Isabella is surprised by the creature's counterattack and feels her muscles freeze in place!
Miaka moves up and gets on guard!
Grenda wants to be at the front of the fray, but poor Isabella blocks her path. Striding forward, the dwarf grabs the swordswoman by the collar and yanks her out of the way.
Round II - bold may act!
1. Isabella (paralyzed [3]), Drystan
2. Creature (13 damage)
3. Miaka, Grenda (shrouded)
MISS!
The bolt punctures the creature's lolling tongue, which drops severed to the floor and wriggles around.
Limping forward, the ghast lays into Grenda! Its disgusting, bleeding mouth lodges in her neck and a claw rakes her face.
HIT HIT
CRIT THREAT not confirmed HIT
MISS
Round II - bold may act!
1. Isabella (paralyzed [2]), Drystan
2. Creature (15 damage)
3. Miaka, Grenda (Fort saves!, 4/17hp, shrouded)
HIT
Miaka yanks on the bowstring to aim her shot, leaving an opening for the tongueless enemy to bite her in the hand!
Miaka shakes off the hit and shoots the undead, slaying it with her arrow! Isabella recovers from her rigor mortis soon after.
Grenda temporarily freezes, then suddenly doesn't feel so good. A disease has crept into her soul unbalanced humors!
Once the ghast has been destroyed, the Pathfinders are free to look about the room. Six bodies adorn the matted straw in the cages that line the chamber; a careful eye notes that their chests rise and fall despite their battered and otherwise still appearance.
Her question unanswered, Miaka pokes one of the bodies through the cell door with her bow. With a shudder, it wheezes and turns to look on the Pathfinders in fright.
"AAAHH!! No! AHH-- *huh* *gasp* uh, *ghhhh,* who are you? Please, no! Um."
A gaping wound in the man's face clearly makes it difficult to speak, though he doesn't seem to have noticed.
"I've WHAT?!?!" shrieks the man. He reaches a hand up to his face and pulls away a blood-drenched palm. "Agh! Oh gods, you've got to get me out of here!"
A close look in the other cells reveals that all of the people here have ghoul bites.
"Relief? You don't mean... no, please, no! I'm a city watchman, dammit, get me to the healers!! One of them things musta bit me when they attacked the prison, but surely reinforcements came! Get me outta here!"
"I... I don't know much. They took us down here after the attack. Then they... rotated the chamber? Or something? It was derros. They left through another tunnel."
Miaka's search in fact turns up a switch (this room looks familiar...) that rotates the entire chamber ninety degrees, revealing a different door than the one the party entered through.
Drystan joins the others inside, and Miaka rotates the chamber. The loud lurching screech of the rotation doesn't quite drown out the screams of the former thief-taker asking to be let out. The final shuddering stop also upsets a chest in the far cell that spills a large pile of gold bars, which the party collects for later.
The rotation reveals a new door, which Drystan checks over and no traps are found. Isabella and Grenda once again lead the way down this new, darker tunnel.
Not to far down the tunnel, Isabella finds another scrap of paper discarded on the dank stone floor. Just another turn down the dank stoneway finds another, and then two more. Navigating the tunnel system isn't easy without a map; fortunately, Miaka is able to keep a decent sense of direction and uses the paper trail to lead the party deeper into the Darklands.
After nearly an hour of marching, the tunnel opens onto a broad chamber lined with salt deposits and with side passages branching east and west. These side branches bear rich blue crystal veins and end at cave-ins. The main cavern is adorned with several smoldering torches; the passage directly beyond is pitch black--though water can be heard running in the distance.
Grenda quickly spots signs of battle in the room. Patches of dried blood on the cleaner stone, a broken and rusted dagger, and four mite corpses. Miaka spots another scrap of paper tucked under a rock; unfurling the ball reveals another hastily scrawled note:
Hope is lost. The mites attempted a coup, but were betrayed by their own and murdered. My mind tires and I long for mercy in the bellies of the mites' vermin rather than face the unknown horror that waits when the derros force me into the fetid pool I've heard bubbling in the room beyond.
"Certainly!" the dwarf sorcerer says cheerfully. Drystan checks the way ahead and finds no signs of traps.
