Chandan moves through the shadows north in the cavern without crossing any bridges. As he starts to move north he glances to his left and sees the first passage to the west which the Nothic indicates the "furry ones" come from. It leads to a set of steps down.
The cavern narrows at the north so that it is only five feet wide between wall and crevasse at the north bridge and there is where Chandan is able to peek around the corner where he sees a passage to the west that turns north and then west again. He sees a second set of steps leading down over there.
From that same vantage he can see the room to the north of the cavern. A 10-foot wide opening let Chandan see the area which has been finished with dressed stone block walls and a flagstone floor. Several barrels are stored against the walls here, along with a number of crates.
There are oil lamps burning in sconces on the walls everywhere. There seems to be no need for supplemental light to see.
He looks across to Jaliera and points down the passageway.
"Human occupation." He says in a low voice.
After all, what other races need torches in sconces? Not so many, as it happens. Certainly not orcs or goblins.
"Areas off from here are well frequented. Yes, more danger is at hand."
If an area wasn't well frequented, no-one would bother maintaining torches in sconces either. So the wizened old monk feels another encounter will be forthcoming.
"No idea lass. I figured if I broke it open, I'd have a harder time getting it up. Hadn't even checked if it was locked or trapped. Might be worthless."
"And what is that thing?" he said taking his battlehammer into his hands.
She moves around behind the Nothic, so she doesn't have to look at it's weird eye, and says to the group, "You do realize we can't just leave him here when we go, right? He will warn the others about us as soon as we're out of sight. And we can't send him out of the tunnel to terrorize the town. So what do you propose we do with him? At least tie him up for now. We can come back and free him on our way out, if that's still what you want to do."
Since it seems this Nothic thing can read minds, she doesn't bother trying to not let it hear.
She readies an action of a Firebolt Cantrip if the Nothic makes a threatening move.
Nothic The creature starts to sense that his guests will not feed him like they said they would. He realizes that they just want to kill him. It decides quickly that if it was going to die, it would go down fighting.
It looks at Chandan with it's giant eye and suddenly the monk feels a burning pain, like a festering wound, creep all over his body as the creature's rotting gaze washes over him live a dip into a bath of acid.
It then moves quickly down the hall to the west where it said the big fuzzy ones supposedly were and in your minds you hear the Nothic scream "Intruders!" and you know the message was not for you but about you.
Nothic rotting gaze Neptune rolled 3d6 and got 12
Kallista gets her reaction. I'll give Chandan and Kriv opportunity attacks. Everyone, initiative!
Last edited by Neptune; Sun 05/04/1515:28 UTC. Reason: To test the Pchan miracle jpg fix....
The sudden but inevitable betrayal did not come as a surprise to the Dragonborn. Had it adhered to the surrender, then reluctantly the heir to Norixius Keep would have had to stay his hand. Violating its own cessation of hostilities, on the other hand, that gave Kriv all the reason he needed to strike at the vile thing.
Kriv Initiative AJ rolled 1d20+1 and got 17 Kriv Opportunity attack on the Nothic AJ rolled 1d20+5 and got 9
ooc: Unless I missed something, I have the Nothic having taken 18 points of damage so far. 12 from Kalista's magic missile and 6 from Jaliera's arrow. And an FYI, because it helps you write your posts if you can figure out if you hit or miss, it's AC=15.
He calls out to his companions to stop but they are already attacking.. and now they have lost all possible surprise against the Redbrands. He is not happy and does not join in the initial attack.
**Sorry**
He thinks to the Nothic.
Jaliera
She grabs her bow and looses an arrow n the creature's direction but turns back in the direction of the passageway as the creatures shout is likely to bring others.
As the monster gazes at Chandan the cantrip she prepared flares from her hand into the creatures skull. Kallista Firebolt Zeim rolled d20+5,d10 and got 16, 5
Seeing as he wasn't all that pleased with the creature, it came as no surprise that it had attacked them. Unfortunately, he was too far away to do anything about it. For now he'd wait for the trouble that it would bring their way.
(OOC - OK, seems like Jaliera and Karok have already gone in this round, beyond the OAs? Which I presume means Karok is standing on the stairs next to the Nothic?)
Kallista
"Keep the stairs blocked. If those big furry ones come from that way we can make them fight us single file! We know the bridge behind us can't be crossed, so someone else should block the narrow part of the cave in case some try to come down from there (near where the #8 is on the map), she calls out."
Reaching down she flips open the chest. Maybe there's something in there to help, besides money. Worth taking a second to look.
(OOC - Nep, I presume opening the chest and looking inside is her action. If she can also get a Cantrip off at the Nothic let me know and I'll roll.)
ooc: It's OK if people roll for initiative and roll to attack. Only two characters had opportunity attacks and one had a reaction prior to this round. With the Nothic's poor initiative roll, it just moves things along...
Here's the initiative and we'll keep these numbers as we progress in the battle. I need a roll from Davroar. Jaliera 23 Chandan 19 Karok 19 Kriv 17 Kallista 16 Davroar 16
Karok is too far get an attack on the creature with the warhammer (his move is only 25. See the map. Remember that going down each step is a double move. I need to know if he does move. Nivek You can restate your action but keep the roll if you attack. It matters for what comes next.
Chandan and Kriv can state their actions too.
DM As soon as the Nothic had attacked Chandan and fled down the hall, Kallista's cantrip came off and the bolts of fire strikes it in the back. Kriv tries to halt it in it's tracks but his blade misses the monster but Chandan's spear does not and it too strikes the creature in the back. Now badly wounded, it turns to face the group head on. It hopes to harm the invaders before it perishes. It knows it is about to perish.
Jaliera lets an arrow fly down the hall but it misses. The nothic is now down a staircase and gains the benefit of cover because of the angles. Karok finds the creature has moved away from his reach and he won't be able to catch up to it for a melee attack.
While the others in the party attack the Nothic, Davroar stands down while Kallista bravely opens the chest, without checking for traps. She is lucky that it wasn't trapped and feels even luckier when she looks inside. It contains hundreds of gold and silver coins, five gems, two flasks of liquid and a sword which is sheathed in a silver-chased scabbard.
†Restricted forums can only be accessed by DreamLyrics members of the age of 18 years or older. Access which is granted by the Behind Closed Doors Procedure. ™DreamLyrics Play-by-Post. DreamLyrics Play-by-Post does not own copyright on DreamLyrics texts or graphics, except trademarked DreamLyrics logos and logotypes. The works contained in DreamLyrics are copyrighted (automatically, under the Berne Convention) by the original authors and may be available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. (See Copyrights for details.) Privacy Policy
I counted 5, 6, 12, total of 23 damage.]