"So Vesoriana suggested, yes. They claimed the warden's spirit and loosed all those black horrors upon Ravengro without a care. We don't know why though. Perhaps there's something more in those books your father left? The ones we're to bear to Leipstadt?" Vala shrugs as she dabs at the corner of her mouth with her napkin before lowering it to her lap.
"We have an advantage: They don't know enough about us yet. They know that we're out here, because they... used the Professor to try to stop us, but all they know is that so far we have managed to survive everything that Harrowstone could throw at us and we've thwarted their minions, too," Constantin says.
"If they caught the spirit of the Warden, we need to track them down and liberate him. Who knows what they'll do with him?"
"Besides," says Constantin, meeting Hazel's gaze, "Who else is there?"
"So are the cultists of the Whispering Way," replies Constantin. "Angels have bigger problems."
Vala shakes her head, "They don't know anything about us, Constantin, not unless they left someone to watch the prison. They killed poor Petros and left with their prize - weeks before any of us arrived."
"Someone sent Petros here after his funeral, remember? So at the very least they were after Kendra, and maybe they knew about us, too."
Eyes downcast, pointedly NOT looking Kendra's way, Kazamir quietly says " I have not forgotten for a moment about the Professor's murderers. What they could want with such a spirit as the Wardens - I cannot begin to guess. But they must be brought to heel. Not only for Justice for Professor Lorimor. Not only to free the Warden from whatever suffering he still endures, to send him down the River of Souls as he ought to go. But because whatever reason they had to take the Warden - it cannot be to the benefit of the world. No. They cannot be permitted to go unopposed."
He looks around at his hostess and companions, his demeanor flint-hard. " Perhaps I think to far beyond the morrow. I hope, given what we have done, we shall be able to handle the Lopper. After that, I intend to honor the Professor's request, remain here the month, and then accompany our gracious hostess on to Liepstadt. But after that - Freinds, I hope at least some of you will join me in hunting down these misbegotten Whisperers!"
On a day that has swung dramatically between desperate, joyful, horrible and hopeful, thoughts of the Whispering Way are with you as you climb the stairs and retire for the evening.
Your footsteps fairly echo on the wooden floorboards as most of the furniture has been covered with dust clothes and most items packed away.
Determined to finish Harrowstone once and for all, the party are set on hunting down the Lopper and putting an end to him.
They return to the chamber with the four corridors, each with a brass name plate above. This time they turn to the north, through the corridor that is marked as "The Oubliette," an odd name you think given that the Splatterman's cellblock also contained an oubliette but did not bear the name.
The short corridor ends in another closed portcullis, through which you can see another cell block with multiple doors and a thick, closed trapdoor in the centre. A single iron door sits in the west wall.
The door to this guard room hangs slightly ajar. Zed nods to the others as he grasps the handle and bursts in, expecting anything.
Perhaps that is..... except what actually greets him.
Standing amid a few rickety chairs beside a rotten but serviceable table, stands a squat, broad, thickly boned skeleton standing less than five foot tall. For some reason it stands without a head and it's right hand loosely grasps a two-handed hammer almost as tall as itself. Angry flames wreath it's bones, fire spreading across it like some hungry creature.
Without a head, it does not appear to sense Zed's entry and simply stalks around the room. Once it turns to face him, however, it appears to somehow know he is there, hefting it's hammer with murderous intent and suddenly erupting into flame. The fire spreads all over it's form, charring the bones black but seemingly doing nothing to actually damage the headless undead.
Zed sees the headless creature and narrows his eyes. It's time for the last one to fall. Zed bolts into the room and raises a glowing hand, reaching out for the Lopper.
Seeing a skeleton burst into flame, Vala reasons that fire likely won't be a helpful aid in vanquishing this lingering foe and instead she sends a familiar needle-thin beam of white lancing toward their foe.
HP: 21/21
Negative Energy Resist 5
AC: 14 (10 T / 14 FF)
CMD: 12
F/R/W: +4/+1/+7 (+2 vs death effects, energy drain, negative energy, & necromancy)
Monstrous Insight used: 0/7
Wand of CLW: 14/50 remaining
Healing Hex targets:
Prepared spells
Orisons (4) | DC 14: dancing lights, disrupt undead, identify, read magic
Level 1 spells (2+1+1*) | DC 15: cure light wounds [ ] [ ], know the enemy* [ ], produce flame (CL3) [ ]
Level 2 spells (1+1+1*) | DC 16: spiritual weapon [ ], tongues [ ], ??? [ ]
Ongoing Effects
Constantin focuses and launches another concentrated psychic attack against the creature. Mindless or not, undead or not, he has the Will of the Dead behind his telepathic strike.
