Ehren is up!
Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by Hinagiku dropping the babau to the floor, Isilme takes a quick swipe as it attempts to stand.
Isilme leaps back as the babau lunges at her, only to be toppled over by Hinagiku, then swipes at its neck as it tries to recover. Its head falls clean from its shoulders onto the ground.
Ehren is up!
Before Ehren can so much as lift a finger, the babau is decapitated by Isilme's blade. Eager as he was to lend a hand, he could hardly complain about the demon's swift demise. Once again, only Urusk seemed to remain. With a frown, the druid reevaluates his options. He knows he would not stand a chance against the cultist's martial prowess, not on his own. But with Ary keeping him busy, he just might be able to take advantage of the situation. It was still a gamble, but it was better than standing around and twiddling his thumbs.
Stepping over the dissolving murder demon, Ehren enters the stone wall adjacent to the hallway, his earthen body phasing through it as though it were water. Just a moment later, he emerges from the wall behind the warpriest, right into the stinking cloud. Resisting the urge to gag on the disgusting fog, he narrows his eyes and throws a punch at Urusk's exposed flank.
What Ehren does next is far more subtle, practically imperceptible if one was not already familiar with the sensation. As he sucks in a lungful of poisonous fog, something in the air around him changes. Urusk would find himself short of breath as slowly but surely, his body is starved of essential oxygen. Ehren somehow doubts that he would notice the effect, let alone be affected by it, but anything that might wear away at him was well worth the attempt.
Ehren glides into the stone walls of the prison, finding that at least four dretches lay in wait behind Urusk. He moves until he reaches the very end of them, then slowly begins to suck in the oxygen around him. Even dretches needed to breathe. One begins to cough and sputter, the sudden lack of air making it impossible for it to do much. Another lunges zealously at the Archdruid, but he deftly side-steps the awkward, clumsy attacks.
Meanwhile, out in the storage room, Ivellyn moves slowly away from the doorframe. She cradles her bruised chest. "I'm down for the count... think he broke a rib. Inheritor on high, I think that f#%*er is as strong as the day we took him in..."
Isilme, Valaria and Hinagiku are up!
Val quickly steps forward to fill Ivellyn's spot in their front line as the dark priest continues his attack. Attempting to fight in this mess was difficult, but she would be damned if she didn't manage to do something to help bring this monster down before anyone else got hurt. She attempts to swing her dagger at their foe, but the angle and the cloud make it exceptionally difficult.
Isilme and Hinagiku are up!
A silent nod is all Ary receive as acknowledgment of her thanks. Silent, Hinagiku tries to remain as much as possible in synch with the flow of battle, through her shifting stance and in between strikes, she takes in what’s going on in her surroundings while keeping her attention mainly on Urusk. Spinning once more, she feints her opponents and strike directly at his nose with the palm of her hand while at the same time taking notice of Ehren’s disappearance. With a kick to the ankle, she takes advantage of Ary’s retrieval of her sword. And, finally, with an open palm she strikes directly at the half-ogres solar plexus while softly speaking to Ivellyn.
"I'll heal you back as soon as I can mrs. Ivellyn."
Unable to contribute directly to the melee given the lack of space, Isilme instead opts to head down the hall and scout out the chamber adjacent the one they were in. She takes care to examine the room thorouglyas she enters, not wanting to miss anything.
While the others finish off Urusk, Isilme strides over to the spot where Ehren and Hinagiku were previously fighting off dretches. The floor is still slick with their ichor, and there is one unconscious dretch still on the floor, slowly bleeding out.
You pass through a large hole ripped through the storage room wall. Something big tore savagely through this small chamber, leaving a trail of wreckage that goes around a bend. It seems clear of demons.
Valaria's blade bounces off of the stone doorframe as Urusk ducks behind it with surprising nimbleness given his enormous frame. But Hinagiku has better luck, and lands blow after blow on the monster. Her final lumbering blow lands with great force upon his solar plexus, sending her opponent reeling... the half-ogre roars, stepping back into the fog. He starts to laugh. "Good... good... you're strong. I've heard of you, girl. Fight me, Lord of Drezen!" He then smashes his shield into the ground, creating a barrier between himself and doorframe. Now safely behind its cover, he swiftly picks up his weapon.
