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Felicitas has to enter the pool to reach the starfall cathedral. As she does, the ripples in the water seems to startle and Gillmen. He looks in wry amusement as he watches Frostwind attempt a ritual depicted on the wall.
An unexplainable wind gushes into the room, and as it does, you feel a divine blessing bestow upon you. The feeling is somewhat associated with calmness, security, and a warmth within you heart.
The gillmen turns and looks around to see unfamiliar faces, not noticing everyone as some has hidden from sight. But he makes no attempt for communication, he just watches on what the party does.
[spoiler=Sense Motive DC10 if you talk to the Gillman] He reads your lips.
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The Gillman approaches Symphony in a non-threatening way, and reaches out for the cloak. "Thank you. This belong to my friend." He says in turn for Symphony's action. He speaks the common tongue.
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"Hrmm. He certainly is interested in the cloak."
"Friend this is a remarkable place you have here. We have come to gaze upon it's wonders and understand. I would like to ask your permission to look deeper within. We do not wish to be intruders, but seekers of knowledge. This cloak is very much like your own, we found it along the way. Does it belong to you or one of your comrades? Also, I hope you speak common."
[ooc]I hope he can read tengu lips.[/b]
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Symphony reaches out and puts her hand on the gillman's shoulder with a warm smile. Although it is a kind gesture, you can tell from her expression that she is visibly uncomfortable with the gills on the side of his throat. Nonetheless, her smile to the gillman is genuine.
"I'm Symphony," she says. "What happened to your friend?"
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The Gillman looks to you and maintains a calmness. He decides to trust you enough to lay bare what he knows. "This place was once a sanctuary for the dead God Aroden, as I believe you may have known. But my people come here to retreat to the holy waters. To meditate mostly. It is a peaceful place but for some reason, 6 months ago, a few gillmen never made it back. Some say there are unspeakable dangers, but no one has lived to tell the tale."
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Mathilde holds back, clearly uncertain about stepping forward and taking the lead in interacting with the gillman. However, she listens raptly, drinking in his words as he describes the recent troubles. Ask him if he's seen anything of these "dangers", she whispers to Symphony. Or if he knows anything about what the others were doing. Whether they were planning on going further into the cave, that kind of thing.
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Symphony says, "Then we leave you to your meditations. May the gods hold you forever in their graces." She places her hand warmly on his shoulder again. "Thank you."
Symphony draws her longsword and carries the lantern aloft in her left hand. She points her sword toward the passage with the stench. "This way," she says and starts walking toward the left tunnel.
Lady Desna, favor us. Erastil, watch over us. If you cannot protect me, watch over my companions.
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As the group moves down the stinky tunnel lead by the light of Symphony's lantern, the stench becomes stronger and more vile. There's no uncertainty now that the smell is recognizable as a smell of a rotting dead body.
The light casted over the tunnel shows some moving shadows and soon you realise it's a swarm of undead! Skeletons and Zombies!
There's no doubt in your mind that this is the hidden danger lurking in the tunnels, in fact they are stepping over a fresh dead body.
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Seeing the shambling undead ahead, Mathilde wracks her brain, trying to remember the stories she'd heard as a child about monster-hunters and the walking dead. When dead ones walk in Katapesh...crush the bones and slice the flesh! she crows triumphantly, remembering a line from an old rhyme. Hastily, she rushes forward to try and get a clear shot on one of the skeletons, using her mind to tear a melon-sized chunk of rock from the wall and fling it toward the animate bones.
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Mathilde definitely recognizes the threat of the undead fiends! Creatures born of necromancy and hate the living! Sharp weapons are known to be less effective on skeletons. And zombies may carry diseases.
Mathilde mistaken crumbly soil as a rock as she telekinetically throws it at the skeleton. The crumbles upon impact.
The skeletons are enraged and corner in towards her picking their broken scimitars. But broken weapons are useless as they bounce off her armor.
Bold is up!
