Noting the expression of surprise emboldens Jakscar and he stabs again and again.
"Not so brave now that you aren't impervious to our weapons. Now for my revenge!
"Keep at him!" Zaph encourages, hoping this will be a rallying point, though knowing Jak was still sporting some major wounds. He converts another spell into healing energy for him.
HP:31/31
0-- create water, detect magic, light, read magic
1-- bless,
2--
3--
Haste 0/1
Channel Energy (0/9, DC 17, 3d6)
Liberation 0/5
Agile Feet 4/5
Angelica sidesteps quickly to offer flank with Jakscar, looking for every opportunity to do at least a little more. Using her added speed, she stabs once, and a second time in quick succession. Her attacks are almost ineffective.
The incubus was indeed surprised at the damage that Jakscar's dagger did, and even more surprised when the catman did it again...and again. Then, Angelica slipped behind him and leaned all her weight into her rapier as she drove it into the spot where the liver would be on a human. It turned out to be just as vulnerable to an incubus as the creature cried out and slumped to the ground in death.
You finally killed the demon-dude!
Loot:
The demon defeated, Jakscar physically slumps as the adrenaline leaves him. Although many of the wide gaping slashes are healing thanks to Zaph's wielding of Desna's grace, it is clear from the blood that matts Jakscar's fur that this was close. Moving slowly and bending carefully, Jakscar recovers and cleans his weapons, placing a small kiss on the hilt of the cold iron dagger and offering a prayer to Desna for granting him the pragmatic sense to buy it. His weapons sorted he finds an approach to watch and sits down to chew on some dried meat in an effort to help his body recover.
"My, that one was close," Zaph observes with relief. Since Harbug and his familiar did not assist in the fight, he turns to check on the orc to see if there was something the matter with him.
Angelica holds her hands up toward her allies, "Okay, I concede, we may just need to consider it the end of the day. I think Zap may have used up all his healing on poor Whiskers here, and Shabbz, might have just run out of spells. These fights keep getting tougher, and we have less and less to work with each one we get into." She, nonetheless, moves up to the double doors leading from the room, and examines them carefully. A trapped door may be the alarm system they need if they are going to rest.
Shabbezz exhales audibly and allows her shoulders to slump.
"You said it," she agrees with Zaphomil, sheathing her wand. "Jakscar, excellent job to you especially, that was a vicious fight."
She nods to the changeling's comment.
"I wouldn't say no to some time to study..."
Harbug slumped to the ground, clutching at his head. His mouth contorted oddly as he tried to speak, but only gibberish came out. in distress, Fang transformed from battle form to a standard cat and leaped to his master's side. Harbug continued to grab at his head as he fell to the side, bloody spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, he twitched violently, tremors shaking his entire body. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, Harbug's body went rigid and still. His open eyes stared fixedly forward, even when Fang headbutted him on the cheek.
From all appearance, Harbug died from a massive stroke.
"Harbug!" Zaph shouts, rushing to his side. Feeling completely helpless because of his spent energy, he does what he can to try to help the orc.
"What's wrong with him?!" Shabezz asks frantically, moving to aid the witch. She tries to assist Zaphomil, but isn't very effective.
Dragging himself to his feet, food forgotten, Jakscar hurries over to Harbug.
"What is that? Have the spirits of this place taken him?"
Angelica's attentions are so focused on the door, she doesn't even understand the severity of the situation. She glances over at them piled around, offering her very minor insight into the healing arts.
"What's up with Buggy, did he faint? Try a splash of cold water, or just let him sleep it off. It was a tough one, he will need the rest." She returns her focus on the safety of the next door.
Zaphomil falls back, perplexed and confounded by this mystery. He brings up detect magic but is unable to find any unexpected auras that could account for his death.
Still unsure, but not able to find anything hostile, he reverently closes the orc's eyes and begins intoning a prayer to Desna.
"This is distressing. I don't know why he died. Should we go back? Maybe back to that witch on the shores?" he asks when he finishes his prayer.
"We're so far in, but..." Shabbezz considers. "Maybe we should head back to the witch for now. We're down a member, and Harbug deserves a burial. We're probably too far out to contact the lodge, but we can find our way back here tomorrow."
With that, she reaches into her spell component bag and starts chanting.
A concave, circular plane of force winks into existence.
"We can load Harbug's body onto here; it should last for the entire trip back."
Angelica turns to realize what the others are talking about, and she looks somewhat grim. "Look, I don't want to sound cold, but how are we supposed to get him back up, especially now? We have to row against the current, without one of our strongest rowers, get back up the floating shaft of darkness. Zap, can you still make someone fly... up into the statues that chased us down here? Yeah, they're still there as far as we know, and then trudge our way back out through the caves and the marsh to the witch's hut?"
She holds her hands in supplication, "I know it sucks, and I hate to be the one saying it, since me, Buggy, and Shabbz go all the way back to the beginning of this craziness together, but I think our only path is forward."
