Yizzik knows it's now or never. He lines up with Dawn and swings twice.
"This room smells worse than that I time I slipped in a pig farm. One of the few times I got Foremother to laugh because I didn't want to admit how bad I smelled."
"Let's clean up our injuries before we proceed." She looks at Lilly. "Those bombs feel like lightning bolts. Now I know how people feel when they get too close to Sparky."
Yizzik gives a lone sigh as he puts away his axe, leaving his shield out after having learned the group and he could always use the extra protection. He gave the pitiful creature a final look before setting to digging through his pockets, hoping to find something useful for the group as there was still more ground to cover and dangers to fight more than likely. "I can't believe one could be so fooled into loving such a wicked creature," he commented aloud to the group, shaking his head as he did.
"Get too close to sparky? Well i guess now you know what 'for your own good' evil doctors do to people."
<Yes, i feel your pain blondie. Well not literally, in my current state, but i remember what it was like.>
..."So, healing stick time?"
"That was a tough little guy." Poe observes, sitting down with a grunt. "Ouch."
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Okay...I think I only need one charge."
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In the meantime:
You feel the edges of a hidden door that exits to the east.
Behind the door is a pantry stuffed to bursting with dry goods and wine, flour, mushrooms, and salts.
Three of the bottles look to be valuable, labeled with Zirnakaynin Farms, the wine rumored to have poisonous effects on non-elves.
Further back are strange and disgusting cooking experiments, including a jar of marmalade made from dwarves' eyes, a pickled druid's tongue, and a salted pixie liver.
Dawn takes a look around and eventually shrugs. "Hmm, nothing here. Once you guys have healed, let's see what's here." Dawn prepares her falchion and prepares to look in the eastern alcove.
Yizzik would give a sigh of relief feeling his wounds healing from the magic wand, setting himself down to finally relax afterwards for a little. "Thank you Lilly," the reptile would say in gratitude, offering a awkward smile as he did.
"You're welcome guys."
(Worriless smile)
Her eyes grow wide like a kid about to eat a slice of birthday cake.
"Oh, there's a secret door here."
She touches the wall to feel it, searching for some sort of button to open it.
"Ugh." Dawn frowns. "I feel like this is the disgusting tip of the necromancer's iceberg. Let's come back for these afterward so we can dispose of - ooh, wine." Dawn looks at some of the bottles.
"Zirnakaynin Farms? Oooh. I've tasted this wine before. It really mellows you out. Unless you're not an elf, in which case you might get tipsy or sick with a few shots."
"Shall we see what's behind this door?" Dawn keeps her weapon ready.
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Dawn pushes open the door. A large unmade bed with a single nightstand occupies one end of the cluttered room opposite a desk and bookcase that are stacked with assorted papers, books, and scrolls. An open wardrobe stands next to the bookcase.
Most of the books discuss anatomy or necromancy - surprising given that Utrat was an alchemist.
That said, a complete alchemist's lab is set out on the desks, and five sets of courtier's clothing line the wardrobe.
You find a total of six potions inside the pockets of the clothing: Two red, one purple, and three blue.
"Ooo! Potions. Lemme taste them."
"I think I remember some of these..."
Lilly takes 10 for 18 on perception on the vials.
"Oh, sample time, free tasting."
Yizzik would watch as the two tasted the different potions, tail swaying back and forth along the ground as he sat up and moved towards the different foods. Lizardfolk were raised to never let food go to waste, so while most of this would make human's and dwarves stomach turn, the reptile only saw an interesting array of food. He'd obviously avoid the marmalade out of respect for his friend, but couldn't help himself not to try the liver. His pallet loved salty food anyways.
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The taste test is completed, and Lilly and Dawn are poisoned for 12d6 damage Lilly and Dawn identify the red potions as bull's strength, the purple as disguise self, and the blue as cure light wounds.
As Yizzik finishes the last bite of pixie liver, he suddenly feels weightless, and begins to levitate off the floor.
"Mmm, tasty. Hey Yizzik, you should hold onto this Bull's Strength potion- did you eat the pixie liver?" She frowns. "Well, at least it's useful. I'll hold the other red potion and this purple one- maybe I can pretend to be Utrat."
Opening the door to the hallway, Dawn takes a look around. "So what's this room?"
"I'm no good at locks...shall we head upstairs?"
Lilly points at a particular potion with a smile.
"Oh, remember the pretty hat, that made me look like foxgirl?
This potion makes you look like someone else too, how cool is that."
"Ha! You could have dressed up as Sarxa, maybe get his bombs away. Then again, you'd have to go into detail... ugh."
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With little of interest in that bedroom other than some notes written in Sylvan bluntly describing some particularly intimate moments between Utrat and Sarxa, you make for the stairs and come across a set of double doors.
A fan of bookshelves fills this large room. Only a bed draped in silk sheets and a small desk mark it as a bedroom rather than a library. The portrait of a large and severe-looking man with ash-white skin hangs from the eastern wall.
