Storn continues twitching violently and slowing down as the mother of spiders explodes in front of him under a torrent of offense from his companions. Roaring, he switches to the other ettercap, bringing Gorum's Thorn down with a mighty chop.
"One of these will have to land... hopefully...
Kipa curses to himself. He steps so the ettercap is between Storn and himself. At that he starts to swing away.
5' step to K2
if either of these attacks hit, -2 AC vs party, -4 AC vs Kipa, 4 bleed
The ettercap, who once ran from his fate, died under the onslaught of blades, arrows, and magics. The small room was still rife with cobwebs, but at least they were no longer actively trying to smother anyone nearby.
Searching the bodies yielded little treasure but the amulet around the dwarf-spider's neck.
Amulet of Mighty Fists +1
In the darkest recesses of the room, you can see two webbed cocoons suspended from the ceiling. Strangely, the webbing of the cocoons leave the bellies and mouths of the figures inside exposed.
This is a ritual associated with the demon lord Mazmezz.
A great stone disk sits across the doorway into the rest of the tomb, blocking it off completely. About the disk are dwarven runes, chiseled into the stone of the wall in letters a foot high.
"Rest here until mine sons touch upon thy blessings"
Runes are also carved in the center of the disk.
"Loyalty"
"Duty"
"Strength"
Until the fire elemental's summoning ends, Molly directs it around the room, to burn some of the webs out of the party's way.
She also has a look at the amulet.
"Nice!" she enthuses. "An amulet of mighty fists! D'you guys mind if I take it? Unless one of you wants to start beating things up with yer bare hands an' feet, that is."
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Quill has no interest in the amulet, wondering why Molly would since she seems to avoid combat for the most part. Quill shrugs, figuring that that the amulet won't change that. After all, the only thing Quill beats with his bare hands...
"Hey! What is that?" Quill points to the weird cocoons.
Know (Religion)
"That's weird, right?"
Quill doesn't read dwarvish, just good languages.
Storn takes a moment to heal himself up before he stomps over to investigate the cocoons. "Hrmph. Muzzmuzz. One of the demon lords - I think this one likes bugs. Seems like a kind of ritual, but dunno if they were trying to do anything important or just worship their stupid God."
He cuts down the cocoons to inspect the bodies while the smart people worry about the words.
"I think it's actually Mazmezz," Sander says, though he can't contribute much more than that from what Storn said.
He reads the runes out loud, for everyone's benefits.
"One of his sons? We don't even have any dwarves with us, much less one of his sons," Sander notes.
He looks around to see if there's anything further to suggest how non-dwarves might be able to enter before Storn gets it into his head to just bash the thing down.
Quill doesn't see any way to open the door, short of rolling the disk of stone away, and he thinks that if it was that easy then the runes wouldn't be there.
Mazmezz is the demon lord of all the world's foul and scuttling vermin and holds court in her abyssal realm of Khavak-Vog. Mazmezz began life as a qlippoth lord and spawned the first bebiliths. When she found herself worshipped by mortals (particularly drow), she began to enjoy the attention and became interested in their lives. As she found out that her fellow qlippoth sought to destroy them to eradicate sin and starve the demons, she turned traitor and became a demon lord. She does not care that her bebilith children continue to hunt demons, as she only values mortal worship, unconcerned with the fate of her followers once they become demons.
Sander racks his brain, hoping he knows as much about dwarven gods as he strangely does about demon lords.
He tries to think of where that information even came from, before realizing it must have been in that Pathfinder Chronicle that he'd gotten in hopes it would have some useful herbal remedies from Kyonin. Well, at least it turns out it wasn't a complete waste of copper.
Kipa kneels down and reads the Dwarven out loud for those who can not read it.
"They are memorial stones for these two who have fallen. Pointing to one inscription. "Rest here until mine sons touch upon thy blessings" Pointing to the other. "Loyalty. Duty. Strength". After a moment of quite. He starts to search the area.
Storn also knows some stuff about dwarven gods if anyone bothers to ask. He rips open the cocoons to see if there's anything remarkable about the bodies or hidden goodies within.
The bodies are shriveled, all juices extracted from them as with any spider's dinner. There is nothing unusual about them, other than they were both dwarven. Not surprising if this really was the resting place of a dwarven hero.
As for the runes on the stones, between them, Sander, Quill, and Storn manage to piece out that Torag, Fathef of all Dwarves had three children, each associated with a specific attribute.. Torag’s three children and the values they identify with are Grundinnar(loyalty), Kols (duty), and Trudd (strength).
"Oh, maybe it's not Nargrym's children, but Torag's!" Sander exclaims.
He touches the three runes pertaining to the values and hopes the door opens. If not, he tries touching the runes in different orders.
Sander touched the runes and waited for a moment. When nothing happened, he reached out to touch them again when a searing pain rippled across his forehead. He winced in agony for a mere moment, and then the pain was gone. He looked up to see if the others had felt anything.
Everyone else watched Sander turn to face them. The skin of his forehead was burned with a single dwarven.
THIEF
"I dun' read Dwarf, but I'm guessin' that don't spell 'Torag loves you' what's written on Sander's forehead," Molly says.
Storn stares at Sander before he bursts into laughter. "Whatever the dwarves wrote on yoru head I bet it's really funny."
He stares at the runes. "So each rune means a son. Maybe we have pray to the sons or something for each one? I dunno."
"Wait, what? What is it?" Sander asks in alarm.
"Thief. It says Thief." Walking closer to Sander, Kipa tries to see if it is magically there, engraved on his head or just written. With a smirk "Trying to steal my job?"
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"What? No! That's racist!" Sander exclaims. "All halfings aren't thieves! That's a horrible stereotype, based on that awful ... scurrilous! ... book, 'There and Back Again!' Which I heard wasn't even really written by a halfling! I make an honest living with my herb shop!"
