Michael proceeds to start restraining the bad guys with rope as he says, “Eli, keep that flaming sphere around till we know what has become of that last hobgoblin. If it doesn't show up while we are restraining everyone else, we can move down through the tower to track him down.”

Meanwhile, Gilant and Freedom move over to the stairs with Freedom readying an action to attack if the bugbear warrior (or another enemy) comes up the stairs with Thorn Strike, while Gilant is ready to invoke his Aegis of Shielding on the bugbear warrior (or another enemy).

Shale moves closer to the stairs and prepares to use Sprite's War Call on the bugbear warrior (or another enemy) comes up the stairs.


_{[OOC: This post is counting for Michael, Shale, Gilant, and Freedom.
Michael is assisting with tieing up the enemies.
Freedom is still keeping his Form of the Winter's Herald active in order to make it more difficult for the bugbear warrior to charge past him and Gilant.
Readied Actions:
 Gilant: Use Aegis of Shielding to mark the target.
 Freedom: Use Thorn Strike on the target.
 Shale: Use Sprite's War Call on the target.]}

Not long later, the bugbear warrior that was shoved off the edge rushes up the spiral stairs and clashes with Gilant!

(( Everything but Gilant's mark missed.  Freedom: miss.  Shale: miss.  Bugbear: miss.

Bugbear 2 HP: 16 ))

Reverie meeps as the bugbear is incredibly quick with his charge and her startled self winds up missing with that beam starlight we saw a few times earlier.

(Readied Dire radiance missed.)

Mittens charges at the Bugbear but fails to do any more than just scratch it's armor with her sword.

"We beat your boss and everything else," she says, "Surrender and tell us where the prisoners are."

"Wouldn't you like to know!" the Bugbear answers.

Mits chuckles.  "Well I got him to admit that they have prisoners!"

"Doh!"

Bridget coldly states, "We will find the prisoners with or without your help." as she states before swinging a sword in an upward arc to smack the guy's shield out of the way enough to leave an opening for Mittens. She motions with a quick gesture for Mittens to hit the spot. Then continues to inform the bugbear in a matter-of-fact tone. "But whether or not you enjoy being torn apart by eleven people who made short work of your entire tower's worth of allies, you will feel more pain if you do not cooperate than if you did."

(Commander's Strike: Mittens can basic melee the guy)

Also, since Bridget is speaking the truth, no bluff check needed. But due to her cold tone and what she said, I decided to make an intimidate. Rolled a 17 for a total of 20.

Eli ugs in response to Michael. "Wish you said that *before* I let the sphere die out. Oh whatever, I have other ways to deal with the bugbear now that we outnumber him." he casts a spell on the bugbear that seems to overwhelm the wounded warrior. "....oops? Forgot he was already so hurt..." Well that and sometimes Eli doesn't know his own strength.

(Cloud of Daggers. Crit.)
 dmg: 15

(Bugbear HP: 16 - 15 = 1)

he'll take 2 dmg at the start of his turn unless someone moves him without hurting him. So he's done for. Not to mention Mitts' yet-to-roll basic melee.

  Blake eyes (non Vestige) the Bugbear now surrounded by sharp objects.  "Oops is not normally a comforting word to hear when arcane forces are being thrown around Eli.  However, it is fortunate the mistake is of no consequence to us personally."

  Blake will wait until they are actually down before going back downstairs though.  Just because they are going to fall doesn't mean they can't take an opportunistic swing at Blake in the moments before hand.

  "Hopefully if the way is blocked, its nothing the mentioned eleven of us, or the townspeople can not move out of the way."  Blake's Ruinous Phrase only goes so far.  Even if he makes it to level 30, even with his Pact specific bonus, Ruinous Phrase's capacity won't be able to deal with larger than Medium Stone objects. (The Gong was a hazy area. If it was less than Tile blocking size and worse metal than Iron/Steel metal it would have worked.)

Mittens' attack again bounces off armor, but Eli's force daggers finish off the last bugbear.  It groans and collapses unconscious.

"Well that's all of them," Mittens says, making with the roping of the bugbear, "Out of curiosity... Is everyone breathing?"

(( No more combat till extended rest, so no need to fuss with resting mechanics. ))
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:30, Fri 24 Sept 2010.

Eli flops to his butt and answers Blake, "I'll keep that in mind." he then answers Mittens, "I'm OK, thanks." he doubts she meant her allies, but then he's too tired to check on the enemy for now.

Bridget checks while tying up enemies. "The enemy is still breathing."

Liberty says, "Can't we accidentally kill at least one? I mean... why in the world did you heal that goblin?"

