Kyle swaps weapons yet again to his Morningstar,  The artificer steps up, and overhand smashes the remaining warrior like she is the goal of a dark ages whack-a-mole.  Were this more cartoonish than it already is at times (hello sunglasses goblins), she'd be spitting out prize tickets like a skeeball machine.

M weapon hits.    M weapon buffs Mittens and Raichel.
Warrior: 8 HP left.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:54, Fri 04 Apr 2014.

"Pew!"

Mits downs the last enemy with a quick zap.

"That didn't go quite as well as I expected.  But could have gone much worse.  Most of them didn't turn insubstantial."

Binding enemies is go.

May is in weapon looting mode; Hugging the spiked chains and katars. "Such... beautiful weapons!" she snaps out of it briefly to look over at Mittens and Kyle. "Are you two gonna be OK? That was some crazy chain-swingin', and Mittens... you went down."

Timothius and Raichel are huggling Mittens' sides. Timothius says, "The gods gave me the power to heal an extra time every fight... and I can even do so at the same time! This is wonderful!" So wonderful, he's considering trading in his rez power. But with a fight with Sarshan coming...

---

Though it occurs to me the way that power works, it's basically a last-ditch effort heal. If someone in the team is already dying and they fail a death save, THEN I can use that power to treat them as rolling a nat 20, so they spend a surge, gain the HP, and are no longer dying. Which has never come up. So I'm probably going to have to switch it out for something else. Mostly had it there as a safety net, but I'm not seeing much reason for it at this point. Still; MAYBE should keep it until the wraith fight? Hard to say. With all the massive healtasticness Tim has, and the fact I beefed him up with resist necrotic and resist psychic, he should be able to live long enough to be able to heal everyone in that fight with all his heals.

  "It did help that they were all crammed in so close together they were more targets than effective fighters, even with their chains and teleportation.  I am fine May, Mittens took the most harm as well as dishing out the most."

  Kyle takes a closer look at the small room that had eight Shadrakai crammed in it, "Oh, looks like that is the main entrance.  Sarshan gets points for an impressive door guard, but loses them for inefficient use of his soldiers when there is a whole tower to work with"

  Kyle is also better at healing now, but more in the sense of 'Heal bonus doesn't suck!' than extra heals.  Still, /CON certainly makes up for it in sheer quantity compared to /WIS Artificer.  Which has more than made up for it in the long run in Kobold toughening.

---

OOC: Will calculate self heals and surge spending on heals and infusions later.  I'm guessing two surges offhand. Got two Empowerment's left after recharging wand, since Empowerments come at same rate as action points.

Also switching out Scholar for Alchemist like Original Kyle, because I want hurty consumables for Arty style but rituals and consumables has always been a bit of a left in the dust area for our otherwise lovely equipment handling methods.

Also finally relocated the rules for turning attack consumables into ammo.  It's both better and worse than I thought.   While modifying them into ammo lets them use that weapon's range,  they still use the alchemy to-hit rolls, which has some terrible scaling.  Alchemist Fire for example, is +9 At level 6... Which is average To-Hit for level 6, and STAYS that way until Level 11.  I... Have NO idea if Inherent applies to consumables, Maybe?  It applies to Unarmed at least.  I'll meta go "Monsters get Enchantment bonus on consumables so I'm going to totally apply it"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:02, Fri 04 Apr 2014.

"Not to mention that very nice blessing from Pelor," Mittens adds, "Where you make enemies vulnerable to my attacks.  The sooner we defeat them, the sooner they stop stabbing us.  I'll be fine thanks to Timo's heals.  Thanks for the concern."

She's doing a poor job of hiding she's scared to death of getting eviscerated again.  Nevertheless Mits heads over to the nearby guest room door.

"Gnolls.  I can tell by all the giggling."

She puts her hand on the door, ready to open it for may.  Probably going to let May go first from now on.

May heads over to the door and says, "I'll have to giggle along with them. I wonder what they're giggling about...?"

Timothius is sure to heal up May and Kyle between resting. Raichel takes position.

May waits for the door to be open before charging in and clashing with the first gnoll! A stray lightning bolt passes by, but goes wide. Raichel is blushing.

---

Tim surprise opens door
May surprise charge. Hits(28)!
 dmg: 7
Rai surprise Lightning Strike. Miss(10)

Claw Fighter HP: 70 - 7 = 63

Bzap!  Mits burninates three gnolls from behind the safety of May and doorway!

Timothius enters the room and throws a ball of holy white fire at the claw fighter! The fighter ducks, dodging the ball, and giggles.

---

Move: Into room
Standard: Sacred Flame v Claw. Miss(14)

The two huntmasters fire their bows at May and miss!  More giggling.

Mits sweatdrops and steps into the room.  She points at the fire pit and it erupts with white flames, burning the three around it!  They scream and snarl and giggle.

"What's so funny?!"

Raichel enters the room and says, "Hey, sibs! Hey May!" and holds a cupped hand out as lightning coalesces as a ball. She tosses it amidst the enemies. "Here, puppies! Catch!" and the ball explodes when it hits the ground! The ground all catches fire, burning any who stick around.

