Justin nods as everyone has their say. He seems to be nodding out of habit, as he is suddenly digging through his pack. He emerges with an object carefully wrapped in a blessed silk handkerchief.
"Yes yes. Philosophical differences aside, as long as we can all agree that THIS particular situation, working together benefits all of us all more than not, I think we have common ground for cooperation." Justin says, holding his wrapped object carefully.
"If it makes you feel better Mara, Ekuur and I happen to agree with your viewpoint of the afterlife of spirits. Demons cannot have ghosts. And yet, we have encountered them on multiple occasions. The one consistent thing in all of our encounters were these." Justin holds out his wrapped mask carefully.
"These masks have been worn by the creatures in every encounter. I do not know if they are simply a magical item allowing a demon to control a spirit, or vice-versa, or if it is inhabited by one, allowing the other half to wear it. I'm fairly certain a weakness could be found to allow us to defeat them easier, but I haven't had time or resources to examine them fully."
"If you want to examine it yourself, go ahead. I suggest you only look at the front though. If you look at the back side, it attempts to entice you into putting it on. Possibly how it gets the 'ghost' half of the creature?"
"Otherwise, Master Hamar has been exceptionally patient with all of our conversing I think. And I must agree, it is time to move on. I fear that we not have the luxury of investigating each area as thoroughly as I might like. We cannot afford to allow these creatures to succeed."
Hamar chuckles at Arnav's statement, "People are driven by instincts as well. Forget that not my new friend".
"True, but not only instincts." he answers.
Hamar laughs and grins, "I should have you meet some of my brethren, you might change your mind! Hyena's seem tame by comparison and then there is my mother... hmmm. Perhaps your point is well taken".
Mara stretches her hand to Justin
"I'll chance it"
She examines the mask thoroughly
"Interesting. There is only a residue of magic on this. Yet, it is a puissant dweomer. Whatever the things are, they started under the hand of a Power. This thing reeks of divine necromancy. "
At Mara's summation of her examination of the mask, Justin looks at Ekuur with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah. That's what we thought too." Justin murmurs wryly.
Aloud he continues. "We knew they were potent, but straight from a Power? That's,... stronger than I thought. But it explains how the creatures are capable of existing I suppose. If your going to break the laws of the afterlife, you'd pretty much need a Power to do it."
"I wonder. If this Nameless Power knew he was being targeted, more so than the usual Power squabbles I mean, maybe he created these,... Mask-Creatures to make sure he had servants who would work to bring him back? I mean, even if Demon-Ghosts are subject to the same laws of the universe that we are, and forgot he existed, being created with the purpose of finding your missing Power and restoring it would still allow you do so. Especially if you didn't have to worry about any pesky things like death or survival on various Planes. Theoretically at any rate."
"AND I'm theorycrafting again. Sorry. Risk of the trade." Justin smirks.
"We came in THAT door. I think. Right Karrin?" Justin says, pointing at what he's PRETTY sure is the portal/door they entered the chamber from.
Pulling out his parchment, Justin makes another scribbled notation on his map.
"SO,.... Clockwise? Counter-Clockwise? Or straight across?" He asks the group.
"That way," Karrin says.
"Or, OK yeah. That way works too." Justin bobs his head with a slightly bewildered look as he finishes scribbling on his parchment.
Mara nods at Justin
"I would imagine this Power is intimately involved in death, assuming where it kept its redoubt and the minions you have encountered. It makes sense that if, as I posit, it was a god or Power of death, then they had a failsafe reanimation contingency plan in place. Perhaps they could animate demonic spirits from the chaos stuff of the Abyss. "
She shrugs
"I would advise being prepared for undead hereon in. I can assist with that"
She fingers one of her skull earrings
The party enters a corridor and appears in a familiar-looking room. It's the same room that they encountered the strange negative energy being in. They have actually already taken two of the four other portals in this room before. One led to the creepy necromancy lab with the unexplored secret door and the other led to one of the ghoul rooms. That leaves two portals unexplored
"Finally," Karrin says,"We're starting to loop around and visit some of these rooms again, okay we came in that portal there, went through that portal there, so I think the only ones we haven't been though before are these two."
"So let's go through that one!"
The party passes through the next portal and arrives in a strange room. The floor is sticky with a mixture of what looks to be blood and mucus. There is a circular trench about midway in the floor filled with more of the mixture. The room smells bad. Rotting corpse bad.