She looks around the room in dismay, "Maybe we can get him back somewhere safe in the morning. Maybe, put him in the sarcophagus with the body of the hot chick? I don't know, but I don't think we're getting him back to Marousz any time soon."
Zaph shakes his head solemnly. "I gave Harbug the gift of flight to make sure he made it over that last trap you discovered. I suppose we could use the lady's sarcophagus; it's likely she wouldn't object to sharing."
He rubs his face sadly. "You're probably right, about getting him back all the way. We should rest at any rate. We camped at the sarcophagus once, going back might be best."
Walking over to the body of Harbug, Jakscar lays a hand on his shoulder."Alas friend, in all the time I knew you, you were a grumpy bugger, but one hell of a friend and ally. We sure could use some of your strength now, getting you back home!" Reaching out his hand to Fang, he lays on the cat's back. I'm sorry little guy.
Helping to lift the massive orc onto the disk, he straightens and turns to the others. "We have lost one of our strongest fighters and we are all worn out. Somewhere nearby and easily defendable would be good and that sarcophagus is a good idea, at least he would be buried in style there.
"But we should--" Shabbezz starts to protest, before reflecting on the wisdom of their words. There really was no real way back as of this point.
"...Fine. We'll put him in the sarcophagus for now and make camp. But I still think he deserves a proper burial eventually."
She directs the floating disk that has been laden with Harbug's corpse to follow them, unhappy but resigned just the same.
You took a moment of silence to remember Harbug, while his cat curled up on the cooling body. It was in the quiet that you finally heard the commotion coming from the room beyond the next door. Someone was yelling and screaming for help.
"Oh, no. I don't think we can ignore that, no matter how spent we are."
Zaphomil raises his holy symbol and casts bless on everyone. Then he moves near the door to stay close by to heal with his wand if necessary.
Dragging himself wearily from his reverie, Jakscar draws his blades and drops into a ready stance near the door, albeit his movements slower and obviously more painful than usual. "I wish we could, but I guess we wouldn't really be able to sleep with that noise" Once everyone appears to be in position, Jakscar nods to Angelica to open the door.
Angelica checked the door to find it neither locked nor trapped, and then motioned back to Jakscar. The catfolk rolled his eyes and opened the door to see a large octagonal chamber. The air was hot enough to be uncomfortable, and Jakscar blinked through drying eyes to see the source of the screaming.
In the center of the room was set of tiered daises, with a central firepit blazing at the top. The flames in the firepit were gray, and putting out enough heat that the air between the door and it shimmered. On one of the daises was a man, screaming for help. He was trussed up and writhing, trying to get away from the firepit.
Despite his initial intent to rush to the man's aid, Jakscar cautiously looked around the room to make sure that there was no obvious ambush. All he saw were gleaming white walls and the high domed ceiling. Three hallways led from the room at the cardinal directions.
"Alright, now I know all may not be as it seems, but those cries sound, pretty real. As we are weakened at the moment, I am thinking I run in, grab the man and drag him back in here. Then we can seal up the door against anything that might come for him. Angelica can spot any likely trap spots for me to avoid on the way. Thoughts?
Angelica shakes her head, "No, trussed up in the middle of a room is bait for sure. Yeah, that guy may be in real danger, but who or what put him there?"
Fishing deftly out of her haversack, Angelica produces her coil of rope, one of the faithful tools of her trade. Creating a lasso on the non-grappling hook end, she steps up into the opening of the room, just inside the doors to Jakscar's front left. She gives the rope a few test whirls, and calls out "Hey, this will go a lot easier if you can lift your legs in the air... and stop all that hollering." She swirls the loop above head, unable to help the sway she gets in her hips doing so, and possibly doing it intentionally upon realization.
She launches the loop over to the victim, prisoner, trap, or whatever he may be. She almost looked like a natural with it. Once she had him looped and cinched, she began to pull, "Sorry for the lumps." she calls out to him as she pulls him off the first dais.
"I was thinking it was probably the result of Mr Slice and Dice from next door, but when you can throw like that!
"Use caution, it could still be a ploy set to make us let down our guard," Shabbezz says from the safety of the threshold, watching Angelica retrieve the man with apprehension.
Jam suddenly stops screaming at the sight of who was making noise beyond the door in front of him. His eyes widen in shock that these people aren't denizens of this dreadful place... And then he watches as the cautious group sizes up the room and just as he's about to shout at them to untie him the brunette whips out a makeshift lasso from what he can tell at this distance.
Seeing the brunette woman throw probably the most perfect lasso toss he's ever seen in his direction, Jam gains a single moment of hope and sanity trying one last time to slip himself free of these bonds with the assistance of the forceful tug from the lasso and it feels as though in that moment his body shot out of his bonds as if a slippery oiled fish were escaping a clenched fist.
"Thanks be to the Goddess of the North Star.. She must've heard my plea..." Jam says to himself just barely louder than a mutter.
Zaphomil remains alert and ready with his crossbow, but blinks in surprise when the stranger speaks and invokes his own goddess. "Wait. Goddess of the North Star? Are you a follower of Desna?"