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Memories from that night in the corn field flow unbidden through Symphony's mind. That night, it was zombies she had fought. They had smelled like this. That stench she and her companion had smelled was the stench of death come to unholy life.
As her lantern light bounces off the rotten flesh of a zombie, Symphony remembers once more that there is darkness in the world that outstrips that which can be accomplished with mere flesh and blood. Here, right before Symphony, evil is walking.
Symphony's glare turns to steel.
Placing her lantern on the ground, she dashes to the front line as Mathilde attempts to blast the dead things with her power over earth and stone.
A spray of hard dirt from Mathilde's attack slaps across Symphony's hand as she reaches for the shield on her back. As Symphony brings her sword up to strike the skeleton, she grins from ear to ear...
... And despite her blow seeming to have no effect, she keeps up her furious assault, smashing into the skeleton with her wooden shield...
... and exploding several of its ribs in the process.
Symphony looks into the empty sockets of the animated dead and screams, "Erastil!
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Symphony bravely without hesitations steps forth out of the light into the darkness that is filled with undead scum. She swings her sword right into the rib of the skeleton with yellow armor, but it misses every single bone on the way. Thought it did not notice it was just a feign as she knocks it hard with her shield. Not only does it shatter it's ribs, but the hit was so hard that it shatters every bone in his body, causing it to crumble to the ground.
Frostwind throws a bomb at the zombie with the green garbs way, while Obaekwon fires an arrow simultaneously. The combination of attacks do enough damage to hurt the zombie critically causing it to collapse.
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Locken finds himself a little late to the battle, the phrase "ladies first" seems to somewhat hold true still. Who said chivalry is dead? None the less he steps over the dead undead and attempts to fire his arrow. But it goes wide.
The last zombie moves it self very slowly, staggering as it attempts to reach Locken. It groans hideous noise.
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While having allies surrounding her lends a degree of comfort, it also restricts Mathilde's movement - she can't maneuver backward to keep herself safe while she throws another rock shard. Instead, she takes a deep breath and presses her hand into the cavern wall beside her, grunting slightly as if she were lifting a heavy weight. A tremor rumbles through the floor, intensifying and ebbing with her breath, and the loose gravel on the floor gathers to her like iron filings to a magnet. When she pulls her hand away, a chunk of wall comes with it, molded to her palm and fingers like a heavy glove; putting her entire body into the effort, she swings at the skeleton beside her, trying to finish it off.
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"Nice shot, Locken!" Symphony says.
Symphony gingerly steps across the bones scattered on the floor. Now void of the necromantic energies holding them together, they are become remains. They are what remains of a person. Someone who loved and cried, someone whom someone mourned when they died.
Mother of Souls, if the people these once were still remain in these ramshackle houses of tattered flesh and shuffling bone, we commend them to your will. See them safely through the River of Souls to their final place of judgment.
Symphony is nearly incandescent with anger as she slashes at the zombie now next to her. You've never seen her smile this much.
The body in the corner of the room catches Symphony's eye. It's not a lot of distraction, but it's enough. As she slashes at the zombie, she tries to batter the remaining skeleton with her shield, but she is off-balance. Her shield catches only air.
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The group continues to attempt to slay the undead. The skeleton is a tricky opponent! Obaekwon's arrow flies right through the ribs, missing a vital organ. While it dodges Symphony's shield. However it's luck runs out as it is unable to dodge the blast from Frostwind's bomb causing it to shatter to pieces.
The zombie takes some hits from Locken's arrow and Symphony's sword. Surprisingly it is able to avoid Frostwind's bomb completely. The zombie then attempts to body slam itself in to Symphony. But is unable to overcome her strong defences.
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Symphony nods to Locken and shuffles a few feet, her eyes never leaving the slack-jawed face of the hideous undead. Seeing the zombie directly between the Locken and herself,
she shouts "Lady of Graves take you!" as she levels her full attack on the remaining zombie.
