Rasmorn's eyes get a little wide at Isabella's concerns. "I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, should definitely leave the raven, in that case. Umm, Talia, could we hurry up with that rope? Not that I'm scared, mind you, but it seems rude to be floating in someone else's room, just in case they come back."
Talia gently tosses the rope to Rasmorn and pulls him out of the room.
Rasmorn thankfully grabs onto the rope and exits the room with a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Talia. That was fun! So, where to now?"
"May I keep that book?" asks Isabella.
"What? Oh, the book, right!" Rasmorn fishes around in his backpack a little and then digs the book out. "I wouldn't recommend reading it right before bed. Or right when you wake up, that's not a good way to start the day." A puzzled look appears on the gnome's face as he hands the book over to Isabella. "Do you suppose that the raven in there went with the book? Are they a set? Do you want me to go back and get it for you?"
Isabella shakes her head. "The raven is probably a pet, or a familiar..." she says. "The thing about followers of Lamashtu, they try to emulate the mother of monsters, if it were a matched set it would be some kind of... breeding creature." She takes the book with one hand and holds her other hand over her belly uncomfortably, as if the very thought pains her.
With nowhere further to travel in this direction, you return to the room with the statue of Alaznist. There, you have two directions to yet explore. One, directly behind the statue, is a corridor heading east with several steps leading down towards a door. The other is a passage that also heads east for 100 ft, but it turns south instead of ending in a door.
"Lets get this one checked shall we?" Talia indicates the eastern corridor with the steps down.
Laufey nods and falls in at second position behind Talia as usual.
Rasmorn nods, and prepares to follow Laufey
Isabella stashes the uncomfortable book and takes up her spot behind Laufey as well.
Moving quietly Talia gets to the door and checks it.
Talia hears nothing on the other side of the door, and it is neither locked nor trapped. Opening it, she finds a room with a circular stone pool of quietly rippling water. The pool is lined with a rim of skulls.
The party goes to enter the room, and suddenly they are met with a loud shriek, jarring and disorienting. At the cry you spot, in the upper corner of the room, a creature that appears to be a bat-winged fiend head with tentacles dangling from chin and scalp and a fanged maw.
You are paralayzed by the shriek for rounds or until the monster attacks you, gets more than 60 feet away from you, or leaves.
This creature is a Vargouille. They typically occupy graveyards or ancient battlefields, places of death and decay. Their shriek can paralyze, and their bite is said to be poisoned, making it impossible to heal without magic. Most terrifyingly, however, is their kiss. If they kiss a helpless opponent, the person begins the terrifying process of turning into a Vargouille. Fortunately, they can be harmed with normal weapons, and have no magical resistance.
At the sound of the shriek, Rasmorn completely freezes in place. Entirely. Not a muscle budges on his tiny body. Crap crap crap, a Vargouille? Not good. Not good at all.
Isabel likewise freezes in place.
Talia jumps at the shriek, but moves forward rather than locking in place. "Noisy freak aren't you?" She quips.
The horrible shriek almost stops Laufey but she fights through it. She again summons up her grim, determined focus and charges at the floating head.
The horrible shriek almost stops Laufey but she fights through it. She again summons up her grim, determined focus and charges at the floating head. Her sword just barely misses the creature.
At the sound of the shriek, Rasmorn completely freezes in place. Entirely. Not a muscle budges on his tiny body. Crap crap crap, a Vargouille? Not good. Not good at all.
Talia jumps at the shriek, but moves forward rather than locking in place. "Noisy freak aren't you?" She quips. Her bolt misses the creature wide.
Yasu moves past the paralyzed Isabella and Rasmorn and looses an arrow from his bow.
The arrow is dropped on the ground.
Isabel likewise freezes in place.
The Vargouille attempts to bite Laufey as she engages it in melee.
It is successful in biting the bloodrager's arm with its fanged maw.
Laufey wrenches herself away from the nasty tentacled head and strikes back at it.
Rasmorn continues to stand stock-still. Ow ow ow, man I need to blink! They don't tell you about that. My eyes are killing me!
Since Laufey is in melee Talia drops her crossbow and steps behind the Vagouille with her dagger. Flanking with Laufey.
Thanks to Talia's flank with Laufey, she's able to drive her dagger into the back of the flying head, dropping the Vargouille to the ground.
Talia poses triumphantly. :)
Isabella poses motionlessly!
After several long seconds, Isabella and Rasmorn unfreeze from their Vargouille-induced paralysis.
You have a door ahead of you and an as-yet unexplored hallway if you backtrack a bit.
