Recap of the available information about the room we're at:
Doc0075: Ahead is a large archway, 3 times your height and twice as wide, that leads into a dark room.
The room is vast with pillars lining both sides and a high vaulted ceiling. At the far end of the room something keeps changing colour but you can't see what from where you are.
There is the shadow of something slowly bobbing up and down just ahead of the colourful object.
Doc0075: The shape stops bobbing up and down.
Me, Aslain and Triock won't have difficulty with the dark (dwarves and elves have excellent night vision (confirmed with Doc back when)). Kip, Dunward and Beldarion might have trouble noticing things in the dark. Aslain is carrying a torch, and Rudy is also coming up with a ring that gives light for five feet around him. Given the vastness of the room, I don't know how helpful those light sources would be, vs how much they'd make their wearers easy targets. Might be better to extinguish the torch for the moment, so the eyeball won't notice us, and will first focus on Cicatrix rather than bypassing her in favour of our more visible party?
We're presumably going to stay a full turn behind Cicatrix, so won't reach either her or the eyeball this turn (at least it hasn't been shown to be moving after hearing the sound of the whistle).
It's going to be a tight fit to catch up (16), defeat the eyeball (best bet: take down Cicatrix, use the mirror - otherwise probably lots of damage and poking pointy things into the eyeball until it cries uncle? (17, 18), with the downstairs party presumably joining us on turn 18), locate the exit (related to the colorful object? will we need the mirror to activate it?) and loot the place (19; mustn't forget this!) and escape (20) all in five turns, but we're just going to have to try.
Presuming the bobbing shape to be the eyeball, and that to be a
beholder, we'll likely be facing this, modulo any and all homebrew modifications which Doc could've made:
A beholder’s spheroid body is covered in chitinous plates, scales, or leathery flesh. Its great bulging eye sits above a wide, toothy maw, while the smaller eyestalks that crown its body twist and turn to keep its foes in sight. A beholder channels extraordinary levels of magical power. Its central eye emits a broad field of energy that can nullify the magic of its foes, while its eye stalks blast those foes with a host of powerful effects.
A beholder’s central lair is typically a large, spacious cavern with high ceilings, where it can attack without fear of closing to melee range.
The beholder shoots three of the following magical eye rays at random, choosing one to three targets it can see:
Charm Ray
Paralyzing Ray
Fear Ray
Slowing Ray
Enervation Ray
Telekinetic Ray
Sleep Ray
Petrification Ray
Disintegration Ray
Death Ray
Charm, disintegration and death scare me most. Petrification is also bad, although I've seen at least one mention in the game of protection against / reversal of. (Don't know if that was a spell though, nor if it was in our tunnel...) Does anyone have protection against any of this? (I have innate magic resistance, but that's it.) We should definitely hide behind the pillars as much as we can. The magic nullification field means that magic attacks will likely to be ineffective. The high ceiling here means we'll need levitate on Beldarion and Triock (and myself? and the Ogre?) if we're going for the pure damage route.
Aslain and Kip have very effective ranged attacks that should be able to do a lot of damage; me and Dunward have ordinary ranged attacks. I think Triock and Beldarion are without.
With two brigands in the party, and all these handy pillars, I'd
really like to try and set up an ambush using all our (so far completely useless) traps, but I think we need to be closer to get the lay of the land and work out something that'd be effective. I also have some doubts about the Beholder triggering the traps in the first place (edit: Doc says it's possible, but it needs to float directly over them), and of Og'rialt's ability to convince Beldarion to go along with the entire concept. Can we conceive of an ambush plan where Beldarion storming ahead at the eyeball will be a feature? We
might be able to lure the eyeball using the torch, but that'd give Cicatrix free reign to slip off. (She doesn't know yet what she's facing, though, other than that it's dangerous. We should also be aware that no one behind us (including Rudy) will have any idea of what they're facing, so they might draw the eyeball's attention at an inopportune moment. Then again, it might be at an opportune moment...)
@Beldarion If Rudy continues to solo and attempts to follow us, you have my hearty blessing for some face punching. He expressed desire to join Eranear's party, but then never changed his action of going up the stairs, so might be that he'll just wait on the landing until Eranear and company show up? Would be nice if he engages us and joins us, though, I presume the ranged attacks from a ranger would be more effective than mine.
Oh, and does your flame sword give enough light to see by / make you a visible target?
@Triock: Do you have any spells that'd be useful here? (I've seen some clerics with Ball of Holy Light. You don't happen to have the same, do you? If you do, that should help the other half of the party to see, but we might want to hold off on using it until we're closer to the beholder and maybe attempt to blind it?) Any defensive spells you could distribute among the party? iirc you've only cast cure disease twice, so should have lots of spell slots available, right? I'd say now's the time, since it'll all last the full course of the game, and keep just one or two slots of heals or offensive spells left in reserve.
@Dunward: How're you doing with spell slots? I've lost track. Did you gain any new defensive spells at turn 10? Would it be worth casting/refreshing magic shields, or any alternative plans?
@Aslain: you want to attempt to steal the mirror from Cicatrix if you get near her? Might be faster than killing her, and you now also have the knowledge on how to use it.
