Noticing that the fat beetle (Huge, in fact. Reminiscent of Ecks' legendary box) seems to be shrugging off his lightshow, Gheth switches gears and tries out his old college stabbin' arm.

Move to V35
Healing Strike on FAT ONE
14+8= 22 == 22 Hit! Hive Lord is marked and considered bloodied until save.
6+5= 11 dmg to Hive Lord
Glock can spend a healing surge
and a partridge in a pear tree.

Skill's note: Pythagoras says I'm in the clear. And spend it he does. Glocks's HP +11.

Flailing wildly, Delic swings his sword about like a man possessed.

Basic Attack, I guess: 8 damage to Hive Lord
End of Delic's turn: 2 damage from aura

Garrmondo swings his blade down into the leathery carapace of the kruthik before him, exulting in the pleasantly crunchy sound that results. Still, the satisfaction is short-lived; there's something about these things that makes a man feel sick just standing next to them.

Crushing Surge: 18 damage to Adult C; +1 temp HP
End of Garrmondo's turn: 2 damage from aura

Gordok does a fascinating thing which I refuse to recount.

Tundra Wind: basically as Skills described it, except the Hive Lord also gets pushed. It doesn't say "push the target if you feel like it", people. This effects Gheth's turn in a small way, as you'll see.

Even as the Hive Lord skids across the floor under the power of a mysterious wind, Gheth lunges after it spear in hand. The jagged spearhead rips open the kruthik's abdomen, and the creature's foul-smelling blood jets out in alarming quantities.

Approvingly, Glock reaches across the chamber with his seldom-used go-go-gadget arm, fist extended.

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Healing Strike (w/ Flensing Spear power): 11 damage to Hive Lord; Hive Lord is marked by Gheth for a round; counts as bloodied, takes 5 ongoing damage (save ends both). Glock's HP +11.

End of Gheth's turn: 2 damage from aura (it's all Skills' fault)

Angered by the sight of the Hive Lord's grievous wound, the kruthiks enter into a slashing frenzy. Mere proximity to the patriarch seems to double their ferocity as they struggle to defend him.

Kruthik Adult A Claw: 18 damage to Gheth; bloodied
Kruthik Adult C Claw: 6 damage to Garrmondo

:savepoint: Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord, Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults

Start of Glock's turn: 5 acid damage

Feeling kinda bad that the rat he fed to the shapeshifter has somewhat, directly or indirectly, resulted in his dragon friend get SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP, Robo-man decides to kick it into high gear.

Move to V33

"Hey, you scaley fuck. The only one allowed to smack you up around here is me. Get up so I can kick your ass!", he yelled at Gheth, in his most friendly preprogrammed voice.

Majestic Word on Gheth
Gheth recovers 18 HP. (14 + 4)

Addressing the rest of the party, he simply said "Guys, look at this thing. Even I wouldn't fuck it. And anything I wouldn't have sex with doesn't even deserve to live. Let's kick the shit out of it and scrape it's beastly remains off our fists and shoes. Let's flatten it like it was a naked dwarf tobogganing off a cliff."

Stirring Shout on Hive Lord
11+7 = 18 > 17. Hit
Hive Lord takes (12+5=17)/2 = 8 damage
Everytime anyone hits that thing, they regain 4 HP.

Burn AP

Turning around, looking back at the douchebag attacking the nice man who gave him the shiny shirt. "And you. Who the fuck are you? You better hope you die in the next few seconds or my steel foot is going to be so far up your ass you'll be shitting out your nose."

Vicious Mockery on Adult C
9+7 = 16 > 13. Hit
Adult C takes (4+5=9)/2 = 4 damage.
Until my next turn Adult C takes -2 penalty to attack rolls.

The robotic version of being flustered raised Glock's temperature to the point where the acid simply vapourized off him. An unforseen benefit of getting pissed off. He quickly (as in the speed of light) makes a mental note to remember to get pissed off more often.

Saving throw vs Compound 2 successful.

Thrown ass-over-teakettle again the moment he managed to get back up, the Hive Lord makes the best of it and just pukes all over everyone in range again. Delic displays a rapidly-evolving talent for expediently avoiding vomit.

