Raven rushes forward to attack the plant monstrosity, which whips at her with a crushing vine! It strikes a strong blow into her side.
Alamina and Ryle attempt to render aid to Vorsirion, who receives healing but fares poorly in his struggles to move free from the creature's grasp. One of Thurl's arrows takes the thing in a fleshy mass, while the other spins wide.
With more foes in reach, the Mound releases the elf to attack both foes in melee.
The blow glances wide of the Slayer while the other lands on the already battered elf. The healing he received is likely the sole thing keeping him conscious. This time, however, the tendril fails to grab hold of Vorsirion.
The dull thud of his arrow striking home is like music to the half-orc's ears; he grabs another arrow from his quiver and lets it fly!
Alamian channels to heal everyone, excluding the shambling mound from the aura.
HP healed
Raven doesn't pause her brutal assault upon the shambling mound, even as Vorsirion begins taking heavy hits. She lightly skips back, then lunges forward, slamming the supernaturally sharp point of Harbinger into the plantlike monstrosity.
Ryle sallies forth and builds momentum on his greatsword, ending in a crouch-spin placing him below the anticipated more impressive swing of Raven. From his of the creature, he expects this to hit right where the trunk is most tender.
The party hacks at the overgrown vegetation, but to little avail. Only Vorsirion slashes through the vines to strike into the mass.
The mound of plant matter continues to wail on its opponents, this time pulling Raven to it an crushing her with a verdant embrace
Ryle unhesitatingly hacks at the vine reaching towards Raven.
As the tendrils of the mound begin slowly crushing her, Raven doesn't hesitate to drop Harbinger and begin fiercely stabbing at the rotting plant with her magical spear.
Vorsirion remains on his feet as the odd enemy's tentacles fail to strike him this time. Using the brief respite, he activates a ward to protect himself from further damage. He touches the black onyx gem in the amulet at his neck, and for a moment his visage changes.
A female elf with blood dripping from her mouth appears and swings the elven blade.
Both Raven and Vorsirion's alter-ego connect with their blows, Raven alebeit with the aid of Ryle . The mass of vines thins out, but maintains its cohesiveness and grip on the Slayer.
Alamina channels once more, trying to keep Vosirion in particular on his feet.
Thurl takes another shot at the mass of tendrils, hoping they can bring it down before it's able to bring down one of them.
Alamina lightly cures the party's wounds while Thurl lightly whifs an arrow across the monstrosity. It, in turn, attempts to bring Raven into its mass of roiling vines and bracken, pinning her.
The Slayer is battered and bludgeoned as the Mound wallows over her, like a verdant wave.
Thurl lets out a curse in Orcish, then nocks another arrow to his bowstring and releases, making sure to keep it far enough away from where Raven was engulfed so as not to hit her through the roil.
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Ryland launches himself at the fell shrubbery like a gardener out of hell.
"Keep pressing the attack! Focus on the vines! You can cut me free later!" Raven roars.
Under the continued onslaught of blades, blows and gardening the shambling mound explodes with green ichor, collapsing atop Raven. Some small parts of it continued to move, but no sentience appeared left within the creature.
Examination of the tree the Shambling Mound had sought refuge at reveals that it like had existed here for some time: the ground around it was carpeted with bones of various size and decaying matter, some of which was likely to be human. You do find a strange brooch: an oak leaf carved of amber, that is likely remaining of their previous owners.
Identification magic detects that it is an Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Seeing the creature go down, Alamina rushes forward to help Raven up to her feet.
"Careful there, Raven. That thing really had a grip on you with its tendrils!"
Seeing her and Vosirion still injured, Alamina channels again to heal the party.
HP healed.
Raven grunts as Alamina and Vorsirion help her up, although she gives the elf a quizzical glance. "Thanks, 'Mina," she says as she retrieves Harbinger from the ground. "I, um... I probably would've been dead if you hadn't healed me." She pauses briefly, looks like she's about to say something, then simply mumbles, "Thanks," before turning to the rest of the party. "Alright, let's hope that the settlers haven't been eaten by some other damn thing and get on back to Hopefeld."
"Of course, Raven. That's what I am here for, after all, and why the Lady has blessed me with her Song."
Alamina looks over the party to determine just how banged up they all are.
"Anyone still hurt?"
heal check
Thurl breathes a deep sigh of relief when the thing falls under their continued blows, clearly fearing they wouldn't make it in time.
"I am uninjured. We should continue on swiftly. A creature such as that would lay waste to others, as much difficulty as it gave us."
Ryle, who has already crouched low and started examining the bizarre entity, frowns at the emerging consensus to keep moving - not so much because it's wrong as because it's so obviously correct. He takes a very quick sketch of it, stares intently, closes his eyes to have the scene fully reconstructed in his mind, puts some still-writhing vegetable tissue in a stopped jar, and moves on.
With the creature slain, all that remains is to deal with whatever human remains you find, and return to escort the group of settlers down the river. The return trip is otherwise uneventful, and you make your way to the settlement, settlement, in a few more days. The preparations you made seem to be paying off, and already rows of houses are being constructed on the south side of the fort, the slow hill in the shadow of the ruins offering protection and ready access to fresh water.
