Asano watches breathlessly as the enemy spellcaster blasts Bramwell and Dweeble into unconsciousness. He moves forward cautiously, then snaps an arcane word as three razor sharp snowflakes rocket towards Larrakh.


OOC:
Move to CV27
Cast Magic Missile at Larrakh

Damage- 11

Morg's eyes goes wide when he sees Bram and Dwee fall to the ground. He swears in dwarvish, stands up and lets fly his last javelin. Regaining some sense, he falls prone again to make himself as difficult a target as possible to hit.

---

Move: stand up (half of speed (12')).

Action: attack on Larrakh with javelin4 - hits AC 25 for 12 piercing damage. Not trying to make it knock-out, because his buddy and the nutty halfling's dying!

Interaction: then take out torch.

Move: drop prone again.

01:09, Today: Morg Danforge rolled 25 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 19.  Attack on Larrakh with javelin4.
01:09, Today: Morg Danforge rolled 12 using 1d6+6 with rolls of 6.  Javelin4 piercing damage to Larrakh.

The javelin flies toward Larrakh, who spins on the wall and begins casting another shield. For a moment the projectile slows and appears certain to be repelled by the shield, but suddenly it slices through and impales Larrakh in his chest.

He falls with a crash to the stone floor, next to the remains on a nearby stone slab. Immediately all the stones in the room rise once again off the floor, as if in silent celebration.

---

And we're out of initiative!

XP awarded:
Defeating Larrakh: 700
Rescuing Braelen: 200
XP each: 225

You've all acquired enough XP to level up to 3 after your next long rest!

"Nice shot, Morg! Everyone okay? Bram, Dwee?" Mayon calls out, scrambling down from the rocks. His eyes dart over to Larrakh, and he sighs wryly. Well, so much for trying to drag information from him. His fate would have been the same in the end anyway.

Dweeble heard the loud smack of flesh meeting ground and a moment later Mayon's call out was enough to pique her curiosity.  Slowly, as if fearful of what was still around the corner of the rock she'd ducked behind, she peered out.  The dagger in her right hand was held with the blade down but both hands had a finger outstretched and poking into either ear.  That wouldn't stop the noise but it made her feel reassured at least.  "I dunno!  Dweeble can't think straight right now."

Seeing the fallen body though.  That was enough to make her feel much more at ease.  She pulled her fingers away and opened her eyes wide, the pale blue orbs scanning the room momentarily for any sign of further concerns.  Finding none, Dweeble scurried back across the room and eagerly began rummaging through the terrain for the various daggers she'd thrown.  Patting her bandoleers with a look of satisfaction, she moved over to where Bram stood.

Dweeble's steps were measured and awkward as she stumbled towards the bespectacled half-elf.  None of the graceful, if a bit fidgety, swagger she normally possessed.  Without warning her fist darted out, punching him lightly on the thigh but with enough force to give a satisfying thump.  "You make for a terrible shield, Glasses!...  You okay?"  Dweeble's head bobbed lightly from side to side, dancing to a tune that had been rebounding through her skull since she woke up.  She needed a good night's sleep after this nonsense.

Morg looks up after hearing Mayon, and notices the new body on the slab, giving a big smile to the young half elf.

He then looks at Bram recovering, and nods to Jak.

Collecting his javelins, he turns to Dwee, "You're tougher than you look!"

Morg then goes up to Asano, carefully touching one of the floating stones, "What was that ghostly hand thing you did? That looked even scarier than Mayon's blasts, which seem to be getting more and more powerful."

Jak walked over to Dweeble and knelt down in front of her. He reached out and brushed hair back from her face. "You were very brave...and resilient. Know, though, that was I was going to heal you next. Like thus...

He sang briefly to her and a blue glow enveloped her, "Dweeble is quick an' she is fast, even death can't catch her t'make it last."

He winked at her, smiled and stood. Then turned to the group. "Aaaan' I'm 'bout outta spells aside from Vicious Mockery fer the day."

20:55, Today: Secret Roll: Jakrynn Redgate rolled 7 using 1d4+4 with rolls of 3.  Healing Word on Dweeble.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:17, Sun 23 July 2017.

Bramwell laid still on the floor for what seemed like a long time, and it felt like drifting through a formless space.  He was just beginning to enjoy the peacefulness when he heard a muffled voice singing from afar... Jak's?  Then he fell out of the comfortable void and landed hard on the cold stone floor.  He sat up with a groan and a cough to see a blurry Dweeble, asking him something.  A bit befuddled, he replied, "Huh?  I'm well enough, I think.  Why did you wake me?"

He reached up to adjust his spectacles only to find a bent frame dangling from one ear with both the lenses shattered and gone.  That reminded him mostly of where he was and what had just happened, and the soreness when he regained his feet brought back the rest of it.  "Apologies, Miss Dweeble, but I'm afraid that my shield was of little use against that tremendous thunder magic.  I'm amazed we kept our teeth through the rattling!  Alas, my spectacles didn't fare as well.  I'll have to mend them, later."  He shook his head and squinted toward the others, "Was anybody hurt?"

