"I should be able to damage it by channeling positive energy, if we are close enough" - Heldar suggests to his companions.
Shaggar and Hatyah retreat well past the archway, hoping to draw the mummy into the hall. The gnoll steps out of sight of the far section of the corridor, encouraging the abomination to come up the hallway.
As his companions retreat, so does Heldar, staying close to Shaggar.
He conjures a spell to bolster their fighting prowess.
With a nod to Javi, Rosalia retreats back with everyone else to the room with the runes and magical portraits...
... well, everyone but Lyrian that is. She hisses at him from around the corner, "You idiot! Get back here! It's just gonna fill you with arrows!"
Round 2 recap
The Pathfinders et al. fall back into the square chamber with the watching quartz-and-ebony eyes of the pharaoahs. Lyrian takes the time to loose an arrow-- easily dodged by the shambling horror-- and as a result, is the last one to whom the mummy has a clear shot.
Heldar calls a blessing down on his allies, invoking energy and sacred power.
Round 3
At the end of the hall, the eyeless head turns side to side a fraction, tilted as if sniffing the air almost. Where did its hated prey go? It steps forward, questing.
Stick-like shoulders rise in what might be a shrug-- and then the dessicated arms once more erupt into a motion of blinding speed. There is an intruder. It is enough.
Three arrows streak from the bow-- and yet, not one of them hits the archaeologist, who deftly flattens himself to the wall and lets the arrows sing by him. They sail through the square chamber and into the exit tunnel beyond. Lyrian was lucky after all!
Javi readies his blade for the bones’s approach, whispering across to the group. ”Any ideas in case he doesn’t close?”
The gnoll takes a half-step into the open as he drops his axe and unlimbers his bow, still trying to draw the undead closer. "Come, scarecrow of fallen pharaohs." The heavy bow twangs loudly as the arrow is loosed.
Lyrian continues to move and fire, falling back into the chamber behind them. He gives Rosalia a wide grin. "Glad to know you missed me."
Round 3
Heldar shifts his position, readying his longspear in case the creature comes in attack range.
Misfortune :D
Will ready it, to force the guardian to re-reroll any 20 in case he shoots at Shaggar - this looks about right?
Rosalia rolls her eyes at Lyrian, but she's not got the patience to explain that no, his positioning was just messing up their plan, yada yada. She's too busy keeping one eye out around the corner for if the mummy would follow after them.
... She's clearly distracted by this. She really really really wants to go off at Lyrian, apparently.
Hatyah steps out and snaps her jaws, waiting for a chance to strike if the mummy comes forward.
(Keep in mind this will only trigger if the mummy is within 30 feet of you when the dice roll happens.)
Also, this is all tied up with you just setting a condition for Misfortune that will work for PBP. It doesn't influence your standard action at all, so you can still ready an attack with your spear-- which I think is what you are doing, from your description! But if so, you can go ahead and roll the readied spear attack as Rosalia and Hatyah have done, etc, so that if it triggers, I already have your attack roll.
Round 3 recap
Both Shaggar and Lyrian switch to arrows, deciding to trade ranged attacks with their harasser. Both arrows solidly strike, at that, punching through the chain armor still worn by the figure and into the hard and dessicated flesh beneath.
Those who were waiting for the undead to come forward are again disappointed.
Round 4
The impact jars the creature back half a step for each arrow, but no scream of pain rips from its shriveled mouth. Though the arrows have buried deeply, the creature lifts the bow again. It seems to be moving slower, though, and this time only two arrows fly forth-- both headed for Hatyah again.
One arrow tings off Hatyah's barding, but neither actually draws blood.
The bow creaks under the gnoll's strong pull. He sends two more arrows down-range into the mummy.
Rosalia rolls her eyes and sighs in disgust as now three people decided the wisest tactical decision was to stand right in the hallway in direct line of sight of the flipping archer.
