Rohini has no doubts that whatever is responsible for this is undead... However, whether it is a creature or a haunt is another question to beg entirely.
Feeling the crushing weight above him already, the bard hardly notices the presence trying to invade him in a more spiritually horrific way until his face grows ice-cold.
Drovya joins Talon, scattering slender, elven bones like so much chaff as he hurls them aside trying to reach his friend. Hang on Haka! We're coming for you!
"Faster than you think," says the sorcerer, who gulps to summon some scant courage. Then, Kanthuun casts Gaseous Form on his person and dives in through the network of bones.
Unsure what else to do, Rohini will aid with the frantic digging, and await Kanthuun's report.
The sorcerer is treated to the sight of Haka being crushed but not immediately murdered beneath bone. He's an entire ten feet below and pinned down.
There is an opening not twenty feet beyond poor Haka. It is a complete alcove, large enough to hold the entire party if they reached it.
A hulking coiled beast with skin as pale as death that could only be a snake or a worm forms a ring around an orb of soul-light. Inside it is a dead child curled into a fetal position, floating about five feet above the uneven floor.
He is lithe and has dark skin, now greyed. There is no hair, but his vudrani features are still mostly intact.
Floating with him are gem shards, forming a perverse halo.
Kanthuun doesn't have that Knowledge, so he stays clear of the beast. Are the beast and child in that alcove?
...wait, if Kanthuun goes back up to the surface and casts Create Pit...can it reach Haka? Kanthya has a few Scrolls of CP left. There's little he can do if he solidifies in the alcove, as he will be further away than the rest of the party, save cast Message.
Yes, they are in that alcove. And as for the CP spell, that's an extradimensional pit, so it couldn't reach Haka normally. As a result, you'll need to make a DC 20 Spellcraft check to alter the spell. You do that and you'll get him.
Kanthuun floats up through the bonepile. "Everyone MOVE," he says with more than a hint of his intimidating charisma in his voice. Once they have, he unrolls a scroll of Create Pit. Concentrating mightily, his face and arms rippling with protean power, he reads the scroll, adding a few unusual flourishes.
Drovya moves.
Rohini too, of course. "What's going on!?"
As soon as the casting is complete, Kanthuun is free to speak, his brows unknitting. He spits out the words quickly.
"Haka's down 10 feet and pinned. Further in, there's a hollow with some creature; it has the gem shard and looks powerful. Get Haka, recover, kill creature. Some sort of necromancy going on. Unsurprising."
Well, that was succinct. Drovya peers into the pit.
Rohini nods and directs her voice towards the pit: "Can you hear us, Haka? We'll get you out!"
Kanthuun's pit behaved in a way that bended even the natural state of the spell, creating an actual hole. It ripped through the bones and revealed the battered-bloody-but-clearly-still-alive form of the bard.
Drovya tosses Rohini's rope down to Haka, whispering Quickly now, up you come. As soon as the halfling grabbed on, Drovya began to pull him up.
Haka looks up from the bottom of the bony pit, startled to have the crushing weight of the bones torn away. Seeing the rope drop down to him, Haka leaps to his feet and skimbles across the bones, saying "You don't have to tell me twice." He hangs on tight, touching the side of the pit with his feet only enough to keep his body from banging into the sides. As he reaches the lip of the pit and is pulled over the edge by his friends, he breathes a sigh of relief.
"Gods, thank you!" he exclaims, "I thought I'd die down there for sure, in the darkness, buried under bones. But I'm much better now." A small smile twitches up the corners of his mouth, and he can be heard to giggle quietly, "Tee-hee, hee-hee.""
He then turns to his companions and says, "Is anyone else hurt? Drovya, you lifted me pretty quickly, it seems you must be okay. Makes me wonder, how much do you think you could lift?" He swivels his head to Talon, lets out another quick giggle, and asks, "What about you, Talon? Can you lift more than Drovya? Can you lift Drovya?"
Haka, are you well? You seem a bit... off. No offense, but, well, you sound a bit like me sometimes... Drovya's hand floats down to rest on Black Ivan's hilt and soon enough the blade is out, almost of its own volition.
