Zilean's Revenge (Part 2)

rolls:

Zthulan heroically throws his spirit companion at the crossbow-wielding little fiend. The crossbow-wielding little fiend replies by punching it mid-flight. It gets smacked against an opposing wall.

Skitter then shoots a bolt at the kobold, striking one through its head, which stuns it for a moment as it removes the foreign object.

Horizon, rushes to attack, but fails to notice the helmet that one of the paladins discarded so he can rub his eyes properly. He trips, falling flat on his face, and losing the greased orb in the process. The orb bounces a few times before stopping on the floor. It's colors then begin to swirl slightly.

Rolf, thanks to the Kobold being inconvenienced by the bolt, easily steals the red object from it. He can tell from a glance that it isn't an orb: It's stick-shaped, wrapped in red rough paper.

Meanwhile, the sound of breaking wood and rumbling can be heard in the room behind you. The paladins recover from the flash fairly quickly, and shout with alarm and confusion, in part due to the rumbling, as well as the sudden appearance of their allies, but mostly due to the fact that a chest with arms just hopped into the room, behind the party, in addition to the already present skeletal kobold.

"What in the name of Pelor's golden beard is going on?!"

---

The kobold isn't destroyed yet, and can react, but Jeraylia gets a bonus if she acts while it would still be "mini-stunned" by the bolt.

"...Fuck you." Horizon mumbles into the dirt. He doesn't move quite yet. At least here, face down, he's less likely to get hit by anything.

Jeraylia opened her eyes and was surprised to see. She guessed the fall knocked some sight back into her. Looking up, she saw the crossbow wielding skeleton reeling from an arrow through the skull. Giving her hand a squeeze to confirm she still had a grip on her sword, she charged off the ground at the undead creature.

---

CHARGE!
Flat roll: 17.
Modifiers to consider : Stunned kobold , Jeraylia may still be feeling the effects of being wounded?

17? That's pretty good. Bronymous, since you've got the Gloves of Catching and Throwing, are you going to do anything about that live grenade, or would you rather one of us handled it.

My gloves of snatching arrows, which provide no bonuses to handling orbs, and especially ones that re greased up, live, and 10 feet away?

You guys can handle it. Probably just a Smoke bomb, anyway. That stick of dynamite, on the other hand...

Fair enough.

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Zarhon wrote:"What in the name of Pelor's golden beard is going on?!"

Rolf quickly tried to explain as he put the red stick-thing away. "Zilean set a trap for us. Some kobold graverobbers were using these tunnels to dig out coffins from below. They found Zilean's coffin, undid the spells, bashed it open, you can guess the rest. Long story short, kobold skeletons were trying to bring the tunnels down to bury us alive, there's a magic drill thing that's chasing us, the mimic...well, the mimic's mostly harmless now, and..."

Rolf's eyes rested on the greased orb. The swirling color did not bode well.

"...And that's not good." Rolf went over to the orb, and grabbed a few handfuls of dirt and dropped them on top of it, hoping that it would make the orb less slippery. He then picked up the orb and tried to throw it back into the tunnel they had come from.

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Rolling for Orb-Throwing...14.

Skitter slung his crossbow onto his back, dropped his sword from in-between his teeth, caught it and swung at the skeleton. He figured that someone aught to be doing so.

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Roll: 11. Do I still have a -3 penalty? Is it still distracted?

Quick question, Zarhon. Would Rolf know what dynamite is (assuming the red paper-stick IS dynamite) just as common knowledge, or would he have to roll to identify? (Probably the latter, but I wouldn't want to waste a roll if I didn't have to).

Same question for Skitter. He is a more or less educated individual and lived in caves his whole life and fought with dwarves. If anyone had dynamite, I would expect dwarves would.

You're right about it being dynamite, but the stick isn't marked so he can't tell as common knowledge (old-timey dynamite would have been roughly wrapped and unmarked and relatively uncommon outside of explosion-related professions like mining/adventuring), but both Skitter (kobold kin mining knowledge, dwarf knowledge, education), Rolf (education, basic alchemy), and Horizon (alchemy, possible previous experience) could probably deduct from a quick look what it is, how it works (roughly), and possibly extra details. You can roll as an extra "free action" with a big bonus to figure it out if you wish.

Roll: 18. Why now and not the attack? *sigh*

Zarhon wrote:You're right about it being dynamite

Called it. You're welcome.

You can roll as an extra "free action" with a big bonus to figure it out if you wish.

I would ask if Horizon just knows (since I guessed it) or at least assumes like I did, but I don't think he's seen it yet, what with wallowing in self-disappointment of the floor.

Free action? Can't turn that down...3. Well, with the bonus I'll probably be able to tell at least what it is, and Skitter will know the details. It'll probably come in handy in dealing with the magic drill thing.

