[Concentration Con Save: 12 — Bonus action and movement: to move so gust of wind is blowing at the Unhealthy Imp.] [Round 6 = 36 seconds of 60]
(Eldritch Blast at Healthy Imp: 13 to hit, for 15, [13 force and 2 thunder] damage.)
Erudisia screams as one spine enters her shoulder, and the flames sear her flesh.
”How…” she gasps, turning the spell mechanism within the orrery of her mind to face towards the wicked, half-smashed imp that has injured her.
”How —“
Her right arm does not work well. She sees Little One, Marliza, Meredith and Bell and the healthy imp. She makes her choice.
”How STUPID!” She turns and fires a blast of thunderous force at the healthy imp that threatens her friends. “Cleverness must be a grace from celestials. A spine that cauterizes the wounds it makes. Incredible, ill-formed, illusionary threat. I hold you in contempt.”
Her voice is almost whisper quiet by the end; the warlock is almost spent.
Bell and Erudisia’s combined assault disintegrates the devilish cupid in an explosion of colorful arcane effervescence.
Meredith’s blow misses the other devil – it darts under her swing – but the bard’s exhortation to Marliza has its intended effect. As the devil prepares to unleash fiery barbs at Bell and Erudisia, a blur of fur and teeth slams into it from one side, and Marliza – now entirely transformed into a snarling jackal – savages the little hell-creature until it moves no more. When its body goes slack, it disappears in a burning red glow, swallowed away to the lower planes of evil from which it spawned.
(Combat is over!)
“I’ll stay here,” Little One says from the corridor, poking his head through the security office door, “to ensure we have a way out again.” He turns and guards the corridor.
Marliza transforms back into her human form, pink mini and combat boots included, and, wiping black ichor from her lips, stares daggers at the two guards in the cell. “You two just stay there,” she says. To Erudisia, Meredith and Bell, she says, "I'll guard the guards."
Meredith looked at Marliza a little flushed , " Um....you don't happen to know any were- or -were tigers or leopards or the like that might want to bite someone?"
" Sorry....is that gauche to say? Are you? Does it pass on? Or is it just who you are? Sorry.....", she ended in a fluster.
Bell moves over to the doorway, "Little One, are you injured? Do you need a bit of healing before taking up guard duty?"
She turns and regards Erudisia, Meredith, and Marliza, "I ask the same of you all. Are any of you in need of healing or at least wrapping some wounds... until we can get out of here?"
Bellstares at everyone for a moment and then groans and nearly crumples to her knees before stumbling to a desktop to hold herself up. "I keep forgetting I do not have my backpack or component pouch or my spellbook with me. All I have is this ruined bit of clothing and.... " She rushes into the hallway and searches about to locate her thrown dagger. Picking it up, she walks back into the office, "... and my dagger. I.... I don't have anything to help heal with!"
Erudisia looks pale and wan. The gale wind ceases to howl and her little blue dragon chess piece amulet is a dull, dull blue.
“I think their spines must have been poisoned,” she says faintly, “I thought I saw…” she breathes heavily staring at Marliza. “No, wait. Of course.”
Little One and Marliza state their intention to guard the guard room and guard the guards. Erudisia takes a second key card from the unconscious guard in the corner of the room.
“Do we have some way to bind him?”
Once the others are happy, Erudisia will follow them back to the vault doors. Sharing the danger of the vault’s trap-imp’s head in case it is activated by motion at the edge of its range.
“Let us get all that we must from this vault, place it into my space. One of you will wear my amulet, or at least throw it into the river if breaking out looks to be hard. There shall be no evidence of our theft if the vault’s contents are far away.” Almost beneath her breath, she says, “And I can catch my breath within.”
Marliza answers Meredith with guarded pride. “What you saw… we were born in that shape. Our leader granted us the ability to take these human forms. It’s not a… curse. So biting someone doesn’t make them like us. But no… I don’t know any different kinds — leopards or lions.” Something tells you there’s more to the story, but dropping her eyes, she stops speaking.
Erudisia heads back to the vault with Meredith and Bell. The serpent’s maw issues no assault this time. Its magic is spent, although it seems to be recharging. With your placement of the key card on a spot against the doorframe, there is a cycling of massive crossbars and latches, and then the doors crack open releasing a draft of stale air.
The vault is forty feet deep and almost twice as wide. A security mirror stares back at you from the far wall. Seven treasure chests rest on low tables positioned against the far walls, and two tall wardrobes stand against the south wall to your right.
