D&D 5E [D&D 5e] Planescape - In Through the Out Door

[Quickleaf]

And here I thought you didn't want your name getting out like this, o Master of Awkward Pauses. I was planning to start calling you Shandi! That said, for all that these 'eye tyrants' sound like a terrifying group, this one doesn't seem threatening in the slightest- well, unless he were to float over and try to bite me. Any precautions you might suggest in case of sudden betrayals by our intended rescuer? I certainly don't see another way out of here- unless this Bix guards one of these 'portal' things that are apparently all the rage in this place.

Telepathically to Graydon: Aren't you just the soul of wit? Yes, this Bix appears to be an outlier. To be honest, I've done my best to steer clear of beholders, nasty aberrations, and other mad things. Though research by the esteemed abjurer Abelard does indicate a reflective surface may be effective against certain - though not all - eye ray attacks the creatures are capable of.

[section]Picayune eyed Shandrizar. The book was a curiousity. Picayune's fingers twitched. He shook his hand, trying to quelch the urge to grab the book and crack open the spine. When temptation overbore will, Picayune poked a finger at Shandrizar. "Say, brother. What kinda thing you be? Ain't never seen no talkin' flyin' book afore. You got music in yous?" The effigy lilted his head to the right, making a study of the tome.[/section]

The floating spellbook indignantly arches a papery brow at being poked. "I say! I am not a 'thing'. I am Shandrizar, Master of the Celestial Orrery, Keeper of the Profound Truths...oh bollocks. I am a wizard, sir. Trapped inside a book. No music and no spells, I'm afraid. A temporary predicament I assure you. Though on clear nights on Elysian Fields I often felt the conductor of a symphony of heavenly choirs. Now, the best you'll get out of me is a B flat." Shandrizar winces when he realizes his unintentional book pun. After a moment, he regards Picayune's unusual state. "And you are a ghost I take it?"

 

[Queenie]

OOC: What CB said. It's mass chaos here. In three weeks, we're going on vacation and at that point we'll be cut off from the internets for a while. The actual problem here is, yet again, I did not get notification to my email, which would have sent me right to the thread. Apologies everyone! I don't know why that keeps happening. : ( As for Lili she will keep concentrating to see if she can get some surface thoughts.

"Shush! There are 7 out there!" Liliana says quickly, keeping her concentration on the keyhole.

 

[Pembinasa]

"...And do they look the same as the one we just dealt with?" Graydon whispered back, trying to formulate a proper plan for getting the creatures away. The old 'screams of horror from the other way to give them something to find' might work, but they needed other options!

Absently noting his famiiar's complete lack of subterfuge yet again, he considered. More grease might help out in a pinch, give them a chance to escape unharmed- but the odds weren't good enough and their travel would still be noticed. RRRGH, what else would get the bugs out of their way?

...Hmm, maybe the invisible musician could be of help there.

OOC: no kidding. If there's one problem I have with this blasted site, it's the inconsistent notifications! I love the game, but I miss playing in places where updates are *reliable*.

 

[Shayuri]

"Bix," says Shard gruffly, "The portal...how will we know it? We may have to take it at a sprint."

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[section]Picayune eyed Shandrizar. "Elysian Fields?" A wan eye ranged over Shandrizar's form. "You from Gentilly? Gentilly got 'lysian Fields Avenue runnin' through it." The effigy considered. "Naw, man. I's losin' it. You hain't from Gentilly. Never seen no floatin' book dere, no sir." Picayune shook his head in mock sorrow. "Dis one sorry sad sack craaaay day. Giant bugs, demons, smoke, brimstone, magic portals, some weird floatin' eyeball, and now a talkin' Mary Poppins book. If dat don' beat all. An' hellllll, NO, I ain't no ghost. I's a jazz playah. Trombone." Picayune brandished Ole Bess for Shandrizar to inspect.[/section]

 

[CanadienneBacon]

While Shandrizar looked at the trombone, Picayune eyeballed Shard and Bix. He watched to see whether Bix was going to lead the group to the promised portal.

 

[Quickleaf]

Listening to the very unusual Prime with his curious dialect, Shandrizar arches a papery brow. "I know neither Mary nor her Poppins. And what is Jazz? I take it the trombone is your casting implement? It sort of looks like a rod, staff, or wand, actually."

 

[Unsung]

Bix looked practically nauseous with fear. He gulped, again forcing you to wonder about the exact mechanics of exactly where he could be swallowing to. "Through here, on the other side of the courtyard, straight across, between the two wooden fences, at the back of the skinniest of the row houses," he said quietly, "there's a bricked-up door in the middle of the wall. Whatever is waiting for us out there, we all need to go through that door as fast as you can run, okay? It's not going to look like you can go through it, but trust me, you can."

There was a concussive crack and some fizzy lightning that travelled along the walls from back down the hall. Bix closed his big central eye, and edged closer to the door-- not close enough to touch it, but it wasn't as if Bix had hands, anyway. "On three, okay? One..."

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Rusty unfolds itself and prepares to follow the floating eye-thing's directions.

 

[Pembinasa]

Graydon nodded, whispering back. "I'll try to lay down something useful as we go, to distract and inconvenience them. On your mark!"

The wizard held a spell at the ready, to be discharged as soon as the door opened and he had an acceptable cluster of targets...

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[section]Picayune snorted at Shandrizar. "What da 'ell's a castin' 'imperment?' Dat like metallurgics? Naw, man, I ain't no metal--." The effigy left off as Bix suggested the group make a run for the bricked in door across the courtyard. He scooted ahead of the group, popping through the room's walls and entering the aforementioned courtyard. He looked for the bricked-in door inset in the wall, then closed his eyes and focused for a moment. The door soon appeared to be a regular wooden door and looked as if it were slightly ajar, waiting to be stepped through. Picayune focused once again and changed the door's color to bright yellow.

