@LvB Wenkman raises his hand as he can confuse all creatures, even if they aren't alive. He offer to weaken Golems without any form of noises but to Golems themselves.
Wenkman spent significantly more mana on the fight with the dwarves though, whereas Duucxejial has spent effectively none (he'll return to max when the next encounter begins), so it's probably better for Wenkman to save their strength at the moment.
Cards have been prepared way in advance before that we still haven't encountered though; who knows if we'll even end up fighting them. (If we do though it'll basically be up to Raulus and Rarg; Duucxejial at least will be virtually useless.)
Yes, i have prepared some cards in advance. Some of them will be used, some of them not. And it depends on you as well. Some fights can be avoided if you sneak past enemies. Some others can be talked to. Not every creature has to be fought and not every meeting ends in a fight.
Although i dont recommend looking what is possibly waiting for your characters. Imagine this: You get a quest and a promised a reward. But then you see that ive made cards named "Betrayal!" or "No Reward!". Would it still be fun doing the quest, knowing what will happen at the end? I dont think so.
Or imagine youre promised a legendary sword of arcane power if you do something for an NPC. And then you see that i have prepared a sword with +1/+1 that can tap to shoot a magical bolt at the enemy and deal 1 damage. Would you do the quest or just say "Nah, lets look for another quest."
Btw. i have also prepared that card, as you already know.
Will knowing this as player, influence your characters decision ? Will the Golem be able to cast this ? Will your plan to take out the Golem fast and quiet work ?
Since you know now that this card exists, will it even be fun to try to fight the golem?
Considering the way this campaign has progressed thus far, the current degree of foreknowledge does virtually nothing for the players. As far as I'm concerned, the actual contents of a quest matter more than its reward anyway (otherwise I wouldn't be skipping so many 'rewards' for the sake of RP).
As for the Auto Repair Protocol, Duucxejial's activated ability can nullify the regeneration (and here I thought he'd never get to use it), so his current plan to silently disable the golem still has at least two routes to success.
The part of the Golems arm und leg that you can see hasnt moved an inch while you watched it carefully from your safe position at the stairs. Quietly whispering with each other you make a plan what to do next and then ...
As there's been no objections to his original proposition, Duucxejial will reach forward and tap his bident against the golem, using his magic to silently destroy the golem’s internals via resonance.
Forgive me for trying to RP the situation. In terms of fixed game actions, Duucxejial casts Sundering Sonata on the golem’s internal systems, destroying them and (presumably) disabling the golem.
You poke the golem with the bident you found and send your magical soundwaves into the golem. Then you hear a sound as if glass or crystal would shatter and the golem starts to shake and you can hear the screaching of metal.
"Error, Error", you hear the Golem say but before it can break fully apart, much to your unsurprise its auto repair protocoll is being activated and the golem begins to stabilize and repair itself.
As soon as the regeneration is being interrupted the golem begins to move uncontrolled. "Error, Error, suspicious internaaaaaal failluuuuuu....." and then it falls to the ground crumbling apart.
But as that happens you hear another metallic voice:
You quickly realize that around the corner, where you couldnt see it there must have been a second golem who is now alerted by the sudden destruction of the first golem.
There is no time to think! You must act fast now before the second golem can alert anyone else or call reinforcements!
Everyone of you has exactly one posting time to say what your character does in this situation!
Duucxejial was explicitly targeting only the golem's internals; are these things that shoddily made? Regardless, there's nothing the dragonspeaker can do here except wait for someone else to attack and try to join the dogpile. (Depending on who the golem decides to damage when the party attacks, Duucxejial can deal 3~4 damage.)
As Illusion Mage, Wenkman knew he can't deal with this situation, so he would just turn himself into the wall in that Golem's view and pray it would pass by.
The dark tentacles summonened by Rarg are surrounding the golem and whirl around in the air until some of them grab the golem and drag it down into a dark rift below the golem, where the golem and the tentacles then disappear. You can hear one last metallic sounding "Suspicious portal detected!" and then its over. No more golem and no more tentacles. You're not quite sure where the golem is now, but at least it is not here anymore.
Well done, brave adventurers! You took care of the golem before it could alert anyone else.
This fight is over, please keep track of how many life/mana you have left. Then everyone gets 1 life and 2 mana back.
As you look around now you see a door on the east side and another stairs in the southwestern corner of the room. The remains of the destroyed Golem dont have anything useful.
On the wall beside the stairs you came from there is arrow pointing down and a "3".
On the wall beside the other stairs there is an arrow pointing up and a "1".
And on the western wall you find this written, but unfortunately in dwarfen runes.
If you want to know whats written there you have to figure it out by yourself. Dwarfs are known for having very clear rules, so their language is probably very logical and systematic. (Anyone here in the forum can help, so it shouldnt be too hard.)
Edit:
After your next Level-up you can reroll your characters or replace them if you want.