Round 308!
Ary is up!
"For someone who keeps yelling about cowardice and strength, you're spending a lot of time cowering in the fog, literally hiding behind your shield." Ary says, tauntingly, as her shield swims through the murky fog, past the shield but gaining no prize. "And I'm not that strong. My friends are just deviously clever, and I happen to keep getting the credit, despite my best intentions." Ary adds, as Radiance sweeps downwards, likely catching nothing but his shield, before she slams forward with her shield once more. She briefly contemplates the possibility of slipping backwards out of the fog to bait him into certain death between Valaria and Hinagiku... but a glance through the murkiness at Ivellyn's position forces her to stay put. He'd likely fall at their hands before he could press through with his attack again, but she wasn't completely certain, and it wasn't worth the risk.
A trail of blood follows Ary's golden blade as it sweeps downwards. Urusk continues to laugh uproariously, despite his many wounds. "I'll take my shield off... if you take off yours."
Ehren and Xanderghul are up!
Unsurprisingly, Ehren finds that more dretches stand between him and Urusk. Before he can start wailing away at them, however, his intestinal fortitude appears to reach its limits. Gagging on the green fog, he could feel his polymorphed insides lurching treacherously. He already vomited as an earth elemental once before - that was an experience he has no desire to repeat.
Lacking the presence of mind to do so more cautiously, Ehren backs away from the sloth demons in search of cleaner air.
You move out and around the jail cells and into clean air. There are no demons there. Rows of small, iron-barred cells line the walls, while two more rows of cells sit back-to-back running down the center of the room. Many of the bars splay outwards, torn and twisted to form larger cells. Within the cells wounded crusaders, their bodies covered with lesions, burns, and injuries, grip the bars tightly as they strain to see what is going on in the fog. It is too dark for them to see you passing them by.
On the far end of the hallway is another cell, this one marked with arcane runes. It lies empty, its door swinging open on the handle. To the other end the tunnel seems to have been forcefully widened. A large dark hole sits at the end of the tunnel.
Xanderghul is up!
Without anything he can do to contribute to the battle, Xanderghul takes off after Isilme, passing her to look around in the other corridor. Hopefully, there might be another way around through there. "Find anything over here, Isilme?" he asks.
As foul as the green mist is, Ehren is able to breathe in its noxious vapors without harm, his stomach evidently made of iron. Sadly, it does not smell (or taste) any less terrible than the past dozen times he has been caught among a pack dretches. In no danger of choking to death, the druid dutifully focuses on striking down the demon in his way.
You pass through a large hole ripped through the storage room wall. Something big tore savagely through this small chamber, leaving a trail of wreckage that goes around a bend. It seems clear of demons.
You throw a punch, but the foul smell of the noxious fog still gets to you a little bit, and the demon takes advantage of your inaccurate swing. Dancing out of the way, the dretches start to guffaw and begin their counter attack, but their nails simply rake against the hard stone of your body.
Isilme, Valaria, and Hinagiku are up!
Letting the meaning of Urusk and Ary’s conversation slip through her mind, Hinagiku glances at Valaria and begins to synch her attacks with those of the tieflings. Forsaking any attemps to trip the monstrous man, she carefully strikes at sensitive, yet non-vital, points around his abdomen.
Without at second thought to the fall of their foe, Hinagiku presses forward hoping to reach Ehren as soon as possible. As she steps over the toppled half-ogre, the monk strikes at the dretch like a wave: bending down fluidly then suddenly standing back up and striking with both her palm thrusted against her foes ribcage.
"I enjoy a scrap every now and again, but this guy it nuts," Val grumbles as she tries to adjust her aim and make a strike between the corner and the edge of the evil priest's shield.
Isilme is up!
"Nothing yet," she replies to Xanderghul as she heads further down the hall cautiously. Turning the corner she notes a large hole torn into the floor. "Something came or went through the floor here," she adds.
There is a gaping hole in the floor here. You can hear the loud THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. of something heavy smashing into something else reverberating clearly from the hole. The hole is too deep and dark to see the bottom....
