Kalem looked at the breastplates and scythes and came to a conclusion. As nice as it was to walk around town looking unarmored, it was more important not to die. He removed his chain shirt and put on one of the breastplates. It felt heavy, bulky, and infinitely safer. He also took one of the scythes. As trust as his battered old hammer was, it would be better to have a magical weapon.
Anyone need healing before we go in? I still have this wand we found...
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Bashiel steps over to join the rest of the group in gathering the assorted gear up, though he looks frequently over his shoulder, as if expecting Rolth to manifest and attack at any moment. He ends up picking up a protective amulet and donning it. "Better in our hands than protecting Urgathoans... that's for sure."
Once everyone is ready, he heads for the secret door Zamanda identified and gets ready to lead the way in, shield facing forward.
Ilsa isn’t able to identify the chain shirt or the rapier either.
Once everyone’s ready, Bashiel pushes open the door and leads the way into a relatively small room.
An elegant operating table dominates the center of this grim laboratory. Crossed with iron restraints and encircled by a gore-encrusted gutter, the macabre device sports various cranks and levers, and is large enough to accomodate an ogre. Along the walls stand several tables strewn with all manner of alchemical accouterments. Their contents appear extremely odd: rusted iron tools, beakers of purpled glass, and deep pools of wax from countless melted candles.
A man stands behind the operating table. At first glance, he appears to be a rather old, pale, and bald elf.
The operating table itself holds a young man who appears to currently be unconscious. He is held fast by the table’s three heavy iron crossbeams.
As you enter, the pointy-eared man looks up from mixing some arcane concoction. He seems mildly annoyed, but not particularly concerned about your presence.
He looks at each of you in turn with eyes that seem to rarely blink. After sitting down his flask, the man says, “I take it you are responsible for the commotion that’s been interfering with my work? I find it terribly difficult to conduct my research with so much noise in the background. I don’t particularly care for those you likely just slew, but I do require you to remove yourselves from here immediately. Move along now.”
You recognize the pale-skinned man to not, in fact, be an elf at all. Rather, this is a human nosferatu, a powerful type of vampire. Based on his appearance, he seems to be quite old, which normally means he’s especially powerful and not someone to be trifled with.
Zamanda considers shooting the man in the eye, but since he hasn't attacked, she attempts diplomacy, with a little outright lying thrown in.
Sir, the man on your table is Ruan Mirukova. We've been asked by his sister Deyanira to recover him. I ask that you release him to my custody.
Considering the location, but confused by the circumstances, Bashiel focuses to see if he can detect evil intentions from the elf. "You say you don't care for those we killed, but were you working with them? Or they for you...?"
The man had already started to turn back to his experiments when Zamanda speaks. He seems to find all of you tedious, but simply listens as you speak.
“You’re still here,” he notes, somewhat annoyed.
Answering Bashiel’s questions first, the man says, “I suppose you could say I was working with them, but at another’s behest. I wouldn’t normally associate with their type. They certainly aren’t working for me.”
Still barely blinking, the man responds to Zamanda, “This Varisian is apparently important to you. Tell me, how much is his life worth to you?”
Bashiel detects a strong evil aura from the man.
Zamanda thinks about the question and how to answer it, ignoring everything else going on around her in her effort to talk the guy down.
That's a good question. I don't think I am willing to trade my life for his, but I'd be willing to offer gold if that would avoid a fight. Is that what you are asking? ... How important is he to you?
Bashiel readies himself. The cultist, if that's what this elf is, is incredibly confident despite being faced with multiple potential opponents that just took care of both Rolth and Davaulus. It's hard to tell if that comes from a place of strength or simple madness. His sense of the elf's evil aura could either suggest a powerful, but managable, cleric of Urgathoa, or perhaps a disguised rakshasa, like they'd encountered before. On the other hand, it could be a monstrously strong undead creature... though this fellow didn't look undead at first glance.
While he ponders the party's chances, he keeps a careful eye on the elf for any sudden moves - ready to strike should he spring his own sudden attack.
