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"I would not agree, ignorance is just plain ignorant. But ya, its a pretty gory scene, especially the sounds." He shrugs his shoulders, gets up and packs things up, ready to move on.
He will check out the large double doors nearby, curious if they've been disturbed at all recently. "Are we doing a full explore here or focusing first on finding that fiend? I would like to do a full exploration before we leave. That is more or less why we came in the first place."
The door on the south side of the hall is huge, and doesn't look like it has been opened in a very long time. It takes a number of you, working together, to finally get it to budge and swing open enough to allow access to the room beyond.
There, you see a room about twenty feet across, and twice that in width, that is nearly bare... whatever it may once have held long ago looted or rotted away. Two large alcoves sit in the far side of the room, each now holding only the remains of a large, monstrous creature of some sort.
The entire room once appears to have contained many bas-reliefs of grotesque forms decorated with gold and gems. In the present, all of those reliefs have eroded away, and any gold or gems long since gone.
Where the skeletons lay now, instead lay the bodies of immense apes, being placed in the cavities by robed cyclopes, while all around, nearby mourners wail and scream.
Again you almost jump, when the voice of Akmon reveals his ghostly form standing behind you, as if looking over your shoulders into the room beyond.
"The first ngoga and his consort." He explains, as be observes the imagery with a look somewhere between disgust and pity on his face.
"Disgusting monsters, but pitiful in their own way." He says, quietly. "The prayers for the dead must be said over them, to appease the family spirits."
"But I fear there is no appeasing them now." He adds, as his form fades once more, leaving only the wailing moans of the mourners.
The two apes look like immense orangutans, but with only a single leering eye in the middle of their skull. Their orange-colored fur is died with red and black designs that serve to only further enhance their monstrous appearance.
There are no signs of the Hazh'a.
Tad will not be able to tell anything about them, certainly not without closer examination! They just appear to be a pair of old skeletal remains from the doorway.
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"Ahh, interesting room yes? Let me describe how it once was. Those two skeletons were once similar to giant one eyed orangutans. Likely angry ones. I would be concerned that they are now containing angry spirits according to Akmon." Dale holds up a finger before anyone tries entering.
"Let me check for magic maybe that will reveal something helpful, but as much as I'd like to, let's not get in close just yet!" He pulls out his wayfinder and clicks on the 'detect magic' function and begins to scan the room.
You can pick out faint illusion and necromantic auras, though can't see what they might be coming from, or tell much more than that, from the doorway.
Purpurrup pears under Dale's arms, as he explains what he sees, her little amphibious face both fascinated, and a little horrified at the same time.
"This one has never seen this room." She says, obviously curious.
"The bones of the dead have never survived to this one's time, from those ancient days, before." She hops past Dale, for a closer look.
You make your way into the room, Monty and Dru in the lead, as you slowly approach the two alcoves on the side.
But, despite your concerns, neither one of the large one-eyed ape skeletons rises to assault you with their bony fists. They appear to be nothing more than remains of long dead monstrous abominations.
Dale is able to hone in on the magical emanations he was sensing to the alcove on the left, and seem to be coming from some items buried under the dust and bones. These include a number of small sealed clay pots in various sizes, and a delicate glass vial on a long extremely tarnished gold chain.
"No one deserved such a fate."[b] He says, sadly. [b]"It was punishment... punishment that will apparently last for millennia."
"I can teach you one of our ancient prayers, that might appease their family spirits... though will likely do little to appease these who suffered. It is small recompense for the atrocity and the years."
When it seems the bones are not dangerous, Purpurrup steps right up to them, picking some up and examining them curiously.
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As Purpurrup begins lifting up bones for a closer look, Dale fills in what bone that is and where it likely would be on the oversized ape. Doing this in Grippli of course. "Oh, that one is the baculum, also known as the penis bone. It allows males to mate even at an advanced age." He adds that little bit with a chuckle.
Dale will be able to ascertain that the clay pots contain magical concoctions that appear to have managed to maintain their potency, despite the thousands of years they must have lain here.
Three of them appear to contain some sort of grease paint, that can be applied to the face to invoke fear in those who see it. Two of the others contain a liquid that provides magical camouflage to the imbiber. He's not entirely sure about the sixth one, though it has a divinatory aura very similar to the last two.
The last item, the glass vial, proves harder to ascertain its purpose, until he realizes it is designed to be used with a weapon. It appears the wielder can siphon some of his own life blood into the vial, and then use their own life force to power a number of powerful magical effects. He can even ascertain the command words, including restoring ability damage, and greatly imbuing the owner's physical prowess for a short time. He will find those commands a little hard to pronounce, mind you, as they are in the ancient language of the Cyclopes.
"These prayers are to be spoken over the remains of the dead... to appease long dead spirits." He says bitterly. "Not written down for your own personal edification."