In the room beyond is horror beyond imagination. A large pool fills most of this chamber, its green waters bathing the high ceilings in an eerie green light. The pool is open to the cavern on the south and east sides, but borders the cavern walls to the north and west. On the north side of the cavern, a small alcove sits above the water line, inside of which rests a small stone table. Dozens of corpses float serenely on the surface of the pool, the number growing each time a pair of derros lead a terrified prisoner into the pool. As each life is extinguished, a massive flash of green light explodes from above the stone altar by the pool.
The Pathfinder party is less than quiet and stumbles into the room to have a dozen derro eyes turned their way, along with many more gazes from the remaining mite slaves and nearly a hundred human and mite prisoners. Just as the team's confidence vanishes and everyone readies themselves for a do-or-die retreat, several surprised mites and prisoners leap into action and launch a desperate revolt. The derros and traitorous mites are nearly overwhelmed by the assault, and only a few manage to bring the fight to the newcomers!
Round I - bold may act!
1. Isabella, Miaka
2. Baddies
3. Grenda, Drystan
Miaka demonstrates her true prowess with the bow and lands two heavy shots in the derro's chest! It doesn't look so good after that...
Round I - bold may act!
1. Isabella, Miaka
2. Derro (20 damage), mites
3. Grenda, Drystan
Though injured, the derro manages to lean away from Isabella's sword thrust. The foes rush forward to attack! The derro swings a thin, rusty sword and the mites heft a pair of broken knives.
MISS
HIT HIT
MISS
One of the mites rakes a thin scratch along Isabella's sword-arm as she tries to parry!
Round I - bold may act!
1. Isabella (1 nonlethal), Miaka
2. Derro (20 damage), mites
3. Grenda, Drystan
|
Finally snapping out of her comatose state Grenda looks around a bit confused. [b]My mind had slipped into the black nothingness... I was with him... I was with my god... I saw the end of all things and it was beautiful.[b] With an eerie smile she moves forward and slashes at the remaining monsters.
Grenda's creepy revelation does not distract her comrades! Isabella and Grenda each obliterate a mite, and one of Miaka's arrows brings the derro within an inch of its life...
Drystan looks on cheerfully as his fellows make things quick and clean. He color sprays a nearby group of mites beset by rebelling prisoners.
The derro desperately tries to turn things around with a deep bite into Isabella's shoulder!
HIT
HIT
Who will finish it off?
Round II - bold may act!
1. Isabella (21/25hp, 1 nonlethal), Miaka
2. Derro (20 damage)
3. Grenda, Drystan
Isabella's off-target swing is swatted aside by the derro, but that opens space for Grenda's axe and Miaka's arrow to strike home! The derro falls dead at the Pathfinders feet and the heroes rush forward to help the rebelling prison guards and other captives. After a brief, desperate struggle, the fight is over.
Getting everyone left alive out is a process, although the mites help a bit before fleeing to who knows where. Grenda stays behind temporarily to pray at the Shrine of Groetus and pokes among the dead a bit, finding a pair of letters connecting the Aspis Consortium to the derro plots and describing future plans to raid other Cassomir institutions for abductions in the near future.
This foreshadows what greets the rest of the party as they lead the survivors back into the sunlight. The prison yard is full of corpses, mostly human, some sporting the ragged garb of the Nature's Cataclysm cult and some of the city constabulary. Nevertheless, it seems that the forces of order prevailed and the remaining prison clerics quickly take charge of the wounded. The captain seeks out the Society heroes and lets them know he found an odd note nailed to the chapel door.
Hestia,
You pathetic hag! Thanks to you and your Pathfinders, my assistant Nefti and I took one of Taldor's greatest treasures. Don't waste your time trying to track us, by now we sail on open waters, bound for a relic's auction. Thanks for making us incredibly rich.
The one who bested you,
Kafar
A subsequent visit to the chapel reveals that the bell is missing.
When all of this is reported to the VC, Hestia grows very irate and fumes loudly about her office. Eventually she calms down and thanks you for getting what people you could out alive, and then goes to make arrangements to prevent the planned future abductions--for certain this time.