With limited options now that the creature is not visible, Chephren casts a protective ward upon himself.
"I think it is still near, so keep vigilant." he says while shifting his gaze through the room.
------------------------------------------------------
Current Effects: protection from evil (Chephren), 20 rds, AC 18/14/16, saves +2;
Chephren can't quite tell what exactly happened to the creature, but he's not taking any chances. Casting a spell himself, he peers about for any sign of the thing but there is none to be found.
Surbi fires off two arrows into the space where the thing had last been seen. Whether it was either a delayed reaction or in hopes that it was still there is yet unclear. Her arrows find no mark as they clatter off the wall opposite her across the stairwell.
Gabriel moves into the room, looking all around, before stepping into the nearest corner, "I'm not hiding." He reassures Surubi, before he casts his oft used spell. "I don't sense evil at all from there, to there." Indicating the range his spell covers.
"Omenhotep, if the creature is gone again, let me take a look at your wound." Chepren says as he moves over to Omenhotep and begins to tend to the wounds.
[dice=Heal Check]1d20+7[/dicw]
Omen nods and allows Chephren to inspect him, though the masked man keeps a swirling mote of power pooled in his hand should the creature reappear.
HP: 10/14
AC: 12 (11 T / 11 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +2/+1/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist: acid, cold, electricity 7
Omens used (swift demoralize): 1/1
Black Motes used: 4/8
Shield charges remaining: 15
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 3/6
Ongoing Effects
Wisdom damage: 1
Brennan appreciates the calm in the fight to allow him to continue working on the trigger he found on the chest. Meanwhile, everyone else tries to ready and prepare for the return of whatever the flying thing was. Omen keeps his eyes and motes ready for if the thing returns, but there remains to be no sign of it.
Chephren takes the brief pause in the fight to have a look at Omen's injury, and is able to determine that the man is suffering from a poison infected bite. As he inspects the wound, there is the sound of activity across the way and Gabriel calls out, "I sense evil." Just as he does so two blackened, bat-winged fiend's heads fly around the corner into Omen and Chephren's view. Tentacles dangle from chin and scalp, and their fanged mouths hang agape. One of them flies right up over the open stairwell, but the second hangs back a bit and lets out a horrific shriek.
The sound is disturbing to say the least, but to Omen and Chephren witnessing the thing, it is so much more than that. It saps at there very notion of taking action, and unsettles them to their cores.
Surubi stows her bow and steps back, drawing the large sword from her belt. She does not turn her head away from the doorway where the creature disappeared, but says, steadily, "I'll cover you Mister Darkblade, just keep working on that chest. If it opens a path where we can get some shelter from--whatever this thing is, that may save us."
Omen shrugs off the scream, his mask keeping the utter disdain upon his face hidden from view. Waving one hand dismissively, the coiling orb in his hand leaps into the air and tears open another column of voidstuff. "Your shrieking will not save you, creature. Though it is music to my master's distant ears, I am sure."
HP: 10/14
AC: 12 (11 T / 11 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +2/+1/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist: acid, cold, electricity 7
Omens used (swift demoralize): 1/1
Black Motes used: 4/8
Shield charges remaining: 15
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 3/6
Ongoing Effects
Wisdom damage: 1
Brennan looked over his shoulder at the now visible opponents and cursed, loudly and in several languages. He poured more effort into disabling the lock, suspecting that he was leaving his companions to fight for nothing more than a few baubles. On second thought, he was okay with that.
Surubi switches weapons as she moves to stand defensively in front of Brennan. Gabriel maintains his focus, and moves out of the room, "Guys, let me know if you need help with these, I'm going to keep looking for the one that vanished." He changes the angle and direction he's looking, hoping to catch another sign of the unseen one.
As soon as Surubi steps in front of Brennan she can hear him let out an indication of success, albeit in his usually less than cheery way.
Omen can't see any signs of injury on these new enemies indicating that one would be the other thing in a different form. As such, he pours the cold dark energies into the closest one, which fails to avoid the majority of them.
The head that was just struck by Omen follows suit of the first one, but flying where it is makes the disturbing effect visible to everyone. It too lets out a horrific shriek which, combined with its visage, disturbs the group. Then it flies into the room where Surubi and Brennan are.
The second one does something possibly even more twisted, as it flies up to stare Chephren right in the face, before attempting to plant a large long kiss right on his mouth. Being able to do nothing about it, Chephren just solidly stares as the thing's lips press up against his, and he can feel the tendrils that hang from it dance around his face.
