A peek in room 5, Time and doors
Subject The plan for room 5
While Harp lays out his plan, Ragnar thinks to himself that anyone inside the room will probably see in the dark as well as he or Harp can. He is about to say so when Harp ends abruptly with "Brother Ragnar, let's go." Startled, he hustles to catch up and then keeps pace with the much taller half-orc. He decides to keep his doubts to himself.
From: Kevin
Subject The plan for room 5
OOC: Got a chance to read the turn, but am too busy at work to write up a good turn. I will work on it tonight.
Any comments? Harp and Ragnar will likely head back to the group to see if anyone, especially Salix, knows what these two things are and if there are any special things they have to worry about.
From: Mark
Subject Room 5
After listening to Surin's report Harp makes his decision. "Since there is no light in this hallway, I want to keep using that to our advantage if possible. Ragnar and I will go forward, open the door, and see what we can inside of the room. Those of you with light will stay back 60 ft or so. I do not plan on entering the room, just taking a quick look inside to get an idea of what it in there.
Brother Ragnar, let's go."
Ragnar, who looked about ready to say something, says nothing and follows the 1/2 orc down the hallway. The others, still in Mund's light, stay back about 65 feet. Ran, Salix and Kal are able to see the two, but Mund, Surin and Allistair are not. As the two creep down the hallway, they see the door in the dark ahead of them, just before the hallway dead-ends.
Harp puts a hand on the door latch and signals for Ragnar to get ready to look into the room. He motions "One, two, and three" and quickly pushes the door open. They both look in quickly and glance around the room. The room is long and narrow, or so it seems. It seems to go off into the darkness towards the west further than they can see. It also seems to go south from the door some. Off to the west, just at the limit of their vision the two can see a large beetle like creature. It is only a few feet high, but easily 8-9 feet across. At the sound of the door, the creature turns and starts to scuttle towards them. They quickly close the door and move back towards the party.
OODM: I will let Kevin and Jason take it from here.
I will send out a map tonight.
From: Jason
Subject The plan for room 5
Ragnar murmurs to Harp "It seemed pretty clearly aggressive to me. Do you think we could lure it out into the main room where our entire party could surround it like we did the ogre?"
ooc:And by "we", I mean anyone other than the dwarf wearing full plate armor.
From: Porter
Subject The plan for room 5
"From the description, it sounds like they are too big to come through the door, which could be a big thing."
"Depending on how far away, one or two people could harass them with arrows until they come too close. Then we could come back here into the room and we can kill them at our leisure, as long as they stay close to the doorway."
From: Mark
Subject The plan for room 5
Mund is correct. Unless the things show some ability to squeeze, there is no way they are getting through the door.
From: Jason
Subject The plan for room 5
ooc: Is this door about 8' wide like the others have been? If so...
ic: "They were big enough all right, but I suspect they'll be able to come through the door if we give them enough time. On the other hand, that might be the right idea anyhow; if we put one or two people in the doorway, I doubt that the thing could get through the doorway with them hacking at it, and it would probably be severely impeded in its efforts to attack them. And if they back away, you shoot them full of arrows."
From: Porter
Subject The plan for room 5
OOC: Have any of the other doors been this big? That's a freaking huge door. I've imagined them as more like 3-4 feet wide.
From: Derek
Subject The plan for room 5
Allistair has been keeping quiet while the warriors check the next room and then come back to report about the giant beetle. As discussion of tactics turns to harrying it from a distance, Allistair speaks up.
"I have some magic that could be beneficial. If you want to just hurt it from a distance because it cannot go through the door, I could easy throw a fireball or two at it. I don't know how well that thick carapace might protect it from such an explosion, but it would probably be faster than shooting arrows at it for a few hours."
From: Porter
Subject The plan for room 5
I stand corrected.
From: Porter
Subject Time
"You know, this brings up a question that has been bothering me for a while. How long do we have to complete our quest? Just until our food runs out?"
"We have been really careful so far with our resources, as though we were behind enemy lines and had to be ready to fight at a moment's notice."
"Of course, to do this, we have to put ourselves at risk. We are going into battle without our full strength."
"Is there any reason to do this? Is there any reason why we shouldn't rest up after each battle and hit everything we fight with our full strength?"
From: Mark
Subject Doors
All of the doors are very large, compared to a house, but are "normal" sized for a dungeon, 8-9 feet wide, heavy oaken doors with steel bindings and hinges.
From: Jason
Subject Time and doors
OOC: Have any of the other doors been this big? That's a freaking huge door. I've imagined them as more like 3-4 feet wide.
Yeah, it is a freaking huge door. But when I sent out the first map of the main room with all the doors, Mark corrected my drawing saying that the doors were 8 feet wide. Pretty imposing stuff.
IC: "I've wondered the same thing. From what I understand of magical portals, it is entirely possible that time is not passing for us at the same rate it does for the rest of the world. However, I feel that the most logical answer is that we should probably leave before the week is up. If the portal moves while we are in here, the best case scenario is that we leave the testing grounds completely lost, much farther from home than when we started. We entered the portal on the morning of the fifth day after the portal was found, which means I suggest that we should leave by the end of the day after tomorrow."
ooc: Speaking of which... on 10/5/05 Mark sent around an email saying it was the third day. We entered the portal the next morning. However I believe that was incorrect; 9/27/05 said that the portal was found on the evening of the third day, and then we spent the next day getting to the top / resting up. I could be mistaken.
The other question is, does anyone have any method of telling how much time is passing?
From: Mark
subject: Time
I will have to check the time line, but the party did show up a day early at the site.
That assumes you can leave the way you came. (evil grin)
From: Kevin
Subject The plan for room 5
OOC: Ok, from what I have been able to glean from the earlier discussions, on initial viewing, this thing (or things) seem like they would have a tough time squeezing through the door. They would probably make it, but it would be like Harp trying to fit through a trap door - it will take some time. Unless there is magic involved, in which case we are SOL.
IC: Harp and Ragnar return to where the group is. They both describe what they have seen, trying to best describe the creatures, hoping Salix would be able to help identify it and what type of a threat it may be. "Salix, this thing was huge - almost 10 feet across and as tall as Surin here. And the mouth on that thing looked like it could do some real damage. It looked like some type of large bug - sort of like the scorpions looked like large crawdad, as Mund said. What can we expect of this thing, and do you have any suggestions on how to best fight it. And remember, Surin thought he heard at least 2 of these things in there."
OOC: I am not sure what type of discussion has been going on within the group about how long we should take to complete this. Obviously, it has turned out that we will not complete this in one day. My impression from the start is that while we will not want to dally, we will have some time to complete. I think if we can complete this room, then rest to re-spell and regroup, we will be OK. I expect these challenges to get harder and the designer of the place will have taken that into account (I hope).
From: Jason
Subject The plan for room 5
ooc: Ragnar still has all his higher level spells, and I think the same holds for Allistair and Salix as well. We ought to be able to finish a few more doors. If there are 11 keys plus whatever happens at the end, we'll want to plan accordingly, keeping in mind the first few are probably easier so our first day we'll want to get at least half done.
From: Mark
Subject Map
Here is the updated map.