Turel nods in agreement with Harmose, while shaking his head slightly at Qari's words.
Is that supposed to be sarcastic?
"Agreed" - Polux replies to Harmose on the marching order.
Grinning and falling into line, Fine by me. Lets get going. I have a great view why would i complain. I will not mess with the tail. I wont! Yet! She makes sure to have her crossbow at the ready.
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You travel back to the crypt entrance that you had already visited the previous day.
B4. Family Mausoleum
A rectangular stone building sits in the northwest corner of the estate. At each corner stand columns carved to resemble men and women with their arms crossed over their chests. A set of stone doors stands in the southern face of the building, carved with bas-relief faces of two men. Hieroglyphs are carved into the doors just beneath the faces.
The faces on the doors are of Pentheru the Elder and Pentheru the Younger and match the faces on the statues outside the property at area B1. Two of the building’s four columns also depict the two men. The other two columns depict women: the wives of father and son. The Ancient Osiriani hieroglyphs identify the building as the “crypt of the House of Pentheru” and warn, “May defilers be cursed by the gods until their day of judgment.” The crypt’s stone doors are heavy, but open easily. Inside, a wide stairway descends 15 feet to area B26. Originally, it was planned for the entire family to be buried in the tomb and crypts below, but only Pentheru the Younger was interred within before the Plague of Madness and the resulting chaos overtook the rest of the family.
You descend the wide stairway into the crypt in the marching order stated by Harmose.
B26. Undershrine
A stone altar sits upon a raised stone platform in the center of this square room. Caryatid columns carved in the likenesses of male and female figures with their arms crossed over their chests and khopeshes or ankhs in their hands stand at each corner of the platform. Empty torch holders are built in all four of the room’s corners. Two stairways exit the room -— one climbs to the south, while the other descends from this chamber to the north.
Roll Perception.
Turel breathes softly, "A shrine to Pharasma!" His head bows down in a gesture of respect and grief. "I see many signs of violence here though. This shrine proved no refuge from the maddened hordes for those who sought to avoid the Plague and their ultimate fate."
Polux remains in silence, watching their surroundings.
Not overly distracted by the view Deseri quickly replies to Aleris, Actually this crypt wouldn't be here if it was in the flood region. While it is underground the ground is high enough to avoid any flooding.
Again in a place of death Deseri remains quiet like before. Hearing that this is a temple to the Lady of Graves Deseri bows as well.
Harmose nods to the discussion of floodplains and Pharasma, warily watching for undead threats. He does not like crypts, does not like any reminder of his days as a ravenous undead. However, having been a monster once, he has an affinity for them. He can feel their presence like an itch upon his skin. There are restless undead here... he's almost certain of it.
No need to mention that I come from the outskirts, where those farms are. Aleris is embarrassed enough as it is.
Looking around the entry to the crypts, Kito says "I've a bad feeling about this...
Perception
Qari, still worried about other crazy guardians, was hyper vigilant as the crew looked around the area.
Click... Whirr...
Ra-Khefer has his weapon out and ready, but his mind is still on last night. Did that really happen? Did she? Did I?
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As you start to filter and spread into the Pharasmin undershrine chamber, there's suddenly a violent screech and a blur of movement, as some previously hidden creature jumps out of the shadows and falls upon Turel. It lets out an eerie sounding moaning as it attacks the monk. Polux, Harmose and Qari see it in time, as it is moving toward Turel, taking part in the surprise round. The three of them may take surprise round actions.
The creature is human sized and looks like it's wrapped in strips of some sort of pale clothing that cover it from head to toe, as if it had undergone mummification rites.
Though once human, adherers have forgotten all traces of humanity, and now hunt their former kindred with gleeful abandon. Adherers digest food unusually slowly, and as such can feed on a single creature (humans are their favorite meal) for days or even weeks, taking only one or two bites a day and forcing their living captives to endure a hellish, drawn-out death.
None of them can act fast enough to prevent the creature from attacking Turel. The creature attacks first, and makes a single attack on the terra cotta monk.
As Turel has not yet acted in the combat, and his flatfooted AC is 13, that should be a critical unless I'm mistaken.
The damage is less than it might have been, fortunately enough, but the physical damage Turel takes is not the whole story. The creature sticks to Turel with almost supernatural force, making it extremely difficult for him to pull away from it.
After the surprise round, the creature's Round 1 action will be to maintain grapple on Turel and to cause damage to him. The following will be negated if you can manage to kill it before that:
Next:
Polux, Harmose, Qari: Post surprise round standard action (between begin grapple and maintain grapple) and Round 1 actions (after maintain grapple).