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Fali gives the 'Toy' a scowl of distrust as it starts badmouthing her. Threshing wheat is too good, I'd use it to stir acid! She does give Monty a smile as he apologizes for the past teasing. "No worries, remember I only have one at a time, I couldn't handle more than two, I'd lose my patientince too much otherwise. But your toy would definitely push me over the edge often. You have my sympathies."
Faliana walks into the room, ready to back out again, but gives a small sigh of relief to find that there's nothing too terrible in here. She does stay on guard for a haunt or undead, but is pleasantly surprised to find nothing in the room is dangerous. She spends a minute holding onto one of the larger bones of the creature, seeming to try communing with the spirit of the beast.
Examining an item in this way requires him to spend 1 minute handling the item. If the item is a magic item, the occultist learns its properties and command word as if he had successfully examined the item using detect magic and succeeded at a Spellcraft check. This ability does not reveal whether the item is cursed unless the occultist’s class level is equal to or greater than the caster level of the item. If the item has any historical significance, the occultist learns one piece of information about its past (as determined by the GM). Finally, if the item was last used no longer than 1 day ago per the occultist’s class level, the occultist learns one piece of information about the last creature to use the item. This information might be a glimpse of the creature’s appearance, a brief vision of what it saw while using the item, or perhaps its emotional state when it last used the item. The GM determines what information is gained in this way. This functions like the psychometry occult skill unlock, but doesn’t require a skill check and can be used at will.
After a moment of being gone to the world she refocuses her eyes and hears Dale and Akmon talking about the prayers. She smiles, a little twitch behind it showing her holding Themp back. "I'd Love to learn some of the prayers of your kind. Appeasing and guiding the souls of the dead is my goddesses' most sacred mission, I would gladly perform the prayer." She eyes the one vial that Dale wasn't able to explain to the group, picking it up to look at after their prayer.
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Brady doesn't seem to relax until they are in the room for some time. It's only after nearly everyone seems to be handling the ancient bones that he accepts the fact that they aren't likely to rise up and begin attacking.
"This vision of yours makes strange demands. If a prayer is what it wants, then I suppose we should. But if there's nothing else here, we should keep moving."
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It does not take long for Faliana to pick up the words required for the prayer, all of them are in the Cyclopes language, and Themptius even knows some of them. Dale though, has a hard time recording them, due to it not being in a language he knows, though he tries as best he can, despite Akmon's disapproving gaze.
The others clear back, to give her room to work, except for Purpurrup who seems intrigued by the entire thing. The little grippli lurking neaby to watch. Faliana quickly gets to work, intoning the ritual words to finally put these creatures to rest after thousands of years.
The ritual is not terribly long, and she is just coming to the end of it, when something changes.
Dale notices it first, as the words he is writing on his page suddenly seem to start bleeding... as if his pen is stabbing the page itself, and the words are wounds. He hears the saddened voice of Akmon in his ear with a quiet "You were warned." before he fades from view once more.
From somewhere far behind you, deeper into the ruins, everyone hears a howl of anger, that echoes through the broken halls, and before you, the two skeletons on the floor suddenly start to stir. The various bones pull together and seem to reconstitute and reassemble themselves with frightening speed right before your eyes! After all those millennia, the bones of the skeletons in the alcoves return to horrible life, blood flowing freely from their single eye sockets as if that eye has just been freshly plucked.
The transformation is so quick, none of you have time to react at all as the first one turns on Faliana its mouth open in a silent roar, giant fangs exposed. It immediately lays into her with two powerful skeletal claws, nearly gutting her before she can pull herself away. She only just manages to avoid the powerful jaws that try to rip at her throat.
The second skeleton seems to be animating much the same as the first, but whatever force is powering it seems to run out before it is finished. Not all of its bones seem to return to their positions, and some of those that do, do not appear to be attached right. It is still enough for it to turn on Dale, as he stands there with his book, blood dripping from its pages merging with the blood dripping from the creature's skeletal eye. He too finds himself under a vicious assault, the claws of the second creature trying to tear him, and his precious journal apart . Like Faliana, he is only able to finally react in time to avoid the fangs, as they try to close on his shoulder!
- Round 1 -------
Party is up!
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Bored with the prayers, Brady had been contemplating what designs he might draw on his face with the war paint they'd just found when the skeletons began to animate.
His eyes grow wide as his initial fears from this room turn real!
He quickly recalls a method taught in the Grand Lodge to make his fists strike harder, then steps forward and tries it out!
You gain a +2 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon.
But skeletons should not normally be bleeding!
You know that will have standard undead immunities... meaning they will be immune to the staggered condition of your frost bombs
Of course, being skeletons, they are likely only susceptible to blunt weapons, with no internal organs do damage with the sharper ones. But the blood is troubling. You've read of a type of skeleton that bleeds, and they tend to be even tougher... resistant to positive energy and almost impossible to kill permanently, healing themselves almost as fast as they can be damaged... even reconstituting themselves after being completely destroyed, with enough time.
