The monk agrees in frustration with Seherab, but lashes out anyways with a fierce flaming flurry.
+
Hogan greedily grabs the tomes back and regains his knowledge as the allip-dwarves chatter and murmur in their strange language.
The group lashes out, but only Teos is able to land two punches against the injured allip-dwarf, who ignores the quiet man and continues to try and harvest knowledge from Hogan.
Dwizzle starts to Inspire Courage in the dwarves, sans the undead ones, as he is awoken by Ankhef.
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +10; (Short) @ 13
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (2 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - Two Will Saves against Supernatural with -1 for Wisdom Damage
Shaking himself to his sense, Dwizzle finally stops babbling about the "good" things the allips are doing, and immediately appears emotionally wounded, as if he were a toddler told that he cannot go outside today.
"Feh! Foul creatures planting thoughts in my brain! As If I need more of those!"
Stepping ahead, he continues to espouse the finer points of dwarven virtue while jamming his spear tip in the face of the nearest allip.
"You! You leave Hogan alone! He's a fine, upstanding dwarf!"
Teos continues to assault the creatures, dedicated to saving his harried stonelord ally.
+
Ankhef tries once again to take command of the allips.
The shorter dwarf is actually able to steal away one of Hogan's ghastly mind-scrolls as it cackles. When it shoves the scroll into its pack, you see that its wounds are immediately healed.
Seherab looks on in horror, unable to act, as Teos lands a single strike, missing his strong fire punch. Hogan continues to miss as the dwarf-allips try to resist his mind control.
Ankhef cannot seem to exert control as the allip-dwarves ignore the chastisement by Dwizzle and continue to try and strip the knowledge from Hogan.
They plunge their hands greedily into Hogan's mind as they try to pull forth even secret dwarven knowledge from the stoic paladin.
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +5; (Short) @ 8
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (4 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - Two Will Saves against Supernatural with -2 for Wisdom Damage
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +5; (Short) @ 8
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (4 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - Two Will Saves against Supernatural with -2 for Wisdom Damage
Hogan's will resists the knowledge being taken by the first allip before the second allip take more from his mind. Nevertheless he still has enough wits about him to fight on though for not much longer. His new brothers were counting on him.
Ankhef grunts in frustration as his spirits continue to be no help will swap to stabbing with his spear of the watchful guardian on the big one..
Teos continues doing his best against the dead, as slow and painful as that process is.
+
Hogan cringes as he feels more of his wit and wisdom stolen from him as the shorter allip-dwarf's wounds begin to repair, but Hogan, Ankhef and Teos aren't having any of this as they each strike the creature once.
As the shorter allip-dwarf is ganged up on, the pair still keeps plunging their hands into the gourd of Hogan, desperate to find the holy knowledge kept inside.
The shorter allip-dwarf begins to screech and jump as he shoves a second hand in and begins to pull out a tome the size of the paladin dwarf himself!
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +5; (Short) @ 20
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (5 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - Two Will Saves against Supernatural with -2 for Wisdom Damage
Despite slowly dying from the Allips, he continues to fight on, hammer in hand. It doesn't matter if this was an unwinnable fight with the decked stacked against him, he was going to keep fighting.
The larger dwarf-allip is able to wrest control of a tiny mind-scroll from Hogan's noggin, however the dwarf resolutely keeps control of a large part of his memories, keeping the smaller allip-dwarf from healing.
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +10; (Short) @ 20
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (6 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Dwizzle frowns as he observes the allips tearing more Hoganideas from Hogan and decides its time to go on the offensive while he continues to sermonize.
Dwizzle presents his golden sun, light washing upon its dwarven craftsmanship.
"BEHOLD! THE HOLY POWER OF RA-TORAG! PATRON OF ALL DWARF KNOWLEDGE!"
Ankhef stabs again with his magic spear.
-Posted with Wayfinder
The bigger allip-dwarf grips his head as he struggles to fight off the holy energy from Dwizzle, however the smaller one seems unperturbed by it.
Hogan stabs at the ephemeral creature, but his spear misses the spry dwarf as he jumps around Hogan, trying to find new spots to pluck information from.
