GAL 9: TPo1KS (After Action Report)

Post by **GathersIngredients** » Sun May 31, 2015 2:43 am

Erm it could be a combination lock, also, as in you have to do all those positions one after the other in order to "open" the "vault", if any.

Walks stays well away from the statue and readies herself to bandage anyone injured. If nothing bad happens, climb down further and examine the minotaur head. (not taking the dagger!)

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Sun May 31, 2015 11:26 am

Turn 21: The Scorpion's (Non-Active?) Tail

Without A Past: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Tells Bad Jokes: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
Vengeful One: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
William The Red: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Forges for Food: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Walks With The Wind: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
----
Gorak, Wrestler of the River: The Pit's Surface Layer (10 Feet Down)

Statblock:

► Show Spoiler

Actions

Forges for Food (Init 71) turns the Scorpion's Tail to the left.
Gorak, Wrestler of the River (Init 55) continues climbing.
Tells Bad Jokes (Init 41) doublemoves to make it to the minotaur's head at the 300' mark.
Walks With The Wind (Init 34) doublemoves to join Tells at the minotaur's head.
Without A Past (Init 33) descends to 250 feet.
William The Red (Init 3) does not act.
Vengeful One (Init 1) tries to puzzle things out while Forges turns the tail.

Light Source(s): Tells's Torch (29 Turns), Vengeful's Gnomish Spotlight (indefinite, 60')

Can see down to: 350 Feet

---------------------------------------------------

Forges twists the tail on the scorpion to the left while Vengeful tries to puzzle things out after putting the brass buckler over the slit in case it's a trap. It's not, it's a keyhole, as when Vengeful bends down to block the slot he sees some kind of inner workings within. There is a *click* when the tail is turned by Forges, but nothing happens; further examination seems to suggest that the amazon's head facing forward is a neutral position (meaning it has to be turned left or right before whatever mechanism is connected to it will trigger). Forges also notices that the spear in the amazon's hand is loose. While it can't be removed from her hand, with a little bit of force or simply breaking the damn thing could loosen it out.

Meanwhile Tells and Walks climb down to 300' and examine the minotaur's head. It looks like it was carved by many sets of hands, as you can see gnoll, hobgoblin, goblin and orc influences. Both horns appear to swivel, allowing them to point up like a demon's or out like a bull's. The dagger seems to be inset into the tongue, and here you can see very fine silver wiring connecting the dagger to a notch which holds it in place; this is wired up into the minotaur's skull and is likely released by proper turning of the horns. The edges of the minotaur's mouth are blackened with soot and a faint burning odor comes from within the mouth itself, implying the nature of the trap if the horns are pulled the wrong way. The nosering is made of bone, but when Tells nudges it, it feels heavier, like there's something concealed inside. He nudges it again and finds it's a pull-chain, which obviously triggers... something.

Unlike the centerpiece of the fountain above them, here there don't seem to be any clues as to the proper means of releasing the dagger. Finally, when Walks pokes one of the horns, her finger seems to sink against the horn, showing an equal indentation in the other horn. One thing is for certain, you don't feel any magic coming from the dagger.

Fifty feet below you, at the edge of Tells' torch, is an archway leading down a carved hall that connects with the Pit on this side. You think you see something shiny resting against one side of the arch, possibly a shiny rock that doesn't blend in with the surroundings. The bubbling you heard earlier has grown stronger, but now you can tell it's not a river. It's many hissings and spatterings instead of water rushing along a channel and a faint acidic stench comes up from the depths; every now and then Tells and Walks can hear a "blorp" or a "bloop" that sounds like a mud pit churning or hot spring bubbling up a big bubble.

Onward to Turn 22!

Turn 22 Turn Order: Walks (91), Tells (73), Vengeful (43), William (41), , Without (34), Forges (33), Gorak (32)

Quarg · Post by **Quarg** » Sun May 31, 2015 1:02 pm

William decides to see if he can pick the lock with the tools he has...

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:29 am

posting from phone -- offline until further notice. Modem dead or unpaid land line. Tech coming 'thursday due to larger than normal workload.' Back when I can. Ok, looks like I'm back. (Seems like any time I complain, it comes back fast. if I don't, it doesn't. Go fig.)

Braineel · Post by **Braineel** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:33 am

Without attempts to clean the statues' eyes with his sleeve, inspecting them to see if they blink.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 11:55 am

I can tell you now that they do not. Just regular little garnets, nothing fancy (I won't even count that as an action).

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 11:30 pm

Got quiet around here, but I blame myself for saying I'd "be back thursday". I'm not updating until more people post actions, though...

Post by **GathersIngredients** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:00 am

Walks pulls the pull-chain, because what possibly could go wrong?