Swords out, Hamar will investigate further into the room.
Perception
Hamar looks around, but sees nothing moving. The room looks empty
"Is this just a slaughterhouse, or does that mixture have any magical resonance?" he asks.
"I see nothing in this pit Wizard, what now? To the next room?"
"..........................." Merle going somewhat green at the smell Seph as well.
"Okay, let's not tardy, there could be stuff in the drains but I'm not sure I want to look, so let's go this way!"
Justin scribbles hasty marks on his parchment map as they traverse the already familiar room, and gags slightly as he enters the new 'chamber of nastiness'.
At least THIS time his gagging wasn't, entirely, due to the effects of the portals.
As Hamar prowls teh chamber, looking for threats, Arnav asks a very good question. So Justin quickly brings up his magical sight to answer it.
His magical detection charm is working perfectly, but the nauseating stench of the room brings tears to Justin's eyes. It is worse than any lab-work he had to do at University. He is forced to wipe his streaming eyes just to see where he is walking, each squelching step bringing another wave of noxious odor to his nose.
Nari made a small gagging noise as she entered the room and quickly tied a handkerchief over her face, covering her nose and mouth. It didn't help much, but in this case every little bit helped.
When Karrin indicated the route to follow next, she was eager to follow.
The group advances to the portal Karrin indicated, Hamar cat-wary, Justin looking a bit green. As he scribbles on his parchment map a drop of sticky mucus blood falls onto the paper. He looks up and blanches.
Above them about 20 feet is a giant amalgamation of bodies. Arms, heads, legs, eyes, and organs all sintered together into a vast jellyfish-looking bulk placidly floating above them. Half-a-dozen fanged maws on extended ropey necks contructed of what look to be fused-together spinal columns wave below the main mass. As Justin's eyes widen with shock and horror several beams spray out from the mass, hitting the group.
Justin pauses in mid-step, brow furrowing at the Red splotch of mucusy blood on his otherwise spotless parchment. (Well, except for his own barely decipherable scribblings, but THOSE belonged there.) He slowly cranes his head upwards, and blanches as pale as a spirit at the sight of the monstrosity above him. It is so horrific, the wizard is unable to speak, his mouth making little fish-gaping movements of it's own accord.
Until the horrific monstrosity inexplicably lashes out with beams of magic!
"FRACK!" Justin screams as he instinctively raises his hands to protect himself. He can feel the absolute coldness of the beam as it strikes his arcane armor spell. The defensive spell deflects the ray from making direct contact with the wizard, but Justin still shudders at the chill left behind by the near miss.
"LOOK OUT!!" Justin screams, just a little too late. His shout is drowned out by the howls of the magical attacks as the beams blast into the group. Justin is so surprised that he's not even certain he properly counted the number of magical attacks it just launched.
'WHATIS?!?HOWDID!!!???!!!,... NEVERMIND!'
"Blast it! Blast it! We need cover! Spread out! Don't let it target a group!" Justin shouts as his own mind trips over itself trying to decide between blasting it or wisely diving for cover.
As Arnav is hit by the beam of many colors, it has little effect on his partially crystalized mind. His blade comes off his shoulder and he prepares to deal with the abomination.
Init
"Okay how the hells did we miss that......uh thing?"
Karrin's natural passives reduce the damage to 4 points.
Initiative
Hamar shivers as he is struck by the Ray and then looks up at the creature wondering how best to attack it.
Initiative: Zygote Brawl (base initiative 15)
Mara: 24 [Spell]
The Horror: 24
Merle: 21
Justin: 18
Naridre: 18
Blayze: 18
Karrin: 17
Ekuur: 15
Hamar: 14
Arnav: 9
As the shock of this new horror runs through them, Mara leaps into the air, her evening gown transforming into an ebon-colored set of armor and a thick black cloak embroidered with necromantic symbols. The large scythe she had before appears in her hands. She rockets towards the monster yelling
"This thing is living! Fight accordingly!"
