Serpent's Skull [Racing to Ruin] (IC)

[GM_Dave]

Spoiler: Collective

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"Agreed. I couldn't tell where either stairs lead, but then again, i think I got some charu ka in my eye..."

[lostsole31]

Fronaldo carefully heads down the stairs. Once he gets to the bottom he can signal for Xhanfaerd to stop while he looks in al directions. Light doesn't seem to be too much of a problem as there are enough gaping holes at this level of the ziggurat to let light in .... at least in this section. Immediately to the north, a passage 'T's to the east and west. To the south, a much wider view for Fronaldo, it leads outside to a layer of the ziggurat that you didnt' see from below. 10' south of Fronaldo, to the west, is a door.

Fronaldo, it is assumed you tepe the information to the group. What now?

[Blackhawk101]

Moving quietly to the South and watching his step, Fronaldo walks to the door to examine it. He narrates as he goes.

Spoiler: crunch

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use stealth when he moves and checking for traps. Move half speed.

[lostsole31]

At this point, is simply "standard operating procedure" that if Fronaldo doesn't have you hold in place, the next person in line moves until the point man (Fronaldo) is visible again. Too many situations on the book where the main force of a group just let their point guard go off on independent ops, never to see them again and in some cases not know what happened. So, Xhanfaerd moves down the stairs cautiously until he is in the hallway and sees Fronaldo 10' from him to the south at a door, and the rest of the line moves forward appropriately.

Fronaldo sees that his backup is there, and detects no traps on the door. Now what?

[Blackhawk101]

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“Stand by. This door is interesting.”

The diminutive goblin gives the door a solid two handed push. If no joy, he will sheath his dagger and carefully remove his thieves tools from his haversack before donning the pack again.
He tries to pick the lock

[lostsole31]

The door does not budge. He messes with his tools, but it seems that whatever locking mechanism was once there in ancient times is long gone ... so nothing to "unlock." Still, the door will not yield.

What now?

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo spends another minute checking the door and vicinity for hidden latches. Failing that..
.

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“Neat door but didn’t find a way to open it. Moving to the veranda.

He moves South in a stealthy fashion.

[lostsole31]

Fronaldo does find a clever stone latch, but it seems more as a means for a person to open the door than any kind of locking mechanism. Trying the door, it doesn't budge.

He moves to the veranda, and the whole line .... as normal ... follows. To not lose sight of Tor-ber, Gelik moves down and then backs up (northwards) to keep that 5' gap, but in doing so notices a set of stairs immediately adjacent to him to the east, and then a long passageway to the west that ends at a crumbling wall with bits of sunlight coming in.

Meanwhile, on the "veranda," Fronaldo sees a 20' wide set of stairs going down only about 10' before crumbling away to the side of the ruined ziggurat. It wasn't seen from the ground because of angle and ground-lying vegetation.

Spoiler: Tor-ber >>> Collective (Fronaldo)

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"Is this something we need to break down if you can't open it, Fronaldo?"

[BuckGodot]

Spoiler: To the partaaaay...

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"Hey... Guys? We missed something... There's a set of stairs here..."

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo sees nothing of interest on the veranda, turns and motions the group to keep coming forward.

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“Tor-ber, we can try to break it down after we finish our exploration. Don’t want to alert everything to our presence. I found a knob that should open it, but it’s jammed or broken.
All, Keep moving South and double back.
Gelik, we will check out what you found now.”

Fronaldo moves North to the end of the line.

[BuckGodot]

Gelik steps back a bit to allow the others to go first.

[lostsole31]

The stairs go down quite a bit before it Fronaldo notes that the stairs don't go anywhere. Whatever was here before was sheared clean off the ziggurat in the past [see drawing in Discord].

[Blackhawk101]

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“It’s sheared off! A dead end. Back up everyone and move back South. I will lead down the West corridor next.”

Once re-orientated, Fronaldo will move West down the corridor moving quietly and alert for danger / traps.

