Round 7: Valrieth

Valrieth maintains her position near the west side of the room.  If she needs a better view of the redcap, she climbs on top of the table or workbench that's just to the southwest of the oven and hurls fire and radiant arrows at the remaining redcap.

Movement: Climbing up to stand on the table for a better view.
Action: Cast spell Produce Flame, 15, Damage: 9 (fire)
Bonus Action:  Archer Starry Form (range: 60), 14, Damage: 12 (radiant)
Free Action: None.

Starry Form (Archer): round 3 of 100

Aoife moves in to attack the remaining redcap, standing tall and enjoying her large size. 

Attack 1: shortsword 11 to hit for 11 dmg

Attack 2: shortsword 18 to hit for 7 dmg

Bonus action Attack: shortsword off hand 23 to hit for 14 dmg

(all rolls in game log)

Finley’s final 2 Mirror Image are used up and the redcap gets a hit in on him which causes him to make a guttural growl as he swings back with his two thundering fists.

Concentration check: 25 for Enlarge.(Did two other checks for the previous damage too and they are 17 and 26)

Action: Thunder Gauntlets: 22 to hit, 10 thunder, 22 to hit and 12 thunder damage. Disadvantage to anyone but Finley until the start of his next turn.

Enlarge: 5/10

Redcap 1 dies under a barrage of attacks from the party,

End of Combat. 

everyone sees tiny cracks forming across the ceiling. 

What do you do next? 

Valrieth leans up against the wall, trembling. She feels an odd combination of the pain of her injuries, exhaustion after the long day, and exhilaration at defeating one of the hags. "Is everyone OK? Does anyone need healing before we proceed?", she asks, her voice a bit unsteady. But then the groans and shudders from the walls and the cracks in the ceiling remind her that they don't have much time. "I'm afraid that we can't rest here long," she says. "It sounds like this whole place may come tumbling down, and we still need to find all of the children and get them out safely. We also have to find the portrait for Finley's fey bargain, collect the oil of a Boggle, if we can, and search for any clues that could help with our ultimate Quest of restoring Zybilna." 

Val worries that they'll need to move quickly, and they don't know what other nasty surprises Skabatha has for them around Loomlurch. "It would be great if the tin soldiers collapsed with the hag's death, but I don't suppose we're that lucky.  Should we risk splitting up? Or just ransack each room as we go while we look for the children?  Finley, we could just throw any interesting objects in the portable cave so that we can examine them once we're outside." 

Val looks toward the north door:  she's clearly curious to see what's in Skabatha's room. 

If Val opens the door to L14

L14

A staircase runs along the wall of this circular room and climbs to an upper level. Tucked behind curtains of moss and ivy are numerous bookshelves bearing ancient tomes, and built into one of the bookcases is a tall oval mirror in a wooden frame. Flickering candlelight emanates from the eye sockets of a human skull resting on an open rolltop desk.

Aoife nods. "Don't know about those other things, but we should rescue the children."

She goes to the door to the outside and looks out. (Perception21) What does she see?

Aofie sees Cradlefall still unconscious and tied up. You can also see the 2 mounds of dirt due to the sudden rising of the 2 redcaps. There are no enemies in sight. 

Quote from Weathervision >>

If Val opens the door to L14

L14

A staircase runs along the wall of this circular room and climbs to an upper level. Tucked behind curtains of moss and ivy are numerous bookshelves bearing ancient tomes, and built into one of the bookcases is a tall oval mirror in a wooden frame. Flickering candlelight emanates from the eye sockets of a human skull resting on an open rolltop desk.

Valrieth says, "I'm going to start searching the hag's papers and things here.  Finley, Ilifir, could one of you search the kitchen before you join me?  And Aoife, while you're there, could you check the hag's body to see whether she has any keys on her?  Finley and Ilifir have been doing a great job today with the lock picks!  But it'll go faster if we we found the keys to Loomlurch!"

Val casts Guidance on herself to summon the keen senses of the beasts while she searches L14.

Guidance boost: 4
Searching L14: Investigation Unable to parse dice roll. or Perception Unable to parse dice roll.

(OOC: I couldn't remember which skill you prefer when searching a room, so I provided both rolls with the bonus from Guidance included in the roll. 

Did the Skabatha return to normal size when she died?  Or is her body still 4-inches tall?  I wonder whether her possessions are still tiny or would revert to normal size if we take them off of her body.)

(Granny Nightshade died tiny so everything on her is still tiny) 

Val searches the study and founds notes on each child and how Will used to work for Granny Nightshade and his sudden departure is seen as an act of betrayal as he was one of the most loyal of her minions. 

Aoife notes the dragon still unconscious and leave him there for the moment. "Probably safer out there anyway if this place is gonna fall down," she mutters. 

She turns to look at the tiny body of Granny, then at her large hands. She turns to Finley. "Can you turn the spell off? It will be easier for me to search her if I'm my normal size. That spell is lovely though. Thank you for making me big."