As the others spoke, Kalem edged closer, trying to look like he wasn’t getting ready to strike. This wasn’t going to end well. The least he could do was get in a sucker-punch before the elf began casting spells.
Bashiel can’t get a particularly good read on the man, but it does seem like he’s generally telling the truth. It doesn’t seem like he bears an especially ill will toward the group, though he’s certainly disappointed you’ve stayed even after he told you to move along.
Glancing nonchalantly at Kalem, the man says, “I would suggest keeping your distance, tiefling. I have no desire to kill you, but I will do so if the need arises.”
The man seems mildly impressed by Ilsa and Zamanda’s words, though the only indication is through the slight twitch of his lips and a briefly raised eyebrow.
“The boy is important for my experiments,” the man says, addressing Zamanda. He then nods to Ilsa and continues, “But since you were nice enough to ask what it would take for me to walk away and have demonstrated that you're at least somewhat competent based on your recent commotion, I will oblige with an offer.
“The cultists here are in possession of several items that are referred to as death’s head coffers. You might be interested to know that this is how they transmitted the plague you call blood veil throughout the city. All but one of these coffers have been used up in the dissemination of the disease.
“The remaining unused coffer lies in this temple’s inner sanctum. If you were to retrieve this coffer intact for me, I would gladly give you the boy and leave Korvosa entirely. You would need to deal with the temple’s priestess, of course. She’s unlikely to simply hand over the coffer, particularly since it’s her last one.
Zamanda is inclined to accept the offer, since out of Korvosa means out of her hair, and she doesn't want another battle right now. However, she looks around at the others, not sure if they will be willing to let this go.
As the others decide, she adds
Since you don't seem to be loyal to the high priestess, I am guessing you aren't an Urgathoan. Therefore, I have two additional questions. One, is there anything you can tell us about that high priestess that would help us defeat her, and Two, is there anything you are willing to share that would be helpful to us in developing a cure for this disease? ... I realize that last one is less likely, but you know, figured I would ask.
She grins.
Bashiel slowly shakes his head as he takes in what the elf is asking. A Death's Head Coffer? If the elf was telling the truth, that these Coffers were used to spread the plague... then the only option Bashiel could entertain was destroying this last one. Whatever this creature was, its evil intent was clear. Giving it a tool to spread another plague in Korvosa or anywhere else seemed like a terrible idea.
Bashiel eyes Ilsa and Zamanda. Trying to mentally send them an inkling of his concerns (obviously to no avail :>). He settles for voicing his opinion in round-about fashion. "Is there something else you'd accept to leave Ruan to us? There is no guarantee we'll be able to get this coffer, but I'd like to be sure that he goes free safely." He also adds "And since we're bargaining, may we know your name?"
Answering Zamanda’s questions, the man says, “I am surprised you have made it this far without learning her identity, though you may have heard of her. The high priestess of Urgathoa is the wanted Nidalese criminal Andaisin. She is undoubtedly a powerful cleric of the Palid Princess.
“As for defeating her, she keeps four juju zombies with her at all times. They’re relatively harmless, but give her enemies a distraction while she casts her spells from a distance. Not that she’s easy to deal with up close, of course. She wields a rather vicious scythe. With the temple alerted to your presence, she is likely to have already made additional preparations for the possibility of your arrival.
“As to your second question, I suppose I can enhance my offer by allowing you to copy my research notes… assuming you return with the coffer. There are likely elements within them that could aid you in constructing a cure, though that wasn’t the goal of my research. The fake doctor and the necromancer have also been conducting experiments and research on the plague, so their notes could also prove useful to you.”
The man then turns toward Bashiel. He stares at the paladin, eyes unblinking. He finally blinks once before saying, “I greatly desire the coffer. Bring it to me and you guarantee his safety. If it will appease your conscience, I will tell you that I have no interest in creating a new plague or disseminating the current one elsewhere. My name is Ramoska and you have my word on the matter.”
Bashiel isn’t familiar with death’s head coffers.
