Faengrim tries to steel himself and rid his heart of the fear.
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The animate dream barely notices Carmelia's slumber hex, but it can not ignore the damage done to it by her spiritual ally. It screams audibly, a haunting sound reminiscent of the death yowl of a housecat. Faengrim and Dantes join their captain in babbling meaninglessly as Carmelia fights on. The animate dream takes its aggressions out on the spiritual ally, only to find that its attacks pass harmlessly through the spirit.
negative energy
Carmelia clicks her tongue as her hex fails to take root and grumbles as her allies continue to stand there in their confusion. She knows, internally, that it's not their fault, but she wants to smack them to get them to: "Snap out of it, you lot! I can't do this on my own!"
One hex had failed, but she still had other tricks up her sleeve. If the others were able to manage to rouse themselves into usefulness, they would need to be able to hit. She fixes her eye--the one not covered by an eye patch--on the dream. The eye glows red and flashes.
The witch then begins chanting in a rough, sibilant tone full of harsh syllables and strange rhythms.
With her pattering pattern set up, she continues stepping to the side while her spiritual ally strikes out again.
Faengrim continues to do nothing.
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The animate dream looks deeply into Carmilia's eye and finds only fear; a fear that it has never felt before! Flanked by Chumooth and with the aid of Carmelia's hex, the spiritual ally is able to score two solid hits on the dream and this is followed by Chumtooth's harpoon disrupting its form further, as both Faengrim and Dantes stand about babbling. This time, the dream turns on Carmelia again, its incorporeal touch passing through armor like paper to brush her yielding flesh!
Status
Animate Dream: -68 hp, -4 AC for 9 rounds
negative energy
@#$% that hurt! Carmelia pants and grits her sharpened teeth as the animate dream turns its fury back on her. And with that look in Chumtooth's eyes, she was going to have to turn this around herself and hope that the boys didn't kill each other while she dealt with this threat.
"Afraid to die?" she says, licking her cracked lips. She taunts. "If I die, I can come back. If you die--poof."
The witch takes another step back, interposing her spiritual ally between herself and the animate nightmare. She balls her fist up and concentrates. Carmelia wasn't much for cosmological philosophy, but the dream was summoning negative energy from the Void at the center of the Shadow Plane. Its opposite was positive energy from the Furnace at the center of the Material Plane. And that Furnace was something that Carmelia had trained for a long time to access. It was useful. It was also nice to rub a holy person's smug face in the fact that she didn't need to ask a god for permission to do what she wanted to do.
Carmelia essentially erases the wounds inflicted on her--she's not quite back to normal, but she feels a hell of a lot better.
Meanwhile, her clacking spiritual ally continues its assault.
Faengrim goes after the scary monster
Mwk Greatsword:
If he can full attack
Mwk Greatsword:
Bite: magic, silver
Confirm Crit Bite: magic, silver
Confusion
In a fleeting instant of clarity, Dantes notes the creature causing the havoc amongst them. He draws a scroll from his backpack and recites the incantation before the next wave of enchantment washes over him. Four shards of arcane force fly from Dantes' outstretched hand at the creature.
Ready scroll of magic missiles, caster level 7. Damage .
Catching the motion out of the corner of his eye, Chumtooth reacts to the perceived threat and lashes out with his teeth.
Carmelia stutter-steps to the side as the group succeeds in overcoming the animate dream. She also tries to forget the image that haunted her at first, but it's probably clear to the men that something is bothering her.
Thankfully, the boys seem to be done standing around. Carmelia straightens up, gives an odd-looking salute to her spiritual ally before it disappears, and cracks her neck. "That was terrible," she says. "Are you lot back to yourselves now? Hopefully there's nothing more like that around here, but we can't take any more risks. Captain--" The witch waves her hand over the young kuru, who feels a bold spirit of descend upon him. "This should help you steel your mind as it did for Faengrim when we came back here. Then get out your magic weapons. Nothing that hasn't been enchanted will work against something like that, and even then it'll only be by half. Dantes--" she says, looking at the dwarf. "I don't know your spell book. Do you have anything prepared that will help us? Its attacks bypassed all of my defenses like they weren't there. And clearly our minds were unprepared for its spells. Anything to bolster our minds, protect us against ethereality, or allow us to strike more forcefully against such foes will be helpful."