[lostsole31]

Fronaldo carefully moves 15' down the hallway, at which point he could continue west, but to the south there is a new section that opens up (X11). A circular grid formed with deep grooves sits in the center of the floor of this roughly circular room beneath a domed ceiling decorated with crystalline patterns. At either end, passages open to the building’s exterior. Four elaborately carved columns stand in the passageways, one to the north and three to the south in a triangular arrangement.

[Blackhawk101]

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“ There is a room to the South but the way in is partially blocked by a column. I am going to continue on down the hall to see what I can see. The rest of you stay here and see what you make of the column and if you can squeeze past. There are other entrances to the outside if we cannot get in this way.”

Fronaldo continues to stealth-warily move to the West.

[GM_Dave]

Spoiler: Collective

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How beautiful, this place looks similar to a solarium; a Desnan observatory of the stars, but I highly doubt... Didn’t that corpse say something about an ancient Religion?”

Can pim do knowledge religion/ planes/ dungeoneering/ or arcana to figure out the general purpose of the chamber and pillars?
He wont entr the room unless from gives he all clear, but he will try to deduce just from what he knows by looking.

[GM_Dave]

(1d20+9)[14]
Knowledge arcana, dungeoneering, and history if any of those apply.
If its planes its 2 higher.

[lostsole31]

Fronaldo strolls right up to a spot where he looks south to find charau-ka! But his senses are such that he was aware of them. When they see him, they give a loud shriek of challenge!

Round One Begins ...

R1T24: Gelik, you hear the tell-tale shrieking of a nest of charau-ka that Fronaldo just kicked over.

[BuckGodot]

Why he would ever find himself going towards such hideous sounds, Gelik will never understand. However, he heads north and then west...

"My friends! Fear not! We have the strength of training, experience, and wisdom to face down foes of any size or shape..." and he continues.

Spoiler: I am SICK of the zoo... Can we go home now?

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Inspire Courage

[lostsole31]

R1T24: Why he would ever find himself going towards such hideous sounds, Gelik will never understand. However, he heads north and then west. "My friends! Fear not! We have the strength of training, experience, and wisdom to face down foes of any size or shape..." and he continues.

R1T18: Aron does a double move, drawing her whip as she goes. She passes Gelik, and seeing the way the sun comes in continues until the edge where she has to turn south and then come at the charau-ka from a much-larger opening than the one Fronaldo is standing in front of.

R1T17: Xhanfaerd, what do you do?

[silphael]

Readying his mind, Xhanfaerd advances to get closer to the action.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move action, recovering personal focus (which activates biokinetic adept).
Standard action, move up to my move speed toward the frontline.

[lostsole31]

R1T17: Readying his mind, Xhanfaerd advances to get closer to the action. He gets right up to Fronaldo, but doesn't see anything.

R1T16: Fronaldo, what do you do? You see four charau-ka. You could stick your hand in and attack red (cover bonus), but would have to squeeze to get in through this way, or move around to where Aron is to enter through the larger break into this chamber.

[Blackhawk101]

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>Collective

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“There are four Charu-ka in this room. Xhan maybe cover this opening.”

The roguish goblin drops his tool kit and draws his dagger on the move west to Aron’s position, moving in front of her. He draws a second dagger from his bandolier.

Spoiler

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FA:drop thieves tools
MA: move to Aron’s location. Use acrobatics to avoid AOO. Draw magic dagger.
SA:draw a dagger from bandolier.

[lostsole31]

R1T16:

Spoiler: Fronaldo >>> Collective (All, Xhanfaerd)

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“There are four Charu-ka in this room. Xhan maybe cover this opening.”

The roguish goblin drops his tool kit and draws his dagger on the move west to Aron’s position, moving in front of her. He draws a second dagger from his bandolier.

R111: Pim, a super-gnome's job is never done. What do you do?