Are we supposed to be able to decode that text in isolation? Because it's too short and there's too many letters that show up only once or twice (assuming this is indeed an 'easy' language barrier cipher that requires no additional information). Additionally, assuming the text has any relevance to the current situation/location, which potentially solves two words, forces multiple other words to become nonsense, even with the sheer number of wildcards in the text.
Edit – Let me add some clarification questions just in case: (Abbreviating word to W and letter to L)
Are W1L5, W2L5, W4L6, W6L1 the same, or is W2L5 and/or W4L6 distinct from the others?
Are W1L7, W2L8, W3L1, and W4L4 the same?
Are W1L6 and W4L1 distinct?
Are W2L2 and W2L3 distinct?
Depending on the answers (and assuming at least one word is misspelled), I can force some more meaning onto the text, but the second word (which is probably the most important right now) remains meaningless.
Its not required to decode or translate the dwarfen runes, but it might be helpful. Every dwarfen rune represents always the same letter. There is no "encryption". If you dont want to spend time solving that little puzzle/riddle thats perfectly fine. But as said, it can be a help for the adventurers.
There was indeed a typo in the second line, but i corrected it. The picture now shows the correct dwarfen runes.
And i wrote the runes again, so you can better see the diffrence between the runes.
The adventurers stood before some dwarven runes that were carved into the wall. And after a few minutes they decided:
The dwarven script here is a form of encryption known as a substitution cipher. The lettering here is (prior to making a number of assumptions) greatly inconsistent though, which interferes with decryption. That said, given the change to W2L1:
~~~
Duucxejial believes he understands the text, which appears to be a floor guide:
Barracks (adjusted for missing 'r')
Officers
Storage
Prison (the 'n' looks like a 'c')
The Cave (guessing about the 'h' and 'v'; insufficient information)
The party started on floor B3 (storage), and is currently standing outside of the floor B2 (officers) door. We'll probably get in a huge fight if we go in here or proceed upstairs to the barracks. This floor is also likely to contain individuals with high security clearance though (i.e. the keys to the other vaults are most likely on this floor).
Duucxejial can cloak himself (and anything he carries) from detection, but is wary of trying to open the door without knowing what's on the other side. Does anyone have a way to scout ahead without opening the door?
"As Duucxejial stood before the runes on the wall, it was suddenly clear to him what the dwarfen runes meant. He explained it to the others and they agreed that they are now on the Officers Floor."
Solving that little riddle made your character more intelligent. To represent this, Duucxejial max mana is permanently increased by one.
(and sorry, about the baracks with one R. Seems like dwarfes write their words a bit diffrent ).
The adventurers, now knowing that this was the Officers floor, then decided:
Duucxejial snorts. "And how exactly do you intend to do that? Have you already forgotten the golems we just fought? Even if security is lighter at the moment, there's almost certainly more golems in there, along with stronger dwarves than the rabble we took out downstairs, and we have no idea what the elves here are capable of."
~~~
OOC: Do we have any idea how much time has passed since we started this infiltration? Having those of us with stealth abilities wait for a shift change may be a viable way to get in without raising any alarms.
Comments
Wenkman raises his hand as he can confuse all creatures, even if they aren't alive. He offer to weaken Golems without any form of noises but to Golems themselves.
Wenkman agreed as well. He will stay out and try to gather for some energy.
Seeing no one took shield, Wenkman equipped Dwarfen Shield.
As for the Auto Repair Protocol, Duucxejial's activated ability can nullify the regeneration (and here I thought he'd never get to use it), so his current plan to silently disable the golem still has at least two routes to success.
May I rework my character as a Fox Illusion Mage? I will think of good story to swap Wenkman the Figure with another Wenkman the Fox.
Rarg starts reciting a spell while dark tentacles start to appear near the golem.
Edit – Let me add some clarification questions just in case:
(Abbreviating word to W and letter to L)
- Are W1L5, W2L5, W4L6, W6L1 the same, or is W2L5 and/or W4L6 distinct from the others?
- Are W1L7, W2L8, W3L1, and W4L4 the same?
- Are W1L6 and W4L1 distinct?
- Are W2L2 and W2L3 distinct?
Depending on the answers (and assuming at least one word is misspelled), I can force some more meaning onto the text, but the second word (which is probably the most important right now) remains meaningless.~~~
Duucxejial believes he understands the text, which appears to be a floor guide:
- Barracks (adjusted for missing 'r')
- Officers
- Storage
- Prison (the 'n' looks like a 'c')
- The Cave (guessing about the 'h' and 'v'; insufficient information)
The party started on floor B3 (storage), and is currently standing outside of the floor B2 (officers) door. We'll probably get in a huge fight if we go in here or proceed upstairs to the barracks. This floor is also likely to contain individuals with high security clearance though (i.e. the keys to the other vaults are most likely on this floor).Duucxejial can cloak himself (and anything he carries) from detection, but is wary of trying to open the door without knowing what's on the other side. Does anyone have a way to scout ahead without opening the door?
~~~
OOC: Do we have any idea how much time has passed since we started this infiltration? Having those of us with stealth abilities wait for a shift change may be a viable way to get in without raising any alarms.