Dungeon 5 Turn 33
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Ricki takes the wanted poster and posts it on the wall in the rust monster room, causing it to debuff any guards that enter. This, she hopes, will give the rust monster a fighting chance against them. She feels kind of bad that she can’t take it with her, but it probably wouldn’t end well if she did, anyway.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group gets a head start making their way through the mines. Kamau suggests to close the hidden door behind them, but apparently it wasn’t built to work that way. The kobold family escorts Kamau, Lara, and Macadamia while the pickaxe-wielder waits for Ricki to catch up. The kobold father and mother explain the situation to the miners as they go.
“Evacuation… well, I suppose we knew this would happen eventually. This is what we made the alternate exit for, after all.”
“It’s not going to be easy to get the Subject out of here…”
“The Subject?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s above your pay grade.”
“Still, I wonder how the Guard found this place? We’ve worked so hard to keep it secret.”
“Maybe they followed one of the gang members in and discovered there’s a dungeon in here.”
“Oh, I’m the one that called for them.”
“…You what?”
“You WHAT?”
“I’m a ringsmif. Imperial law requires me to inform the Guard when I set up shop in a new dungeon so they can send someone to collect my products.”
“Then there was a… a misunderstanding. But I’m sure we can clear it all up if we—”
“You’ve ruined EVERYTHING!”
“We’ll KILL you!!”
Suddenly the kobold miners go wild and begin to attack! They swing their picks at Macadamia and deal a significant amount of damage, but it seems they have eyes for the rest of the party as well! The kobold family appears confused as to what exactly is going on and stays out of it.
“Please, help me! I don’t want to die down here!”
“I’ll… I’ll let you hold my rings! I can’t let you KEEP them because that’s illegal but you can HOLD them for me! That’s okay, right?!”
“…Yeah, sure. Get behind me.”
“Surely we could let him get hit a FEW more times? It makes such a funny bonking sound.”
Macadamia joins Ricki’s party to save his own skin! It seems like he’s pretty low on HP after that volley of attacks, but Kamau decides he deserved the initial bonking for getting everyone into this mess. However, any further damage to Macadamia will result in Remorse accumulating (and possibly death).
It seems the miners’ shouting has echoed through the tunnels and alerted all remaining kobolds of Macadamia’s indiscretion, as Ricki also gets attacked by a miner! She takes no damage, however.
The non-miner kobold with a pickaxe seems to still be at least neutral, however.
Kamau: interpose.
Lara, Spider and Macadamia: go down the ladder.
If possible additionally (Kamau or Lara, I doubt that they would listen to Macadamia atm): Suggest that the kobold miners that if they cease aggression now, they later can point the guard to where Macadamia went (true or not, I wouldn’t mind them sending the guard in the WRONG direction every once in a while, but they have to decide if they want to risk that), and in turn the guard might leave them alone for now, giving them more time to evacuate whatever they need to (the subject?!). Macadamia might be worth more to them alive and at large, than if they subdue him now.
Ricki: thank the neutral Miner for his help and bid him farewell. go right, right and through the rat tunnel.
If looking what that big hole on the right side of the room with the rat tunnel in it is is a free action, do that, before going through the tunnel.
Kobold family: follow our group or not, whatever suits your needs better. Apparently you can’t stop us from getting attacked by the miners, anyways.
Kamau can follow the others next turn, once they are out of immediate range of the angry miners and for now he has to stop them knocking out Macadamia.
Edit: removed typos. 😛
Hehe, I wonder if the guard with the question mark above his head has his “spidy senses” tingling? His feet and one of the spider’s limbs are very nearly touching. Just a floor/ceiling between them. 😀
I think he’s feeling the effects of the poster.
Yes, that seems quite obvious to me.
My above post was a joke, which also seems fairly obvious to me. See the smiley?
Fairly solid plan. I like the idea of trying to talk our way out of this because a fight would result in lost time and allow the guards to catch up. I wonder what “I’ll let you hold my rings!” means. At the moment, Kamau could really use that Ring of Protection back.
If the miners continue to attack though, Subdue, not kill since this is still one of objectives.
Losing cooperation of the miners also means that they are no longer going to show us where the exit is and we have to find it.
“You think they might … leave us alone for now? Are you joking? Do you know anything about the Imperial Guard at all?”
I don’t think that plan is going to hold much appeal for them. They’d rather be long gone before the guard gets here.
Now, if we offered to stay behind and hold the guard off for a few turns, to buy them time to move the Subject, they might be willing to negotiate. But I don’t know if that’s such a smart plan for us.
Ricki: Use a rat tail (and Daisy) to knock out the miner, then check out what’s in the minecart. If there’s nothing, double move to the right.
