Zorg's Lost Souls III

Barria is first happy to see Rowan throw his body at the door before she can get a whack in with her war hammer.  But looks at him confused when he asks his question.  "Do?  The door didn't do anything, it's locked.  We need to get to Mulligan as fast as possible!  If you have a better idea, I'm all ears!"

Greginald

Barria & Rowan

Mulligan

 Everyone can go. I've put Greg at the top of the initiative, all the NPCs and enemies next, and then Mulligan, Barria and Rowan... so essentially side initiative now.

As the soldier moves to strike with the intent to damage Greg gets his attack in just before, an eruption of sulfurous smelling fire envelops the tin man

(Held action, Hellfire! Dc15 CHA save or take 4 fire dam + 4 necrotic, halved on a save due to potent cantrip!)

As the other tin man closes in Greg seems too distracted to prevent his own capture, (11 on the save) but as the metal hands wrap around his wrists he doesn't seem too phased, he tries to angle his hands to cast a spell capturing both his grappler and the tin man wreathed on flames within the same 15ft cube, not worrying if his allies also occupy the same space and he lets off a thunderous wave of energy within that area. 

(Thunderwave! Hopefully both tin soldiers Dc15 CON save 7 thunder damage on fail, half on save. Sculpt spells means 2 allies in the area automatically succeed on saves and take no damage instead of half!)

The thunder creates a boom that is loud and Audible up to 300ft, drowning out the screams of the scarecrows for a moment and very much giving away the fact that an attack is going on.

Rowan looks up at Barria then the gnomes then to the doorways.

"That way, right?" Rowan says to Barria, pointing at the door to the left (north). He then looks up at the two gnomes. "You should go back upstairs."

Rowan then bounds to the northern door, figuring Barria will tell him if he's going the wrong way and opens the door, running inside, deciding Mulligan probably needs help sooner than later.

The loud boom from outside does catch his attention but he's sure that G'reg has that under control.

(Assuming the gnomes are out of melee and aren't attacking - Rowan won't dodge/disenage and will save his action in case there are combatants on the other side of the door).

     Mulligan gulps when the Hag’s eyes follow his movement.  Apparently she can see the first creature she sees upon waking, the supposed flaw is either a lie or works in some totally unexpected way.  This is not a good thing…

     Mulligan thinks out to Group Chat in such a way that it is almost an annoying buzz in the heads of the others.  It’s kind of organized random thoughts as things happen, a crude attempt to keep the others up to date on what he is doing, and what is happening around him, in real time…

     Then she shrinks!  The hag is suddenly tiny.  And about to flee! Mulligan reacts instantly and instinctively…

Reaction - Opportunity Attack!  Mulligan leaps to the ground and attempts to grab the tiny Hag - grappling her.  Strength Check - 21 !

(I’ll wait on Mulligan’s further actions (aka his actual turn) until I find out if the grapple is successful or not…)

     Then she shrinks and disappears down a crack in the floor!  Mulligan advises the others via Group Chat that the hag is gone and could be anywhere now!

     As Mulligan starts trying to think of what to do next there is a loud boom from outside that makes him duck and cover his head for a moment, wondering wtf that was!  But still, he has to do something...  So he lights the oil on fire and then throws the burning doll house onto the bed before heading down the stairs.  If nothing else he can maybe ruin all of her favorite things.

Barria cries out with a start as she and Rowan tumble into the vine filled room.  She takes stock of the pictures on the wall, do two of them look like the two hags they have met so far?  She gets up and smiles at the two gnomes that are coming down the stairs and waves.  "Hello!  We're just here to help!"

And she runs after Rowan, warhammer in hand ready to bust the next door if need be.  The shock from outside has her look over her shoulder briefly, but continues on as it sounds like Mulligan might be in trouble.  That annoying buzz has got to stop!!

It doesn't take long for the oil-soaked and still-smoldering dollhouse to reignite, and likewise for the bedding to catch alight. Trusting the fire to do its job, Mulligan descends the stairs. The room below the bedroom appears to be a study. 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. The room is dimly lit, but bright light shines from under the door to the south, and a flash of movement is seen as a tiny figure slips under the door, moving from the study into the brightly-lit room adjacent.