Her left hand leaves her scythe and a whirling darkness appears in it. She drives her arm into the creature's bulk
The darkness in her hand spreads throughout the vast abberant amalgamation
Bits of the creature wither and die, heads flopping, eyes exploding
A hideous chant begins to fill the sphere, issuing from the dozens of mouths in the horrid creature. It echoes in the minds of the party, causing spikes of migraine-like pain
The elongated mouth-tentacles whip about, two on Mara, one on Arnav, one on Hamar, one on Karrin, one on Merle
The mouth attacking Merle latches on, teeth gripping into her skin. Merle can feel it siphoning blood from the wound like an enourmous leech
"You call THAT Living?!?" Justin shouts at Mara incredulously.
"I was sure it was a nominee for undead monstrosity of the yeaARRRRRRRGH!" Justin breaks off with a cry and covers his ears with his hands as the aberration begins screeching. Loudly.
'The dang thing can cast spell-rays, cause headaches by singing off key, is apparently alive, and if Mara's attacks are any indication, it isn't immune to necromancy spells. Merle's right. How in blazes DID we miss this thing?!?'
"MERLE!" Justin shouts as a tentacle-mouth-thing attaches itself to Merle, then begins undulating as if,... Drinking from her!?!?
"Aw, HE!!$ no!" Justin growls. Forcing himself to concentrate past the buzzing pain in his skull, he brings forward in his mind one of his earliest spells, and Merle's favorite to boot.
Forhead furrowed in pain, Justin makes the proper gestures, and hisses "FORZARE MAXIMA!" extending his hand and causing a barrage of mystical glowing spell-missiles to zip from his extended fingertips. The glowing motes unerringly target the length of tentacle-mouth that is currently giving Merle an unwanted kiss.
"Get your,... mouth, off my friend and BACK OFF buster! Your NOT her type!" Justin shouts at the monstrosity.
The barrage of bolts strikes the floating corpse riot. The mouth smokes from the arcane energy pumping into it
"REEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWW GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF." Merle giving a most catlike screech.
Seph from Merle's shoulder does the only thing he can think of to help and claws at the thing
Claw 1
Damage
Claw 2
Damage
Concentration check
Attempts to cast a magic missile but between whatever the thing did the pain fromm the bite and her own panic the spell fizzles out.
Hearing Mara's call about the creature being living, Nari draws her bow. But then the creature grabbed onto Merle, so she immediately changed her aim, attempting to shoot at the tentacle attached to her friend in the hopes that it would let go.
Hamar turns to Justin, "Wizard, can you make me fly?"
He slashes at the tentacle that attempted to attack him.
Attack #1 Scimitar Planar - Keen - Damage .
Attack #2 Off-Hand Vorpal - - Damage .
Attack #3 Scimitar Planar - - Damage .
Attack #4 Off-Hand Vorpal - - Damage .
Okay, I'm not clear where it is in relation to us. It also appears to have at least 20' reach, correct?
Blayze's gun roars out with a pair of quick shots at the horror before them, her hands a blur as she reloads.
Arnav is looking for a way to get up there when something strange happens. His body ripples and small wings come from his back, coated in ectoplasmic gel. He shakes them to get rid of the slime and rises up ten feet into the air. This distracts him from other attacks, but he stands ready.
The party steps into a room. A big floating monster is there. They roll initiative and it attacks with sonic and long tendrils tipped with mouths
Nari's blow goes wide. Hamar's attacks sever the tentacle that attempted to grab him. Blayze's two shots also hit
. . (L) +2 heartseeker crystal, deep nodachi (PA) +14/+14/+9 (2d8+18/18-20) or
. . (L) mwk sap +16/+16/+11 (1d8+5 nonlethal)
Arnav flies up with his newly-extruded wings and attacks
The giant crystal sword plunges deep into the creature, causing gouts of blood to fountain out from it, showering the party. It suddenly falls to the ground, its bulk splattering noisomely. The party manages to avoid being pancaked by the terror.
Suddenly, a dark cloud begins to emerge from the bulk. It whirls above the abberation, then it splinters into about three dozen shadowy forms. The party can see that most of them are humans or Demi-humans dressed in wizard's robes. One figure steps from the crowd. It seems a bit more solid than the others. Save for a certain translucency, it seems like an elf dressed in rich green robes. The elf is tall, almost two meters, and handsome. A golden circlet adorns his brow with a glowing blue jewel. It/he speaks
"Thank you adventurers for freeing us from our prison of flesh. Our souls were enslaved in that insane amalgam of our flesh. Now we can move on."
"Your welcome........................I think?" Merle mostly mumbling the last part to herself.