Round 4
Two Blades moves in and waits for Sab'Sera to flank.
Yen Jinsa moevs in and casts shield.
Sab'Sera moves in, triggering Two Blades' readied action. He sinks his rapier into the ghoul, who howls in rage.
[b]Sab'Sera continues, slipping in and stabbing the creature again. It falls, gurgling, to the stone floor.
Combat's over!
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"Ah..it's your wand. That explains a lot actually. Now let me do my job."
He taps it a few times and mutters to himself as he uses a second charge on the young archaeologist.
"Ah ha! Now we are getting things going here. Wait a minute... Oh shades of gray! She does not seem to be responding even though her wounds have closed up. You people are so vexing."
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Abelia curses Elven curiosity in her sleep and wishes to the sweet and merciful Aroden above that she could bat his unwelcome fingers away with a satisfying slap. She wasn't a science experiment for goodness's sake, and she certainly wasn't in the best of moods at the moment. Her back was starting to hurt. The floor wasn't as nice as it was before. Very stiff. And cold.
The paralysis wears off after about 30 seconds, and you can move again.
The troll still hangs from the ceiling, its earlier wounds now completely healed. Its missing arm has started to regrow, although it looks like that may take a while to regenerate completely. The creature mutters and curses at you in its language , shifting itself around and trying to swing towards you to get a good bite at you.
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As the effects of the ghoul's attack wear off, so does Thordir's fury. He collapses to the floor, his breathing shallow and raspy. He soon regains his composure, however, and returns to his feet, wiping the dirt and grime of the catacombs off of his cloak and the blade of his weapon.
He moves back to the other room and watches the troll's restless thrashing for a while, simultaneously impressed and concerned by the beast's regenerative abilities. He turns to his companions, "How do you suppose we can deal with this? I suppose we could kill it if we work at it for a while, but that seems... cruel... especially after what it would seem the ghouls were doing to it. Any chance we could subdue it and release it in the wilds? This place is remote enough, it shouldn't be a threat to anyone."
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"Given the nature of the rotted clothes on the ghoul, and the fact that we just found this area through a collapsed floor, how long have all three been down here. Have they been eating parts of the troll letting him regenerate is a horrid cycle? If that is the case, this could have been going on for decades, perhaps longer. That beast may have been driven insane after such torture."
I am at a loss how to continue. Killing a helpless being seems wrong, but death may be a welcome relief for him. Oh Nethys, why do you test us so?"
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"Whatever we do, I don't think we should just leave the thing hanging there. Now the question becomes how do we get it down?" Thordir looks around the room, noting the chains from which the troll is hanging. He follows the chains to the ceiling and tries to locate the point that would raise or lower them.
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"Perhaps the diners kept a key for their buffet?" Fethril searches the undead remains for keys or other items. Calling on the favor of Nethys, he casts Detect Magic. "If nothing else, we should take note of this ones clothes for the report. He may have been someone important. Abelia, did you get a sample of what he was wearing, a button or some other trinket? Come now, back to work young lady, you just had a rest! Stop laying around."
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Abelia lets out a strangled cough and groans, her eyes fluttering open as she hefts herself into a sitting position. Wincing, she presses a hand into her back and shoots a glare at Fethril.
"Well, excuse me...next time a ghoul rips me up, I'll keep in mind that I should prioritize snatching a few buttons before I pass out."
Slowly rising to her feet, she staggers slightly and winces again, whimpering at the state of her bloodied jacket. She sends the elf another glance and sticks her lower lip out in a pout. "But...thank you, for healing me. Really."
Rather than joining in solving their current troll issue, Abelia moves to examine anything in the room that could be helpful for their report as well as anything to clue them in on if they could expect more lovely surprises like the last one.
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"That's very true, Sab. There is certainly enough here to fill quite an interesting report, and unleashing a beast like this one in the middle of our investigation could compromise the specimens. But still, the poor stupid thing has been chained up like this for who knows how long, getting slowly eaten by those specters. We can't just leave it, and killing it like this seems unjust at best, and downright cruel at worst." He stops to think for a moment, then throws his hands up in the air. "I can't make a decision on this right now. Besides, there may be more to this place than what we've found already. I'll check around for any more passages."