From the doorway, you see, standing in the middle of the room, a skeleton. Eight feet tall, broad-shouldered, heavy-boned and with the head and horns of a bull. Its head, necrotic shadow eyes sucking in the dim mage light from globes bobbing under the ceiling, turns toward you.
“Enter and die!,” it hisses, and you smell the deathly foulness of it from where you stand. Its hands — bones only, like the rest of it— rest upon the pommel of a battle ax haft and curl with brute strength. The weapon’s engraved broad blade glints murderously at the haft’s end.
Without entering, Erudisia steps forward to address it. “Answer me true, mighty guardian. Beyond death for those enter, what other commands do you follow? Are you bound to this vault for all eternity in perpetual undeath? Is this your wish?”
”You say enter and die. Can you leave, and live?”
(Certainly if we can find out some loophole, grand. But if it’s not as simple as some paradox or persuasive method allowing us to circumvent this undead demon Minotaur thing, if it can’t leave the vault, maybe we can blast it without it coming into axe swiping range to us, is my thinking).
“No other commands but those from Death himself must I follow,” the Minotaur skeleton replies, its voice like a breeze through a thousand dried corn husks. “And from the Togglepocket gnome, who you aren’t. I live no more and wish for nothing. Well, except a good book of puzzles would help pass the time. Anyhow, I am bound to kill intruders, which you are, since, technically you intruded when you opened the door. I only need to stretch before cutting you to ribbons.”
With a slight shedding of dust and cobwebs, it places one hand on the axe haft, stepping back one hooved leg with great slowness as it does so.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Meredith touched Erudisia on the back ( Cure Wounds- 25 )
She looked at the dead bull-person, " I mean....do you have a pen and parchment? I'm quite good at puzzles I'm sure I could sketch out quite a few good ones for you in exchange for letting my companions past."
" Though I don't think you can call us intruders truly as we are all Guests of the Casino and therefore of Togglepocket......I mean we were invited in and told to take advantage of the facilities and rooms..it even says so in the advertising and signage."
Persuasion ( With Help assuming someone is going to give it.).- 13
“Stretching is important, if you don’t want to pull a muscle, or injure key ligaments and tendons. It’s good to meet someone who both takes care of themselves and enjoys puzzles, also. I suppose the puzzle I am enjoying now is how I can possibly be an intruder if I have not intruded into your vault.” She shows the key card, by which the doors were opened by their own accord.
Erudisia looks closely at the Minotaur, nodding along as Bell speaks. They are after all honoured guests.
When he stretches, does he have joint capsules and ligaments? What holds him together? Are there any spots he seems to give the most attention to—perhaps an old injury and area of vulnerability for him?
Meredith touched Erudisia on the back ( Cure Wounds- 21 )
She looked at the dead bull-person, " I mean....do you have a pen and parchment? I'm quite good at puzzles I'm sure I could sketch out quite a few good ones for you in exchange for letting my companions past."
The bull head turns downwards to regard the rack of bones holding it up. “Do I looklike I have a pen and parchment?,” its voice hisses like autumn leaves shifting on a gravestone. It hefts the deathly battle axe onto one shoulder, testing its weight slowly, then pauses before focusing on Meredith and cocking its head. “I… think they have some in the security office though…”
“Stretching is important, if you don’t want to pull a muscle, or injure key ligaments and tendons. It’s good to meet someone who both takes care of themselves and enjoys puzzles, also.
When he stretches, does he have joint capsules and ligaments? What holds him together? Are there any spots he seems to give the most attention to—perhaps an old injury and area of vulnerability for him?
A dried-out strand of tendon pops in its thigh. “Owp. That can’t be good.” It makes circles with its hips, still moving freely, though slowly, no doubt thanks to its animating magic. Erudisia spots some subluxated discs in its lower back and calcium ridges on its joints as it moves.
" Though I don't think you can call us intruders truly as we are all Guests of the Casino and therefore of Togglepocket......I mean we were invited in and told to take advantage of the facilities and rooms..it even says so in the advertising and signage."
Persuasion ( With Help assuming someone is going to give it.).- 20
“I suppose the puzzle I am enjoying now is how I can possibly be an intruder if I have not intruded into your vault.” She shows the key card, by which the doors were opened by their own accord.
"Ah. Yup. But yeah, actually, no one is allowed to open the vault door but Togglepocket. So… intruders,” its ghastly voice retorts. But with a 20 persuade, Meredith and Erudisia are able to involve it in a discussion on this point as it continues to limber up. The black pits of its eyes return to Meredith hopefully from time to time…
In a drawer under one of the mirrors, Bell finds a new ledger, almost empty of entries except for the first two pages, entitled “Security Log,” along with ink, pens, and a few extra sheets of parchment.