---

Vezzuvu's Eruption v Claw, Hunt, Mar. Hit(24)! Hit(25)! Hit(16)!
 dmg: 6 minimum
 Any enemy who ends their turn in the zone takes 5 fire dmg.

Claw HP: 51 - 6 = 45
Hunt HP: 11 - 6 = 5
Mard HP: 45 - 6 = 39

The clawfighter tries to side-step May but learns a painful lesson in respect.  It yips and claws at her but misses.  Then the Marauder charges May and hits, but Raichel's fires burn him!

May swings her stick and shield at the two enemies in front of her. The stick fails to get past the Claw Fighter's armor, but the tortoise blade penetrates the Marauder's, dealing a gash in his belly!

---

AoO dmg: 11
Funneling Flurry v Claw and Mar. Miss(16), Hit(26)!
 dmg: 8

Claw Fighter HP: 45 - 11 = 34
Marauder HP: 34 - 8 = 26

  Kyle steps up, and fires a forceful bolt right into one of the Clawfighter's hands, both impaling it from the sharp projectile and shattering fingers from the force blast.  He follows up with a more common (for him, at least) shot at the most wounded Gnoll, it stop drops and rolls into unconsciousness... Still inside the fire.  Guess it doesn't help after all?

---

Move: duh.
Standard: Repulsion strike vs Claw.  Hits.  -3 To-hit Melee to Claw fighter, till end of my next turn.
ACTION POINT:  Magic weapon vs Hunt 1.  Hits, KO (in fire).  Technically, Kyle didn't kill him <.<  >.>
M weapon buff to all cats

Claw HP: 18 left.
Hunt 1 HP:  KO
This message was last edited by the player at 03:26, Sat 05 Apr 2014.

Timothius sings! We know what happens next. The allies feel tougher while the enemies feel weaker.

---

Hymn of Resurgence v Clar and Mar. Hit(20)! Hit(24)!
 -2 penalty to all defenses
 Goes prone whenever hit
 Effect: Allies gain 5 thp

Raichel shoots lightning! ...and misses again. :\ At least she got to look all cool last turn? :p

Mits solar enemies and downs two enemies, severely harming a third.

"They didn't say what was so funny..."  ;.;

As the fires die down from Raichel's ball lightning, there is only one gnoll left. May heads over to the gnoll and says, "Surrender?"

The gnoll says, "Neve-" and gets a carrikal to the face before it even noticed May switch weapons. May looks down. "Thought so."

---

Weapon Master's Strike on Hunt 2. Hit(21)!
 dmg: 14

Hunt 2 HP: 10 - 14 = KO

  "Well, that was fast.  Of course, there was only four of them"  And none of them were one or more higher levels than the PCs, what a twist!

Among the gnolls’ personal effects is a letter outlining
their clans’ proposed deal with Sarshan. It has only
sketchy details of the assignment and terms, but Sarshan
speaks of “a great need for troops ready to take
advantage of unforeseen disaster.”

"Huh," Mits huhs, "This kinda implies Sarshan is just an opportunist and there's something else at work even more dangerous than he.  Well we've cleared the first floor.  Time to decide if we go to the second by stairs or by magical lift."

She points out the magical lift in the main hall.

Raichel says, "Can you imagine if we arrived here right where that magical lift is? We would have been attacked from all sides by all the enemies we have gone through all at once. I vote stairs."

May slouches. "Guess we'll enjoy magical lift ops another time when our LIVES aren't in danger."

Timothius pets May with a smile. She grins up at him.

  Raichel doesn't want to take the clearly suicidal option, he is so proud.  "Raichel has it right, we will have a better idea what we are going into with the stairs."  As much as stairs can be super evil.

"Drawback of stairs is single file," Mits reminds, "So May in front.  And if we run into trouble on the stairs, we back up to this floor."

The group makes it to the 2nd floor NE lab without issue.  Beyond they see something unexpected:

Dim light from globes of gray glass casts faint shadows
throughout a dark garden. Though the trees and other
foliage here appear healthy and luxurious, the leaves,
stems, and flowers of these plants are sickly shades of dark
blue, gray, and black. Along the south wall of this chamber
stands a stone arch identical to the teleportation portals
you’ve seen before.

"Monsters in that garden," Mits says, "Giant beetle and three swarms."

She points out where.

May curiously peeks. Then Kyle urges people to reconvene. "...OK, what's up?" she asks quietly.

Raichel and Timothius perk their ears and learn forward in unison, curious what Kyle has to say.

  Interrupt power: Lore overkill!

  "Rot Scarabs make those wraiths look pleasant by comparison.  Merely being near them is enough to get bitten and infected with lasting necrotic harm.  He free action pulls a vial from his pack.  "Fortunately, after out last run ins with several forms of painful wildlife the past few days, I've got something to help with that.  It's basically a coinflip if they still power through, but Beastbane can force them to back off and stay out of reach when it works."

"Handy!" Mits chimes, "Thanks!  May, if you would catch their attention, please."