OOC: I'll take a voluntary disadvantage on Perception checks until I can get the spectacles repaired, for fun :)

Dweeble smiled weakly as Jak knelt down to speak to her.  Normally she'd have flashed a dagger if someone got that close but she either didn't have the strength or the resolve to do it to the young bard right now.  She felt the warmth of his words flow through her.  It only took a moment for her to realize it wasn't simply the reassuring lyrics that were making her feel chipper but the man's magic.  Testing her strength, she flexed her hands and swung her arms hastily, stretching out limbs that had been sore and aching mere moments ago.  Satisfied, she smiled at the kneeling human and reached out with a hand to tousle his hair, as if returning the favor.  "Don't forget, Dweeble is also brilliant and all the shinies are rightfully hers.  You have to include that in the songs, or else people won't know I'm more than just a pretty face!"

Dweeble let the young man stand up and turned back towards Bram as he apologized to her for the burst of magic he had no right to be able to stop.  She tilted her head to one side, her eyes looking up at the half-elf's with a curious, if not confused, stare.  After a moment, and his words explaining the issue, she seemed to realize why he looked different and quickly began to rummage through one of her belt pouches.

Turning her back to the paladin, she knelt down over whatever her hands were busy doing and began to mutter to herself as she worked.  Finally, after a minute or two, she stood up triumphantly with one hand raised towards Bram.  A thick gauge of wire was hastily, and rather clumsily, bent and wrapped into a pair of unusable, but wearable, spectacles.  She'd quickly crafted a second pair and placed over her ears, the hollow frames nearly half the radius of her huge eyes.  "Here, until you get them fixed.  Can't have you walkin' 'round with only two eyes.  You'll be half-blind!"

22:02, Today: Dweeble rolled 14 using 1d20+3 with rolls of 11.  Intelligence - Crafting.

It was odd that Dweeble had scurried off without a word after their little talk, Bram thought, but she was an odd lass.  He shrugged and took a seat against one of the stone walls to rest up after the battering he'd taken.  A few minutes later he was munching on a ration when the halfling reappeared and offered to him the oddest pair of lopsided, lenseless spectacles he'd ever seen.  He took them hesitantly and looked them over, then looked up to Dweeble as she explained and was amused to see that her own wide blue eyes were ringed with a similarly makeshift pair of spectacles.

Bramwell couldn't help but grin as he turned the contraption over once more.  He understood what this gesture meant, considering the peculiar woman's selfish tendencies and difficulties interacting with others.  He wiped a little something from his eye, then tried them on.  It took a little bending to fit them around his ears, the eye rings were noticeably different sizes and they pinched his nose a little, not to mention the lack of lenses made them entirely useless.  "Dweeble, these are marvelous!  I'd no idea you were such a capable tinker.  This was a very thoughtful gesture.  Thank you!"  The spectacles were ridiculous, functionless and terribly made, and he adored them.  He smiled at the halfling and nodded, "They suit you, I think.  Do you... see any better with them?"

Mayon grins at Morg's comment as his feet hit the floor off of the floating rocks. Satisfied that everyone seems to be recovering, he walks over to Larrakh and his smile changes to a grimace. Being unable to speak with corpses, he decides to try and get information in a quieter  (albeit more macabre) manner, by looking over the body for anything that could tell him where to find Marlos. Or, well, anything useful in general. Not like Larrakh needed it anymore.


10:22, Today: Mayon Graycross rolled 17 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 13.  Investigating (Looting) Larrakh.

"Just a cantrip," Asano replies to the dwarf's inquiry. "More useful against undead, but with better range than my preferred frost attack. Everyone ok?"
He checks to make sure everyone is mostly upright before exploring through the cave for anything of interest.


OOC:
Investigation- 12

Asano looks around the room a bit slower than before, now that the attacker was dead. With the stones now hovering above the floor again, Asano intuits that an impact on the floor activates the effect. After a minute or so the stones slowly lower back to the ground.

Searching Larrakh, Mayon finds four curious iron bars, each about a foot in length. They are strangely shaped, like two long, four sided pyramids joined at the base.

---

Nice one Bram - I'll award you Inspiration for having broken glasses ;).

Currently Asano and Bram have Inspiration.


Also, remember the difference between Perception and Investigation checks:

Perception is used to spot, hear or detect something.  It pertains to the 5 senses.

- Example 1: A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Perception check to find it.
- Example 2: A character actively looking for a secret door can attempt a Perception check to see if there's a secret door in the area they're searching.
- Example 3: A character not looking for hidden goblins would spot one if their Passive Perception is higher than the goblin's Stealth check.

Investigation is used when you have a clue about something you can base your deductions on.

- Example 1: A character can make an Investigation check to see if they can disarm a trap they found.
- Example 2: A character can make an Investigation check to see if they can figure out how to open a secret door they found.
- Example 3: There's a dead body in the middle of the floor and you want to make an Investigation check to figure out what weapon was used to kill them.


