[ We find Our Heroes standing in the bend of a large, tall, wide hallway, sans Tia (who's visiting family) and Seylin (who's looking for traps). ] [ Kenji just beheaded an irritated vampire spawn drow bard (You'd also be irritated if you were that combination), and Alcinoe was angry because she wanted to take the poor thing into the light. This pretty much catches you up to 'now', where Seylin comes swooping down from the high cieling of the hallway, which, I'll remind you, is twenty feet wide here, enabling you to fight four abrest should you wish it. ] [ Session Start! ] * Seylin lands in front of the group and waves. Hi, guys! Um, there's some of those sphere things a ways behind me. Hey Seylin! Ya find anything? ^_^ You're going to want to get ready for them. More constructs. Annoyance. Oh, more friends? You always get friends quickly. ^^ Oh, dear... And I found a couple things, actually. Should I wait until after we get rid of these things to tell you more? Are they following you, or just waiting? Yes. * Patrick prepares his bow. "Yes, please." He grins. Oh, they're following me. Right then. * Seylin draws her halberd. I was being really careful, but these things must be able to sense body heat or something. * Ariake cracks her knuckles. Istvan and Alcinoe to the front. * Istvan hefts his pick onto his shoulder, and lugs himself up to the front lines. "No rest for the well-armored..." * Will draws out his new sword as well. * Alcinoe is angry, as the GM kindly stated, and she definitely doesn't smile like Patrick is. Or smile at all. Or even say anything. She just nods and draws her sword, stepping up with Istvan. Seylin, you and I will cross over the top and attack from behind. Everybody else behind Istvan and Alcinoe, fire at will. You got it! Um, you don't really mean fire at Will, do you? 'course not. * Patrick grins evilly. No, I mean to fire when and where you believe it will do the most good. If I intended you to fire at Will, I would say "Kill Will." But you won't ever do that, right? Can I decline to answer the question? * Will looks at Kenji worriedly. * Seylin gives Kenji a Look. * Ariake raises an eyebrow. I won't do that without good reason? Mmmhmmm. Please don't. * Istvan nudges Alci with his elbow. "You should feel proud. You're about to be one of the few people alive on this planet to have fought with an ebony weapon." [ Hearing checks. ] * Will moves a bit closer to Alci, putting some distance between him and Kenji. He's still looking at Kenji warily. * Alcinoe just grits her teeth. She doesn't *look* proud. "Yeah." If I said anything else, I might be forced to break my word. And here come our mechanical adversaries. * Istvan grins slightly, and whispers to Alci. "Just imagine the metal thingees are Kenji. S'what I've been doing for the past year or so." Incoming! Around the next corner. Aaaaaaaaand here they come. *falls into a ready stance* How many, Seylin? * Seylin shifts her grip on her halberd. Sure thing Sey. * Patrick draws arrows! Six! * Alcinoe doesn't answer Istvan, tensing and bringing her sword up to ready. Ariake, if you have a fireball, this would be a good time, while they are still at range. Or lightning. They didn't appear to like lightning very much. I have just the thing, but - get clear. You got it! * Seylin gets out of Ariake's way! * Patrick is already out of her way. * Will steps aside hurriedly. Seems like the recent words from Kenji has him a bit on an edge. * Istvan steps aside. [ The spheres - six of them - come around the corner up ahead! There's 100 feet between you and them, tho. ] * Ariake concentrates, and casts a fairly large spell - it's Torrential Fireball, and it's all out of bubblegum! [ With a series of BOOMs, Ariake's six little fireballs do badness unto the enemy! From here, tho, it's hard to tell just how hard they were hit. ] [ Init. ] [ Istvan, go! ] * Istvan holds his position, as the robots are a bit too far away for him to do anything. [End Turn] Istvan, Alcinoe, hold until they're in range, then charge. Let the archers take care of it. [ Patrick, go! ] * Patrick draws his bow and starts pelting the sphere things with arrows. [ Patrick makes one shot from where he is - the darkness must be bothering his aim or something. A single centurion collapses! ] [ Kenji, your turn. ] * HKenji draws his both in one smooth motion and sends three arrows winging down the hall without aiming at all. [ Kenji drops another one, and hits still another. Must be something to not aiming. ] [ The four remaining spheres open fire, sending a hail of quarrels your way! ] [ One quarrel finds it's way past Istvan and Alcinoe's armor, and two each hit Patrick and Kenji! ] * Patrick takes the arrow in the thigh, where it slips past his leather guard and into the skin. "Lucky shot." * Istvan grunts as an arrow hits him in the side of the foot. "Ah, dammit!" * HKenji jerks twice, but does not make any verbal acknowledgement of the pain he must be in. * Alcinoe winces when it digs into one of her armor's (and therefore her) joints, then scowls. Not a word from her, either. * Ariake blinks at all the hits. "Jeez..." Hey! These appear to be of higher quality than before. [ Seylin, go! ] * Seylin takes off, streaking towards the constructs. More specifically, the one (or one of the ones) that hit Patrick. She draws back her halberd and takes a mighty swing! [ Seylin chops one in two! It reacts poorly to this, and is deactivated due to extensive damage. This leaves three. ] Don't you dare hurt him! [ The robots don't seem to have been programmed with a response to that. ] [ Ariake, go! ] * Ariake casts a simple Magic Missile, this time! [ Another one falls! This leaves two. ] [ Will, go! ] * Will moves closer to Alci and casts a simple cure spell. [ Alci, go! ] * Alcinoe eyes the bots in the distance, but she doesn't do much outside of brace herself for the next volley. [ Istvan, go! ] * Istvan