By the time she returns with these items to the vault, the Minotaur has moved on to squats and lunges with its great axe held across its shoulders. When the wizard arrives, the man-beast turns nimbly on heavy hooves. “All right then,” comes its voice like a ghastly fluttering of wings as it steps toward the door raising its weapon, “who is first?”
“You haven’t stretched your hips. You need to really open them, squats and lunges are good, but if you want excellent strength, then you need excellent agility to transmit that strength, like this,” and Erudisia puts her hands on each hip and plants her feet wide and draws slows circles with her waist. She lies down and places one leg over the other, with her back flat to the ground, then crosses her right leg over the left so her lower body is nearly perpendicular to her torso.
She stands up. “As you stretch the first time you’ll really feel it in your gluteus region and deep in the joint that makes your hip.”
She smiles, as she waits for Bell, and for the Man-bullndead to assume the prone position.
The minotaur skeleton’s head cocks to the side appreciatively, then it joins Erudisia on the vault’s floor.
“Like this?,” comes its barren whisper. A few errant gold coins shift under its weight as it mimics Erudisia ably, causing two thin strands of ligament to Pop! in its knees. This, it shrugs off, hiding mild embarrassment. “Hehe, that can’t be good. But it didn’t hurt! Un-death really makes you feel young again,” it boasts, one black hole eye winking.
“Now,” it says, standing and hefting its axe, its voice rising like a ghostly wind through a coven’s crag,“Heeeerrreee’s Johnny!”
“Well met Johnny, it is an honour to usher one so gentlemanly back to the gentle embrace of death.”
(Just waiting for any last minute ink and paper shenanigans from Meredith, in eternal optimism.)
Erudisia moves her 30 feet back from the vault door into the corridor. She holds ready an Eldritch Blast, hot to go, if combat starts. Aiming at its previously noted most likely sore spots.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Meredith snatched the parchment and ink from Bell with a whispered thankyou and began sketching furiously thinking back to the puzzle books and riddle mazes that had been stocked at the store in Calimport.
She finished up an incredibly quick sketch of a labyrinth that she had seen and held it up in front of the grinning bulls skull.
Deception ( I figure that makes the most sense for putting false trails and dead ends into a ' map')- 17
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[Concentration Con Save: 12 — Bonus action and movement: to move so gust of wind is blowing at the Unhealthy Imp.] [Round 6 = 36 seconds of 60]
(Eldritch Blast at Healthy Imp: 13 to hit, for 15, [13 force and 2 thunder] damage.)
Erudisia screams as one spine enters her shoulder, and the flames sear her flesh.
”How…” she gasps, turning the spell mechanism within the orrery of her mind to face towards the wicked, half-smashed imp that has injured her.
”How —“
Her right arm does not work well. She sees Little One, Marliza, Meredith and Bell and the healthy imp. She makes her choice.
”How STUPID!” She turns and fires a blast of thunderous force at the healthy imp that threatens her friends. “Cleverness must be a grace from celestials. A spine that cauterizes the wounds it makes. Incredible, ill-formed, illusionary threat. I hold you in contempt.”
Her voice is almost whisper quiet by the end; the warlock is almost spent.
Meredith ducked the flaming spike and with no other real option lobbed the billy club at the wounded fiend near Erudisia.
" Marliza! Get to work!"
Attack: 17 Damage: 4
BA- Persuasion- 12
Bell and Erudisia’s combined assault disintegrates the devilish cupid in an explosion of colorful arcane effervescence.
Meredith’s blow misses the other devil – it darts under her swing – but the bard’s exhortation to Marliza has its intended effect. As the devil prepares to unleash fiery barbs at Bell and Erudisia, a blur of fur and teeth slams into it from one side, and Marliza – now entirely transformed into a snarling jackal – savages the little hell-creature until it moves no more. When its body goes slack, it disappears in a burning red glow, swallowed away to the lower planes of evil from which it spawned.
(Combat is over!)
“I’ll stay here,” Little One says from the corridor, poking his head through the security office door, “to ensure we have a way out again.” He turns and guards the corridor.
Marliza transforms back into her human form, pink mini and combat boots included, and, wiping black ichor from her lips, stares daggers at the two guards in the cell. “You two just stay there,” she says. To Erudisia, Meredith and Bell, she says, "I'll guard the guards."
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith looked at Marliza a little flushed , " Um....you don't happen to know any were- or -were tigers or leopards or the like that might want to bite someone?"
