"Has he said what he hopes to get out of bringing back the city? What does that fiendish sphinx have to do with anything? Why did he have you ambush us and then pretend we started the fight?"
Misha knows is is unlikely they have many more answers, but figures she may as well ask. I have no issue with you leaving... Just don't return."
Nodding to Josef, he then hears Misha question and answers; "Favor of the Dragon Lords? I guess. He and his mother were into magic and books. The sphinx was here when we came thru the tunnel, and Aogarn beat her in a game of riddles, so she agreed to let him and us free roam in this portion of the city. We had not explored around here, as we went directly to the door to the main Temple. We have been there for days and just came back, so we do not know much about this area. What ambush, we saw you speaking with some old man at the fountain and are under orders to attack."
"That was not one of us. All eighteen are accounted for, including the six still inside with Aogarn."
”I suppose our next step is to gain entrance to this Temple ourselves.”
"The man at the fountain was an illusion. I presume it was created by Aogarn in an attempt to distract us while you attacked us from behind. The figure changed shape, and before it took the form of an old man, it looked like you to begin with--an armored man--so I figure he was making it look however he wanted. If he's a powerful wizard as you say, he is certainly capable of that."
"Only one more question--do you know Aogarn's mother's name?" She wonders if she was mentioned in Fiall's journal.
Otherwise she has no further questions and is willing to let the men depart.
"So powerful wizards, dragon lords, and not just undead but 'many' undead." Telman finishes retrieving arrows and puts one on the string. "Sounds like fun."
"Aogarn mother is named Aedhaine. She was our tribal shaman." Looking at everyone else, and seeing no further questions, he instructs his men to pick up their weapons and sheath them, and he leads them to the west and the tunnel back to upper areas of the mountain.
"Well, that tracks with the Dragon Clan -- Aedhaine was its tribal shaman. They were the only Athans who believed their ancestral lore about this mountain and the dragons."
She looks around. "Let's search the area a little more... maybe we'll find an alternate route into the temple, or at least maybe some more information Aogarn doesn't have yet."
"That works for me, Misha," Rikar says, once the guards have left. "I'm not optimistic we'll find much, but any edge we can gain over this Aogarn seems worth looking for."
Deciding to finish exploring this area of the city, Rikar and Misha lead the group to the south, where Rikar spots something in the area far to the south. This is a long stone chamber, the far section of which has been completely buried in rubble. There are rickety stone doors on either side and strange, half-erased marks on both the walls and floor. An apparently fresh corpse lies on the chamber floor. Searching closely you see a human, with some fiendish traits, dressed in a wizards robe, and with a stake thru its chest.
"Hmm, let's see..." Misha checks signs for traps on the floor, walls, or ceiling. If something took this person by surprise it might be quite a wicked setup.
If she finds nothing conventionally, she casts detect magic and takes a couple minutes to fully analyze any auras she sees.
As Misha searches for traps, Rikar studies the floor of the chamber, as well as the fallen human.
Therena hits the corpse with a disrupt undead spell, just because.
vs SR 22
Misha checks the area for traps, and finding none, detects magic on the corpse and the area. She detects only two items that are magical, a white steel rapier, and silk and cloth-of-gold bracelets.
Rikar determines that there are footprints, similar to the footprints of the dragon guards, that were here a few days ago. The body has been laying here about that long.
Therena casts disrupt undead on the creature, but the spell fizzles.
”Thers’s spell resistance on that corpse. I think it’s less corpse-y than we’d like.”
"Well, what do we know about undead that need a stake through their hearts to be killed?" Rikar asks disingenuously. "One thing I know is that my scythe is pretty effective at mowing down undead - though it seems that has already been taken care of in this case."
"Never hurts to chop his head off. He's got a nice rapier and a nice set of bracers of armor. I don't think anything is trapped here, Aogarn's men must have dispatched him. But why they left him? Maybe that's the trap. "
Misha searches her memory for books she has perused about creatures with stakes thru the heart, and remembers that this is one way of killing vampires. She also remembers that if the stake is removed, the vampire comes back to "life". The only way to kill it is either to cut off its head while staked and douse it with holy water, or immerse it under running water, or exposure to direct sunlight.
"Yeah, if it's resisting magic and it's undead and staked through it's probably a vampire. Maybe they didn't have any way to finish it off -- you need to cut its head off and fill the neck with holy water, or expose it to direct sunlight. Or immerse it under running water, but that would require moving it. Therena, can you provide some holy water or shed some light on the subject, if you've a powerful enough lighting spell?" She shrugs. "Barring that, Josef you can try your disintegrate, but he may resist it."
Therena shakes her head. ”I don’t have any good wate, and my daylight spell won’t be powerful enough. If we have powdered silver, I could prepare a bless water spell next time we rest.”
Misha blinks incredulously. "No one has any holy water on them?" She doublechecks her haversack, then rubs the back of her neck, embarrassed. "I thought I did but I must have used it up at some point when we were tomb raiding... and I'm kicking myself for not realizing. Why would anyone not carry holy water when you're walking around an ancient mountain-city-tomb?" She slaps her forehead with her palm, mad at herself as much as anything.
