"Sorry, bruv. Out of respect, I'll refrain from saying it out loud." She is mildly annoyed that she was just trying to lighten the moment for herself and got reprimanded for it, but if other people feel strongly about it, she believes in respecting that. Besides, if the situation was reversed, she'd have asked the same.
What Dervak said starts her thinking, and the more she thinks on it, the more she hates the whole concept of these horrible extraplanar horrors with their "witnessing or talking about or knowing anything about us will make you go craaaaaaazy!" nonsense. Bloody ridiculous, that's what it is. She thinks back to all the times in her life that she has experienced something that doesn't make sense, and she was never "laid low by the Mysteries of the Universe;" she just thought to herself "well that doesn't make any bloody sense" or laughed it off and went on with her life. That's how people work; their brains go "oh, none for me, thank you" when something insane comes up, and that makes sense. So, she still has difficulty understanding how these Dark Tapestry things can work any differently, even after fighting them and studying them extensively. That they apparently *can* "lay you low with the Mysteries of the Universe" annoys her in the way that rich people do: they get to break the rules that everyone else is expected to follow. Not to mention that for someone who has made a life built around trying to uncover the unknown and hidden, someone who uses knowledge and observation as a weapon, it's bloody frustrating to have to close her eyes and stop up her ears.
No, she doesn't like a single bit about how these cosmic pricks work.
Mara opined, "It's prudent not to speak it out loud, I would say. Anyway, let's continue with the task at hand. I don't wish to linger in this place longer than we have to."
The White Rabbit claps his furry paw over Theo's mouth!
Dervak will move south and look down that corridor going east.
As Dervak walks south he can smell the stench of something indescribable and yet very familiar to him. Down the corridor east he spies the final angel statue that should unlock the gate to the next level beneath the Mysterium. As he turns the head, through the wall to the south he hears the sound of a stone crashing against metal.
"I think the gate is maybe beyond that wall to the south. Should we go around and check it out?
Do we have any magic for seeing at a distance?"
Mara shook her head, "I didn't memorize a spell for that, I'm afraid. We'll have to look the old-fashioned way. Let's go around."
”Whatever was summoning that arcane eye before is probably still about, trying to keep an eye out for us, eh? Keep watch.”
Kat will happily take the lead as they go around, keeping an “eye” out for any more arcane eyes.
Theophilus nervously follows.
A preternatural stench hangs in the air here among the vandalism and chaos of the chamber. Remnants of bent, broken, and gnawed cages litter the room, along with mounds of books and papers. Blocks of stone from the ceiling and walls litter the ground, partially obscuring another angelic gate.
The stench of this room starts to get to Mara but she simply stops breathing reflexively.
Kat and Dervak conclude that the room is structurally unsound and is in danger of collapsing. Just as the thought occurs to them everyone sees a chunk of sandstone fall and bounce off of something unseen.
Theophilus--not feeling well--lifts his robes as he tiptoes through the tulips a bit.
The Witch then Hexes the Mass-of-Stuff!
Mara stopped breathing, lest the stench overwhelm her. She looked for the source, ready to illuminate a hostile creature with stardust, should one become visible.
The bits of standstone sheered from the walls of this room are crushed and crumble as something large pulverizes them. Stomp, STOMP, The wall next to Theo develops a thick crack as something crashes into it with the force of a sledgehammer.
Theophilus--not feeling well-Hexes it again!
He Cackles.
Dervak uses Barroom Brawler to pick up Blind-Fight, Str-rages, steps up, and swings once.
Mara retreated a bit to keep out of the way. She didn't know what the others were fighting, and asking a question would require breathing the sickening stench. She used her pearl of power to recall her spell to give others a chance to escape grapples, in case that was needed.
Kat points out where the monster is with her spear. "Right there in front of Dervak, Mara. It's a big one! Some a' that stardust would be good I think, eh?"
Kat taps her boots together, knowing she only has a few precious seconds left but also that Mara has the spell in-reserve, and begins attacking the monster, stabbing into its mass of flesh with increasing accuracy as she finds her rhythm.
Dervak slashes at the monster where he thinks it will be and an invisible spray of something wet and foul smelling drenches him and the wall around him. Kat follows up with three jabs of her spear, the first doesn't penetrate what passes for the creature's skin, the second is deflected by a writhing tentacle. The third she finally connects and draws ichor.
Dervak is smashed by something the size of large tree branch in the stomach and then roughly grabbed and lifted off the ground. He feels toothed maws open along the length of the appendage begin to bite into him and drink his blood.
Mara spoke the command word to loosed the creature's hold on Dervak. She paid for that with a breath of foul air that left her feeling queasy.
Thanks to Mara's magic, Dervak escapes the creature's grip! This time, fighting defensively (for 35 AC and 37 CMD).
