Iesha nods and moves up to strike with her battle aspegillum.
Crit confirm?
Iesha and Peredur both connect soundly, but despite the shattered bones, the headless skeleton still stands.
the skeleton, in turn, lashes out in a flurry of haphazard blows, which both half elves have little trouble with dodging.
The proximity to the skeleton, however, scorches the skin of both.
Looking at the flaming horror in surprise, Talia starts to pull out her sling, before deciding she would likely hit her companions, being between her and the monster. She steps up behind Iesha, the words of a spell on her lips.
“You did say it would explode if we got too close, right?” Sour Heck says, backing up a little further.
"So let's keep our distance!" Eloise says. She points her hand at the blazing skeleton and casts another spell: "Nisil mors, nisil vivens, te rescindo!"
A pale, golden ray lances from her hand at the skeleton, but misses by a wide margin because of the wretched thing's random movements.
Flushed from the heat, the ranger calls, "Get back, Iesha! I'll finish it!"
If the cleric retreats, Peredur opens up on the skeleton. He misses with the mace, but lands a solid blow with his sword.
Iesha steps back to allow Peredur his full assault on the creature.
Eloise misses with her spell, and Peredur interposes himself between the skeleton and Iesha, cutting it down. Nimble as he is, he manages to avoid most of the ensuing conflagration.
Peredur straightens up from his defensive crouch, wisps of smoke rising from his scorched clothing. "It's hoping I am that there was but th' one." He prods the burned fragments of bone with a booted toe. "Th' Lopper's handiwork, I'm thinking. Now let's see what' in th' guardhouse." Suiting action to words, the ranger looks through the doorway the skeleton came from.
Another guard station. Cots, chairs and a table, as well as the mechanism to open the portcullis, in tact. No sign of the skeleton's head to be found, nor much else of interest.
When activated, the machine cranks open the portcullis with relative ease, as before. The grate locks in to place with a metallic clang.
"Finally, something easy. Why is that scarier than all the rest of this place?"
"I don't know why, but it certainly is. Peredur? Will you do the honors?"
“A moment--this probably won’t do anything for your pain, but we can’t take it with us, after all.” Sour Heck produces the healing wand and goes to work on Peredur’s burns.
"Let's jam the portcullis before we go on," Eloise suggests. "Lest someone think to lock us up behind it."
Almost all of the ranger's burns fade under the healing magic. "My thanks, Sour Heck." Peredur drags a couple of chairs out into the corridor and places them under the portcullis.
Iesha
Peredur
Sour Heck
Talia
Eloise
lopper
As soon as the portcullis is secured, a hideous howling noise emanates up from the dark oubliette at the center of the room. A hideously deformed figure floats up through the grates. All pallid skin and gangly limbs, the creature has no nose to speak of, and no hair. Hateful eyes glow with a wan yellow light, and the skin of his face seems to be drawn back from the shattered remains of teeth. The undead thing settles on shattered leg bones, and lopes toward the party on an unsteady gait, carrying a wicked looking hand-axe--identical to the one from the property room.
"Ugly brute, isn't he?" Eloise asks in a conversational tone. "Hoplon."
A shimmering blur in the air manifests in front of the Chelishwoman, and she draws her black sword. A crooked smile appears on her lips as she holds her ground.
'Shall we see how well we fight together, my pretty?'
Iesha sighs."I'm starting to hate being right about this place."
HP: 19/19
AC 14
Conditions: None Duration: (if applicable) x out of x rounds)
Spells: 0th: 4/4; 1st: domain: 1/1; standard: 3/3
Channel Energy: 6/day; 1 remain
She steps forward and strikes with her battle aspegillum.
Confirm crit if it can be critted?
Doesn't matter, no confirm.
“Died in a shaving accident, poor sod,” says Sour Heck. “‘Never use a hatchet when a razor will do,’ as a lumberjack of my acquaintance often said. Everyone, look for his lost nose! If we return it to him, he’ll go to his rest.”
Even as he jokes, the bard readies and loads his sling with one of his ghost salt bullets.
Round 1
Talia waits for the creature to get within melee range of Peredur and Eloise, before launching into spellcasting. "Spectern Revelus" she says in a sing-song voice, pointing an accusing-looking finger at the floating specter.
It's foolish this is, but mayhap I'll be a lucky fool. Peredur closes with the spectre, drawing the bloody hand-axe the party found in the vault and swinging it in a lethal arc towards the spirit.
Iesha dashes forward, quickly followed by Peredur. Iesha's aspergillum sweeps through the incorporeal figure, the trail of holy water hisses, and the creature recoils.
Peredur, wielding the creature's own axe, finds better success. The axe actually bites deep, drawing a ghostly imitation of blood from a deep gash across the Lopper's chest.
Talia's spell wrenches the creature at least partially onto this plane of existence. given physical form, the Lopper is even more hideous. His flesh seems spongy, his elongated limbs sag under the pull of gravity, but the wound in his chest will bleeds some phantasmal imitation of real blood.
The Lopper shrieks hideously again and takes a vicious swipe at the Cleric. The semi-corporeal axe passes through Iesha, drawing a spray of blood. Blood soaks through the cleric's shirt, and pain shoots through her body.
The blood spray lingers in the air unnaturally, before coalescing with the Lopper's form. The gaping cut in the thing's chest starts to close, and the hideous smile widens.
Seemingly pleased with this result, the thing lopes away from the Cleric and ranger, dodging Peredur's attack
"Quickly!" Talia shouts, "While the spell lasts it is vulnerable to all forms of attack!" She grins, surprised and pleased that the spell affected the creature in the first place.
