"Well Hoga. What do you think? Looks like that beetle thing is itching for a fight." Kakrish looks to Hoga to see what he is going to do.
"It's just a beetle. Go get it." Red Raven encourages. "This one will be right behind you."
Hoga moves and attacks.
With the encouragement of his party members, Hoga moves forward. The beetle follows his movement while he crosses the room. With a swing of his axe, Hoga attacks the beetle. He hits it directly on the back, the sound of the carapace breaking resonated in the room. While severely hurt, the beetle is still alive and tries to strike back at Hoga.
But the wound is crippling the beetle and it's unable to hit Hoga.
Red Raven runs up to the damaged beetle, delivering a powerful kick with his birdlike legs.
As the beetle recovers from the missed attack on Hoga, it doesn't get a chance to see Red-Raven's kick coming down on its head. Again, a squishing sound is heard but this time the beetle stop moving.
"See? Just a beetle." Red Raven says, checking to make sure Hoga is fine.
Eww, Hoga says, shaking bug goo off his axe.
"I wonder what it is aiming for."
Tamora taking her time to survey the room with her senses and detect magic once the danger has passed as she remain behind the half-orc and the tengu when she enters the room.
Perception for traps, hole, anything out of place and anything notable (Take 20) - 29
Taladrius, bringing up the rear as usual, steps into the room just to see the still body of a giant beetle, stops right in the doorway with his jaw dropped. "We're just going to encounter all of the strangest things in this crypt aren't we..." He looks around the room a bit before hitting everyone with another round of Resistance, and scanning the room with Detect Magic.
Tamora searches the room with the added bonus of her magic. Going over all the crooks and cranies of the room, to the partialy eaten corpse and the dead beetle. Once done, she is positively certain that there is nothing dangerous, trapped and magical in this room.
While this is hapening, Taladrius walks around and confer magical protection to the group before examining the room with his magic. He also come out with the result that there is nothing magical in the room.
"Who is it that it tried to eat?"
Tamora tries to see if there are anything on the corpse to help the group to identify it.
Perception (Take 20) - 29
Garrik moves to inspect the stairwell to the north. "Where to now? I suppose the obvious choice is the passageway next to Hoga."
Yup. Hoga goes there.
Tamora mutters a prayer to the fallen orc and waits for Hoga to open the only door.
"Yes. But if you want to feast on this dead beetle or slit its carapace open to check whether there is loot inside before we proceed, I won't stop you."
Kakrish barrels into the room behind Hoga just in time to see him and Red smash the creature. "Well done. Couldn't have done better myself. Well, maybe I could have. But that's ok. Alright. So where to now?"
As the others indicate the western door Kakrish nods. "Yep. Looks good. Let's go."
Kakrish approaches the closed door and tries to open it. "Ok. Let's see where this one goes."
Garrik looks up the stairs to the north. They seem in better shape than the previous set of stair they saw. Also, after a few feet, they turn to the right.
Kakrish opens the door. Right away, he is hit by smoke coming from the corridor. It seems to carry the smell of burnt meat/fur, hard to say. After a few coughs, he is able to see the corridor turn left after a little more than ten feet ahead of him. He can also notice that there seem to be a light source further in.
Smoke swirls out past the door as Kakrish opens it. "What?" he exclaims. "Hey guys, there's smoke coming out here. And there's a light glowing at the end of this corridor. Let's go check it out."
As the door open, Tamora has to retreat back as she splutters from the strong smell. She palms the lower part of her face to prevent the smoke from entering her nostril again.
"Ugh. This burnt odor smells worse than burnt bugbear fur. Who in the name of Sarenrae creates a campfire in a crypt?"
She backs the dwarf from the rear, following the stocky figure as he moves to the source of light coming from the corner. Then, her speed increases.
"Perhaps it is a distress signal. Someone could be in danger. We should hurry."
"Campfire...Everflame...who knows?" Garrik says following along.
In the center of the room, you can see a large fire pit. The smell of burnt meat/fur is almost intolerable. You can see the remains of two corpses in the pit with some badly burnt gear and debris. Even with the large fire pit, the shape of the room, with the help of the columns and smoke, generates some large shadowy areas that seem to dance with the flames.
