Despite the glancing blow, Brennan managed to put a noticeable chip in the stony exterior of the statue. It turns to look at him impassively, before Omen's magical bolts of darkness slam into it, leaving two little pock marks on the chest. It returns to look forward. As it does, the smallest one of the marks looks to be magically repaired.
It shifts to hold the quarterstaff directly in front of it, hands clasped closely around the middle of the weapon standing parallel to the statue. Appearing to be doing nothing, the two beside it see that it is slowly lifting the staff upward with both hands, activating some effect.
Even leaving itself exposed, Ciyradyl's unfamiliarity with the weapon continues to prove a hindrance in connecting an actual solid blow on the thing.
Seeing the creature leaving itself exposed, Brennan ducked under one of its arms and drove the tip of his favorite blade into the creature's armpit.
Yodi steps in toward the statue and swings his spear to distract and hinder its staffwork.
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The statue did something that is the bread and butter of Brennan's skillset, by leaving itself open. The man jams one of his blades into a weak point, not only on humans, as the armpit is a major joint on the statue as well. The damage is too much for it to even potentially maintain focus on its casting.
Buoyed by Brennan's strike, and taking advantage of the statue's attention on its attacker, Ciyradyl wields the heavy flail much better after the few poor swings. She smacks the statue on the back of its left thigh.
Yodi steps up to offer a disruptive and distracting strike against the guardian's weapon to throw it off, but it already looks to be moving its weapon to strike at Brennan.
Brennan grinned as he felt the dagger sink in. Perhaps this thing wasn't such an impossible foe for them after all. Then, he saw the thing lift its staff and glare at him. He lashed out at the nearest elbow, hoping that he could deflect the blow he knew was coming at him.
Omen gestures a second time in the wake of Brennan's strikes, sending another pair of inky black orbs darting into the guardian's chest. His voice fills the chamber with a simple command for their foe, "Break."
HP: 16/16
AC: 12 (11 T / 11 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 0/8
Shield charges remaining: 13
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 2/7
Ongoing Effects
Where the opening left was a boon to him, without it Brennan learns once more how difficult a target the stone guardian makes. Neither of his blades find real purchase along the stony surface.
Omen's darts of energy, though, still find a way to pierce the solidity of the thing. Once more his spell leaves two pock marks on the chest, but this time the smaller one doesn't vanish completely.
The statue mostly ignores this, focusing on Brennan, not out of any malice or vengeance, but pure mechanical measure of the largest threat in the room. It swung without care at the man, smacking him hard with its staff, but the damage to its arm caused it to jolt on its follow-up swing, missing by a large sight.
Ciyradyl tries to take advantage of the focus on Brennan, but is thrown off as it leans too far from her, and Yodi's attempt to create an opening actually distracts her instead of it.
Yodi pulls the wand from his belt and taps Brennan with it.
Brennan grunted his thanks to Yodi as he focused his strikes on the wounded arm. He grinned as he felt his first blade bite in, then threw his weight into the statue to try and drive the second blade home.
Yodi steps over to stand between Ciyradyl and Brennan. Drawing a wand from his belt, he utters the command word while touching it to Brennan, and heals him of most of his injuries.
Brennan returns his focus to the statue, and drives his blade into the cracks he made with his previously lucky shot. The damage is enough to finish cracking the surface, and the arm falls to the floor. The statue stops in its tracks, almost falling on Yodi as it topples to the floor itself. Cracks run along the surface of the thing.
The group fared much better against the thing with their preparations, and now it seems the threat is no more.
"Watch it in case it heals itself."
Yodi pushes the wand back into his belt, and grips his spear with two hands. He wedges the tip of the spear into a crack in the statue and tries to wedge it open.
"Here, give me that mace for a minute."
Brennan grabbed the mace from Yodi's hand, and set about pulverizing the statue. If this thing was going to come back from the dead, it was going to have to put back a lot of pieces. He then scattered the pieces all over the room.
That done, Brennan tossed the mace back to Yodi and set about examining the doors.
Ciyradyl joins in the finalization of bashing the statue's remains, the heavy flail swinging wildly but doing more damage when it hits. When he feels he's finished with the statue, Brennan moves on to the pairs of stone doors that exit this room to the east and west, each emblazoned with black-and-white mask symbol of Nethys. The doors to the west are locked. The eastern doors are unlocked, but he just barely notices signs that the lock has been picked.
As Brennan smashes what remains of the guardian to little but dust, Omen strides in and plucks up the staff it had held in its stone hands. He regards the weapon impassively for a few moments before turning to Yodi and extending it with a simple nod. "Well done, everyone."
"Yes it was well done. Especially our knife wielder here. I had another friend who liked knives, but I've never seen them used so well."
Satisfied that the statue won't rise again. Yodi smiles behind his veil and accepts the staff.
"Now let's see what we have here..."
After a few moments, Yodi shakes his head. "I can't figure it out.
Yodi is able to determine that the staff has a faint aura, but needs to think about which school it comes from.
"There's magic here. It might be a low level evocation laid on it."
He hefts the staff. "If no one objects, I'll hold on to this for now."
"The doors over there are locked. These are open, but they've been picked recently. My guess is someone snuck in here while we were otherwise occupied. Be ready for trouble."
Brennan carefully opened the door and examined the area for traps or signs of passage.
"We'll watch your back."
Yodi backs up his words by moving closer to Brennan, without crowding the other man.
Looking through the door, Brennan sees a hallway that goes both east and south. They extend beyond the radius of Omen's floating light. He also notices, that there seems to be an odd layer and seam in the north wall. It looks as if there's a hidden door that was left slightly ajar. If it weren't left open, he thinks he might not have even noticed it.
"Hallways both in two directions, and an open secret door. We all know about it, but don't tell anyone else."
Brennan grinned at his little joke, then moved to the secret door and listened. Either there was nothing to hear, or his ear was still ringing from thta last blow.
Leaving his spear behind, Yodi files into the hallway behind Brennan.
Gripping the staff in his left, Yodi follows Brennan. The north man looks down each hallway.
Omen's breath hitches for a moment as the secret door comes into view. But as Brennan explains the door is open, his anticipation quickly evaporates into a growing sense of dread. "No one's come through this hollow temple after us, we made sure of it. So if that is open now, then it has been so for some time." Omen's voice is deep and powerful as usual, but a tinge of frustration now works at the edges of it.