Seeing Koras slowly sliding down the cave wall Zthulan flinches in sympathy. "Sorry!"

rolls:

Charging forward, Jeraylia cuts off both of the kobolds arms, forcing it to "drop" it's vest/jacket. Jeraylia then strikes the kobold cleanly on the skull, bisecting it and knocking it down its own ribcage. The paladins give a short applause.

Skitter then stabs and stomps the bones pile for good measure. As he does so, he notices that the vest the kobold had still has weight one of its pockets.

Rolf quickly grabs and tosses the black orb out of the room into the tunnel. It lands out of sight with a thump.

Taking a look at the stick he took from the kobold, Rolf vaguely recognizes it as an explosive alchemical tunneling substance, but can't recall which, or how it works, as there isn't any obvious fuse or triggering mechanism. Skitter, however, easily recognizes it as dynamite, a relatively stable explosive, so long as it's not exposed to high heat, fire or extreme pressure, and is detonated by lighting a fuse (which is folded/hidden within it's wrapper), or by lightning the stick itself, which is relatively suicidal.

As one of the paladins tries to speak, he is interrupted the sound of glass breaking, followed by that of something similar to steam. Thick black smoke starts coming out of the tunnel and into this room. At the same time, the rooms starts shaking as the sound of crumbling dirt and arcing approaches.

Horizon notices an earth-worm crawling to the left of his head.

---

Cross-bold is dead. Smoke is entering room, but isn't inconveniencing anyone yet. The earth-worm is showing no signs of hostility.

Skitter looks at the stick of dynamite and thinks for a moment while saying, "I think this thing was carrying more stuff." and indicates the pockets. Then he looks around to see if he can set up a trap to fling the dynamite at the drill thing when it passes by the section of tunnel.

Horizon brings a fist down on the Earthworm, who was obviously malevolent and mocking him. He then stands and begins hobbling toward the way out. "Whatever, lets just get out of here already. Paladins, feel free to stay behind and give your lives for the cause of stopping whatever"s coming after us."

Zarhon wrote: Whatever it is, it is metallic, caked in dirt and rocks, sharp-looking, spinning, and about twice the size of the tunnel, through which it appears to be simply ploughing through. Arcs of magic flash erratically around it.

Lyntermas wrote: He decided to pick up the chain and bear-trap. He had an idea that might work against the thing that was chasing them, but he'd prefer to test it in a place that wasn't supported by a mostly-broken pillar.

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"Here's an idea," Rolf said, pulling out the large chain he had brought with him. "I can cast Immovable on one of the links at the end of the chain, so that the chain is essentially hanging from the ceiling. Whatever is chasing us is spinning, so when it comes into contact with the chain, the chain should wrap around it and hopefully hold it in place."

"After that, we have two options. The first is that we can try to use our magics to disable the thing. The other is that we attach the dynamite to the chain beforehand, and either some fire thrown at it or the drill things' own magic arcs will set it off, destroying it. Your thoughts?"

Based on what we've seen would Skitter think the drill thing just running into the dynamite would set it off?

My thought is that magic that arcs like lightning might fall under "high heat". If nothing else, I've got a wand of fireballs that we can use to detonate it from a distance.

Whatever you do, Horizon will be waiting outside.

Ramsus wrote:Based on what we've seen would Skitter think the drill thing just running into the dynamite would set it off?

You haven't seen almost anything of the "thing" yet, other than a partial/incomplete view of some vague swirling bits of metal and flashing lights/arcs/spell effects. You'll have to get a proper look / full view to judge properly.

EDIT: So, Are you guys doing anything specific, or do I carry on with you exiting the tunnels?

I'll move out of the tunnel, if I can, and call for a med- I mean cleric. I'm sure someone else can handle it for a bit, and Jeraylia needs a quick break.

Zarhon, you never answered if Skitter could figure out some trap for the drill with the dynamite.

Ramsus wrote:Zarhon, you never answered if Skitter could figure out some trap for the drill with the dynamite.

Well, depends... You want a more-or-less fully automated trap, for which, your best bet is a trap that can both direct the Dynamite stick into the required position (at the drill, possibly launching on approach), AND light it up so it blows up/triggers when it needs to (its chances of exploding from contact/interaction with the "drill" cannot be certain/determined at this point, since you don't know/haven't seen enough of it, and due to its nature it may not be guaranteed).

Do you have a specific schematic, plan or actual trap design in mind, considering what you have available (I'll say you have some of the mining tools, coffin boxes, and similar clutter around)? Accounting for both the launch/ignition and/or a decent enough design will probably let you make a trap without a roll, but if I have to design it for you, then you'll have to roll to see if you can achieve it.

The others are free to chip in their ideas/contributions as well (Rolf can very likely assist Skitter with what he has).