keeps himself in a defensive stance. [ Patrick, go! ] * Patrick looses arrows at the remaining two. [ Patrick takes the remaining two down! ] [ End combat! Do the victory dance! Or not. ] * Patrick gets Jiggy with it! Or not really. No, definetly not. "Good job guys." ^_^ Excellent job. Minor injuries, at best. * Patrick goes about the process of removing the arrow from his thigh. * Seylin flies back to the group. She looks at Patrick. "Want me to heal you?" * HKenji yanks two arrows from his flesh, then puts away his bow. * Alcinoe makes sure the arrow's out of her and her armor. If you wouldn't mind Seylin? ^_^ * Will looks at Kenji too. "Need healing?" * Istvan reaches down and pulls the arrow out of his foot. "Knew I shoulda made myself fully armored boots..." If you've prayers to spare, yes. If I didn't know this blood would come out, I would be quite angry right now. * Seylin puts a hand on Patrick's shoulder and whispers something. Light flashes briefly, and he should be feeling somewhat better. How's that? Need me to do it again? * Istvan winces, and limps over to the rest of the group. * Will nods and puts a hand on Kenji's shoulders. Feeling better? Or do you need more? * HKenji is still bleeding in several places. It seems I was more injured than I thought. * Patrick rubs over the wounds. "Yeah, I think so. Those bolts hit me harder than I thought." * Will nods and continues healing Kenji. I'm sorry. But I got it back good! * Seylin heals again. "One more time?" * HKenji rolls his shoulders a bit. "Much better. Thank you." One of you have a quick heal handy? * Will grins. "Any time." * Will turns and walks over to Istvan. "I'll take a look at it." Thanks. * Alcinoe glances over to make sure Kenji's healed, then she speaks. It's a little forced and clipped - particularly for her. "So what'd ya find, Seylin?" * Patrick checks himself over. "Nah, I'm fine now. What'cha find?" ^^ * Will looks over Istvan's wounds. How bad is it? Okay. Up ahead are a bunch of twists and turns. Eventually you get to a staircase leading up. Some of the steps were trapped, but I took care of that. Good. But I went beyond the stairway into this room that had a pyramid with something on top. When I went in, though, that's when the constructs woke up, so I came back to you guys. Another dais. * Alcinoe nods. Yep! But I didn't get a chance to see exactly what was up there. So... let's go! * Istvan has a nice-sized chunk of his right foot missing, and is bleeding not half-bad from it. In a sec. Istvan's still hurt. Foot wound. Not a huge deal, but annoying as all hell. And the bleeding could be an issue if I just walk around with his for a few hours. * Will smiles. "Don't worry. It's just a simple one to fix." Great. I got no desire to become Istvan the One-Footed. * Istvan grins slightly. * Will finishes casting his spell. Isty's foot is now nice and complete again. ^^ * Istvan takes a few test steps, then nods. "All good. Even got rid of that stubbed toe pain I had from this mornin'." So, everybody ready? Quite. Lead on, scout. Yessir! * Patrick nods. "Let's get going!" * Seylin starts heading forward to the stairway, and then to the dais room where the constructs were. * Alcinoe doesn't share your enthusiasm, but she checks her sword and heads after Seylin. * Patrick heads after Seylin too, keeping her in sight. * Istvan follows, walking along next to Alci and behind Sey. * Will follows behind Alci after sticking his sword back in it's sheath. * HKenji frowns and follows as the rearguard, bow still drawn. [ The hall turns south after 100 feet, then east again after another 80. ] * Istvan walks along, lightly bouncing the haft of his pick up and down on his shoulder. * Alcinoe clanks! Clanking cleric! [ Clack clack clack, goes the haft on the armored shoulder. The hall turns north after another 120 feet. ] * Patrick walks along not nearly as loudly. Damn loud people. * Seylin walks very quietly. She's sneaky! * HKenji walks quietly, though that's more because of his lack of armor than any attempt at stealth. * Istvan stops clacking, and just sort of lets the pick rest on his shoulder as he walks. * Will clanks along behind Alci. [ Around the bend as the hall turns north, you see a ten-foot- wide staircase, leading up. A sign on one side says ] * Seylin points at it. "That part I took care of." Excellent. I really don't like the sound of that. * Patrick whispers to Seylin. ... wilted. No offense to our resident magic types... but sometimes magic just kinda sucks. [ Ariake doesn't seem to notice Istvan's comment. ] * Seylin whispers back. I mean, sure, without magic, you can stab, slash, bludgeon, poison... but wilt? Eesh. * Alcinoe shrugs. Don't get me started on what my Mom was trying to make her sword do last I heard. * Patrick grins. Your mom's pretty nice, but... no offense, but she can be pretty strange sometimes. Parents defy explanation. * Istvan mutters. "Damn right..." Yeah, but you'll never see a meatloaf cooked faster than with one of her fireballs. ( Back. And Patrick's parents are scary. ) And when one's parent is a wizard, matters are multiplied several times over. Pat, is there a meatloaf left after the fireball?? * Seylin giggles. "That's why you come over to my place for dinner so often, isn't it?" * Alcinoe continues her clanking, as eager to contribute to the conversation as... well, someone who isn't. * Patrick grins. "Of course there is! Weather it's moving or not is another matter." And yes, it is. ~_^ * Istvan doesn't seem to eager to join this conversation either, beyond his earlier muttered contribution. And I think my mom likes having you over, too. You guys should all come visit sometime! I'm sure she'd love to meet you! I've told her a lot about all of you. * Patrick nods. [ And so they cut at a point with no convenient transition elements! What awaits them around the corner? Find out, next episode! ] [ Session End. ]