To the other direction, a plain, worked stone corridor continues on in the darkness.
The passage and floor surrounding the hole within this side tunnel is structurally unsound. Too much weight in this tunnel would certainly trigger the entire side-tunnel caving in. You cannot calculate an exact number, but you would not tempt the tunnel to bear more than 300 lb presently.
As the fog clears once again, Valaria swings once more with a strike that would chop off a man's head clearly, but she oversteps her mark and misses, her knife ricocheting off the half-ogre's shield with a loud crash. With a bloody grin, the half-ogre grips his mace tightly and readies for his counter attack. But turning away from Hinagiku would prove to be his downfall. Her next strike impacts the towering brute with the force of sledgehammer, driving him to his death. He falls to the ground with a crash, crooked smile still plastered on his face.
Without a second thought to the fall of their foe, Hinagiku presses forward hoping to reach Ehren as soon as possible. As she steps over the toppled half-ogre, the monk strikes at the dretch like a wave: bending down fluidly then suddenly standing back up and striking with both her palm thrusted against her foes ribcage. The dretch goes flying, tumbling oddly end-over-end and ploughs into the wall before stumbling back to its feet, within an inch of its life. It weakly swipes at her once before falling face-first into the ground and melting.
As the fog clears, you can clearly see the entire prison block. There are at least seven crusaders trapped within the cells. They are all in the central cells, save for one man on the far side is a distant cell. He appears to be standing, but not facing you. He is instead bashing his head against the wall over and over.
Round 309!
Ary is up!
"There is noise coming down from within the hole; what do you make of it Xanderghul?"
When she hears the predictable thud of the fallen warrior, Ary glances over her shoulder and is surprised to see both Isilme and Xanderghul gone, now that the fog has lifted. She catches the edge of Xanderghul's silhouette around the corner Hinagiku had held, and nods once, before driving past Hinagiku, to simply slam Faith into the nearest Dretch, preparing to make room for Valaria - and utterly destroy what remained of the dretch in this direction, in the process.
"His weapon may be better suited to combat, if you wish to take it, Chevalier." Ary adds as she leaves her foe lying on the ground.
A faint warble precedes the flight of Ary's shield, which she slings with deadly accuracy, incapacitating the dretch before her. Meanwhile, another dretch moves in with a flurry of sharp teeth and claws, but Ehren simply holds his stony arms out like a shield, blocking each strike with the harsh sound of nails scraping against stone. Its confused companion simply stands there, bewildered, making incoherent babbling noises.
The Heroes Are Up!
Val sidesteps to actually get a look down the hallway and sends her knife flying past her friends and into the dretch attempting to batter Ehren. "Finally..." She sighs and draws a deep breath as the air clears and she at least can see what's going on.
Using Valari’as thrown weapon as cover, Hinagiku quickly closes the gap between her and Ehren and strikes at the remaining dretch with a high spinning kick.
Ehren, Xanderghul, Isilme, and Ary are up!
With his senses blessedly no longer assailed by the putrid fog, Ehren realizes that Urusk has fallen, and that the dretches he is fighting are evidently all that remain of the enemy's forces. He exhales, relieving the oppressive aura he had been emanating. Eager to end the battle, he then attempts to smash his fist into one of the squat demons.
Ary shifts past Hinagiku and Valaria enough to seek out any new foes, shield at the ready, as she prepares for the things still to come. "Do we have time to gather all the prisoners together, and enough mass healing to do anything to aid them?" she whispers to Isilme and Hinagiku.
Ehren delivers a painful strike to the dretch, but the demon is resilient still.
Xanderghul and Isilme are up!
"I believe the Master of masters will answer my prayers for the prisoners, yes." Hinagiku simply answers back to Ary.
Xanderghul rounds the corner, but then backpedals into the wall before getting too close to Isilme. "Sounds like someone really enjoys digging holes," says Xanderghul. "If I had to guess, that's the sound of something smashing a wall at the bottom of the pit."
"Don't be too eager, though - Looks like that area's been smashed to bits," he says. "Too much weight over there and it'll cave in."
