Slim runs at the pit screaming "THAT WAS THE LIGHTNING BROTHER!! HERE COMES THE THUNDER!" Skidding to a halt just short when he sees that the beast is already dead.

OH well there was always next time. Looking down I see that the minotaur is looking pretty dazed, must have landed on his head. I grab the other end of his chain and haul him up.

Try and be more careful next time would you meatloaf.

As soon as he's up I see if I can get a look at the shiny thing he grabbed and make heads or tails of it. Then I head over to the large chair the gargoyle was hanging out on and have me a little sit down burning one healing surge and taking a look down the hallway.

Once I had clambered out of the pit, aided by the ferocious looking Kobold, I had a better look at the trinket I had found. I thought at first it must have belonged to the Halfling who might have dropped it when he fell in himself but it didn't really look like his kind of thing, it was far too big for him for starters. Remembering the blue jem posted above the archway down the hall, I moved towards the arch, slowly, looking back and forth from the necklace to the gem set in the stone work to see if there was any reaction.

Spend a healing surge

Garold had not expected the minotaur to leap into the pit after the gargoyle and the spirit bison. Maybe it was the herd mentality that came naturally to bovines. He seemed no worse for wear, and even rather chipper, so all was well that ended well.

Beefi brought a collar with him when he climbed out of the pit, and a closer look revealed a small metal plate engraved with the word "Fluffy" riveted to the leather. Well, they'd certainly pissed this guy off now. No better way to anger a man than to kill his "dog."

Garold wandered over to the second hall and joined Slim in taking a break. He was probably going to need it.

Have a rest, spend a healing surge.

Before investigating the gargoyle's room, Slim takes a look at the collar that Beefi's found. He can't find anything particularly useful about it either, but between the two of them they notice a scrap of parchment folded into the collar's leather bands. Alas, the scrap only contains another cryptic attempt at bad poetry.

"Look high and low for gold, to hear a tale untold. The archway at the end, and on your way you'll wend."

Garold and Slim head off down the western passage again, getting a better look at the gargoyle's room. Other than the heaps of rubble (many of them looking a great deal like chunks of the very gargoyle they'd just destroyed), a heavy wooden door leads south, and another door provides a second route to the east. The stone debris has stopped twitching, for the moment at least.

Beefi wanders off into the dark southern portion of the entrance hall as the party's light-bearers split off to the west. Though he can barely see anything in the gloom, neither the gems on the collar nor the archway appear to react to each other.

Try poking both the doors open with my long stick. Surely there can't anymore creatures like that one too near or the sound of battle would have roused them. Also I drop my perma torch on the ground so whoever needs it can pick it up along the way.

Happy birthday!

Well this was a pleasant surprise. When the Kobold had risen from his break Garold had half expected him to go barreling off through another set of doors. Apparently the lack of impression it had made on the gargoyle had disheartened the barbarian a bit.

Oh well, break's over, time to go looking for more bad poetry.

perception on stone dais
After Slim gets the doors open move to H-13 and look through both of them.

I was never a fan of the dark so I hurried back to join the others. In the big room they were in, I examined the ceiling, hoping the clue was an easy one.

I followed my fellows down the hall, joining them in the new room. While they were looking around, I decided to sit down and rest a bit. When I got up, I sauntered over to the Minotaur. "So, anything up there interesting, burger?

Rest, burn 2 healing surges.
Change manifestation to Watersoul

I couldn't help but notice the continual references my erstwhile colleagues kept making to beef food products. I assumed it was all good natured camaraderie but made a mental note to not sleep too deeply in their company, lest one of them tried to eat me.

Slim pokes open the two doors at a distance. Luckily, they're both ajar; perhaps someone else passed through this part of the tomb recently? Both doors open onto roughly-identical rooms with floors of mossy cobblestone, each with an additional door leading south. The southwesterly room, however, contains more of the broken stone rubble that lies in heaps in the gargoyle's chamber.

Despite thorough examination, the gargoyle's room turns up nothing more of use. The dais offers up only a single unhelpful inscription, etched around the periphery:

To Fluffy, on his 300th birthday

Slim sheds a single tear for fluffy. They say you can never blame the animal but only the owner. I add this to my official list of reasons why this guy has got to go, right next bad poetry and extravagant wasting of money on a tomb that so far doesn't even appear to contain dead people.

