Although the doctor's mask hid the look of disgust that crossed Twilght's face, her feeling still came through in her words as muffled as they were.
"Considering this place is dedicated to the Pallid Princess the display doesn't surprise me. What does though is how well established this is. How long do you suppose this place has been here for? Panes of fine glass this size aren't something you can just get from the local marketplace."
She regarded the abhorrent installation for a moment before continuing "This can't be something that the Queen just recently thought up, the whole plague and everything. This has to have been in the works long before even the King's untimely demise I would think."
She looked skeptically across the room encased in glass. "You don't suppose there is a trap that will shatter the glass and release the zombie hoard on us, do you?" A quick incantation and she cast her eyes about the place searching for glimpses of magic that might betray the presence of a magical glyph or ward.
Mirela slowly moves up so she can cover her companions/shoot through the door if they choose to open the door.
But it is a slow move so if Twilight sees anything they can stop.
Why would she be planing this? It just ‘urts ‘er city!.
To cull the poor so the rich and powerful can reap all the rewards, maybe? A good way to destroy your foes and intimidate your allies so they don't break ranks, I guess. Or maybe she just plain mad and twisted. Or her foolish plans are slowly but surely getting out of her control, who knows? Who cares? She must be stopped, to avenge those who died by her cruelty.
Artegall is pretty rich himself, certainly compared to the poor of the city. But he assumes he is not the people Nargun is talking about.
"That's a thought, Nargun.
Normally the rich and powerful don't want to cull the poor; there is more to be gained by exploiting them. Why kill them when you can have them as cheap labor? Of what use to anyone is a city full of dead people?
So a plague killing the poor wouldn't serve the interests of the wealthy.
But maybe that's where Rolth comes in. If the plague somehow makes it easier or cheaper to animate the bodies as undead, then this is all a ploy to get a large slave labor force.
That's the only way I can see the plague actually benefiting the wealthy. Of course, necromancy on such a vast scale would bring down the wrath of Pharasma, and Iomedae, and many others. Not to mention people like us."
He moves on to the double door and listens at it.
"They went through here."
Artegall doesn't hear anything through the doors.
But if it does be going by coins, the Bankers of Abadar would be hit early, and they do be rich.... It do be making no sense.
Mirela sounds confused and muffled as she tries to whisper through her strange mask.
As Artegall listens at the door she plants herself in the middle of the room, and readies to shoot at the first thing that threatens any of her companions.
Why don't know the "Why", and it doesn't matter that much, for me. What matters is the "How" we can stop that.
He briefly turns to the Calistrian
The more things go, Princess, the more I think I should join your temple.
"Some 'Bankers' of Abadar are powerful clerics... not easy prey."
Artegall opens the double doors.
The stinging scent of harsh chemicals floods out of the doors as soon as Artegall pulls them open. A huge metal vat, taller than a man, stands just inside the doors, blocking passage and the sight of anything other than the ceiling. The group will have to squeeze through on either side to proceed into further into the room.
Artegall shuts the doors.
"That looks a death-trap.
They could tip over the vat with whatever is in it; or attack us as we are trying to squeeze through, splitting us up; or use the vat to crush us as we squeeze past.
Unless we can get scrolls of Gaseous Form or something like that to bypass that obstacle, I would suggest we look for another way. Maybe South?"
Artegall will listen if everyone else want to push on through, but it seems like an extremely bad idea to do so.
Less Death Traps is good for me.
Wizard 0: Acid splash, Mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic. 1:Mage armour, Vanish, Magic weapon, (S)Colour spray.2:Spectral hand, Spectral hand, (S)Blur | Subtle misdirection 3/6.
Bonded item A:0/1, D: 0/1. Pearl Lv1 0/1, Lv2 1/1
"This is a very peculiar place to put a giant vat. I agree, it does look suspicious. I don't object to looking for a safer way through, but we should start thinking about how we are going to deal with this in case we don't find any other way around."
Twilight scanned the gruesome display room. "Perhaps to the North then" she said, heading to the nearest door.
