Adjo's Journal (35 of N)
May. 20th, 2009 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
Excellent. We've made it through 2 rooms in this mansion, there's a civil war about to erupt outside the estates and we're utterly exhausted and have to make camp in the foyer. But you know what? I'm not freezing to death so it still beats scouting missions.
Yeah, so after we set off every possible trap on the front door to the artificer's mansion, Kestrel and Alanna get the locks picked and we step inside. The first room has a lovely moat running down the center of it and the door into the mansion is at the far end on a platform jutting out in the middle. There are a number of levers, one at each corner of this room and we surmise that all four will have to be activated. Kestrel begins to hop across and since I'm not going to be leaping about like a gazelle to reach the far side, I simply poke around to see if I can spot anything in the water.
Turns out I can, a clockwork Chuul and a number of clockwork crocodiles. They came swarming out on our side and began taking huge bites out of us. Hendel pulls me back out of the immediate line of fire and I begin to ineffectively rain down spellfire on them. Eventually, a croc grabs me by the leg and pulls me towards the water. Clear of any friendlies, I activate my teleporting fire boots and blink over to the other side to take up station by one of the levers. Sadly, yet another croc spotted me and made repeated attempts to rush in and chew me up, despite my thunderwaves encouraging it to look elsewhere for a meal. After much hammering, we manage to break up all the mechanical monstrosities.
Using the levers we drain the pool and extend some walkways giving us free access to the main door. At the bottom of the pool were some unfortunate victims of the artificer, a Dwarf and and Elf. We were able to climb down and inspect the remains. In the process, the party acquired a few new magic items, chief among them a snazzy new hat for Sir Kendry that keeps us a bit more alert.
Kestrel and Alanna futz with the door to the main building and eventually get it open without injuring themselves too badly in the process. We carefully make our way into the next room which is a huge pottery workshop. Huge as in, it seems to be bigger in here than the outer dimensions of the building would indicate are possible. But we're clearly dealing with a powerful artificer.
And this is obviously an area where the clay clockwork men and the like where built at one time. It seems rather deserted now. All the kilns are sitting idle with open doors except for one with the door securely closed. As an experienced group of adventurers, we recognize a trigger when we see it. So we spread out a bit and let Thrace go up and open the door.
Out of the door pops an iron skeleton construct while others pop out from behind large pallets of clay. One of them sets Kaylee on fire with some rifle fire. It's at this point that a massive clay golem rises up and rings Kendry's bell whilst a driller appears from out of nowhere at takes a rather large core sample out of my chest.
I pull away and take cover by one of the tables next to Sir Cyrus and direct magical energies as best I can. The golem rushes forward and flails about staggering me whenever it hits. Most of the party converges on the golem while Thrace mostly deals with the driller. A bunch of minor clay constructs arrive but they're not really an issue and Hendel sweeps them up with some storm song. The iron skeletons get a few good shots in, but really aren't our priority target.
Being in a swirling melee isn't really my thing, but there's no good direction to break off in and I suffer a couple of blackout moments before being revived by the cleric. Finally, I find myself left with no reserves of energy and only just hanging on to the edge of consciousness with the iron skeletons rushing forward to squeeze us between them and the golem. I had earlier provided a healthy dose of fire resistance to my companions and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.
I set off my fireball centered right on me to catch all my foes.
When I was brought to, I discovered that my plan had actually worked pretty well. All the constructs took full damage and of my allies only one of them got singed. So a successful, if not often-to-be-used tactic.
Despite the fury of my spellfire, the constructs were still up, but they'd all just about had it. The concerted effort of the party brought down the golem and Kestrel and I rolled up the other two iron skeletons and that was it. We all look terrible and aren't in any condition to go anywhere else. So we pulled back to the moat room and we're camping out there until we can regain our strength to push on. We just hope the vultures circling about outside will be too stymied by the death shield to break in and come after us.