Staring at the rocks laying around intently one question burns in his mind like very the fires of the gods themselves!


Is that gargoyle poop?


relevant poop identifying skill?

Having already taken one trip down to the bottom of a pit today, I was loathe to make a repeat performance. I stood in the doorway of the eastern room and looked for any obvious signs of traps. Assuming I didn't see any, I went over and listened at the door on the southern wall of the room.

Slim examines the rubble thoroughly (though taking care not to touch it). Contrary to his intuition, the rubble doesn't seem to be composed of any kind of droppings. Rather, it seems to be pieces of the gargoyle itself: a head here, a leg there, the occasional identifiable chunk of torso. Based on this room alone, Fluffy has been destroyed at least a dozen times before. Slim doesn't feel quite so bad about his role in smashing the thing.

————————————————————

Looking for any sign of a trap and finding nothing suspicious, Beefi strides into the eastern doorway. But even as he passes through the door, the tomb seems to fade away around him. For a moment, all is darkness — then Beefi finds himself in the middle of a small cemetery at dusk. The graveyard seems very badly maintained indeed; the grass is utterly untended and wild, and wildflowers and moss have begun the work of reclaiming the mausoleum standing in the center of the property. Six freshly-dug graves encircle the mausoleum. Beyond the fence encircling the graveyard is only an inky blackness.

Six people (three men and three women, all human) wander the cramped graveyard; they make no attempt to hide their business from Beefi (indeed, they seem not to notice his intrusion at all), and he easily overhears them squabbling about money.

A seventh figure emerges from within the darkness of the mausoleum; a gaunt, pale human man wearing priestly garb greets Beefi with a smile. The holy symbol of Pelor hangs from his neck.

"Greetings, friend. As you so readily intrude into a stranger's tomb, perhaps you can also help me to redistribute the wealth of the dead. A merchant in Veltalar has died and left 1000 pieces of gold to his three daughters and their husbands, but his will was indirect and unclear at best. He asked that his daughters receive 396 gold altogether; Elena receives 10 gold more than Nara and Greta receives 10 gold more than Elena. Jared receives twice as much gold as his wife, Callum got precisely as much gold as his wife, and Radu got one-and-a-half times as much gold as his wife. So far as I can tell, they've all complied with the wishes of the dead; but for the sake of maintaining church records I must know who is married to whom! I have tried to ask them myself, but they seem too busy squabbling over their inheritance to aid me."

The priest sneers scornfully for a moment.

"Perhaps you can help. I am sure I have all the information I need to put it together, but it's been such a long day..."

————————————————————

Back in von Brandt's tomb, the rest of the team looks on quizzically as Beefi seems to freeze mid-stride in the middle of the room he'd just entered.

Slim walks over and performs a jumping pimp slap on Beefi.

This is not nappy time you magnificent pile of mouthwatering pot roast!

Luckily, I had always been good at maths based puzzles, you could say in fact that I Excelled at them...

"Well I would say that Greta is married to Jared, Elena to Radu and Nara to Callum. Greta gets 142 gold and her husband 284. Elena gets 132 whilst her husband gets 198 leaving 122 for Nara and Callum each. I do hope that helps with your little quandry"

The priest is startled by Beefi's quick response, and he looks quite downtrodden and sad for a moment before regaining his composure.

"Ah, yes, that is... that would be appear to be... very good. Well, thank you for your help, noble sir! Please, take this with my thanks."

With a forced smile, the priest presents Beefi with an ornate abacus of silver with ebony beads — and the scene fades away as suddenly as it appeared, leaving Beefi standing in the small room with his abacus. Shrugging, he returns to his original task and listens at the southern door; it's faint, but he can hear the rustling of straw and the strident tones of an argument between two men. Just behind Beefi, Uxig hangs motionless in midair, his arm pulled back as though preparing to slap something.

————————————————————

Uxig finds himself on a bare dirt road passing through a thick forest. The road leads directly into the mouth of a low cave; the cave looks too small for anything like an orc or a human to explore, but someone Slim's size could live there comfortably.

A strange little sign is posted a few feet in front of the cave, providing an unusual query to travelers.