OOC: yay, Gorak is almost up at the top now. I hope he'll be back with us quickly. I daresay he would have had some useful input on the minotaur head, but I don't want to wait another 10 turns or so until he's down here.

Patdragon · Post by **Patdragon** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 3:27 am

Forges shrugs. "I guess we need a key as well" Forges inspects the hole trying to figure out what type of key would fit before heading down to the others.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:16 am

Turn 22: Fire Bad

Without A Past: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Tells Bad Jokes: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
Vengeful One: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
William The Red: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Forges for Food: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Walks With The Wind: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
----
Gorak, Wrestler of the River: Camp (0 Feet Down)

Statblock:

► Show Spoiler

Actions

Walks With The Wind (Init 91) yanks the minotaur head's pull chain.
Walks needs to make a saving throw (13+): 2 +2 (Had warning) = 4 (Nope)
Oops, the trap was triggered! Fire Blast: Walks takes 3 Fire Damage.
Tells Bad Jokes (Init 73) does not act.
Tells needs to make a saving throw (13+): 17 +2 (Had warning) = 19 (Dodges, takes 0 damage)
Vengeful One (Init 43) does not act.
William The Red (Init 41) attempts to pick the lock with the trap repairing tools (10+): 6+3 = 9 (Fail); d8: 1 (Negative Crit)
Without A Past (Init 34) cleans the mold off the statue, and realizes just what the whole thing is made out of.
Forges for Food (Init 33) inspects the lock William is trying to pick (7+): 6+3 = 9 (Success) d8: 1 (Negative Crit)
Gorak, Wrestler of the River (Init 32) reaches the surface! One turn will be spent securing the old man, then he comes back down at full doublemove.

Light Source(s): Tells's Torch (28 Turns), Vengeful's Gnomish Spotlight (indefinite, 60')

Can see down to: 350 Feet

---------------------------------------------------

Walks decides to take a blind risk, yanking on the nose chain without knowing what will happen. There's a snap and then a clinking of gears, then the sound of someone inhaling very loudly. Tells recognizes the sound as a breath-trap and wisely spins on one foot, slapping himself flat back against the wall. Walks isn't so lucky, as in between the time of pulling the chain and looking inside the mouth to see where it "snapped", she got a faceful of fire. Were it not for her magic necklace, she'd be in real trouble. There's a clicking sound thereafter; the trap has reset itself. Walks did notice that the silver wiring grew taut when the trap was about to go off, though; cutting it might trigger the trap again. Fortunately she has a trap tool kit so she can possibly disable it next round.

William decides to attempt to pick the lock with the trap tools while Forges examines the lock itself. Working together, it's still not enough to unlock the lock; Forges however noticed a series of ridges inside the lock that quite nicely match the serrations on the amazon's spear. The bad news? The spear seems to be worn from use and one of the notches has broken off, making you unsure if the lock will open fully if you manage to somehow free the spear. While William is working on the lock, however, an anti-theft countermeasure inside it triggers and now unless the key is inserted within the next sixty seconds, the countermeasure will finish cycling... and cause all the pressure points on the ground to sink down and trigger at once to trigger the meat grinder blades. It is unlikely that you can jam them all or disarm them all in that time.

Finally, Without cleans the mold off the centerpiece, and runs his hands over it a little without moving the head or the tail. Then he realizes something... that isn't shiny black metal; that's solid gold painted with a black shiny finish! This thing would be worth a fortune if it could get back to surface civilization! It's almost too heavy to carry alone however (being solid gold), and would impose a major speed penalty for carrying it but fortunately you do have some heavy muscle on the way...

As the others did not act this round, we move Onward to Turn 23!

----------------------------------------------------

Two negative crits. Rough.

Turn 23 Turn Order: Tells (100), William (81), Walks (73), Without (58), Vengeful (53), Forges (19), Gorak (8)

Quarg · Post by **Quarg** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:50 am

William will try moving the head of the amazon to the back looking position and then the scorpion tail in the neutral position. If that does not release the amazon spear key he will try to force it out and stick it in the lock...

Nolandking · Post by **Nolandking** » Wed Jun 03, 2015 3:06 pm

Tells will head to archway leading down a carved hall that connects with the Pit on this side. Before he goes Tells try to find some rocks he can use to throw as each step he take toward the archway he will throw a rock and if he hear a "blorp" instead of a rock hitting the ground sound he will not pursue the shiny resting against one side of the arch.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Wed Jun 03, 2015 3:14 pm

The "blorp"s are coming from at least 400 feet; the archway is at 350.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Wed Jun 03, 2015 10:16 pm

Got the post somewhat written, where is everyone? Still waiting on two more people to act...

Patdragon · Post by **Patdragon** » Wed Jun 03, 2015 10:36 pm

hearing the mechanism begin and the fact the spear key has worn away some Forges decides to leg it out of the area before it triggers... though a brief thought occurs maybe being inside the fountain is a safe zone...

