Azarra's supernatural scream gives Kardas an idea where the bard is, but he's still clueless as to where the zomboid is. He pushes forward, continuously repeating the same question - "Azarra? Talk to me!" - hoping that by communicating, they won't end up hurting each other.
You may want to lay off the sweets.
Azarra hears Kardas call her name from right beside her and says
I'm right here Kardas, now shh so we can hear where the undead menace is as well.
Zane couldn't even grunt as Ser Armithia attempted to pick him up, thinking the combination of heavy combat, biting bats, and Zane's armor were definitely hampering the paladin. The priest couldn't even tell the elf to leave him for now and try to finish off the dead things. The cleric couldn't remember being more frustrated in his life.
Azarra's diminished scream landed in the face of something, but if it was effective she couldn't say.
<--- PASS
Still frightened Delenn ran south away from the darkness.
Zane still locked rigid by the poisons was jostled by Ser Armithia in the darkness while the bats bit and clawed at them both.
Kardas chased after the undead, but he couldn't see what he was doing and he only knew he'd caught up with it when he bounded off it. He tried a wild swing but hit nothing.
Out of position, Ishta ran round the corner only to see darkness.
If there had been any light Ser Armithia and Zane would have seen the Zumbvie chase after Kardas but there wasn't any. Kardas sure noticed because from out of nowhere a burning line of fire struck his back where the Zumbvie's hatchet had struck.
<--- HIT
<--- MISS
Azarra heard something scrape on the floor near by but she couldn't say what it was.
Ser Armithia and Zane both felt the maddening scratches and bites of the swarm which was slowly eating them alive!
Delenn
Zane Levallis
Ser Armithia-Seendren
Kardas Rasalas
Ishta Khosiv
Undead
Azarra <----- WE ARE HERE
Spoiler:Delenn Haste (2 rounds), Sickened (3 rounds), Frightened (1 round)
Zane Levallis Haste (2 rounds), Paralyzed (3 rounds), Bleed (1)
Ser Armithia-Seendren Haste (2 rounds), Fatigued (37 rounds)
Kardas Rasalas Haste (2 rounds), Shield (43 rounds), Bleed (1)
Ishta Khosiv Haste (2 rounds), Sickened (2 rounds), Bleed (1)
Undead
Azarra Haste (2 rounds), Sickened (2 rounds), Bleed (1)
Delenn Haste (1 round), Sickened (2 rounds)
Zane Levallis Haste (1 round), Paralyzed (2 rounds), Bleed (1)
Ser Armithia-Seendren Haste (1 round), Fatigued (36 rounds)
Kardas Rasalas Haste (1 round), Shield (42 rounds), Bleed (1)
Ishta Khosiv Haste (1 round), Sickened (1 round), Bleed (1)
Undead
Azarra Haste (1 round), Sickened (1 round), Bleed (1)
Azarra, Delenn, Zane Levallis, Ser Armithia-Seendren, Kardas Rasalas and Ishta Khosiv are up.
Azarra steps away from the scraping noise but stays in reach of Kardas. She can't see him, but since she can still touch him, and she can hear that he is fighting something, she decides to cast Cure Light Wounds on him in an attempt to help.
Ser Armithia takes the cleric away from the sounds of combat.
Kardas holds his blade upward with the tip tilting forward ever so slightly. With the sword close to his body, he himself protected from its fiery kiss thanks to the fact he's wielding the blade, he waits for the zombie to strike so he can lean in and skewer the undead abomination.
Azarra gropes around in the dark and finding Kardas she whispers words of power and lays her hand lightly upon his shoulder. It was like a balm which soothed the worst of his wounds and then the Rashmiri was ready to fight on despite the darkness.
To the south you hear a frustrated Delenn cry something likely very rude in Elvish. She shouts a word of power and then suddenly the darkness is dispelled!
In the middle of the biting and stinging bats, Zane feels a pair of string arms reach around him and drag him away!
Suddenly blinking in the light, Kardas sees his foe in front of him. His sword flicks out which the Zumbvie manages to dodge, but it was a feint and his next stroke cut it in half! As this happened the bat swarm it had summoned suddenly dissipated.
Zane panicked as a pair of arms started to drag him away, the cleric thinking a prayer in his mind as he waited for the end. The sound of armor and the labored breathing of the gold elf soon have the priest overjoyed as Ser Armithia started to drag him from the fray, feeling the corners of his mouth actually start to respond to his mental command, if only slightly.
Ishta only sees one enemy. That puzzles her, as she remembers them being a lot more, but she decides to take care of this one forst and then we'll see.
Ishta's magic blasts the the last remaining Zumbvie to tattered fragments, and as it falls the magic binding the last bat swarm dissipates and they fade away.
The room the Zumbvie's boiled out of is quite a state, the shelving has been slashed and hacked to pieces and what initially appeared to be confetti looks to be the remains of hundreds of books.
Azarra starts looking around to find anything salvageable and finds a Mace.
She casts Detect Magic and uses Spellcraft to try to identify it.
Unfortunately, she can tell it is magical, but not exactly what it does.
Because she already has detect magic up, she notices a strong transmutation aura coming from behind some shelving, and when she investigates she finds a very skilled but slightly strange rendition of a wizard, with no signature. She thinks about that transmutation aura and wonders if she can figure out more.
