Way of the Wicked: Knot of Thorns [IC]

[bcool999]

Amadeus

Still keeping watch for approaching guards, Amadeus says once Kel is done with her plant, ”Thanks for holding my mace my dear. Now, if you have finished your gardening, let us get to the Tower over there.”

Amadeus will recollect his mace from Kel before moving towards the tower keeping to the back of the building they left.

[GM_Dave]

continue with the plan unless someone catches us. zepsus will protect the rear. the lock pick should go first

[lostsole31]

Because Grumblejack takes up a large bit, and because his own head is on a swivel, he gravitates towards the back, but Zepsus does take the rear-guard of the little 'uns.

The party moves along the south of the building they just left (the main castle, known as the "Great Hall") and get to the large tower situated at the SW part of the grounds. Bile does a safety check on the door and determines that the door is unlocked.

The door is opened, and the party looks in. This entire floor is dedicated to the history of the Castle Branding and the subsequent history that led the castle to become Branderscar Prison. It consists of a series of mostly uninteresting plaques that tell of nobles and deeds hardly anyone remembers anymore. There are a number of banners and flags.

One of the wall hangings is an old brocade tapestry that depicts Castle Branding being turned into a prison with the motto “His Judgment Cometh and that Right Soon”.

There is a spiral stairway leading up to the second level. This room is lit by four sconces holding torches.

Grumblejack sets Ved down and then says. "I stay down here in case trouble come."

What now?

[GM_Dave]

Zepsus closes the door once everyone is inside.

[Blackhawk101]

Leonidas knocks an arrow and advances up the stairs, moving quickly.

[lostsole31]

Leonidas jumps what was a rough party order to go upstairs with arrow ready.

Who follows next?

[BuckGodot]

Being wounded, Donovan will keep to the middle.

[GM_Dave]

Zepsus will quietly head up second, slipping past the wounded with a stride of confident intent. He grips his sword, and shield, ready to fight his way onto the wall.

[bcool999]

Seeing Leonidas and Zepsus take the lead, Amadeus shrugs and follows third motioning for Donovan to stay behind his shield.

[lostsole31]

And Kel then Bile bring up the rear. The party ascends the great central, spiral staircase.

The second level must be Warden Richter's library. A large collection of books and scrolls across a wide range of subjects.

What do you do here? Do you check out the library or continue up to the third level?

[GM_Dave]

Seeing that the room is secure enough, and knowing no one is behind the party, Zepsus will put his sword under his shield side elbow, and concentrate on his eldrich magic as he had done before when scanning for magic. He will cast detect magic, and point his two fingers around the room, searching quickly for magical scrolls. If any do ping as magical, he will quickly glance at the first one to see if it is usable to him, that being it is written in arcane, and not divine, or that it is a spell he could cast with his eldritch knowledge.

[lostsole31]

And Zepsus' sword clatters to the ground, loudly, because no amount of describing a means to bypass the clear-cut rules of this world will allow you to bypass the rules of this world.

Spoiler: OOC

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And we shall never have a discussion of "if I explain how I do it, that means I can do it," when the rules say "this is how it is." Nor, for that matter, shall I have a off-camera PM starting with "With respect" on this dead chestnut.

Unperturbed, or more realistically, his zeal and obsession for knowledge overcoming his caution, Zepsus does as mentioned previously. He carefully scans the whole room, which likely takes a minute, but finds absolutely no magical emanation from the books.

[Blackhawk101]

While Zep is scanning, Leo will make a quick check for hidden doors on this level.

[GM_Dave]

"Blasted people... the good scrolls must be kept somewhere else. Nothing here will get us any immediate power. If only... a simply flight spell... ah, my sword,"
Zepsus realizes his detection is useless, and will put his fingers back down to his sword on the floor, grasping the handle firmly.
"We should quickly take what we want, and burn, or destroy what we can. Libraries of this sort are often of import to the owner, they may be remiss if they lost all of their books. There are probably just prisoner manifests, or tax papers, I don't know."

[lostsole31]

Leonidas makes a quick, cursory check around the room for hidden doors, and finds none.

Does anyone care about what the library does hold, more than what it doesn't? Then again, do you have time to care?

What does the party do?

[Blackhawk101]

“Forget the damn books! Don’t have the time and burning the place down with us init ain’t a good plan! Onward!”
Leonidas heads to the stairs up.

[lostsole31]

Does everyone fall back in line behind Leonidas?

[GM_Dave]

Having nothing to burn books with, Zepsus watched Amadaus ascend the stairs, and will follow, with his shield at the ready.

[BuckGodot]

Donovan is just as anxious to press on as always and will turn to head up the stairs with the group.

[bcool999]

Ignoring the bounty of literature he has no time to sift through, Amadeus continues along with the group. Shield at hand should they be surprised.

[lostsole31]

Everyone heads up to the next level. The spiral staircase ends up here at this stone landing. The stairway once continued up to the roof of this tower but now the roof is closed off. The chamber is lit by a single torch on a sconce. To the north is a door bearing a plaque that reads: "Office." The southern door has a similar plaque that reads: "Private: Keep Out!"

Before the party fully makes it up, however, a loud signal horn echoes off of the staircase from above. Just as Leonidas at the head of the party gets to the top, a single guard is there to stop the advance!

Begin Round One ....

R1T23: Luckily, the head of the line is the first to go. Leonidas, there is a guard just above you at the top of the stairs. What do you do?

[Blackhawk101]

Leonidas takes a step forward and shoots the guard in the face or another reasonably available body part.