As you approach, Akiros rides out to meet you. The tall man seems like an entirely different person from the one you met month ago: clean shaven and wearing a white tabard over his armor. He announces, ”Things are coming along well here; even Auchs has been kept busy enough that he’s kept out of trouble. There was one minor incident with some of my former compatriots and a bit too much ale, but I’ve set them to cleaning off some strange gunk in the keep basement as a punishment. You’re going to want a look at this.” He pulls out a small scrap of parchment that reads Borders forged by sword and plow He shrugs. ”The entire place is covered with ramblings like that, all covering over each other. We can barely read it and can make less sense of it.”
Moving to the keep ruins, you can see where repairs are being worked, and the owl-bear pen has been worked. For now, the decision was made to keep the beast, but under more humane conditions, rather than killing it or letting it loose to terrorize settlers. Moving down the steps to the Keep basement, you note that the landing leading downstairs is impressively clean, likely the results of Akiros' punishment details. There is still algae on the wall, but it has been cleared off in most places, showing off each stone wall covered in a bloody scrawl.
Raven leans forward to inspect the scrawl. "There," she says succinctly, pointing to the southern wall. "The entire structure of... whatever this is seems to be based around that. Seems like some kind of prayer, or poem. Do any of you know what it could be referring to?"
"Political pamphleteering?" Ryle ventures.
"Beasts I could assist with...this sort of thing is Ryle's expertise. I will attempt to assist, though."
"Looks like madness and chaos to me. This place makes me feel uncomfortable, to be hinest."
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Vorsirion cocks his head to the side and examines the wall with great interest.
"Curious...does this look like new scrawlings, or something that has been here for a while?"
As he is wont to do, the occultist walks up to the wall and places a hand over it, then closes his eyes.
Whispers of madness...
Examining an item in this way requires him to spend 1 minute handling the item. If the item is a magic item, the occultist learns its properties and command word as if he had successfully examined the item using detect magic and succeeded at a Spellcraft check. This ability does not reveal whether the item is cursed unless the occultist's class level is equal to or greater than the caster level of the item. If the item has any historical significance, the occultist learns one piece of information about its past (as determined by the GM). Finally, if the item was last used no longer than 1 day ago per the occultist's class level, the occultist learns one piece of information about the last creature to use the item. This information might be a glimpse of the creature's appearance, a brief vision of what it saw while using the item, or perhaps its emotional state when it last used the item. The GM determines what information is gained in this way. This functions like the psychometry occult skill unlock, but doesn't require a skill check and can be used at will.
The party's collective racking of brains does little to divine an origin or frame of reference for the strange writing they found. To Ryle's practiced eye the material appears to be blood and written by hand, barely touched by elements or the ravages of time. Nothing similar to such a sight comes to mind, however, nor is there an obvious frame of reference. The line "Betrayal is a bastard's word" stands out to a few of you, recalling the pass phrase used by the Stag Lord.
Vorsirion's spell seems to work as normal, there is some lingering magic here of the Abjuration school. He does recieve a vision of an elf, back to Vorsirion blood flowing from his hands as he makes a swirl of a letter on the wall, before the vision fades, echoing "Can you hear me? I hear you."
"Any chance you found some property or evidence of the writer down here, Akiros? Whoever did this is clearly mad, who knows if they're dangerous, besides to themselves, at least."
Raven inspects the wall further. "Hmmm..."
Akiros shrugs. "We didn't find anything, but the place looked like it was covered up for years. Decades, maybe? We used the walkway for storage, but the room here was covered in debris. We only just found it while cleaning up the fort. So whoever they were, I would have to guess they're long dead and not a danger."
Raven scowls. "We might be dealing with some sort of serial murderer here. Even if the person who committed the spree is long dead, somebody who's that crazy might come back as some sort of undead, and still a threat. We need to keep an eye out."
"Undead maniac serial murderer? That's a cheerful proposition, Raven."
Alamina says a quick prayer over the obviously evil-tainted room, then head out, visibly upset.
"You've done good work, Sir Akiros. We are lucky to have you and your men working with us."
Ryle chips some of the blood into a vial for analysis later. Between this and the vegetable matter it will be busy nights at the lab.
Thurl gives the room as thorough a search as he can, checking everything and everywhere, to make sure they haven't missed anything.
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Vorsirion's spell seems to work as normal, there is some lingering magic here of the Abjuration school. He does recieve a vision of an elf, back to Vorsirion blood flowing from his hands as he makes a swirl of a letter on the wall, before the vision fades, echoing "Can you hear me? I hear you."
To clarify, does Vorsirion see the elf with blood flowing from his hands, or is he seeing himself with blood flowing from his hands?
The room remains a mystery even as the party pokes and prods at it; no matter the time spent, the stone walls seem adamant to keep their secrets. No further doors or discoveries are forthcoming. Speculation aside, there is no real evidence that there has been an undead serial killer, but that idea is particularly chilling.
Akiros nods to Alamina, although it isn't clear if he fully agrees with her words. "We will ensure to keep a guard here so that no one disturbs this place. If you have any other assignments, send word."
On the way out of the disturbing room, Raven gives an order to Akiros. "Keep me apprised of any mysterious disappearances or grisly murders."
"Either way, I'm not certain what else we can accomplish here at present." Thurl says, returning to the wall that has the clearly-written text on it, studying it, trying to think of anywhere he may have seen or read the passage before.