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

[BuckGodot]

"Well, that being said..." he looks at Fronaldo before continuing... "I say we pick up where we left off."

[Blackhawk101]

“Can we do a quick perimeter check of the Ziggurat and if it looks like we checked everywhere, we can continue to explore to the East?” asks Fronaldo.

[BuckGodot]

Book looks to everyone else and shrugs his shoulders. "Sounds like a solid plan. Let's do it."

[Blackhawk101]

Unless the others object, Fronaldo and Book take the lead and head back to the central room. Fronaldo has his magic dagger in his hand.

[lostsole31]

The group takes a good hour verifying the perimeter of the ziggurat, and then up and around the various levels.

Other than the one room that had the standing water in it that you didn't want to mess with ... ... you don't find the fourth gem.

Do you ... explore the water after all? or quit the ziggurat for now?

[Blackhawk101]

“Never leave aaa murky pond unexplored, I always say!”
Fronaldo stutters with false bravado. He pulls a vial of greenish blue icor from his kit and drinks it down. Webbing forms between his fingers. He takes off his haversack and boots, taking out his favorite knife.
“If I am not back in 5 minutes, just wait longer,” he says.

Spoiler: crunch

Show

drink extract Monkeyfish

Fronaldo eases into the pool and submerges feeling and looking around the best he can.

[lostsole31]

Surprise Round ...

Fronaldo slipped into the water underneath the thick, scummy algae, only to find that he is not alone. He slips into a whole batch of slimy bugs under the water that swarm him! They attach themselves to him and he takes 5 damage + 1 STR damage + 1 CON damage from blood loss as these things are all about him and suck at his blood.

Fronaldo, roll two Fort saves in this specific order:
1) Fort save vs. distraction.
2) Fort save vs. poison.

[Blackhawk101]

“Bad Idea! bad idea! Help!”

Spoiler: crunch

Show

Fort - (1d20+8)[19]
poison - (1d20+12)[18]

[lostsole31]

Begin Round One ...

R1T28: Fronaldo pops his head up and calls out, “Bad Idea! bad idea! Help!”

Fronaldo, what do you do?

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo hops out of the water and moves up the ramp away from the others. He retrieves a flask of alchemist fire from his belt.
“Stay back!”

[lostsole31]

R1T28: Fronaldo hops out of the water and moves up the ramp away from the others. But the ramp is slick with algae (difficult terrain), so has no more time for anything else. “Stay back!”he calls, in warning of what he has planned.

R1T22: Xhanfaerd, what do you do?

[silphael]

Spoiler: Collective

Show

"Away from the water !"

He moves away as well, before getting ready to cast a spell.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Moving to the most southern square from which I still can see the wall and the water in the sunken room.

Readying a spell : when the swarm's turn starts, he'll cast Stone Call as far away from the party as he can, as long as every pc that acted in between moved away. He'll redirect damage suffered by allies to himself.
Bludgeoning damage - (2d6)[9]

[lostsole31]

R1T22:

Spoiler: Xhanfaerd >>> Collective

Show

"Away from the water!"

Xhanfaerd moves away as well, before getting ready to cast a spell.

R1T7: Book, what do you do?

[BuckGodot]

Book does his best to tumble past Frondalo to the south.

Spoiler: Technical Information

Show

Use Acrobatics to move past Frodnalo.

[lostsole31]

R1T7: Book does his best to tumble past Frondalo to the south.

R1T4: Aron backs away with the others.

R1T3: There is a churning of the water, but nothing comes out of the water.

End Round One, Begin Round 2 ...

R2T28: Fronaldo, there are several leeches on you now, but outside of the swarm they don't do amount to anything unless you leave them there. What do you do?

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo removes them from his body; carefully checking all his nooks and crannies. He asks the others to face away while he does.
“Let us never speak of this, yes?”

[lostsole31]

We are now out of initiative ....

[Blackhawk101]

Spoiler: Fronaldo>>>collective

Show

“Got anything to help with the blood loss Xhan?”

Fronaldo dresses and leads the group with book and he in the lead out of the ziggurat and follows the city perimeter to the East, following game trails and paths vs. breaking a new trail.

[lostsole31]

Let's slow the roll some .... Xhanfaerd, Book ... are you fine with quitting the ziggurat for now and heading east?

[BuckGodot]

As long as there appears to be no other way to circumvent the water.

[silphael]

"There might still be something there, but do we have what it takes to deal with swarms ? For now, I think we could go explore some other parts of the city."

[lostsole31]

And so, the Pathfinders move eastwards, following Fronaldo. Getting to a tar pool, they go only slightly south of it before continuing east. There is a pathway heading into internal jungle that the party takes. Then comes a point where the jungle is extremely dense.

Does the party go to slogging with machetes or what not, or reroute?

[BuckGodot]

While prepared to continue, Book urges that they backtrack and find a different way.

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo will lead the party back the way they came and head South when possible.

[lostsole31]

The party heads SE and around a spur of trees to then head east again. They get to a point where a parallel-course, large tar pit abuts the thick jungle. Some 200' to the southeast, they see another structure they hadn't seen before.

Do you go all around the large tar lake to check out that building to the east, or try going into the tar swamp of a jungle?

[BuckGodot]

Book will tap Fronaldo on the shoulder and say, "'Naldo... Check out that building over there. We should have a look..." and point at the building to the east.

[Blackhawk101]

Fronaldo looks to the structure and begins heading towards it moving around the lake.

Spoiler: crunch

Show

knowledge check about the structure and its use.

[lostsole31]

Fronaldo has no idea what the ancient structure might be, but mainly because the Azlanti ziggurat was mainly well put together, and whatever structure you are heading to is a crumbling ruin and hard to make out (and significantly smaller).

The party goes ALL THE WAY around the long tar lake. They get to a point (S2) where there are a whole lot of dead charau-ka, dead for a few days. Several of the bodies were killed by a variety of normal weapons, but some of the bodies were killed by - or included injuries by - firearms. If it wasn't clear before, a couple days ago the sounds you heard was a large force of firearms-inclusive wielders conducting some type of attack on Tazion. Thus that "strange thunder" and acrid smoke you had dealt with.

The party finally gets to the structure (U). To be clear, since they were focused on this on their inner perimeter travels, there was a tall, ruined structure in the very center of Tazion that they have yet to deal with (V).

Even as they get close, they hear a sound, not loud, but definitely consistently there. By the time they get to this ancient ruin of a tower, the unmistakable hissing of many, MANY snakes can be heard. The party does a circuit around the building, and there is only one ancient set of stairs leading inside. Fronaldo even sees LOTS AND LOTS of snakes up there.

[BuckGodot]

”Do I need to say it again? Or do you all get the point?” mutters Book.

[Blackhawk101]

“Can we use the tar to disperse the snakes or make fiery brands to ward them from attacking? Cut several branches and wind cloth dipped into the tar onto the stick? Shall we try an experiment?”,
suggests the diminutive goblin with obvious excitement with the prospect of playing with fire.