As an afterthought, she cast a minor divination and examined the door for any traces of magic.
Twilight finds no magic on the door and Artegall finds it unlocked. Inside, eight unpleasant-looking beds were arranged around this large room. Their sharp iron frames are threaded with worn manacles and stained leather straps. Half a dozen are occupied by obviously unwilling patients; all are bound hand and foot and every one of them is dead. Two have slit throats and were clearly killed very recently. One looks to have died of blood veil, but the other three are zombies that moan and pull against their restraints but have so far been unable to free themselves.
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.
This do not be looking good. Watch for traps, since they clearly knew we were coming.
Mirela and Whisper continue to stand watch over the others with her bow knocked but not drawn, letting the others explore, but making sure nobody sneaks up behind.
"They all are dead. Or undead.
I see no doors out of here, and don't want to take too long around the Blood Veil and the undead. Let's check the North door."
Do we want to destoy them so they can’t get out and ‘urt someone?
Mirela points her bow at the general direction of the zombies.
"Nargun should be able to dispatch a pair of chained zombies in short order." Twilght nodded towards his hefty axe.
"I will examine the North door for magic while he does that."
Twilght once again cast a spell to reveal magical auras.
Say what you want to be killed. I'll kill it.
answers the dwarf, with grim purpose
Twilight nodded towards the restrained zombies. "Those need to be put out of their misery."
She moved to the North door while Nargun was taking care of the messy business of returning the dead to their rest. She examined the doors, scanning for both magical or mundane traps.
Artegall will open the North door once we are ready to move on.
Nargun goes about the grim business while the others prepare to move on. Each zombie snaps and strains to get to Nargun's not-so-vulnerable flesh but he easily puts all three out of their misery. At the cost of being drenched with even more stinking fluids and barely recognizable viscera as they all burst like overripe fruit when he brings his axe to bear.
With cold-blooded, nearly frightening efficiency, Nargun dispatches the trio of zombies, and then comes back, even more covered in gore than before, but unharmed. He nods at Twilight
Done, Princess.
To the north, the group finds what appears to be living quarters. Black-sheeted cots fill this room; their satin coverings and overstuffed pillows seem more akin to funerary trappings than the resting places of the living. Numerous skulls are set evenly within the room’s stone walls. Candles inside them cause them to glow like morbid jack-o’-lanterns and cast dim light across the room.
Footlockers and shelves near each cot attest to the presence of cultists in the facility but none are present in this room.
'ow many beds do there be? That's probably do be at least 'ow many cultists there are down 'ere.
Mirela calls while still mainly focused on making sure nobody is sneaking up behind the group thorough the big doors.
Can't your wolf sniff and hunt them, Huntress?
"Well, it seems like there is no path around.
Does anybody have an idea how to get past that vat that blocks our way, without getting splashed or crushed by it or having it be used against us as a bottleneck?"
I have a scroll that can be creating Mist. They will be knowing we are coming, but might not know where we are.
[ooc]I can offer a Scroll of Obscuring Mist if anyone wants to make a plan with that.[/occ]
"That's a very good idea, Mirela.
If we can sneak around the vat under cover of fog, we would be much safer. If you read the scroll on this side of the doors, and then we open the door, would the fog billow out to cover its usual radius?"
"I can then try to get past one corner or the other. I'd take any other protections you have available to give."
Wizard 0: Acid splash, Mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic. 1:Mage armour, Vanish, Magic weapon, (S)Colour spray.2:Spectral hand, Spectral hand, (S)Blur | Subtle misdirection 3/6.
Bonded item A:0/1, D: 0/1. Pearl Lv1 0/1, Lv2 1/1
Twilight nodded in agreement about the obscuring mist. "Before we charge in, I can provide a little extra protection for a short time, just let me know when everyone is ready"
She took one of her wands from within the folds of her cloak and made ready to cast a protective ward on the two men.
I'm not sure on the spell and the door... Let's be opening the door right as I finish the scroll, and then we don't be 'aving to be worrying about this.
Artegall will call on the spirits again for greater protection.
He will squeeze through to the south as carefully and quietly as he can.