Spoiler

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Five foot step
to hit - (1d20+3)[17]
to dam - (1d8)[5]

[lostsole31]

R1T23: With the guard directly in front of him, Leonidas has nowhere to go and shoots the guard in the lower right arm for 4.

R1T18: Bile, you are at the back of the train of people and battle has begun, so you are now alert and agile, but with nowhere to go you are delaying for now.

R1T14: Zepsus, just in front of Leonidas is a guard that he shot in the swordarm with a bow. However, there doesn't appear to be anyway to get past him. You can shoot him as you have a bow in hand, but you do have to deal with the fact that trying to shoot a guard in melee over the head of a friendly is a "Hail, Mitra!" pass if ever there was one. What do you do?

[GM_Dave]

Zepsus twists his face into a snarl, stepping up one step with his shield held in the enemy's face. He will jab his sword from under the shield, hoping to pierce the man while he is unable to defend himself, but Zepsus will take all possible precautions to hold the line, and make sure the guard doesn't turn towards attacking someone else.

Spoiler: Actions

Show

Move: Step up 1 square
Standard: Fight Defensively (AC goes to 21)
Attack:(1d20+1)[7]
Longsword damage: (1d8+5)[7]

.

[lostsole31]

Addendum: Leonidas then falls back all the way behind Bile.

R1T14: Zepsus twists his face into a snarl, stepping up one step with his shield held in the enemy's face. He will jab his sword from under the shield, hoping to pierce the man while he is unable to defend himself (missing), but Zepsus will take all possible precautions to hold the line, and make sure the guard doesn't turn towards attacking someone else.

R1T8: Seeing Leonidas fall back, Kel knows she has room to move forward and gets up behind Zepsus.

R1T7: The guard counters Zepsus with his own clanging of sword-on-shield, shield on sword.

R1T3: Amadeus, do you delay? You can't see the battle.

Donovan, same thing ... you can't see the battle.

[BuckGodot]

Donovan will delay...

[lostsole31]

R1T3: Amadeus and Donovan delay ...

End Round One, Begin Round 2 ...

R2T23: Leonidas delays .... (what else can he do)?

R2T14: "You Ignorant fool. I gave you a chance to get hurt, and run away; so you choose to actually fight me?," Zepsus laughs, and taunts, while completely changing his fighting style, as if the scene amused him in some way. He takes a step back with his back foot gracefully, while raising his shield to defend himself, then, draws the mans balance down towards the void of the spiral, and finally, his maneuver is complete, as he begins to climb the stairs once more, plowing into the guard's center of gravity, but finds that the man is readied, and will not be pulled down so easily. He has been taught well, and whether Zepsus would agree or not, this man has seen more battle than the tiefling.

R2T8: Kel calls back, "I'm making an opening!"

Once only so far has Kel's ability to climb really been seen when she was on the prison bars before when the attempt escape was first made with the first fool guard. That was acrobatic, to be sure, but what she does now goes beyond skill at isometrics to the purely preternatural as she climbs onto the wall and goes up high enough so as not to be in Zepsus' square. She climbs just fine in sideway profile, like a spider moving horizontally, and spins quickly to release a kick to the man's head for 5 before recovering her full measure on the wall. The man doesn't go down, at all, but it is a shock that he now has two people squared off against him.

R2T6: If only from the shock of something on the wall, the guard attacks Kel, thinking her too focused on climbing to defend herself, but to his horror she lacks nothing of her normal speed when climbing as his sword clangs on the wall.

Leonidas/ Bile/ Amadeus/ Donovan ... you heard Kel mention she was making an opening. Do you take it?

Otherwise, Zepsus' turn, and Kel on deck ...

[BuckGodot]

Donovan looks at the other two significantly less wounded party members and steadfastly holds back whilst making a gesture to them to move forward.

[Blackhawk101]

Leonidas will move up to take the open spot.

[lostsole31]

R2T2: Donovan looks at the other two significantly less wounded party members and steadfastly holds back whilst making a gesture to them to move forward.

End Round 2, Begin Round 3 ...

R3T23: Leonidas moves back up to take the open slot.

R3T14: Zepsus again tries to upend his opponent, and this time he is successful. The man doesn't go crashing downstairs but does go prone at his spot. Zepsus tries to then step past him, but Zepsus has to block a sword attack with his shield and his advance is stopped..

Spoiler: OOC

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So, I rolled that Acro for you, but as you can guess you failed. Just to be sure you understand, please note the following...

1) A prone person still threatens, albeit with attack penalties.
2) When you try to use Acrobatics to go THROUGH a threatened square, it isn't that they get an AOO (he missed), but also that you fail to get by.

It's likely that you knew this and were just banking on a successful Acrobatics with his butt on the floor, but I just want you to know the mechanical score in case you thought otherwise.

R3T8: Kel doesn't try to go through him, but merely over him, and dropping down behind. Now, for the first time since the escape, she enjoys flanking her opponent, but the man's shell of armor protects him where standing does not.

R3T7: Zepsus hears the door open, but isn't at the right angle to see what is happening. But he does hear an old man casting a spell! Zepsus does see Kel as her face gets a little funny, her mouth quivering. She gives a chortle, then a burst laugh, clapping her hands over her mouth. And when she can stand it no longer, Kel erupts into full gales of laughter and falls out of Zepsus' view (meaning she is probably prone now).

R3T6: The guard tries to stand and Zepsus chops down with the sword, but the guard presses against it with his own sword, even using the counter-force to help him back on his feet. He then attacks Zepsus, who temporarily catches the sword in a pinch with sword and shield before the guard withdraws the weapon.

R3T2: Donovan, what do you do?

Leonidas on deck, Zepsus in the hole, Bile/ Amadeus delaying (and may chime in at any time) ...