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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hairy Minotaur" data-source="post: 4599617" data-attributes="member: 11574">Fire Safety”I ain’t waiting for you people to pull the splinters out o’ yer arses, I’m checking out the last room.” Gramps shouts as he walks the hallway to the northern and last door. With a purpose and a mind uncluttered with reason the dwarf doesn’t bother to check to see if the door is locked or trapped, he merely walks up to it and kicks it in. Stepping into the room the dwarf has entered another barracks; this one however contains four sleeping gnolls. One of which has elected to sleep in a bed within reach of Gramp’s axe as he hacks away at the neck of the beast. Screaming and unable to cover its face from the sharp blade the gnoll succumbs quickly to the dwarf’s attack.The noise brought the other three gnolls out from their slumber and they reach for their weapons before rolling out of bed to meet the interloper. The rest of the party makes their way up the corridor with Lord Horatius leading the way; they reach the room in time to see the floor in front of the door frame fill with blood from the nearly decapitated gnoll. Two of the gnolls rush the dwarf who fends off their awkward attacks easily with his tower shield. The third gnoll bounds across the beds and makes his way for the exit just behind Gramps.Lord Horatius’ appears in the doorway in his customary stance, bottle of alchemist fire in one hand and something pointy and sharp in the other hand while his mouth spews curses of all manner in every language the hexblade knows, all two of them. The bounding gnoll reaches the bed with the dead gnoll on it just to the left of the exit, it pulls up when the body of the hexblade enters and reacts to the new intruder by slamming his greataxe at the head of the human. With an amazing dexterity display, Lord Horatius twists away from the axe and tosses the vial of liquid at the gnoll who bats it back into the hallway to land at the feet of the enermancer. The hallway erupts into flames around the enermancer who dances backward only to bounce off Helga the roadblock and back into the flames.Surrounded on three sides Gramps lashes out at the gnoll to his left to try and get him to move so that Gramps can get his back against a wall. The flurry kicks up a coughing fit for the dwarf who doubles over as he hacks up the heat of battle. The gnolls press their advantage and rain battle axe blows to the undefended back of the dwarf, bringing the dwarf to his knees and making the coughing worse. Lord Horatius manages to slip his blade inside the guard of the left gnoll as he was pounding away on the dwarf. Shocked, the gnoll turns his attention to the hexblade. With a flip of a finger the hexblade activates his curse ability and an unnatural weight presses onto the mind of the gnoll. Slyphwhisper sprints past the burning straw man and covers the back of Gramps from the right gnoll as the gnoll that had leapt across the beds slides out of the room and into the hallway. The screaming enermancer begs for someone to put the flames out, ever willing to lend a hand Helga drops to all fours and begins blowing into the fire trying to put it out that way but she only manages to fan the flames back at the enermancer. Tethys and Discordia make their way up the hallway and the enermancer spies his escape route, diving at the tiefling he lands on top of Discordia weeping and begging for salve. “Sorry, I don’t do charity.” Discordia answers dropping the enermancer to the floor.Helga was too busy blowing the flames back away from her to see that the enermancer had jumped to safety. Frantic the woman reached behind her grasping for swatch of cloth from the back of her belt. She gets her hands around a good chunk of cloth and slams it down in front of her to beat the flames with. Lavender never knew what happened, one minute she’s behind the fleshy galeb duhr and the next she found herself being flung repeatedly into the floor with flames surrounding her as Helga failed to realize she had grabbed a living creature again and not some mundane piece of dungeon decoration.Lord Horatius finishes off the gnoll he wounded and using Gramps as a possible threat, Slyphwhisper gets into a flanking position with the remaining gnoll and finishes him off with a feint to the groin. The gnoll that had escaped lunges at Tethys and rips flesh from her shoulder and spins the woman into the wall face first and then down to the floor. With a drooling grin the hyena-like man eyes the warlock. Discordia aims an eldritch blast at the beast’s head and unerringly hits the ceiling above his head. Discordia backs off as the smoldering enermancer rises to defend her position. Raising his blade up to meet the massive gnoll’s attack, the enermancer’s defense collapses and the greataxe sinks into the clavicle of the human. The gnoll kicks the enermancer off his axe and brings it back up to take out the tiefling.Helga had other ideas however and the sumo woman shoves the gnoll against the wall pinning him there. The mad cow then delivers a couple shiv sticks to the gnoll’s ribs collapsing the right lung of the beast. Panic creeps in for the gnoll and he uses the increase in adrenalin to push the gargantuan paperweight off of him. Slyphwhisper seizes upon the distraction to shove his blade into the kidney of gnoll felling the beast to his knees. Badly wheezing, spitting up blood and too weak to hold his weapon any longer the beast sways momentarily in place as Tethys recovers from a quick healing spell she used on herself when she went down. Still sitting on the floor, the cleric insults the defeated gnoll, “gnolls are stupid!” and then she kicks the beast in the head sending it to its final prone position. Helga picks up the bleeding enermancer and using her eclipse-like body to cushion and cradle the injured man, she slips a potion bottle from inside her robes and uncorking it with the flick of her double-wide thumb she places the opening in the mouth of the enermancer as if she were feeding an infant. Lavender and Tethys take care of healing Gramps and finishing up the enermancer where Helga’s potion left off. Discordia enters the barracks to quickly confirm that there was nothing of magic hiding out in the room, only to be surprised when she detects something small coming from within a wooden dresser against the far corner. Lord Horatius and the tiefling investigate and return with a small amulet.