Mittens assumed being consious included breathing for her allies, so yes, she meant the bad-guys.

"Thought we went over that," she answers Liberty, "If you're still confused, take it up with Bridget.  Once this craziness is over, you can ask Emerald in the morning if we can drop the laws of Unity for Team Prophesy.  Until then...  Good guys to rescue.  Maybe.  If they're still alive."

She heads downstairs.  On the first floor she finds several of the villagers along with the blind Mayor.  They've already found and freed the tower guards that were being held in the flooding basement floor.  And they've already tried and executed all of the first floor monsters.

"Aw man!" Mittens pouts, "I wanted to ask Grigbad a question!"

"They all refused to cooperate," the mayor says, "None of them would say a word about who they work for or how they got this far into Unity territory or anything.  Not even to save their own lives."

"Um... well yeah... Glad you questioned them about that...  I meant the big guy.  I wanted to ask him what he meant by bag headed children."

The mayor blinks and sweatdrops.

"He never said a word."

Mittens slouches.

Reverie goes to try cheering Mittens up.

"The children with bags on their heads
Are very real indeed.
The fact that he was full of dread
Should cause you to take heed.
I could tell you what you want to know,
But you'd only be confused.
The only way to truly know
Will leave your mind abused.

But so you might believe,
I'll tell you best I can:
The ones with bags he spoke of
Are part of an important dance

Call me crazy if you want,
This event is called: The Donce."

  "Accidentally killing one at this point could be difficult" more so now that the concept has been spoken of.  "As for the laws of Unity, they were no different than before.  We merely were not tasked to keep our enemy alive this time."

  Blake follows along as the plot progresses.  "The horrific conceptual images of the beyond would doubtlessly be less so if they did not have the psychic rending element alongside them.  Unless Reverie's contact with the Star spawn has given her merely selective madness.  The images involved are of no consequence without their force behind them... Although as Reverie has said, their force is behind them.  Such force would make the image of Reverie herself no less maddening."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:22, Sun 10 Oct 2010.

Bridget says, "Let's get back to town with the others." and with that, she leads the group back to town. Maybe now, the heroes can rest. (Time skip perhaps? Socializing? GM, you're up here)

Freedom listens to the conversations going on around him as he cleans up his craghammer and puts it away. “This tower is now secured. The towns people should be able to restore this tower to its proper shape without our assistance as he still have to complete the tasks that Unity has set for us. So I agree with Bridget.”

The Githyanki grins at Liberty's request to 'just kill one' and says, “If it comes down to killing an enemy or allowing an ally to suffer, I vote kill the enemy. Some simply are too dangerous to allow to live.”

Gilant then cleans off his blade and places it back within its sheath as the group heads back to town.

Shale smiles quite happily as the last few battles were quite fun for him as he chuckles as the group heads back to town, “I loved the look on that Goblin's face when all his minions started smacking each other around and taking him out of the fight. But I think the look on that bugbear's face when he went over the edge of the tower was priceless. And the dumping of the wolves down that pit was also handy...”

Michael keeps rather quiet since he knows that sooner or later the group is going to be asking him about the Dust Devil he summoned as it freely mentioned facts that Michael would have rather kept secret. But at the time, Michael felt the risk of those secrets being revealed was worth the risk. Michael listens to Shale's comments and agrees that the group has excellent tactics that it can employ, but knows that once the two teams go their own ways, their tactics will become a bit more limited.

Bridget leads the bunch back to town and finds a place for them to rest up. And by rest, we mean the full 8 hours (or less depending on race). It goes without saying the townsfolk are grateful to the heroes at least enough to give them that. Bridget makes arrangements and has the less armored ones bunk with the more armored ones. She winds up having Eli with Mittens. Bridget pulls Eli aside for a small talk first before he does go to room with the paladin, though.

(Choose who to bunk with and if you want to RP that, cool. If not, we'll skip to the morning.)

Mits doesn't object to the awesome wizard kid bunking with her, and pays him a few compliments for his taking that arrow to the chest like a man.  She then crashes and sleeps like a log.  Whatever logs sleep like.  But thank god this is not 3.5 where she'd suffer penalties for resting in armor.  Aaaanyway.  No ambushes in the night.  Morning comes, and it's still raining lightly.

  Blake and Gilant.  The Roommate Buddy Sitcom you've all been waiting for.

  This space reserved for post when I actually get around to confirming who Blake ends up with.

Bridget meets up with the others at a central eating area. Eli looks outside at the rain and cracks a small smile. Not only did he feel good about himself thanks to unexpected compliments from Mittens last night, but he always enjoys watching rain while knowing he is sheltered from it.

