have a policy against "snitches", so it might be good to take each into the supply closet separately. However, they are NOT to be killed. The staff has been helpful so far, so there's no need to antagonize them by "sullying holy ground."

2. We go back into the Grand Hall to access the damage. I only saw black smoke coming out of the cracks instead of purple, so the bombs might have been meant for architectural damage rather than "zombie surprise". I know there are at least two bombs in there that WILL bring the house down if they go off, so we need to make sure that they are "safe" until they can be disarmed. I can also use my frost wand to try and plug the holes the smoke is coming out of.

3. We go find Tiffany and Skitter. They're probably wondering about the explosion, and the more hands we have the better. Besides, Tiffany has a book that I am now VERY interested in taking a look at. You might be able to decipher it with your...particular knowledge set.

4. I can do something that is potentially very stupid, and you can watch and make sure I don't hurt anyone when I do it.

We're probably going to have to do all four in some order, so you can think about what to do next."

Rolf then took out his amulet and looked through it at the pillars.

Roll for Perception.

"Hmmm..." Horizon pulled out his kukri and examined it. "Interrogation without killing any of them? Seems like a waste of time. So do the rest of those options, actually. I don't care enough about the temple for cleanup duty, and the other two will have either decided to come back up here once the explosion sounded, or are dead under a pile of rubble. So..." he looked at Rolf, grinning under his mask. "I vote option four. 'Something Stupid' sounds like just the kind of thing I'd enjoy seeing you attempt." He paused, considering the possibilities. "No promises on the "making sure you don't hurt anyone" part, though."

First let me say... I'm wearing a helmet? With a Mask on it? I don't know how I ate huge cloud of debris, but whatever, it's of little importance. Instead of just replying I'm going to use this nice "QUOTE" option to insert my dialogue at the appropriate times.

Lyntermas wrote: Rolf coughed as the dust began to settle. "Okay, the bell did go off properly, they should have freaking LABELED which bell was out of commission, this place was on the verge of falling apart anyway, the wards are still in place, we know where the bomb is now, so I don't want hear a freaking word, alright?"

Horizon simply coughed and sputtered. Between coughs, he managed to choke out a laugh, as well as something that slightly resembled "You're Welcome".

He led Horizon out of the wine rites room. As they opened the door, they were greeted by the stares of the gathered assembly.

"...This hasn't been an optimal day for anyone, I confess. However, the signal has been sent, and soon the High Priest and all his retinue will be here to help defend the city...and possibly start repairs," Rolf said, brushing himself off. "Now if you'll excuse me, my compatriot and I need to discuss something in private." Rolf then led Horizon into Sister Ivy's isolation rite room and shut the door behind him.

"Well I'm having a good time at least." As the door shuts he looks at Rolf, and VERY sarcastically remarks, "Whoa there, kid. I mean, your...attractive... I guess, but I don't think this is the time or place for this. There are zombies and stuff, and I don't really like you like that..." His voice trails off as he tries to clean off more of the dust.

"Alright, you wanted stupid? Here we go." Rolf pulls out the cloak with 5 thin strips. "This is a cloak that came from the same room that the stupid death orb was locked in. I can tell that it has transmutation qualities, but little else. I'm going to put this on, and you'll stand at the entrance in case I turn into a dumb beast or something." He then takes the cloak and wraps it around his shoulders.

"If you say so. Still, no promises. If you get big enough I may be out of this room before you are." Horizon posted by the door, arms crossed. Then, thinking better of it, he draws his scimitar.

Rolf & Horizon

Perception -> nat20

As soon as Rolf puts on the cloak, he gets the faintest feeling of dread and is fairly certain the cloak moved on its own accord as he was putting it on. Nothing else happens, however. The cloak feels like a normal cloak. If it did anything, it isn't obvious.

As this is happening, a weird sound can be heard from the rites room, that Rolf recognizes as the sound of teleportation-type spells. A few moments after each one, loud coughing can be heard. The door suddenly opens, revealing a bunch of gold-tabard paladins with high-quality weaponry and a old-looking man in very regal, golden-colored robes, holding a large wooden staff with a small holy symbol orb on its end. They're all coughing and choking on the newly-formed cloud (especially the old man). As they exit the room, some of the paladins draw swords and spears at Rolf & Horizon, but the old man has them lower them immediately. He approaches you and speaks.

"I assume you two gentlemen are kind enough to explain what is going on here... Or at the very least, what happened in there..."
*he points to the rites room*

"Well, that was quicker than I expected," said Rolf as he exited the isolation rites room. "I'm guessing you are the High Priest. My name is Rolf Towden, this armored man behind me is called Horizon. We were present when a lich claiming to be Zilean appeared in the crowd of the play your temple put on. He has a group of cultists at his command, and his primary M.O. is setting up bombs that, in addition to causing large explosions, generate a purple gas that zombifies the recently dead in unpredictable ways. My compatriots and I managed to evacuate the audience safely, but apparently Zilean's followers triggered an explosion near the drinking contest, incapacitating or killing several civilians and adventurers."

"Upon entering the temple, we found that several cultists had managed to infiltrate the temple," Rolf continued, pointing at the five cultists assembled. "We had found they had placed similar bombs within the temple. The bombs are invisible, but can be seen by looking through one of these amulets. We found two in the Great Hall, and one in the wine rites room where you just left. We also found a defunct bomb in the cold storage room. Unfortunately, it appears that a set of bombs in the main crypt were detonated after...a fire broke out in the catacombs.

In terms of damage: the lock on Lizzie's room is broken, the doorway from Lizzie's hall to the Great Hall is smashed, the food storage door and a stained glass window in the attic were broken by Lizzie, the floor of the Great Hall has collapsed due to the explosion, the catacombs are a smoky firey mess, one set of stairs has been broken through, and, as you have seen, one of the tongues of the bells has fallen out and smashed the wine rites room.

In terms of loss of life: I regret to inform you that one of your paladins was killed by the cultists. As for the cultists themselves, two died in the fire that broke out in the catacombs, one was pushed off the balcony by a cub that got out, and another decided to enter Lizzie's room. Might want to get someone to clean that up.

HOWEVER, the temple is still standing, the wards have not been compromised, the rest of the staff is battered but alive, and now you are here. Now I'm sure that you have several more questions, but you'll have to excuse me for just a moment."

Rolf grabbed the cloak and tried to take it off as quickly as possible.

Sheesh, how many cursed items is Rolf going to run into by the time this campaign is over?