Seherab, taking offense at the invasion of the dwarf's privacy, tries to cut down the weakened allip-dwarf with a stab from his enchanted short sword.
The equally spry Seherab manages to rip away some of the incorporeal form of the shorter allip-dwarf as the pair continues to babble and splutter in their attempts to rob Hogan.
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ +4; (Short) @ 28
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (6 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - Two Will Saves with a -3 for Wisdom Damage
Continuing to fight without reserve, the monk throws everything he can into trying to save his ally.
+
Hogan keeps trying to resist the allips' attacks and fights on.
Dwizzle groans, suspecting if he had just kept poking with his spear, he might've distracted the pair of spirits long enough to prevent them from tearing at Hogan's "knowledge" further.
Nearly paralyzed with indecision, he continues to stay on the offensive.
Ankhef continues his assault as well.
Seherab stabs again at the incorporeal dwarf. "I hope these guys go away soon! I've had enough of this!"
Hogan feels mentally fatigued as his brain is constantly drained of its memories as he weakly takes a swipe at the creature as its wounds heal from the taking of his mind.
However, the rest of the dwarves have much better luck as they all come together and strike down the shorter allip-dwarf, sending its soul back into the abyss.
Seeing an opportunity to completely steal the mind from Hogan, the last allip-plunges its hand into the man's mind and scrapes his hand along your skull, looking for the last vestiges of your being.
The creature seems to find pay dirt as he plunges both hands into the man's skull and begins to tug some unseen object inside Hogan.
Initiative:
1st: Dwizzle
2nd: Allips (Big) @ 2
3rd: Seherab; Hogan; Teos; Ankhef
Status
Hogan (10 Wisdom Damage)
Pending
Hogan - One Will Saves with a -5 for Wisdom Damage
Ankhef shouts "Ya big doof, back off Hogan."
Ankhef follows up with more stabbing.
"S##%! Get out of here, Hogan! Can you even understand us anymore?"
Feeling his mind slip away Hogan will withdraw 40 feet away.
Dwizzle swallows hard, wondering how Hogan can stand amid such foul thought-stealing. Seeing the dwarf step away, he redirects his distracting attacks in order to aid Teos.
Pondering what he can do next, Dwizzle steps back and considers some more holy might from Ra-Tor.
The remaining dwarf-allip pulls free a large glowing scroll from Hogan's mind as the dwarf collapses to the ground, drained of his ability to create memories and thoughts. The dwarf-allip greedily shoves it into his backpack as the rest of the dwarves attack.
Teos lands a single punch on the creatures as Seherab and Ankhef each stab the remaining dwarf-allip mightily. Seemingly undeterred by the attacks and proud of his prize, the bigger dwarf-allip disappears into the floor of the tomb. The group readies for his return, but thirty seconds passes and it seems that he was content to escape with Hogan's mind.
Status
Hogan-Unconscious (11 Wisdom Damage/1 Wisdom Drain)
Pending
Seherab slowly and cautiously lowers his sword as he begins to look around for more signs of trouble. "S@+%. Can anyone fix Hogan? I hate to say it, but I think we need to keep moving and just pray to Ptah that that dwarf spirit doesn't come back too soon."
"Gimme a min, I'll try and recover some of his brains."
Ankhef will read a scroll of lesser resto on Hogan.
Hogan wakes up just barely though his mind was shattered, still mostly broken. "What.. happened brother?"
Status
Hogan (10 Wisdom Damage/1 Wisdom Drain)
Dwizzle shakes Hogan excitedly.
"Hogan! Brother Hogan! Snap out of it! What they took wasn't real!"
"It felt real." Hogan replies rubbing his temple.
Teos punches the ground in frustration.
Not good. Bad fight. the monk signs. Finally he motions to himself. Empty.
He motions to the intricate writings on the wall. Important? he signs/asks.
Tools and notes have been placed upon this chamber’s broad stone worktables with apparent significance and precision. Several sarcophagi lie along the walls, surrounded by dusty models, urns, and statues. In the northeast corner, a disorderly campsite mars the mathematical order of the room’s design.
The sarcophagi in this chamber held the remains of many of Wati’s greatest thinkers and designers, mummified with care and laid to rest alongside their peers to continue their work in the afterlife. A passage to the west leads to smaller chambers that housed the bodies of lesser journeymen.
