Against the Cult: Party at the Mill (1.1)

ROUND FIVE, end

In talking to Soo, Durren sees that beyond him is a comfortably furnished bedroom, lit by windows on the three other walls. No one else appears to be in the room other than Soo.

Sara rushes through the dark room, stepping lightly over the dead bodies as she runs up to the western wall and leaps. Her foot finds purchase on some hooks for tools to maintain the mill's machinery, and she pushes up on the trapdoor, intending to catch the edge and look through once it's open. But the trap door moves only slightly under her shove, and a voice gives an exclamation of surprise, as if someone was standing on the trap door and felt it shift when she pushed on it. Sara drops lightly back to the floorboards next to the ladder lying there.

ROUND SIX BEGINS

- Aanbo
- Thacogygax
- Everyone in the basement and on the basement stairs
- in the attic
- Xana
- Ogbar
- Klak (turn submitted: talking, with readied action)
- Durren (turn submitted: setting ladder and opening attic trap door)
- Quest
- Sara

"Sh-Shalla's upstairs. They're watching me, making sure I obey, or they'll hurt her!"

ROUND SIX, continued

Thacogygax shoots lightning from his mouth, angling it down the stairs. It blasts through the people crowded on the stairs and reflects off of the wall and into the basement. There is screaming. There is sizzling. There is a clap of thunder and electricity arcs through the machinery of the mill, and each room is lit briefly with a flash of blue light as the electricity travels up the driveshaft through the mill room, upstairs where Sara and Durren are, and into the attic. Everyone's ears are ringing. The men on the stairs clap their hands to their ears, dropping their staves and reeling in pain. The fight seems to have gone out of them entirely.

From the attic, Sara and Durren hear a shrill yell: [b]"WHAT...WAS...THAT???"[b]

- Aanbo (the way I figure conversation in combat is: you can speak briefly without taking an action, but if you converse and listen to a response, it takes at least an action)
- Thacogygax
- Everyone in the basement and on the basement stairs
- in the attic
- Xana
- Ogbar
- Klak (turn submitted: talking, with readied action)
- Durren (turn submitted: setting ladder and opening attic trap door)
- Quest
- Sara

ROUND SIX, continued

- Aanbo
- Thacogygax
- Everyone in the basement and on the basement stairs
- in the attic
- Xana
- Ogbar (turn submitted, kicking Uncle down the stairs)
- Klak (turn submitted: talking, with readied action)
- Durren (turn submitted: setting ladder and opening attic trap door)
- Quest
- Sara

(Morgran should roll initiative for next round, in case there we'll still be in combat by then.)

ROUND SIX, continued

Sensing that the fight has gone out of the rough men on the stairs, Xana creeps out from under the staircase. She can still take an action.

Ogbar steps up next to Thacogygax and plants one large and bloody boot on the chest of Uncle, and shoves him powerfully into the wall, knocking the wind out of the man. Uncle's eyes roll in his head, and he's dazed and wheezing for breath from the stomp to his chest.

Klak booms out his command, and the ruffians left on the stairs all drop their staves in meek surrender, with a babble of distressed cries:
"Please don't kill us!"
"He kicked Uncle!"
"We'll do anything you want - just don't let the dragon eat us!"
"Help!"
"What's going on?"
"What did you do to Black?"

Quest can act this turn, too.

Morgran, the fellow Dungeon Buster associate and cleric you last saw asleep in the Inn, come sauntering into the mill at this moment, wondering where the party went without him.

ROUND SIX, continued (upstairs)

Muttering softly to Sara, Durren sets the ladder against the wall and scampers up to push on the trap door. It rises partway, but clearly someone there is trying to keep it from opening.
Durren, roll a STR check to open it anyway.

The voice from the attic calls down in response to Sara: "Yeah, well, then the girl won't survive either!" Sara and Durren both hear a muffled shriek at this.
I'm going to say that Sara has a single action remaining, if there's something else she'd like to do this round (a move or another action).

Durren heaves on the trap door...