Munk disentangles himself from the muck and hucks a shuriken at the baddie, narrowly missing. Trifle jumps off the ledge and swings to some effect at the other.
Valais appears surprised and a little frightened at Druthane's encouragement, but she does shuffle slowly in your direction.
Druthane and T'Orca!
Round II Summary
Trifle: crossbow bolt
Valais: hesitates on the edge of action
Druthane: slash and snazzy acrobatics
T'Orca: arrow
Baddies: flings muck, dumps mucks
Sigrun: (Delay)
Ober: big leaping swing
Munk: disentanglement
Round III Update
Trifle: leap and swing
Valais: shuffles forward
Druthane: CURRENT
T'Orca:
Baddies:
Sigrun: (Delay)
Ober:
Munk:
Top: 32
Bot: 32
...which he does with verve. The creature slumps back, motionless.
T'Orca!
T'Orca becomes the third Pathfinder to take a leaping swing and cuts the remaining creature open from stem to stern.
Out of initiative.
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"Ugh... Do we have any healing? That was.... unpleasant. I have a wand here if someone would be willing. I suspect anything in the room beyond knows we're here. We ought to prepare and advance before turning back to finish the job."
"Valais, I can see it in your body language. Be brave. Look at T'Orca's presence. Be inspired by the paladin."
Druthane will then search the nooks and crannies of this room, and the bodies of the beasties. Derp, must've really hit my head...
Trifle pokes her head around the room but finds only floor full of blood-flavored sludge rapidly being consumed by impossible numbers of insects.
"I'm okay," Valais replies, a little shakily. "It's just... those, um, things... Thurl made them, like--well, like me. They probably just didn't know any better, or have anywhere else to go..."
They look to be about 18 inches in length, perhaps six inches in diameter.
You do NOT hear anything listening at the door.
They're all very much alive, wriggling around in there cells. Extracting one would require opening up a cell (each of which are closed with several clasps and latches, but easy to undo).
Even without one, though, you do think that the ledger is still a hefty piece of evidence by itself.
Anyone else want to chime in? We've just had the magi so far, and magi aren't great healers.
Barring objections...
Druthane leads the party back up the hall, leaving the hordes of ravenous insects behind (well, sort of; they're everywhere). Interestingly, you can see Druthane's footprints in the first hallway (prior to his swim) wherever the insect repellent touched the floor.
Past the vats, the party gives the unopened door a quick listen and enters.
This room is a madman’s abattoir. Near the center of the room stands a polished metal table with manacles bolted to each of its corners and a bloodstained hacksaw embedded in its side. A wooden workshop bench rests against the east wall, covered with tools of varying sizes, a spool of barbed wire, a stack of large metal staples, and a stack of notes, and even more grisly tools hang from hooks on the wall like pots and pans in a wellstocked kitchen. As usual, reddish-brown splotches cover the floor.
On the table, a partially clothed male elf with a distended belly is sprawled on his back as he quietly moans in agony, his arms bound by the table’s manacles.
Another door stands at the opposite wall beyond.
As Druthane frantically undoes the manacles, the elf's moans and shudders reach a crescendo and, suddenly, a dozen purple, arm-length tentacles erupt from the pour soul's abdomen, spraying viscera and releasing gasses in all directions.
That's when some very bad things happen.
First, a wave of negative energy damage washes over you.
FAIL, DMG 5
SUCCESS, DMG 2
SUCCESS, DMG 2
SUCCESS, DMG 2
FAIL, DMG 5
Next, a cloud of spores invades your nostrils.
SUCCESS
FAIL
FAIL
SUCCESS
SUCCESS
Trifle and Ober are not feeling so good, coughing and sputtering as though diseased...
The tentacles eventually go limp. The elf is very much dead and, you suspect, has been all along.
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"Nethys's nuts! What in the 9 Hells was that? Are you guys okay?"
I DEFINITELY start looking for details on what just happened.
-Posted with Wayfinder
The elf was apparently infected with some sort of parasite with an Abyssal character. Something, perhaps touch or body heat, triggered the parasite's attempt at propagation.
Assuming you also eventually turn your attention to the notes on the nearby workbench...
Once the technobabble has been deciphered, these notes can clearly describe one of Thurl's experiments, which involved replicating a vermlek demon’s ability to inhabit a corpse and transplanting that ability into a construct. Dozens of pages describe previous experiments, but the most relevant material is in the latest version of the experiment: infecting an elf. The elf, the notes describe, demonstrated remarkable resilience and seemed to be fighting off the infestation. The observations end with a note to find more elves to repeat the experiment and speculation on how the ongoing experiment might conclude.
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"Nethys's nuts! What in the 9 Hells was that? Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah," Munk wrinkles his face, trying to wave the foul-smelling gas away from his nose, "I'm doing okay. But I'm not sure that Trifle is." Munk tries to discern what disease Trifle is afflicted with.
But he literally has no idea what he's seeing, probably not because the disease is particularly obscure, but because, at the moment, he can't seem to recall anything he knows about illnesses at all.
Then he turns to the elf, looks sympathetically at his dead body, and says, "Looks like a failed experiment. I wonder what his name was."
Then, to the group: "Thurl has taken too many innocent lives. This is so wrong. And we probably haven't seen the worst of it."
Ober picked up the first bit, and Druthane the second, so I'll repost here for convenience:
The elf was apparently infected with some sort of parasite with an Abyssal character. Something, perhaps touch or body heat, triggered the parasite's attempt at propagation.