Post by **GathersIngredients** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:52 am

Walks grumbles something about Murphy and applies a medical bandage to herself. Well out of the way of the acid mouth.

OOC: I'm totally fine with Walks getting hit by the (obvious) trap. She's curious, and it's about time I played that out, sometimes apparently throwing caution into the wind.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:57 am

... acid? It was fire. Wow, are people even paying attention?

Post by **GathersIngredients** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:09 am

► Show Spoiler

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:52 am

Turn 23: The Gears of war Traps

Without A Past: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Tells Bad Jokes: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (350 Feet Down)
Tells is now out of sight of the rest of the party. They can see his torch as a point of light, but not him specifically.
Vengeful One: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
William The Red: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Forges for Food: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Walks With The Wind: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
----
Gorak, Wrestler of the River: Camp (0 Feet Down)

Statblock:

► Show Spoiler

Actions

Walks With The Wind (Init 73) heals thyself with a bandage, recovering 3 HP.
Tells Bad Jokes (Init 100) doublemoves to 350' and the archway.
Vengeful One (Init 53) does not act. (x2)
William The Red (Init 81) attempts to change up the tail and head of the statue before forcing the damn thing.
Forcing the Tail (11+): 1+1 = 2 (Doubles); d8: 5
Forcing the Spear Free (10+): 1+2 = 3 (Critfail); d8: 6
Traps trigger early (8+): 1+6 = 7; d8: 2
Without A Past (Init 58) does not act.
Forges for Food (Init 19) jumps up into the fountain to get away from the blades!
Gorak, Wrestler of the River (Init

secures the old man in the wagon.

Light Source(s): Tells's Torch (27 Turns), Vengeful's Gnomish Spotlight (indefinite, 60')

Can see down to: 310 feet (The party), 390 Feet (Tells)

---------------------------------------------------

Tells descends quickly, reaching the archway at the end of his move. The archway in question is the opening to a tunnel that stretches some fifty feet ahead. Above him in the hallway are a series of chiseled feet obviously attached to gears in the ceiling, and ahead on the ground down the hallway is a large checkerboard pattern in which every fifth square is a blue iron metal pressure plate. These pressure plates are new, there's no rust on the metal. At the far end of the hallway are two large wooden strongboxes etched with iron and bearing large locks in the shape of snarling yeti heads. Tells also notices a small shiny rock next to the archway; he picks it up to find it's a small red spherical stone... if this isn't the floating stone the Talker showed off early on, it looks identical to it (and floats the same way, too!)

Meanwhile, while Walks bandages herself up and makes an acidic joke that goes over the heads of everyone, William forces the movable parts of the centerpiece, snapping the tail back to the neutral position after a bit of a fight. There's another snap sound as he effectively breaks the thing, then when he twists the amazon's head around to the back position, it comes off in his hand and falls into the fountain (the doubles just mean you didn't trigger the Scare spell that would go off if the positions were improperly set). Annoyed, he tries to force the key free, but the ridged part breaks off in his hands and effectively ruins the key. If you want to take this centerpiece, you're going to have to rip it from its housings, possibly damaging it.

About 30 seconds have passed; Forges has leapt into the fountain's little alcove and balanced himself on it to get out of the range of the about-to-trigger trap (I'll be rolling a balance saving throw for Forges next turn at 7+). William on the other hand will be hit unless he climbs up into the alcove, climbs back up to the rest of the party, or goes down to join Tells. If he doesn't move off the ledge next turn, he'll be sliced open by the traps, potentially hit multiple times.

Finally, Tells shines his torch down. While he doesn't see the source of the hissing and spattering, you can tell that this portion of the Pit is now closing in again (the "potion bottle" shape is bottoming out) and that the next portion leading down deeper into the pit will be at the center of the 400' mark; likely a ladder. Something -barely- reflects light down there; if you weren't seeing things, you'd say there's a large black blob down there that has a liquid-like surface texture, shifting and changing and trying to reach "up" the walls with tendrils of itself (which is what you saw).

Onward to Turn 24!

----------------------------------------------------

The Ioun Stone was the Talker's; this is where it landed.

The proper sequence for the scorpion and amazon was both to the left. Then the scorpion would have animated, stinging the amazon and she slumps forward dead (a corpse... terrible clue but I couldn't think of anything better) to free the key that frees it from its holdings so you can loot it. That... didn't quite go according to plan. Normally in the event of a wrong setting, the Scare would trigger and the affected targets would back-step to the pressure plates uncontrollably, triggering the blades.

Turn 24 Turn Order: Gorak (96), Tells (65), Vengeful and Forges (both 59), Walks (47), Without (43), William (37)

ChuckDaRighteous · Post by **ChuckDaRighteous** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:50 pm

ooc: Sorry for not posting. Been sorta hectic here and the only times I've been on were when I was tired and not fully up to puzzles, so I kept putting off posting an action.

