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Graxzos winces as the ghast bites into his shoulder. "Argh! Sweet Calistria's honeyed thighs, yeh stink! Tha's it; I'll teach yeh!" Shaking the creature off, he staggers back and aims his gun squarely at its head.
He grins and slams another cartridge home.
None: 5' step
Swift: Enter rage (+4 to DEX)
Standard: Attack!
Free: Reload (Cartridge)
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Seren and Caladreal are clearly affected by the stench as they are unable to concentrate well enough to land a solid blow.
The festrog with it's last moments lashes out at Eraith, landing a good scratch right across his chest.
Rajhan Vol -30
Caladrel sickened, Eraith -7 ,Graxzos sickened, Kaspar sickened, Seren sickened
Festrog -7
Kaspar's Ghouls
Rogar
The ghouls surround the remaining festrog, as ordered by Markov, and tear it to pieces.
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Rogar's strike further adds injury, the creature looks to be on the brink of death. But already tasting a bit of Graxzos it continues to lay injury onto him. And he gets another nice taste of him.
Rajhan Vol -49
Caladrel sickened, Eraith -7 ,Graxzos -16 sickened, Kaspar sickened, Seren sickened , Kaspar's Ghouls , Rogar
Instructions were not unclear to the cunning and flesh-hungry monsters.
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The ghouls prove their worth to Kaspar as they surround the Ghast and maul him to an inevitable doom. His body rots a rotten smell. You are now able to investigate the chest. The sea chest next to the throne bears a coarse inscription that reads “I leave you this as wages for your loyal service from now to eternity, my ambitious traitor—S.E.” Within are 10,000 silver pieces—a tiny fraction of Sevenfingers’s wealth.
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With the fight over, Seren will make a display of gagging. With fingers pinching her nose closed her voice comes out nasally. "Guuuuh, why is everything in here just gross? Rotting, makes you want to eat it, or smelling to the high heavens!" And so much for negotiating, but she guessed this was probably better. It's why she stuck to working with the more wispy sort of dead.
Seren is more than useless for the next few minutes, being both sick and suffering from the after effects of channeling a spirit. That said, she's more than willing to count the coins as she recovers. "Wow, this is great and all... but once we feel a little better we still need to find the orb and clear that rubble. I'm not really the muscle and brawn sort, but I'll help how I can."
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Eraith taps himself a few times with the wand irritably before it activates, and he stows it away
"Since we haven't seen the orb yet, we should check that pile of rubble from earlier. Who knows what lies buried underneath. Although I suppose let's do it only once everyone is feeling better."
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"Why the dislike, Seren? Does the fetid smell of danger not make you feel young?" Kaspar asks and wipes a stain of ghast blood of his robes. "Even so, I would prefer to avoid the nausea and sickness. But it can't be helped."
He turns to Eraith. "Just so. As I mentioned, these three can labor can labor for us," he presents the ghouls. Markov then realizes one of them is damaged, and uses magic to fix the ghast-caused damage. "Don't resist."
"Say thank you."
"Thank you, Master." The ghoul in question inspects its disappeared wounds, and licks them.
The ghouls take shovels each and begin to dig the rubble while their master browses his spellbook and chatters with the other Agents.
"So hungry! I want rotten flesh...!"
"Devour, yeah!"
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Seren will stick her tongue out at Kaspar's comment and immediately turn aside so she can begin gagging again in private. Once she regains herself she'll help gather up the loot from the room and drag it back to near the rubble.
She is poorly suited for digging, slight of frame, wiry, and generally not very strong. However, if the brawnier members of the party need her help in clearing the rubble she will pull tools out of her satchel and help to start moving rocks.
If she isn't needed she will spend the next few hours performing rites to Ashava about the room in the form a rather complicated and fluid series of dances about a small candle she lights away from the weird bulbous mass. The dance is intricate and meant to draw in any lost spirits in the area so she may guide them to the other side. Anyone who stares too long may see a group of six hazy shapes gliding along with her.
It's quite unlikely spirits are about, but it's her best effort at dealing with weird undead masses in the room.
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Erhm..ugh sorry about that everyone, here we are, I'll take one of those shovels. Kaspar, keep those things away from me please!
Cal in hooks his glaive and destraps his armor, picks up a shovel and begins working on the rubble. Checking for anything out of place before digging.
Seeing nothing obviously dangerous he begins working on the rubble.