But it isn't really something she has encountered before.
Determined to get Zane to safety, the resolute (and nonperceptive) Paladin continues to carry him out of the darkness.
If only I had a Magic Missile!
Oh. :)
Hey Ser, we're over here! Why don't you put Zane down and zap him with your healing wand and see if that helps? While you're at it, could you zap me once too? I seem to still be bleeding.
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Ishta suits for a moment on the ground, trying to catch her breath after all the running around. When Azarra find the magic items, she stands up again and helps her unearth their secrets.
Ser Armithia complies to the request.
Ser Armithia selflessly heals the stricken Lathandrian whilst ignoring his own wounds.
Ishta explains about the canvas. [b]"So, this wizard here depicted, could be a real wizard"[b] she adds.
Once Zane regained control of his limbs, he channeled Lathander's healing once to stop everyone's bleeding from the infernal bats.
Once that was done, he waited his turn for the cure light stick, making a mental note to buy a replenished wand when they made it back to New Phlan.
The priest looked with interest upon the half-elven woman's finds in the room, again amazed at her keen eyes. He himself keeps on the lookout for more trouble, regaining his composure after the encounter with the powerful undead.
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The swordmage laughs at the painting when Ishta tells what's what about the painting. "Ha! What fool would rely on a fragile painting to store valuables, let alone as a safe spot for people? You'd almost think that those who are stuck inside a wizard tower for too long, lose all touch with actual reality. So, what you're saying is that unless he's in some sort of stasis, we'll most likely encounter his corpse if we go inside? Or worse? Auryl sighs, haven't we encountered enough misery for one day?"
Delenn examines the painting with curiosity, "I feel like I should know him, but I can't place a name. I would investigate with caution."
Wow, that's interesting. So, can he stay in there forever and come out again whenever he wants? Is there any way to tell whether he is good or bad?
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Delenn thought for a moment before replying uncertainty, "I guess so, assuming he has some way to avoid dying of thirst or starvation. A ring of sustenance perhaps?"
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"Might be, or a spell to put him in stasis. In any case, if we're not sure about it, we could always take the canvas with us and try whatever at a safer place."
Good idea, Ishta.
In any case, we should not tarry.
Zane frowned as he looked at the painting with the others, the idea of inserting yourself into a painting quite foreign to the young man. Better to err on the side of caution and if they were going to fool with the thing, to do so in a more controlled environment. "Great idea, guys. Let's move on, for now. I yearn to see the sun again."
Kardas nods approvingly when Zane suggests they should get out of this place. "Great idea. I do think there's still a pack of hounds roaming the upper floors. I mean, they were there before, surely they're now, right?"
Ser Armithia stands ready.
Kardas leads the group to the only unopened door. Before they enter Delenn speaks up, "Ah this is known as the angry library."
She tried the door which opens before she could touch the handle, "Err..." she exclaims, her blasting wand immediately in her hand.
Nothing else happens and after a few tense moments and you look inside to find a pokey room crammed with cases, shelves, and cabinets, alongside a large number of preserved snakeskins and the skull of some sort of large and presumably man-eating fish.
A little skittishly Delenn tells you, "The Stewards used this chamber to hold texts that they consider blasphemous to Oghma or the practice of magic. From what I gather many Stewards have experienced strange feelings in this room, but most of them either tried to rationalize the feelings away or were afraid to admit the sensation out of a fear of looking foolish. Typically they'd only admit to it deep in their cups."
Despite the strange behavior of the door, the room itself seems pretty ordinary although you'd need to go inside for any thorougher investigation.
Azarra goes in, looking around.
If nothing happens, she will also cast detect magic and see where the auras are in the room.
The Paladin scans the room, before any enter. He then nods to Azarra.
Zane listened to Delenn's explanation, brow furrowed as he peered in at the room. Perhaps whatever the elf was talking about had dissipated over the last five decades, but the priest doubted it. He held his mace tightly, waiting for the all clear to enter from Azarra and Ser Armithia.
The Raumathar's familiar darts in between Azarra's feet and sniffs at this and that in an effort to help the bard find anything worth finding inside the angry library. Meanwhile, Kardas takes in the room in a more leisurely manner - he observes the two as they move about, trying to spot things and places they ought to check.
Azarra finds the shelves full of many pamphlets proselytizing for one despicable god or another. Alongside these are collections of works deemed poorly suited to teaching the concepts and practices of magic knowledge and reason. Not necessarily sacrilegious, these texts are simply outdated or poorly sourced observation on various magical and natural phenomenon. There doesn't appear to much of inherent value here.
When Kardas mentioned the hounds Delenn shivered and replied, "I rather hope resetting the wards dismissed them..."
This place is Haunted.
Zane's hackles get raised as the paladin mentioned the area being haunted, and he grasped his holy symbol tighter, hoping the conflict with the willful undead in the other room was just a minor bump in the road. Purging the undead was a calling of his, and he wouldn't shy away from it now.
"Then we should leave it as it is, I guess" is Ishta's only response. It seems the place was already haunted when the mages lived here, so who is she to interfere, when there are more important matters at hand?