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”Seems like a good deal to me.” Kalem mused. ”The priestess needs to die. And this elf here? Not so much.” He left unsaid At least not yet
(regarding death's head coffers)
(regarding whether this guy is telling the truth about not starting/furthering the plague)
Zamanda notes Bashiel's reluctance, raising her eyebrow at him to note that she acknowledges his dissent. She privately hopes that if he can't resist fighting this man, that he can at least wait until they get Ruan to safety and copy the research notes, since they could be pivotal in finding a cure.
Zamanda nods to the man, thinking they are in agreement as much as they are likely to be, and says
We agree to your terms.
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Bashiel feels uncomfortable with the arrangement, and his discomfort is clear on his face. Despite that, he doesn't speak out when Zamanda agrees to the terms. Assuming this elf doesn't betray them , the deal *did* sound good. They'd be able to save Ruan and help cure the blood veil plaguing the city. Of course, then this elf would move on and continue his experiments elsewhere...
~'An old Osirian saying, little one: Discretion of the better part of valor. I didn't follow it when I was young, didn't believe in it. But from my current position, I can appreciate its wisdom. You would do well to heed it.'~
He nods at hearing Harize's voice in his head and then simply says "Very well. We'll hold you to it, Ramoska."
Answering Ilsa, Ramoska says, “Somewhere in Korvosa, I’m sure. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.”
Ramoska looks mildly annoyed by Kalem’s words. He replies, “I assure you, I am no elf, master tiefling.”
Zamanda has heard of death’s head coffers, though they’re rarely used for benevolent reasons. Typically engraved with numerous skulls, the coffers allow the safe transport of infectious substances of up to tiny size. Closing the lid seals in the contents and holds them in stasis, rendering them immune to aging or any damage.
A death’s head coffer can spread infections between items. Any items placed into a coffer with a disease-ridden item (something capable of spreading a disease by contact) becomes infected with the same disease. For 1 week after being removed from the coffer, the newly infected item can spread the same affliction as the disease-ridden item to any creature that touches it.
After a death’s head coffer is closed and then reopened, its magic dissipates, rendering the box completely mundane. Some death’s head coffers also feature complex locking mechanisms.
Zamanda doesn't sense any deception from Ramoska.
The man nods to both Zamanda and Bashiel. “Excellent. Then I shall make preparations for my departure while you deal with the high priestess. I eagerly await your return.”
Once they get back in the room with the catwalks, Zamanda quietly tells the party what she knows of death's head coffers and that she doesn't think that Ramoska was lying.
Once the group has closed the door on Ramoska's creepy lab, Bashiel shudders. "If you'd told me we'd find something worse than Urgathoans down here, I wouldn't have believed you. And now we're doing his bidding. Or close to it. That and... if we're to believe this fellow, Andaisin is somewhere here! A high priestess of Urgathoa. I naively thought Rolth was the ringleader behind the scenes." He shakes his head in disbelief, then listens in to Zamanda's explanation.
"Strange, that doesn't sound nearly as dangerous as I'd feared. I wonder what Ramoska wants with it?"
After a moment to regroup and settle the team's thoughts, Bashiel heads back towards the western end of the large hall. "Maybe the western rooms first, just to make sure there won't be any dangers along our retreat route."
Zamanda doesn't know the magical properties of Davaulus's old armor, but it is enchanted, and even though she pretty much hated everything the man stood for, his armor is clearly more stylish than hers. So, she casts prestidigitation a couple of times to remove all the blood and slightly-toasted flesh, and then changes into it. At least that old doctor was good for something. This whole hero thing was more profitable than she expected. Now she just needed to find a bad guy with a magic bow...
Having put her old armor away, she pulls her mind back to the present and follows Bashiel.
”Bash. Look at it this way. We need to fight a priestess of Urgy and a necromancer on their home ground. If we had to fight him too? Might be the end of us. But if we’re up for it, we can always cut him down too. So cheer up, we’ve got options.”
Nothing in particular stands out to Zamanda after she dons her new armor. It seems a bit shinier, but that’s about it.
Detect Magic
Open/Close
The group inspects one of the doors and Zamanda believes it to be quite safe, as well as unlocked. It doesn’t radiate magic either.