Start of Hive Lord's turn: 5 damage
Acid Blast from S34 to W38
7 acid damage to Gordok and Gheth; Gheth is weakened and suffers 5 ongoing acid damage (single save ends both)

:savepoint: Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults, Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord

In a mad moment, Delic no longer fears the providence of cake and dashes headlong at the creature.

Move to T38
Brash Strike

(I've gotten some shit ass rolls this adventure)

Tiny bear is running out of cool magics to use. So he uses his last one. Diabolic Grasp. That guy. Please?

Tiny bear grasps the Kruthik Hive Lord... diabolically. There is 14 damage and sliding of two spaces to the east.

Gheth was starting to get disoriented. Whether from the acid dripping into his eyes, the bugs' curious ability to hate him to death, or from lingering cropdusted fart fumes, he could not say. Somehow he'd gotten separated from the rest of the group, and that could spell their end if they weren't careful. Luckily the rousing speech from the warforged lit a fire under him. After all, if he died, he was pretty sure the bear would desecrate his remains. It went without saying that as a cleric, he was firmly opposed to his death on principle.

Regardless, he manages to stumble towards one of the insects and offer up a spear-flavored milkshake. As the creature turns to face him, he shouts:
"Quick! While his back is turned! I'm sure he's most delicious!"

Gheth takes 5 from acid, making him bloodied and activating Dragonborn Fury
Move to R37
Righteous Brand on Adult B with +3 bonus to Gordok
2+6= 8/2= 4 damage
Healing Word on self

Delic makes another mad dash at the Hive Lord, only to have the halfling's sinister magic pick it up and yank it away. Whose side is he on, anyway?

Garrmondo keeps hacking away at the lone kruthik. It's getting a bit monotonous for him, but at the least it's probably safer than diving in the acid-drenched fracas going on behind him.

Aura 2 damage yada yada

Just as the tall man with the funny mustache tries to swing at the Hive Lord again, Gordok flings it away again. It is too funny forever! The halfling tries to stifle a chuckle as the fighter nearly sprawls to the floor again.

8 damage actually, Weakness being what it is.
Finally made the save against it, though.

More than a little tired of getting puked on, Gheth gets the hell out of Dodge. The smaller kruthiks aren't exactly lining up to die in a hurry either, but at least they weren't going to step on you.

Healing Word: 14 + 5 bonus + 4 WIS = Gheth's HP +23
Aura 2 damage you know the drill

Things weren't looking so great for Thunderspire's resident parasitic lizard-beetles, either. The intruders seemed to spend most of their time flipping the hive over just to watch them wriggle. It's a fucking indignity is what it is.

The Kruthik Garrmondo has separated from the rest makes a half-hearted swipe at him, then begins tunneling into the floor beneath the fighter's feet to get back to its mates.

Kruthik Adult A just stands up
Kruthik Adult B Claw: 10 damage to Gheth
Kruthik Adult C swings at Garrmondo, misses, and goes a-tunneling. It's 5 feet underground but I have no status icon for that so I'm just using Invisible. Please keep it in mind (??).

:savepoint: Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord, Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults

Noticing the bug miss the man again before running away like a pussy, Glock decides to use his force powers to move some folks about. Twiddling his fingers all funny, Garr moves over ever so slightly.

Virtue of Cunning
Move Garr to S29.

Focusing a little harder with his robobrain, the underground bug pops the fuck out of the ground with a confused look on it's face. It makes a small skittering noise to express this.

Advantage of Cunning
Move Adult C to S28, above ground

Trying to replicate that noise, Glock looked at the bug and belted out a click tick clack skreet sritch clack tick clack noise as he walked toward it.

Move to U31
Vicious Mockery on Adult C
Fail MISERABLY

Turns out what he said was actually "I like ham sandwiches". The bug didn't really find this threatening at all.

The Hive Lord scrambles to its feet once again, with an extremely limited sense of enthusiasm about the process.

Start of turn: 5 damage to Hive Lord
Hive Lord stands up yet again
Saved vs dazed, yea
Also I forgot to give Gordok his 4 HP from Stirring Shout until just now

:savepoint: Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults, Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord

"Lets try this again! Have at you!"