THIS CAVE CONTAINS TEN XIVORTS AND 25 IMPS. IF TWO OF THEM COME OUT OF THE CAVE TO MURDER YOU, WHAT IS THE CHANCE THAT THE FIRST WILL BE A XIVORT AND THE SECOND AN IMP?

Uxig spots dozens of beady eyes peering from within the darkness of the cave, awaiting his answer. Behind him, the dirt road looks to continue on into the forest for miles.

As I watched the cow escape her trance, and Uxig enter his, I sighed inwardly. Right. Vision room. Okay. Sure. Done these before. I ran across one of these in an arch-wizard's abode. I'd walked into his library, and suddenly I was standing at the base of a giant castle being yelled at by an angry frenchman. Something about a grail. I muttered under my breath as I stepped towards the far side of the room,

"I swear to Oghma, if someone asks me anything about a swallow, I'm going to punch someone."

Slim stands still for a moment and ponders this turn of events. He thinks back on anything previous to this that might be mathematically relevant. His mind flashes to every choice that has led him to this point in his life. The ancient chants of his people echo through his head.

'Lo, there do I see my father.
'Lo, there do I see My mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
'Lo, there do I see The line of my people...
Back to the beginning.
'Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them.
In the halls of Koboldia...
Where the brave...
May live...
forever.

A smile slowly creeps across his face his worries slip away and there is only one thing left to do.

GO EAT A GNOLL DICK YOU CUNTFACED SONS OF A GNOME WHORE!

He flips the traditional one finger salute of the underdark and runs into the cave using Great Shout as soon as he adjacent to the first of it's inhabitants.

Shouting a mighty battle cry, Slim charges forth in the cave. He utters a vicious oath as he encounters an imp near the mouth of the cave, splattering in against the cave floor with his hammer.

The xivorts and the imps charge forward, crying in dismay. Nobody had ever outright refused to answer the question before. It just wasn't done! This was all terribly disconcerting. Two of the xivorts swing at Slim with their crude swords, but he is shielded by his courage, his excellent defensive position in the cave mouth, and the fact that xivorts are pathetically weak.

"The destroyer has come!", one of them blubbers. "All is doom!

Defenses:
Xivorts AC 15, Fort 12, Ref 13, Will 13
Imps AC 15, Fort 13, Ref 14, Will 13

:savepoint: Uxig 6, Xivorts 24, Imps 16

Sam strides into the strange room next, finding himself strolling alongside a mighty river. A few yards ahead, a goliath woman heaves a small boat into the water, holding it in place with her heel while she considers the three shackled prisoners following behind her: an orc, an elf, and a drow.

"You there! Don't be afraid, these fools are no threat to anyone except each other. I must get them across this river, but the Freeport council, fools that they are, only provided me with this insultingly tiny boat. I cannot possibly fit more than two people on this! These criminals are geased to prevent an escape, but the only thing preventing them from murdering each other is my constant vigilance. Left to their own devices, this drow will surely kill his elven cousin, or the elf kill this hapless orc, or both. It'd be all the same to me, save that I get paid double for bringing them in alive. What do you advise?"

When he was but a hatchling Slim cried for days upon being told he'd never grow up to be a dragon. Years were spent thinking "dragony" thoughts and trying to will himself to fly ,grow to enormous size and spray fiery death at all who dared stand before him. While his wings never did come in and his size remained stunted the firebreath was coming along marvelously.


BURN! close blast 3 aimed straight ahead +11 vs AC all but burn 8 are toast. +8 temp hp for killing a dude

ignore burn 9 got carried away

Flames of purity spent for encounter

YOU! I have spared you so that you might murder your friends for my amusement. Do this and I shall kill you last!

Intimidate target of burn 8 4+8=probably not.

Shift back 1

I took off my hat, using it to fan myself as I sat down on the edge of the river. I rolled up my pant legs and let them dangle in the cool water for a long few minutes as I thought about the problem. My initial reaction was to do precisely what my first reaction always was when a drow was involved. Drown the drow. But, as I'd learned so very long ago, riddles like this were never that simple. Luckily, puzzles were something I was good at. My race had a natural inclination towards riddles and word problems. Add into that the fact I solved riddles for a living, and I thought I might have a pretty good shot at this.

So, after I'd had my fill of sun and water, and gotten over my driving desire for a nice, tall glass of milk, I laid back, my hands under my head and told the Goliath lady the answer to her problem.