(DC 14 Will save for half)
Success
"Is THIS the lopper? I wouldn't expect the hammer.." Kaz calls out over the sound of licking flames.
Zed and Vala blast the burning skeleton with varying success and similarly whilst Constantin sends waves of psychic energy at the thing, Raj is unable to land a telling blow.
As the heroes move in they can feel the intense heat of the flames licking from the skeleton toward them.
Fail - 3 damage
Success - 2 damage
Fail - 3 damage
It then raises it's hammer and attempts to bring it down on Hazel's crown.
Miss
Zed feels the burning but knows he must weather it. With a stern gaze he brings up his tetsubo and cracks it down!
Kazamir steps through the doorway and moves south, out of the way (p31), and sends a pair of arcane bolts at the burning skeleton.
Constantin unhesitatingly steps close enough to use his longspear to assist Zed in his attack.
Despite the intense heat, the party surround the fiery skeleton and hammer it to pieces with a mixture of spell and weapons. It simply cannot defend itself against the volume of attacks and is dashed to pieces.
As it does so however, the necromantic bonds keeping the skeleton together rupture and the thing explodes in a cascade of flame!
The skeletal guard was carrying a masterwork warhammer etched with Dwarven runes.
Zed sighs as the creature falls. "That should be the end of this. Come, we have an unrestful spirit to talk to."
Raj looks hopefully down at his hand but finds that it is still just as horrifically deformed and fused as before.
"Apparently not. Let's get on with the Lopper," says Constantin.
A high-pitched voice, thick with gleeful madness calls out from the darkness in the cellblock north of you;
Awwww.... you just done for Boss Dwinhak? Shame, he always wanted to be the head warden one day. Get it? Hahahaha!
Kazamir is able to lean back out of the worst fo the flames, but still spends s few moments brushing the ash that was so recently his eyebrows off of the front of his coat.
He ignores the voice and turns his attention to the gears.
Though old, rusted and somewhat melted from the obviously intense heat that swept through this chamber, the gears still rotate, though groaning horribly in protest.
Outside, the portcullis rises slowly and in a shunting staccato.
Several iron doors line the walls of the large, empty room beyond the portcullis. In the middle of the room, a hinged ten-foot-square metal grating lies over a dark pit in the floor. A thick rope has been tied to the grating and dangles into the pit below.
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The grating of the metal on stone as the portcullis rises is almost tuneful. A fact obviously not lost on the Lopper who lies beyond somewhere.
The sound of the portcullis echoes through the corridors.
Above it all you start to hear that odd, ghostly voice from somewhere in the northern cellblock.
Ooooo! That almost sounds like a lively tune, doesn't it? I'm inspired to sing!
I'm gonna kill you today,
I'm gonna kill you toooo-daaaay!
I'm gonna lop your pretty heads off, gonna kill you todaaaaay!
The bottom of the pit is dark and so Rajuna can make out few details. There does appear to be a bundle of rags or perhaps clothing down there and there is the bright, white sheen of a skull.
Out of the gloom in the northern cellblock you begin to see a faintly shimmering image. It's a man. Tall and lean, topless but wearing the faded cotton pants of one of Harrowstone's prisoners. His eyes are two wide white pits and his mouth is impossibly big and wearing a grin that is almost literally ear to ear.
Ahhhh... new playmates! It's been so long I can't even remember my last one. Oh wait yes I can. Good old Officer Dwinhak there. He squealed about his mother as I sliced into his neck, urgh... what a bore.
That grin gets even wider, taking up his entire face.
And hey, no need for insults! he says to Rajuna.
Beside him is a massive axe, resting on it's head as if standing on some invisible table. It raises slowly and deliberately and he clutches it with obvious delight.
Zed lets his tetsubo drag along the ground. "I'm sorry for what's been done to you. Do not worry, you will be put to rest soon enough."
(+14 if it is a haunt)
"I'm not sure what it is...but it's not a haunt."
A grim smile, almost in answer to the Lopper's manic grin, spreads on the investigator's face.
"Which means we can fight it!"