You're not kidding!
The shield spell seems to be more powerful in 5e! Do you still play the combats out before writing?
( I looked up the flame skull. It's AC doesn't seem anywhere near as high as I'd expected from the description, but we still play 3.5 )
I don't roll dice, but this fight in particular I sketched out round-by-round in my notes because of all of the spells and the complications added by the layout of the room (which allowed the skull to remain out of melee range). I agree that shield is quite potent in the new rules since it's essentially a free cast as a reaction, and combined with blur makes a potent defensive combination.
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Chapter 129
In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Glori and Quellan used their magic to treat the worst of their injuries.
“We’re all pretty beat up,” Kosk said. Without his robe, the others could see the taut lines of his body and the many scars he bore. “Might be a good idea to take a brief rest, use that ritual you have to restore us.”
“We can’t stay here,” Quellan said.
“What do you mean?” Glori asked.
“That thing… I know what it was,” Quellan said. “It was a flameskull, an undead guardian created from the corpse of a wizard.”
“That’s why it could cast spells,” Xeeta said. “It was drawing from the knowledge it possessed in life.”
“Why would anyone agree to do such a thing?” Bredan asked. “To be transformed so?”
“I think he meant that the wizard was already dead,” Glori said. “Or at least, that it wasn’t a voluntary thing.”
“I still don’t see what that has to do with us staying here,” Kosk said.
“The account I read,” Quellan said, “it didn’t go into much detail, but one point that was very clear was that the entity can reconstitute after it has been destroyed.”
They all looked around nervously at that. The fragments of the skull were scattered around the room, none of them larger than a gold piece. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kosk said.
“How long does it take to return?” Xeeta asked.
“I don’t know,” Quellan said.
“How do you destroy it permanently?” Bredan asked.
“Holy water,” Quellan said. “Or a ritual to remove the curse that binds it to unlife.”
“Let me guess, we don’t have either of those things,” Xeeta said.
“So you’re telling me that we’re going to have to tussle with that bastard again on our way out of here?” Kosk asked.
“That assumes that we can even go back this way,” Glori said. “We don’t know how long it takes the trap blocking the entrance to reset.” She pointed back toward the entrance corridor, which remained dark and silent.
“All right, we’d better get moving, then,” Kosk said. He started to turn toward the far corridor, but Glori interrupted him. “Ah… aren’t you forgetting something?”
The dwarf stopped and looked at her. “What?”
Glori gestured to his bare frame. “Ahem.”
Kosk shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Well, we’re not.” The bard looked over at Xeeta. “I’m going to go ahead on behalf of the female membership in our group and insist on a minimal dress code for this expedition.”
Bredan snorted, and Quellan smiled as he said, “I think I have an extra shirt in my pack.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Kosk said, but when Quellan produced the shirt he pulled it on. It hung on him even more loosely than his robe had, but it seemed to provide enough coverage to suit Glori. Shaking his head, he tore a strip off the bottom and used it to fashion an impromptu belt.
While that was going on, Xeeta had gone over to the throne. The flames had died out as the desiccated remains of the skeleton had been consumed, but the rod they’d seen earlier was still there, propped against the arm of the stone chair. She drew it out carefully and brushed off some of the soot covering it. It was about the length of her forearm, made of bronze that was discolored with age. Runes etched into the metal were just visible along its length.
“What’s that?” Bredan asked.
Xeeta held it up to catch the light from Quellan’s mace. “I’m not certain. I don’t sense any active properties of arcana from it, but it may be masked. It may just be an arcane focus, like my rod. Any objections to me keeping it for now?”
“As long as you keep it while we’re leaving,” Kosk said. He looked a bit ridiculous with the oversized shirt trailing past his knees, but he was able to maintain a certain gravitas as he led them down the other passage, still checking carefully for traps or other concealed hazards.
The corridor started out much like the first, but quickly made a sharp right after about twenty feet. As they rounded the corner they could see that the passage widened slightly into a broad niche before it ended in a stone wall that was dominated by an odd doorway.
“Huh, that’s…” Glori began.
“Don’t say it,” Bredan warned.
She shot him a wry look. “I was just going to say that it looks weird.”
The ‘weird’ door was set in a ring of stone blocks that protruded slightly from the surrounding wall. It was a disk of stone a few shades darker than the rest of the construction, a deep gray that approached black. The disk was a full six feet across, and carved into the exaggerated features of a misshapen face. The blank eyes of the relief seemed to watch them as they approached.
