Night Below

E-mail Turn, 21 June 2001

Battle with the Servitor Derro, Round 4

 

Intentions:

 

Castinar: move U13a, ready action - shoot derro if appears ahead
Katrina: watching down both passages ready to plug any derro
52: the first of the new derro to appear, yells loudly, moves to and attacks

- Kat adjusts to this initiative count and fires +1 arrows at 52
Bohica: 5’ step, mirror image on self
Matar: fly to X10d, attack 52 2hO pa9
Nikki: ??? stay invisible and up high
51: attack Thengal
7: moves forward yelling, attacks Bohica
10: moves forward yelling, attacks K'harn
Shadow: step toward barricade, hold for 8, two arrows at 8, drop bow
Amber: fly near ceiling, ready with silence or medic
Diana: cast Haste on self, then MM on yelling derro
Hunter: ??? stay put
8: moves forward yelling, runs towards barricade

Ariessus: cast spell to seal tunnel
K'harn: stay by Ari’s side
9: same as 8
Thengal: attack 51, 2h
Bohica: move to S11c
5: attack Matar
11: move forward, attack Ari

 

Notes:

 

Matar, you can’t charge while flying unless you are able to dive.  There’s not enough room to dive in here, nor were you high enough anyway.

 

Castinar, I think you gave me Shadow’s actions assuming that 8 was already next to her, which he wasn’t, so I adjusted her to take advantage of the targets which she could see at the time.

 

There was a question about invisibility and Combat Empathy.  I had forgotten about that.  In the past we had played where anybody invisible (it was usually Sane) was not a player in the CE spell.  Now we’ll do this - CE allows continued empathetic communication (emotions, simple pictures) with invisible party members.  However, the party member’s location is only generally known, i.e. in ‘that’ direction, close, medium or long range.  It will definitely not be good enough for spell targeting.

 

On the map things may not look exactly as you planned.  This is because I’m going to try and be a little better about keeping people within their sub-grids (remember, each square is 10’, so each 10’ square is divided into four 5’ sub-grids).  Loose positioning of people on the map in the Jurgenville game lead to some confusion.  So I’ll try to be better about keeping people in one of the four sub-grids.  Figure if at least half of the sub-grid is open you can stand there.  Also on the map I’ve put the invisible people in blue.

 

Finally, I made a big mistake when writing up this round.  Somehow I had Bohica’s name written up near the top in initiative order, so I put his action up there.  By the time I realized my mistake (near the end of the round when I saw his name again) I would have had to change a bunch of things to make it right. So we’ll leave the round as-is (something which is a good thing for Bohica), but Bohica is back to his normal initiative count.

 

Events:

 

Unaware of the impending ambush from the rear, Castinar moves forward to U13a.  He watches down the passage leading deeper into the derro lair, ready to fire at any derro that should appear.

 

Katrina, maintaining her position up near the ceiling, continues to watch in all directions for derro, an arrow notched and ready to fire.

 

Bohica, K’harn, and a few of the others near the rear of the party hear a grating sound from behind them.  Looking around, they see a section of the wall swing away (the red circle on the map).  Derro begin to rush out, yelling at the top of their lungs to sound the alarm. 

 

The first derro out wears a sash across his chest, marking him as a leader.  He rushes forward to where Bohica stands and slashes at the mage with his dagger, then tries to slam into him with a spiked shield.  The dagger slips past Bohica’s defenses, drawing blood.

 

Katrina’s attention is drawn to the yelling down the corridor.  She quickly gauges her angle and then fires at the derro lieutenant.  The first arrow flies true, but the second impacts on the wall above the derro’s head and goes skittering down the tunnel.

 

More than a little concerned about the sudden turn of events, Bohica steps away from the derro warrior and casts a Mirror Image spell.  The spell flares to life, surrounding Bohica with six images of himself.

 

Wanting to quickly put down the derro in the rear, Matar flies over the barricade and lands next to the derro lieutenant.  He puts all his strength into a great blow, trying to kill the derro with a single strike.  The blow is so powerful it practically makes the air scream.  But power is nothing without control, and in this case the derro’s scale armor is able to turn the blade aside.  The derro begins yelling something over and over.  Castinar recognizes it as “Invisible attacker!”.

 

Quite comfortable floating above the battle, invisible, Nikki watches the melee unfold below, not bothering to waste her spells on the derro cannon fodder. 

