Warded by his spell and Rauno's prophecy, Quintus shrugs off the mental assault.
Trevor's head feels like it's exploding, but then the ringing stops as quickly as it had started.
"That hit like a brick!! I need to talk to that... thing?!!"
Shaking his head, he takes from Quintus' extended hand his axe and rushes to meet the mind flayer, his axe whistling as it rotates in his hands.
"I meant with my axe... When I said 'talk'... I meant 'talk with my axe'..."
Many hits rain down on the mind flayer, but he isn't down for the count yet...
Quintus and Jirin left up!
Quintus advances on the prone creature and brings his scimitar down on it. The blow passes through the illusory form, striking sparks off of the stone floor.
Jirin moves to finish him off and Hits Once!
*Hit*
The Mind Flayer looks extremely wounded. Desperately, the creature pulls out a golden chain from which hang a number of golden spheres. It plucks one of the spheres off and drops it next to him
The creature fails its save willingly so the item needs to make a save.
*Fail*
All of the remaining beads explode at once requiring everyone to make a save for each one!
*Fail, takes 6 Damage*
In the explosion, the Mind Flayer thought his protection of fire may save it, or he wasn't going to give you the satisfaction of killing him, but in the end his final act of blowing himself up he aimed to take out as many of you as he could.
Looking you see he claimed at least one life, Jirin. Her body lay burnt crisp on the ground
Combat Over!
Kelkzar's eyes widen as the mind flayer pulls out the necklace and drops it to the floor. The half-orc dives for the ground as the fireball blooms, sending his spear clattering to the ground as the wrathful firestorm sweeps the room. Fortunately, the protections provided by Rauno's spells and Kelkzar's prayers to Ragathiel provide him with the protection necessary to survive the mind flayer's desperate attempt at vengeance. Lifting his head to look around, he sees that it is too late for Jirin, but seeing that Quintus is also in terrible shape he pushes back the fatigue beginning to flood his limbs and casts stabilize on the cleric. He gets back up and looks to see what has become of the others.
Rowena manages to skirt most of them, despite her proximity, although one of the waves of fire catches her full force.
18 damage
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
[dice=Reflex w/ Haste and Prescience]1d20+8+1+2
Trevor's eyes widen as the mind flayer drops his little ball.
Well, that's a stupid mov-
Then his eyes widen much further as the roaring flames spread and engulf him.
Only by Iomedae's Grace is he able to collapse his body and twist in order to avoid the worst of the flames.
His eyes are now barely open as he staggers around the room, haggard, holding his axe by its very tip, the rest rattling behind him.
"Wha- what happened..?"
Is Quintus spending the hero point or going unconscious?
"I think he decided that if we was going to go, he was going to try to take us with him. Almost worked for him."
"Oh no. Jirin."
Rowena dashes over and gathers up what's left of Jirin, cradling her.
While the others tend to Quintus, Rowena sits with Jirin and lets the sobs come.
non magical key, potion of cure serious wounds (2)
Also in the pool are odd looking tadpoles.
Behind the black is what appears to be Zyrxog's personal chamber. The room contains a desk, two bookshelves full of books that pertain to Magnimar and the areas beneath it, and a locked chest.
Lying open on the desk is a ledger written in Undercommon, a language Rauno has been working on learning.
The book detail Zyrxog's recent business transactions in rare and dangerous items with patrons throughout Magnimar.
Trevor takes a while to shake off the effect of the blast. Finally, he invokes Iomedae's grace and recovers.
"Jirin..." he whispers as he follows Rowena's trajectory and recognizes the charred shape of his friend.
He walks in a hurry, leaving his axe behind and comes to kneel besides them.
"Jirin..." he pleads, invoking Iomedae to revive her friend, but without any success.
With pleading eyes, he turns to the fallen Quintus...
"Those things are more of that thing? Will they die if we just leave them here?"
Trevor hears the other conversation but can't participate: "Rauno, she's-" the word chokes him and it fails to come out.
I've failed you Rafan...
Burned and blasted by the inferno, Quintus falls and lays still...but only for a second. The priest's eyes suddenly snap open, traces of fire filling them briefly and vanishing, and he draws a shuddering breath; he clasps his hands together quickly but carefully, as if holding something delicate and important. A hoarse whisper--"As you will it."--and he struggles to his feet. Fortunately the multiple fireballs melted the ice slick, so he can reach Jirin's apparent corpse without falling again. He murmurs quietly, then brings his closed hands to Jirin's mouth and opens them, breathing on the fallen witch.
In response her body shudders, flakes of burned flesh falling away to reveal unblemished and intact skin. She gasps and sits upright, eyes darting back and forth. Quintus smiles tiredly and relaxes. "Good, I wasn't too late. Your patron needs you alive; luckily, the fire put me into a place between life and death, and there I found the power to draw you back. I don't know what you have to do--that's for you to find out, I think. I only know that it's far from here."
Before he stands back up, Quintus calls on Sarenrae's healing power for himself. "We'll all rest tonight, then tomorrow Jirin will have to leave us. Only for a little while, I hope, though that's in the hands of the Powers."
x 150% = 43 HP cured
Rowena gapes at Quintus in shock, for several moments, before she thinks to turn her attention to her recently-dead-now-not friend. She holds her tight and cries again, this time not really sure what she's feeling, except that months of pent-up emotion need to come out and need to come out now.
"Oh, there will be taking them anywhere. Do we burn them, poison their water, or just start chopping them into sushi?"
Trevor looks to Quintus with wonder sparkling in his wet crying eyes. Mouth agape, he remains speechless, watching Jirin's husk rise from the dead.
