Eli moves into the room to get a clearer view of the Goblins and chucks another bomb at the one in the corner.
Eli's bomb once against blows a goblin into tiny rotting pieces.
Betheda lopes around the massive mound of fungus and nips at Ada's heels. Ysme approaches from behind the ranger and touches him with a healing hand.
With his small attackers all destroyed Iago darts past Eli and moves up to Ada.
"It's time for us to be together again Ada - IN DEATH!" he howls.
Ada resumes the persona of a monstrous killer and slashes and hacks at her undead husband.
Rallying despite the fog in his head and the pain wracking his body, Ventus tries once more to put Ada down.
Jessamy strains with all her might as her muscles refuse to obey her.
From the opposite side of the table, Eli readies and throws another bomb. "We've got her now!"
With one hand, Ysme pulls Pirknok's still-paralyzed form from out of Ada's reach while at the same time Ysme attempts to get closer to the box.
Betheda snaps, ineffectually, at Ada.
Ventus lands another solid blow with his shield and the sound of rotted bones splintering can be heard.
Iago sneers and lunges at his wife with claws outstretched.
He connects once tearing a bloody hole in her undead flesh.
Practically ignoring the party at this point, she returns his affection in kind.
Jessamy moves closer, but hesitates before attacking.
"Why aren't we just letting them kill each other ... again?"
Ysme bellows as she picks up the remains of the box. "By the Eternal Rose I bid you !"
"Ada, Iago, can't you see what you have allowed your fears, jealousies & recriminations to do to you?! With every act you push yourselves farther away from who you once hoped to be & closer to the irredeemable monsters you now resemble. Your lives have ended in despair & frustrated rage, will you damn your immortal souls to such as well?"
Eli readies yet another bomb and hurls it.
For a moment, Ada glances Ysme's direction before Eli's bomb blows off her arm and Ventus's shield smashes across her face, caving in her skull. With a gasp, her undead form crumbles to the ground. Iago sneers in anger one more time, passes the paladin a sad almost mournful glance, and then collapses into lifeless remains as well. Soon the room is deathly silent.
The pieces of the puzzle box are cold and inert in Ysme's hands but she cannot shake the feeling that something powerful is watching her and unhappy about her acquisition.
Ventus stands panting then promptly wanders over to a corner and forces himself to vomit, hoping to get rid of the fungus he had been forced to ingest before it did any more damage. Wiping his mouth, he rejoins the others.
"As much as I'd like to put this place to the torch we need to find whatever room she was staying in and look for clues to who supplied her. She said there was 'brotherhood' or something."
"If done, best done quickly. Something tells me this isn't over...
I dare not open my inner eye to be certain." Ysme adds, nodding in acquiescence if not agreement.
"OK, that was strange..."
Jessamy looks around, utterly confused by the strange things going on in the house.
As Pirknok's muscles finally begin to respond, he hurries over to the mold. Reaching down, he grabs a handful and stuffs it into his mouth. His face is a mixture of horror and delight, and he seems to be about to say something, but his mouth is full of mold.
As the mold slides down his throat, Pirknok feels the compulsion fade away.
Eyes widening in shock & revulsion at Pirknok's actions, Ysme turns back to the others. "New plan. We leave, ."
Jessamy, Eli, get out while you are able. Betheda, go with them, protect them." Turning back to Adventus & Pirknok, clutches at the dwarf while calling out to Adventus. "Don't you see? This place is doing this! It is actively trying to kill us & it's doing a fair sight better at it than Ada did. "
Bounding over the putrid mass, Betheda crosses the remainder of the cavern floor with little effort, nudging Eli & Jessamy before her as she heads out of the chamber.
Pirknok frowns. "No. We stay an' find out wut this place is an' who's behind it."
Ysme lashes back. "Haunted, Corrupted down to it's very foundation. An unquiet soul is what is behind it & that soul has already made free with you & Adventus' will once, or is it a heretofore concealed ritual that you gobble down vile fungal growths after a hard-fought battle?"