An open question was why they had been attacked. Was it simply to feed? Or was the animate dream working with other forces? Carmelia hadn't cared to ask. Did they others wonder? Did they care? Ugh, it was mostly just good to distract herself from...
Chumtooth comes to his senses, and tastes fresh blood in his mouth. He looks around to see the bite wound on his officer's shoulder.
He accepts the spell from Carmelia, then turns to face Faengrim.
"I have wounded you in battle where you were my ally, not my enemy. I will accept your challenge, if you wish to claim your vengeance."
Chumtooth is not goading Faengrim into a fight at all. He is simply assuming that (most likely because it is how Kuru handle these matters) Faengrim will want to fight him and return the injury suffered, and perhaps a bit more to make certain his warrior's honor is not blemished.
Faengrim looks at his shoulder then back to his captain. "Challenge? I thought you were making an advance. I was concerned that that was a love bite." Faengrim gives his captain a shark-toothed smile.
Then again, the semi-flirtation measuring contest between Chumtooth and Faengrim makes for an even better distraction. "Do you two need a room?" she asks. "There are plenty around here. Some might even not be haunted."
"Interesting that its power only affected males. Perhaps a variant of a siren? It is good that we had such a strong female with us."
Chumtooth gives a few deep, gutteral guffaws at his officers' remarks. Since it is clear that no duel will result from the mishap, he turns his attention back to the matter at hand.
"If we are to claim this fortress, we will need to clear it of all threats, be they flesh or spirit. I do not like spirits, but I am glad my harpoon will harm them."
Carmelia snickers at Dantes and sticks her tongue out. "A lady would never kiss and tell."
Didn't Dantes know about outsiders? Surely he did, being a wizard of good salt.
"Exactly. Your harpoon is enchanted, and so it does something. There are spirits that can grant a weapon even more ability to interact with ethereal creatures, but my communion with them is...weaker, shall we say. I can cast one more spell like the one I did before, but then...well, I still have tricks."
She flexes her wrist, checking the others over briefly. There were injuries still, but not enough for her to channel. "Ready to head upstairs?"
If down is the direction, then down is the way we go.
Although it had not served her especially well in their last tangle, Carmelia checks the straps on her shield and takes up a rear position.
"Down. Not up," she says, correcting herself. "And I wasn't even confused in the last battle."
"Yes, we go down," Chumtooth replies with a nod.
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The stairs lead down to a room that is 15 feet wide and 25 feet long. The floors are dirt and the walls are worked stone. At the northern end of the room are three doors, one each on the right and left and one straight ahead. In each door is a tiny window, shuttered with a small door. On the eastern wall hangs a ring of three keys.
Carmelia's eyes flit around as they descend the stairs, wary for more danger, whether corporeal or incorporeal. Noting the keys, she first opens her vision to detect magic, slowly panning around the small room to see if there are any lingering auras. If there are anything worth finding her, mundane or natural, she would find it.
"A brig" Faengrim looks around the landing and in each window before going for the keys.
+2 Urban
"One part of this fort that needs no repair," Chumtooth remarks, giving a small nod.
Chumtooth glances around the cells for anything unusual that may have been overlooked.
"Seems safe enough," Carmelia says, nodding to Faengrim to try the keys. "At least nothing is trying to kill us yet."
An idea strikes her as she looks around, leaning on the southern wall. "I think it's worth figuring out what's going on here. The animate dream upstairs was an outsider, not an undead. They form when a powerful mortal dreamer wakes from a vivid dream and their consciousness lingers on the Ethereal Plane. They feed on the emotions of mortals like us, especially while we're asleep. It probably wouldn't have just been hanging around here if there was nothing to feed on. So there might be something else alive here."