Can it be..? This is truly a miracle..!
Not sure what to do when things seem to turn back to normal, he walks back and forth, looking at what the others are doing and finding, making nervous comments: "That's the craziest thing I've ever done! These people must have serious headaches keeping track of who's who and what the plan behind the plan behind the plan is... and now they're dead... Serves them right!"
To Rowena, he says: "Not sure how, but let's make them dead as dad. ... Maybe boil them? They won't suffer as much..."
Jirin opens her eyes slowly and is grateful to still be alive. Hearing Quintus describe her future she is sad to have to leave you, but accepting of it.
As Rauno flips through the ledger and relates the information written in it, a folded piece of paper falls out. He picks it up and reads it (again in undercommen).
The note is a missive between a man named Loris Raknian and the Mind Flayer. In the note, it describes Raknian wanting to pay the Mind Flayer to assassinate as group of people newly arrived in town (you).
Rauno remembers seeing the name "Raknian" elsewhere in the ledger, and finds a recent payment for something called the Apostolic Scrolls he purchased from the Mind Flayer.
Backtracking through rooms you haven't finished exploring yet, you head back to the room with the pool. After some studying, Rauno knows exactly what it does. You sit on the bench and look into the pool and it shows you other locations . Currently when he looks, he sees the room where you had the fight with the greater doppelganger. Rauno deduces he watched that fight then came there to ambush you when you left.
I take it the pool is not transportable...
"Raknian." Quintus' voice turns hard, and he flexes his fingers where they rest on his scimitar hilt. "He's a pesh merchant, a crime lord in Underbridge. I know of him, and he's a challenge to my forgiving nature. I had no idea he knew who we were. Rauno, is there anything in there about why he wants to kill us?"
The pool is not. It's a built in
Hearing the name Raknian, Rowena's world comes crashing down, and she sinks to the floor, her face buried in her hands. When she gets up minutes later, her face is hard and her eyes as cold as ice.
"When we were making our way to Magnimar, a small part of me wanted to ask your help in tracking Raknian down. Kelkzar, Trevor, when we first met, it was Raknian's goons from whom I was running, hiding in that funeral procession. Raknian made my brother his pawn in selling drugs, and when I got my brother out of that life, Raknian had my sister killed as payback. It's possible that Raknian put this bounty on our heads as a means to get me."
She wipes her face and stands tall, determined, resolute, at peace. "Just before we met up, I had come to Magnimar to hunt down and kill this piece of vermin. I was too green to succeed, but I'm green no longer. I won't ask any of you to risk your lives, as this is very personal, but when we leave these tunnels, I am going to find and kill Raknian. His foul taint on this city has gone long enough. Tomorrow, he dies."
Trevor looks to Rowena with concern: "Well, Rafan used to say: 'Never leave unfinished business unfinished...' Time to pay the man a visit!"
Back to the "museum room" where the Vrock appeared....
Sitting on the top shelf of this case is the preserved head of a small black dragon whose eyes glow a faint green. This case also contains an odd black metal cage, covered in thorns, with nothing inside. Resting on a large velvet pillow is a jewel-encrusted dagger. On the bottom shelf are some chains that twitch and wiggle of their own volition.
Investigating this case reveals that the dagger is magical (moderate evocation).
The top shelf of this case contains four books labelled Beneath these is a weathered and tarnished statuette of a griffon. This case also contains four jars, each containing a preserved eye on a stalk. There are six other empty jars behind these.
The books labeled are actually all blank, but there is an unlabeled book behind it that detects as magical (strong enchantment). The griffon statuette also is magical (Moderate transmutation).
Case #3 A small, stone dragon sits on top of this glass case. The top shelf of this case contains a stuffed doll that bears an uncanny similarity to Trevor - the doll is pierced with twenty spikes. A 4-inch-thick tome wrapped in chains sits next to the doll. On the bottom shelf is a battered greatsword and a golden gem on a chain.
In this case, Kelkzar already identified the stone dragon statue as a petrified pseudo dragon. The Trevor doll radiates strong necromancy. The book is not magical. The sword (moderate evocation) and the gem on a chain (moderate abjuration) are magical.
Bag 1 (950cp)
Bag 2 (220 sp)
Bag 3 (360 gp)
Bag 4 (25 pp)
Bag 5 loose gemstones totaling 1,500 gp
Also there was one other area unexplored that had some zombies behind a locked gate. Killing off the zombies is easy, and past them you find some prisoners. There is a pair of merchants that were captured on their way to Magnimar to sell their product during the upcoming Arena games. Also an elven craftsman as well as two young women abducted on their way home after a long night's work at a nearby tavern.
They are extremely grateful for rescue and tell you that a creature (by their description the mind flayer Zryxog) would come every couple of days and choose one of the people here. Those picked were never seen from again
Are there any churches in Magnimar willing to purchase evil items from adventurers with the intention of redeeming or destroying them? I'm thinking at least of the unholy dagger and kyton chains.
Also, despite Rowena's determination to end Raknian tomorrow, it will be easy enough to convince her of the sense in selling this loot, equipping themselves with good stuff, and doing some research/recon. Rushing in blindly is what got her in so much trouble the first time, after all.
However, I feel it only fair to let you know that, whether it's the intention of the AP or not, Rowena will want to hunt down and eliminate the scumbag.
Quintus finally remembers something more about Raknian, and gives Rowena an appraising look. "Lordail...I knew that name was familiar, but that was a part of my life I was trying not to remember. Wick Lordail was your brother, wasn't he?"
"Is. He lives in Sandpoint, working the sheriff's stables."