Greginald's first spell wreaks havoc on the tin man, both making the metal body glow with heat, and also mysteriously rust. Then as Greg is grasped by the other tin man, his second spell activates. The concussive boom makes leaves fall from the tree above, and blows the heated/rusted tin man back, away from Greg and up against the branch of the fallen log with a crunch. It doesn't seem like it will move again. The second tin man however gets blasted but manages to retain its grip on the gnome...

(This is the end of Mulligan and Greginald's turns, in what I'm calling Round 1. I'll conclude Barria and Rowan's turns, and then activate all the other creatures)

--------------------------------------------

Rowan finds the door to the north isn't locked, and he runs through it to find himself facing a dragon...

It's not a very big dragon. But it's unmistakably a green dragon. It jumps up and immediately tries to climb onto the top of what looks like a large oven...

Barria coming behind Rowan isn't quite confronted face-to-face with the small green dragon, and is able to take in more of the room. It is a squalid kitchen, carved out of the trunk of the fallen oak. A large clay oven sits in the middle of the room, with its large furnace door facing Barria... it seems the wyrmling was until recently snoozing by the warm fire, but has been startled. The walls are lined with 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.

In the far left corner of the room, Barria spies a young human girl shackled to a worktable. She looks like she was recently hard at work peeling potatoes, but now cowers behind the table as best she can. 

There is an iron grate built into the floor on the left of the room, a door visible on the far end (although the oven is mostly in the way) and another closed door on the middle right wall.

(Rowan is first in the room, closely followed by Barria. The dragon wyrmling is technically moving out of their reach, so both Barria and Rowan could make a melee attack if they choose. Then I'll update.)

---------------------------------------------

Rowan, getting very excited by everything going on, the broken door, the loud boom, and is that smoke now?, loses control of his emotions. The moment that happens, a multi-tentacled, creature that looks like a flumph appears 5' behind (on the other side from Rowan and Barria) the green dragon wyrmling. 

Rowan laughs at the appearance of the flumph spirit, draws his sword and hacks wildly and recklessly at the green dragon, remembering somewhere in his mind that green dragons are not friends.

His first blow looks to cause some damage and the second definitely does. The moment Rowan withdraws his sword after his second attack, the flumph explodes, energy blasting towards the dragon.

((Bonus Action - Rage - Wild Surge - Intangible Spirit))

((Action Attack 1- 17, 19 + 7 = 26 to hit for 11+2 rage = 13 damage ; Attack 2 Nat 20 + 7 = 27 to hit for 12+2 = 14 damage)).

((Intangible Spirt explosion - DEX Save DC 15 - fail = 5 force damage, nothing on success))

Barria looks the little girl in the eyes, "It's ok, once we take care of this dragon, we'll get you out of here and you can go join Will and his buddies, ok?"  She then looks over her shoulder, back the way they barreled through and yells, "C'mon G'reg!  Stop playing around with those toy soldiers and help us!"

Then she focuses on what's in front of them, setting down her war hammer for a moment as she reaches towards the beast as it attempts to stumble away.

But as she reaches for it, she stumbles over Rowan's foot and misses the touch needed to inflict her wound.  She scowls, pissed she just lost a 3rd level spell slot.

I had been calling for a reaction from Barria and/or Rowan, but I'll take their actions as constituting their turn. That leaves Mulligan and Greginald to have their turns. Meanwhile, Barria and Rowan have saving throws to make (although once again, I think Barria won't mind this too much)

GREGINALD

BARRIA & ROWAN

MULLIGAN

CON Save: 15

Rowan wrinkles his nose and coughs as the green poisonous gas gets into his lungs. Somewhere under all the hopped up emotion he knows he's supposed to get the hag, but the dragon is a problem with that poison gas.

Again Rowan lunges recklessly at the big lizard, slashing out with his knocked longsword. He doesn't feel like he gets good purchase on that. Hmm, he should really get that fixed or find a new one. He swings again at the wyrmling.