Rasmorn shakes his head fiercely, and blinks rapidly, eyes watering. "That was miserable! Never been paralyzed like that before. Not being able to blink was the worst part! Glad you killed it when you did. Where to now? Is the door locked?"
First Talia will carefully search this room.
Once that is done she checks the door to the east.
Talia finds nothing else in this room - although the water in the basin is clear, and quite potable. It's good water.
The door to the east is neither locked nor trapped, and opening it reveals yet another door. Past that is a spiral staircase, going up.
Isabella shudders as the paralytic effect of the vargouille screech wears off.
Once everyone is recovered Talia goes over the rough map she's scribbled as they have explored the ruins. "We should check that last hall before we head upstairs." Is her suggestion to the party.
"We are not so far underground, correct? We left the glassworks at cellar depth and I have noticed no slope. I think there would not be anything but the surface or another building at the top of the stairs. The demon we are looking for won't be up there. It might be a good shortcut back when we are done though."
"Should we poke our heads up the stairs and see if that's the case? If it leads to a lot of area to explore, we could always come back down and finish this floor before moving on."
A quick hop up the stairs reveals that while they may have once led to the surface, there is now a mass of rock between them and it. Those with keen eyes can see narrow fissures that may lead up to the surface, but only a very tiny creature would be able to fit through them.
As you head down the final tunnel, you find that it widens here into what once may have been a small shrine. To the northeast, steps lead up to a platform of gray stone. Sitting atop the platform is an altar, little more than a jagged block of black marble with a shallow concavity on top of it. This basin is filled with what appears to be filthy water. There is a pair of double doors past the altar.
Talia will scout the room first before we all enter.
Laufey eyes the alter and it's polluted water with disgust.
"I think we are going the right way to find the demon."
"Someone still uses this," says Isabella. "I have a feeling we haven't seen everyone down here." She shudders.
Before moving on, Rasmorn has a look around the altar room with his arcane sight.
If there is nothing in the room Talia will move to the double doors, checking for traps and locks?
If there are no traps and the door can be opened she signals to the others to be ready and opens them quietly.
Talia finds that the door is neither locked nor trapped.
Rasmorn finds there is a Conjuration aura about the basin on the altar and the water itself.
You can't figure out the aura on the basin, although you suspect it might have something to do with replenishing the water in it. The water, however, appears to be Waters of Lamashtu.
Rasmorn looks at the water with a mixture of fear and interest. "Waters of Lamashtu. Nasty stuff. Best case scenario, touch that stuff and you'll be violently ill. Worst case, it'll warp you, body and mind. Could make for an interesting weapon, if we could find a way to safely bottle it, but we wouldn't want to touch it ourselves at all."
"No. We should destroy it," says Isabella. "Next time we come here, I should bring holy water."
"Should things cannot be used as weapons safely". Laufey shakes her head, frowning. "It is cursed water, and will taint the user just as surely as it would taint the victim of its use. It can only be destroyed safely."
Talia wrinkles her nose in disgust on hearing what the water is. "Aye, we destroy when we get the chance!" Is her vote on the matter.
"Everyone ready?" She asks, getting ready to open the double doors.
Rasmorn nods his accord with the others, ready to move on.
With everyone ready to go, and a decision made to destroy the waters of Lamashtu should you have the chance, Talia opens the double doors. They lead into a huge room that looks like nothing more than a huge underground cathedral. Stone doors stand to either side of the main entrance, but beyond this, the walls are carved with strange, spiky runes. In the center of the room is a large pool, with a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection. At the far end of the room, a pair of stone stairways leads up to a pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with churning, bubbling water that looks almost like translucent lava. Yet while wisps of heat and steam rise from the strange orange liquid, the room itself is deathly cold.
As you enter the room, you hear a shriek, and immediately see the source coming from a tiny winged creature flying above the triangular pool on the pulpit. It screeches at you, "Despoilers! Worms! You dare to intrude upon the Mother's domain!? I shall see you slain, and your skulls used to adorn this Cathedral! " The creature then takes a tiny dagger and slashes its wrist, allowing its blood to drip into the pool below. The waters begin to churn rapidly, and emerging from the pool is another of the Sinspawn. You notice that the pool's glow noticeably diminishes as the Sinspawn does so.
The tiny creature suddenly looks worried at the pool's reduced glow.
The Sinspawn screams in anger and runs down from the pulpit to get into Laufey's face.
On her action Talia advance and will load a cold iron bolt, shooting at the Quasit. "Used up all the magic have you?" She taunts it, spotting it's worried about the dimming glow of the pool.
Rasmorn begins to make various arcane gestures and sounds, building up to his next spell.