Farrukh stumbles as he tries to cover his body from the fire, and takes the full brunt of its power.
Upon hearing Zalamandra's warning he curses and tries to do what he can with the other wizard blocking his path.
He rushes forward and slams the Vecnan in front of the door with his shield, hoping to knock him back into his master.
He moves with them as far as he can.
Farrukh charges. The ghostly eye swivels to face him, and the hand barely makes it in time to knock the shield back.
Astraden quickly slides around the mechanisms Ayna pointed out. She runs into the room.
Hearing Lady Z’s warning, Tanith springs into heroic action. With a fearsome roar, the Kordite swings past the nearer cultist for the leader behind him.
Tanith hacks into the Faceless One, who takes the bloody blow without the slightest sound. He sniffs as the magical energies dissipate. "Ty...typical Kordian cowardisse when fasthed with the unknown."
Babble (Su)
An allip constantly mutters to itself, creating a hypnotic effect. All sane creatures within 60 feet of the allip must succeed at a DC 15 Will save or be fascinated for 2d4 rounds. While a target is fascinated, the allip can approach it without breaking the effect, but an attack by the allip does end the effect. Creatures that successfully save cannot be affected by the same allip's babble for 24 hours. This is a sonic, mind-affecting compulsion effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Cuetzpalli remains stuck in the webbing, cursing a red streak in the Olman tongue. Spiny thrashes instinctively against the oily hands reaching out from the pillar to grip his leg. The dinosaur rips the limb free and steps away from the pillars, growling.
Spiny struggles mightily, but can't escape the grasping pillar. The tar hand stretches, but the more Spiny sinks his teeth into it, the more the dinosaur starts to realize the tar is just using the leverage to wrap around his throat and establish a tighter hold.
Though Zalamandra and Eben's attacks badly wear at the allip's form, the babbling spirit seems to grow slightly larger, and clearer, when it touches the mind of Spiny.
The remaining cultists glance over, confused at the foul-mouthed voice apparently coming from their altar.
The Faceless One sniffs, closing the door. "Pardon me."
From behind the door, more arcane syllables are heard—though too faint to make out from Zalamandra's position.
Meanwhile, the allip drifts away, fading through the wall and out of sight.
A moment later, it reemerges behind Zalamandra. It lashes out at her from behind.
The last wizard with a scroll takes aim at Farrukh again. "Die! Die!"
The blast is particularly fierce this time, ripping into the unlucky slayer. Yet, when the smoke clears, he's still standing. Barely.
"Why won't you die?!" The wizard hurries back against the wall, casting away the scroll-turned-ash.
The other wizard snarls, limping to the side and weaving his hands in complex gestures. As he casts, he tries to keep up his guard...
...but in doing so, he forgets a key gesture, and the spell collapses. He looks at his hands, blanching. "Damn."
"Astraden! Could use a little help over here..." Farrukh coughs, the effort of yelling taking a lot out of him.
Noting Farrukh's charred form, Tanith recognizes that he has to help the honorless fool. He prays for Kord's favor once more and lays a meaty hand on the ranger's shoulder.
"Go get that Faceless bastard. No dying allowed. I still owe you an ass-kicking."
Taking a step forward, the big Kordite grabs the door's handle and wrenches it open.
Farrukh coughs again and exhales some smoke, but is feeling a lot better after Tanith's healing.
"Thanks."
Saluting Tanith, he marches off to his doom hopefully foil whatever diabolical magic the Faceless One is attempting.
Seeing the spirit thing within his reach, Cuetzpalli lashes out at it with his axe. The webbing holding him in place, and the corner get in the way and his attack misses.
Spiny continues to struggle vainly against the pillar-hands.
Astraden moves to the door and opens it.
The allip's madness doesn't seem to faze Zalamandra at all. Thank the gods for that resistance spell...
"Oh, please. I've had to put up with the professor's bulls**t for years--you'll have to do better than that." Zalamandra rolls her eyes and starts defensively casting a spell...
She barely manages to finish the spell, her bravado not really helping her case.
She extends her palm again, sending three more bolts of force into the allip.
"Hey! No making the boss crazy! The Emporium is weird enough as is!" Eben shouts as he strings another arrow, trying to avoid the web-covered form of Cuetzpalli as he fires.
His first shot gets hung up on a webbing strand. "How is this stuff still annoying when I'm not stuck in it?" he wonders out loud as he launches a second arrow.
He grimaces, not satisfied with the grazing shot, and wearies himself just a little more by digging deep to find the energy for another quick shot.
Astraden waves at the allip when she sees Zalamandra's predicament. "Hello friend, I ask that you / pay attention to me and what I will do."
The allip bears the vicious peppering of magic arrows and missiles (and apparently poetry), letting out a confused warble. It starts to retreat back into the wall, and is halfway in—
And Cuetzpalli swings his axe straight down, cutting through web and splitting the mad spirit clean in two.
It only lets out a sigh as it fades away. Cuetzpalli notices, out of the corner of his eye, a little rune being added to the axe's blade.
Farrukh coughs again and exhales some smoke, but is feeling a lot better after Tanith's healing.