Once she is medium sized again she bends to look for the keys. (Inv 12 in game log)

Aoife finds a set of tiny keys on a key ring. Dispel magic can be used or even the enlarge spell can be used to make it normal sized again.

ilifir flies through the kitchen, looking around briefly, then starts going through any cupboards and drawers, spike near him to search twice as fast, what they are looking for? nothing in particular, a painting apparently, and anything else of interest

The kitchen contains the many ingredients needed to make candy and the day-to-day ingredients for the children's meal.

ilifir, never one to avoid stooping to petty theft, pockets some of the more interesting candy ingredients (colouring, anything he doesnt really recognize) and a thermometer if there is one, as well as a couple of the breakfast ingredients that would keep well, and then meets back up with val in the study

Aoife waves the tiny keys at ilifir and Finley. "Can someone do something to make these normal size again? I can do some magic, but not that."

"Aye, the spell is gone off o' ye," Finley waves a hand in the air, "Ah cannae enlarge anything else until tomorrow." He glances towards the kitchen where ilifir went, but moves quickly towards the room Val went to. "Can ye dispel any magic, Val?"

Quote from willow_ivyleaf>>

ilifir, never one to avoid stooping to petty theft, pockets some of the more interesting candy ingredients (colouring, anything he doesnt really recognize) and a thermometer if there is one, as well as a couple of the breakfast ingredients that would keep well, and then meets back up with val in the study

Valrieth asks Ilifir, "Did you check the cookbooks?  It's possible she stashed a password somewhere, and we might need it.  We found something like that among some old rubbish in Bad B's hut."

(OOC: I'm never sure whether our characters automatically find everything of note or whether we have to be more specific so that we don't miss anything.  Here was the original description of the kitchen.)

Quote from Weathervision >>

what you see upon opening the door is a squalid kitchen carved out of the trunk of the fallen oak. A large clay oven sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by crowded shelves laden with forest fungi, jars of pickled grubs, animal skulls, and moldy cookbooks. Sickly-sweet vapors emerge from a cauldron that rests atop the oven.

 To Finley

Quote from Snievan >>

He glances towards the kitchen where ilifir went, but moves quickly towards the room Val went to. "Can ye dispel any magic, Val?"

Val says, "Yes.  I mean, I can try.  I expect that we'll find more locked doors, and based on the sounds this place is making, I don't think we want to spend time picking locks or breaking down doors."

Val suggests, "Maybe you could search the hag's desk?"  She waves a stack of papers in her hand, saying, "It was mostly looking through the papers, which looked like a lot of petty notes on each of the children she's forced to work for her."  Val doesn't share the information about Will's past service to Granny Nightshade at this time.  With Loomlurch coming apart, she feels like they're in a terrible hurry.  Granny Nightshade sounded truly upset at the 'betrayal', and if Will had a change of heart, she figures that he's still a good ally for them and the children.  If Will harbors any nefarious plans of his own, they'll probably find out once he sees Loomlurch fall apart.

To Aoife

Val crosses the room to Aoife.  She says, "Oh!  Brilliant, Aoife!"  Then she has a brief fit of giggles at the sight of the tiny keys in Aoife's strong hands.  

Val tries to cast Dispel Magic on the keys.  If they return to their regular size, Val suggests that Aoife uses them to lock the door to the yard.  "We wouldn't want any more of those redcaps running up and attacking us from behind!"

Indeed, everything in the description of the kitchen is found here and a perusal of the cookbooks reveals no hidden phrases.

The keys return back to normal size. There are 3 keys on the key ring. 

(Next steps)

Valrieth is giving some thought to healing before they start exploring some other rooms.  (After the redcaps, Val is at 13/38 and Finely is at 25/48.)  Val is still in her Archer Starry Form, but it only lasts 10 minutes.  She could switch to the Chalice Starry Form right away and use it to boost her healing capabilities.  That conserves spell slots, but then she'll be out of Wild Shape uses until a short rest.  (She doesn't expect to get another rest until after Loomlurch collapses.)  Without Archer Starry Form, her damage per round drops quite a bit, but it's definitely too dangerous for Val and Finley to explore the rest of Loomlurch in their current condition.   

Val asks the others about their healing capacity.  Finley used a bunch of his spell slots to get through the last fight, and Val isn't really aware of Aoife's capabilities yet.  If no one else can spare a spell to help heal Val and Finley, then she'll probably use a combination of her Chalice Starry Form and healing word to heal 10 - 20 HP two both her and Finley for just two 1st Level spell slots.  But if someone else can provide some healing, Val would instead save her second use of Starry Form for later and just use two 1st level spell slots to cast goodberry and provide 20 HP of healing.

Once Val sorts out the plans for healing, she says, "I think that we're at the very northern end of Loomlurch under the northmost "tower."  We could check upstairs for the portrait," she glances up the spiral staircase, "and then come back down, go through the kitchen and go through the rest of Loomlurch room-by-room so that we don't miss any of the children."