Bert moves into the room standing guard over the others.
"The iron maiden is moving, likely a Haunt!"
With that Teilaenthis casts a quick abjuration.
The iron maiden opens up and inside Teilaenthis can see Kendra Lorrimor trapped inside, her eyes wide with terror. Experiencing an overwhelming compulsion to help her, the tiefling quickly realizes that there is something else going on here beyond his natural desire to help. Rubbing his eyes, he realizes that Kendra is not inside after all, just an empty, haunted torture device. With its dark trick successfully thwarted, the iron maiden appears to be completely inactive.
While Teilaenthis deals with the haunt, the basket in front of the dead body tips over and the lid falls off. Skittering across the floor like a pair of spiders, emerge two severed hands that immediately begin making their way towards the closest target, Dr. Von Herzog.
Both disembodied hands scurry into the doctor's space and attempt to claw him. Both succeed in the attempt, with the first hopping up and clutching his throat tightly, making it impossible to speak!
Initiative (Round 1)
2 Hands
Teilaenthis [7 Dmg] <= Up
Vivian <= Up
Bert [3 Dmg] <= Up
Sophie <= Up
Theodor <= Up
Stefan [8 Dmg; Grappled] <= Up
Tara <= Up
Vivian calls forth a pure spiral of energy, aiming the hands stranggling Stefan
Be calm, that won't hurt you!
Magical energy again flairs down Teilaenthis's earthbreaker as he moves to the doctor and tries to knock a spider-head-thing off of him.
Bert steps up and attacks the hand strangling Stefan.
Stefan swing his steel-shod walking cane at one of the crawling hands in an effort to destroy it before it crawls up his leg.
Teilaenthis recognizes these undead things as crawling hands. Other than being very proficient at grappling and strangling, they can also mark quarry, which makes them more effective at finding and eliminating their targets.
Stefan and Vivian severely damage the hand choking Stefan, but it's not until Teilaenthis applies his earthbreaker to it does it fall off the wizard as an inert clump.
Bert attacks the other hand, but it swerves out of the way of his halberd with lightning quickness.
Sophie moves into the room and tries to stab the hand with her longspear.
for
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Tara moves into the room, drawing her dagger as she moves. "Stefan! Are you alright?" As she spots the appendage make its way up the doctor's leg, Tara swipes at it with her dagger. The weapon connects and Tara cuts a percise thin line across the back of the hand, revealing the tendons underneath. "Oh lord, I think I made it worse!" she squeals in discomfort, cringing at the exposed muscle.
Agreeing with Teilaenthis' assessment on the nature of the crawling hands, Tara advances and slices into the back of the remaining hand.
Theodor then moves into the room and whacks at the disembodied hand with his greatsword. With a stomach turning splat, he ends the threat.
Other than perhaps the various implements of torture, a search of the room does not reveal anything of particular interest besides the keys and metal disk inside the corpse, although both would need to be removed to assess their true value. Vivian does, however, spot a secret door on the east side of the room.
Vivian apologises to the corpse before trying carefully to get the keys and disk out of the body, with all the respect possible.
Can't be worse than getting a child out of the womb...
Vivian has no trouble removing either the keys or the disk. Although the keys are not labeled, the disk appears to be the prison warden's badge.
Stefan loosens his cravat and collar. "Thanks, friends. That was a closer call than I would care to admit!"
Theodor casts detect magic on the room and objects while fighting to keep the contents of his stomach inside. This room causes him extreme discomfort bringing back memories of the days when his body was possessed.
Looking at the warden's badge he says.
From what you people told me, that is the badge the warden's widow ghost ask about it, right? What a bleak memmento.
At Theodor's words, Vivian's smile is nearly enough to light up the whole room.
She rushes to him, hugs him and kiss his cheek
You're right! This is the badge she asked for.
looking at the poor corpse
Maybe we should get her husband's corpse out of here and bury their remains together. that would be sooo romantic. And the right thing to be. I mean, it's obvious she still loves him, even if they both died long ago.
Sophie gives Vivian a look that could be a smirk, or maybe a smile. "Burying the dead with the dead is usually appropriate, yes child."
Still rubbing his neck, Stefan says, "Vivian, did you say you spotted a hidden door? Perhaps we should inspect that chamber next."
Theodor nods.