"We have to go up to reach the Demonscope, don't we? Is there a way where we're going is at the bottom of this hole?"
"I believe the Chevalier mentioned the sanctum was in this direction, and beyond it the scope," she replies, before heading south down the hall to continue exploring. As she reaches the end, she peers around the corner, looking for anything of note.
You walk down the hallway to a plain corridor that ends in a large, iron-bound metal door. Unlike the rest of the dungeons, this corridor seems perfectly normal, without bodies, or bloodstains. The door itself is closed and unmarked, but otherwise unremarkable. There are four crusaders lined up next to the door, pawing at the locked handle, and trying their best to open the door. Upon your approach they turn, and then look relieved. You then hear the following in your mind, in female voices, despite the crusaders themselves being all male.
"Um.. ik'm Harold. Nalkoshumbag."
"Am, Harold... Bushi i ashi. Bi thri gu bi Sanctum of Scrolls im skishuzg.... thri kroshik karbúshi ak shim gu gluk bâm.."
Chevalier Ivellyn nods, mounting the glowing aspergillium on a wall sconce as if it were a torch. "Aye...'bout time I got my shield back, too," she says, kneeling down to unstrap the shield from his arm and pull the mace from under him. "He's still breathing. If it were up to me I'd slice his throat here and be done with it... but that's not for me to decide."
Round 310!
Meanwhile, before Hinagiku can even reach the end of the hall, Valaria looses her starknife down it, carefully aiming it past her friends and at the tiny dretch at the end. The knife ends up pinning the dretch's arm to its own body, leaving it cruelly paralyzed and slowly expiring.
The blade then vanishes, reappearing in Valaria's hand. She throws it again, this time at a curve, catching the dretch she can barely glimpse around the corner. Her starknife darts towards her target with surprising speed, leaving the tiny demon no time to react... and then Hinagiku is finally upon it. Just as the knife disappears from its side, Hinagiku snaps into the dretch's body with a powerful kick, then watches it crumble in front of her.
Combat ends!
As soon as the shield is again strapped to her arm, Ivellyn hurries down the hall and into the prison, which is now well lit from the light of Ehren's stony crown. Rows of small, iron-barred cells line the walls, while two more rows of cells sit back-to-back running down the center of the room. Many of the bars splay outwards, torn and twisted to form larger cells. Within the cells wounded crusaders, their bodies covered with lesions, burns, and injuries, grip the bars tightly. There are seven prisoners, are all in the central cells, save for one man on the far side ()is a distant cell. He appears to be standing, but not facing the rest. He is instead bashing his head against the wall over and over.
On the far end of the hallway is another cell, this one marked with arcane runes. It lies empty, its door swinging open on the handle. To the other end the tunnel seems to have been forcefully widened. A large dark hole sits at the end of the tunnel. The prisoners cheer and cry out when they see her - "Chevalier!" "Thank the gods, you're alright." "Get us out outta here... Scaevus isn't doing so well, gotta get him to the infirmary..."
Chevalier Ivellyn's face cracks into a wide smile despite it all. "Don't worry... I'll get you out as soon as I can," she says, scrambling for the key around her neck.
The cells seem free of demons or cultists. You do notice the corpse of a large orc, face-down at the end of one of the hallways.
Isilme sticks her head around the corner, spotting what she could only assume were demons in human guise, given their telepathy. Hoping they could similarly teleport, she tries the babau gambit again. "Ne'er mind that, got bigger fish t'fry. Bishop's turned up out in th'bailey. She'n'her friends are wounded'n'hiding out there. Ye lot gonna let the Vrocks have all the fun?"
Seeing them hesitate a moment she shrugs. "Yer loss, I'll get dibs on sendin' them off after whoever's had their fun."
The "crusaders" look at each other, eyes wide.
"Aaaaaam. Pu, pu, pu i nish'k. Kribi ush, glam. I'bi ashum thrombuzg gu shokhi sna thri thrab ai Bishop..."
And with that, they vanish into thin air.
"I believe I just sent four succubi up top, we had best hurry before they realize they have been duped," she says, whispering through her magic to the others. "The sanctum door is here ahead of me, as Ivellyn said."
