"I agree, some more protection may be nice but it will do." Herm takes out his hammer and readies himself for the fight of his life.
"Shall I open the door for you?" Jominda asks.
In case Herm agrees, Jominda first downs a lot of extracts, before opening the door.
"One moment," Kendra says before turning to the homonculus. "Is there a window or opening overlooking the bridge to the tower on that floor?"
Waxwood shakes his head.
"Well then, there goes my last idea." Kendra says to the group. "Herm, are you sure you don't want me to go? I'll probably be quieter than you with your armour, and then you can back me up if something goes wrong."
Once Herm and Kendra resolve their argument, about who gets to go first, she carefully lifts the trap door.
The chamberbehind is a mess — the remains of an incredible laboratory and workshop have been smashed and destroyed. Huge chains ending in hooks dangle flaccidly from the ceiling 60 feet above. An iron ladder against the south wall climbs up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Next to the ladder is a metal lever. Like the chamber below was, this room is filled with cloying webs. Above the webs, huge iron shutters close off the central portion of the ceiling.
Sitting in the webs like a spider, a stitched abomination made from the parts of at least half a dozen creatures, broods near the top of the room. The creature is huge with the legs and lower body like a spider, upper body humanoid, the two arms ending in huge nippers that could cut a man in half and slithering tentacles as beard.
On the opening of the door the creature turns it attention from a human sized iron idol standing at the wall to the door.
"I can offer distraction as you make your way towards the controls" Herm hands kendra the ring and steps into the room to to draw the beast towards him.
With Herm's bold approach Jominda feels safe enough to throw a bomb out of cover at the beast.
Harrold rummages through his pack before letting them open the door. He hands Herm three vials and says "If you are not trying to be sneaky... Drink up, this one, then this one, and that one last."
He rumages some more, hands a vial to Kendra and downs an identical one himself.
He then downs one last vial as the door is opened.
The abomination is hit by the two bombs and set on fire. The net also is set aflame.
Kendra downs the potion, tell the party not to wait for her once she's through the door, and touches herself on the forehead to increase her diviner's foresight. She slips on the ring and readies to sneakily head to the lever as soon as the door opens....
She uses the webs everywhere to move as unseen as she can, while taking care not to touch them in case the creature can sense her through those. From time to time, she almost steps on a strand of webbing but manages to adjust her step just as she places her foot due to her foresight, while her increased agility allows her to keep her balance and makes her footfalls light.
AC 19/9/19
HP 80/80
Atk 14/9 3d6+11
Pwr Atk 12/7 3d6+17
Herm will allow his holy vision to detect if the creature is evil.
Kendra keeps sneaking her way to the lever
With all the noise and the explosions Kendra reaches the lever next to the ladder unnoticed.
The monstrous golem shoots down the webs and attacks Herm with it's huge claw, but against all odds the creature misses.
Herm steps forward Trying not to draw an attack from the creature, bringing his mighty hammer around in a sweeping arc to smash the creature down from it's web.
AC 19/9/19
HP 80/80
Atk 14/9 3d6+11
Pwr Atk 12/7 3d6+17
Jominda throws another bomb at the beast, but seeing how it seizes Herm, she retreats to the outside of the tower to attack from the air once Kendra opens the roof.
Herm brings his Hammer down on the creature, but the effect is limited by the hard shell of the beast. But the fire damages it further.
Harrold bombs the creature as well and turns to follow Jominda.
Kendra pulls the lever with all her might.
"Herm, get out of here!" she shouts, also trying to draw the creature's attention away from Herm for a moment to give him the opportunity.
She steps away from the lever, being careful to still not tangle any of the webs.
Harrold hits too with his bomb.
The raging Promethean claws in the direction the shout came from next to the pulled lever. Kendra almost gets hit by the mighty swing, that misses her by a mere inch. The other claw reaches for Herm again, this time painfully effective, it grabs Herm at the neck, which leaves him unable to speak.
