"Heal up, form up, and let's move on. It will attack again if that chanting is what we think it is."
"Alright let's move! If they finish they'll probably summon another devil or something. I'd rather finish killing this one before we have to deal with another." Arani says as she quickly moves in the direction of the sound, waiting just long enough for someone to shine a torch or other light source.
"Yeah, let's move with purpose," Dom says, gripping his sword.[i] Hopefully our next foes stay visible long enough to taste steel.
"All right, form up and let's go."
"Use the cover. Stand next to each other. Let's go carefully."
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SEALED DOORS AND SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
A pair of immense iron doors stands closed here. A short message has been written onto the doors in precise script, along with a symbol of an armored fish--the mark of the Hellknight Order of the Torrent.
“These doors sealed by the Order of the Torrent; all holdings within awaiting arbitration. Lady of Graves, have mercy on the souls of those who perished within, and may the Guildmasters of the Gray Spiders burn for their sins.”
The ceiling of this long chamber rises to a height of twenty feet overhead, the shallow vaulting supported by stone pillars. Significant sections of the walls and floors have been inscribed with etchings of tiny letters, while statue-filled alcoves stand guard along the walls. Each of these statues is made of stone and depicts a feminine figure, although the details seem more like they were formed in clay that was allowed to harden rather than carved directly from rock. The westernmost statues depict the woman as a beautiful winged figure, while the easternmost depict her as skeletal, with the middle statues depicting a transition between the two forms. To the east, a stage supports a stone altar presided over by a seventh statue of the same feminine form, her right half skeletal and her left half beautiful.
Two beings are also present. In the center of the chamber stands the barbazu you battled earlier. He looks a bit battered but is still noticeably healed from when Arani put an arrow deep into its chest. Beyond the devil, near the edge of the altar, stands a female figure. Her most notable feature is the amber-and-jade mask of the same goddess depicted in the statues (the living version, not the skeletal one), though she also dons a chain shirt and a snappy blue cloak. Around her neck hangs a holy symbol similar to the one found on the bigger faceless stalker, but this one is golden.
"Step forward if you wish to negotiate," the woman calls out. The devil stands ready to let its glaive do the talking if negotiations break down.
The statues depict Mahathallah, as does the priestess's mask.
"Oh, now we're talking? Seemed to me your friends in the other room made their point with their knives. For all the good it did them..." Dom scans the room, trying to suss out any traps, illusions, hidden adversaries, any of the many tricks these foes have shown so far.
Staring down the devil and itching for a fight, Viro nonetheless knows full well his sword should be his last option, not his first. He steps forward but doesn't leave the cluster of the group. His voice booms out from his visored helmet.
"We've already slain your cult after they attacked us without warning, and sent your devil fleeing back to you. What exactly are the negotiations you are offering?"
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
"YOU invaded OUR sanctum without cause!" the masked woman hisses in reply to the words of Dom and Viroleth.
Dom detects nothing particularly out-of-place, but all of the eight pillars in the room are probably wide enough for a slim changeling to use as cover.
Falina let the illusion end when they got near to the chanting. They needed to know where they were and what was around them. It was around that time that she heard the cultist speaking to Dom and Falina considered how they could deal with her. She suspected that there would be no peaceful resolution to this turn of events but it had to be tried.
Expecting to be prepared and wanting to be ready for the attack Falina loosened her whip from about her waist and shook it out in case the fighting started and began to look for enemies that might be nearby in hiding.
"Sanctum...lair...site of some twisted ritual...makes no difference really....you are a part of what is wrong with this city, and we aim to fix it." Arani says icily.
"What she said," Dom nods his head toward Arani. "Don't play the how-dare-you-we're-not-doing-anything act here, it insults us all."
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Viro groans. "It wasn't exactly clearly marked. You didn't have gate guards. You had a few faceless stalkers who tried to eat our faces, some changelings who tried to eat our faces, and then increasing evidence of a spooky cult to your goddess of esoteric nonsense under the streets of our city which only begged further investigation. What did you expect us to do? You're asking for negotiations, what are your terms? What do you want from us?"
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"This has been given to us by the "rightful" law of this city. I'm afraid you'll have to go. Please move along. We have some cleaning to do." Davina sniffs as if the very air stinks to her.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
The cult leader's spiffy mask makes her intentions difficult to read. When she suddenly casts a spell, surrounding the party with a cold, dark cloud for little more than an instant, however, it's clear that there'll be no peaceful resolution. Sharp pain ensues when the mist touches skin...especially so for the good-aligned in the group. When the mist clears, a second copy of the woman stands on the altar, identical in all ways to the first. The devil steps up and hacks savagely at Dom, hitting solidly and leaving a wound that bleeds profusely .
