Abomentolor shoots another fireball into the room.
Again the cultists are badly burned, one so bad, that she is charred and falls over. Spugnoir bonks a cultist, but it doesn't stop him.
As spugnoir offers himself as target and one cultist wasn't able to attack Grergof two of the remaining ones punch Spugnoir several time.
Grergof ends the two cultists next to Spugnoir. The other cultist now feels no more compulsion to spare Grergof and hits him with a barrage of blows.
Grergof shakes his head.
Why are you just hitting your fists on my armor? This is pointless.
But given how dangerous this is for his companions, Grergof continues to smash his ahead becoming the Juggernaut he enchanted himself to be.
Spugnoir keeps whacking
The speech is lost on the last of the monks as it goes down with a smashed in head. You are left with a very worried tied up old elf.
Gergorf puts his mace down at his side and looks hard at the elf in the chair.
How did you come to be here Sir? He asks to cover the fact that he is scanning the elf for evil.
The elf uncomfortably shifts around on his chair. "I was captured by these cultists and they threatened to turn me into an undead."
The elf is lying.
"From the looks of it, that wouldn't be that big a change. He looks barely alive as it is." Abomentolor comments.
Killing baddies and burning down things is right down Abomentolor's alley. But dragging around some half-comatose guy they saved is not to his liking.
"It looks like this tale is not matching reality." Darius states the - at least to him - obvious.
Spugnoir examines the remains of the crystal
Lazurite is a magical ore that can generally only be found in the Darklands realm of Sekamina. It is said to either be the body of a dead god, or a decayed radioactive mineral which no longer exists in its original form.
In its natural state, lazurite appears as a thin, black crust within the white rock known as marrowstone. It gives off a strange necromantic radiation, and any corpses left within a few paces may spontaneously rise as ghouls or ghasts—in some cases retaining the knowledge and skills they possessed in life.[1] Ghouls are attracted to lazurite, as its radiation helps them resist positive energy.
Grergof says sadly:
Really? That's what you are going with?
"What did you want to hear?" the elf gives back defiently.
Did you ever consider telling the Truth?
He no doubt believes we will smash his head in.
"Oh, you'll spare me, if I tell you the truth? I paid them, to turn me into an undead." the elf spits the truth at Grergof.
Ahhh, now the truth comes out.
Grergof looks intetly at the elf.
Fear of death is understandable. But what you are trying is not the way. If you become undead, and someone succedes in killing you, you do realize that means you never get to the boneyard, and never have a chance to come back. Instead you go to the great void and are lost forever. Is that really what you want? To end in the eternal void?
So where are the others you paid to turn you into Undead? The more you tell, the more likely you are to be able to walk out of here and find a different way to avoid death.
Living isn't so bad after all. Eating dead bodies is gunna get real old.
The elf was about to object to Spugnoirs comment, but decides otherwise.
"It is not like they give you a tour here, but they talked about some important prisoner called 'the vessel' that was brought below to undergo a transformation to 'prepare him for rebirth.'"
I suggest you use that fly to get to the nearest town asap.
"Ok, we have established that the elf is brain dead already. Can we now release him from his miserable existance? Or can you magically turn this bag of s~#$ into a good and productive member of society?" Abomentolor inquires impatiently.
Everyone has a right for a second chance. Paying someone to do something stupid to yourself is not a capital offense in my faith.
Grergof turns away leaving the elf chained to the chair.
Let him think about this for a bit, while we find this vessel. We can always deal with him on the way back out. Now if I see him as undead or harming others, I will kill him.
He walks away and looks out into the hall to see what's next.
Sit tight then. I reckon if we all get killed, you'll be becoming undead one way or another. Spugnoir leaves.
Dozens of relics litter this room, some haphazardly crammed into gilded display cases, others arranged with care and placed on tarnished stands. Crumbling books, rotting banners of war, jeweled diadems, ceremonial vestments, carved wands, and more decayed scraps of the Tyrant’s rule are displayed among fading murals depicting the lich-king’s conquests.
For a change there are no cultists or undead around in that room.
Spugnoir looks around for anything of interest
Grergof scans the room for evil to see if any of these items detect as Evil.