 

Behind the barricade the other derro lieutenant finally reacts to the sudden butchering of his command.  He too begins to yell as loud as he can, sounding the alarm as he brings both his dagger and buckler to bear on Thengal.  The old dwarf easily avoids both blows.

 

Another derro comes running out of the tunnel behind the party.  He sees that his lieutenant has the way blocked, so he yells something to those behind him.  As he moves forward he drops his dagger and pulls a crossbow up into firing position.  Seeing Amber flying overhead, he takes aim and fires at the halfling, but misses.  He then throws a lever forward and back on the crossbow and fires a second time.  This time the bolt slams into Amber.  The halfling feels a cold sensation spreading from the site of the wound.  She begins to shiver, not feeling herself at all.

 

(OOC: this is the first time poison has been successfully used under the 3e rules (I think).  So as a reminder - those hit by poison make an immediate ST to avoid initial damage.  In this case Amber missed hers and takes 1 point of Constitution damage, temporarily dropping her to 14.  She will have to make a second ST in one minute (10 rounds), unless something is done to prevent that.  I’ll show that in red under the condition area on the battle grid.)

 

A second derro comes running out behind the first.  But unlike the first, this one already has his crossbow out, ready to fire.  He too selects Amber as the easiest of the available targets.  And he too pops off two quick shots, but this time neither hit.

 

Shadow whirls around, hearing the fighting behind her.  Seeing that she can squeeze an arrow past Matar and hit one of the crossbowmen she steps forward to improve her angle, brings her weapon to her ear, and fires in one smooth motion.  A second shaft follows before the first has reached its target.  The first shot is pure skill, somehow managing to slip between the armor of the derro despite some bad luck.  The second shot is also pure skill, but at the other end of the scale.  It catches the derro in the throat.  (OOC: hit with a 2 on the first shot <ptth>, 20 on the second shot, threat hits for a crit.)  The derro gags and almost goes down, but remains on his feet - barely.

 

Amber realizes she’s not in a very secure position.  She’s also the one who has taken the most damage so far.  The halfling flies across the tunnel, ducking down a side tunnel to get out of the sight of the crossbowmen.  Staying in the air, she bandages her wounds.

 

(OOC: Hey, I just realized something.  You can’t bandage wounds to heal any more.  The only time Heal does any good is if somebody is dying.  That’s stupid.)

 

Underneath Amber, Diana glances back at the derro, and annoyed look on her face.  She casts a Haste spell on herself, then follows it up by blasting the derro leader with a flurry of magic missiles.  The lieutenant is under half now, but still fighting.

 

Hunter stays put, although he realizes his silence spell is not blocking the entire passageway.

 

Another derro emerges, again carrying a crossbow.  With Amber gone, the next best target in sight is Bohica - even though there are 7 of him.  The derro pops off two shots, both of which take out images.

 

Hearing both Matar and Amber calling for her to seal the tunnel, Ariessus moves forward to where she can see down the tunnel towards the passage she is supposed to seal.  As she begins to cast she notices a derro looking at her from down the passage.  She smiles as the thick wall of stone goes up, sealing the derro in.

 

(OOC: The tunnel is 10’ wide and 30’ high.  Ari is a 10^th level caster, so she gets ten 5’ sections, 1’ thick.  A 10x30 area would need twelve 5’ sections to cover it, so the top 5’ of the tunnel is still open.)

 

K’harn trots forward at Ari’s side, keeping a close eye on the derro behind her.

 

Another derro comes out of the tunnel, crossbow in hand.  Like his compatriot before, he takes two shots at Bohica, who is now down to four mirror images.  Again, it is the mirror images that take the attacks, although one manages to dodge the bolt that flies at it.

 

Thengal suddenly finds himself facing two derro alone.  He swings his axe at the leader, just missing.  Thengal is in turn attacked by the other derro behind the barricade, who now flanks him.  But even the flanking maneuver isn’t enough to save such a weak blow against a heavily armored and invisible foe.

 

A final derro steps out behind the tunnel.  Unlike the others, he raises his crossbow but does not fire.  His crossbow slowly tracks back and forth across the tunnel, moving from spellcaster to spellcaster, waiting for them to make a move.

 

End of Round

 

Grid and map are both updated.

 

Feel free to ask questions, but we’ll hold off on combat until chat on Friday.  Yes, we are chatting.  Hope to see all of you there except for Kim, who I don’t hope to see there.  <BG>  Just kidding.  ;-)  Kim will be out of town and so won’t be with us.

 

Saif