[NOTES: Seriously. I've got 1HP left and dump the fireball centered on me. Who did I roll a nat-20 against? Yup.]
later
Tom
Excellent. We've made it through 2 rooms in this mansion, there's a civil war about to erupt outside the estates and we're utterly exhausted and have to make camp in the foyer. But you know what? I'm not freezing to death so it still beats scouting missions.
Yeah, so after we set off every possible trap on the front door to the artificer's mansion, Kestrel and Alanna get the locks picked and we step inside. The first room has a lovely moat running down the center of it and the door into the mansion is at the far end on a platform jutting out in the middle. There are a number of levers, one at each corner of this room and we surmise that all four will have to be activated. Kestrel begins to hop across and since I'm not going to be leaping about like a gazelle to reach the far side, I simply poke around to see if I can spot anything in the water.
Turns out I can, a clockwork Chuul and a number of clockwork crocodiles. They came swarming out on our side and began taking huge bites out of us. Hendel pulls me back out of the immediate line of fire and I begin to ineffectively rain down spellfire on them. Eventually, a croc grabs me by the leg and pulls me towards the water. Clear of any friendlies, I activate my teleporting fire boots and blink over to the other side to take up station by one of the levers. Sadly, yet another croc spotted me and made repeated attempts to rush in and chew me up, despite my thunderwaves encouraging it to look elsewhere for a meal. After much hammering, we manage to break up all the mechanical monstrosities.
Using the levers we drain the pool and extend some walkways giving us free access to the main door. At the bottom of the pool were some unfortunate victims of the artificer, a Dwarf and and Elf. We were able to climb down and inspect the remains. In the process, the party acquired a few new magic items, chief among them a snazzy new hat for Sir Kendry that keeps us a bit more alert.
Kestrel and Alanna futz with the door to the main building and eventually get it open without injuring themselves too badly in the process. We carefully make our way into the next room which is a huge pottery workshop. Huge as in, it seems to be bigger in here than the outer dimensions of the building would indicate are possible. But we're clearly dealing with a powerful artificer.
And this is obviously an area where the clay clockwork men and the like where built at one time. It seems rather deserted now. All the kilns are sitting idle with open doors except for one with the door securely closed. As an experienced group of adventurers, we recognize a trigger when we see it. So we spread out a bit and let Thrace go up and open the door.
Out of the door pops an iron skeleton construct while others pop out from behind large pallets of clay. One of them sets Kaylee on fire with some rifle fire. It's at this point that a massive clay golem rises up and rings Kendry's bell whilst a driller appears from out of nowhere at takes a rather large core sample out of my chest.
I pull away and take cover by one of the tables next to Sir Cyrus and direct magical energies as best I can. The golem rushes forward and flails about staggering me whenever it hits. Most of the party converges on the golem while Thrace mostly deals with the driller. A bunch of minor clay constructs arrive but they're not really an issue and Hendel sweeps them up with some storm song. The iron skeletons get a few good shots in, but really aren't our priority target.
Being in a swirling melee isn't really my thing, but there's no good direction to break off in and I suffer a couple of blackout moments before being revived by the cleric. Finally, I find myself left with no reserves of energy and only just hanging on to the edge of consciousness with the iron skeletons rushing forward to squeeze us between them and the golem. I had earlier provided a healthy dose of fire resistance to my companions and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.
I set off my fireball centered right on me to catch all my foes.
When I was brought to, I discovered that my plan had actually worked pretty well. All the constructs took full damage and of my allies only one of them got singed. So a successful, if not often-to-be-used tactic.
Despite the fury of my spellfire, the constructs were still up, but they'd all just about had it. The concerted effort of the party brought down the golem and Kestrel and I rolled up the other two iron skeletons and that was it. We all look terrible and aren't in any condition to go anywhere else. So we pulled back to the moat room and we're camping out there until we can regain our strength to push on. We just hope the vultures circling about outside will be too stymied by the death shield to break in and come after us.
[NOTES: Seriously. I've got 1HP left and dump the fireball centered on me. Who did I roll a nat-20 against? Yup.]
later
Tom