Sander scowls at the door way and rubs at his head, hoping this mark will come off. He could hardly show up in polite society looking like this. Who knows what Louly would say!
Storn gets confused as he looks at Sander. "But aren't you the party thief? I just assumed because you're a halfling."
Sighing, Storn goes over and, not particularly caring what it says on his forehead since he wears a helmet anyways, starts pushing runes and trying out simple prayers to corresponding brothers.
"Uh, Kols guide us. Trudd grant me strength. Grundinnar offer whatever it - right, loyalty. We need lots of that."
"Because Chels are bastard slavers," Molly says.
As Storn chanted the name of one o Torag's sons and touched the appropriate rune, the rune glowed. When all three were glowing, a grating sound filled the chamber as the stone disc slid slowly to the side. Beyond was a wide cahmber. The tightly spaced pillars that line the walls of this wide chamber gracefully suspend a vaulted ceiling; walls, ceiling, and pillars alike have been cut from the surrounding stone. Centuries of dust coat every surface, and the air is stale. A large translucent panel is set in the center of the floor. On either side, a stone door sits inside a low arch.
"Little man, you got outthought by Storn," Molly says while she pats Sander on the shoulder in a commiserating way. "Want me to see if I can heal that brand away?"
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Quill jumps as the stone opens, smiling.
"Ah good. It's clear that that stone hasn't been opened in centuries...so nothing inside should be dangerous or living, right? It's a tomb and should be safe, huh?" Quill looks around in eager eyed excitement for confirmation that there would be no more spiders within.
He will take a quick peek in the door, then let Kipa and Storn trigger all the traps therein.
Perception
"Not if there was enough living in there to keep predators fed," Molly says, shrugging, "or maybe there's undead skulking around. Maybe the Dwarves laid curses on the place to punish grave-robbers. Not safe at all, I'd say."
"Yes!" Sander replies as Molly offers healing. "And she's right, too. Halflings are slaves in Cheliax because they're horrible devil worshippers. Not because halflings are thieves!"
He looks into the room.
"I hope you're right, Quill, but I fear Molly might be right again. Obviously it's not safe," he adds, rubbing his head.
"Don't touch it, you'll get an infection! Let me see if this works," Molly says as she applies the power of her witchcraft on Sander.
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"What? NO! What? Molly's right? But...she's never right!" Quill complains as there might be more trouble. He kicks at the ground.
"Do you think this place will be more or less useful than that last place we raided to get magics against the giants? I mean that place nearly kilt us twice over and we barely got anything out of it. Think this place will be any different?"
The Witch gives Quill a cold, level look.
"Tell you what, if I'm 'never right', how about you dive right on in and scout ahead of the rest of us," she says. "Since I'm never right, I'm sure we won't have to come running to save your life from something horrible with teeth or mandibles."
Storn blinks as the door opens. "I don't think any of us were expecting that. Hah! Onwards! Come on thiefly."
He looks over to Quill. "Quill if this place isn't full of horrible monsters and traps I'm going to be very disappointed. I have been praying every morning in the hopes that something tries to eat us here, so don't jinx it!"
He stares at the room. "Uh, Sander or Kipa? Maybe one of you sohuld go first."
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"Since I'm never right, I'm sure we won't have to come running to save your life from something horrible with teeth or mandibles."
Quill stares back at Molly. What a witch.
"No, I'll tell you what...when something comes out to eat Storn's face, I'll probably think that you might have been right," Quill says, unsure how much Molly wants to win this fight. "But maybe, instead we can hope this place is nice and safe and not full of monsters who are going to gobble up Kipa like the way you swallow..."up all hope and joy..."uhm...swallow, uhm...more than your share of the crispy bacon every morning." Quill replies testily.
"I don't like bacon," Molly says, without breaking eye contact.
Molly's healing hex salved the burn, but the rune branded on Sander's forehead did not go away.
From the doorway, there did not appear to be any traps in the room.
"Did it work? No? Maybe it's magic? Can one of you check?"
He's far too distracted by this disfigurement to care about the rest of the tomb at the moment.
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Well, *someone* has been eating all the crispy bacon! Quill glares at Kipa, then turns his attention to Sander.
"Hold still!" Quill rubs furiously.
Quill tries to fix Sander's forehead, first by licking his finger and trying to rub off the brand, then with Detect Magic and a bit of spellcraftery.
Spellcraft
Other than that, he waits for Storn or Kipa to move up and get eaten by a grue, proving Molly's point.
When a quick lick and swipe didn't fix anything, Quill focused his prodigious focus on the mark on Sander's head. It was definitely magical in nature, probably divine...ah, yes. It was a greater brand, or something very similar. It could probably be removed by a high end break enchantment spell, or wish, but no lesser healing would suffice.
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Storn grins as he watches the exchange between Quill and the others before he forcibly grabs Kipa and plonks him in the door frame. "Traps. Find."
Walking over to the opening, Kipa calls back to his halfling comrade "You may want to get a head band to cover that till we can figure out what to do. Now lets take a look at this new opening."
Kipa starts to look over the opening for any hidden traps or other surprises.
Sander -- not objecting at all to the lick (that's what halflings do, after all) -- sighs as he realizes he's going to have to live with this for a while. He just hopes he can get rid of it before Louly ever sees it.
"I'll... work on it," Molly promises. "Let's buy you a snazzy hat at the next town."
While examining the opening, Kipa calls back "Can it be a floral bonnet?"
"This isn't funny!" Sander whines. "What if someone thinks I am actually some sort of thief?!"
"They already think that about me... just because I borrow things for a long time. Not always asking... but Hey I return it after a bit" laughing a bit. [b]"Come on, I'm teasing.[/b}