She points towards the presumably empty cells. "That's just a guess, of course. But if we find someone alive and want to keep them that way, these cells could be useful."
Faengrim returns the keys to their post. [b]"Whatever is or isn't in those cells have waited this long. It can wait a bit more.
He starts down the secret passage.
Chumtooth moves into the passage just after Faengrim, his haroon ready to throw.
Carmelia's eyes light in surprise as she hits on a secret panel. She makes an inelegant flailing motion as she catches herself, grumbling unnecessarily harsh curses at the stones. She brushes her hair back down and straightens out her azure coat while Hap scrambles back onto her shoulders, having narrowly avoided falling off. He had almost begun snoozing while they were searching around.
<"Watch it,"> he burbles in his wordless language.
The pirate shrugs and continues on into the passage, remaining once more at the back while scanning ahead. "Maybe the living are hiding back here," she says, continuing her thought.
As her senses are flooded with magical auras, Carmelia's eyes widen. She had never been particularly adept with identifying the signatures of magical schools. That was more the purview of someone like Dantes. She lets her concentration on the orison fade and fishes into her bag for her lockpicks.
"Magic beyond," she whispers. "I don't know whether it's from a creature or an item. But be prepared either way."
It's not her best work, but she's at a level of expertise where little eludes her for long.
Carmelia stares forward as the door opens. A dead body. She wrinkles her nose and retrieves a handkerchief that she dabs in a bottle of camphor oil. This she holds up to her face to block the stench of decay and strides carefully forward, bending over the body.
Carmelia tilts her head as she looks down. "I think this man was quite literally scared to death. Perhaps by the dream that was slew. If so," she pats the man on the chest. "Consider yourself avenged."
Giving only a moment for respect, Carmelia tugs the diadem off the corpse's head and starts scrutinizing its auras.
She tosses the diadem towards Dantes. "Can't make sense of this. Maybe a proper wizard should try."
Then she takes a better look at the cloak.
Faengrim is less respectful of the body. He searches the body for any more loot before depositing him outside of the room.
Take 10 to Search for 28 total.
When she mentions the likely cause of death, Dantes nods and murmurs "He should have had a female with him."
Dantes takes the diadem from Carmelia and examines it.
Spellcraft
"Damn," Dantes mutters as he draws a scroll from his magical pack.
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The magic missiles slam into the ghostly figure and it sneers at Dantes. "It's all mine, and you can't have it!" The figure weaves its arms and mutters an arcane phrase, pointing at Dantes.
Faengrim, having switched to Zul after their last fight moves into position (accepting the AoO) and strikes out with it in both hands.
Zul (Trident): human bane, power attack, vital strike
[/spoiler]
Will save .
The dwarf's face seems to melt as everything that made Dantes fades from view. His expression is slack and blank.
Chumtooth moves into a flanking position on the spirit-thing and lunges with his harpoon.
plus
Carmelia smiles at Dantes' comment before she watches with growing horror as a specter approaches and curses the dwarven wizard.
She has no idea what just happened but watches Dantes' expression go slack. Chumtooth and Faengrim jump into action and Carmelia's face contorts in a rage.
"You dumb @#$%ing ghost, you can't use it anyway!"
She was prepared to fight incorporeal beings, but only so many in a day. And with Dantes laid low by whatever it had done, she would have to go hard. So be it. She gestures her free hand out and draws a glyph in mid-air while chanting. The glyph pulses and a jagged sabre coalesces in the remaining adjacent space next to the ghost, whereupon it attacks.
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The crew stabs and slashes at the ghost, inflicting some damage, but not nearly as much as could be expected. The specter merely responds with an arcane gesture and suddenly, the entire room is suddenly plunged into utter darkness, your light spells and light sources extinguished.
STATUS
Dantes Feebleminded
Ghost -28 hp