Essa comes to Tane's rescue, her oversized club bringing a swift and brutal end to the big bug's life.
"Tane!" Selene rushes in to fight the bug off of him, swinging her morning star.
For once, Selene arrives too late to kill the largest beetle she has ever seen.
But she can heal Tane, quickly.
Tane screams when the oversized bug goes to town on his leg.
Once the Essa utterly demolishes the beetle Tane crumples to the floor, dropping his morning star. He grabs his leg as the blood pumps from it and groans.
"Gah. Oh man, he got me good. Am I going to die? Don't let me die from a bug. I HATE bugs."
"How are you still even awake after taking so many horrible falls into the pits?" Selene asks as she weaves a curing spell onto Tane.
Selene's curing magic is just enough to mend the flesh and bones, leaving only a pale scar where the gaping wound was on Tane's leg.
His trouser's leg is shredded, his boot is full of his own blood and some ichor from the beetle, but Tane won't complain, probably.
You realise there's a rotting human corpse near you...
A door is on the south side of the wall, and the descending stairs are blocked by rubble
Mayla would move in putting a hand to her mouth at seeing Tane's clothing and such covered in blood and ichor but she manages to hold her stomach. Looking at the corpse she would try to see if she could identify who it was.
Then she would search the room for something to cover him up with after searching his body carefully.
The corpse is too badly burned by acid to be recognised, unfortunatly.
It was a man, it's all Malya can know.
Tane starts to calm down after he's healed. He takes several more quick breaths and rubs his body where his wound was previously. He looks up slowly to Selene and says thankfully, "What would I do with out you?"
He climbs to his feet and tests out his legs which seem to working just fine. He picks his morningstar back up and clears his throat. He joins Malya and asks hesitantly, "Is that, his uh, sister?"
Turning back to Selene he adds, "Did Roldare say why he and his sister are here anyway?
Helping Tane to his feet with a fading worried smile, "Roldare did not go as far to mention why anyone including himself were here, but I think we can guess that they intended to head us off and ensure the trial was not too dangerous. Unfortunately something or things beat them here, and turned good intentions into tragedy."
Not terrible quick witted, Essa does a mental 'Ahhhhh' When Selene explains about the people trying to make the trial safer. The pits, and pillows and so forth.
She felt terrible that innocent townspeople were risking their lives to make it easier for them, when they were more than capable of handling the quest. At least she felt so.
Essa examines the giant bug guts out of professional curiosity. Seeing Tane up and walking again, she gathers close with her light and listens to the conversation.
"I concure with Selene. It does look like they were making it safer. But it looks like something woke up the dead. No this is male. The acid has made him unrecognisable. I can't identify him."
She would cover him and moves the body to one side.
Looking over to Malya, "Does the man have any possessions on him? Perhaps something that would identify him?"
Tane looks around the room and thinks aloud. "Hmmm. Anything here to suggest that his sister came this way? I would think that with this beetle in the way perhaps she went another direction? There's a door and stairs here, but we had a doorway outside this hallway and also there was that other door in the main entrance area when we entered the crypt."
"This quest is filled with disasters, since the beggining everything has gone wrong." Enev comments, he is feeling sad and some of the food they had before is revolting on his stomach just by looking at the burned corpse, he can not understand why all this bad things happen to the good people of Kassen.
Tane tries his best to cheer up the paladin.
Tane slaps Enev on the back and chuckles, "Aw c'mon buddy, it brought you ME didn't it? If I wasn't here, who else is going to be falling down pits and getting chewed up? Eh?"
"You got a nice scar to show off" Enev replies with a jealous tone.
"Let's keep the search organized. We finish searching this level before we go down. Let's try this door and make our way back to the entrance going through each door as we come upon it. We have to find these shields and the key I believe."
Tane nods and hesitantly heads to the southern door. Once all are ready he will take a deep breath and open the door slowly and take a look around.
Essa keeps close along with Roguk. They snack here and there, and make sure everyone stays safe. She uses her club to provide light as needed, and she and Roguk try to spot or smell anything dangerous. Essa will speak in (superstitious) hushed tones, in case skeletons hear them.
Selene will be right behind tane to provide him a light source
This room is bigger, but there's not much more light.
A small fire, in the center of the room, smolders with a heavy and harsh smoke.
It seems to be fed by a mix of debris, burning gear,and some bones, making your throats sore.
The dying fire gives a feeble, flickering light across the walls of the room,partially obscured by the veil of smoke.
Tane coughs and covers his mouth. He chokes out a reply to the group, "This smoke is heavy, can any of you put it out? I'm going to look around."
Tane moves around with his morningstar, looking for any signs of trouble.
The bard tries to figure what is this strange thing, near Essa. Spooked, he aims and lets an arrow fly
Beware Essa! Just behind you!