"There are at least two babau and four succubi above us." Ary shares with the Chevalier as she begins to unlock the doors. "In addition, two Vrock in the towers flanking the entrance, and they've rigged the Chandelier to fall if it's messed with - which could be used to your advantage, possibly. We'll need to try to ensure word is out about that last bit so it doesn't just happen to fall down the line." Ary continues, as she looks to the others. She understood that they were in a hurry, but getting the Crusaders together and healed up would make a world of difference to their survival.
"Do you recognize everyone?" Ary asks as she moves to inspect the fallen orc.
Round 310!
While Ivellyn opens the first cell and pulls the first soldier into a quick hug, Ary heads down the hallway. She peers past the cell door to look at what the Lord Commander was talking about. The hallways are strewn with corpses from the prison break that happened before the heroes arrived, but she wrinkles her nose with distaste at the sight of that particular corpse.
"Looks like someone brought down Kurhn Bonecrusher. Good riddance," she says, then turns to continue inspecting the crusader in the cell. "You look fine. Up and at 'em, soldier, today isn't done." The man salutes.
As Ary moves closer to the fallen half-orc, she comes to glimpse a man trapped in the end cell. He doesn't seem to be doing very well, as he is convulsing and frothing at the mouth. Blood pours from his mouth and nose, even eyes, and large purple bruises cover his form, though unlike the other prisoners he is still wearing his armor. His mouth opens and closes and she can hear several different soft voices coming from the cell, though after a moment she can realize the voices are inside her own mind, only audible once she gets close enough.
"Hongu, hongu, ramba uchirovera musoro wako kumadziro!"
"لا لا! كزة من عينيك!"
"خدش على وجهك! خدش على وجهك!"
"Jach! Jach hoch hos jachpu'dihoch lah soh!"
"התרפק את עצמך על הקיר!"
"Ghobe', ghah ghewmey hoh soh petaq, 'ach!"
He starts to tear savagely with his nails at his own face. A second occupant lies in a puddle of blood on the floor next to him. His eyes are open and staring - obviously dead.
Inspecting the body more closely, you can see the tiny lumps moving along his flesh that are the individual chatterers. This is a terrible infestation, worse than you have ever seen. There are at least a thousand of the horrible creatures inside of him.
The crusades have identified five spells that are effective at dealing with chatterer swarms.
1. A remove disease spell can be sufficient to destroy a weak infection, though generally multiple casts are necessary ().
2. A dispel chaos or evil spell will eject the swarm completely from the host's body.
3. A banishment, holy word or similar spell can force the swarm to return to its home plane.
Once inside the body, the chatterers can exert a sort of weak domination upon the host. However, individual chatterers rarely agree with each other, and constantly argue over what actions to make their host perform. Each chatterer is desperate to better identify their individuality, and as such, tend to speak in different languages from each other and adopt different tones and dialects. In any case, most victims drift in and out of lucidity due to the weak mind control of the swarm.
Chatterers are so tiny, that they are easy to mistake for other vermin, especially within the Worldwound where most vermin are mutated beyond recognition. Each creature is as a tiny frog, with mouths full of needle-sharp teeth, stunted forearms and long muscular hind legs that end in webbed claws. Their torsos are oblong and slightly bloated, and covered in sharp spines.
This is sufficient for full mastery of the chatterer stat block
Ary moves quickly towards the cell to see what is the matter, wincing visibly as the thoughts come boundless into her mind, at first she wonders what it is, but then it becomes simply another clue that unravels the entire mystery.
"We need a healer over here, immediately. I've found Ser Jormal. Xander or Ehren, can you cast banishment or holy word? If not, then dispel chaos or evil, or multiple uses of remove disease? It's Chatterers... and getting rid of them completely is far more valuable than anything else we can do. If we dispel them, we really need Valaria over here, because they tend to swarm... and jabber constantly. Hurry, we need to destroy them quickly. It looks like there are at least three entire swarms in here."
Isilme continues down the hall to inspect the door to the sanctum, laying her hand upon it to see if it would provide a message as the sealed doors above had.