[ooc]They have DR, fast healing, and channel resistance.
Brady is ready for a fight, stepping in quickly, and slamming one meaty fist into the brittle bones of the ape skeleton that does not appear to have formed completely. He can hear those same bones snapping under the blow.
Behind him, Dale unfortunately reacts instinctively from being attacked. He steps back, throwing a bomb at the same creature, not really considering the tight quarters... he rushes his throw, and the bomb lands well short, shattering and sending flame washing out over everyone in the area, skeletons and allies included!
The larger skeleton on the left manages to avoid most of the flames, protected by the alcove wall, but the one on the right gets the brunt of it, bits of flame arcing along its bones.
- Round 1 -------
Fal, Dru, Monty, and Tad to go!
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Neither Dru, nor Faliana manage to avoid the errant flames from Dale's bomb, the later nearly collapsing after the brutal beating she took from the skeletal ape. She desperately limps backwards, instinctively moving behind Monty, trying to shield herself from the onslaught, as she lashes out with her longspear trying to drive it back, though has no luck hit anything vital or solid over his head.
Before it can press its attack, Dru quickly closes the gap, swinging her morning star, but her blow only skitters off its bones. Monty has little better luck, as he first tries to feint the thing, though quickly realizes it has no affect at all ! He then tries to knock it off its feet, but such maneuvers against such large creatures is difficult at the best of times, and his blow ends up being way too low regardless. Slitherbane skipps off the stone floor nowhere near the skeleton's legs.
In the other alcove, the second skeleton, still not completely formed, seems to be doing much worse after Brady's blow and the bit of fire that did splash its way from Dale's bomb. When Tad raises the symbol of his goddess and channels the holy radiance of Sarenrae through the room, the positive energy strikes the partially formed skeleton like a wall of force, bones shatter, some even turning to dust, and what energy was holding the rest together seems to completely fail... the entire thing collapsing back to the ground again... though strangely, blood still seems to seep from the lone eye socket in the skull.
The second skeleton gets hit by Tad's energy as well, though it weathers the onslaught much better... and in fact, not a moment later, you see some of the bones that did take damage knit back together, and even the scorch marks from Dale's errant bomb appear to be almost completely gone.
With another soundless howl, it tries to claw its way past Dru, clearly still set on ripping apart Faliana, but the spear-maiden is able to deflect the first claw with her weapon, and catches its fangs along the edge of her shield... but the third claw manages to get past her defenses, smashing into her right shoulder, twisting tendons and tearing flesh!
Nearby, Purpurrup scrabbles backwards, trying to get out of the beast's long reach, as she draws a wand from her belt.
- Round 2 -------
Party is up!
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Faliana gives a groan of pain as she still reels in pain from the unexpected attack. She takes a step back and considers her options. I thought I had taken a good read on those bones! The undead spirit must not have been inhabiting them at that time... Unsure what to do, she wrinkles her brow and tries to finish the prayer in a potentially useless attempt to end the skeletons.
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Drusilla ignores the wound, as she stands her ground and smashes her weapon across the skeletal creature's ribs, breaking off bones with the force of it. Beside her, Monty stops trying to knock the thing over, instead bring Slitherbane around trying to break off a few bones of his own. Unfortunately, he does not get nearly enough force behind his swing for the flail to do more than deflect off those same bones!
Brady, seeing the nearer skeleton fall to the ground, seemingly out of the fight for now, steps to the side, and tries to throw a few blows at the other. But there is not much room to confront it directly, and he can not quite get a good swing in past the dividing wall.
Tad quickly moves to try to heal some of the Dru's wounds, calling on powerful healing from his goddess. It is not nearly enough to heal Drusilla completely, but it proves timely nonetheless, as the skeleton continues trying to claw and bite its way past her, seemingly still intent on getting at Faliana, who is flagging from her own wounds in the back.
Again, Dru is able to deflect one of the incoming claws, but she loses her balance doing so, and can't get her shield up in time to deflect the other, as it nearly pulls her arm right out of its socket, intense pain racing down her arm in response. It then manages to lock its long fangs onto the same shoulder, tearing at it with mindless ferocity.
Even as it does so, the previously damage to the skeleton continues to mend itself. There is now no sign at all of the fire damage, and the ribs that Dru's blow broke off, start to pull themselves back into place.
Dale tries to stop some of Faliana's bleeding, but his spoon seems to be running low on power, as only its healing power goes almost unnoticed amid the deep wounds. Purpurrup, finally out of the creature's reach, uses her wand to try to help as well, but her attempt too is not nearly enough.
"It was the Fiend." She says, worriedly. "That scream, from back there... So much rage! Had to be! It knows we are here!"
- Round 3 -------
Party is up!