Kamau: Interpose
Lara: Use the greatsword to knock out one of the miners and use the Spider to knock out a different one.
Macadamia: Grab Lara’s leather armor, shield, Oxidicer, and copper ring, then give all of your rings (except the Copper Ring of Protection) to Lara (and Kamau if you have a lot). Try to knock out the third miner.
Everybody: Let the kobold family know that we’re knocking out the miners, not killing them.
Time is of the essence, so I think using a rat tail to guarantee a KO is fine. We have plenty and rats are in every dungeon.
Mac might have useful rings, so they’re going to other people (so we can see what they are and use them if needed). He’s also very close to death, so he gets as much def as we can give him (besides Kamau).
And I think it’s a good idea to confirm a knockout because the miners will probably attack the guards once they get down here, who will kill them for resisting. Then we fail the secondary objective.
Now that you mention it, it’d have been a better idea to kill the last rat to grab tails and an unguarded buckler, rather than trying to feed it. Too late now.
Oh, right, Kamau was at -3/-3 in that room. Spending a rat tail would have worked and still likely paid itself back (70% drop rate from each of 3 dire rats), but it isn’t nearly as obvious as if Kamau could’ve done his usual one-shot.
Ricki cannot leave the screen after attacking.
Nice idea re checking the cart. It will probably be full of rock, but still.
Meta talk: I liked the plan from Gathersingredients, but there’s a small issue. If the angry miners were this easy to convince, we’d probably have almost safe way through the mines with no enemies. Too easy. And we know we have to protect Macadamia, and the family as well, so no-enemies-on-the-way won’t be a viable option.
And now I am REALLY curious, what is the Subject. Written in capital S. Is that a person? Or an artifact? Or a rare ore?
It’s probably best that we’re the ones to nonlethal takedown the miners. The secret passage down here doesn’t close. Guards are taking the long way around for now, but depending on how long they stay by Rusty (who isn’t in their way), they’ll be coming down here for us before too long.
Macadamia:
INVENTORY: Give Kamau your ring of protection from earlier. Receive Oxidicer from Lara, and equip it. Give Lara any other rings you’re carrying in return for her copper ring, and if you can hold it, the thieves tools she has.
ACTION: Attack the same Miner Kobold Lara attacks nonlethally using oxidicer. We want to knock them out, not murder them regardless of how badly they hurt you.
Kamau:
INVENTORY: Wield the spiked buckler just in case it works the way we hope. Wear the minor ring of protection from Macadamia.
ACTION: Interpose to protect the kobold family and the rest of the party from the miners.
Lara:
INVENTORY: As above with Macadamia – wear any beneficial rings he gives you. Wield your greatsword.
ACTION: Nonlethally attack a Miner Kobold with your greatsword, perferably the same as Macadamia.
Spider:
ACTION: Attack a different miner kobold from Lara and Macadamia – nonlethally, somehow.
Ricki:
ACTION: Attack the Miner Kobold using an empowered rat fang (spend a rat tail) – nonlethally!
Daisy:
ACTION: Attack the miner kobold with Ricki, again nonlethally.
Every Humanoid:
FREE ACTION?: Explain we don’t want to hurt the miner kobolds, and we don’t want them to be hurt by the guards. We will knock them out and take them with us/hide them from the guards if they won’t peacefully escape with us though.
There’s no mention the rules has changed. The miners are still kobolds as well.
I suppose when we fight them, we probably should keep reminding our team to KO them instead of killing, and also keep the spider at bay so it doesn’t slurp them too much.
I’m guessing a pickaxe is an Atk +2 two-handed weapon/tool, and that miners have 1 base Atk. With his Ring of Protection that suggests Macadamia just lost 7 HP (base 1 Def plus the ring). Kobolds look pretty tough.
It’s also possible that a pickaxe isn’t a very effective weapon and only adds Atk+1, which makes things easier for us. With that, Macadamia may have lost 4 HP, which with Ricki-esque stats would put him 1 HP from death.
It’ll be tricky to pin down accurate numbers. Fortunately, that’s because Kamau is a tank.
They aren’t used 2 handed per this strip, so they have to be 1 handed.
True, it’s only a two-handed swing in the detail panel. The pickaxes are held one-handed, but the greatsword back on turn 4 was clearly held two-handed in exactly the way that the dungeon 2 turn 51 greatsword was not.
That makes it even more likely that they’re only Atk+1.
Some on discord also have pointed out it could be atk+1 and an ability like “ignores 2 points of defense” or the like
I just want to say I LOVE the “Macadamia Joins!” panel so much. It’s so simple, but it gets across the teary-eyed plea so well!
100% agreed on that. And not just tears, but a small blob of snot, too!
Ok, how many MORE plot-twists will this dungeon hold?