"So are we trying to lead this guy down here to us or not? Because currently you are doing a pretty pathetic job of that," she remarks scathingly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Shaggar doesn't spend much thought on the issue. "We're hitting; he's missing. But if you prefer to test his touch, Sayyidah, I'll accommodate you."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Javi waits with practiced patience, blade ready to bite the bony bowman.
Lyrian continues to keep up his fire on the mummy. Unlike Javi, there is nothing patient about him. "Come on, ugly! Come get some!"
At a signal from the gnoll, Hatyah retreats with a snarl.
Shaggar sends two more arrows into the bowman, and Lyrian provides a third-- the body staggers a moment, wavering, then explodes into a puff of dust. Armor and bow drop to the stone with a clatter.
Once the immediate threat of a dead man shooting arrows has passed, there is nothing stopping the Pathfinders from bringing light closer to the pillars, revealing more details about the statue and the hall to those who move down the hall to the junction to look at them.
The defaced statue with the marred script seems to be made of polished red granite. It does not detect as magical.
The statue of the woman looks to be of polished yellow granite. It still detects as magical (evocation).
The statue of the man with the reptilian creature looks to be of bluish slate. It also detects as magic (evocation).
The statue of the man with the instruments is made of a dark basalt. It also detects as magic (evocation).
The final pillar/statue, the blank one, is of obsidian that reflects the light of Heldar's illumination in its glistening glassy surface. It detects of magic (necromancy).
The walls of the hallway are covered with hieroglyphic panels depicting long litanies of praise of each of the four pharaohs. For those who read Ancient Osiriani, it's mostly generic stuff you might expect praising tyrannical rulers-- long paeans to their wisdom, power, leadership, and conquests.
The 'remains' of the mummy have fallen within five feet of one of the pillars. There is rotted clothing left, a pile of a chain shirt, the bow, a half-rotted pack...
Got it ;)
Shaggar's wounds continue to mend as the Life Link between the gnoll and the Oracle shares their vital energy.
Once his companion has recovered his stamina, Heldar heals himself with a few words of divine magic.
The oracle then focuses his attention on the pile of dust that was their attacker, using his powers to detect magical auras on his possessions.
The longbow-- well-made, made of dark-painted yew and decorated with little copper rivets-- detects as magical. Additionally, there is a faint glow from within the moldering pack.
"The bow is definitely magical, and there is a faint aura coming from the pack itself - not sure of its nature though" - Heldar informs the others.
Javi stands up from his ready crouch and sheaths his blade as the group begins to relax. With a furtive look around the corner, he grins, ”Well, that was exciting.”
He steps wide of the pile of dust but stops just shy of entering the columned chamber, his eyes wary of the columns themselves as he looks towards the hieroglyphics. He stops and points out a few spots. ”Look at those.” He points to spots among the words that have been defaced and melted-- it looks as though someone applied acid to the stone. ”You think someone began our work of removing the dangerous runes?”
Lyrian comes to join Javi in examining the ruined runes. "Raegos's old group, do you think? They knew about the runes."
Lyrian rubs his jaw thoughtfully. "It might be a good example to follow. Just erase the runes as we go. You do half and I do half and hopefully neither of us ever glimpses all four of the deadly runes? You know, provided we have acid?"
Shaggar cautiously uses his bow to drag the backpack and mummy's bow out of the pillar corridor. Still using his bow, he upends the pack trying to coax out whatever rests inside it. After that, he reads aloud the ancient runes on the pillars, observing, "To avoid setting off the traps on those pillars, we must say the name of the Pharaoh associated with each pillar as we near it. Do we know their names?"
Shaggar retrieves the bow and the backpack without triggering any more pain to his body.
There are several things inside the pack-- a small clay bottle stamped with a spiral of Pharaz-mat (this is the source of the magic aura Heldar detected), another bottle that feels warm to the touch and smells of sulfur (alchemist's fire), rope, thieves' tools, and long-since-dehydrated-into-inedibility dried rations. There is also the quiver, equally retrievable, with six arrows remaining.