After Zamanda opens the door from a distance, you’re all able to make your way inside.
Eight unpleasant-looking beds lie in here. Their sharp iron frames are threaded with worn manacles and stained leather straps. Several are occupied by obviously unwilling patients; all are bound and in various states of consciousness, and their combined moans murmur throughout the room.
Between them stand several small tables strewn with gore-soaked pans, flasks of mysterious fluids, and all manner of cruel-looking cutting instruments. A sizable brown-crimson stain covers much of the eastern wall, as if all the blood from a body once held there had exploded forth in a single violent eruption.
Six unwilling patients lie strapped to the metal operating beds in this room. One of the patients appears to be unconscious or dead. Two toss and turn fitfully in their bindings while coughing and whimpering. They show signs of being in the advanced stages of blood veil. The remaining three are awake, but no longer appear to be men at all. These three stretch their hands toward you in their restraints. Their heads also strain towards you, their teeth biting together as they hopelessly try to reach you. Their lifeless eyes reveal the truth.
A pair of sturdy iron doors lead out of the room to the southwest.
Zamanda observes the body that seems to be either unconscious or dead. She is trying to decide whether to try to help.
--If there are any signs of becoming undead, not being human anymore, or blood veil on the body, she bypasses everything and proceeds to start the door-opening protocol on the doors to the southwest.
--If there are not signs of blood veil or anything else bad on the body, and she can tell the person is breathing, then she uses a charge of the Cure Medium wand.
--If there are not signs of blood veil or other badness that she can tell on the body, but she can't tell if there is life, she asks
Can anyone tell if that one is alive or not? (Still willing to heal, but doesn't want to waste healing on a corpse.)
”Let’s put these poor bastards down. They’re...gods, look at them.”
Bashiel unconsciously raises his shield when he spots the victims here, nauseated by the sight of humans turned into horrible creatures. He focuses his senses and attempts to detect if the three maddened beings radiate evil , though he has a sense just from their behavior that they're probably too far gone.
He also checks the unconscious one to see if they're still alive.
"We'll save who we can Kalem. As for the rest, well, they'll be in a better place once freed from this torment."
The man who isn’t moving appears to be dead to Zamanda, and Bashiel's inspection reveals that he is, in fact, lifeless. The paladin doesn’t detect evil from the body either.
Bashiel detects evil on the three who are reaching towards you. He’s able to identify them as plague zombies.
The remaining two men are still alive and don’t radiate evil. Judging by their current state, they don’t look long for this world without serious intervention.
In addition to observing the dead body, something else catches Zamanda’s eye. On the bottom shelf of a cart off to the side, the bard spots what appear to be a set of sloppily stacked papers.
Bashiel briefly switches to his bardiche to keep the zombies unable to reach him, and then he steps around the room dispatching them with powerful strikes . Following that grisly task, he takes one of the healers' kits that the party retrieved off the cultists and does his best to treat at least the symptoms of the blood veil the two still-living patients are suffering from.
Unfortunately, while he knows some simple field treatments, the disease's awful symptoms are largely beyond his capabilities. He shakes his head. "We should get these two to the surface at least, and into the hands of the clerics who may have arrived to treat the remaining patients. I... I would leave them bound though. There's no telling if they'll also turn into one of those things if allowed to progress."
”After we kill the priestess. And maybe the weird elf. In the time it would take to get them up both she and Rolth could escape. They look like they’ll be gone soon, and the people who did this are capable of doing the same in any city they visit.”
Ilsa casts her spell and finds that each of the beds spark the same thing: pain. It seems not just those currently occupying the beds have suffered, but that many more before them have as well. The papers that Zamanda spotted also spark something in Ilsa: obsession.
Bashiel dispatches the zombies without issue. His efforts to help the plague-ridden humans prove less successful and they look no better off than when he first began.
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Zamanda retrieves the papers, not reading them but placing them in her backpack with the other things to go through when they get out of this. (She uses prestidigitation to clean them off first if there is any blood or other bodily fluids on them). (Or spiders...)
She then proceeds to the next door.
