As the foul trickery finally fades, Simon stares around for a short time, clearly searching for the origin of the danger, then (once he has determined that nothing is in sight) his shoulder sink and his gaze goes to the ground.
Then he goes in for a long hug with Grelthe.
Sorry-purrurrrurrhuuu.
You scared me...
At that moment, Emily comes in for a hug as well, toppling all three of them in the process.
She ends atop of Grelthe and starts to lick the paladins face with her big, rough tongue...
Grelthe is still in defensive mode and is therefore surprised by the onslaught of hugs. Once she starts getting licked, she giggles awkwardly and says "Yes, yes, I'm glad I'm alive too. That tickles!"
After a moment of bonding, she gets her serious face back on and reminds everyone that "Whatever made those illusions is still around, and we may have to fight them again. Be on guard to not believe what your eyes are telling you. I am honestly surprised we made it out of that one."
Zadira is visibly relieved that Grelthe is not dead.
She casts See Invisibility to see if she can spot the invisible presence that Grelthe mentioned. (And she tells the group what she is doing beforehand.)
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She detects nothing. Whoever or Whatever it was is gone.
Zat vas terrible. I am very sorry." She gives the other half-orc a hug. "Vu his hurt? I haf lost track."
The blood-streaked Paladin looks to be at about 60-70% health left. She waves you off as she reaches in her pack for a wand. "That's why I bought this!" She looks at the wand and shakes her head. "I am nearly tapped out of healing myself."
"Just scratches here, I'll see to Siter-purrurr."
Once he healed the better part of a deep gash in Emilys side with Gozreths help, Simon continues.
"We should find a safe place to rest soon-meow.
We spent a lot of magick and should recover from this evil trickery-frch.
Tomorrow, we can continue our hunt of the demon-grrr.
Did anyone actually see it-miii?
How can we fight something like that-meowiii?"
"Are ve going to continue on or rest soon? Dat vill make a difference on how much healing I can do for you all."
In response to Simon's worry about not seeing it, she offers "I didn't see it either, not directly, but it left its mark on me." She points to scratches on her arm (I am guessing that look like claw marks of some kind?). "And we know it can do strong illusion magic tho. That's somewhere to start from."
The big half-orc rubs a small bump on her head. "Now that the energy of battle is wearing off, I think I may be more hurt than I realized. Perhaps resting for the evening would be best. Especially if people need to replenish spells." She looks around at the spell casters for opinions.
Seeing Vuzi is in pain, Simon hums a soothing melody while caressing the wounds.
"Better-meewiii?
I think we should find a better place to rest than this place-grch."
Grelthe straightens up and cracks her neck. "Ah yes, that is much better, thank you. Let us strategically retreat, perhaps to Vance's shop?"
"But there is a big-worm outside-meour?"
Vuzi looks confused. "Simon I tink vu menat Grelthe. Ve green girls look de same." she gives him a friendly smile at her joke.
Zadira nods at the mention of rest, and says
Vance's shop sounds like a good idea, if we can avoid the "big worm" Simon mentioned. Did anyone see a place to rest that doesn't require us crossing its territory?
As you talk, you hear a soft whimper coming from the door at the back of the room. It's so quiet that you don't recognize what it is at first.
Grelthe spins around at the sound, alert for danger after her recent ordeal. "What was that? Did you hear that?"
The whimper continues.
Zadira casts Open on the door where the whimpering is coming from.
Kayla was still trying to figure out what happened the past few minutes. the confusion was very distracting.
eventually she starts to come to her senses at the whimpering sound. she starts to try and put things together.
Zadira, don't open the door, we are dealing with illusions, and looks what just happened, we need to regroup.
Oops, too late. Got any chocolate?
"Chocolate? Vat is chocolate and vat does it hav to do vith de door?"
What is chocolate? Where are you from? Some light-forsaken backwoods carnival? Chocolate is the food of the gods. Give her some, Kayla.
As to what it has to do with the door. ... Nothing at all. I just wanted some.
The whimpering flinches as if it was bracing for something aweful, then it resumes when nothing happens.
The room is pitch black with only the meagre light from the room you're currently in providing any illumination.
Zadira casts light on a copper piece and tosses it into the room.
The room is small, only about 15' square. Hanging on meat hooks around the room are seven bodies. Six are obviously dead. The last one on the left is a woman impaled through the shoulder. She is the one whimpering. She's close to unconsciousness and dried blood traces a black trail all the way down to a congealed pool at her feet. She is dressed in cloth robes.
Three of the dead bodies are dressed in heavy armor, two in leathers, and one in robes.
Feeling shamed at her earlier reticence, now Grelthe's full compassion kicks in. Walking forward slowly, she will hold her weapon loosely in one hand, just in case this is another trick.
She speaks in calm dulcet tones: "Hello there! Calm down, we won't hurt you. In fact, I can heal you. You want to feel better, don't you? Who or what did this to you?"
