Buoyed by their eventual success against the vile skeletons, Tamis starts to move off to the southwest, carefully looking for any traps or dangers on the way.
Tamis made her way to the door at the end of the corridor and checked it for traps. The door was unlocked, and the dwarf found no traps. With her ear to the door, she could hear an odd rumbling sound from beyond the door.
"Something is going on behind this door" Tamis whispers quietly.
"Plan? Do we really want to open the door?"
Wesley summons a creature of fire from the elemental plane to light the way.
"Open it while the magical protection lasts."
"I'm sure there are things to be found that are worth something"
"Alright, here we go." Tamis replies, taking a deep breath.
She slowly opens the door, and peaks through the gap.
The rumbling noise grew louder as Tamis opened the door. Nothing was in view yet, save a large square room and a tunnel leading southwards. Dim firelight can be seen coming from the southern end of the tunnel
Tamis sneaks into the room and slowly heads towards the far tunnel, still careful for any traps.
Abrosh follows along with his light pebble
Eva follows Tamis in scouting
Wesley sends his fiery friend (small Fire elemental) ahead and follows on his dog.
You all pile into the seemingly empty room as the rumbling gets louder. Wesley sent his fire elemental on ahead. The fiery body lit up the hallway in front of you and the source of the rumbling became clear. A piked metal ball rolled down the corridor, it's nearly 7-foot wide body taking up most of the corridor as it bounced from spiked tip to spiked tip. It plowed into the elemental and kept moving, barely slowed by the pseudo-solid flames.
"Oh boy, Time to move."
"Gods, this place is just evil." Tamis mutters, trying to dodge the large spiked ball, but failing, a large spike clipping her shoulder, dying her shirt red again as blood pours from the wound.
Abrosh lays on the ground groaning for a moment
Tamis realizes a moment later that the ball likely had more momentum then she thought as her back hits the ground hard. this place is horrible
Abrosh is knocked down! Cause he is tiny :)
Wesley is knocked down and prone along with his dog.
The spiked metal ball smashed into those of you clustered in the room, the metal spikes tearing into flesh as they collided. Only Bob was able to avoid the immensely heavy ball, stepping back into the doorway. Everyone else was thrown to the ground, with the exception of Evangline and Trihedron. The barbarian woman took the damage from the spike stoically, stepping back to allow the ball to continue past her. Trihedron, however, was caught completely flat-footed.
Instead of being knocked down or thrown aside, Tamis' sister was impaled on the foot-long spikes. Her body flapped and rolled with the ball as it continued into the room, then paused and reversed direction. Those that had been thrown to the ground by the ball's first pass were injured again as the ball reversed its direction and rolled back down the hallway, Trihedron's limp form being driven further and further onto the ball's spikes as it moved down the hallway.
"TRIHEDRON!!!" Tamis screams as she watches in vain as her sister is impaled on the ball, tears start streaming down her eyes as she watches her sister's body go limp, metal spikes protruding from her back. Oh gods no, no, no. This can't be happening. Take the gnome, or the wizard, anyone but her.
Lost in her despair Tamis hardly registers the ball moving back towards her until she feels a spike enter her shoulder, leaving another bloody wound, but even that feels like a dull ache as she wallows in despair and saddness.
Before Wesley's dog can get up it is smashed an bleeding again. Wesley is not able to avoid a second shot himself.
"Heal us so Bill won't get squished again."
Abrosh stands and sends a blast of healing fire
"Oh man, that trap was a freaking lethal one.
Thanks Abroshqualmie, for the healing. Before we move on we'll need to decide on what to do?"
The spiked ball rumbles off into the dark hallway, but you can see that the hallway itself is only about 60 feet long or so. If it reverses direction at the other end, like it did here, then it will be coming back within a half minute or so.
"I think it'll be best if we move quickly out of here before it comes back."
Abrosh nods and looks sadly after their lost friend
Tamis is still lost watching her sister disappear into the darkness, tears staining her face. "I... but.... Torag, why did you do this?"
Can we just wait to the side and let it roll by? We are in a large room and it is only so wide.
"I think we should go back, as to give Trihedron proper burial."
If we do that we perhaps are risking the life of our charge.
"sniff. I'm not to be letting my sister's death be in vain. Let's get us around this horrible contraption."
You time the rolling ball's motion, stepping to the sides as it entered the room. then, the survivors ran down the corridor. The ball rumbled behind you, seeming to pick up speed as it got closer. With a furious burst of speed, you enter the far chamber, the ball right behind. In the middle of the room was a large stone coffin, and everyone threw themselves over it. The spiked ball came to a stop a few inches from the coffin, then reversed direction, rumbling down the hall again.
Beside the coffin was the torn remains of Trihedron, the monk's body well and thoroughly mangled. It lay on top of another form, the moldering corpse of a small humanoid, mangled in a similar way to Trihedron's.
Abrosh checks the bodies just to make sure they are dead. Then he looks at the other to see if he can learn anything about it
The corpse appears to be that of a halfling or gnome as Abroshqualmie turned it over to get a better look, a handful of finger-long grubs swarm from a hole in the body and attempt to burrow into Abrosh's hand. One of them manages to reach him before the gnome yanked his hand back.
Yipes!
The grub quickly burrowed into the skin at the top of Abroahqualmie's hand and you can see its form worming its way up his arm. Abrosh immediately felt sick as the thing burrowed inside him, the trail left by the grub turning purplish yellow with rot.
"What is that..." looking at the grubs
"That can't be good. Seriously is there anything in this place that isn't trying to kill us?" Tamis moans.
You recognize these as Rot Grubs, aggressive parasites that feed on flesh and nest in corpses. Their acidic juices cause flesh to necrotize extremely rapidly, and they are known to prefer dead flesh to living. Once they infest a living body, they move quickly to major organs (heart, brain, etc.) eventually causing death. If fire is applied immediately to the point of entry it can kill the grubs. Otherwise, they have to be cut out with a sharp blade and a skilled surgeon. Cases have been known where an adventurer will cut off his own infected arm to save himself the agony of a rot grub infestation. Unfortunately, time is often of the essence in these cases.
"Damn it those are Rot Grubs!!! Wesley we need Fire where it entered Abroshqualmie now! else we're about to start cutting up poor little Abrosh before this stupid thing kills him" Tamis cries out in alarm as she recognizes the grub for what it is.
Abrosh immediately blasts his own hand with a burning hands