Feeling the deivce click into place, Brennan grinned and looked up to see one of the flying head things laying a big kiss on Chephren. He was still staring as the other let out a hideous shriek. The sound rang in his ears, and he felt himself stiffening up, but gritted his teeth and pushed through it.
He immediately turned the chest over to open it, now that the trap was disabled, hoping to find something inside that might help them defeat the flying heads.
Surubi shakes off the effects of the shriek; her nerves are already so tight from adrenaline that her muscles cannot be paralyzed.
"Mister Darkblade! Mister Gabriel! We could really use some help here!" Surubi moves around the back of the head in front of her and takes a swing at it with her sword.
;
Surubi moves around to a better spot to fight from, and as she does so she notices that there's something not right with Omen and Chephren. No one can stand that still unless something is making them do so. This attention distracts her from her target, as her swing goes wide.
Gabriel looks irritated as he gives up his spell, "I don't any evil except these two things, maybe it left.". He looks at the spaces filled by the other two men, and curses under his breath. He can't get through them, so he'll have to go the long way around. He begins casting a spell.
It's then that the head he was looking for appears, as it bites him once he starts casting. The bite was completely unexpected, considering he had just given up the creature for gone. As such, the thing completely upsets his ability to finish the spell, and he loses it. All he can do is draw his weapon and prepare himself to fight the ugly thing returned.
"Oh, for &*^%$ sake! Brennan moved to stand opposite Surubi and drove his dagger at eh back of the flying head.
+
Brennan gives up on the lockbox for the moment, seemingly perturbed that his companions couldn't handle the heads fully while he worked. He moves over to assist Surubi, stabbing hard into the head flying in between them.
The floating thing that reappeared above Gabriel tries to dodge away from the man, and move to safety. It flies out over the stairwell, out of reach, and once again concentrates briefly before it vanishes from sight.
The flying head inside the room turns and lashes out at Brennan with a snarling fanged maw. It flutters once, then attempts to extricate itself from between the two people in the room attacking it. In the haste of its panic, it makes a serious error in direction, opening itself up to the two of them to take retribution.
With the other of its kind in danger, the first head once again opens its distended jaw and lets out a terrifying shriek. Having no effect on the already paralyzed Omen and Chephren, only Brennan, Surubi, and Gabriel have to fight of the effect. Then it too seeks to move out to a more mobile location. Gabriel can be seen slowing, until he stiffens completely like the other two.
+
Brennan turned his head as the fanged maw snapped at him, taking the slicing fangs on his cheek instead of his eyes. He heard the thing trying to get away and lashed out again with his dagger, aiming for the joint where the wings met the head.
The other head screamed, and Brennan could feel his muscles locking for a brief second before they relaxed once more. He was seriously getting tired of these things.
;
Surubi's sword finds purchase in the head just as Brennan's dagger sliced into it near its wings. "Yes! One dow--" was all she could get out before the shriek from the other room terrified her and locked her in place.
The injury in Brennan's cheek has an odd sting to it, and a slight itch. With a lash of his blade he shears off the ear-wing from one side of the creature, rather cleanly, and in so doing sends the thing to spin just right into Surubi's blade. The two blades together pretty much shear the creature in half.
Surubi succumbs to the scream that has stopped the others in their tracks, and Brennan finds that it looks like it may be just him against the remaining flying head, and who knows if the unseen one is still around.
Brennan stepped into the doorway, a dagger in each hand. "I can't believe that I have to mop up this mess by myself. You'd think at least one of you would have the ability to kill a flying head before it turns you into a human doorstop."
Omen remains unnaturally still, though his body still fends off the poison from the fiend's earlier bite.
HP: 10/14
AC: 12 (11 T / 11 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +2/+1/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist: acid, cold, electricity 7
Omens used (swift demoralize): 1/1
Black Motes used: 5/8
Shield charges remaining: 15
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 3/6
Ongoing Effects
Wisdom damage: 3
Brennan moves out into the opening where everyone stands around uselessly, waiting for any one of the two creatures to return. Omen can feel the poison continue to fight in dulling his senses.
It doesn't take long before the flying head comes back around the corner somewhat cautiously, looking fearfully about, but not at Brennan. In comes in hard to bite at Brennan, who takes a preparatory swipe at the thing. He misses, as the thing finishes its move with a savage bite to the man's outstretched arm from swinging the knife.
