D&D 5E (IC) Scourge of Daggerford

[FitzTheRuke]

Tommi was the faster of the two, but Lionel had a decent head-start, and the tunnel was narrow and twisted, and Tommi had to occasionally duck to avoid hitting his head. There was a good chance that Tommi would catch his friend, but it wasn't a certainty.

To add to the complications, Tommi nearly tripped over Lionel's lantern - the halfling had dropped it in the water, dousing its light. For a moment, Tommi stumbled and couldn't see the passage ahead, but then Oh-Six was by his side and shone a beam of light up the tunnel, revealing the back of the halfling splashing through the water.

Morgan climbed into the tunnel as well, and when he caught sight of the halfling in the Orb's light, he cast a spell, sending a strand of web that burst just north of the V-shaped crossroads. For a moment, it looked like Lionel would be caught in it, but oblivious to his own pain, the halfling set the web alight with an unseen fire-source and he ran through it as it burned, catching his cloak's hood on fire, as well as some of his curly hair.

OOC: Poor Lionel. Anyone else want to join in? @jmucchiello @Neurotic, @MetaVoid

 

[MetaVoid]

OOC: Sorry, I thought it was for Morgan and Tommi since one is close and the other can dash twice. The rest of us...

Vairar sighs at the happenings. How did these races ever survive if they stick their hands everywhere without worry or care. "I guess there is always one more human or one more halfling around if one dies." he thinks as he rushes after Tommi.

Once he gets a glimpse of the running halfling, he rushes through the words of the spell to hold person.

Spoiler: Actions

Move: if he can see Lionel
Action: hold person
ALTERNATE if he cannot see Lionel
Action: Dash

 

[Neurotic]

Lunn looks back and sighs. He trundles up the narrow corridor, not really trying to catch the fleeing halfling, but still keeping up to the group.
"Come, wizard. Let's keep the group together." he calls wounded Morgan

 

[FitzTheRuke]

OOC: 3-Turn Challenge: Turn One (Figure Out What's Going On) Results:

Titus had only known Lionel for a matter of months, but he had travelled extensively with the halfling and considered him a friend. In addition, Titus had only days before this, recovered from an ordeal of possession of his own. He was very sensitive to the idea. Much like Tommi before him, though they didn't know Morgan very well at all, they immediately understood who was being truthful and who was lying.

Their friend was lying. Titus followed Tommi and the others, turning to the dwarves and shouting, "Quickly! We must catch him!"

Vairar understood it as well, and as he climbed into the narrow tunnel, he tried to catch sight of the halfling, with the idea of casting a spell to catch him. It was no use. Lionel had disappeared around a bend, with Tommi chasing him. Vairar rushed along, with his boots flooded with water.

In no real hurry, Lunn also followed, trying to keep any of the others from falling behind, more than he was trying to catch Lionel - an important job, what with all the undead and gnolls about.

The two dwarves followed at the rear, arguing, "Wha's this aboot, then?" - "The 'afling took somethin'." - "Whot'n'why?" - "Lad's possessed they say!" - "Dinnae be daft. Possesed by whot?" - "I dinnae ken whot, d'ye?" - "Nae, no whot, nor why" And so forth.

By the time most of the others were out of the tight, damp tunnel, Lionel and Tommi were already gone from the red-brick room that held a deep water-basin and a broken, swollen door. The halfling's small size had allowed him to slip through where Tommi had needed to struggle to open it wide enough.

Now Tommi was at the room with the clay pots, near where they had killed the gnoll necromancer, and for a moment he wasn't sure which way Lionel had gone. There was the old swollen door that they'd gone through, what was it? Shockingly less than an hour before, or he could have gone northward toward the cellar and the stairs up. Or - there was still a way toward the crypts

OOC: We have three successes so far. Begin Turn Two: Keep Track of & Keep Up With Lionel &/or Tommi. Ability (Skill) Checks are asked for, whatever you like, but examples include: Athetics or Constitution (to just run); Perception or Survival (to listen/spot or track); others that will make more sense depending on the results of other PCs checks. Anyone need a map?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Tommi finds himself in the necromancer's lair, and there is no sign of his friend. Perhaps he is squirreled away behind one of the many nooks here; perhaps he is still in the sewer; he might even have gone upstairs. Tommi and Lionel had played hide-and-seek enogh times as boys that he knew the halfling could outclass him in any such game.

So Tommi stops, and waits for the others. "Does anyone see him?" he calls back. "Lionel!" Tommi's careful ears hear nothing of his friend.

The light is not good, and Tommi's concern for his friend outpaces any rational deduction he can make about where Lionel had gone, or why. Nevertheless, as he waited for the others to catch up with him or to tell him to charge onwards, he tried to work out, What Would Lionel Do?