"Aye, it is cursed, but we may still be able to find something here that will tell us what caused it or who may have influenced Ada." Eli says. He pulls out a vial and hands it to Adventus. "Drink this. It will help with your wounds." he says.
"Running away doesn't seem like the best choice. I mean, won't we jut have to come back?" Jessamy doesn't sound very happy at the prospect. "We might as well see if we can find anything else about the murders while we're here."
"Have you fire enough then to sear that to ash?" Ysme asks Eli, pointing to the fungal mound. "Whether you do or no, go near it! I have seen two of us compelled to consume it with results for the worse, I'll have no others!"
"As the rest of you seem impelled to continue, I'll not abandon you." She growls, making her way toward the far passage.
When Eli & Jessamy refrain from following her, Betheda returns to join Ysme, hackles raised.
After the fungus, Eli's healing draught was positively refreshing.
"It's the fragments you're holding, they got into our heads somehow. Probably aren't alive but they certainly don't like us."
"These?" Replies Ysme, turned about by Adventus' words as she holds up the remains of the ?music box?.
Steeling herself, she kneels down before once more opening all her perceptions to the object she holds.
As before, Ysme is nearly floored by the overwhelming evil.
Pirknok sighs and slaps the puzzle box out of the frozen Ysme's hands. "Now she's gone an' gotten herself... dun sumthin' ta."
He proceeds to smash the box.
Pirknok smashes the remains of the puzzle box underfoot until all that's left is fragments of wood and delicate metal gears.
Ysme cries as the box's remains fall from her now-nerveless fingers.
"Fire? I have Fire." Eli says. He turns to the fungal mat and prepares his bombs. "Don't get too close." he says before tossing the first bomb to see what effect it will have on the mass.
Depending on the effect, he continues to deliver bombs to it until he is satisfied it is destroyed.
Jessamy backs up a bit.
Eli's bomb slams into the mass of fungus splattering slimy plant-matter in all directions. At first there's no change except for the smell of burning fungus filling the cavern along with the stink of the fallen undead. A moment later, the entire chamber visibly shudders in rage.
Pirknok grips his sword and holds it up, glaring around dangerously at the room itself.
Jessamy cringes at the dwarf's fierce look.
"Easy brother," Ventus said, placing a hand on Pirknok's shoulder.
"Let's see if Ada had any personal quarters here and then retreat for now. Dealing with this place may take more than fire and persistence."
The dwarf nods, but still eyes the room warily, as if expecting it to attack somehow. "Let's go."
He follows Ventus to the next passage.
Silently weeping with her head in her hands, Ysme levers herself back to a kneeling posture as she attempts to stand once more.
In it the party finds a stack of charcoal drawings on water-damaged parchment depicting Ventus, drawn by Ada’s hand. The nature of the drawings varies from purely observational to erotica but the ranger remains the subject throughout. Mixed in with these drawings is a letter
written in a graceful hand.
Ada,
You have served us quite well. The delivery you harvested from the caverns far exceeds what I had hoped for. You may consider your debt to the Brothers paid in full. Yet I still have need of you, and when you awaken from your death, you should find your mind clear and able to understand this task more than in the state you lie in as I write this.
You shall remember the workings of the Sihedron ritual, I trust. You seemed quite lucid at the time, but if you find after your rebirth that you have forgotten, return to your townhouse in Magnimar. My agents shall contact you there soon no need for you to bother the Brothers further. I will provide the list of proper victims for the Sihedron ritual in two days’ time. Commit that list to memory and then destroy it before you begin your work. The ones I have selected must be marked before they die; otherwise they do my master no good and the greed in their souls will go to waste.
If others get in your way, though, you may do with them as you please. Eat them, savage them, or turn them into pawns—it matters not to me.
—Xanesha, Mistress of the Seven
Ventus tarries by the stack of drawings, leafing through them with a sickened fascination.
"Some of these are pretty good," he said holding up a tamer portrait, "But others make me severely question her understanding of anatomy."