Move to T40
Brash Strike

With the Hive Lord bloodied and out a far enough distance Gordok puts his bear powers away and proceeds to curse and zap the big bug lizard thing closest to the small dragon.

Warlock's Curse
Eldritch Blast

9 damage to Adult B (that is if I'm understanding how warlock's curse works correctly)

Gheth was keen on getting at least one of these things deadlike real quick, so he tried again to aid his fellows with a little trick he picked up doing the backstage work in drama class.

spotlight lance of faith on adult B
fails miserably

Brash Strike: Critical Hit! 18 damage to Hive Lord. Delic's HP +4 from Stirring Shout.

Adult B's Claw: 18 damage to Delic

Garr's AoO vs Adult C: Critical Hit! 14 damage to Adult C (bloodied)

Adult C's Toxic Spikes: Critical Hit! 14 damage to Glock; 5 ongoing poison damage and slowed (single save ends both)

Start of Glock's turn: 5 damage (bloodied)

:savepoint: Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord, Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults

Exchanging Move Action for another Minor.

Sticky green goop. Again. And one of his new friends is quite possibly clinically retarded.

http://colonelskills.belkanairforce....d/unamused.jpg

"Alright, get yourself up. You can't quite stomp bugs if you're feeling all down in the dumps, are you? Get up. Chill out, max, relax all cool. Think of all the honeys you'll get outside the school. Even when a couple of these bugs are up to no good, we'll fuck them up in this neighbourhood. This is just one little fight, don't get scared, we won't need to move with anyone to Felgair." he muttered to himself, hoping that positive thinking just might do the trick.

It seemed to. He even felt his feet move a tad.

Majestic Word on self
Recover 11+4 = 15 HP
Slide self to V34

Noticing one of the bugs miss his stupid pal, he thought "Now to get this idiot out of harms way. Its going to take a portion of my cunning! No, NO! ...All of my cunning! Dun dun dun dun~~~"

Adult A missed, so
Virtue of Cunning
Delic to U39
62 + 22 < 72, so within range.

Using his extendable speakers again, Glock blasted some weird high frequency noise in the direction of the bugs. Outside of a human's normal hearing range, it seemed to really anger the bugs. The stuff the human COULD hear though was just an invigorating tune about GETTING YOUR ASS IN GEAR.

Tune of Ice and Wind at T40.
2 + 7 < 13. Miss Adult A
16 + 7 > 13. Hit Adult B
19 + 7 > 17. Hit Hive Lord
Delic is in Burst, currently at U39. Slide him to U36, because he is AN IMBECILE.
(6 + 5) /2 = 5 Damage to Adult A. Slowed until my next turn.
6+5 = 11 Damage to Adult B. Slowed until save.
6+5 = 11 Damage to Hive Lord. Slowed until save.

Realizing how effective this tune was making his squishy pals actually do something useful, he decided to stop using the directional audio system and just sing so everyone semi-close by could hear it. Maybe they too will also become less useless!

Glock could only hope.

So sing he did.

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Song of Courage
All allies within a 5 square radius of me gets +1 to hit as long as you remain in this zone.

The warblin' about bitches and hotel rooms seemed to resonate with the goop, making it fly off him again. Glock likes it when goop fucks off. Everyone feels better about their day when that happens.

Save vs damn spikes thankfully this time.

The Hive Lord, sensing its impending death, staggers forward to unleash Super Vomit Armageddon. All creature will stink and all things will be puked on. That's the way of Samurai.

IT'S NOT VERY EFFECTIVE :mad:

Start of turn: 5 untyped damage

Acid Blast from Q34 to U38: fuck!

Action Point holy shit almost forgot about it

Acid Blast from T34 to X38: Glock takes 7 acid damage; weakened and sizzled, you know the drill.

:savepoint: Delic, Garrmondo, Gordok, Gheth, Kruthik Adults, Glock, Kruthik Hive Lord

The shaded area represents Glock's radius of funky fresh jams

Seeing the creature reeling backwards, Delic grips down harder on the sword hilt and, taking his life into his own hands, he dashes forth with a single-minded determination.