“There are no hinges,” Glori noted.
“Maybe it rolls to the side?” Bredan suggested.
“That would be too easy, I think,” the bard replied.
Kosk examined the door and its lintel carefully before tapping it with his staff. “Solid,” he said. “Going to be heavy.”
“You think it is a straight lift?” Quellan asked.
“Only one way to find out,” the dwarf said. He handed his staff back to Bredan and then probed at the carvings on the door before finding a good grip on the lower lip of the carving. He tried to shift it to each side, and though his muscles bulged through his new shirt his efforts had no apparent effect.
“It looks like it’s in a channel that’s straight up and down,” Kosk reported.
“We’ll have to try it together,” Bredan said. “No way we’ll all fit, though.”
“Kosk in the middle, Bredan and I to each side,” Quellan suggested.
The men put their weapons away and stepped up to the slab. The features carved into it were just prominent enough for them to get a good grip, the dwarf crouched between the two larger men.
“All right, on three,” Quellan said. “One, two, three!”
The three men grunted with effort as they strained at the door. The slab shifted slightly, suggesting that it could at least be moved, but before they could lift it any higher Bredan’s left hand slipped and it settled back into place.
“That’s not going to be easy,” Quellan said.
“Look at it this way,” Glori said. “At least the skull’s not going to be able to open it.”
“Unless it knows a magic word that just causes it to pop open,” Bredan said.
“Can we do less chatter about worst-case scenarios and just lift the bloody slab?” Kosk asked.
The three men got back into position. Bredan pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, and then laid his sword in its scabbard against the wall next to the door.
Glori began strumming her lute, repeating a simple rhythm that evoked a drum being struck. Bredan shot her a stern look, thinking maybe that she was mocking them, but at a grunt from Kosk he turned back to the door.
Once again, the three of them bent their will and their collective strength to the slab. The stone disk moved, reluctantly, scraping loudly against the channels in which it rested. It rose an inch into the air, and then two, finally revealing a narrow crack underneath it as it cleared the frame of the door.
“Keep pushing!” Kosk growled.
Glori intensified the pace of her playing. The music swirled around them, driving the men. Xeeta made a gesture and a softly glowing
mage hand appeared near the top of the door, adding a small increment of lift to the effort.
The men heaved again, and the door rose another two inches. “We can put something under it,” Bredan gasped out.
“We can’t risk it getting wedged!” Kosk said, grunting with effort. “Keep pushing! Push, damn you, push!”
The door rose another inch. Quellan dropped one hand and grabbed hold of it from below, risking his fingers to get a better hold. He leaned in and let out a feral sound from deep within, straining to push the door higher.
“That’s it!” Glori yelled, her fingers pounding the strings of her lyre. “You’re doing it!”
The door rose in short jerks. When it got high enough Kosk got under it, pushing directly at it from below. Bredan took over his grip on the stone mouth. The dark opening under the door continued to expand, revealing another dark chamber beyond.
“Glori!” Quellan said. “The mace!”
The bard responded immediately, grabbing the weapon from Quellan’s belt and thrusting it into the widening gap. It revealed a small room, maybe twenty feet square, devoid of any complex features or obvious threats.
“Clear!” she said.
“Go through!” Bredan said. “You and Xeeta!”
The two women complied, squeezing between him and Kosk. Xeeta brought Bredan’s sword with her.
“You next,” Quellan said to Kosk. The half-orc shifted so that he was under the door, the curved stone resting on his shoulder.
“Don’t let it slide an inch, or it’ll crush you,” the dwarf warned. He quickly spun to the other side of the door while maintaining his pressure on it from below.
“Noted,” Quellan said. “Bredan, move to the other side.”
“Got it,” the fighter said. Keeping his hands on the door, he duplicated Kosk’s move. “There are no carvings on this side,” he said. “We won’t be able to keep it up for long.”
“Understood,” Quellan said.
“Ready when you are,” Kosk said.
“Now!”
Kosk and Bredan gave a final heave, and Quellan ducked under the door. As he cleared it the slab came slamming down. The impact seemed to shake the room, but that might have just been the intensity of the sound on their senses.
“They probably heard that back in Wildrush,” Glori said.
Kosk ran a hand over the interior face of the slab, which was completely smooth. “Well, we’re not heading back this way anytime soon. So, where are we?”