"A swarm that sounds as annoying as it is to fight," Val deadpans, though from her tone it seems that she's trying to keep from focusing on the grotesque condition of the man's body more than anything else. "Delightful. Please tell me one of you has at least one of those prepared."
As you touch the door, you can hear a man's voice speaking within your mind, in Celestial:
"إذا كان حرم اللفائف الذي ترغب في رؤيته ، فصلي ، انطق أسماء اليقظة الثلاثة."
The presence of a riddle instead of merely a warning was a good sign. It meant they wouldn't need to find a way around, which might buy them some time, especially if they could seal it again behind them.
"The vigilance's Three? The names of those stationed within, perhaps?" she whispers through message after relaying the message itself to the others.
Answering Ary's call for aid, Ehren hurries to her side so he can take a proper look at Ser Jormal. When he recognizes the knight's affliction, however, and hears what must be done to cure it, his expression darkens.
"Most of those spells are under a cleric's purview, Ary. And I do not even have a single casting of remove disease prepared," Ehren says regretfully. The druid wracks his brain, desperately trying to think of a way to save the man. "He is not going to last much longer, at this rate."
"If they haven't changed it to the modern trio, it would be Saint Guenarog of Valor, Saint Arymyril of Sacrifice, and Saint Argil of the Poor... but if it's more modern, I'm not entirely certain. Would it have been updated for Hrut?" Ary whispers back, as she looks from Ehren to Daisy. Daisy hadn't ever worked this kind of miracle, but perhaps there was something there. "Are you or Xander able to accomplish anything?" Ary adds, hurriedly.
"Remove disease would be... limited in scope. He'd have to destroy the infestation by directly purging the parasites themselves, if that's his only option." Ary responds to Valaria. "If we don't have a way to help him... a merciful end is the best we can do..." Ary says, voice trembling with doubt.
Hinagiku shakes her head, if this was above Ehren’s divine healing powers, it was definitely above her own.
”Sorry Ary. All I can do his put him to sleep... it won’t prolong his life, but won’t shorten it... at least he wouldn’t feel the pain, and maybe we can find someone to save him in the meanwhil. Mrs. Ivellyn, are there any powerful divine faithfuls stationed here? Is there any chance we can find someone to save him?”
---
Chevalier Ivellyn is in the middle of opening the next cell when Hinagiku calls out to her. "Ah, um, no, none of my men are clerics. I am the only one capable of casting any magic among them. If we hurry, perhaps we could bring him to the infirmary? Or the chapel above, both have clerics stationed there."
Xanderghul pointedly ignores Isilme's answer to his snark, too prideful to ever admit aloud he was wrong about anything. Apparently, the words of the stodgy High Priest Vuere clearly weren't important enough to him to actually listen to. Likewise, he had never bothered to commit much to memory about famous Crusaders to have anything useful to add to Isilme's thoughts about how to solve the riddle of the Sanctum of Scrolls. Instead, he starts striding back towards the prison, all the while pondering Ary's revelation that one of the Holy Sentinels had been infested with chatterers. He was, of course, familiar with the Abyssal pests, having once been infected with them during his time in the Undersump. It was gratefully a minor infection, and he ended up having to physically cut each individual parasite out from his flesh and destroy them one at a time. He had made incredible progress as a wizard since then, however, so something does pop into his mind that he could do to contribute to the situation.
"I could attempt a dismissal. I believe that would work. However, you should know that I am running low on arcane stores, and the effort would take all that I have left. Also, the little creatures are rather resilient to magic, so I would expect perhaps... a 50/50 chance of it working at all. So perhaps anything anyone could do to reduce their willpower to resist it would be helpful," he drawls into message as he walks. "But if we decide to let him die, we will need to determine a way to prevent any part of the swarm from reaching us, as I doubt we would fare much better than he should one of us be infected. Such parasites need to be quarantined."
Meanwhile, Ser Jormal abruptly sticks his own fingers down his throat and starts to vomit all over the floor of his cell. Ary can hear the hysterical laughter of the chatterers inside of him, before they immediately erupt back into an boisterous argument over what terrible thing to make him do next.
"You should do it, Xanderghul. It sounds like there is no other option for dealing with them, and saving Jormal would be helpful for understanding what happened."