Aria picked up the net she'd dropped when attempting to grab the rail (grateful she'd had a 'soft' weapon in hand, she'd have sooner let herself fall than risk the noise if a throwing hammer falling fifteen feet onto a hard marble floor). Whispering with Rose, mouths-to-ears, the shifter's tactical suggestions all sounded good to her. She whispered back, "Same ambient aura all about - and a hemispherical aura about the front doors behind us - surely the 'other half' of the one I saw centered on the front doors from outside. No door-auras or other auras...will be sure to mention such going on. Once we go on, I've a few more burst-magics for making charges toe-to-toe, but would likewise always be happy to use the bow!"<br/><br/>Especially, she reflected, now that she had the Art to make shots that (hopefully) actually counted at some range. The tiefling switched the hammer and net for the two loaded hand crossbow's she'd bought. The pair were inferior weapons to the longbow by any measure (range, power, or in this case the craftsmanship and magics of the bow), but simply handy (so to speak) to be able to aim and fire (but not reload) with one in each hand. As usual, her favorite weapons (said longbow, or two favorite kukris) were not in her hands for the reason of their own little magics for drifting more quickly into hand.<br/><br/>The marble chessboard floor proved an excellent medium for transmitting vibrations, being of a rigid continuous structure (perhaps originally conjured or at least 'melted' together by magic from smaller, rougher pieces - even the alternating black and white squares seemed fused, rather than laid-in tiles). Although Rose would not get a sense of any creature moving about, scattered shiftings of weight, gesticulations, and even the subtle natural press and lift of heels as a breathing creature exhaled, would betray the location of two rather large individual in the room beyond, several paces ahead and to either side of the doors.<br/><br/>The medium of air, meanwhile, carried such sounds through the door as to suggest to Rose the lecturer's presence some ten paces directly beyond the left door (which, to judge from the exterior dimensions of the keep they'd seen before, suggested he pontificated from an edge of the room which must be the south wall of the keep, barring any space-stretching magics at play).<br/><br/>A few finger-tapping sounds (perhaps those of a bored listener or two) would suggest a long wooden table in the room. After some moments of straining to listen (and her dimensional spellpower refreshing) Rose would just barely by such acoustics echolocate two more normal-sized persons between the two large individuals and the lecturer, one probably at either side of the long table. That counted five individuals in yon greathall - but curiously, only four sets of breathing.<br/><br/>The lecturer's voice droned on, "Naturally..." but was interrupted by the booming female voice Rose'd heard grunt before.<br/><br/>"Truly, if it took the most complex and laborious of magics to turn butterfly wings from pink to periwinkle, mages would thusly declare that the cosmic purpose of our existence was to do just that! Sacrifice for sacrifice's sake is well enough, Astos-"<br/><br/>A male but higher-pitched, cracking and shrieking voice across from hers chimed in, "Ohh, yes, it surely is! Too many tendays since last I had a mermaid to lash to seaside stones for master Cagnazzo to get a tentacle or two about has it been! Why-"<br/><br/>The female growled, bang a fist or something against a table with great force ,and counter-interrupted, "-but magics exist aplenty to gate one about the planes!"<br/><br/>The lecturing voice laughed softly, calmly. "But in what number, Frida, and blocked by how many other magics or divine wills as plentiful? Given the...nature of your own mistress, I might surmise she was a general or thereabouts on her side of the war, and surely commanded more demonlings than a single spell will 'port? Or have I grossly overestimated her worth as much as I begin to infer I've been overestimating yours?"<br/><br/>The female growled loudly, almost a valkiric battlecry, but then a different male voice (coming from just to Rose's right of the lecturer's), more soothing and with a partially Elven accent, cut in, "Friends, friends, play not the part of those drunk-brawling satyrs and fiendlings. If you tire of Astos's ramblings, Frida, consider it a welcome pinch of reverie. I daresay I have, all this time!"<br/><br/>The voice laughed softly. The deep female voice named Frida grunted, "For your fairer, more delicate stomach then, Aerontar, I'll have my jollies...later."<br/><br/><br/>Thanks for remembering the Blink. (Remembered it once in bed but didn't get up to make a note, esp. as you might've already been writing, and I figured you would think of it too :) ) I'd also realized I forgot about Aria's hands being full (figure she'll drop the net, since it's quiet if it lands) - I like the way you thought of and dealt with the guisarme.<br/><br/>Very cinematic moment overall (and finally falling b/c of the phasing is humorous). Oh, and liked Rose's earlier words and musings about the elf girls.<br/><br/>I don't think having DDed would negate Rose's chance to grab on or grab Aria, I got the impression from Climb they were immediate actions. On second thought, I think what you meant is it prevents her from taking an 'active' action to climb over the rail...that I think would be prevented anyway (if say a 3rd party had cast the DD) by the fact that all the catching-self-and-others attempts are immediate (in the general sense of the word) and precede any other actions.<br/><br/>Oh, thanks for remembering the Tremorsense! (I've been keeping it in mind, but would'v'e forgotten in this case.) Thanks for reminding me about the echolocation too.<br/><br/>Rose tremorsenses two 10'x10'-space individuals, and echolocates them and three other 5'x5' individuals in the room. (Lettered on map.) (Took higher checks / took20.)<br/><br/>Thanks to her we effectively get a surprise round, although it would have to 'begin' from outside the doors (unless they step through and somehow go unnoticed at the back of the room, preserving surprise for their next actions). A girl could 5' step through the door and have the action left over from inside the room, although since you can't 5' on a round where you move or charge, and charges among their many restrictions have "If you don’t have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can’t charge that opponent", the only way to surprise charge I can think of is dimension door, or either girl opening one of the doors (move action) for the other.<br/><br/>(These musings are all consistent with the suggestions in Rose's last post - DD + attack or step through + bow, AFAICT).<br/><br/>Regarding my earlier musings on the DMG's incomplete list of example ("what if you don't know orcs are in the room but move in just assuming it every time?"), my current thinking would be that, perhaps characters could make surprise actions anyway (say, if Rose had failed to echolocate or tremorsense anything) but since there's not much they could do with them other than move into the room, it implicitly or roughly reverts back to the normal situation. Athough our characters have special options, like 5' stepping through closed doors, or Rose DDing so that Aria 'moves' into the room consuming no surprise action of her own, like on the ship deck battle (we had an awareness of the enemies there too, so it's not a good example of this, although Aria's specific 'targeting' of Bikke was post-DD).<br/><br/>As usual, feel free to express a different thought (surprise/initiative is rather subjective as the DM portrays it, and I can always be wrong about more objective things anyway), or position Rose differently (such as switch her and Aria).<br/><br/>Aria initiative 29 (woo!) (delays 'til after Rose if Rose expresses intent to do something making that advisable or necessary, such as the post-DD attack she mentioned)<br/><br/>(Rolled for convenience - Rose can keep listening or whatever from outside the door for longer if she desires, I just scrolled the conversation inside to a place roughly simultaneous with the necessary listen rolls.)<br/><br/>Floor 1<br/>t = table<br/>F, S, W, V, Z = sensed individuals (by their naming of each other, F = Frida, W = Aerontar, Z = Astos)<br/><br/><br/><div class="codeheader">Code: <a class="codeoperation" href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="return smfSelectText(this);">[Select]</a></div><pre style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><code class="bbc_code">              ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>            ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>          ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~<br/>          ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  <br/>          X X X - - X X X             1  <br/>          X ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X             2<br/>          X ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X             3<br/>          X . ~ ~ ~ ~ . 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