Others: Roll Initiative. If beat creature's 22, post two rounds. Round 1 (between begin grapple and maintain grapple) and Round 2 (after maintain grapple). If don't beat creature's 22, just post Round 1 actions (after maintain grapple).
Click. Whirr.
Ra-Khefer is surprised by the appearance of the sticky thing, which is so unbelievable that it takes him a moment to understand two key facts: first, the foul thing has his comrade, Turel. Second, he's in range to attack it and potentially hurt the damn thing.
"We are UNBREAKABLE!"
Seeing as there is only the one creature, Kito concentrates and causes a dark cloud to appear over it's head.
"Turel!"
Harmose has no idea what sort of creature has attacked them, but he does know what to do in the case of a nasty grapple. He casts grease on Turel.
"Deseri... Kito... මගුලක්ද ඒ දේ කුමක් ද? එය නසන ආකාරය පිළිබඳ කිසිදු ඉඟි තියෙනවද?"
"Deseri... Kito... What the HELLS is that sticky thing? Got any tips on how to kill it?"
Wanting to keep his friend alive and in the fight, Harmose casts first, and then reaches in to touch Turel.
It doesn't look extra-planar. Maybe some sort of undead?
"What is that thing? Harmose would also like to know."
Qari fires two cold bolts at the mummy looking creature in the surprise and initial rounds of combat, trying to get it removed from her monk friend.
Surprise Round Ranged Touch Attack with PBS into melee
Damage
First Round Ranged Touch Attack
Damage
Possible crit RTA
Damage
Yelling out It's and Adherer not a Mummy. And don't let it touch you! Raising her crossbow and shooting.
While Turel's reflexes are fast in this case, they are not quite fast enough as the foul beast nearly sends him sprawling to the ground. Muttering a curse under his breath, he ignores both the healing energy flowing into him and also the greasy substance covering his body as he tries to escape the grasp of the adherer.
"Never heard of such a thing! Looks sticky."
"Let go!" - Polux roars, drawing his morning star and swinging at the creature entangled with his monk companion.
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Surprise Round
Adherer grapples Turel.
Harmose casts Grease.
Polux misses adherer.
Qari hits adherer for 8hp.
Round 1
Adherer loses grapple on Turel.
Ra-Khefer hits adherer for 13hp.
Kito uses Misfortune.
Aleris misses.
Qari hits for 7hp.
Deseri misses.
Polux misses.
Harmose ?
Turel ?
Adherer taken 28hp damage. You can see that it is close to death. It next attacks Ra-Khefer who is close and has dealt it damage. Depending on Harmose and Turel's refunded actions, the following may or may not occur.
Round 2
Whether the slams occur or not is of no consequence, since they are both misses due to Ra-Khefer's high AC.
Everyone may post their Round 2 actions, and Harmose and Turel their retroactive Round 1 actions.
Click. Whirr.
Ra-Khefer grins with an almost manic glee as the Adherer misses.
"We are UNBREAKABLE and you are NOT!"
Seeing his friends appear to have the melee well in hand, Harmose merely casts a couple acid splashes at the Adherer, hoping to dissolve its glue.
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Harmose's first acid splash misses, but the second hits, as does Ra-Khefer's flail. Together they bash up the adherer, who falls to the floor, twitches a few times, and then doesn't move. It sticks firmly to the stone floor, however. If you tried to turn its corpse over with your boot, you would find it like glued to the floor, and you'd have to yank your boot free from its highly sticky body with a shrrrrippping noise.
Combat is over.
If anyone searches the room, you find nothing beyond that already described. Searching the dead adherer is very challenging due to obvious complications.
Ture rises to his feet a little slowly looking down upon the remains of the adherer. He reaches forward to pick up his spear which had been dropped earlier. Seeing he is having difficulty in holding onto the spear he looks over at Harmose with a questioning look on his face.
"While I do appreciate the assistance in escaping that thing's embrace, I would prefer to be clean again. Call it a personal vanity of mine." He says quietly.
Looking back to the adherer corpse he adds, "Although if you wish me to search that corpse...I will certainly do so as I should be able to avoid getting stuck to it."
Turel has no desire to get anywhere near that thing. He considers it a foul disgusting thing and unclean to boot. He is just being polite here.
Harmose, distracted, accepts Turel's offer, oblivious to any subtext that Turel was trying to provide. "That would be a wonderful use for the duration of my grease spell, brother! Afterwards, I would be more than happy to clean you off!"
Harmose studies the creature and contemplates its magical stickiness. Acid did not put a dent in it. Would water? Fire?
Does Harmose have any ideas on how to make the adherer come unglued?