As you now see Jam much closer you notice he's wearing simple tattered monk robes, underneath of which you see just mere traces of olive colored skin covered almost completely by bandage wrappings as if this man was wrapped up tightly like a mummy, but with his mouth and eyes uncovered. Realizing that in this moment no one is trying to kill him, he falls back on the floor staring up at the ceiling trying to regulate his breathing and bring his mind at peace.
"Yes, I am follower of butterflies. I sometimes forget in this land the Goddess is named as Desna..."
Shabbezz remained guarded, but her curiousity got the better of her.
"'This land?' From where do you hail, stranger?"
"East across the Embaral Ocean in Tian Xia"
Shabbezz tries to remember what she can recall about Tian Xia.
"That's almost halfway around the world! How did you wind up in here, of all places?"
Jam sits up at this question and finally notices the reptilian Lake humanoid speaking to him. He's never seen any humanoid that looks similar to frogs before... What a curious creature Jam Ponder's as he looks almost steering Lee at the humanoid in front of him. His brain finally catching up to him processing the question asked of him.
"Well, I've come in a vessel across the sea in search of my mentor, a dwarf named Morgrin. He wears a lavender robe covered in butterflies. It's been a long time since I've seen him and I've all but given up hope of finding him and have been distracting myself with other things trying to find another path to walk down."
The grippli narrows her eyes at the man in monk's clothing, then seems to come to a decision.
"Alright, I'm convinced," she says to the rest of the party. "If this was a trick, there's no way they'd use such an odd backstory as a lure."
Shabbezz turns back to man and gives him a polite nod.
"Shabbezz Whorlpad, wizard and scholar, currently under contract to the Pathfinder Society. I'll let my associates introduce themselves. And may I ask your name?"
"And how did you end up tied up here in the Lady's Light of all places?"
Sheathing his drawn blades, before executing an overly flowery bow, Jakscar introduces himself. "Jakscar Steelclaw, duelist and serpent runner. Currently thoroughly exhausted, but still happy to give you a thrashing if you mess with my friends. If you don't then I think we will get along just fine. Come, let us find somewhere a little more defensible and discuss your story over a little food."
"Agreed, I could use some rest myself... and will tell you what happened. I'm Jam'Lamia Urthadar. I'd like to look around here for a second and see if I can find my things really quick.."
"Do as you must. We still have to attend to other matters..." Shabbezz mentions, looking meaningfully at Harbug's body lying on the floating disk. She would prefer to get his remains into the sarcophagus before they went to sleep.
Zaphomil checks out his campfire bead, checking to see how long it still will take before its magic is ready for use again. "My name is Zaphomil Collander, gnome traveler and follower wherever Desna leads. Currently, we are exploring a series of ancient Thassilonian ruins, one of which you are in."
Jam found his gear in a corner of the large room. It had abviously been gone through, and all loose coins removed, but most of it was still there.
Jam picks up his things and walks back to the group giving a nod. You see him donning a pack and quiver, holding a longbow in his right hand. Placing a wide brimmed mostly flat farming hat upon his head.
"Alright, lead the way."
Angelica makes no move to enter the room, crossing her arms, hip cocked out, and eyebrow raised as she watches the man risk any number of traps. As he says for them to lead the way, she makes a sweeping move back into the chamber they just entered from, and once everyone is inside, closes the doors. "I'm Angelica, currently acting outside my trade, as the scout." She winks her one bright green eye, paired with a playful smirk.
"You're a strapping fellow, aren't you?" She reaches out and squeezes one of Jam's biceps, before pulling her hand away to cover her smile in feigned shyness, "Careful, I don't want to make the boys jealous." She looks over her shoulder to Jakscar and Zaphomil, before turning toward the rest of the group. "So, what'd we say, rest here then tend to Buggy, or do something proper like for him, and then catch a nice night on the beach again?"
"As much as I want to see him have a proper burial as soon as possible, I don't know what we might run into along the way," Shabbezz says grimly. "Therefore, I think it best if we allow ourselves to rest first before venturing onward."
She paused, considering.
"But we should at least have the decency to cover him with a sheet before that. I'm afraid that I don't have anything in his size on me."
She turns to the cleric.
"Zaphomil, isn't there some priestly magic that can preserve a corpse for burial? 'Gentle Repose,' I think it's called, or some-such?"
Jam stares blankly at Angelica. Unsure by what she means, he makes no attempt to respond and simply also looks around at the group awaiting their decision
"Well I think we can do better than a sheet. How about that magic cloak? Let us secure the area as best as we can. A hot meal may help us all at this point I feel, if we can make a fire I will cook, it will at least be edible, but that is about all!"
"It might take a little more time before my campfire bead is ready. That will give us some time to relocate to a safe place. I've no more of Desna's gifts left to bestow, so I'm quite ready to wait for another day before we renew our explorations. And Shabbezz, yes, I shall request that spell in the morning. It will keep decay from Harbug, but not scavengers. I think if I cast that spell, we can place his body somewhere safe, and then get it on our way out."