Feeling that this was a make or break moment, Delic screams in passioned fury, a wordless rage that has been unexpressed since the age of Adam. The sound from his mouth?

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Move to W39
Insightful Strike

Garr told me to take his turn via text, since he's moving and will be away for a short bit.

Garr is annoyed by the insect lizard thing. "YOU. YOU'RE REALLY STARTING TO BUG ME." he yells. Soon realizing that wasn't nearly as clever as it sounded in his head, he grips his sword hard enough to have the pointy handle draw a little blood.

Bloodclaw Weapon power
1 HP damage to self.

"Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee, right?"

Footwork Lure
1 + 18 + 12 = 31 > 17. Hit.
6 + 3 + 2 = 11 damage to Adult C.
Shift to S30.
Adult C slides to S29.

Trying to ward off a combination of the bug's cuts and that stingy sword shit, he pulls a bottle out of his belt labeled HEAL-A-COLA and chugs it.

Drink Potion of Healing
Spend Healing Surge. Regain 10 HP.

The smaller lizardy thing retreated back to the hive lord. This was getting dumb.

Warlock's Curse and Eldritch Blast to the hive lord

Gordok crits that asshole. Whatever 1d10+4 plus 6 curse damage is. Die fucker.

Growling incoherently, the tiny bear waves his magic rod at the Hive Lord with great impatience. The Hive Lord explodes for no good reason, showering the Horde with grimy shards of chitin and the remains of various slimy organs. Whatever devil was in charge of of Gordok's Infernal Pact was evidently late for his coffee break.

The smaller lizards, bereft of leadership, scatter into the nooks and crannies of the stone and disappear. It'll be months before one grows large enough to be a Hive Lord, and until then they'll be too disorganized to pose a real threat to the inhabitants of Thunderspire.

Victory! 1180 XP (236 each)

With the immediate danger dispersed, the party can look around the ruined old chapel or do whatever they were trying to do before I don't even remember :(

"Well now, that went well, didn't it? Good good. Let's all chillax for a moment, ok?"

While everyone was catching their breath, Glock busts out a new pimpin track.

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Song of Rest
All healing surges spent regain 4 additional HP

Walking over to the Dragon, Glock wiped off all the crap that he was still covered in on the cleric's shirt. He couldn't stand to not be shiny. A true gentlebot always looks his best, Luke.

Burn surges to full.

After his awesome ballad was over, Glock wandered around and poked through the bug guts all around the room. He was looking for the venom and/or acid sacks these bugs used to shit all over him and make him decidedly less than his shiny best.

Look through bug carcasses for various vendor trash and try to harvest venom/acid sacks from the bodies.
Perception (Nature?) Check.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry guys. My bad. I know we were supposed to go back to town, but I made a wrong turn there. I was devoting too many computational cycles to trying to figure out why some place called Thunderspire, essentially LOUD MOUNTAIN PEAK, was not actually a volcanic structure of some kind."

Glock sets about gathering some wood pieces from the destroyed table in the southern room. He was going to give his compatriates a few minutes to scope this place out and then take it from there. Should it come to it, at least he'd have some firewood for a camp. If nothing came of it, they'd just head back to town before trying the maze again, properly this time. Besides, there was something back in town he wanted to check out.

Gheth decided he must look a sight. He'd taken some hits, and not only was his tunic pocked through with acid holes, and blood coming from the most inopportune places, but he had a fresh sheen of leatherbug guts to boot. He figured an extra coat from Robobard wouldn't hurt.

Of course, that was before he got yet more sizzling acid in his acid wounds. :mad:

At any rate, they still hadn't met anything remotely cowlike. Gheth was just about to write this whole trip to the underdark off as a disappointment. The local Bureau of Dungeoneering and Palm Resorts would be getting a nasty letter if this kept up.

Healing surge to full if party gets to walkin'
otherwise rest

Gordok the bear rolls around in bug guts. They were his bug guts now. His.

But he supposes he could share. Gordok wonders what bug guts could be more useful for than rolling in. Then he stops wondering and rolls some more. Squish. Squish.