Quick Note: I remembered this time to make a CL check against T'chazzar's SR; the priestess succeeded on it.
Successful Save: You take 6 points of damage.
Unsuccessful Save: You take 13 points of damage and are sickened for 2 rounds.
Successful Save: You take 3 points of damage.
Unsuccessful Save: You take 6 points of damage.
The priestess cast unholy blight.
for
Arani grits her teeth at the pain of the mist touching her skin, but otherwise shakes off the worst of it, responding by firing a pair of arrows at the woman.
T'chazzar is, of course, useless as always.
However, Viro is super great.
He doubles over in the horrific mist but manages to fight through the worst of it before looking over the fight and trying to decide between the devil and the priestess. But as a cleric of Ragathiel, beating up a devil just makes sense. Realizing there is still a protection from evil spell active, he tries to be clever.
Holding up his holy symbol, a large ringing sound starts to fill the room before the devil's glaive begins to vibrate wildly.
Dom's fury at the woman will have to wait. "You'll get yours in a sec, miss." As he step inside the glaive's range, he says, "But first, the big guy and I have business."
As the mithral knife rips the devil's side, he smirks, "Now that, that sucks."
Falina felt the dark cloud gather around them and while it burned she could already tell it was likely something alignment based, probably evil? It didn't hurt her as much as it obviously did her companions. Beyond that she had no clue what the spell was but it was certainly a nasty piece of work. Knowing that she needed to get in there and help since the b%+#@ in the back couldn't hurt her as bad with at least some of her magic Falina said a few words and vanished from sight before she started to make her way through her allies with whip in hand.
Davina grunts as she takes damage. "Ouch that was rude." She studies her target of the devil.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
The Silver Ravens respond to the treacherous attacks of their foes! Arani's first arrow eliminates the priestess's copycat image; the second takes the woman in the shoulder for decent damage. Dom makes some brief comment to the devil in Infernal but then his dagger speaks volumes, tearing a wide, deep gash in the outsider's side.
Viro's spell fails to shatter the devil's weapon, so T'chazzar steps up and uses his lay on hands ability to stop Dom's bleeding and heal the half-orc up a bit .
Davina and Falina go the tactical route, the aasimar moving south while the tiefling secretly goes east under the effect of a vanish spell.
RAW for studied target: A slayer can only maintain these bonuses against one opponent at a time; these bonuses remain in effect until either the opponent is dead or the slayer studies a new target.
Since you haven't used studied target since the first encounter with the devil--and not a lot of time has passed in-game--I'd say whatever conclusions about how to attack the devil you made a few minutes ago are still valid and active now, so feel free to add another action.
I repositioned your token on the map. As you moved east along the wall, you suddenly and unexpectedly bumped into another invisible being. You're pretty sure you felt a net during the contact, so it's likely an invisible changeling cultist. I couldn't find any definitive rule for such a situation, so I'm gonna rule your progress stopped. Since you still had some movement left, I'm gonna roll a random open square for Falina to move into, so the invisible cultist doesn't automatically know what square she's in. (I moved you back one square toward Viroleth; the dice have also decreed that the invisible changeling's lost track of your position.)
At this point, a pair of invisible changelings reveal themselves when they throw nets at Davina and Arani. Davina's foe grimaces as her net lands at the aasimar's feet; Arani, however, is snagged by the net hurled by the changeling who previously slipped away. Still showing signs of damage from the previous encounter, this cultist nevertheless closes on the entangled archer with her claws bared.
The priestess casts another spell, this one with garbled words and jerky motions. All the Silver Ravens save Davina feel a magical compulsion trying to worm its way into their minds....
Lastly, the devil steps back and hacks savagely at Dom...twice! The first misses, but the half-orc can't dodge the second. Again blood spurts as the glaive's blade pulls free from the wound .
I HATE this spell, but...it's in the AP so I'm running with it this once. Anyone affected by confusion must initially roll a 1d100 and consult the table in the spell's description. Note that once a victim attacks another confused character, they exclusively attack that target, often resulting in a nasty extended one-on-one battle.
Good luck on those saves!
for condition: entangled
for condition: entangled
for
for
Since he's already put away one of his swords to help Dom, T'chazzar continues to channel healing power into the half-orc.