She looks at Joseph. "The vampire will come back to life if the stake is removed. Therena will need a full rest--say, 8 hours or so--before she can re-prepare any of her spells. If we can't dispatch it now, we need to sit around here guarding it for 8 hours so someone else doesn't yank the stake out, which is 8 hours Aogarn has to meditate on how to end the word. Maybe you'd better try your disintegrate... just target the creature, not the stake! Hold on, let me get those magic items first..."
As no one else has volunteered to do the decapitation yet, she pulls out one of her swords and hacks the creature's head off, and kicks the head well away from the group.
She bends over and carefully removes the rapier and bracers from the vampire, and then moves away.
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"Sure, makes sense. Since it's a easy target, might as well line up the shot perfectly, too. Here goes nothing."
Josef moves next to the 'corpse' and uses a full round to coup de grace the vampire in the head.
vs SR.
DC 21 fort save.
If made, take disintegrate damage
If failed, take disintegrate damage
Figuring that this is a vampire, and wondering if this is a trap left by Aogarn to discourage any who may be following him and his band, you decide to have Josef cast disintegrate on the staked creature, after Misha removes the two highly magical items from it. Lining up the shot at the vampires head, Josef casts his spell, however it fizzles just as the ray reaches the body.
"Well, Josef, can you try that again?" Rikar asks his friend. "Seems like a worthwhile thing to try."
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"I can, if we think its worth it. It'll mean my ring has to recharge and I won't have a floating spell to cast when I want. But this seems like it calls for it."
Josef concentrates and a green bean shoots from his ring in the same manner as before.
SR
Fort Save DC 21.
If saved, take HP
If failed, take HP
vs DC 21
Aiming carefully again as to make sure he hits, Josef recalls the disintegrate spell and this time, overcomes the creatures natural resistance to spells, and watches as the body is turned to a fine dust, leaving behind all the clothes, and the stake.
Congratulations are short lived however, as the fine dust seems to coalesce into a small cloud and it moves towards the still standing small building next to where you are. As the small cloud of dust gets there, it seeps thru a crack in the wall, outlining a hidden door, and enters the building.
Misha, seeing the dust coalesce and begin to fly up, casts a 20 foot high wall of sound in a 5 foot ring around the area where the gaseous form is moving, in hopes of making it rebound within the ring and take some damage.
”It will have a coffin somewhere, where it will go to regenerate. If we can follow it, we can find it before it regenerates enough and stake it again. It looks like it’s trying to get inside that building.”
Misha starts rattling off ideas. "Even better if we can keep it from its coffin... and find and destroy the coffin first. Anyone have wind magic? Could it be stuck in an air bubble? Josef! It was headed in the direction of that building, could you block access to it with a wall of force?"
...she pulls out one of her swords and hacks the creature's head off, and kicks the head well away from the group.
"I wish I had something to offer like that, Misha," Rikar responds, "but if I can find the coffin, I expect I can destroy it." He hurries to the small building where the vampire was headed, looking for a way inside.
+2 Underground
+8 Underground gee, I think 41 will spot the secret door!!!
+8 Underground
watches as the body is turned to a fine dust, leaving behind all the clothes, and the stake.
As the fine mist cloud seemed to be heading to the small building next to where the body was, Rikar moves around the building and spots an imperfect match of the building to what is probably a door.
Rikar pauses a moment to see if the door has any obvious traps, then attempts to open it!
With all the ruins around them, and most of the buildings being at least somewhat in disrepair, it is easy to see that there are no traps on the door, at least none visible, on the secret door. With a shove and grunt, Rikar opens the door and sees a quite ornate coffin on the inside.
Rikar calls out to his companions, "I found a way in, and I found his coffin!"
Rikar strides into the chamber, turning his scythe to point the blade's tip downward, and brings it down in a powerful overhand blow to the coffin!
After Rikar forces open the secret door, he sees an open empty coffin, and he strides in and brings his scythe blade down onto the coffin, and it splinters into pieces, ruining it.
"We shouldn't have done that. We should have let it get to the coffin and reform, then staked it again. If there's another one around here somewhere, he'll go to it. Let's follow it and see where it comes to rest."
She casts mage hand and floats the stake into her hand.
"How many coffins are there likely to be in an ancient Athan ruin? The nearest tomb that I am aware of," she adds loudly, "Is the one up in the mossy caves above, with the sealed door."
She shrugs. "Can't bother us for awhile anyway." Misha wanders around to do some exploring.
The fine cloud of dust, flies higher than the wall of sound and for a moment seems to be twirling around, as if looking and deciding where to fly to.
"Ah!" Rikar grunts in frustration, "I thought we had to destroy the coffin before he got to it, not with him in it!" Watching the mist float up, he keeps an eye on it, unsure how to proceed. As the mist moves, he joins Therena, trying to gauge if it's possible to keep up with it.
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"It was worth a shot, Rikar. At least it'll be gone out of our hair for quite a while. Too bad we dont have a smoke-bottle or something similar, we could lock it up like a genie from the old stories and let it die inside."
Josef keeps an eye on the mist from vamp, but isn't too concerned about it recovering soon.
"You know down here, who knows how things work?"