“Do you want it?” Discordia asks of the hexblade“Does it cast fireballs?” Lord Horatius inquires“Don’t think so, its aura is not very powerful.” “No, don’t need it then. Why don’t you keep it?” “Nah, it would obstruct the view of my cleavage and I would feel smothered then.” Discordia hands the trinket to Lavender when she exits the room with a knowing wink. Repaired to the best of health they could be, the party heads back to the entry room where most all of the party save Gramps halts to discuss whether or not to enter the double doors and where the hostages are likely to be found. Gramps ignores the pause in the party’s advance and continues on to the south and to a door on the eastern wall. Made of stone, this door does not budge on a kick instead the dwarf has to plow into the door with his shoulder to get the heavy portal to open. Even forty feet away the party could see the dust spill from the room as the dwarf tumbles into it. Throwing their hands up the rest of the party walks south to catch up with Gramps. The room is a twenty by twenty-five nearly square dusty sitting chamber. In each corner stood a nightstand the remaining wall space was taken up by wooden chairs upon which a single beautifully crafted and shining item rested. Gramps stood just inside the door, trying not to disturb the thick dust and giving himself another coughing fit. Discordia appears in the doorframe and scans the room for magic.“The pile of coins and the candle are radiating magic.” The warlock relates“That seems odd, who would make a pile of coins on a rotting chair magical?” Lord Horatius wonders“Lemme check chief.” Helga heaves, knocking Gramps to the floor and shoving Discordia into the room as she enters. The triple Whopper saunters over to the decaying chair where the small pile of coins rests, attaining the Lotus position, Helga reaches out her arm ready to swipe the entire pile into her sticky bear claws. Gramps, who had righted himself and had come over to complain about the abrupt change in his horizon just now, grabs her hand.“You sure you want to do that? What if it’s a trap?” Gramps warns“Pppffttt.” Comes the sound effect reply from the squatting behemoth “Let me have a look.” Slyphwhisper interjects. The gnome inspects the chair and the floor beneath it and declares the area safe for pillaging.Helga’s greased palms filch the coins and in one fluid motion she shoves the pile into a fold of her robes. She stands to go to the next chair when she grabs her side where the coins went.“Ow! That hurts.” Helga complains “Yes, that is your soul rejecting the improper expectations you’ve been placing upon it. First you stretch it perilously thin as it has to cover your massive girth, then you force feed it various potions and balms. Finally the last straw was when you tried to bribe its silence as you brow beat it towards Lawful goodness. Just despicable, I’m glad it’s fighting back; if I had an extra blade to lend it or a spit to shove through you I would gladly do so to prevent the death of another assassin.” The enermancer explained Helga’s pain. Wincing in pain, Helga shoves a finger in the enermancer’s face. The enermancer, mistaking it as another gesture he returns the signal with a thumbs up and a knowing wink. Just as the coins rips through the woman’s robes and fly into the air. Small winged jackal heads swarm over the living gravity well as Helga tries in vain to swat the tiny gnats. “Fascinating, your lard has become sentient and taken on the form of malformed bats. I need to document this.” The enermancer states trying to grab one and shove it into an empty potion bottle as he does so a few of them fly down and slice into his fingers. The enermancer pulls his hand back and tries to staunch a blood flow that seems far too heavy for such small scratches, “Your sweat has the wounding quality, and I must have some for my sword!” Through the swarm and the flailing Helga, the enermancer gropes his way into the folds of Helga’s robe.“Great, heat of battle and I’m all sweaty and the only one who gets fondled is the animated gristle. Figures, oh well looks like I’ll just have to loosen these brassiere straps all by myself.” Discordia complainsGramps grabs the enermancer around the waist and tries to pry the human out of Helga’s clothes; meanwhile Lord Horatius whips out two bottles of Flaming Frank’s Frisky Flask of Fire and takes aim at the swarm of animated coins.“What the hell are you doing? You’re going to hit Helga, the crazy guy and Gramps with those.” Slyphwhisper points out“You think I could get all three in one shot?” Lord Horatius asks rhetorically as he does not wait for the reply from the gnome before he chucks the vials at the swarm, they both burst and shower the three party members in a firestorm of confusion and pain.The liquid does the trick though as the swarm is dispersed and soon transforms back into the coins that were on the chair. Gramps protests the use of a maul when a sap was warranted from the hexblade.“Look shorty, no thanks are necessary. The mere fact you survived is all I need in my heart to realize a stronger potency is needed.” Lord Horatius smiles</blockquote>

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