The smoke in this chamber is quite harsh, causing eyes to water and breathing to become labored.
Tamora squints her eyes and sees the two corpses.
"If this is the everflame we come for, it seems too easy. But this looks like a furnace instead. I believe we should prepare. Something is amiss in this room."
While they are not in a state of crisis and in the room, she takes her time, scanning for danger, traps and anything out of the ordinary with her senses and detect magic.
Perception (Take 20) - 29
Red Raven enters the room, keeping one eye closed for the moment as he looks around the room.
"This one doubts that is the everflame." he says, sounding disappointed. "Help this one pull the bodies out of the fire?"
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Hoga does his best to see, too. (25)
Both Hoga and Tamora inspect the room the best they can and both come up with the same result. The two bodies in the fire pit are orcs. While most of the gear in the fire is too damaged to be salvaged, they both notice a nice looking dagger that lies under the flames. The danger isn't on fire, but there isn't really a safe way to get it.
Red-Raven move forward and look at the bodies for a way to pull them out of the fire. He is able to analyse that, even though the bodies will be easy to pull out, there is a chance of burning yourself.
"If you want me to extinguish the fire pit so that we can pull out the dagger in the center of the pit or move the body safely, I have a spell for that. Just say the word. You might want to step away from the room. What comes next will be take away two of our senses though it is temporary. We will also be without light, a minor problem that is easily fixed with the right spell."
Tamora mutters a simple incantation and touches her spear, making it shines like a beacon. (She casts light on spear)
Do it!
Hoga goes near the flame, readying his morningstar to scrape the hot dagger away so it can cool.
"Tamora, if you can put out this fire, then go ahead. Then we'll see what else we can find in here. Someone must have started it and put these bodies in it."
Tamora concentrates from the doorway and uses divine energy to make gallons of water appear over the fire pit. On the first casting, the fire is put out immediately as the waters hit it. Steam and smoke rise from the pit, obscuring the room. Thanks to the light spell on her lance, you can still see in the room.
With the fire extinguished, Red Raven uses the central tine of his Sai to carefully extract the dagger.
"Here." he says, pulling it to where it could cool faster.
Tamora quickly checks the room again to see if there are any changes to and in the interim as a result of her spell.
Perception (Take 10) - 19
Red-Raven moves forward into the room. Making it to the fire pit. Carefully, he pulls the magical dagger from the flame and set it back down. As he does this, Tamora inspects the room to see if there is any change aside from the smoke rising.
Out of nowhere, a shadowy hand reaches out to Red-Raven. It only touches him lightly on his shoulder, but he feels the coldness of it throughout his body. Feeling weaker, he can see with some difficult his attacker floating in front of him.
At the sight of the enemy Kakrish reaches to Hoga and a surge of power flows into the half-orc. "I have given you a blessing, Hoga. It is a blessing of Destructive Attacks."
Then Kakrish pulls his greatsword from its scabbard.
Hoga waits until later in the initiative order to act,dropping the morningstar, unsure that he has anything that can affect the monster.
Red Raven staggers back, cold breath fogging out of his beak as he struggles to raise his limbs to fight back.
"What?!" he manages to caw.
You are facing a Shadow. It's an incorporeal undead horror, and as such has no goals or outwardly visible motivations other than to sap life and vitality from living beings. Being incorporeal mean that it takes no damage from non-magical source. However, magical and elemental source deal have damage to it. Force effect and positive energy deal full damage to it. Holy water also works.
"I thought the wail was from the ghost. Never imagine it would turned out to be a silent predator and here instead of the cyan doors. Holy waters and force magic, everyone. Red Raven, if you are feeling extreme fatigue, retreat. This enemy is much deadlier than what we encountered so far."
Tamora racks her brain for any extra knowledge and mutters a spell (disrupt undead) and fires a ray of positive energy at it.
"Vengeful wraith, be purified by the light!
(-4 penalty to melee accounted)
Kakrish blesses Hoga with some divine energy of his god.
Tamora, realising what you are facing, fires a bolt of pure white energy at the creature. The bolt missed, but it seems to have attracted its attention for a moment as it turns its head toward her.