" Sorry....is that gauche to say? Are you? Does it pass on? Or is it just who you are? Sorry.....", she ended in a fluster.
Bell moves over to the doorway, "Little One, are you injured? Do you need a bit of healing before taking up guard duty?"
She turns and regards Erudisia, Meredith, and Marliza, "I ask the same of you all. Are any of you in need of healing or at least wrapping some wounds... until we can get out of here?"
Bell stares at everyone for a moment and then groans and nearly crumples to her knees before stumbling to a desktop to hold herself up. "I keep forgetting I do not have my backpack or component pouch or my spellbook with me. All I have is this ruined bit of clothing and.... " She rushes into the hallway and searches about to locate her thrown dagger. Picking it up, she walks back into the office, "... and my dagger. I.... I don't have anything to help heal with!"
Erudisia looks pale and wan. The gale wind ceases to howl and her little blue dragon chess piece amulet is a dull, dull blue.
“I think their spines must have been poisoned,” she says faintly, “I thought I saw…” she breathes heavily staring at Marliza. “No, wait. Of course.”
Little One and Marliza state their intention to guard the guard room and guard the guards. Erudisia takes a second key card from the unconscious guard in the corner of the room.
“Do we have some way to bind him?”
Once the others are happy, Erudisia will follow them back to the vault doors. Sharing the danger of the vault’s trap-imp’s head in case it is activated by motion at the edge of its range.
“Let us get all that we must from this vault, place it into my space. One of you will wear my amulet, or at least throw it into the river if breaking out looks to be hard. There shall be no evidence of our theft if the vault’s contents are far away.” Almost beneath her breath, she says, “And I can catch my breath within.”
Marliza answers Meredith with guarded pride. “What you saw… we were born in that shape. Our leader granted us the ability to take these human forms. It’s not a… curse. So biting someone doesn’t make them like us. But no… I don’t know any different kinds — leopards or lions.” Something tells you there’s more to the story, but dropping her eyes, she stops speaking.
Erudisia heads back to the vault with Meredith and Bell. The serpent’s maw issues no assault this time. Its magic is spent, although it seems to be recharging. With your placement of the key card on a spot against the doorframe, there is a cycling of massive crossbars and latches, and then the doors crack open releasing a draft of stale air.
The vault is forty feet deep and almost twice as wide. A security mirror stares back at you from the far wall. Seven treasure chests rest on low tables positioned against the far walls, and two tall wardrobes stand against the south wall to your right.
From the doorway, you see, standing in the middle of the room, a skeleton. Eight feet tall, broad-shouldered, heavy-boned and with the head and horns of a bull. Its head, necrotic shadow eyes sucking in the dim mage light from globes bobbing under the ceiling, turns toward you.
“Enter and die!,” it hisses, and you smell the deathly foulness of it from where you stand. Its hands — bones only, like the rest of it— rest upon the pommel of a battle ax haft and curl with brute strength. The weapon’s engraved broad blade glints murderously at the haft’s end.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
“Spider-queen’s tits,” mutters Erudisia.
Without entering, Erudisia steps forward to address it. “Answer me true, mighty guardian. Beyond death for those enter, what other commands do you follow? Are you bound to this vault for all eternity in perpetual undeath? Is this your wish?”
”You say enter and die. Can you leave, and live?”
(Certainly if we can find out some loophole, grand. But if it’s not as simple as some paradox or persuasive method allowing us to circumvent this undead demon Minotaur thing, if it can’t leave the vault, maybe we can blast it without it coming into axe swiping range to us, is my thinking).
“No other commands but those from Death himself must I follow,” the Minotaur skeleton replies, its voice like a breeze through a thousand dried corn husks. “And from the Togglepocket gnome, who you aren’t. I live no more and wish for nothing. Well, except a good book of puzzles would help pass the time. Anyhow, I am bound to kill intruders, which you are, since, technically you intruded when you opened the door. I only need to stretch before cutting you to ribbons.”
With a slight shedding of dust and cobwebs, it places one hand on the axe haft, stepping back one hooved leg with great slowness as it does so.
”Hang on. Just a sec.”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith touched Erudisia on the back ( Cure Wounds- 25 )
She looked at the dead bull-person, " I mean....do you have a pen and parchment? I'm quite good at puzzles I'm sure I could sketch out quite a few good ones for you in exchange for letting my companions past."
" Though I don't think you can call us intruders truly as we are all Guests of the Casino and therefore of Togglepocket......I mean we were invited in and told to take advantage of the facilities and rooms..it even says so in the advertising and signage."