All of the mummies that once occupied the sarcophagi in this room have apparently wandered out into the necropolis.
You find a ring of feather of falling, forgotten in a discarded bedroll. In addition, five masterwork falchions lie in empty sarcophagi.
AS you turn the corner in this giant room, you see an alcove with a small room that holds a corpse in robes and a metal mask lies on the floor of this otherwise bare room.
He likely died from wounds sustained from the allips as he has no physical deformity.
Searching the corpse reveals only the cultist’s equipment and his personal notebook, which details the names and locations of the sites he was sent to investigate for signs of the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh. The locations are the Marid’s Caress, the Observatory of Truth and Wisdom, the Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss, the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye, the Shiny Bauble, and the tomb of Menket Maatya.
The Marid’s Caress and the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye have been crossed out—likely, the cultist was able to explore only those locations before he met his end here.
There appears to be no other area to explore in this building.
Status
Hogan (5 Wisdom Damage/1 Wisdom Drain)
Ankhef looks over the list "Well this could be helpful, I wonder how linked the Forgotten Pharaoh is to the current mess?"
Dwizzle pauses, rubbing his chin as he surveys the room.
"So, the mummies just got up and walked out... but here we have a campsite, swords, notes..."
Snapping his fingers, Dwizzle points to Ankhef.
"Hey! You think the mummies might've, you know, entranced the explorers here? Asked them to you know, go up into the market and get them some meat, or flower, or assorted groceries?"
Teos cocks a bushy eyebrow at Dwizzle's quite spectacular leaps of logic, as he hold the bronze mask in hand and considers it's outlines.
Many masks... all bad. Why Pharaoh forgotten? Teos pauses for a moment and adds Remember old tomb warning?
Seherab starts copying the information into his own notebook, also taking time to make some observations about the pyramid itself.
After a while he snaps his book shut and says, "Well, it seems we have to continue his work, right? We now have a list of sites that might just lead us to something interesting. So let's just go down the list."
Dwizzle flips through the masked man's journal making a lot of loud noises as he does so.
"Hrmmmm..."
"Hnnnhhh..."
"So wait, Teos. That list you told me you had from that Sheeps, err... Shepses. You had a similar list right?"
Dwizzle taps the page.
"This fella seems to be looking for something called Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh. Anyone know what that is? Some of his locations are the same places we've been looking for the compasses..."
Dwizzle clears his throat.
"Mostly unsuccessfully, I might add... except the one we got from Shardzy."
Dwizzle then snaps his fingers.
"Hey! Isn't there supposed to be a compass around here? Did we look around well enough?"
Looking around the Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss, the group doesn't see any sign that there was an elegaic compass at this location.
Additionally, no one is quite sure about the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh.
"To the Wise Observatory of Truth next?" Asks Ankhef.
Seherab nods at Ankhef's suggestion. "Yes, let's just keep working our way down the list. Let's hope he was working on the same project as us, only he wasn't able to reach its conclusion."
The Observatory of Truth and Wisdom is a simple affair, consisting of a single f loor with a three-story tower in the center. The tower’s top level is exposed to the skies above, with various markings on the walls to indicate the position of the sun and stars on important dates. The interior of the observatory’s main floor is decorated in blue tiles and murals of major constellations and celestial events. The remains of several dozen scribes, teachers, and bureaucrats were once interred here, but they were all animated by the ka pulse and are now undead creatures assailing the necropolis’s gates. When the observatory was transformed into a tomb, artisans worked subtle death motifs into the decorations, and anyone fluent in Ancient Osiriani discovers many prayers to Pharasma worked into the decorative trim.
In addition, an enormous spiral mosaic, partially obscured by a tattered tarpaulin, is built into the floor of the tower.
[spoiler=DC 30 Perception] You discover the existence of the door in the center of the mosaic, but it is locked magically and a simple use of tools won't help. Perhaps, you need to find a "key" or a secret phrase to open the door. Though it is a door, so brute force can likely still destroy the door, given enough time.
"This place is a Pharasmin one." Hogan states pointing at the mosaic.