[b]"Seems fine to me. Yea I can lift for days."[\b]
Haka's grin widens at Drovya's inquiry, and the heavy-footed halfling begins to giggle again, though he chokes it off quickly and says, "Be serious, Drovya, 'course I'm well." He looks at Drovya's sword and then looks about, asking, "Do you see something we're supposed to fight? Are there particular things you like to fight? I say we fight our way back home. Don't you guys think we have enough of those crystals at this point?"
He considers a moment and says, "If we don't find them all, the whole journey's wasted, and we're pretty certain not to find every single shard, right? So maybe we should just pack it in while we can, eh?" He giggles again as he finishes making his suggestion, though it's unclear quite what he finds funny about it.
"Rohini, please take a look at Haka's...wounds. He's clearly injured," says Kanthuun. "There's still that snake or worm thing guarding the shard. It has a dead Vudrani child as well, just floating there. Who knows what it means; obviously something bad. It probably has mental powers...just a guess."
Rohini's eyes widen and her face hardens when Kanthuun refers to a dead Vudrani child , but she also realizes there is a more immediate task at hand and turns her attention to Haka. She approaches him and, in a soothing voice, says "Haka, let me take a look at your wounds. How traumatic it must have been buried under those bones with that horrible creature nearby. Did it say anything to you? It was talking to you before you got dragged down..."
Rohini will try to assess Haka's current condition and whether there is anything she can do to help.
Rohini will also draw her wands of CLW and protection from evil.
You don't want to get hit with her protection from evil wand, obviously. In fact, being possessed, you're ready to lie, cheat, and run as necessary, though unless you could get one of the party alone or they're sleeping, attack is out of the question.
You and Kanthuun are in agreement that Haka is off his rocker. He's also had his flesh a bit shredded from his adventure... but whatever is happening now is psychological or spiritual.
This, combined with your knowledge religion check from earlier leads you to believe this "dead vudrani child" is indeed responsible in some way. Your wand of Protection from Evil will come in handy, here.
Holding her wands aloft, Rohini says, "I can heal your injuries, Haka. And, in light of Kanthuun's comment, I think it would be prudent if we all received protection from evil." With that, Rohini will move to use both wands on Haka, and then the Protection wand on everybody else, and herself.
"Nah, it didn't really say anything," responds Haka, his eyes flicking back and forth. "I did get a bit crunched by all those bones, but I think I'm okay." He takes a casual-ish step away from Rohini and says to her, "What do you think, do we really need to collect any more of the shards? It seems we should probably head back, right?"
He then turns and begins to move back down the massive mountain of bones.
Drovya shakes his head sadly and casts true strike before grabbing onto Haka.
As soon as Drovya has Haka in hand, Rohini will cast protection from evil on Haka from the wand.
Kanthuun stands by grimly. "We have to detain or heal him, and then address the worm below. I imagine it's the thing responsible for his entrapment and lack of mental well being."
"What's going on? I feel like I missed something."
"Drovya, when you get him, tie him up, and then let's go kill this worm thing." Kanthuun is glowering like a thunderhead.
"Talon, we're going to go kill something. I'll make us invisible and insubstantial, we go in, we kill it, and with luck that makes Haka less crazy."
"Sure thing. But since when was Haka crazy? I mean more than normal."
Rohini swipes the wand of protection from evil towards Haka as he starts to move away, but the unsteadiness of the surface throws off Rohini's aim, and the slippery halfling is able to avoid contact with the wand.
Seeing Haka scurry away, Rohini says a silent prayer that Drovya will be able to catch the halfling and, hearing Kanthuun's plan, turns to the others: "Should I give you each protection from evil before you head down? Or is it actually better that I save it for use if one of you should fall under the creature's thrall?"
"I plan to cast Web, myself," says Kanthuun.
"Can someone explain what's going on? Did something possess Haka?"
"We don't know. Something has affected him and Haka."
"We'll take the wand dose as soon as we have a strike team assembled," says Kanthuun.
Rohini stands ready to use the wand of protection from evil on Haka once he is brought back, and to anyone else who wants it. "I'm not sure I follow the plan. How can we attack the creature in gaseous form? Can't we access the creature in corporeal form by descending into the pit Kanthuun created?"
"The creature is past the pit and in a separate hollow. Several of us would have to enter the hollow and re-incorporate. I would have to be one of them, and I'd say that Talon and Drovya should come as well. We can be fortified and ready to fight. Alternately, we dig our way down or draw it out, so that we face it together."