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The people of his home nation revere the dead and ancestors, and Li Shuo feels both pity and respect for this woman. How long might he retain his earthly loyalties, he wonders, if forced into her sort of eternal half-life. Better to end this while some shred of decency remains in the heart of his fellow Pathfinder.
Li steps to the side, picturing the exact locations of his bow and each of his arrows. He will honor what Maurit had once been...what she still embraced with the last of her sanity... by ending her ghastly existence as soon as Khale had his answers.
"Papers? Oh, there are those aplenty... all written in Kelish I think, I can't read it myself, but those funny squiggly lines are very-very distinctive! They're scattered all throughout the catacombs!"
However, when the talk of... her mortality raises its head, you see a bizarre mix of emotion cross Maurit's face: a flickering of despair and begging eyes that is almost instantly replaced by an angry snarl and vicious glare and back again.
She chokes out a response, almost sobbing: "Please..."
... before suddenly shrieking loudly as the madness overtakes her.
"I will consume you all!!"
Initiative: Arithas | Li | Maurit | Elysia | Bendaxalion | Triccio | Khale
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Arithas takes a 5-foot step back, and readies a bomb. As soon as it is finished, he throws it at the ghoul. "Maurit, I wish to free you!"
Arithas shouldn't have tried to talk while he was throwing the bomb, because doing so made him trip and fall to one knee while he was throwing and he accidentally overcompensated.
Maurit screams in rage as she is peppered with bombs and arrows, bellowing forth obscenities and threats of unholy death... and yet, you notice that she seems to not move away from your attacks, not from Arithas' clumsy bomb explosion nor from the calm and tempered arrow shots of Li. Part of her is certainly warring with herself, and yet it seems your talk with her (or perhaps simply good fortune from a friendly deity) has convinced her enough to meet her death face-on.
She crumples to the ground with two arrows sticking out of her chest, gargling a few quiet last words before her body disintegrates into ash. Left behind is a collection of the items she wore in life, including her tattered clothes and a pin identifying her as a Pathfinder.
- One viscous, silvery potion (detects as magic)
- Leather armor
- Dagger
- Shortbow with 20 arrows
- Masterwork thieves' tools
- A large, flawless opal
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Arithas quietly approaches Maurit as she disintegrates. He catches her dying words and replies, "Rest easy now, Maurit. May Pharasma guide your soul to where it truly belongs."
He then turns grimly to the party. "Shall we away, friends? We know now what we are to face, and where we can accomplish our goals."
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With his arms full of dried sticks, Bendaxalon is surprised at the sudden violence, and doesn't even get a chance to burn anything before Maurit is dead (re-dead?) and turned to ash. Though disappointed, he nods at Arithas while examining the curious vials that they found in the tragic Pathfinder's personal effects. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."
Elysia identifies the silver potion as a potion of protection from evil. Neither are sure about the blue ones, though they can tell that the translucent, sky blue magical aura is a faint conjuration effect.
Apart from the remains of Maurit's body, all that awaits you is the ironbound door at the top of the rubble pile.
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Perception, the spoiler:
Once again Trig can't even react before his companions have dealt with the threat. These people can handle anything! I'm lucky they're my partners.
He moves to Maurit's remains. "Desna guide you on the last road, Maurit. If Pharasma is just you'll have a noble reward."
He stoops to pick up her Pathfinder's badge and the opal. "I'll keep this in your memory."
***
Trig looks over the shoulders of the gnome and elf as they try to identify the potions.
Perception
Despite the puzzled looks from the "real" spellcasters, Arithas almost immediately identifies the blue potions as potions of cure light wounds. Surely they'd know something that basic, eh?
He climbs up the rubble with ease, and finds himself at the door. Putting an ear to it and listening reveals nothing beyond. At a grasp, the door doesn't seem locked either. Shall you continue?
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...and they call themselves "magic-users... Arithas thinks. Once at the top, he suddenly realizes he has no torches. He calls back down to his companions.
"Um, guys? Did anyone happen to bring a torch or two? I suspect it will be rather dark in there... I can see ok as long as there is a little light but..."
With some light to back him up, Arithas decides to brave the front door of the ruins and pushes it open. The rot of ages seems to have taken its toll on the portal, and the door snaps from its hinges and falls inwards with a loud crack and updraft of dust from the untouched dungeon. Light from outside and your magical and mundane torches beams in, allowing you to peek inside. A corridor runs along this entrance, abruptly turning to the north just west of your current position. To the east, it appears to lead into an open room of some sort. There is a door on the north wall just a little to the east of you as well.
Attached to the north wall at this corridor junction is the relief carving of a giant face. The relief is that of a Qadiran man with a billowing beard. His eyes are closed, and his lips are parted, as if he were blowing out a flame. His lips frame a deep hole in the wall. The paint once adorning the relief is chipped and faded, but traces of its brilliant blues and pristine whites are still visible here and there. On the man's forehead is a single Kelish word, carved in a flowing script: অনিল
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The little sorcerer coughs and waves ancient dust out of his blue beard. It's a shame that he doesn't know Kelish. Looks fascinating.
He starts wandering down the hall. "Does right first sound good?" It's a basic principle of mazes that children learn: one way to tackle them systematically is to always turn in a certain direction first.
However, no one ever said that it was a good idea to be led by a gnome...
One way or another, the group turns right and heads past the first internal door to investigate the room beyond. As you approach, it becomes clear that the long, narrow room is choked with webbing. The roof and walls of the room are covered in the stuff, leaving only a very narrow causeway in the centre of the room that isn't blanketed with it. Within the webs are a number of what appear to be small, dead reptilian humanoids with dark, scaled skin, each wrapped in a cocoon of sticky webbing. The kobolds' bodies are dessicated and limp, long gone from this world.
Initiative: Spider | Li | Arithas | Bendaxalion | Triccio | Khale | Elysia
Status
Arithas: 3/8 HPSpider: 11 damage
As Arithas walks into the room and spots the spider, alerting the rest of the group, it hisses and bears its rather large fangs, dripping with poison!
Elysia waits for the spider to move closer before tossing an acid dart in its direction. Unfortunately, she's too busy with her words and not busy enough with her aim to land a clear hit on it. The spider nimbly charges down its web, sinking its fangs into Arithas' leg.
You are poisoned and take Strength damage.
Though that bite was painful, Arithas has many tricks up his sleeve! He steps back away from the spider and lobs a bomb right in its face, causing the arachnid to scree pitifully as it is severely burned. The webbing around the spider is also rather charred now, with much of it burnt away by the blast.
Li moves up and fires a single arrow into the spider's side, realigning his shot at the last moment to make it just hit the softer underside rather than the harder exoskeleton. Bendaxalon squeezes his way in between the bigger races and almost effortlessly burns the now heavily-injured spider to a well-charred husk, as well as some more of the webbing as well.
Combat Over
Inside the (now somewhat burned) purse is 30 gold coins and a small pearl you almost would've missed if not for its magical aura...
Elysia takes a good look around the room, but apart from the couple of dead kobolds wrapped up in silk, there is nothing more that could be a thread in this room, even hiding in the far corners or on the ceiling.
In the eastern wall is a short flight of stairs leading down to another closed ironbound door. As you approach, you catch wind of a strange, bone-chilling and mournful howling coming from the room beyond...