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The ghouls and Eraith lead the party through the rumble as the rest sit out or tire themselves easily while trying to make their way through. After a couple hours, the rumble is cleared and makes way to a small room.
This small chamber reeks of filth and rotten meat. A heap of coins and other valuables lies piled in the middle of the room. The largest item in the pile is a gem-studded copper sphere. Though completely motionless, the light on the sphere seems to flicker and fade like a desert mirage.
A lone ghoul immediately jumps from behind one of the pillars, but being completely outnumbered, the ghoul is immediately taken care of without problems.
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Seren will search the area for any missing loot, as a good pathfinder should do before starting her report.
Sadly, she has no great talent for map making. She will endeavor to write a detailed account of climbing the cliff face, their initial encounter with the barbarian cannibals on the top of the spire, and their eventual finding of the crack deeper down.
There will be offhanded mention of the ruins found with a note to see Kaspar's report, since the old guy seemed to like that stuff. There will then be some glossing over of the moment half of them fell asleep and she tried to eat a body before mentioning the tree room and the leeches that roam around.
A second note to see someone else's report will appear in regards to the undead encounter and the weird bloated mass they were eating. Though she will describe how it looks in excruciating detail. Finally, she will discuss the failed negotiations with the ghast pirate, how they killed it and took its treasure, and then where they found the orb.
In an effort to make a decent map she will let Wynn, her trickster spirit, control her for 2 minutes, using up all her rounds spirit dance for the day to make as accurate a map as she can in that brief time. She will add more detail the next day back on the Captain's boat if she has time.
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The old scholar Markov writes a long report for the Society. He writes the way he speaks: with proper Common, educated vocabulary, and bitter and cynical outlook. The report offers many details about the Tomb and the findings the party has made, though the architechture and historical side took a secondary role. He briefly comments on the natural hazards.
A bit unsurprisingly, he writes an entire two-page essay worth of notes about the undead in the Tomb: where the ghouls and the festrogs were located, how they acted, the mound of flesh they were eating, and what the ghast was after. While writing his report, Kaspar interviews his ghoul minions. "It is not often the Venture-Captain has the opportunity to read such below-surface reports."
As time passes in the Tomb, Kaspar's odd cough begins to resurface. Now that it's returning, the other Agents may realize that Kaspar hasn't been coughing much since they entered the Tomb, and that the coughing stopped altogether when they first encountered the ghouls.
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Cal's report talks extensively on the encounter with the barabarians. He talks about the one that "lived", and how she could only scream, and how he healed her and gave her food, but was unsure how long she'd make it. He goes on to mention the room the put Graxos, and Markov to sleep while also making Seren almost eat a corpse. He mentions the multiple ghouls and other undead, and how he hopes they find peace. He talks about the encounter with a particularly Strong undead and makes a note to speak with Kaspar about it. And lastly he mentions the room under the rubble, and that the Ghast in the previous room seemed very interested in the orb they discovered. All in all he reports his fondness for his fellow adventurers and that the society has done well in recruiting them.
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Seren before you leave, points out a secret door, nearby the rubble.
Beyond the secret door is a narrow set of steep stairs descending into darkness. After several dozen feet, the stairs end in a solid stone door carved to resemble an immense scowling face.
Being less than 2 days on the Gloomspire, you see the Grinning Pixie, not far from sight and easily make your way bake to report to Calisro Bennary. Before ordering the return to Drenchport, she enquires about the adventure and reads your extensive reports.
" “Pathfinders, you have done a great service for me and the Society. The recovery of the Orb of Stars paves the way for future expeditions. Soon, perhaps, we’ll learn more about the Gloomspires’ mysterious creators, unravel their arcane secrets, and perhaps even delve deeper into old Sevenfingers’s tomb to liberate his ill-gotten wealth. Considering what you’ve seen, you’re all now among the foremost authorities on the Gloomspires. I hope that I may call upon all of you again should the Society decide to fund another expedition."
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Graxzos is visibly pleased when the group recovers the orb they've been searching for. "Well, tha's a pretty li'l bauble! I'm glad t'see this whole journey 'asn't been fer naught!"
His report of the Gloomspires is succinct and business-like--there was, in the end, little that he found deeply compelling there. Mostly, it devolves into a speculative rumination on what other treasures might lie buried deeper in Sevenfingers' tomb, and an urgent appeal to the VC to let him lead a team deeper into the ruins!