He's a Ranger, a Rogue, a Campfire Marshmallow

So, as the party's designated Sneaky Guy, my Elvish Rogue/Ranger (3/5) really rather distinguished himself last session. First, he was the only one in the party who didn't end up in a force cage. Then he killed the last of the zombies belonging to the green hag sisters, and annoyed the heck out of them from a safe distance until he ran out of thunderstones, alchemist fire, and the like.

Then he found out that you really shouldn't engage hags in melee combat, because ability drain is a terrible thing to be on the wrong end of and also their fingernails are really sharp. Fortunately, you can still heal someone from inside a force cage. Unfortunately, trying again got us within a mouse's whisker of a total party kill, and only the bard's skill at persuasion and the mermaid's homicidal impatience got them through alive.

So while they were waiting for the remaining Force Cage to release the mermaid sorceress, they checked over the ancient ruins that had been built on top of other, ancienter ruins. And they found a door that bade them to speak the pass phrase or die by fire.

They didn't know the pass phrase. So my elf boldly set out to see what was up with the door.

The door, as it turned out, was magically trapped and would release a Flame Strike every time the trap was set off. But Vendril Bloodthorne was not deterred; he was skilled with traps and locks alike. However, as a slight and very clearly unnecessary nod in the general direction of caution, he did chase everyone else out of the room and quaff a potion of Protection From Fire before he set to work.

Y'all, he set the trap off no less than six times. FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!

Okay, maybe seven. FWOOSH! Maybe even eight.

But he's a rogue. Well, partly a rogue. So he has Evasion, and his reflexes border on the inhuman. Between that and the potion, he was only very lightly singed when he finished disarming the trap and went to work unlocking the door.

Well, in the next room they found a trap door leading down -- hopefully to the gate that they were seeking. So the bard turned everybody invisible, and they threw open the trap door, and...

...It was completely black. Nobody in this party can see in the dark. So Vendril lights his lantern and looks into the dark.

That was when the spirit naga that was hiding down there Fireballed the whole room.

Well, the invisible bard quickly went down the ladder into the basement. The invisible mermaid sorceress immediately returned fire (::ahem::) with a Fireball of her own, damaging the naga and failing to vaporize our bard. The invisible fighter leaped down into the darkness and landed on... well... his face. So Vendril, with his skill at tumbling and his nearly godlike dexterity, tried to tumbled down to the basement.

He, too, landed on his face.

So at this point both the fighter and the rogue/ranger were prone (but still invisible). The bard was on his feet, but not terribly well equipped to attack a naga, and also still invisible. The mermaid sorceress was still on the ground floor above, and quite visible. So the naga charmed her. ("Awww! We can't hurt her! She's my pet!") It was at this point that Vendril remembered that it was theoretically possible to get to his feet and make a full attack with a successful enough Tumble check.

Y'all, I rolled a natural 20 on that check. Vendril came to his feet like something out The Matrix and murdered the shit out of that naga. ("Dodge this.") ...Then we double-checked the math, and yeah: that natural 20 was absolutely the only way I could have done that. Anything else was too low. So Vendril should really never, ever try that again.

After that we laid to rest the ghost of the little girl, but that... well, that's another story.