With that, he makes his way around the room containing the troll, making sure to give the beast a wide berth. As he arrives at the west end of the room, he discovers a passage that appears to be wide enough for someone to fit in, so he pulls out a torch, lighting it with his flint and steel, and looks in to see if the passage leads anywhere of interest.
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"As quickly as possible!" Two Blades quipped. "Since it is tied up and had not gotten out after all this time, start pommeling it with the butts of our blades and keep on going. Once it is knocked out we keep on hitting it while the others untie it. When it is free, run! he said stepping over to the bound troll.
"Sorry, I do not know if you guys get headaches but we don't want to set you free while you can tear us apart" Two Blades said before starting to knock out the creature.
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"Hmm..it seems you have that well in hand, though at that rate we will be here a while. Say, should we take the body of the ghoul with us? Or at the very least his head. His clothes are from long ago. He may have been present when the revolution was happening. We can't talk to him, but there those back in Absolom who can speak with the dead."
Fethril leans over the corpse of the undead, poking it with his sword."He's an abomination, but there may be a treasure trove of information in that noggin," tapping the skull with the flat of the blade.
Looking to his peers excitedly, "C'mon now, whose game to take a chance to find out what happened all those decades ago, when none of you were born. Abelia, you must be a little curious, even if he almost ate you."
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"Oh, don't get me wrong, I may be more than a little ticked with the guy, but history is always first. I'd love to get my hands on all that information," She pulls out her glasses and pushes them on, leafing through her notebook and muttering to herself through stutters about the revelations of history should she be able to unlock that undead's secrets.
"No matter how much I might want to explore that particular 'treasure trove', though, I have no idea how to go about it without either getting eaten or killed altogether. I'll definitely vote to take him with if possible, but from there I haven't a clue what to do." Abelia removes her glasses and looks at the body with a pout on her lips.
"Any ideas?"
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Abelia narrows her eyes at the elf but sighs and pulls out a small blade from one of her many pockets anyway.
"Keep it." She huffs out, not wanting any of that sludge in her jacket. She stops for a moment and then pulls out a bag and hands that to Fethril too. "But while you're at it, be a dear and take a sample, yeah?"
She then turns on her heel and joins Sab, not wanting to have anything to do with the troll at the moment.
After laying out your plan, you encounter a slight difficulty - the troll's regeneration heals the nonlethal damage almost as fast as you can deal it. Complicating matters, one of the troll's arms is free, and he takes swipes at anyone that comes within range. As you stand nearby trying to determine how to proceed, the troll's struggles cause it to move back and forth, slowly swinging in an arc that increases his reach and makes the job that much more dangerous.
The clothes that the ghoul wears date back to the war - it's entirely possible that he has been here ever since the keep fell.
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"Yes, I think you may be right. It seems wrong to kill a beast that has been subject to such tortures, but we seem to be out of options." Without a further word, Thordir returns to the entrance to the catacombs where the rubble of the room above had fallen to the floor. He collects as much loose timber as he can haul, carefully piles it beneath the troll, then tosses a lit torch onto the pile setting it ablaze right beneath the beast.
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"Truly, a remarkably horrid way to die. Can you imagine being helpless to stop the inevitable fate you see happening before you, and realizing that six other witnesses let that transpire? The heat slowly building as the flame catches. The agony he knows will mark the end of his existence. The sizzle and crackle of flesh, the stench of skin and hair filling the air with an acrid aroma. The popping of veins and organs all intermingled with soul-wrenching screams. Hanging upside down is now the one mercy left to him. His mind will eventually be cooked to the point that it stops registering the blinding white pain and his eyes will burst so he will not have to suffer seeing his own demise. Honestly, the stuff of nightmares."
Looking to his peers, "So, can we be on our way? I would like to get back before dinner. Oh wait... no worries. I still have some jerky in my pack here."