Emerald is reading a book while casually eating. "Thanks for the food." she says to the people who served it. Reverie keeps glancing at Blake and Shale. Liberty seems to be minding her own business, staring at the table and slowly eating. The fist that doesn't have food in it is clenched.

Freedom figures that as the only member of the group to not actually require a bed to sleep due to how Warforged are Unsleeping Watchers, he opts out of resting in a bed like everyone else and instead chooses to observe the rooms from the hallway as all he has to do to 'rest' is refrain from strenuous activity, which means he remains wide awake and alert during such time.

Freedom doesn't bother to try to guess what goes on in the rooms but notes that with Blake and Gilant in one room, and Michael and Shale in another there could very well end up with rather strange conversations since both Michael and Shale have arcane interests, and the Warden doesn't even want to ponder what Blake and Gilant would talk about for fear it might destroy his mind.


_{[OOC: Treat this as a post for Freedom, Shale, Michael, and Gilant. Figured with 11 people and 2 per room that Freedom would be the 'odd man out' given that he is the only one that doesn't even need to sleep and instead just rests by refraining from strenuous activity.]}

  Blake and Gilant may or may note have discussed the practical and strategic applications of Blake making those Gilant strikes down explode as both a crowd clearing measure and intimidation aid.  If they did then Blake obviously used choice wording to skirt around whether said explosions were killing people or not in case it came up in later conversation.

  As for the arrival at food times, Blake foolishly/considerately takes a seat by Liberty with his own choice selection of breakfast.  His Perc/Insight isn't quite enough to notice Reverie's Glancothon, but personal experience is enough to recognize the joys of barely contained seething ire when sitting right next to one with such  "Since you have a hand free, I don't suppose you could put a knife to use on this for me?"

  Blake has arranged his breakfast into a face.  Those egg yolk eyes are just begging for a stabbing.  Oh, ouch.  One's got a fork in it now.

  OOC Style: While Blake wasn't up, had to make up for the most fail post ever that was my last one.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:36, Wed 05 Jan 2011.

"You're quite welcome," the waitress answers Emerald with a smile, "Thanks again for your heroics."

She gives a helpless look.  "You indicated yesterday that you're on urgent business.  We all would like to have more time to thank you more thoroughly, but I suppose that cannot be.  Please stop by if you return this way from your mission so we can reward you better."

A pair of men step in from from the rain and sit down at one of the tables.

"Well from the smell of things at least we can enjoy a hot meal before moving on?" one says to the other.

"What's with the motley crew?" the other asks under his breath after glancing at the heroes, "Haven't seen this weird a mix of people since..."

He stops himself and glances at his friend who zips his lips.

"Not practiced in subtlety?" Mittens asks, "Good.  Yea we're a weird bunch.  Weird enough to fight off goblin invaders in the middle of a midnight thunderstorm.  So you haven't seen such a weird mix since when?"

"Since ever," the guy lies, shifting his eyes to the table in front of him, "Sorry.  No offense intended.  I'll just shut up now."

Mits shrugs and devours her breakfast.

"So let's get going!" she says to her allies.

(( DC 5 insight to know he's lieing.  Roll if you like.  Or not.  I don't care if you insist on taking 10.  Mits rolled a 1, so I'm deciding that she doesn't catch him in the lie even with her 9 mod.))

The guy is such a bad liar that even Bridget's horrid +1 insight catches it.

Eli is too shy to say anything about the guy lying to him. Well that and he thinks the guy is just being rudely bold.

Emerald is used to being lied to. She grew up on the streets. She is leaning back on her chair, balancing it with her feet on the table, looking over at the guy with a "really?" look.

Liberty clenches her fists. "Liar!" and slams her fists on the table. "We just saved your town and you lie to our faces even though the truth wouldn't be anywhere near as mean! Tell us the truth! ALL of it!" she gets out of her chair, glaring at the guy and causing a thing or two to hover off the table as her eyes glow some and her hair starts rising like she was under water.

Reverie puts a hand on Liberty's shoulder. Then looks at the waitress with a pleading look.


"This young girl's been hurt bad.
If there ARE thanks to be had,
Thank us with info we can use
So we can continue less abused..."


Insight Rolls:
Bridget: 08 + 1 = 9
Eli    : 07 + 8 = 15
Emerald: 16 + 6 = 22
Liberty: 18 + 8 = 26
Reverie: 17 + 8 = 25

Liberty intimidate: 13 + 8 = 21

Liberty doesn't mean to intimidate. She's just mad. I'm rolling just to see how intimidating her anger made her this time.

This message was last edited by the player at 23:05, Wed 05 Jan 2011.