In both cases, the more specific you are the easier it would be to find something.

For instance, you might need a 15 perception to notice a giant spider on the ceiling if you're just looking in the room generally, but if you specifically say "PC looks at the ceiling for something" then you might only need a 5 or automatically succeed.

Jak takes some time to look around the room from a bit, to see if anything catches his eye. Then search through the room and the stones in more detail to see if there is anything more to be found.

So would rolling both like so be okay and appropriate?

16:24, Today: Secret Roll: Jakrynn Redgate rolled 16,21 using d20+4,d20+3 with rolls of 12,18.  Perception to see if he notices anything and then Investigation through the room.

Wandering over to the stone slabs, Jak sees that none of the skeletons lying on top of them are intact. Each has a crushed limb, chest cavity, or head. The injuries look consistent with mining accidents.

---

Sure, rolling both is ok, but it takes longer to look & investigate than it would to just do one. So how this example breaks down is:

Perception: you notice the skeletons all have crushed body parts
Investigation: you conclude they must have sustained injuries from mining


This message was last edited by the GM at 12:28, Tue 25 July 2017.

Morg rises onto his toes to look at the skeletons.

---

Were they dwarves, or tall folk?

The skeletons on the slabs were all human.

Mayon frowned a bit to himself at the sight of the iron bars. The shape alone was odd enough, but more so was the fact that Larrakh was carrying them around.

"Hey, I found these...anyone have an idea what they could be? Not sure if they're magical or not. They seem too clunky to be a spellcasting focus, and I don't know why he'd need four of them." He waves one experimentally, grimacing at the thought of trying to use one for spellcasting.


16:12, Today: Mayon Graycross rolled 21 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 17.  Arcana check.
I know Arcana is far from being the same as detect magic, but it's the best I got at the moment to see if these things would have any sort of magical significance that Mayon could know of? :P

Mayon examines the iron bars, but doesn't think they have any relationship to magic.

"Possibly levers for the cages earlier?" Asano suggests.

Bramwell squints at the curiously-shaped iron bars through his makeshift, lenseless spectacles.  Ultimately he decides to assess their form by feel rather than by sight.  "A curious form for an iron casting.  They must serve some mechanical or ritualistic purpose, whether to control the cages or otherwise..."  The shape of them reminded him of a tuning fork, so he took one by its bottom and experimentally struck one of the pyramidal tines against the stone to see if any sound was produced.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:19, Wed 26 July 2017.

Dweeble smiled up at Bram as he put on the hastily made pair of spectacles, struggling to fit them properly around his pointed ears for a bit before managing to slide them in place.  She pressed a hand to her own makeshift frames to press them up her nose as he peered down at her through the crooked wires.  "Of course Dweeble is a great tinkerer!  She's got nimble fingers, yup!  Even when I was just a wee hin, she always liked to find stuff and play with it 'til it broke or gave away its secrets."

She plopped down onto the stone floor beneath them as she readjusted her frames again, the haphazard wires undoubtedly less than comfortable.  She tilted her head as Bram asked about her vision and after a moment she shook her head.  With one hand she reached up and stuck a finger through either frame, quickly closing her eyes to press back onto her eyelids.  "No, these are just pretend.  Dweeble doesn't need glasses.  Her eyes are perfect!"  She pulled her hands away and opened her eyes again, the wide orbs suddenly staring at Bram anxiously.  "I-I mean Dweeble's eyes aren't perfect.  They're just big and shiny and super great!  But only for me.  Spectacles can't have my eyes!"

She pressed a hand over either eye as she stood up and turned away from the half-elf.  Dweeble shook her head frantically one last time and sprinted towards where she'd last heard Mayon, bumping into him abruptly even as Bram began to inspect the iron rods himself.  Forgetting her concerns of Bram stealing her eyes from their sockets, she took one of the rods from Mayon's hands and examined it.  After a moment, she slid it one hand like a weapon and banged it hard into the stone floor beneath her.  "Dweeble knows what these are!  They're dental tools.  For teeths and stuff.  I used a rod like this once to smack a dwarf upside his big, fat head and knock the gold tooth from his jaw.  Messy affair, but the tooth shined up real nice like!"

When Bram strikes the stone, a clear and lingering tone reverberates from it, a clean single note.

Dwee's stone emits another tone, in precisely the same key. The stone menhirs around the room once again begin floating after Dwee's stone impacts the floor.

---

Bram, and perhaps others of you (your choice), recognize these stones as trade bars from Mirabar. They are rather distinctive currency from that region, and are worth 5gp apiece.

This message was last edited by the GM at 02:14, Thu 27 July 2017.

"It may be best to move on," Asano says, moving to where he can see the entrance to the room. "Gods only know how many more cultists there may be down here."

Jak whispers a quick prayer over the dead miners. He wasn't overly religious, really, and what deity he normally prayed wouldn't likely be much help to any honest working folk like miners. But nevertheless, he prayed anyway for their souls to find peace.

Then he nodded to Asano. "Yeah. Gather up whatcha want an' let's keep on movin'."