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As Ilsa reaches out with her psyche into the room, she can feel the pain, almost as if she is being tortured and neglected with a festering disease herself. She tries to close off her thoughts to it, but they are directed to the papers Zamanda is holding.
I--must have them!
She walks over to Zamanda as she is placing them in her backpack with other evidence.
"Zamanda--I need to see those papers--there is something important in them."
Err... okay. If there is anything in there that is useful though, save it so we can show Cressida.
Zamanda hands over the stack of papers to Ilsa rather than placing them in her backpack.
Bashiel sees if he can borrow a wand of Cure Light Wounds from someone to help buoy these two victims until they can receive more significant healing topside.
He pauses for a moment with a worried look for the two badly diseased individuals, then reluctantly nods at Kalem's statement and joins Zamanda at the western door. He takes his shield and longsword back out and steels himself for more horrors.
Ilsa examines the papers and finds that many of the pages contain notes, charts, and diagrams similar to those you found in Davaulus’s office. These are less neat and occasionally bloodstained. Ilsa suspects that an alchemist or real doctor could make use of the notes in producing a cure.
While the mesmerist doesn’t have nearly enough time to read the papers in their entirety without devoting several hours, she does notice one particularly interesting and psychically significant entry. Written on the back of a page devoted to explaining a patient’s reaction to filth fever are what appear to be several drafts of a love letter written from Rolth to Andaisin. They are… disturbing… to say the least. If nothing else, though, the drafts confirm that these were Rolth’s notes.
Bashiel is able to heal some of the patients’ wounds, but they still don’t look long for this world without magical healing or perhaps a cure.
Detect Magic
Open/Close
When the time comes to open the double doors to the southwest, Zamanda is once again the one sure that they pose no threat. They also don’t radiate magic.
As soon as Zamanda opens the door from a distance with her spell, you hear multiple whimpers and at least one person within starts sobbing, seemingly from just the door opening.
Iron doors with slotted windows, much like one might find in a prison or asylum, line the walls of this chamber. Faint bloodstains fleck the straw-strewn flagstones.
None of those within venture close to their cell doors, but a masculine voice calls out from near the far end, “Please just let us go! Please, my wife and children need me!”
The cells in here can be accessed with several sets of keys you’ve found on the dead Urgathoans. Five of the eight cells hold captive Varisian men and women of various ages and walks of life. None show signs of being infected with blood veil, though they all appear to be dehydrated and malnourished.
Zamanda's first urge is to free them all and let them drink from her canteen, but she pauses before taking a step...
She whispers to Bashiel:
Um, Bash, after walking past some of the people they, er... corrupted, I am having doubts about everyone. Do you think you could, um... see if these people are evil before we let them go? I'm too creeped out to think straight.
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Ilsa, after several minutes of scanning the papers, describes what she has found, including things she felt would be important.
"Surely, this could lead to a cure if we can get it into the right hands," she says.
Afterward, seeing the prisoners increases, if possible, her disgust with the revolting people responsible for this mess.
"Let them go, but we need to hurry to confront the priestess before she gets away," she suggests.
”They could spread the plague. We’ll get them to someone who can help after we deal with the priestess. A mercy now could lead to much death.”
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Bashiel's instinct is to release these obvious victims immediately, but as he steps forward, Zamanda's suggestion causes him to pause. He focuses his senses to detect if any powerful evil is hiding among them. .
Bashiel shakes his head at Kalem. "The plague is already rampant among the people in the ward above. These folks need to be out of this dangerous place and in the hands of hopefully the Sarenites and Abadaran clerics." He steps over to the cells and gets them open.
He addresses the captives. "We're here to help get you out of here. But the danger of the cult operating here hasn't been entirely removed. If you're willing, come with us now and we'll quickly take you to the elevators back to the surface and into the hands of the Queen's Maidens - who will ensure you find aid. Otherwise we'll return for you once we've dealt with the remaining cult members." He looks into the eyes of each of the captives, trying to be reassuring despite the stress of this whole situation. "You'll be safe soon."
If any of them seems particularly mentally stable, he asks them "Could you tell me your story? What happened here?"