When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he focused his mind on Graydon and tried to communicate with the young mage. "Ain't noboddie wanna walk through a brick wall, so I fixed dat. Da door's yallow, an' it looks open. Ya'll c'mon, quick."[/section]

OOC: Casting minor illusion to transform the door so that it is more easily spotted by the group. Then casting message at Graydon to alert him to the change in the door's appearance.

 

[Unsung]

Even though Bix doesn't seem to touch the door, it creaks open, with the beholder sheltering behind its upper corner.

The courtyard is a crowded square, full of waist-high dead grass and overlooked by high rooftops. Hook-like crescents jut from the eaves, like the claws of some colossal bird of prey. Pockmarked brick columns prop up low, tiled awnings.

Huddled in the middle of the courtyard are the seven odd creatures Liliana saw through the keyhole. They resemble the beetle-like monsters you saw before, but smaller than the others and somehow...unfinished. Their shells are translucent, pinkish, and faintly sticky. They are clutching various blades, clubs, and other implements in their nubby pincers, however.

One turns toward the creaking door, its red pomegranate eyes glistening wetly.

What do you do?

[sblock=Oz, Shandrizar]These beings are skeroloths, the lowest of the low among the yugoloth race. Like the heavily armoured but stupid dergholoths, they represent a demotion from a higher rank. They are individually weak and consumed with a deep-running cowardice, but unlike dergholoths they retain some spark of their former intelligence.

[sblock=Intelligence (Arcana) DC 13 or Intelligence (Religion) DC 15]Nevertheless, skeroloths are still fiends, and do at least possess the yugoloths' innate magic resistance, immunity to poison, and teleportation. Furthermore, they have power unique to themselves-- the ability to make themselves so preternaturally pitiful that no thinking being could bring itself to strike them.[/sblock][/sblock]

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Rusty forms its arms in to scimitar and shield once more and takes up a defensive stance near Graydon.

 

[Shayuri]

Shard pushes to the front and moves towards the creatures at an unhurried pace, her face a hard mask of revulsion. The stone in her forehead blazes with sudden effulgence, and a tiny sphere of swirling fire gathers in the air ahead of it, spinning like a tiny sun.

She calls out in a foreign tongue and points at the yugoloths, and the flaming sphere responds by streaking away from her and impacting the ground in their midst...then exploding with a hollow 'WHOOMP' of suddenly expanding air and crackling fire.

Then in common she says to any survivors, "Leave our path and survive. Stay and be cut down."

(Move out into the courtyard, cast Fireball upon them!)

([roll0] fire damage, Dex save DC 15 for half)

 

[Unsung]

OOC: [sblock=Disregard]Yugoloths: DC 15 Dexterity saving throw with advantage (Magic Resistance) vs Shard's Fireball Yugoloth (1) - [roll0], [roll1]. Yugoloth (2) - [roll2], [roll3]. Yugoloth (3) - [roll4], [roll5]. Yugoloth (4) - [roll6], [roll7]. Yugoloth (5) - [roll8], [roll9]. Yugoloth (6) - [roll10], [roll11]. Yugoloth (7) - [roll12], [roll13].[/sblock] Once again: Fire Ball and the Seven Yugoloths (DC 15 Dexterity check vs Shard's fireball): 14#1d20+5 8 16 14 13 18 18 12 7 18 18 17... Shard's fireball destroys two of the yugoloths outright (#2 and #4). Next: initiative checks, please, everyone! Yugoloths - Initiative: 1d20+3 8

Even caught caught off guard as they are, the little horrors scatter like roaches. The two at ground zero are incinerated in a flash-- the others badly scorched.

The dry grass in the middle of the tiny courtyard turns instantly to kindling; flames lick up the walls.

"Gahh! Are you crazy?!" Bix yelps, shrinking back. "You're gonna set the whole block on fire!" His eye rolls back as if to look over his nonexistent shoulder. The clash of battle and crackle of arcane forces continues to echo from the floor below. "...Any of the parts that aren't already, I mean!"

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Rusty initiative - [roll0]

 

[Quickleaf]

OOC: Initiative: 1d20+3 20 Arcana check (DC 13): 1d20+4 16

Shandrizar winces at the sudden and unannounced heat emanating from Shard's fireball spell. As his life force is bound in a dry stack of paper pressed between leather covers, the flames are especially nerve-wracking for him. Despite this, he takes note of Shard's unorthodox spellcasting methodology, making a point to ask her about it when their lives are not in mortal peril.

His papery features wrinkle in distaste at the chitinous hunched monsters before them. "Skereloths," he says with all the grim disdain a household exterminator might say 'cockroaches.'

Telepathically, to Graydon:

Skereloths, cowards one and all. When not agitated, they might even be bribed to betray their masters. Beware, however: they are opportunists and scavengers who can teleport to come at you from any direction. Best to keep a tight formation. And like most fiends, they have an innate resistance to magic, which I suppose makes my present spell-less state somewhat less deplorable... You know, this reminds me of a treatise on an post-vivisection interview with a fiend about... I'll, uh, *gulp*, save it for later, Conjurer?

 

[Fenris]

Oz Init
1d20+4=7

Oz watches the yugos burn. "Nice shot Shard" he chuckles "Anyone have a marshmallow?"

 

[Queenie]

Initiative (1d20+5=9)

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Picayune [roll0]