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Tiana approaches to within 20' and makes her save pretty easy at this range.

Her spell fails. Maybe she has no idea why? Or maybe the fact that two magic creatures have been unable to approach within a mile of the castle is a clue...

Bruce moves over and takes the torch, and gets some oil prepared...his save vs fear is a success. He lobs the flask of oil down the stairs and misses very badly, hitting the roof of the stairwell and getting the oil on the stairs.

He gets more oil. This time his roll is also a dismal failure. He has succeeded in coating the stairway with oil but not so much has gone down into the actual passageway beyond.

He lights the oil and there is a large and very smoky conflagration in the stairway. The screaming noise intensifies. He moves back to safety.

"Um....sorry. It's just kinda hard to aim it so it goes along the passage and doesn't just hit the roof."

In fact, this doesn't look very hard at all. He just messed up the shots, terribly. He looked like his was the first time he had ever thrown an object in his life.

So far you have used 2 flasks of your oil, and Bruce has used both of his flasks.

Hahaha! You never told me when I was rolling characters that dwarves were clumsy!

Ok, Kilian decides he needs to go set things right. After filling up two more flasks, he'll go to the entrance with his crossbow and aim for something, ideally at the beast.

I figured that spell failure would happen. You slipped it earlier. But I wouldn't have known in-game, so went with it anyway. Tiana can wonder and think about it as she gets out the other crossbow to load for Kilian.

Once the blaze has died down a bit, Kilian makes his way over to the entrance and...MAKES his save! Thank the Rockfather.

If he wants a straight shot he'll have to go down the stairs. So, he walks carefully down the 10' staircase, which turns from its east facing, and leads south. This explains why the oil had little effect.

He sees a 10' wide passageway, about 15 foot long, ending in a stone door. In front of the door is a half-humanoid figure about 1.5 feet tall that seems to be growing straight out of the ground. It has no legs, so seemingly cannot move. (Basically it is a half-formed gump, behaving like a good old fashioned shrieker, with a fear spell on its scream).

If he wants to shoot or lob oil at it from here, he will have to take the risk of viewing the creature - that's a will save to avoid looking at it, and then a save vs. magic to avoid whatever nasty effect meeting its gaze might have. Last time it was a near death experience for Freya for a baby gump. He will have a +2 bonus on both because the corridor is still pretty smoky.

Or, he could leave.

Bruce is up above, waiting to come down and try to drag him out. Everyone else is where you say they are.

I only have three flasks of oil left! That's right... I changed from oil to torches, so that means not as much oil as I thought.

Ok, we're going to do this the old-fashioned way. Crossbows! Fortunately, Talin is pretty good at them. Here's the plan: the party has two mirrors and two crossbows. Kilian has a brilliant idea. He borrows one of Tiana's scroll cases and attaches a mirror at the bottom, and another mirror at the top. "Trust me, I know wot I be doin'." he grumbles. He spends a few minutes destroying the scroll case, and ends up with...


"Dat's right. A genuine dwarvish wallpeeker. We used deese all da time when fightin' de gobblins. I'da coulda dun better 'ad I a forge and some real tubes." He then explains to the others how it works, leaving out most of the physics. After attaching it to the crossbow, he finalizes with "Dere ye go, Talin. Ye should be able to shoot without a penalty to ye roll now."



Meanwhile, Tiana is going to load a crossbow every round. Freya, Bruce, and Anna can keep watch to make sure nothing else sneaks up on them.

The DM is mystified by how that is actually supposed to work in practice.

Do you mean you are going down the stair to the corner, attaching this thing in top of the crossbow and then fire around the corner?

In any case Talin fails his fear save and runs away to be with the cowering Fido.

Tiana makes her save at close range. Freya also saves and can approach. Anna also makes her save, but refuses to try the new technique, and suggests 'Bryce' and Kilian should do it, them being the Xbowmen.

Bruce will step up and have a shot with the new contraption. He fails dismally, again.

'Er...I think this one might be up to you, boss,' he says to Kilian. 'I'm having a bad beard day.'

Oh please just kill the damn thing. PS - is Bruce's weight allowance factored in in your total calculation? I added an extra 2 flasks of oil onto his sheet, so he could use them in this encounter. I think you have only used 2 flasks, apart from that. How many did you bring?.

Kilian glares at Talin, Bruce, and the rest of the world. Grumbling about how he has to do everything he'll take the shot as well.

I was thinking actually of using it as a periscope, so the gunner could take a straight shot without needing to look directly at the target. Think of it like a hip fired crossbow but the eyelet at eye level, allowing it to be targeted directly over the crossbow bolt. It'd work similarly if the tube was horizontal, allowing the gunner to shoot around a corner and still sighting well.

In computing encumbrance, I think only counted the four PCs and Fido. Tiana happened to have four flasks of oil (now two) and Talin one.

This mean Bruce has lots of encumbrance to carry all the loot you find.

The following scene involves a lot of swearing and running up and down stairs to get newly loaded crossbows.

Kilian, using the odd new contraption, misses.
Then hits, near its foot.
Then misses.
Then misses again, and there's aloud twanging sound, and Bruce's (slightly bodgy nisha) crossbow is in need of repairs.
The finally, he hits it straight between the eyes.

He sees it dissolve into a pile of goo.

The screaming noise stops.

Talin and Fido can now approach.

Now he has a bit of a chance to look in the corridor, Kilian can see the half-formed gump was growing directly out of a magic triangle similar to the one you saw in the tower, earlier.

This mean Bruce has lots of encumbrance to carry all the loot you find.

And Anna too!

They'll burn the rest of the gumpism. Tiana will take a closer look at those runes and try to decipher them. What else is in the room? Freya will listen at the door.

Nothing else in the room. Really, it's just the end of an entry corridor.

The door is stone, set into the wall, about 8' wide. It would swing outwards. It is very old. There is an old 9th century lock on it.

Freya cannot hear anything beyond. Kilian listens too, and pokes around for a bit, and thinks there's a whole underground level past it, with more stairs leading down just beyond the door.

The rune triangle look to Freya like...human magic? That's all she knows. Maybe from the fabled city of Corin where the black mages used to dwell?

Gumpism burned. No extra oil for that.

Tiana will scribe down the runes. Unless she thinks this is a bad idea, Kilian will then borrow Bruce's hammer and smash the runes into little bits. The little bits will then be put into a small sack for future smelting.

Assuming lightning doesn't shoot out and destroy everyone, they'll go back up to the tower and do the same with the other runes. Mighty smashings and smeltings ensue!

Freya will investigate the door further. Is the door locked? Can it be locked from this side? Also, how stable do the walls/ceiling appear right now?