Night Below
Battle at the Crossroads
Round 3
Situation: The party’s attack against the derro fortifications has gone well so far, but they just discovered that they are up against mind flayers as well as a handful of derro.
Intentions:
Nikki - hold position, MM anything not party that shows up
Diana - run forward to H11, send warning about fireball next round
Bohica - move to Q14c, look for magic missile target
Derro 1 - strike at Matar
Katrina - move to G10c, shoot if has target
Derro 6 - strike at Matar
Derro 3 - wait to see what happens with Matar
Amber - Prot f/Evil on self, move to T10
Illithid 7 - <fwop> Matar
Castinar - move sphere to B9b, then move to F8b
K'harn - run to help Matar,
Illithid 8 - cast a Grease spell in D/E9
Shadow - move to M10a
Ari - sword and shield out, try to get to Matar
Matar - attack D6, hope for cleave to D1, hope for cleave to I7
Thengal - go help Matar
Events:
Now that she is within comfortable magic missile range, Nikki stays where she is, watching for any targets.
With the party finally discovering the extent of the opposition, Diana runs forward until she can just see into the doorway. She sends out a strong impulse through the Combat Empathy spell, informing the others she plans on throwing a fireball into the room next round.
Bohica moves forward as well, but not nearly as far as Diana. Like Nikki, the mage keeps a magic missile spell on the tip of his tongue, ready to use it if he sees a target.
In the room a derro strikes at Matar, first with a wickedly curved dagger, then with the spike on the end of his buckler. (OOC: since Matar isn’t completely visible he gets a +50% concealment bonus, which means any strike against him will miss 20% of the time.) Neither strike comes close.
Wanting to stay between the party’s spell casters and the bad guys, Katrina runs forward as well to stay ahead of Diana.
A second derro strikes at Matar, but he does even worse than his comrade. A derro further in the room raises his crossbow towards Matar, then hesitates. The Illithid behind him says something, so the derro moves over next to him. He peeks through the cracks in the stone wall, then points his crossbow through a small hole and fires at Katrina. The cat woman has to dodge hard, but the bolt misses her.
Back in the tunnel, Amber casts Protection from Evil on herself, then moves forward cautiously.
Now we come to the crux of the round, and perhaps the crux of the battle. The mind flayer standing in front of Matar leans towards the warrior, the tentacles around his face waving rapidly. Matar feels a wave of energy wash over him. His mind goes blank for a moment, but he fights back. It is not enough. (OOC: ST DC 17, Matar’s Will ST is 1, +3 for the Spellshield, rolled a 5 for a 9. <fwop>) He staggers back, leaning against the wall behind him as he tries to collect his thoughts, which are behaving in a most erratic fashion.
It is also with this attack that one of the down-sides to the Combat Empathy spell manifests itself. The entire party feels the backlash of the attack on Matar. While it is only a shadow of the wave that hit Matar, everybody has to take a moment to collect their own thoughts. When they do so, they find it very difficult to “hear” any of the other party members through the link as Matar puts out a lot of “static” as he struggles to regain control of his mind. (OOC: everybody moves down 1 slot on initiative. Intentions are no longer relayed through the link. You know where everybody is, and what their condition is, but not what they are planning on doing. Note if somebody else gets hit you’ll loose the condition status. If three people are stunned at the same time the “static” will be so strong the link with be worthless. Once Matar comes out of it the link will return to normal.)
After shaking off the side-effects of the psionic blast, Castinar concentrates on his flaming sphere, moving it out of the way. He then moves forward next to the fortifications.
Knowing that Matar is in danger, K’harn rushes forward, darting over the slippery rocks with ease. Arriving at the doorway, she sniffs, trying to figure out exactly where Matar is. Making her best guess, she moves forward and tries to grab a hold of Matar. Her paw snares Matar’s belt, and she tugs hard, falling backwards with the stunned fighter outside of the doorway.
Up near the fortifications, Castinar faintly hears chanting from within the small tower. He tries to warn the others, but can’t get anything past Matar’s static. To his relief no fireballs come spitting out of the tower. Instead, the observant ranger notices a shiny layer of grease now lays over the tumbled down rocks and hailstones between the two towers (orange square on the map).
With the rest of the party advancing, Shadow moves forward as well, her bow still at the ready.
Ari is relieved when K’harn pulls Matar to safety, but knows she needs to try and do something for the stunned warrior. She begins to make her way forward and then notices the grease on top of the ice, stones, and clay. She looks around for any other way past the obstruction, but sees that she would have to climb the broken interior walls of the tower to get around the slippery spot. Concentrating on her balance, she moves through the slippery area. But concentration and even a good sense of balance aren’t enough, and the cleric falls onto the uneven stones, banging her elbow up.
Matar wonders why his perspective keeps changing. But before he can put a finger on it, he wonders again why his perspective keeps changing. But before he can put a finger on it…
Thengal comes barreling out of the other building. He had planned on going in to help Matar, but now Matar was outside. He faces a difficult decision - should he try to hold the doorway, or should he try to drag Matar to safety and let Diana take care of the problem?
OOC: Since Thengal’s action is the last in the round, and since his decision is a fairly important one, I’ll let Ted decide what he wants Thengal to do. We’ll then pick up at this point on Friday when we chat.
Map and Grid are both updated.
Saif