So who still has CON Damage?
I don't think Slumper and Ruperta had.
Who does?
"I have been trained in the use of the longsword. My strikes will not be as swift but I can put it to good use if we need it."
You set a camp and rest under the sky of the courtyard. The stars above twinkle, but the occasional odd snatch of music coming from the ballroom you just escaped keeps you on edge. You rest, but your dreams are dark and troubled. When you awaken the next morning, you have the opportunity to cast your spells and recover your lost Constitution. You feel a great deal better for the rest.
The door still beckons. Would you like to break it open? Corbyn and Slumper reckon that with Thrak's help they could crack it open in a few minutes of work.
"Everything, alive and dead will hear us trying to get through that door. I hate that, but if that's the only way in, we have to do what we have to do."
Pai casts Mage Armor and False Life.
False Life
Ooo, wait a second. I have an idea. I can use my arcane bond and cast Dimension Door and 'pop' three of you on the other side of the door with me. We can open it, and then let everyone else in," she adds excitedly. 'Does that sound like a good idea to everyone? Thrak and Paxs can wait here, and Ruperta, Corbyn, Slumper and I will pop right over and let Sial and the rest of you in."
"Let's do this quickly, I don't like being separated for long from the group."
On the Morning Ruperta prays for Desna's deliverance and heals the Damage from all her friends. She also trades her Searing Light spell for a Stone Shape one.
She asks her friends to way for a minute in front of the double doors, and she uses her Door Sight domain ability to check on the other side. If she sees the other side is clear, she will cast Stone Shape to create a large doorway so they can pass.
"That's even better, Ruperta! I don't have to use the bond abilitiy. No telling if we might need it later today! You know."
Ruperta places her hands on the door and sees the same sight as she did the day before. She casts her spell and uses the stone shaping to free the door. It opens with a groan, revealing the room beyond to all.
The floor of this foyer is tiled in blood-red marble. A altar resembling a skull, its lower section wrapped in iron chains and its top cut off flat to form a level surface, stands in an alcove to the east. A ten-foot-diameter pool of what appears to be stagnant water, its rim fashioned of white marble, sits in the western alcove opposite the altar. Two doors lead from the room, side by side.
Ruperta stays back, Vindicator, her repeating crossbow, held in both hands.
Pai casts Detect Magic as the group enters the room.
Pai detects no magic, but does spot an old knife on the ledge of the pool, with rusty stains on its blade.
"Look Corbyn, a knife! It doesn't detect as magical, but I don't trust anything in this place," she adds, waiting for him to look around before proceeding.
Without moving, Ruperta call for her friends.
"Don't touch it before we confirm it is safe!"
Sial frowns. "This is a temple washing basin. Priests cut themselves, allowing the blood to join the water while they wash themselves. Every temple of Zon-Kuthon has one."
Ruperta frowns, disgusted by the thought of the Zon-Kuthon worship practices...
Corbyn begins examining the room to see if all is as the priest says.
Sial's eyes light up as he looks around. "This is not a last-defense redoubt as I imagined. This is a temple! A temple to our lord, Zon-Kuthon! I can sense His holy energies here."
Ruperta flinches again, and mumbles a word...
"Unholy..."
Sial smiles mirthlessly at Ruperta. "Shall we continue in?" He gestures at the two doors out of the room.
Ruperta starts moving with the rest, at the back of the group...
Sial opens the right hand door, which leads to a larger room. A worn but colorful carpet covers most of the floor of this room, and a number of wooden tables and comfortable chairs are spaced about the room for informal gatherings and meals. A small kitchen has been set up by a low stone fireplace alongside a cupboard holding some dishes and utensils as well as a few desiccated remains of foodstuffs. As you enter, five spectral shapes detach from the shadows and begin to move toward you, but seeing Sial, they suddenly stop and bow, then fade back into the walls. Sial looks slightly taken aback, then pensive.
Further on you find small cells that look to have been rooms for acolytes. Each room has a decaying bed and desk. Each room houses a dessicated corpse of an acolyte in simple black robes. You recognize the robes as the same on the specters. Sial blesses each one with his unholy symbol, muttering, "They serve still. Such resolve, such faith."
"The staircase is okay with me. I'm sure glad you are with us, Sial. We'd have been swarmed without your aid."
Slumper moves over to the staircase to go down with a watchful eye.
perception
"Sial has been a large help, especially with getting our companions back."
Paxs and Thrak follow closely to Slumper.
Slumper peers down the staircase, seeing nothing and can hear no sounds either. The place is quiet as a grave.
The staircase leads back down to the first floor, where you find a long hallway with two large double doors leading deeper into the temple, as well as a twin staircase to the first leading back up to the second floor.
Corbyn checks the doors and finding nothing, opens them slowly.
This vast chamber is floored in gray slate and supported by thick pillars of obsidian. Torches mounted on the pillars burn, yet their flames are strangely dim, barely lighting the cathedral-like space. The pillars themselves are decorated with skulls and bones—tiny white pinpoints of light seem to dance in the eye sockets of each skull. To the northwest, a tall statue of a skull-headed man dressed in dark robes stands behind a black marble altar, on which lie heaped mounds of ashes, bits of bone, and a single skull, its teeth and eye sockets set with glittering gemstones. Jagged, barbed chains dangle from the statue’s eye sockets. Thick black curtains hang from the walls of the chamber.
Sial whispers reverently, "There is great power here. Great power indeed. We should tread lightly."
Pai holds the group back. "Let me cast some spells that might come in handy here.". She first casts Magic Circle Against Evil, which should last 110 minutes. She then casts Undeath Ward, which will last for 11 minutes, both spells centered on her. "Stay close to me, and hopefully the magic will help somewhat!"
Ruperta approaches Pai, while casting Daybreak Arrow on herself.
She sees the skull with the chains, and tries to remember something about it.
Ruperta shivers...
"Corbyn, do you want to take the lead and make sure we all don't blunder into something really bad. If we haven't already, I mean..."
Paxs casts mage armor on Thrak. "Be protected my friend and bring up the rear for our protection."
Corbyn leads the party toward the altar, where the remains of a body lay surrounding a bejeweled skull. Sial stops, looking somewhat shocked. "This, whatever it is, is one of the anchors for the spirit. This is a soul anchor."
"Then it has to be destroyed, Sial. I don't want to overstep any bounds with you, but I figure you know that as well. Do you have any ideas how we can do that?"
DM
Ruperta examines, at a safe distance, the body:
Vorporal Vulnerability: Vorpal weapons of any kind ignore a demilich's damage reduction.
"I don't like that thing at all... any idea what is it?"
"It looks simple enough to destroy it's just an old skull."
"Don't move! Whatever you do, leave that skull alone. Don't take a single thing from this room any of you! That is a demilich," Pai whispers. "It is the baddest of the bad undead. Most magic doesn't work. It has damage reduction. A vorpal weapon is the only thing that ignores it. That magical longsword from before will definitely help here to some extent. We need to back out of this place and prepare for it."