Once the technobabble has been deciphered, these notes can clearly describe one of Thurl's experiments, which involved replicating a vermlek demon’s ability to inhabit a corpse and transplanting that ability into a construct. Dozens of pages describe previous experiments, but the most relevant material is in the latest version of the experiment: infecting an elf. The elf, the notes describe, demonstrated remarkable resilience and seemed to be fighting off the infestation. The observations end with a note to find more elves to repeat the experiment and speculation on how the ongoing experiment might conclude.
You do NOT hear anything listening at the door, especially with Trifle wheezing in the background.
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Negative energy always makes me feel so...negative. Let's collect these notes as evidence and take a moment to mourn this elf's passing.
After standing with a bowed head for an appropriate time interval, T'Orca puts an ear to the door and focuses for several minutes on the room beyond the wooden door using detect evil and scanning for auras.
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Angered at the torture and defilement of an elf, Druthane's jaw visibly clenches. The muscles twitch and dance with his grimace. He walks up to Trifle and grabs her by the head in order to touch foreheads in acknowledgement of her wise decision. He then strides towards the door, sword in hand and just kicks it open.
The door easily gives way to Druthane's kick and a breeze of frigid air greets you. In the room beyond: clawed limbs, scaly torsos, and other large body parts hang from sizable hooks connected to the ceiling by thick chains, all covered in a thick layer of frost. Along the walls, large canisters and jars hold dozens of smaller body parts suspended in clear liquid.
Unsurprisingly at this point, most of these body parts are derived from demons.
In addition to the DC 15 knowledge, you are able to identify that most parts come specifically from dretches, vermleks, babaus, and other relatively weak demons. However, there are also several samples from a hezrou, a nabasu, and even a glabrezu.
There is a wand hanging on a peg just inside the door.
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As Munk enters, he looks around the room in amazement. He stares in wonder at the the limbs, the jars, the meticulously preserved body parts. The scene is fascinating enough that Munk forgets what he's looking at—the ingredients of an evil scientist. The scene may be plain perverted, but Munk is totally entranced.
"Looks like the freezer of an artisan butcher! Well, almost, at least." Munk elbows a dangling limb and watches it swing. "You know, Thurl's experiments are terrible, but I wouldn't be surprised if Thurl loved his subjects, even while he was preparing them for experimentation. You'd almost have to, after spending this much time with them."
As he walks around the room, Munk does a general investigation, to see whether he notices anything not immediately apparent. He has no knowledge of planes, so he doesn't try particularly hard to understand the wand when he approaches.
He also tries to gauge how Valais is doing. He could understand how being in this room could be hard for her.
Just a spellcraft check for the wand.
Valais, luckily, hasn't even entered the surgery chamber yet, and is instead staring at the creatures in the vats outside.
After running interference with Valais, Trifle identifies the wand as a wand of sleet storm that was presumably used for keeping the room cold. It has 10 charges remaining.
Where to, Pathfinders?
I say we try the door Druthane is now in front of.
The walls here are polished and smooth, unlike the stone block construction elsewhere. The floor bears a strange symbol of concentric circles and compasslike stars, and the entire carving glows with a steady, red light. Writing covers much of the walls, some of it in dark blue charcoal and the rest in deep red paint. A shallow tray along the north wall holds several sticks of steel-gray chalk.
The glowing symbol on the floor emanates a very faint, lingering evil aura, as though something incredibly powerful and evil was here before.
In fact...
The writing (in Abyssal) that litters the walls does NOT detect as evil.
Something...bad happened here.
T'Orca's search turns up little, other than a small supply of additional steel-gray chalk in a box on the wall.
Trifle spends ten long minutes reading through the mass of Abyssal text. The writing in blue is in Thurl's hand, but the blood-red script is in a hand you don't recognize (NOWHERE do you see steel-gray writing colored like the chalk that is on hand). The writing seems to be correspondence between the two writers, as though each would leave a message for the other on the wall. The bulk involves haggling between the two authors over the prices and exchange of goods, including planar goods such as larvae.
While Trifle translates, Valais steps cautiously into the room and looks curiously at the script on the walls. Her eyes stop suddenly and lock onto one particular passage for several long moments. Then, in an awe-filled whisper, Valais breathes a single word that you don't quite catch. Was it 'slim?' Or maybe 'Azlant?'
The passage in front of which Valais mutely stands DEFINITELY stands out from the rest, though still written in the same two hands:
BLUE: The contact I told you about warned me that dark days are coming for Nerosyan. He has advised me to leave in all haste.
RED: And you believe him?
BLUE: I have little choice. I have much to gain by acting on this knowledge and everything to lose if it’s true.
RED:You are so quick to trust someone you have only known for a matter
of months—especially one such as he.
BLUE: If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous. Heh.
RED: My sisters would take offense at your calling me jealous, and even I believe you are taking liberties. I value our relationship, runecarved one, so I tell you this free of charge. Even if you follow his advice, guard yourself well. You are preparing to abandon your cover, and your so-called friends are known to dislike being duped.
BLUE: Trust me. I know. I heard what happened in Varisia. Look, I know what I’m doing, and I think I can trust this one. He doesn’t lie all of the time, you know.
RED: Exactly. He tells the truth often enough to make you believe his other lies.
BLUE: And if he is lying, I’ll lock him up for another ten thousand years. Just remember our bargain. If I don’t find those reagents waiting for me in the usual place, we’ll have words.
RED: But of course, Thurl. You know how to contact me.
To Trifle: "Whatever do you mean?"
To Druthane: first, immediately in her booming voice "A WORTHLESS WRETCH!" then, after barely a pause, in her regular one "I don't know; I've never been in this room before. But," she says eying the chalk, "maybe we could find out..."