Theo floats up to the ceiling (15 feet), he is completely calm and serene. The thing reaches into your minds and deposits, You rely heavily on magic. Let’s see how much of a threat you are without it.
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Theo eyes the beastie!
He Cackles.
Mara called out, "Dervak, kill that thing!" She prayed to the Heavens spirits to lend the warrior good luck, and started to chant.
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Dervak moves and attacks the moon-beast.
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Dervak fends off a slew of attacks from the beast, a claw is turned aside by his scimitar, a tentacle cannot penetrate his magically thickened skin, another scrapes against his breastplate.
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The warrior smiles as the monstrosity decides to resort to physical force. Fine by me. He steps closer and continues slashing away with the Vorpal Scimitar. Dervak will use Fortune on an attack roll (the iterative) rather than reserving it for a saving throw.
Theo eyes the beastie again.
He Crackles.
Kat shakes herself out of confusion for a moment, just long enough for an idea to hit. She rushes around the moonbeast to the back of it.
Mara edged closer to the fighting, while continuing her chant. She touched her magic pearl and recalled her prayer to counter confusion.
Dervak gives the beast another nasty slash while Theo attempts to curse it. It appears too strong willed to fall for such tricks.
The moon-beast starts to find its stride facing off against Dervak but
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Dervak sneers as one tentacle strike hits him. "Is that it?"
His sword crackles with the power of his Destiny as he uses Arcane Strike.
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Mara continued her chant, while stepping closer and drawing her axe.
Dervak sneers as one tentacle strike hits him. "Is that it?"
His sword crackles with the power of his Destiny as he uses Arcane Strike.
[Dice=Attack]1d20+17
[Dice=Damage]1d6+23[Dice=Iterative, Destined Strike 2 of 3]1d20+12+4
[Dice=Fortune]1d20+16
[Dice=Confirm?]1d20+16
[Dice=Damage]1d6+23
[Dice=Crit Damage]1d6+23
Dervak is sure he had struck a vital blow to the moon-beast's heart or lungs but it's strange anatomy doesn't conform to the usual standards.
Theophilus frowns at the beastie!
The Witch cracks his knuckles. He does a few deep knee bends. Twisting at the waist and bending to the floor, the gentleman stands up straight. He slowly turns his blue eyes back upon the stubborn beastie!
He Cackles.
The moon-beast again denies Theophilus's curse. It retaliates against Dervak's taunting sending a claw and two suckered tentacles onto his face. Dervak can feel the thing invade his mind through the contact trying to rip bits of his mind away. Perhaps its his rage filled mind, or his struggles against the Dark Whisper but Dervak manages to fight the creature off.
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"Some fight in you. Good! GORUMMMMM!"
Dervak launches himself at the moon-beast.
Perhaps its last trick exposed the moon-beast succumbs to its wounds and falls unconscious.
Dervak ends his Rage.
"Got a few minutes left on these spells if we want to keep going. Let's search this place and move on."
A round, frayed rug of a hideous chartreuse color covers the floor in the center of the room. Within an alcove on the east wall, a large lever surmounts an enormous contraption of thick gears bolted to the floor. To the south is a set of metal double doors. Within the fleshy folds of the moon-beast is another set of keys. One of the keys is inset with a dark gem. A black soul shard.
Dervak takes the keys and the Soul Shard.
He looks at the large lever.
"We have no idea what this lever does. We can come back and pull it later if we find that we need to, but maybe we shouldn't go flipping switches blindly."
Mara examined the lever and the contraption, "Yeah, I'd like to know what I'm doing before I activate something."
"Is anyone hurt?"
Theophilus tags Dervak with the Wand of Cure Moderate a few times.
And twice more with the Wand of Cure light.
Rows of stone cubbies of various sizes, hundreds in all, line the walls of this room from floor to ceiling, each with a small metal door covered with script in Aklo, names, sometimes a description of a person.
In the center of the room is a low table with a model of a building on it. The model does not have any labels indicating which rooms are which but you can see the layout. It looks like some parts of the model have functioning mechanisms.
Dervak takes a look at the names. Most of them don't mean anything to him.
"Do any of these match the authors of Lowls' collection of books? 'Atop the Valley’s Soul', 'The Codex of Three Prescriptions', 'Curses of the Black Lake' and so on?
Kat, is this Aleksander Brewer a relative of yours?
Ah... here is 'The Yellow King.' Should we open his cubby and see what is inside?
And what do we think these mechanisms do? Maybe shows us how the lever opens some door or other?"
Mara said a prayer to reveal magic auras and examined the metal doors. She checked the one labelled "Yellow King" for traps.
Mara detects many conjuration auras from behind a metal door labled "male elven wizard" but nothing from the Yellow King's door. Using one of the keys the party found she opens the door to finds only The Yellow King's clothing: a set of worn nobles clothing and yellow robes fashioned out of curtains.
Theophilus casts Detect Magic. He also studies the auras.
Theo finds the same thing as Mara, 9 or so moderate conjuration auras. To get more information Theo will need to open the door and closely examine the source.
Kat thinks to herself about whether she's ever heard her mother mention an 'Aleksander' in their family, or even one of the many variations of nicknames on it: Al, Aleks, Sander, Aleksi, etc.... "'Brewer' ain't exactly a rare name. Been Brewers as long as there's been brewers, and alcohol's gotta be one of the first things people invented. Don't know how we would have got on this long otherwise."
Theo has Frederick open the door.
Frederick finds an efficient quiver containing eight searing arrows whose heads look like solidified flames. Likely some prisoner's possessions before they were captured.
Theo has Frederick open each door in turn.
Frederick opens the metal doors one by one and within each he deposits a jawbone devoid of any flesh at Theo's feet. It becomes increasingly obvious that the majority of the cubby holes contains such grisly remains.
Mara studied the model for a few minutes, hesitant to play with anything. Finally she said, "We seem to be at an impasse here. I guess we have to try playing with the levers, as much as I hate doing that."
She tried moving the lever in the model that corresponded with the one in the administration area.
After fiddling with the miniature lever that represents the lever in the other room the model's portcullis raises. When flipped again it lowers.
After her experimentation Mara said, "Well, now we know how to get out. But how do we get into where the Yellow King is?"
After sliding the lever back, she examined the model closely, looking for signs of other controls — anything that might give them access to the other areas of the prison.
Mara finds a second lever in the area that the party can't access, when she manipulates it a room on the ground floor shifts position moving south. It seems the way to the other side of the prison normally only accessible from within that side.
"This is a puzzle. If the lever we need is out of reach, how do we get to it? Mara's Heaven's Leap or Theophilus's Dimension Door? In which case we wouldn't need the lever anyway."
"Hmmm," Mara muttered to herself, studying the model some more. "Does that look like a sewer grate on the main floor, at the far end? I wonder if that would be a possible way in."
Perhaps, I can Summon something to get over there?
"Maybe we could rest, and prepare spells to cross over to that side. We could also prepare spells to cure this damned Leng bite. We can camp outside the sliding room, so that if someone from the other side opens it we are not take by surprise.
I think we have cleared out this side of the prison so we are safe."
"Think you got the right idea, Dervak."
The mechanisms are security features that when in place prevent outside attack by compartmentalizing the areas. The moon-beast was wary of an attack, it thought as much to you, but it was surprised to see the party. So there is likely some other force that is intent on attacking or is already attacking.