Electing to take the secret door, the group opens it and moves forward. The rough stone walls of this natural cavern drip with moisture, leaving stagnant pools of water on the uneven floor. As you make your way along, Bert and Theodor notice one of the puddles look slightly different from the rest, slightly more gray than the rest of the water.
Stefan and Tara are too far back in the tunnel to see.
Stefan retrieves a potion of cure light wounds and quaffs it.
"Generally, I prefer to use medicine to magic, but time is of the essence. And stitching one's own wounds can be problematic."
I learned a few things working with my mother in the temple back in Karcau. I could tend your wounds, but it's probably not the place and time to remove all your clothes.
The redhead smiles and winks at Stefan. Then she spots the grey, yukie thing, but can't recognise it.
Anyone one else know what this strange, yukie grey thing is, or should we call it just "strange, yukie grey thing"? Probably not a good way to avoid a fight to insult it, anyway.
"To be honest, this is my first time in a place like this. Looks like a puddle, but not a puddle." Bert says to no one really.
Teil says, "Puddle is odd, but I don't recognize anything about it."
Maybe something is hidding in the water. Should we poke it? Theodor suggests drawing his greatsword.
So what do we do? Try to avoid it?
While the group contemplates its next action, the puddle evidently gets tired of waiting for its next meal as it rears up in a serpentine column of oozing fluid and appears poised to strike.
Initiative (Round 1)
Vivian <= Up
Theodor <= Up
Sophie <= Up
Teilaenthis [7 Dmg] <= Up
Tara <= Up
Stefan [4 Dmg] <= Up
Bert [3 Dmg] <= Up
Aggressive Puddle
Sophie moves forward and taps Bert on the shoulder, "Have a bit of the toughness of the mammoth, sonny."
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Tell swings his earthbreaker at the oozing puddle thing.
Stefan casts a spell, and a jet of frigid air and ice crystals blasts from his outstretched hand toward the angry puddle.
Bert steps beside Teil and swings his halberd.
Sophie moves to cast a spell on Bert, and the fighter feels his skin magically harden against attacks.
Teilaenthis steps forward and bashes the ooze with his hammer, splattering the creature a bit, but it remains together. Perhaps slightly troubling, it appears that striking the creature causes it to secrete an acid that soaks his earth breaker, but fortunately the weapon's hardness and its bond to Teilaenthis prevents any damage to it.
Stefan moves to a better position to see the creature and casts a bolt of ice at it, striking it soundly despite the others in front of him. He does, however, find himself mentally questioning whether or not wasting a spell on the creature is a good idea, but remembering that it's just a cantrip allows him to quickly toss the doubt aside.
Bert steps forward and strikes the ooze hard with his halberd, which is also soaked in acid. As in the case with Teilaenthis, the metal hardness of his weapon protects it from damage.
Trailing behind the group Tara sighs at the sound of combat. "The more we explore this prison, the more I am convinced that nothing good is going to lie behind secret passageways." Being unable to advance any farther into the narrow passageway, Tara begins to pray.
There not much I can do.. and the boys seem to have the situation in hand.
Vivian moves on the side of the cavern, trying to have a line of sight on the puddle.
With little room to attack, Theodor waits for an opening to move into melee range.
The ooze finally counter-attacks Teilaenthis, but the occultist easily dodges a slam by the creature's large pseudopod.
Initiative (Round 2)
Vivian <= Up
Theodor <= Up
Sophie <= Up
Teilaenthis [7 Dmg] <= Up
Tara <= Up
Stefan [4 Dmg] <= Up
Bert [3 Dmg] <= Up
Aggressive Ooze
Sophie moves behind Teil and gives him the same blessing she gave to the last man.
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Teil swings again at the puddle-creature.
Sophie grants Teilaenthis the same magical protection as she gave Bert. The tiefling occultist then swings his mighty earth breaker at the ooze and another large portion of the creature is destroyed, but yet it still remains active.
Surprised Theodor moves in an attacks the creature.
"By the gods, it would appear that this amorphous creature is immune to my arcane power! I'm afraid that I haven't much in my arsenal that could affect it!"
Theodor moves forward and strikes at the ooze from behind some rocks. Even with some cover in the way, Theodor easily hits and finally dispatches the monster.
A search of the passage does not reveal anything valuable, although the back of another concealed door is found on the east side.