She pulls her cure light wounds wand out with her other hand, and taps the frightened hanging woman with it once.
The healing is barely effective. Her eyes flutter open and she gasps. The... monster. Run... her words are a whisper.
Her worries satisfied, Grelthe says "Not without you" and heals her once more before putting away the wand and weapon so she can heft the woman off the hook.
Grelthe closes some of her open wounds and hefts her off the hook. She screams as the hook slides out and the formerly closed wound starts bleeding openly. The woman passes out. Another tap of the wand closes the wound.
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Kayla breaks off a piece of chocolate for Zadira. as she munches on her piece, I don't know, does she deserve any chocolate?
just kidding, here Kayla gives Vuzi a piece as well.
Kayla keeps a hand on the hilt of her blade, I'll keep a look-out as Kayla does just that.
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Grelthe remembers belatedly to detect evil on the unconscious newcomer.
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Zadira casts detect magic and does a search to see if there is anything of value on the dead bodies. Might as well get that out of the way while the woman is unconscious, so she doesn't offend her.
There is nothing magical in this room.
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The lady slowly comes around shortly after Zadira is finished looting the bodies.
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Zadira: as you're looting you spot three treasure chests against the left wall hidden by an illusion!
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Vuzi takes some chocolate. ”This stuff is amazing. We need to get Vance to stock it all the time.”
She keeps an eye on the door with Kayla. ”A Monster. Dey are all monsters down here.
Zadira points out the treasure chests to Kayla, knowing that she will want to check them over before letting her touch them.
Grelthe tries to get more information about what type of monster took the woman while Zadira & Kayla deal with treasure.
How injured is she looking?
The woman is looking better, though still wounded.
Zadira, a careful examination reveals a trap on the center one, the only one made of bronze. The other two are plain and wooden. They are locked.
*** The woman ***
Fighting the urge to hurry to the woman's side after the recent deceits, Simon stays back until his trusted female colleagues determined her trustworthy.
Then he hurried to her side.
"Poor girl, what happened to you in this dark place-purruriii?
Don't fear, we will get you out of here soon-meow."
Discretly, he will sniff the woman out for any trace of missmatching smell.
*** The chests ***
Hearing Zadiras discovery Simon Heads Overall once finished the Talk with the woman.
"Need a paw, Zadi-purr?"
Looking over the shoulder to Kayla he adds with a wink.
"You or me, lil'un?"
Producing his collection of lockpicks, small hammers and needles, Simon sets to work. First on both untrapped chests until turning to the trapped one last.
When the turn comes to the trapped one, he will motion the others to step a couple of steps back.
Moar healing for the frightened lass!
Once Simon and Kayla are done with the chests, Zadira casts open on them so they can see what is inside.
Simon fails to disarm the trap, but it doesn't go off either.
On the bodies you find:
One suit of Half Plate, one suit of banded mail, one heavy flail, one longsword, one heavy wooden shield painted with the symbol of Iomadae, one silver holy symbol of Iomadae, one suit of leather armor. Two short swords, four backpacks with assorted survival gear and supplies, and, in one of the backpacks, you find a scroll of lesser restoration, two potions of cure moderate, a pair of Boots of Striding and Springing, and an Equestrian Belt
You open the wooden chests to find 12,000 cp, 32,917 sp and 9,833 gp, and 1,200 pp, 13 gems (100 gp each) and 9 pieces of jewelry (100 gp each) and a silver over teakwood box (Break DC 25; worth 1,200 gp) sealed with an arcane lock.
Hidden inside a secret compartment in the lid of this wooden chest (DC 25 Perception) is a +1 heavy wooden shield of rust monster scales. Any attack with a metal weapon against the holder of the shield that misses
by 2 or less means the weapon is treated as having struck a rust monster.
If the holder of the shield ever fumbles (rolls a natural 1 in combat), his or her weapon accidentally strikes the shield and is subject to the same effect.
The second wooden chest contains 2,000 platinum pieces, but Kayla discovers a trap beneath them. You must find a way to remove the Platinum without triggering the Trap.
Frustrated with the lock on the metal chest, he turns to the new task at hand.
After some low meowing he starts to collect several handful of copper pieces (or small stones if there are handy ones around) into small crude-knotted bags of ragged cloth he takes from the bodies and weights it in one hand while staring down at the platinum pieces, judging their weight.
With preternatural calm hands, Simon then proceeds to swap out a couple of platinum pieces against a small bag of stone'n'copper.
He hums a calming melody while doing so and it is nerve wrecking to watch him work, but he seems quite confident and somehow seem to even enjoy this strenuous task.
As Simon begins his setup, Zadira notices that the trap definitely has a magical component.
Kayla, feeling confident that there are no more monsters coming, goes to work on the trapped bronze chest.