"Thanks."
Saluting Tanith, he marches off to
his doomhopefully foil whatever diabolical magic the Faceless One is attempting.1d20+8
Various magics are swirling around the Faceless One now, and they block Farrukh's attack.
To the left, Farrukh can see the Faceless One's Laboratory.
Two long, wooden tables dominate this chamber. They run along the length of the room, pushed up against opposite walls, and are covered with a variety of beakers, alchemical tools, and other devices—including two shortswords. A few glass containers bubble with materials of a variety of colors, from a boiling green sludge to a fizzing, effervescent blue liquid. Several bookshelves filled with tomes occupy one section of the wall. In the middle of the chamber stands a large, black iron cauldron. A thick layer of wax seals it shut.
Beside the shelves stand two horrific displays. In the far corner lies a pile of decaying human hands, from what must have been hundreds of victims. Nearby lies an equally large pile of eyeballs.
To Farrukh's shock, he realizes the latter pile is slowly oozing towards him.
The Faceless One gives a cold laugh, tattooed left hand glowing bright. "Have you sseen enough?"
His hand emits twin serpentine rays, which writhe through the air to strike Farrukh's eyes. He feels his vision clouding...
Meanwhile, one of the acolytes steps away and again tries to defensively cast...
...and this time succeeds. He twirls his dagger, and it starts to glow, reflecting numerous colors in a blast of painful flashing at Tanith and Farrukh.
The other acolyte rushes over, drawing and drinking a potion as he goes. His eyes turn bright orange as he looks around with a hint of fresh understanding. He shouts something in a shuddering, sibilant tongue.
Apparently understanding, the other wizard draws a scroll from his belt.
Zalamandra smirks as the allip is destroyed. As the wizard tries to unroll his scroll, she turns and fixes the acolyte with her trademark cat smile.
It promptly turns vicious as she calls out in their language and points at the acolyte.
A red, flaming ray leaps from her finger, arcing toward the wizard...
Once her ray is fired, she attempts to move out of the web.
With disastrous results.
Eben sighs in relief as the allip goes... wherever insane spirits go when they 'die'. Turning his attention to the rest of the room, he catches the interaction between the two cultists, and while it's all Celestial to him, the implications of one guy shouting orders and the other pulling out a scroll in response aren't lost on him.
"Not if I can help it!" he says, firing a pair of shots at the scroll-waving cultist.
Shaking off the blast of dazzling colors, Tanith punishes the farther caster with a mighty swipe of his heavy poleaxe.
Zalamandra purges the scrollwielder as Eben shoots down the other acolyte with one well-placed arrow. His second arrow bounces off of the wizard's extensive shielding, however.
Farrukh sighs, no longer even surprised by his string of bad luck.
Seeing the other lesser cultists gunned down by his comrades, Tanith turns north and chases after their faceless master. Dropping his poleaxe along the way, the big man lunges for the masked spellcaster.
"That's enough out of you. Your Triad's through in Diamond Lake!"
"Hey, there's a nasty blob...thing made of eyes and hands that's probably gonna try to kill us in the next 20 seconds or so!"
"Also, I'm blind!"
Tanith tackles the Faceless One, who snarls in indignation. "You've gotten in my way for the lassth time, Kordian."
"Big talk for a man with no face! Say Uncle and I might go easy on you."
Eben is more than a little surprised that one arrow was enough to take one of the wizards down, but not so much that he won't roll with it.
"Dangle the Faceless One over the eyeball blob and see if that won't get it to simmer down!" he shouts to the next room as a suggestion.
Astraden steps out into the central hall, letting the emptiness claw at her psyche but not succumbing. She focuses on one hand, and tiny motes of light begin to collect around it, discharging little violet crackles now and then. When the energy seems to have reached its height, she charges for Farrukh and discharges the spell, sending a hefty flow of healing energy through his veins.
"Light for light can heal pain / though it's of no use when blinded or insane." She struggles with the bulging hands. "This is lame!"
One of the darkest rituals sacred to the Vecnans is The Making, where hundreds of hands and eyes are cut and plucked from living victims and, under certain planar and celestial conjunctions, animated into two deadly constructs. It is said that the Hand and the Eye can only be given life with direct intervention from Vecna, or in a location the Archlich spent time in during his foul living existence.
If the latter were achieved, the planar and celestial conjunctions could perhaps be circumvented, though at a great cost—it's likely only one of the pair could be animated, and it would be much frailer than normal.
The Eye is similar to a flesh golem, being immune to most magic and hard to hurt with non-adamantine weapons. It's said to possess a massive "head-eye", taken from a giant or eye tyrant, that can sap the life force from its opponents.
Zalamandra's face finally turns white with fear.
"...everyone, the Faceless One might be the least of our problems. What Farrukh just described is a creature called The Eye--a flesh golem of sorts made from the eyes of hundreds of living victims. It's immune to most magic and difficult to damage with non-adamantine weapons, and it's also packing a massive 'head-eye' that can sap your life force." She says.
"In other words--KILL THAT F**KING EYE-BEAST BEFORE IT GETS GOING!"
She swore. She must be serious.