Her sword swings through the undead's torso. The flesh is too soft, splits too easily. As the stench of rotten organs hits Symphony's nose, she swings wildly with her shield, unable to connect with her target.
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Letting the rock surrounding her hand crumble away, Mathilde reaches for her backpack and draws forth a dagger sheathed in a side pocket . By the neatness of the blade it looks to have been used far more often for roasted meat than living (or unliving) flesh, but she steps forward and slashes out with it all the same, though her balance is off and she swings wide.
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Symphony dodges the bomb and in the smokes off it uses it to her advantage as a distraction to slice the zombie clean in half. Ending the threat that stands before the group.
Approaching the dead body, you realise it's not a gillman and something like a half undead, a dhampir Well dressed none-the-less.
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Frostwind carefully takes an extract and gulps it down. Her eyes go all golden for a moment before returning to their natural icy blue color. She then bends down and starts methodically searching the body, wearing thick alchemist gloves.
After her search she hands the Longsword to symphony and the arrows to Obaekwon. [b]"This stupid dhampir planned to make an army of undead and paid the ultimate price for it. You could call it poetic justice. In any case he was stupid and now he is dead for it.
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Let him enjoy his eternity under Droskar's whip, then, Mathilde replies, spitting on the corpse. We should be on our guard for other undead, then - but at least, if he's dead, the ones we kill won't be coming back.
Looking up from the body, she glances around the walls of the chamber - and notices something out of place. There's a space behind this stone...it looks like there's some kind of secret passage going back this way. It could be the necromancer's hideout, so it might be worth checking out.
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"Very find zombie slicing Symphony! A pleasure to watch."
Obaekwon inspects the arrows Frostwind hands to him. "Sharp!" He bobs his head in approval.
"An army of undead! Such was his plan, but from my viewpoint his purpose here was to deliver me some nice arrows. Which I appreciate. Well he got what he wanted, yes? Partially anyway. One should be careful about asking more than that."
Obeakwon looks around.
"I see no more signs of undead here. It would be convenient for us if this is as far as he got insofar as army building goes."
The he gives a start as Mathilde locates the secret door. "Keen eyes friend! I will hand it to the Pathfinders, this is a very interesting cave."
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"Is everyone okay?" Symphony asks while looking her companions over from top to bottom. She nods when she sees that everyone escaped the fracas without any injuries, then goes to the hallway to retrieve her lantern. She slings her shield on her back again. As she walks, she says, "So what do we know? This used to be a place sacred to Aroden. It looks bad now. Why is is sacred to the gillmen? Was there something here that made it attractive to the necromancer? I assume it was the dead that brought the stench and not the other way around.
Symphony looks down at the dhampir's corpse with a scowl chiseled into her fine features. Rivulets of sweat course down her face, and she pants lightly, taking in unpleasant gasps of the disgusting, rot-smelling air.
Her brow furrows as she tries to make sense of what she's looking at. In so many ways, the mangled body of the dhampir looks human, like Symphony. She seems to bear more in common, in outward appearance, with this necromancer than either Obaekwon or Frostwind, yet this creature's mind was a harbor for ideas and plans that crawled from the blackest planes.
She accepts the new longsword and nods. "Thank you, Eurus. May it protect us all." She places her other longsword, the one made just for her by Edwin Shanks back home, hilt down in her pack.
Deadeye, thank you for a blessing like this in a place so in need of your fierce good will. With this blade, I will glorify you.
Symphony nods to Mathilde. "Good eyes, dwarf! Is everyone ready?" With her enchanted longsword close to her chest and a lantern showing the way, Symphony heads toward the secret passage.
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The door seems to bear a hidden passageway. It becomes brighter as you walk through, indicating exit is closer and that you'll likely be out of the caves sometime soon if you go all the way through.
In the distance, a faint familiar voice can be heard. “As the legendary Gregaro Voth successfully battled the wild beasts in the deepest reaches of the Mwangi Expanse, so shall I defeat you, foul servant of Lamashtu!”