Glancing back over his shoulder to see what Barria is doing, he notices the same two new guards show up. As soon as he sees them, another flumph spirit shows up and a moment later it explodes between the two guards.

Action: Reckless Attack 1 - 26, 10 to hit for (4 + 2 rage =) 6 slashing damage; Reckless Attack 2 - 24, 25 to hit for  (9+2 rage =) 11 slashing damage

Bonus Action: Flumph Spirit - Dex Save DC 15 - on fail take 2 force damage

     Mulligan pulls up at the door and finds it locked.  Frustrated, he kicks it.  And it hurts.  Hurts his foot, that is.  Not the door.  Boots of Elvinkind are great at keeping your footfalls quiet, not so great at protecting your toes...

     He quickly digs into his stuff.  He considers just pouring his sack of ball bearings under the door towards the diminutive bi... err, hag.  The idea of all his balls rolling after her like an avalanche or something amuses him but he can't do it and NOT see it happen.  He then considers his other oil flask... If he squirted that under the door and lit it on fire he might just turn her into a tiny living matchstick...  Might.  But again, is it worth doing if he can't see it happen?  So, with a sigh, he settles on his Thieve's Tools and attempting to pick that lock on the door.

Thieves Tools - Nat 1 for 11...

CON save w/adv: 14 - takes half of 7 due to resistance (4)

Barria barely notices the poison gas with her stout constitution and looks with mouth agape at Skabatha next to her, that poor girl in the potato sack!  Seeing the southern guards and now the pig faced girl, oh my it is becoming a party!  And not the good kind.

"Mulligan, G'Reg!  We need some help in here, we have Nightshade!  Well, we don't have her...." she trails off as she reaches towards the old woman and attempts to grapple her. 

Greg, still grappled, watches the kid leave and then scream. He doesn't fight the grapple, he has better things to do with his time and these tin soldiers will get their due soon enough.

But G'Reg cannot be in two places at once, to help the escape and help the child and also help his group and so he looses the golden hourglass from his pack, fumbling it to the floor, he stamps on it as hard as he can, shattering the middle and causing the whirling and sparkling blue mist inside to spill out.

The blue mist does not however spill across the floor, instead it swirls, it rises and it continues to grow, a howling breezy face appearing in the, now large, elemental form. The creature looks to Greg forming some kind of mental link and the gnome croaks out. "Go help my company! I'm fine here. And if you see Skabatha nightshade, Kill her."

Mulligan

Nothing has gone according to plan for Mulligan so far. The invisibility he was expecting didn't seem to work. The hag slipped out of his reach with fey tricks and nonsense. And now his specialty skill at getting through locked doors seems to have failed him. In frustration he kicks again... not at the solid door this time, but at the bookshelf next to him.

There is a wooden clunk, and something rolls onto the floor.

It wasn't the soft thump of books falling over... no, Mulligan knows certain sounds when he hears them... picking locks and finding traps and hidden tricks is indeed his specialty. Rather, his kick seems to have inadvertently dislodged something. In the dim light he sees a fake book, on the end of the bottom shelf where he kicked, has clunked open, and something round and solid fell out of the secret compartment and rolled onto the floor.

Mulligan can see it, lying at the base of the bookshelf. It's an eye. It didn't sound like a glass eye when it hit the wooden floor. But still solid. Perhaps a real eye but varnished or something.

Why would a hag conceal something like that? It's not like she is bothered with gruesome trinkets, judging by the very real-looking skull on the study desk, formed into a lantern. It must be very precious... very treasured, to have been hidden away like that.

----------------------------------
Barria & Rowan

Rowan's wild swings continue to find purchase in the green dragonling's relatively soft hide. Green blood spurts out more and more over the kitchen, and the wyrmling goes limp and slumps off the oven and in a motionless pile on the floor. Only Skabatha herself remains in the kitchen, save for the voice - no, two voices! - coming from the grate in the floor.