Mirela pulls out her scroll and at the given signal casts it right at the opened door.
Mirela fills the doorway and both rooms for several feet with an obscuring mist.
Artegall squeezes past the vat and runs right into a pair of zombies. In the mist he manages to see them without them spotting him, but because of the mist he also can't see if there's any more behind them.
Artegall will study and strike at the nearest zombie.
He will 5' step past the zombies to get away from the vat a bit. Artegall isn't going to shout, but he will say in a low voice, "Nargun, got zombies here."
I'm coming.
Nargun gets into the room, his axe ready to strike
As the group starts to enter the room, they can all feel the dark energy in the air. This is a bad, bad place- you can practically taste the unnatural, twisted magic that has taken place here. It is like a greasy mist that settles over everything, coating your skin and filling your nostrils with the scent of evil.
Artegall cuts hard into the zombie on his left as he flows past the two mindless undead. The pair of walking corpses both start to moan as they realized what happened, but the zombie he'd cut barely seems to notice the new wound across its stomach.
Moments later, a pair of vials arced in through the mist, crashing into the floor and exploding into blood red clouds that quickly dispersed into the mist.
Mirela moves forward, pulling out her morning star as she moves. Whisper follows on her heels. Seeing the zombies slowly reacting near Atticus, she moves past Atticus to get behind the group and as close to the center of the room while staying in the fog.
As she she moves past the zombies she barks.
Attack
Behind her Whisper snaps at the the zombie before her.
Artegall resists the disease for now.
Caught off guard by the thrown vials-or maybe over estimating his resilience- Nargun starts to cough violently.
He keeps is axe ready to strike, if a zombie- or a foe-comes too close
Nargun suddenly feels tired, run down, and irritable- more so than usual.
Mirela slips through the mist past Nargun and Artegall, dodging zombies as she does.
One catches her as she tries to move away but she's able to get to the far side of the vat, where she finds a row of skeletons lined up like toy soldiers. As she calls out to Erastil she can feel that he seems distant, further away than usual. The room feels close and oppressive, like someone is watching her every move.
Instead of the burst of power she expects, Erastil's grace feels anemic and weak. Only one of the skeletons truly seems affected the way she had envisioned it, while all four sets of eyes turn to her and the skeletons raise their swords to Mirela almost as one.
Behind her in the scrum, Whisper bites one of the zombies hard and pulls it down to the ground.
Wizard 0: Acid splash, Mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic. 1:Mage armour, Vanish, Magic weapon, (S)Colour spray.2:Spectral hand, Spectral hand, (S)Blur | Subtle misdirection 3/6.
Bonded item A:0/1, D: 0/1. Pearl Lv1 0/1, Lv2 1/1
Hearing the sounds of battle erupt in the fog, Twilight carefully made her way forward towards the door until she spotted Nargun in the mist. "The lady guide your strike" she whispered as she bestowed a temporary blessing upon him.
The same voice from the stair fight upstairs yelled out "They're squeezing in around the left! Move them left! Focus on the left!"
The skeleton squad attacks Mirela, each swinging a scary looking scythe.
Two slice through Mirela's defenses while the other two miss.
While one of the zombies pushes up to its feet, heedless of the danger from Whisper or Artegall, more zombies shamble in from around the curve of the vat, pushing past the skeletons to attack Mirela and Artegall.
Two zombies are able to connect with Artegall and one with Mirela, one trying to grab the investigator and bite his throat out and the one flanking Mirela nearly biting off her ear.
Beyond the mist, the group can hear a droning prayer calling on Urgathoa for assistance coming from a number of different voices.
Artegall is AC 27 against evil foes, and undead are normally evil. So I believe all of those attacks missed, meaning no damage to Artegall?
Z-red was the Studied Target last round. Artegall strikes as it stands.
He will then attack Orange Zombie, fighting cautiously.
Whisper tries to Snap at the zombie that stands up.
Bite + Bless: 1d20 + 6 + 1 ⇒ (12) + 6 + 1 = 19
Damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6
Trip: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24