"Here now!" Sour Heck shouts as the Lopper swings his axe, "Iesha doesn't need a shave! Certainly not on her chest--or, ah, so we all assume."
Then the bard sees the blood gush from the cleric's wound, and for a moment he is struck dumb. His gift for finding dark humor in everything deserts him as The Lopper feeds on her blood.
As the thing moves away, Sour Heck darts forward to keep it in view, mind racing desperately for something to use against the bloody specter.
The sanity-destroying joke of the fallen Azalanti heretic cult leaps unbidden to his mind. The darkness whispers strange syllables in his ear.
He croaks out the Hideous Laughter in the ghastly speech of the dead.
"کتے نے میری کوئی ناک ہے. ناسیکا نہیں ہے وہ بھانپنا کیسے بہت بر ہے!"
A sound fills the vault. A terrible sound. It is a cry of rage, which flows from Eloise's throat as she charges into the room, her black sword suddenly crackling with eldritch energies.
"Be still, you accursed ghost!" the Chelaxian roars, her sword already in motion as she runs at the Lopper. The blade flashes...
"Terrific."Iesha mutters, then moves to stand between Eloise and Peredur and uses her last channel against the incorporeal foe - to little effect.
HP: 19/13
AC 14
Conditions: None Duration: (if applicable) x out of x rounds)
Spells: 0th: 4/4; 1st: domain: 1/1; standard: 3/3
Channel Energy: 6/day; 0 remain
edit:
The Lopper collapses into a tangle of limbs, laughing hysterically. It is a hideous wheezing and shrieking sound, echoing off the stones of the prison.
Iesha's holy energy washes over the creature, and it emits an audible sizzling noise. Burns break out on it's semi-corporeal flesh.
Snatching his mace from his belt as he spins and takes a short step towards his foe, Peredur uses the momentum from his turn to power both the axe and mace into the Lopper's semicorporeal form. "Time for th' Boneyard, spirit!"
HP: 20/20 - Status: N/A
AC 17 (touch 12 flat-footed 15)
Spells used: lvl 1 3/3, lvl 2: 1/2
Talia dashes into the room. Seeing the crazed spirit lying on the floor, laughing, she glances at Sour Heck.
"Have you been cracking your quips, Sour?" she says, before turning back to the creature. "Well, I've been burning to use this one all day..." Her hands move and chanting comes from her lips before her fingers spread towards their foe, flames funneling out over the undead monster.
Peredur and Eloise find the prone Lopper to be an easy target, cutting deep into the thing's body. Talia steps up and scorches the now physical spirit with her spell.
Alternating between shrieks of surprised agony and hideous laughter, the skin of the Lopper begins to slough away under the heat of the spell, revealing muscle and bone before the undead thing simply melts away, diffusing into wisps of ectoplasmic smoke.
Peredur looks down at the bloody axe in his hand. "That worked well, though I'll not be giving up my sword for it. So now it's but one more we're having, and it's fearful I am that he'll likely be th' worst of th' lot."
The ranger puts away his weapons and begins to search the area.
"What’s really depressing is I never get laughs like that from my regular act,” Sour Heck laments.
"One left, then," Eloise says as she twirls her sword, shaking off the last traces of the Lopper before sheathing the blade.
"I say we head back to town, eat well and rest, for tomorrow we face the ghost of an evil wizard... Who can probably read minds, as well as the other stuff that was in his book."
"Agreed. I've called on Shelyn's grace as much as I can today...and I've lost track of my spells. Let's head back, see if we can get healing and more holy water from Father Grimburrow, and rest up. I'll request a different set of spells from Shelyn, ones that better suit our task here."
"Though Vesorianna says she can keep us safe in this place, it's thinking I am that if we don't return Kendra will worry needlessly.
"Thinking on how th' Lopper's shade were laughing there, Sour Heck, would you want to have humans sounding th' same? 'Twould frighten me, it would."
“Not as scary as an audience that isn’t laughing.”
Sour Heck nods along as the party starts talking about resting for the night. “Even better, we could leave and rest up for twenty years or so. Thirty.”
“But if you heroes can’t wait past tomorrow to get killed, well, I’m not looking forward to the long trudge back and forth from town. All that mud from the rains weighing down your boots--that’s a pain, that is. Plus you could slip and break your neck and miss your chance to get murdered tomorrow.”
“I think I’ll take Velsinorra up on her offer of hospitality, maybe pack her bones and her husband’s up for travel. It won’t be the worst inn I’ve stayed in, plus it’s free.”
The bard’s eyes grows distant. “Also, I can’t help but think about all the nights she’s spent alone in this cursed place with her husband’s tormentors. If we’re going to slink away tonight without facing the Splatterman, I at least want to keep her company.”
“Can you help me raise the trunk of weapons and the basket of bones before you go?”
"Ouch. It's a poor reflection on me that I didn't see that."
She sighs and bows to the bard. "Thank you for reminding me of the innocents in this situation. I'll stay as well. Let's get this stuff up stairs."
“Thanks. Best we get all this out while we can; if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the old ghost stories, it’s that haunted houses tend to collapse when the lurking evil is laid to rest.” Sour Heck cocks his head. “Which is more bad news for us, now that I think about it.”
“Anything else of interest down here, Peredur?” The bard peers around the Lopper’s lair, sending his Dancing Lights to illuminate the dark corners.
There is a rope knotted in the middle of the iron bars covering the oubliette in the middle of the floor. Inspecting closely, it is severed after a few feet. The bard's dancing lights glint of some kind of metal lying at the bottom of the pit.
The cells surrounding the hole are completely empty.