Darrude - Human Wizard (252 points)
Grohk - Goliath Barbarian (250 points)
Morgan Merkle - Human Mentalist (252 points)
Brother Horace - Human Initiate of Avandra, the goddess of freedom and luck (125 points)
Sado Con - Human Martial Artist (254 points)
Characters:
Grohk (aka Gronk) is a goliath berserker who loves booze and food. After one too many blackouts, he no longer knows why he started adventuring, and all that matters now is that he has a good time.
Day 84:
Weather: Light Rain
Date: Coreli 15th, 2526
Sado realised he'd be unable to convince Gordag and the orcs to offer more help, took back the backpack full of acid flasks from Brag, and jogged back to the south to rejoin the party at the entrance to the Night Wolves' camp. On the way, he passed by the hole where they had buried a troll, which was now empty.
Now that there was some time to kill, Brother Horace cast Continual Light on Morgan's left glove and Grohk's helmet to provide them with more than one light source. Once Sado returned several hours later, the party headed back down into the ruins. Shortly past the stone gate where they had fought the trolls, they found a cluster of half a dozen orcish huts. There were also various tools and utensils that were likely dropped as the orcs fled.
Morgan searched the camp but found nothing of note, the orcs clearly having taken everything of value. After a failure to find a 10' pole in the camp, the party continued to a second stone gate, with a broken iron portcullis that had been bent open from the far side. Past the gate, their light sources revealed that the tunnel opened up on either side, and that there was a stone handrail about 10' away, with sheer darkness beyond.
Proceeding cautiously, they found that they were on a 10' wide stone walkway that extended far to the left lined with ruined stone structures built into the wall, and that there was a narrow staircase down into darkness several buildings to the right. While they debated going down the stairs, something far off in the cavern let out a piercing scream, and a sickly green glow emanated up from the darkness.
They advanced up to the handrail and looked down to see that they were on the highest of four walkways carved directly into the stone, with a massive underwater lake adjacent to the lowest walkway. Morgan thought about what might create such a noise, and, thanks to a crit on Hidden Lore (Far Realm), realised that it was likely a Chuul Juggernaut, a 10' long giant lobster with psychic powers.
The scream stopped, and the green glow went out, but shortly after, a huge stone sphere embedded in the ceiling about 100' up illuminated the cavern with artificial daylight. It lasted for three seconds before fizzling out, revealing a stone tower that connected to the second level, and Morgan noticed a far-off flying blob, though he couldn't make out exactly what it was. There was some talk of casting Walk on Air on Grohk to chase it down, but eventually they decided to head towards the tower.
They passed by a couple of ruined buildings with heavily faded runes (identified as Ancient Dwarven by Darrude) but stopped when they found one that was mostly-intact. Thanks to Language Talent, Darrude was able to translate the runes near the entrance and discovered that this was some sort of armoury. Sado stuck his head in through a window, and saw empty weapon racks, rusted scrap, and a staircase up, so they headed in to take a look at the second floor.
While crossing the room, Morgan heard something shuffling around upstairs and sent Grohk to take a look while readying a Kinetic Lash in case something followed him back down. Grohk and his sunlight emitting helmet made it halfway up the stairs when he heard a rough voice in Giant say "Do you smell that?". He continued up anyway, got a quick glimpse of three trolls, and then ran back down the stairs.
The trolls followed shortly after, and Morgan nailed one with his opportunity shot as they came down. Grohk hefted his maul at the bottom of the stairs, and Sado realised that they were fighting something and headed over to help. The trolls continued down the stairs, one with a huge swollen skull and another with 2 heads, 3 arms, and 4 legs.
Darrude started whipping up a Windstorm and Grohk landed a good hit on the normal troll before activating his Stone Skin, boosting his DR by 5 for ten seconds. The troll with the swollen skull stared at Sado, who felt a sharp pressure in his head but nothing worse, while Morgan fired off a suddenly more powerful Pyro Bolt at it and Darrude moved the Windstorm in to block the trolls from leaving the staircase.
Of course, being trolls, they just ran right through without a problem and landed several attacks on Grohk, dealing no damage thanks to his Stone Skin. The swollen troll ran through an opening and attacked Morgan, who successfully parried at the cost of his smallsword breaking. With his target so close, Morgan launched another Kinetic Lash at its oversized skull, stunning it and knocking it prone.
Brother Horace took advantage of the wounded troll and landed some blows to the skull with his small mace thanks to Telegraphic Attack, and Darrude hit it with a Shocking Touch, stunning it again. Grohk bashed the multi-limbed troll around with his maul while Sado punched the other in the vitals with Lethal Strike, but neither troll seemed to care.
Remembering that fire kills trolls, Darrude cast Create Fire on the stunned swollen troll, lightly singing it. It then recovered from stun only to immediately take another Kinetic Lash to the skull, knocking it down again, while Grohk knocked the multi-limbed troll back into the Windstorm, which caused it to lose its footing, knocking it down. The swollen troll recovered again and crawled out of the fire, but Darrude just cast Create Fire again, eventually burning it to ashes.
Sado was crit by the normal troll for more than his entire HP, but Brother Horace cast Major Healing and got him back up above 1/2HP immediately, and Morgan landed another Kinetic Lash on the normal troll's skull, knocking it down. Meanwhile, the multi-limbed troll ran out of the whirlwind and grappled Grohk, who dropped his maul, and grappled it back after failing to break free.
Sado and Brother Horace continued beating the normal troll until it stopped moving, and, after Darrude failed to cast Create Fire twice in a row, Morgan and Darrude, now both almost entirely out of FP, dragged it onto the fire. Grohk managed to break free, and Sado pushed the multi-limbed troll back on the defensive. After a bit of back and forth, he knocked it down with a strike to the vitals, only for Grohk to steal his kill with an All-Out (Double) attack to the skull, dealing almost eight times the troll's health in two attacks.
The trolls dealt with, Darrude fainted from Post-Combat Shakes. Brother Horace healed the wounded and gave Darrude enough FP to get back up, and, after a short rest, they grabbed some old armour and weapons from the second floor and left. Grohk put the boulder back over the entrance, and they made it back to Chryssa's Rest before nightfall.
Notes:
Darrude bought Create Fire, and Morgan bought Pyro Bolt up to 3d to be able to better deal with the trolls. It's definitely more cost-effective that bathing them in acid.
Ancient languages default to their modern equivalent at Broken (roll IQ-3 to use the language at all) for most people, and Accented (roll IQ) for those with Language Talent.
Both casters ran out of FP with two trolls still up, and Darrude actually dropped to -5 afterwards thanks to a bad Post-Combat Shakes roll.
Brother Horace was never parried/dodged despite not using any Deceptive Attacks or Feints, though he did miss a couple times.
They made enough money to get XP, but it wasn't an amazing haul. Nobody's very well suited to selling gear, so they only got 30% value (40% for normal Wealth, down to 30% due to a bad reaction roll).
XP:
2 for general success
1 for combat
1 for loot
MVP went to Darrude for casting Create Fire
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