[GM_Dave]

Pim, expecting action at any moment is almost relieved with their near silent exploration ends, and the familiar sounds of charuka begin. Pim, without much flair, readies a card, which begins his defending property, as is typical for his first action lately. With a quick thought, he decides that he doesn't have visuals on the enemy, so it is best to send in a summon first. He tosses the card in his hand onto the floor in front of him, aiming for the summon to appear where it lands on the strange circular pattern in the room nearest him. Not sure if that circle is dangerous, Pim expects his summon to become attacked if there is a trap, but if not, will direct it west to attack the nearest charuka. Then he quickly draws two more cards, and takes a peek at them as their energy automatically transfers over to the hawk summon.
"Go west, attack the apes," Pim
says to the bird.
Then, pim will walk forward until he sees the nearest charuka, at which point he will stop moving forward.

Spoiler: Actions

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Swift: Activate defending property
Standard: Summon Dark Hawk with versatile summons, as before
Free: Draw two cards to boost the hawk.
Free: Direct the Hawk to head west from the center of the circle pattern, and attack the nearest charuka it sees.
Move: Walk south 5-10' depending on how soon he sees the enemy. he wont go into the circle area, and if he cant see charuka, he will continue to his max of 20' getting closer to the action if possible.

[lostsole31]

R1T11-10.9: Pim, expecting action at any moment is almost relieved with their near silent exploration ends, and the familiar sounds of charau-ka begin. Pim, without much flair, readies a card, which begins his defending property, as is typical for his first action lately. With a quick thought, he decides that he doesn't have visuals on the enemy, so it is best to send in a summon first. He tosses the card in his hand onto the floor in front of him, aiming for the summon to appear where it lands on the strange circular pattern in the room nearest him. Not sure if that circle is dangerous, Pim expects his summon to become attacked if there is a trap. It doesn't appear to be, so Pim shouts, "Go west! Attack the apes.

Then he quickly draws two more cardsi (WIS/CHA), and takes a peek at them as their energy automatically transfers over to the hawk summon. Then, Pim walks forward to stand over Fronaldo's dropped tools, and sees the charau-ka to the south. The hawk is heard screeching.

R1T10-8: Red and brown begins their screeching fury, and throws two rocks apiece at Fronaldo.

R1T7: Tor-ber hustles to the northwestern ledge of the tier, dust crumbling from the edge to fall below. "Hey, Pim! Your bird is still in that room!"

R1T4-3: Green and blue then enter their shrieking fury. Green cuts off brown and throws rocks at Fronaldo. Blue throws rocks through the aperture at Pim.

End Round One, Begin Round 2 ...

R2T24: Gelik, you are inspiring courage right now, though your party members are distant and might not be getting the benefits of your brilliant extempore. What do you do?

Aron on deck, Xhanfaerd in the hole ...

[BuckGodot]

Gelik will continue to be inspirational and move closer to those in most need of said inspiration!

[lostsole31]

R2T24: Gelik will continue to be inspirational and move closer to those in most need of said inspiration!

R2T18: Aron casts a spell on herself so lots of motes of light float all about her, confusing would be rock-tossers. She then just goes heedlesly in, using brilliant acrobatics to get past the bites of the monkey-men, and grabbing her short sword out as she goes.

Spoiler: Aron >>> Collective

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"They seem to prefer throwing over biting or clubbing, so get toe-to-toe with them."

R2T17: Xhanfaerd, what do you do? You'll have to go west and south to get to the charau-ka, as the little opening in the wall isn't enough to squeeze through.

Fronaldo on deck, Pim in the hole ...

[silphael]

Weapon in hand, Xhanfaerd moves further toward the apes, making sure to stick to a stance appropriate for the situation, before hammering the closest creature, making sure the others feel the weight of their mistake.

Spoiler: OOC

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Double move toward the monkeys, and swift action into Silver Crane Waltz (+2 reflex and AC)
And maneuver as seen in discord.

[lostsole31]

R2T17: Weapon in hand, Xhanfaerd moves further toward the apes, making sure to stick to a stance appropriate for the situation. He gets right up to to the first (blue) and konks it upside the head for 26. It's doubt is great, as evinced by the fact that it vomits all over Xhanfaerd with horrible-smelling, breen-brown bile. The one closest to the party (red) likewise retches, projectile vomiting on Fronaldo and Pim.

R2T16: Fronaldo, you are now dripping in exectorated monkey retch (from red). What do you do?

Pim on deck, Dark Hawk in the hole ...