OOC: Insight 1d20+9=20.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

What Would Lionel Do?

It was an excellent question, and one that had an inevitable follow-up, assuming that Doctor Morgan was right: If Lionel was possessed, Would He Do What Lionel Would Do?

There was little to indicate a clear answer, and for a brief, painful, moment, Tommi was forced to wait for the others to catch up, hoping for advice and a few extra sets of eyes and ears.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Spoiler: Dr. Morgan Wells - Mini-sheet

Dr. Morgan Wells Race: Human HP: 23/32 AC: 12/15(Mage Armour)	Pass Perc: 11 Pass Inv: 17 Pass Ins: 11	Spell Slots: 1st[X ] [ ][ ] [ ] 2nd [X] [X] [ ] 3rd [ X] [ ] [ ]
Arcane Ward: 0/16	Initiative: +2	Spell Save DC: 15
Spoiler: Stats(saves) STR: 10+0 DEX: 14 + 2 CON: 12 + 1 INT: 18+4(+7) WIS: 12 +1(+4) CHA:12 +1	Spoiler: Skills Arcana:10 History: 7 Investigation:7 Medicine: 4 Persuasion: 4 Religion: 7	Spoiler: Spells Cantrips Control Flames, Chill touch, Shape water, Shocking grasp Memorized spells 1st Grease, Mage Armour, Prot. Evil, Shield 2nd Arcane Lock, Invisibility, Web 3rd Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Slow

---

Having Baazka in his head had meant Morgan had had an opportunity to peek into his thoughts. He knew the rod would be used for some kind of portal and he knew that portal was not located in here. Granted, there might have been rare ingredients that Baazka needed that might have been secreted away in this complex but Morgan did some quick calculations, putting together what he knew about trans-dimensional travel. Was there anything that Baazka would need that he couldn't easily gather somewhere else?

He was pretty sure of the answer and he shouted out to the others as he ran after the Lionel.

"He's going that way!"

Spoiler: OOC

This is for the figuring out which direction he's going.

Arcana: 1D20+10 = [17]+10 = 27

Arcana to understand that Baazka doesn't need anything and will take the quickest route out or still needs to gather something.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Morgan tried thinking of what Baazka might plan to do with the rod, in particular if it was a sort of key, as he suspected from observing Baazka's thoughts, though the fiend (and he was a sort of Fiend, of that Morgan was sure) had tried to mask them, with a complex web of lies and a powerful force of oppressive will. And while Baazka had controlled him, he had mostly stayed to using Morgan's own abilities, Morgan knew that it had only been part of the ruse. If the Daggerfordians were onto him, then Baazka could (and would) use his own power.

Which meant that Lionel would be able to cast spells.

Morgan knew this, because Baazka had shown an innate understanding of how to use his abilities - if anything, Baazka seemed to understand it intuitively, as if he simply expected magic to bend to his will like he did the bodies that he chose to occupy.

Morgan knew that he was not powerful enough to teleport. Not that the magic was necessarily beyond his capabilities, but that if he could, he certainly would have done so from the beginning. But what was the most effective way out? It came to Morgan, though he had been the supressed personality at the time that he'd seen it, riding his own body through none of his own volition.

There was a bucket on a rope in a pool, through the swollen door to the left. There had been light from above - a well between the lodge's two buildings, quite close to under the covered pass-over hallway that connected them (the one that had collapsed). It was a way out. If Lionel could not climb the rope, which he quite likely could, then Baazka would be able to fly him out, or at least levitate!

"He's going that way!" said Morgan, indicating the swollen door to the west, as he caught up to Tommi. Tommi, who had been thinking about what Lionel would do, immediately understood what he meant as he remembered the well-bucket, though the magic never occurred to him. It was a climb straight up a rope, but nothing that Lionel couldn't handle, and then he'd be out of the building while the others were still climbing the cellar stairs, or searching through the crypts in vain.

OOC: More could still help this Turn.

 

[Neurotic]

Lunn was losing track on the runners and the dwarves were not alone, they had each other. And he assumed they will be safe enough since it seems the group is running back where they came from.

He shouts to the dwarves
"Go up into the manor and barricade that room again. Rest!"
He blazed after the cleric, just in time to hear 'that way' from Tommi and Morgan. Understanding the climbing part, not thinking of magic, his idea is immediately to cut off the escape by intercepting Lionel from above.

He rushes by, up the stairs and into the manor.

neurotic: D20 + 6#lunnathletics → 22(16 + 6)#Lunn athletics

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As Tommi and Morgan turned to the west, and the door that had been swollen shut but was now ajar, Lunn ran past them and through the cellar, heading for the floor above and the doors to outside. The dwarves followed him, but they quickly fell behind.