Meanwhile the roof, which is a mechanical wonder rotates, with a small opening in the middle becoming larger and larger until almost the whole roof is open. Above are now seen the lightning conductors and several levels made of metal gratings that house strange apparati.
Kendra sees Herm getting caught, and immediately revises her plan. She moves touches herself on the forehead again to help her see future steps and moves as quickly as she can to get back out of the room again.
Stepping with the grace of an, admittedly, old and somewhat stiff cat, she moves through the webbing, her foresight preventing her from moving towards areas where the promethean places its limbs as it moves around.
Harrold moves quickly to get into position to bomb the construct again.
Herm's might hammer clatters to the ground as he lets it go to fumble for a dagger.
Kendra makes it unnoticed to Herm even though the monster looks around to find where the other intruder is.
Jominda's wings pop out and with a whirr she starts raising the long way to get to the top of the three stories.
Kendra does another small step, so she can reach Herm, and grabs a hold of him. Meanwhile, she focuses on a spell she knows is written down in her spellbook, while her free hand lands on the amulet she wears about her neck.
"Here we go, Herm."
Focusing on the ransacked workshop at the bottom of the tower they are in, she wills herself and Herm there.
"I am with you" Herm says
The Promethean claws at Kendra as the magic runes start to glow in the air, but only rips some cloth off the dress, before Kendra and Herm simply disappear from the room.
The golem uses the opportunity the open roof gives it and climbs up. Standing on the rim it looks out for where all these puny humans went to.
"Well I will have to switch my weapons since my hammer is laying in there still." Herm says taking his sword and shield off.
"I'm sorry Herm." Kendra says apologetically. "I just wanted to get you out and safe." Kendra walks towards the bridge outside, to try and get a line of sight to Jominda or Harrold.
Seeing the golem emerge from the building, Jominda changes her path to get a better angle and throws another bomb.
The promethean is again hit and falls back into the building. A loud THUD is followed by a cloud of dust emerging from the opening.
Kendra scans the skies, and sees Jominda take a different position as she sees a large cloud of dust from the top of the tower.
She realizes she doesn't have message prepared, and so just observes Jominda's actions to gauge how the fight up there is going.
Jominda continues in her flight upwards and lands on the rim of the building. Seeing the burning remains lying at the bottom of the floor she shouts an excited and relieved "Wooohooooo! In your face sucker!" followed by an airborne victory dance.
Kendra raises a single eyebrow and folds her arms as she looks up at Jominda. She raises her voice a little so Herm can hear her and says "Seems they're done up there."
Jominda dives into the building to check out the insides of this now explorable room.
Kendra starts making her way upstairs again, asking Herm politely to join her.
This tower room, clearly once a laboratory, is choked with huge webs. Two curious objects—a large iron idol and a glass bell jar of the same size—stand against the eastern wall. The jar is filled with fluid and contains a human woman, while the idol has only two openings for eyeholes, through which blink a pair of terrified human eyes.
The iron idol is bound shut with adamantine bindings. Besides the jar with the dead woman lies a thin foot long stick.
Kendra looks around for the hononculus, while talking to the iron idol. "Count Caromac, I take it? Are there any traps around your prison that we should be aware of? Nothing we could trigger accidentally?"
A coarse voice answers Kendra. "No traps." followed by weak coughing.
The trapdoor is lifted slowly and wich extertion. Waxwood crawls through, flies over and gestures to get the count out of the idol.
Herm follows Kendra, picking up his hammer as he goes.
"That beast was quite the thing, I wonder where Thomas is? How do we get you out Count?"
"Should we let him out?" Harrold asks, thinking about all of the 'unsavory things the count has been part of.
"Good question, Harrold." Kendra says as she eyes the dead woman floating next to the count.
Count Caromarc's eyes widen in horror at the prospect of not being released.
Waxwood starts pleading - without voice of course - that his master be released.
"You want to negotiate the price, while still in the better position, or for moral reasons?" Jominda jokes. Meanwhile she checks on the idol how to get it open anyway.
"Is there a lock you can pick Jominda?" Herm asks while looking around