GURPS Jade Regent – Audrey Too and the Scary Black Things

We picked up in the middle of combat, facing what looked to be one frost wight (the second died real quick in the first moment of the restarted game), and two “Scary Black Things,” which had proved to be very robust to damage, presumably very high DR.

Shiba goes after the frost wraith, and severs its good arm.

Cadmus is still buffed from his Righteous Fury (ST 19, DX 17, IQ 12, HT 18) and launches a complicated two-blow attack, one on each Scary Black Thing. He hits both in the neck for 13(2) and 18(2) damage, and both SBTs are alive, angry, but less alive than they were before getting Shrivener to the neck.

The moonflower comes up behind us, finally, still on fire from our initial assault. But he’s close enough to grapple Staver.

GM: t’s main mouth yawns wide and descends over the top of Staver from behind result:  «succeeded by 7 »  Staver, you are grappled and inside it’s mouth.
Shiba: Well, crap.

By “grappled” he means “swallowed,” and he also suffers 4 corrosive acid damage as well as 6 piercing “ow, spiky bits in it’s mouth” damage.

Shiba hears a heavy thud from somewhere to the northwest, and Thumvar is surprised from behind by a blow that no one, not even his friends, see coming.

GM: Something heavy but somewhat… giving slams into your side, Thumvar. You don’t know, something just hit you in the side out of the blue. Your right flank. It does 9 cr, and Thumvar is forced to make a HT check.

Something tickles his nose, and he sneezes.  

Thumvar has DR 14 or so, so nothing penetrates.

Now Staver’s turn. He loses the Contest of ST to break free by more than 40. Yow.

The SBTs change posture to kneeling, which is as as far as they get. Staver recalls he has a Salamander Amulate, and has DR 11 or so. Next turn, will open a vial of alchemist’s fire inside the plant.

Thumvar turns to strike SBT2, but sees . . . something.

GM:	THere’s nothing…. solid there. But there’s a faint tracery of something with three trunklike legs in a tripod configuration and two arms, with a wide cap where a normal thing’s head might be.

GM:	Completely see-through, but you can see the edges of it.

Thumvar throws one of his patented Dual-Weapon Attacks, at -6 for transparency, and spends a Knight! point to hit with the sword.  The outline does not respond to his attack, but something heavy yet soft deflects the blow out of the way. We’re being attacked by some sort of ambulatory mushroom. Must be trippin’.

We agree. 

Cadmus wonders if it’s evil, and in doing so, invokes Smite. Cadmus gets a funny look on his face and fingers his holy symbol.

Cadmus: Pretty sure that control panel was powered by evil. 

Cadmus wanders around the tower, looking a bit dazed, and studiously avoidng control panelish things

GM: I won’t make you fiddle with it and guess the function of stuff. With an hour to mess around, you figure out that you can manipulate the panel to produce a shimmering hexagonal floor in hte central chamber that waits for about 10 seconds, shoots upwards to what looks like the next floor, and then disappears after another several seconds at the upper level.

GM: Okay, so Thumvar works the levers, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, and then Thumvar and Cadmus run onto the shimmering floor. It shoots upward.

GM: The acceleration on this thing is pretty intense. You travel about 30 yards in about three seconds.