He's pretty sure that the arrow hitted.
So why did it go through the thing? Could it be just some more smoke?
Whatever it is, something (a tendril? an arm?) touches the druidess. She feels suddenly all the weight of her massive flaming club, and a kind of cold burning in all her muscles.
Essa screams as something touches her and she feels the cold grip of death. "There is something here in the darkness, it grabbed me."
Essa feels woozy, the strength loss was a lot and she struggles to to keep from fainting.
She tries to swing her club at the creature.
"I think I will be sick..."
Malya shudders trying to catch sight of what it was.
Calling on the power of her ring since she didn't want to hit anyone else and would target the creature with a magic missile if she saw it.
Malya sees the creature, looming over Essa, and unleashes a Magic Missile that seems to hit and hurt whatever foul thing it might be.
Enev realises this is a shadow, a creature made of..well, shadow. He has no idea about how to fight it,even if it seems to be hurt by Malya's spell. For what he remembers from Father Prasst lessons, this is a terryfying undead, eating the strenght of the living.
If only the book given to him by Father Prasst had some information on undead... But no, Aerastus's work only teaches the reader about gods and their servants
Enev:
Lay Brother Bekhyl, who's not used to walk quickly, pants a littleSorry, Father Prasst gave me a book for you, but I forgot to deliver it, with all the trial and everything around...Here it is. Beware, its quite an old tome. Some of the pages are still stuck together, but with care and attention you can separate them...
The young man gives the book with care and respect, maybe a little awe and envy too. Enev feels his deep and unending love for old writings, especially religious ones. And the lay brother is quite talkative about books...
Its a copy of Aerastus's "Of gods and faithfuls", one of the most complete work about theology ever wrote on Golarion. Of course the articles about Erastil are the greatest, as Aerastus was one of our faithful, two centuries and an half ago. His family, generation after generation, took on the holy task to write the articles on the newest gods, so part of the book is quite recent. But there is very old prayers too inside... I hope you will take care of it. Sorry, I didn't want to sound rude, Enev. It's just... Could you lend it to me when you come back? Please?
"Get out of the room, this is a shadow...I don't know if we can hurt it with physical weapons, maybe magic can do it." Enev warns the others.
He doesn't understand what is happening in the smoke filled room. Confused Tane shouts, "What's wrong with your shadow? Why are you attacking your shadow with weapons? Enev man, what are you blurting out? Hold on, I'm going to try and stop this smoke."
Tane douses a blanket with a canteen of water and moves to the fire and drops it on top it in the hopes of stopping the smoke so he can see.
While dropping the blanket on the source of the smoke Tane inhales an incredible amount of the fumes and starts hacking and choking, barely able to breath.
Tane is sick with the heavy smoke, coughing and spitting. He can't see much, because his eyes are full of tears. But the wet blanket slowly does his job.
Unsure of what is happening, Selene moves to exit the room, unable to do anything but gag and heave from the smoke.
The shadow turns its attention to Malya, as she wounded it with magic.
Takeshi is sickened by the smoke, and can't catch his breath... Singers and cinders don't mix well.
:
Essa stands and feels sick from the smoke. She moves to try and protect Malya from the shadow though. "Watch out, it will steal your strength!" Trying to distract it, but unable to do anything really other than move coughing and choking and gagging. She also makes sure Roguk doesn't come into the room.
Enev tries hitting the shadow with his sword,
There is too much smoke to focus...
Selene continues to struggle with the smoke in round 2
Mayla cursed as it seemed to look at her. Taking a step back. "Everyone get out of there and down, I am going to try to hit it with fire." She said waiting for everyone to do just that. She didn't have much strength so this was bad so she clasped her hands together and activated her Lotus Shield.
+1 Deflection AC For anyone within 10ft.
She went into a defensive stance to dodge it.
Total Defense
AC Touch 14
Esssa's massive club has done nothing to the shadow, passing throught it as if it wasn't there.
the undead misses Malya, fortunately
"Care... *cough* friends! *cough* Takeshi tries to cough but has toruble keeping the contents of his stomach inside.
"Look out!" Essa shouts as the shadow takes a swipe at Malya. She steps to the side as Malya instructs before unleashing her fire. Essa ponders, once she can get a good solid breath, she will be able to cast. For now she can scarcely breathe.
As Tane does his best to extinguish the fire, more smoke follows
Takeshi is caught by another coughing fit, and Essa has difficulty to breath. Enev succumbs too to the smoke, his lungs in fire.
Only Selene, who walked out of the room, is safe.
Mayla after putting up the shield will move out to where Selene is gagging not able to be of any use anymore. Still Total defense!
Essa will stumble from the room as well as the situation appears hopeless.