He attacks the monstrosity.
He growls as his falchion fails to hit.
Finally finding her rhythm as she settles into her fighting style, Kat continues piercing holes into the big mass of flesh.
Unable to do much against an invisible enemy, Mara watched for anything approaching from the corridor.
Theophilus--not feeling well--Hexes it again!
He Cackles!
Kat in a flurry of quick jabs puts an end to the indescribable creature. The creature's flesh quickly melts into nothing but a crusty stain, its as if the only thing holding it to this plane was its own force of will.
The portal to the next level is blocked by rubble and will take considerable effort to try and remove it.
Mara elected to heal Dervak with her wand, preserving her healing hex for emergencies.
"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us here!", she commented, suverying the rubble-choked portal.
"Yeah."
Dervak accepted the healing from Mara, then set to work excavating the rubble.
"Uh, Theophilus and Mara, keep an eye on the ceiling, would you? If it looks like this is going to collapse, Theo can Dimension Door us out of here, maybe. I will try to be careful moving the rubble but this room is not structurally sound.
Don't suppose either of you can make a wall of stone? Or summon something that can? Okay, then we will just have to hope for the best."
Kat does her best to assess how immediately serious the damage is.
Theophilus---not feeling well--mops his forehead. He then begins staring at the ceiling....
If Dervak can pile the excavated rubble in a way to shore up the weakened ceiling (under Kat's direction), that is what he will do.
After a few close calls Dervak and Kat manage to clear the rubble without collapsing the room on top of them. They also feel it should be safe to traverse the room for now.
Kat has a nagging feeling she's forgetting something. Something she rarely feels.
Theophilus--need feeling well--peers about nervously.
Kat's face screws up as she tries to sift through her brain for any loose piece of important information.
"I bloody despise that feeling of forgetting something." She sobers as she realizes that this might not be as mundane a dilemma as she thought. "Any of you lot having that feeling, too?"
"No, not really."
All that thinking and studying Kat does must be getting to her. Cram too much in the brain and something is bound to fall out.
Mara spoke up, "Didn't Elder Thyrr say to turn all of the angel heads on each floor that can turned? We haven't checked the angel on the other side of the north wall here, have we?"
Unable to recall something that seemed important the party has no choice but to press forward.
Like the previous levels of this library, this level contains hundreds of carvings of angels upon the walls. Those in this level are dancing and cavorting, but some of them hold sly expressions. The images seem to move on their own when viewed out of the corner of the eye. Unlike previous levels, the hallway is not cluttered with books, ancient manuscripts, and arcane minutia.
Preventing you from seeing very far is a pervasive fog that fills the corridors, but this does little to limit Kat's supernatural senses. A hallway leads south and east. Beyond your sight you hear low unearthly growling.
"I hate this," mumbles Dervak.
"Can't see a thing. Kat, what do you see? I will follow you."
Theophilus--not feeling well -tries not to look at anything out of tbe corner of his rummy eyes....
Mara exclaimed, "Ugh, this is terrible — anything could be in this fog! Can anyone see anything?"
She tried listening for movement.
"No worries, all. I got eyes and ears for it. Just follow close, eh?"
Kat carefully walks forward, waiting to make sure the others can keep up.
Perhaps, an Air elemental's whirlwind ability could clear this fog?
As you enter the intersection you briefly feel dizzy, but it goes away as quickly as it came. To the south Kat can see the third angel gate. This metal circle in the floor again depicts angels, but there is nothing beatific about these figures. Their eyes are filled with lust, and long snaking tongues reach out, lolling on their cheeks.
"Did anyone else feel dizzy for a moment?", Mara asked the others.
Theophilus pauses for a moment. Then suddenly he speaks an arcane phrase; and vanishes!
Kat and Mara know that Theo has cast dimension door. Kat does not "see" him with echolocation nearby.
"What did he do that for?", Mara moaned. "He's cast a dimension door spell; I just hope he doesn't run into those hounds! What are we going to do now?"
She was quite at a loss about what to do next.
Remind me not to get the gracamole next time with the super nachos!
The White Rabbit gives him a strong thumbs up!
The Witch--who is really not feeling it--looks up at the guards.
Stand back; and look away!
He then summons.
Please, Semore, carry and protect us finding our friends inside.
And so the trio reenters the cursed museum.
"This place has been rough on him," says Dervak. "He can't have gone too far, right? How far does that spell go? Do we have any way of finding him?"
Mara replied to Dervak, "He could have teleported out of the Mysterium entirely. He'd still be fairly close by — within a few hundred feet, I should think."
Her mind raced as she considered the possibilities, "No good way right now. I could possibly walk through the walls to the outside, but I couldn't take anyone with me. I'd have to convince the guards to unseal the doors.
"That's assuming that he's not somewhere else in the building."