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Harmose knows and can share the following (IC appropriate terms of course):
Fire can temporarily burn away an adherer's adhesive coating -- whenever an adherer takes at least 10 points of fire damage, it loses its adhesive special quality for 1d4 rounds. Universal solvent, alchemical solvent, or a similar fluid removes an adherer's adhesive quality for 1 hour if it fails a DC 15 Reflex save, or for 1d4 rounds if it makes the save. The adherer's skin loses its adhesive quality 1 hour after the adherer dies.
Harmose holds up a hand before Turel goes the messy and sticky business of searching the adherer. "Wait. There's a better way."
He points at the sticky corpse. "It looks likes the adhesive coating is magical in nature, and will slowly wear off after the creature dies. Why don't we search it once we come back from the rest of the crypt? The adhesiveness should have worn off by then." Harmose takes a note to remind himself to search the corpse later and detects magic.
He cleans off Turel with prestidigitation, then looks apprasingly at the others. "Let's resume our march, same marching order. Ready, team?"
He points at the sticky corpse. "It looks likes the adhesive coating is magical in nature, and will slowly wear off after the creature dies. Why don't we search it once we come back from the rest of the crypt? The adhesiveness should have worn off by then." Harmose takes a note to remind himself to search the corpse later and detects magic.
"A shame... I would like to gather some of that adhesive" - Polux stares at the strange creature for a moment, but then shrugs the notion away.
"Give me some time to take a look" - he nods, then moves into the tunnel.
Kito casts message to connect with Polux and Turel. "Best we keep in touch."
Harmose nods at Kito casting message. If combat hits, it's better if Polux and Turel have someone who can speak more than Auran. "Let's go with the proposed marching order. Be careful!"
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Polux makes his way to a large chamber at the end of the descending stairs. He notices nothing that stands out to him. However, when the second person starts down the stairs, *that's* when the trap goes off, and spears emerge from the staircase walls to impale Turel.
The trap seems to have been worn down by age, and the spears coming out of the walls glitch a little and move slower than they should, allowing Turel to dodge them. Turel takes no damage from the trap.
After the trap has been triggered, the rest of the group can move down the stairs with no further interruption, although the spears are still present in the staircase, so everyone will need to wiggle around them.
You gain 800 xp for surviving the Stabbing Spear Staircase.
B28. Preparation Chamber
The air in this chamber is cool. The walls and ceilings are tiled with stone, but the floor is hard-packed earth, giving the area an unfinished quality. A long stone table rests against the western wall, flanked by two large brass urns. A flight of steps ascends to the south, while two passages lead north and east out of the room.
There is a small chamber to the north of the main chamber, as shown on the map (map updated). It contains nothing of note.
Polux winces as he hears the trap spring behind him - "I'm sorry. I missed it" - he sends via the Message spell back to Kito, and then sets to surveying the room.
"Are you alright, Turel?" Why does everything in this place go after poor Turel?
Harmose steps gingerly around the spear in the staircase, and the peeks in the room.
"See this room? It's where Pentheru the Younger was laid in state, and then mummified while his tomb was prepared. Had the Plague of Madness not occurred, other Pentheru family members would have been mummified here as well."
Turel steps around the spear trap with his usual aplomb and looks around the crypt. "This tomb was never finished either, due to the Plague without a doubt."
"Strange, I would have thought traps would be one of the last things they would finish." Kito muses as she squeezes past the spears.
"Turel, Ra-Khefer, Polux - I don't know how any of you manage to stay on the front lines. My nerves would be shot!" Aleris gasps after Turel manages to avoid the trap.
Leaning forward and mumbling, But that is where all the fun things happen. Sometimes it is fun to stay right on the edge. Waiting to be tipped over it. Grinning and winking at Aleris then moving to look about. Wondering over to gaze up the stairs until everyone is ready to move on.
"Let's go forward, then!"
"Yes" - Polux looks around, and decides to head east.
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B29. Unfinished Crypt
An earthy scent fills this large chamber. The ceiling and walls are tiled with stone, but the ground is bare earth. Stone benches are set against the east and west walls, and torch holders are mounted in the corners and on either side of a wide doorway to the west. The beginnings of several shallow, rough passages have been started along the eastern wall and in the southwest corner, but the excavations are incomplete, ending in earth and rubble after only a few feet. At the south end of the room, a short, wide flight of steps descends to a set of stone double doors.
When you enter the room, there's movement in the southwestern alcove (see updated map), and a torrent of small black cats begins to pour out of the alcove, eyes glowing supernaturally and hissing aggressively, baring teeth. They keep coming, dozens upon dozens pouring out of the alcove like a waterfall of hairless feline bodies, and forming a two by two square swarm that attacks your group.
Swarm marked in blue on map. Update your token positions and roll Initiative. If you beat the swarm's initiative, you may also post your first round actions.