Taken aback, Vahan nearly stumbled at the appearance of the beasts. He clutched his warhammer with a white-knuckled grip and swung haphazardly as he turned toward one. The swing went wide, catching but air as the tiny creature flittered away.

"Hellsteeth, ya bloody bug hold still!"

Warhammer attack: 9.
Gonna go out on a limb and say that’s a miss.

Round 1
Tanu splatters a stirge with his club. Unfortunately the rest of the party fails to connect with the tiny flying vermin.

The stirges swoop in on Vahan and Amara. Both stirges are able to land on them, sinking their proboscises through cracks in the armor and begin drinking.

OOC: Amara and Vahan take 1 CON damage
Amara and Vahan: Make a DC 12 Fort save

The stirges seem firmly attached to the pair of them and their blood sacs are starting to fill up.

OOC: Obviously killing them will remove them. Barring that it is a standard contested grapple or escape artist check to get them off

"Ahhh...bugs."  Tanu drops his club on the stairs and pulls his dagger.  He tries grapple the stirge on Amara by the scruff.

[OOC]
Grapple a grapple?  Let me know if you are OK with this....
One-handed Grapple
17:07, Today: Tanu rolled 23 using 1d20+3 ((20)).
Dagger damage
17:09, Today: Tanu rolled 6 using 1d4+3 ((3)).

Vahan struggled to strike the creature attacking him, grunting as he tried to reach the beast with his warhammer.

8 to hit, and 5 damage if it matters.

Kamea brandished the two-handed glaive. "Hold still. I don't want to chop off an arm or something. Stop moving!" She gave up the glaive and pulled out her dagger. She grabbed Vahan and used the much smaller blade to slice the stirge off.

---

rolled 21,5 using 1d20+5,1d4+3 with rolls of 16,2.  ATK/DAM

Phelar just held where she was, right now she would cause more harm than good if she acted and she knew it so she kept an eye out.

[OOC: Holding action.]

Amara let out a surprisingly feminine shriek at the large bug sucking her blood and she ducked so fast to get the hell away from the thing it was actually rather impressive.

20:33, Today: Amara rolled 19 using 1d20+8 with rolls of 11.  Escape Artist.
20:33, Today: Amara rolled 14 using 1d20+2 with rolls of 12.  Fort Save DC12.

Amara and Tanu cut and slice the remaining stirges splattering blood around. Checking around the party sees the nest that the stirges had built under the awning of the delapidated house but for now there doesn't appear to be anything else that is a threat.

Tanu stops on the dead stirge for good measure.

squish

Blood and gore squirt out from under Tanu's shoe.

"Well.... That was nightmare inducing."

Amara felt sick from the blood loss as she took her waterskin and took a large gulp, wondering vaguely about just setting the house on fire.

Tanu puts his dagger away, and grabs his club.  "You want me to lead?"

She moved to Amara. "Will you be okay? I could see to the wound if you want."

"A bit of healing isn't a bad idea but if not I can handle it, just a bit of pain." It was admittedly more the burn then the stirge wound that was aching at her.

Vahan looked over his mostly minor wound with a frown.

"Hellsteeth, I hate those bloody things," he said. Glancing at Tanu, and to his question, the dwarf nodded. "Lead on."

"One moment." Phelar pulls out a healer's kit, and begins to works on Amara's burns and Stirge wounds.

When she was done with Amara. "Anyone else want me to look them over?"

[OOC: Phelar will take a 20 on the check since we are not under any threat right now. Which also allows me to beat the DC by 5. So if you were down HP's Amara you get back 1 per each of your levels, and you get back an additional 2 HP's for my WIS mod. :) ]
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Fri 20 Nov 2020.

Without moving far or fast, just biding time while people are looked over, Tanu tests the porch floor with his club; in front of the door...down to the right or left a little...looking at the over hang again.  Not moving in tell all are ready.

Kamea indicated that she was ready. "Looks like Tanu was a route inside planned. Let's follow him."

As the heroes approach the door they notice a couple of shiny items nearly hidden in the tall grass. One is a simple silver locket with a picture of a young girl inside of it.

The other is a brass key, still shiny despite lying in the mud. The key itself is fairly plain but the handle has a stylized cog with circles between the cog's teeth.



The locket appears perfectly ordinary, although possibly fairly valuable, but the key radiates magical energy and when it is picked up the keyhole on the front door of Roderick's Wreck glows brightly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:08, Tue 24 Nov 2020.

Amara took the locket leaving someone braver to scoop up the magical key, studying it curiously with detect magic and looking for anything hidden on it.

"Keys magical."

Amara can't detect what kind of magic is on the key but it does seem powerful.

Kamea picked up the key. Suddenly the key and the lock in the door glowed. "This is against my better judgement. But we're not going to find answers by avoiding everything." She inserted the key and turned it.

There is a brilliant flash of light that lasts for several seconds, blinding everyone. When the light dims the party finds they have been teleported to a strange place. They find themselves seated on comfortable leather chairs and couch surrounding a low wooden coffee table. The floor is tiled with dark marble and the walls appear to be finely crafted stone leading up to huge vaulted ceilings, easily over 20' tall. Floor-to-ceiling windows and giant skylights present plenty of light however the windows are opaque so it is impossible to see the landscape beyond and determine where the party has been transported to.

There are other clusters of chairs and couches forming six distinct clusters of furniture arranged equidistant in a 3x2 grid broken up and divided by rows half-wall partitions topped with the occasional potted plant. The air is cool and crisp with hints of airflow but there doesn't seem to be any open window.

At the other end of the room are two notable items. The first is a large wrap-around desk with an ancient gnome sitting behind it struggling to read a book through incredibly thick spectacles. The gnome is old beyond measure and clearly stricken by the Bleaching given his pale color.

The other note is that there are no exits to this room. Instead one of the four walls is instead made up of a giant brass circular cover, like a vault door only on a scale that is absolutely massive.

"Twelve, we have guests. Go on, get to it lad." the ancient gnome bellows out, slapping the counter where there is a small bell mechanism to give out a ring. When there isn't any movement the gnome slaps the bell a second and then a third time.

"Coming! Coming! Sorry sir!"

From behind one of the half-wall partitions comes a young gnome, barely into his teens (by gnomish equivalents) hastily tucking in the shirt of his uniform and running towards the party. He is wearing a blue shirt with an insignia on it that matches the shape of the key that Kamea is still holding in her hands. He has a small cap on as well with #12 embroidered into it with brass colored thread. The party notices that he isn't wearing any shoes, instead his feet covered with thick wool socks. A few feet away from the party the gnome lad hits a sudden stop and expertly slides along the smooth tiles in his socks to stop perfectly in front of the party's seating arrangement. He wobbles only slightly at the end and then breaks into a broad grin having stuck the landing.

"Greetings, travelers! I am #12 and I would like to cordially welcome you to the Klacken Exchange! If you'll just follow me we can get you processed and taken care of swiftly and to your utmost satisfaction!"

He holds out his hand, glancing at the key in Kamea's hand.

"If I can see your exchange key, it will help expedite the processing."

"...that...what?" Phelar asked, a bit confused. She seemed a bit lost as to what just happened.

Tanu tries to smoothly check his dagger and sword.  While looking at his compatriots, he looks for his club.  He is shocked and nervous.