She takes a step forward and stabs at the Devil.
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Viro's eyes stare vacantly around him and he starts jabbering to himself.
"Have you ever had a dream that that you um you had you'd you would you could you'd do you wi you wants you you could do so you you'd do you could you you want you want him to do you so much you could do anything?"
Emboldened by Davina's approach, Dom steps forward, a grimly determined smile on his face. Looking for a sweet spot, he drives his dagger into a place that would be between the ribs of a human.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
Although Dom's a bloody mess (before T'chazzar's second lay on hands), he follows up Davina's rapier stab with one from his mithral dagger. The devil's glaive clatters to the floor, and an instant later his body thumps down as well, loud enough to temporarily drown out poor Viroleth's babbling.
"So then...
Dom straightens up out of the crouch from which he'd delivered his attack on the devil. It hurts something awful, but that seems to be his lot in life, making a bloody mess of himself fighting fiends.
"...let's talk about our counter-proposal." He glares menacingly at the priestess.
Arani moves to struggle to free herself, before freezing, incoherent babble coming from behind her mask.
Falina stumbled back after running into the invisible cultist and called out, "One along north wall!" She then began to move so she wasn't near where her voice had come from. She moved quite a ways, heading down towards the center of the room and over to within striking distance of her whip on the lead cultist. If that b$!#$ tried to cast a spell again she was in for a rude surprise.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
Arani, caught in a net, finds her situation slide from annoying to precarious as the priestess's spell temporarily turns her mind to mush. Her babbling adds to that of Viroleth, a combined kooky chorus.
Meanwhile, Falina (after calling out a warning about a third invisible cultist in the room) sneaks forward, soon to surprise the unsuspecting priestess (she hopes!). The two other changelings bare their claws, attacking Arani and Davina. Each scores one savage hit; Davina's barely able to roll with the blow but the netted Arani is unable to twist away .
The masked priestess chants some more, but there's no visual confirmation of any effect...yet.
She cast a summon monster spell.
for
for
for
for
for
for
Davina turns and studies the changeling who attached her as her target, and then attacks her.
Still caught up in the mind befuddling spell, Aranilats go of her bow, drawing the short sword across her lower back and stabbing fiercely at the changeling that just wounded her.
Knife still in hand, Dom hustles over to the priestess, the better to shank her if she tries anything funny.
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Viro's eyes go wide and he lets out a shriek before he starts swinging at T'chazzar. "A DROW! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"
T'chazzar pushes Viroleth away, then vomits on him. Then he stumbles over to stab half-heartedly at the cultist adjacent to Arani.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
Arani and Davina score hits on their respective foes, leaving both women sorely wounded. Viroleth connects solidly with T'chazzar, the confusion spell making him believe the drow paladin to be an enemy. T'chazzar's subsequent attack on Arani's foe misses the mark.
Meanwhile, Dom takes the fight to the greatest remaining threat: the priestess atop the altar across the room. As he nears the woman, he bumps lightly into an invisible form, likely either Falina or the last invisible cultist.
Davina attacks the changeling next to her again.
Shifting to the side after Dom moved in her way Falina prepared to lash out at the leader of the cultists if she tried to cast another spell.
RUINS OF THE LUCKY BONES {SHRINE TO MAHATHALLAH} (26 Gozran)
The remaining cultists keep slashing at Arani and Davina with their claws. Again, each scores one hit . A net settles over Dom's head as the invisible cultist finally reveals her position in the middle of the altar.
Falina tries to disrupt the priestess's next spell with a snap of her whip, but the attack misses and the evil woman finishes her spell; with a wave of her hand, she causes another mirror image of herself to appear to confuse her opponents. Perhaps contributing to Falina's miss is the sudden appearance of a spiky giant wasp with a reddish tint to its exoskeleton that materializes behind Dom. A bit of luck finally favors the party as the (mostly) mindless summoned creature tries to sting the changeling next to Dom instead of targeting the half-orc; its stinger barely misses the woman.
The priestess cast divine favor on herself.
for
for
for
for
for condition: entangled
for
Falina didn't like the sudden presence of the wasp that appeared but was relieved to see it sting the changeling that had recently appeared. Deciding that defense was preferable with the thing so close to her Falina cast a spell and when she was done three more of her weaved in and out of herself and each other to confuse anyone trying to hit her.
Viro stares as he realizes he attacked T'chazzar. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?! RAGATHIEL FORGIVE ME!!!"
Davina moves closer to the action careful not to get into the range of the flying wasp.