A set of leather-bound journals rests on the dressing table, most of which are weathered and heavily worn. Mostly written in Sylvan, they describe Zohir Totek's life, from being accepted as an apprentice by Audalot Karexin over 2 centuries ago, to their expulsion from the Court of Ether because of Karexin’s "romantic indiscretions," to finding Phaedextrin’s Maw and its unusual lazurite deposits. She delves into some detail on the protracted battle with the Rising Blades, but glosses over the decades she spent wandering the Darklands, except to mention recruiting a "useless alchemist" and a "backstabbing half-fiend" into her personal retinue.
The last few entries contain more detailed information.
Within the bookshelves, you uncover six magic scrolls:
Detect undead
False life
Fear
Ironwood
Spectral Hand
Stone SHape
"Yeah, I shouldn't have read those journals. I guess this is Utrat's room." Dawn carefully puts Utrat's notes back. "Let's... go upstairs."
Dawn takes a read of the notes. "Looks like you guys protected her tomb well. You bought us some time. I'm not going home until this necromancer is dead."
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Yizzik had taken the potion, only to be surprised by his sudden weightlessness after his meal. It was odd for a reptile to look embarrassed, but having been caught eating the liver, he couldn't help himself. Now, he found himself floating, and with a bit of adjustment, had taken to enjoying his time flying around the rooms, tail swaying happily behind him as he did.
Lilly keeps looking over the room, until she finds... [Perception spoiler above]
"Goodies!"
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"The Fabulous Flying Lizard, ladies and gentlemen!" Dawn presents Yizzik like she would a performer. "Evil has no where to hide when he can smell you, track you in the darkness, and climb any mountain in the blink of an eye!"
Poe will make sure he's in good health and Olivia is loaded and ready to go.
Dawn prepares to head downstairs by drinking the potions of Bull's Strength and Disguise Self. She takes the form of Utrat.
"Well, I'll try to lie my way in. Maybe I can get close before everything gets messy."
"If we don't survive this one, I want to say all of your are the best friends I've ever met. All of you are invited to come to the Commune after this, you can eat all the nuts and berries you want."
She casts blur on Yizzik. "No pixie livers, though."
Lilly activates her cloak of shadows, and uses a charge of her wand of Shield of Faith.
She also casts guidance and resistance on everyone.
She keeps her whip in one hand.
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Dawn heads downstairs ahead of everyone else and enters what is half torture chamber, half alchemical laboratory. The air in the room carries the faint smell of chemicals and herbs, as well as a peculiar, alkaline stink. Glass jars, tubes, beakers, and body parts preserved in fluids clutter every flat working space of this sprawling laboratory.
Two large stone slabs occupy the room; chains and shackles hang from both. Two empty cages hang in the northeast of the room near a heavily barred window in the eastern wall. Four freshly slain Dwarven corpses lay towards the north end of the room. The floor slopes slightly toward the east, where a grate opens into the outer wall. Saws, pliers, knives, blades, hammers, pokers, and other assorted tools of torture are meticulously arrayed in trays or hanging behind the closed glass doors. A large wooden rack stands beside the cabinets of tools.
Standing in the center is a tall woman with porcelain skin, her cloak adorned with perfectly shaped skulls. Her body appears partially ethereal, light easily able to travel through her to the opposite wall. She is flanked by two ghostly creatures.
She stares at Dawn as she hobbles down the stairs in the form of Utrat.
"Bravo, bravo," she applauds. "A magnificent attempt at imitation. You don't smell half as bad as he did. Say, why don't you tell your three friends to come down and join us? I know they're here. I'm surprised to see anyone made it down the blighted path without dying."
Take 10 for 22 on acro to make a flashy entrance.
Lilly makes an unusual athletic jump, standing up with a bow.
"Hello madam, how're you doing?"
She waves with a greeting and a smile.
"Well, you can't blame me for trying...beautiful lab you have here." Utrat shrugs. "So, what now? Damn our souls to eternal torture for your fiendish plot? False bravado and say your plans will complete regardless of our interference? Or mock Delbera for sparing you, despite wasting it cursing her afterlife?"
"Curiouser and curiouser." Dawn keeps her hands at her sides, ready to draw her falchion at a moment's notice.
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Zohir laughs at Dawn's condescending remarks. "Close, but not quite. I have no need for your souls. The dwarf isn't related to that Axebringer swine anyway," she says with narrowed eyes at Poe. "You've made it here despite the dangers of the Darklands, so you certainly aren't that weak. But you must wonder what the limit of your power is. Don't we all strive to be the very strongest? Look at you, lizardman," she cocks her head at Yizzik. "That siege tank of an armor is meaningless against a spirit's touch. So... How about a little trade? I'll generously make you all more powerful -- no, immortal versions of yourselves, and you abandon your attempts to stop me. You win, I win." Her smile is sickeningly sweet, and her teeth look as though she's honed and sharpened them herself just this morning. She eyes the stone workbench to the south end of the room, which contains an axe chained in place, soaking in a black mixture of bile and green dragon acid. The axe flickers faintly orange through the murky fluid.