There are a total of four ceremonial headpieces on display. If collected, the various gems adorning the ceremonial outfits have quite some value. In addition, four exquisite wands (spent of all their charges and now nonmagical) are made of valueable materials and might sell for even more based on historical significance. The remaining artifacts, are unlikely to survive removal because of their fragile state.
Non of those items detect as evil.
I don’t detect a shadow taint on this. I suggest we grab the loot and let’s go on.
Works for me
Behind the next door if a room filled with ancient sarcophagi that lean haphazardly along the walls. Stained teacups and cracked saucers are set on a low table, next to a matching teapot sitting atop a silver warmer. The gruesome remains of a desiccated human forearm lies on a small chopping block among powdered remnants of a bitumen-soaked shroud.
Someone unseen is unlocking the sarcophagi.
Whoa! SOmething is trying to unlock those sarcophagi! Invisible!
Can someone make that visible!
Gergof pulls out his mace ready to charge as soon as he can tell where it is.
"Aye." Abomentolor throws a glitedust spell in the general direction.
As the glitterdust hits, two muscular humanoids that hover slightly above ground become visible.
AC 17/12/15 (25/18/21 with mutagen,Shield spell)
Saves F12/R12/W9 9 Fear Poison Immune
Weapon in hand:
Special effects: ,Heroism Extract (+2 saves/attack/skills),See Invisible (130 Minutes),Shield (+4 AC),Deathward(Greg 13 minutes),Deathward (The gnome)
Bombs:18/19
Spugnoir throws a fire bomb at the southmost nasty
Darius waits what happens. Those invisible bastards the group already knows. Grergof can beat them up. He'll wait what comes out of the coffins.
Spugnoir land a solid hit and burns the creature. Anyway the sparkling stalker keeps opening caskets.
Three mummies come out of the coffins, that have been opened so far. Their bandages are burning with a thin layer of blue flames.
Abomentolor loves rooms full of enemies, if no alliies are standing in the way. "Let there be flames!" is his incantation as almost the whole room is filled with fire.
Two of the mummies are really agile and avoid the blast completely. The other one doesn't, but the effect is disappointing. At least the stalker staggers.
The mummies attack Gregof and Darius.
GET OUT OF HERE, STALKER!
HP 96/96
AC 17/12/15 (25/18/21 with mutagen,Shield spell)
Saves F12/R12/W9 9 Fear Poison Immune
Weapon in hand:
Special effects: ,Heroism Extract (+2 saves/attack/skills),See Invisible (130 Minutes),Shield (+4 AC),Deathward(Greg 13 minutes),Deathward (The gnome)
Bombs:16/19
Spugnoir throws a fire bomb at each mummy about to smack the paladin, making sure to to burn him.
Hey that hurts. Maybe you should be careful with those fists! Because my Mace hits harder!
Grergof opens up with his holy mace on the Mummies that so nicely came up to them.
Grergof dispatches two of the mummies without much ado. The mace swung with force eating deep into the wrapped up bones, and the divine magic doing the rest.
But it is a painful experience. The blue flames are cold and bite like no icy wind could, giving him ice burn.
Seeing that the mummies are gone, Spugnoir directs his precious bombs at the stalkers instead, ending one and burning the other.
Darius attacks the mummy with his sword. Btu he burns himself worse, than he wounds the undead so he steps back, to make room for Grergof.
The Stalker is still blinded but moves anyway to opem another casket. Which releases another mummy with burning bandages. The one next to Darius follows him. But luckily for him it misses.
I should have made more energy resist extract!
Spugnoir splashes everyone with Resist Cold-Communal
Someone want to deal with the thing opening the coffins? I'll deal with the mummies.
Grergof smashes into the mummy near him.
Then he uses the divine power flowing through himself to heal the damage he has taken
Abomentolor takes the hint and applies some more fire - the kind they will not evade - to the stalker.
Grergof steps up to the mummy and dispatches of it, this time without the burning sensation in his mace-arm. It's not fully clear if the mummy winks out of unlife because of the massive damage or the magic of the mace.
The glittering stalker drops to the ground when hit by three rays of fire.
Darius moves over to the coffin where the last stalker was and closes the coffin again. "You stay in there."
Maybe sell it to some university. Weird flaming mummy is no doubt an interesting study object.