Vengeful who had been sitting back trying to think out the puzzle gets annoyed when his comrade's brute force solution doesn't pan out. He waits for the traps to trigger then heads down further.

Quarg · Post by **Quarg** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:50 pm

William hadn't ment to force it into position...but then apparently he can't read the DM's mind either.

William climbs off the ledge and up to the rest of the party members...

Braineel · Post by **Braineel** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 8:04 pm

Wow, unlucky.

Without attempts to get as far away as possible from the trap that's about to trigger.

Post by **GathersIngredients** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:52 pm

Walks turns the horns to the sides, like they would probably look on a regular bull/minotaur head. She's mindful of any more fire or other things coming out of it, and does NOT pull the nose ring.

Patdragon · Post by **Patdragon** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:41 am

Well while i did actually say Forges legged it out of there and it was only a thought that the fountain was going to be safe... he keeps with what was written and tries to wedge him self in place and watch how the traps will spring to see if the more experience he has watching traps trigger the better he will be at spotting them as they go down.

Aegis J Hyena · Post by **Aegis J Hyena** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:08 am

Turn 24: Descending Further

Without A Past: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
Tells Bad Jokes: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (350 Feet Down)
Vengeful One: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
William The Red: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
Forges for Food: The Pit's Graveyard Layer (250 Feet Down)
Walks With The Wind: The Pit's Blue Metal Layer (300 Feet Down)
----
Gorak, Wrestler of the River: The Pit's Surface Layer (60 Feet Down)

Statblock:

► Show Spoiler

Actions

Gorak, Wrestler of the River (Init 96) doublemoves down.
Gorak Loses His Footing (1): 2 It's a d20, essentially a save; his movement isn't the best and he's making all possible speed/rushing to rejoin you
Tells Bad Jokes (Init 65) does not act.
Vengeful One (Init 59) doublemoves down to the 300' mark and the minotaur head.
Forges for Food (Init 59) attempts to learn about traps by observation. 4+2 = 6 (needed doubles); d8: 1 (Negative Crit)
Balance Saving Throw (7+): 11
Walks With The Wind (Init 47) turns the horns to the sides.
Walks needs to make a saving throw! (13+): 13 +2 (Expecting trouble) = 15 (Dodged)
Without A Past (Init 43) quickly climbs down and away from the trap, reaching the 300' mark.
William The Red (Init 37) joins the rest of the party members; he was beginning to climb -up- to them as they were climbing -down- toward Tells, so he joins them by going down to the 300' mark.

Light Source(s): Tells's Torch (26 Turns), Vengeful's Gnomish Spotlight (indefinite, 60')

Can see down to: 360 feet (The party), 390 Feet (Tells)

---------------------------------------------------

Avoiding the trap, the majority of the party climbs down to the 300 foot mark where the minotaur head is. Forges elects to stay up where he is and watch the traps, attempting to learn something, but the only thing he learns is that the trap, thanks to William's messing around (once the tail was moved it was "locked" into position, which is why he had to "force" it in the last turn), has "locked" it in the "on" position. While it's comical to see him stranded up there on top of the fountain and centerpiece, the bigger threat will be once Gorak gets down to this level; how will he avoid it? It can't be jammed without a trap tool kit (which Forges has, though this'll delay him a couple of turns)

Meanwhile, Walks turns the horns to the sides where both click into position. As she touches the horns, her fingers sink into them, causing indentations to appear in the opposite horn where her fingers touch one horn. Once the horns are locked, there is a ghastly "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and the entire mounted head springs forward on a hidden wire and spring (basically it's a "punch glove" practical joke). Walks was expecting trouble this time and slips to the side, avoiding getting knocked into the abyss. Once the trap triggers, it resets itself and the horns and the indentations disappear from the horns (which feel spongy to the touch rather than hard). The dagger is still locked in place, however upon closer inspection after the trap, it's seen that the wire holding the dagger in place is -also- wired to additional gears (so another trap will trigger if the wires are cut, possibly a lock-jaw or something to close the mouth and make the dagger almost unreachable.)

Whatever is down below Tells threw a portion of itself at him. A black blob splatters against the wall of the Pit; the whatever-it-is is ranging its shots.

Onward to Turn 25!

----------------------------------------------------

I debated stranding Forges based on the negative crit but went with the "locked in the on position" instead. Forges can escape it with no problem because he DID say he was getting away from the trap ASAP and I misread.

Turn 25 Turn Order: William (83), Gorak (73), Vengeful (67), Without (37), Forges (30), Tells (28), Walks (8)

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GAL 9: TPo1KS (After Action Report)

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