Rosalia seems almost... disappointed when the mummy is shot down. She blinks at it a few times, then blinks down at her rather useless blade, before finally sighing heavily and slipping it back into its sheath. To save face, she decides to not mention her bitterness at the failed (and apparently completely unnecessary) plan and instead carry along with the others.
While the group discusses rune removal methods (Kind of like stain removal, but more dangerous, Rosalia thinks to herself), the resident can-actually-identify-magic-items lady takes up the bow and the bottle stamped with Pharasma's spiral and considers their properties.
"The bow's just got a minor enchantment on it to make its arrows fly better," she explains simply.
"As for the bottle..."
Well, I dunno. But I don't necessarily want to say that...
Rosalia hurries on with another topic. "Oh, yeah, and I can make us plenty of acid if we need to."
Once you can actually test the bow, identifying it is simple enough-- and it is indeed a mighty bow, difficult to pull unless you are equally mighty yourself.
After a few seconds of thinking she doesn't know what the little bottle is, Rosalia realizes that nope, it's holy water. She's seen a lot of it in her time! Her initial confusion was merely because how often do you run into mummies carrying holy water?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, so, she wasn't delusional, this mummy was just weird as hell to have holy water on its... "person".
"Maybe he was a Zon-Kuthon worshipper," Rosalia suggests weakly. "You know. Self torture and all that."
She wisely decides to not muse longer on that topic.
Sensing a general lack of interest in the heavy bow, Shaggar takes it and replaced his lost arrows from the quiver. He considers Rosalia's words. "Or this one was an adventurer before he was turned. The holy water and rations were a forgotten bit of his old life."
Heldar comes up to his friends and smiles at the fact that he was able to ease Shaggar's wounds, pleased that he was able to help. His brows arch at Shaggar's explanation of the pillars.
"I recall the names of several of the pharaohs," he says, "as I was thinking about that back when the Mithral Scarab first explained our mission. Hetshepsu, the supposed Fiend Pharaoh; Ankana, the Radiant Pharaoh, and Anok Fero, the Cerulean Pharoah--"
His words are interrupted by a shift in the statues beyond. The statue of the woman lifts her hands if welcoming; the stern visage of the man holding the chained reptile relaxes some.
"...unfortunately," Heldar says after a beat and a blink, "my studies never suggested the name of the Pharaoh of Numbers, but made reference to the idea that his name had been lost to time."
If detect magic is cast, the evocation effect on statues #2 and #3 seems to be suppressed. You think it would be safe to step into the squares immediately adjacent to those statues.
To the east, the corridor features the defaced statue of red granite, and then it ends abruptly. A few stairs seem to go upward there.
To the west, the corridor continues past the basalt statue and obsidian pillar and appears to form a t-junction.
"It seems that saying the name of the pharaoh associated with the pillar will suppress the wards around it. Of course, that puts us at risk of seeing all four runes. Let's use that knowledge to get Javi and myself as far forward as possible to scout and search for traps."
"Also, I'd guess this poor bastard was one of Raegos's party. This is why Raegos so feared seeing that fourth rune."
"It looks as if some of the runes on the walls have been destroyed already. We need to find and avoid the remaining ones."
"I think this whole place is filled with bloody runes," Rosalia mutters. "Raegos even said it - they'd been going for a while, and Imivus' apprentice was translating a lot of things as he went."
"Can't help but feel we're not even close to the worst of 'em yet..."
As the Oracle speaks the words, and the group notices a shift in the statues, again his eyes glow with a brief incantation to detect any shifts in the magical auras.
He then confirms Lyrian's words - "You are correct my friend - the magic seems to have definitely subsided" - he then turns to Shaggar and the others - "I say we take the safest route for the time being - with some time maybe we can gather additional information that will assist us in navigating this dangerous hall in the other direction?"