There is a sudden breeze from behind, which quickly turns into a strong gust. Barria and Rowan look through the door back into the picture room and see a large creature made entirely from swirling wind has appeared inside. Thorns and vines catch in the gusts and flap around.

Skabatha snarls again at the dwarf and the elf, and then suddenly shrinks down to the size of a small doll. With uncanny speed and agility she dodges away from Barria's grasping hand, and runs into the picture room.

-----------------------------------
Greginald (and Barria and Rowan)

As Greginald crushes the golden hourglass underfoot, the air elemental coalesces into existence, dominating the room and causing the vines and thorns to flap and snap wildly. Another child appears at the top of the staircase, this one being dragged downstairs by a horrible-looking oily, slimy creature.

At the door behind him, three soldiers now escort the captured gnome child, preparing to bring it back inside, when a small shape drops from the balcony above, landing behind them... even from here Greg can see it is Will, but there is something more wild and fearsome about his countenance...

Suddenly there is movement from the north door, and Greginald sees something tiny dart into the room. It takes a moment to register before he realises... it's Skabatha Nightshade herself, but in miniature form. The tiny hag with the tiny key in her back has a tiny sack slung over her shoulder. She looks as if to run for the door, but then sees Greginald and his solider escort. Instead, she runs right through the middle of the room, skirting barely around the edges of the air elemental, and in between the two guard soldiers, just making it onto the threshold of the hallway beyond...

     This is not going well, Mulligan thinks to himself as he loses a vital piece of his lock-picking tools into the actual lock.  He’d curse is he could but all that comes out of something akin to a phlegmy cough.  Still, it’s more sound than anyone has heard him make so far…

     He’s smart enough not to kick the door again, afraid he’ll break a toe this time, and instead chooses violence on the bookshelf of dubious craftsmanship next to it.  He gets much better results with his kick this time - less pain and more chaos.  There’s a satisfying thunk, the rustle of various items being shifted fore and aft, and a particular wooden clunk that grabs his attention.

     Ok so normally Mulligan isn’t squeamish but eyeballs…. They’re fine to look at and all but he really wasn’t eager to be picking one up!  Real or not, they belonged in the head and not on the floor or in a hand or even touched.  Just… leave ‘em alone, ya?  On the other hand, anything a hag feels a particular need to hide and protect…?  It’s got to be worth taking in one way or another, right?

     Mulligan pulls out a handkerchief he carries for just such emergencies.  Not that he has ever had such an emergency, and the handkerchief is actually a bit torn, kind of dirty and probably not at all sanitary.  Anyway, point is, Mulligan wasn’t touching the thing with his bare hand so any convenient barrier between it and he would do…. And once wrapped up in the bit of cloth, Mulligan shoves it in his pocket and starts looking for a way out of here and back towards the escaping hag!

—

I believe Mulligan is in L14, trying to get to L13 where he saw the hag escape to… even though she is now in L11.  I don’t see any indications of windows or other ways out of L14 (sept the locked door he cannot unlock) so I suppose Mulligan would be going back up the staircase to L16 so he can go out the window and try to find another way in…

And he’s probably regretting starting L16 on fire right about now…

Rowan, unaware of Mulligan's presence on the other side of the door, looks after the direction the hag ran off in. The swirling mass of air, whipping vines around, registers but he doesn't see it as insurmountable.

He runs past Barria. "Are there voices coming from the floor, or is that just me?" he says as he goes by.

Rowan runs into the next room, veering away from the 'alive' air and the stairs, and smiles as he sees G'reg at the doorway.

"Don't attack, G'" Rowan says to the tin soldier beside the gnome.

Rowan tries to grab hold of the tin soldier, and then throw it across the room (10') at the tin soldier standing guard on the west side of the next doorway ((Rule of Cool? Grapple? Athletics: 26, 26 (adv from rage) then Throw/Shove? w/ Athletics: 23, 28) - using both attacks?))