"Huh." Poe says, scowling. "Na' gon' happen, skank."
"You've got an unusual fashion sense, madam. Odd, but somehow stylish.
Erm, you don't mind me saying so, yes?"
<Blondie, no! Why are you trying to flatter some b!tch who is clearly radiating evil? You should be getting out of here.......but ugh who am i kidding, you'll probably get into another fight.>
"But, immortal, well, i don't like wandering the world like a spirit.
One of those is enough for me."
<Oi, what's that supposed to mean?>
"Oh, immortality. Nothing better than watching all of your friends get old and die. It's fun to lose touch with reality and the real world because you're stuck in your tower. You do everything you can to hold onto reality, for just a bit longer..." Dawn speaks personally, drawing from her own experiences and sadness.
"What would I do with immortality? What will you do with immortality? Continue torturing the dwarf that spared your life? Raise an army of mindless automata and call them friends? Nah, that's not my plan."
"Looks like that's not the axe's plan either. It's already breaking free. I guess Delbera's here to give us some backup!" Dawn tries to distract Zohir with a quick lie.
"Evil had no place in this land, let alone my heart. Your promises are curses and blights and not much else!" Yizzik would roar, his body raising higher into the air as his flight mimic' his rage at the creatures insults to the dwarfs, his friends and life itself. Needless to say he'd draw his axe all the same, ready to face the wicked spirit.
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"Don't misunderstand. That axe is beyond hope at this point, its power thoroughly corrupted. It will make the perfect compliment to my plans!" She cackles. With Yizzik drawing his axe and Poe speaking in a disparaging way, Zohir decides enough is enough. "Clearly, you aren't going to take the offer, so how about I expedite your death?"
Zohir Totek stretches her arms out, her palms pointed towards the ceiling. Purple flames burn brightly in them, and then, a shuffling is heard as she raises the four corpses at the north end of the room into zombies. "Dwarves are so much more charming as undead, don't you think?"
: Yizzik, Poe, Lilly, Wraiths, Zombie blue yellow green, Dawn, Zombie red
If Lilly can ID the wraiths, she'll share everything she knows.
Assuming the above, Lilly casts Ghostbane dirge on Red wraith.
Poe has had enough of her crap, and opens fire on the necromancer.
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Lilly recognizes the duo as your standard wraiths, incorporeal creatures whose touch drains constitution. She also can tell that Zohir Totek's body seems almost as ethereal as the wraiths next to her, though her body doesn't seem to be able to travel through solid objects the way a wraith might.
Poe unleashes a pair of bolts at Zohir Totek, and finds that although they meet their mark, they flow through her body and strike her inner skeleton instead. They do seem like they've done some damage, however. "Really, two bolts? How cute. Typical for a dwarf to use such primitive weaponry."
Zohir (-27), Yizzik (fly), Poe, Lilly, Wraiths, Zombie blue yellow green, Dawn, Zombie red
Yizzik hates to admit it, but the creature was correct about his armor. He wasn't the quickest in the world, and saw himself as a living shield for his allies. With that gone, his only option was to abandon his shield in favor of gripping his axe with both hands. Now, he would strike with the full force of his bestial strength, calling out to the heaven voice that had watched over him in the desert. One more, he would need its help, using his new found flight to fly high above the ethereal monster and strike down with his magical axe. The wraiths were bad, but she needed to be dealt with first.
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Yizzik indeed deals with her well, the cleave of his axe bearing through Totek's ethereal body and straight into her skeleton, cleaving off a section of spine. "Blasted, stinking lizard. You'll quickly learn to regret that."
The two wraiths float up to Yizzik, stretching out their ghostly hands to touch him.
Yizzik is sapped of some of his life force, negative energy flowing into his body.
Three of the zombies shamble ahead. With Yizzik floating out of reach, they lurch towards Dawn, and she quickly finds herself in something of a monster mash. Luckily, only one has time to actually attack.
Zohir (-44), Yizzik (fly, blur, 1 con drain, -5), Poe, Lilly, Wraiths, Zombie blue yellow green, Dawn, Zombie red
"And time for my entrance..." Dawn finds herself surrounded. "Whoops. Ow. I guess I'll deal with the zombies..."
Dawn pulls her falchion and enchants her blade. It crackles with electricity. She swings at the blue zombie. "I'll try to clear a path!"
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Dawn easily takes down two of the zombies at once when the second one shambles ahead to take the other corpse's place.
Zohir Totek steps back towards a workbench, stands tall, and points at Yizzik.
"Now, wretched lizard, feel the wrath of Karexin wracking pain through your bones! You will die here and join my skeleton legions, just like the hundreds of Axebringers I've drained the life of!"
A deep purple beam stems from her fingertip, enveloping Yizzik in a hazy light.
Zohir (-44), Yizzik (fly, blur, 1 con dmg?, 3 con dmg?/Needs 2 Fort DC17, -16 hp), Poe, Lilly, Wraiths, Zombie yellow green, Dawn
Lilly sticks the healing wand onto the green zombie's chest.
"Time for some feel good energy."