After the thing reengages, Brennan notices the floating thing that keeps vanishing reappear once more. Is bears a malicious grin as it once again floats over Gabriel. It eyes Brennan, as it bites the man in his helpless state, looking like it is intentionally taking its time to revel in the bite itself.
Yanking his hand back away from the creature, Brennan lashed out with both knives, trying to sever the thing's wings.
Omen's resistance to the creature's venom only strengthens with time, despite his ongoing paralysis.
Brennan recoils, to flash his blades at the flying head, managing to strike at least once with one of them. It is a nice solid shot, but being the first time the thing was hit, it just isn't enough to dispatch it.
The head stays this time, attempting to fly in place so that it can continue to bite and snap at the lone man that resisted the shrieks. The focus it spends on flying in place disrupts it biting efforts.
The floating head keeps eyeing the progress against Brennan as it just continues to gnaw on Gabriel
Dodging out of the way of the thing's bite, Brennan slashed out with both daggers. The first went a little low, but the second was well-aimed.
Brennan slashes furiously at the remaining winged shrieker, one blade just missing its mark, but allowing for the other to find solid purchase in the bulk of the creature.
It's at this point that the thing decides it has had enough, and with a fearful glance at the other head, the one biting Gabriel, it turns and swiftly flies both away from the fight and out of the hole of the skylight in the roof.
The floating head, being the sole remaining creature, snarls furiously at the retreating head, before once more rushing in a bite on Gabriel. As soon as it does so, it vanishes from sight, as it is wont to do.
Seeing one head flee to the ceiling and the other bite Gabriel before it vanishes, Chephren moves over to Gabriel and invokes the bleeding touch of Anubis. The reaches into the space he last saw the tiny head, trying to deliver the effect.
Brennan held his daggers ready. His weight was balanced on the balls of his feet, and he continually scanned the room, ready to pounce should the invisible head reveal itself.
Brennan stops and watches in silence, waiting to see the malicious head that was biting Gabriel to reappear. It makes no move to do so, from what he can tell.
Brennan waits, as the effect begins to wear of from Surubi. Even though he is still paralyzed, Gabriel's body continues to to fight the effects of the poison that plagues him.
Chephren moves up, with his renewed freedom to do so, and tries to strike the space where the floating head was last seen, but no contact is made. After a few more moments, everyone has shaken off the effects of the horrific screech, and still there is no sign of return from either of the last two creatures. Either they are gone, or preferring to stay hidden. Gabriel's magical search for signs of evil yields no return either, so maybe they are gone for good.
Omen shakes his head, and though the mask hides his face, his frown can still be easily inferred by his tone. "What were those devilish creatures?"
"Come near and let the healing powers of Anubis wash over each of you. And let me those wounds, as those creatures carried some type of poison with their bites."
Chephren ask Anubis for his guidance before checking on each of this companions before he checks himself for wounds.
"Well, looks like that's over and done with. Let's try not to get our asses handed to us next time. Oh, and thanks for the healing, Cheph."
Brennan went back over to the now-untrapped chest and began to open it.
"Is everyone okay after the healing? That was really gross, I'm glad none of them bit me or kissed me. Chephren you should wash your mouth out." Surubi's eyes narrow as she makes a clearly disgusted face behind her mask. "Mister Darkblade, do you want any help with that?" She turns to the chest and looks to see how Brennan is doing with it.
Omen turns to regard Brennan and adds, "Yes. And while we strive to not 'get our asses handed to us', perhaps you can pull your head out of your own."
Brennan took a break from the chest to look over at Omen. "Look, a@!&!@~, I've got three jobs in this little group. One, I scout. B, I fight things. And finally, I open locks and traps. When I'm busy doing one of those things, I expect you to do your jobs, whatever they are. If I had stopped disarming that trap, the explosion could have vaporized us all. Did you think of that? Of course not. you're too busy getting offended by people you think are beneath you."
He glanced over at Suri before getting back to work. "Nah, Suri. I think I've got it."
"I was too busy trying to defend a greedy thug who seems to think his cut will be larger if his companions fall behind him. We all were. And are you sure I am the one who thinks too highly of himself and am too quickly offended? It sounded to me as if you were describing yourself just now."
Surubi looks quickly back and forth between the two arguing men, but seems lost as to how to calm the rising tempers.