"What you have here, see, is a matter of logistics. And logistics ain't no thing to be discussing on a beautiful day like this. I'd offer you a nice roll in the hay, but you're even more imaginary than most of the women I wind up with. Albeit I always wanted a really tall girl. Speaking of logistics.

But no, we've a job to do, I suppose, don't we, beautiful? All right. My climbing fetish will have to wait.

Okay then, your first trip, you take the elf, leaving the drow and the orc. You leave the elf over there, and come on back to my side.

Your second trip, you take the drow, leave him there, return with your elf, leaving him on my side. You still with me? Good. This is complicated, and I might confuse myself.

Third trip, you take the orc from my side, ferry him across to the drow, leave him there. So now your drow and your orc are waiting happily as you come back, pick up the elf, and you can all go on your happy little death march."

I was loathe to open my eyes, because I knew it wouldn't be a nice, calm brook, but rather an ugly dungeon without a tall woman, with legs up to the sky and body art. I did so love body art. No, I would have a cow, and a guy who is on fire. So much less fun. Balls.

On the plus side, maybe when we got back to town, after I killed a lich, I could find me a nice goliath woman of questionable moral fiber and a joy of mountaineering. Then I could have my fun AND have murdered a lich. Yeah. That' the ticket.

Strange things were going on in the room ahead. Beefi no longer seemed to be affected, but the others were all frozen in place as if time had stopped. Uxig was held in a particularly unusual position, floating in the air with his arm extended. Beefi seemed to be fine after encountering whatever it was, so with his fear of injury assuaged Garold was curious enough to wander in and see what the heck was going on. He still wasn't particularly optimistic about it though.

As he walked in he grumbled under his breath about why all wizards had to be such jerks about having grand magical powers and did they hand out licenses to be dicks along with diplomas at magical academies or what.

The xivort seems to mull Slim's offer for a moment, then shakes its head sadly.

"Sorry, mister. But all you've done is show me that one man — one tiny, insignificant man — can stand up against what seems against unstoppable odds. Stand up, and fight, and maybe even prevail. And knowing that, how can I possibly surrender to you? It's kind of ironical."

The xivort wipes away a single tear before bouncing his sword off Slim's shoulder armor.


————————————————†”———

The goliath woman chuckles.

"That makes sense, doesn't it? Thanks for your help, short stuff."

She crouches down, patting Sam on the head as one might pet an adorable puppy. A moment later, Sam feels the cold stone under his feet instead of the warm grass on his back. His hat feels strange on his head suddenly, and as he reaches up to readjust it he feels a slip of paper tucked into the band. It's a coupon - "75% off your next visit to Razor's Edge Tattoo and Piercing".

The kobold is still in stasis. What was taking him so long?


————————————————†”———


Gra-fa-zut strides into the paralyzing room, and finds himself in a broad clearing in the middle of a forest. The genasi shivers... Freeport was only halfway through a mild autumn, but this place seems to be fully in the grip of winter. The dead, yellow grass crunches underfoot, and the trees on the edge of the clearing are capped with snow.

A befuddled-looking ogre stands nearby with a huge shovel; 9 saplings in burlap sacks are scattered on the ground next to him. The ogre notices Gra-fa-zut with a start, and pulls a tattered parchment from his belt. He recites:

"Hello, traveler! My master, the wise and benevolent Aloysius von Brandt, requires that I plant these trees in a particular fashion so that they may be used in a certain ritual. Alas, he has not given me detailed instructions on this matter, nor am I able to resolve it myself; I am but an ogre, brutish and stupid. Could you devise for me, traveller, how we might plant these trees in such a way that they form ten rows, each row comprising three trees? I cannot possibly manage it alone, as I am stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

The ogre seems unhappy to insult himself in such a way, but judging by his expression he is resigned to it.


————————————————†”———


Garold steps into the odd room, and finds himself in a dusty storeroom. Several gnomish women are here, squabbling; the argument seems to involve a small pile of iron rods.

"You there!" shouts a gnome, startling Garold out of his observations. "We have decided, as a group, that triangles are the secret to power. Therefore, we must take these six iron wands, and use them to create as many triangles as possible. And by we, I mean you, you insolent trespasser. GET TO WORK. Or you will never leave this storeroom alive."

Indeed, crates seem to be stacked floor-to-ceiling in every direction.