Persuasion ( With Help assuming someone is going to give it.).- 13
“Stretching is important, if you don’t want to pull a muscle, or injure key ligaments and tendons. It’s good to meet someone who both takes care of themselves and enjoys puzzles, also. I suppose the puzzle I am enjoying now is how I can possibly be an intruder if I have not intruded into your vault.” She shows the key card, by which the doors were opened by their own accord.
Erudisia looks closely at the Minotaur, nodding along as Bell speaks. They are after all honoured guests.
When he stretches, does he have joint capsules and ligaments? What holds him together? Are there any spots he seems to give the most attention to—perhaps an old injury and area of vulnerability for him?
The bull head turns downwards to regard the rack of bones holding it up. “Do I look like I have a pen and parchment?,” its voice hisses like autumn leaves shifting on a gravestone. It hefts the deathly battle axe onto one shoulder, testing its weight slowly, then pauses before focusing on Meredith and cocking its head. “I… think they have some in the security office though…”
A dried-out strand of tendon pops in its thigh. “Owp. That can’t be good.” It makes circles with its hips, still moving freely, though slowly, no doubt thanks to its animating magic. Erudisia spots some subluxated discs in its lower back and calcium ridges on its joints as it moves.
"Ah. Yup. But yeah, actually, no one is allowed to open the vault door but Togglepocket. So… intruders,” its ghastly voice retorts. But with a 20 persuade, Meredith and Erudisia are able to involve it in a discussion on this point as it continues to limber up. The black pits of its eyes return to Meredith hopefully from time to time…
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia steps back a few feet, and looks to Meredith also, as the undead Man-Bull’s interest in the offered puzzles is clear.
" Bell, could you be a dear and go fetch some parchment and writing implements for me?", Meredith said calmly, not taking her eyes off the dead thing.
" Perhaps take one of the others with you and fetch our friend Togglepocket if he's still in one piece."
Bell nods as she turns and moves back into the security area; looking for a quill, inkpot and parchment.
Investigation: 18
In a drawer under one of the mirrors, Bell finds a new ledger, almost empty of entries except for the first two pages, entitled “Security Log,” along with ink, pens, and a few extra sheets of parchment.
By the time she returns with these items to the vault, the Minotaur has moved on to squats and lunges with its great axe held across its shoulders. When the wizard arrives, the man-beast turns nimbly on heavy hooves. “All right then,” comes its voice like a ghastly fluttering of wings as it steps toward the door raising its weapon, “who is first?”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
“You haven’t stretched your hips. You need to really open them, squats and lunges are good, but if you want excellent strength, then you need excellent agility to transmit that strength, like this,” and Erudisia puts her hands on each hip and plants her feet wide and draws slows circles with her waist. She lies down and places one leg over the other, with her back flat to the ground, then crosses her right leg over the left so her lower body is nearly perpendicular to her torso.
She stands up. “As you stretch the first time you’ll really feel it in your gluteus region and deep in the joint that makes your hip.”
She smiles, as she waits for Bell, and for the Man-bullndead to assume the prone position.
The minotaur skeleton’s head cocks to the side appreciatively, then it joins Erudisia on the vault’s floor.
“Like this?,” comes its barren whisper. A few errant gold coins shift under its weight as it mimics Erudisia ably, causing two thin strands of ligament to Pop! in its knees. This, it shrugs off, hiding mild embarrassment. “Hehe, that can’t be good. But it didn’t hurt! Un-death really makes you feel young again,” it boasts, one black hole eye winking.
“Now,” it says, standing and hefting its axe, its voice rising like a ghostly wind through a coven’s crag,“Heeeerrreee’s Johnny!”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
“Well met Johnny, it is an honour to usher one so gentlemanly back to the gentle embrace of death.”
(Just waiting for any last minute ink and paper shenanigans from Meredith, in eternal optimism.)
Erudisia moves her 30 feet back from the vault door into the corridor. She holds ready an Eldritch Blast, hot to go, if combat starts. Aiming at its previously noted most likely sore spots.
Attack: 22. Damage: 11 (9 force, 2 thunder)
Meredith snatched the parchment and ink from Bell with a whispered thankyou and began sketching furiously thinking back to the puzzle books and riddle mazes that had been stocked at the store in Calimport.
She finished up an incredibly quick sketch of a labyrinth that she had seen and held it up in front of the grinning bulls skull.
Deception ( I figure that makes the most sense for putting false trails and dead ends into a ' map')- 17