Once he makes the attempt, another flumph pops up in the doorway between the two (hopefully three) soldiers, right above Skabatha, and promptly explodes (Bonus Action - Wild Surge - Intangible Spirit - DC 15 Dex Save - success no damage - fail 6 force damage)

Barria watches as the hag slips out of her fingers, grows tiny and runs towards the painting room.  "Where's Mully?!" she cries.  Then worries that something bad might have happened to him.  But with all the chaos around her, she doesn't have time to deal with that right now.

Seeing that Rowan took out the dragon issue, she starts running after the hag, shouting over her shoulder, "Yes, there are voices of children under the grate.  They are probably safest there for the moment!"  

She looks at the wind elemental and since it doesn't seem to be angling for her or Rowan, she charges past, heading for Skabatha.  She reaches out and casts guiding bolt.

Attack: 16, Damage: 17 (though I doubt it hit)

Mulligan runs back to the stairs and back up into the bedroom, which is now half-filled with smoke. The fire from the dollhouse has well and truly engulfed the bed, and is licking up the walls of the inside of the tree.

Seeing that the east window is now inaccessible, Mulligan pushes through the smoke and to the window on the west side of the room. Climbing out will be a simple affair, but Mulligan can see action from the window: about thirty feet away, on the ground to the south, three tin soldiers surround a young gnome child, and behind them, crouched on the grass, is Will.

(Just leaving it there, to give Mulligan the option of attacking. Alternatively, he can spend his action climbing down to ground level, or anything else he chooses.)

--------------------------------

Rowan exits the kitchen, almost running into Greg and his tin captor. Dropping his sword in an impulse, the elf grabs the soldier, ripping it away from Greg, and lifting it over his head. With a heave, Rowan tosses the soldier across the room, where it crashes into its compatriot guarding the far door. Both soldiers crash to the ground, just as a flumph against mysteriously appears and promptly explodes. There is another scream of rage from the hag...

Barria bursts into the room right behind Rowan. Skirting around the whirling mass of sentient air in the centre of the room, and avoiding the vines and thorns that whip around wildly, Barria lines up her shot. There is a tin soldier in the way, blocking her view of the tiny Skabatha in the doorway. Then Rowan hurls another soldier across the room, and the two crash to the floor. Barria has a clear shot, and releases her divine energy. The miniature hag erupts in holy light, perpetuating her scream of rage from the exploding flumph.

-----------------------------

Greg and the Air Elemental still to go. Two soldiers are prone (marked with red dots).

The whirlwind elemental takes in the scene spotting that which Greg has spotted through it's mental connection with him, Greg is worried that whatever is in the sack on granny's back needs protecting, he does not underestimate the hags ability to possibly shrink herself and a captured child. But the elemental has none of these qualms, it tries to clear the room as much as possible before moving to the hag. Starting with the prone tin soldier south east it slams down with a gale of force (20 to hit, 20 bludgeoning damage) and then moves to the next soldier (south east closest to the door, (22 to hit, 11 bludgeoning) it then moves into the corridor. Into the hags space, it stand there swirling around her tiny form and bolstering her around

(DC 13 strength save from whirlwind. 17 bludgeoning damage and thrown 10ft, random direction, taking additional 3 bludgeoning as they land prone on a fail. On success, half damage, no prone and no additional. I'm unsure whether DM would allow this to also effect the remaining soldier in the south as well due to the elementals size)

G'Reg for his part gives Rowan a thankful smile and nod before yelling, "I'll be back!" And running out the door. Back outside he sees the child directly on the other side of the door being harassed by three tin soldiers, G'Reg takes the gnome child's hand and at that moment a sudden intense ringing noise blasts out from the pair of them, enveloping each tin soldier in front of them as greg tries to do away with them all in one fell swoop, but both the gnome child and will in his feral state only hear a muted boom protected as they are from G'Reg's particular sculpting of his own magics. (3rd lvl Shatter, tin soldiers at disadvantage DC 15 con save, taking 14 on fail, half on success.)

That being done, if able to Greg will take the gnome child off to the left to try saving the next child in the pumpkin patch, if there are to soldiers left standing he will remain for now, interested to see how Will may clear the remnants.