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While continuing his performance. Yu quickly comes up behind Sira and brings him back to consciousness using his healing wand. As soon as he awaken, his mind is filled with random and confusing images a windswept mountain pass, a cave filled with an eerie green glow, and a pulsing fungal creature brooding in the dark. Shaken by the experience, Sira lays prone among the vegetation, hoping that the undeads would leave him alone.
Caena infuses herself with divine energy before running her rapier through the ectoplasmic human. The wound is small but suffused by the power of Erastil, the ectoplasm is not only not able to form back around the wound but instead, the wound spreads and the creature simply collapses as blobs of ectoplasm.
Lucifer continues her attack on the remaining undead, and although he manages to hit again, this time the strike was no deep enough and the wound closes back up almost as soon as he withdraws his weapon. Thorur steps up swinging his blessed waraxe, expertly slicing the creature into two. Both parts disintegrate back into the pool of bubbling ectoplasm.
While you are busy trying to catch your breath, Dr. Quolorum finally picks himself up from the entanglement of the bushes and happily runs forward to examine the fresh lightning strike. ”My, my, how exciting!” After many inquisitive exclamations, he harvests two vials of ectoplasm into his newly developed storage containers.
”Thank you, thank you, for your hard work. I’ll return to my laboratory to study these samples. Have a good rest the rest of the night! I will send word of the next task tomorrow. Thank you!” With that, he rushes back down the hill back towards Rozenport, as if he has completely forgotten about you already.
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Caena feels a surge of righteous vindication as the ectoplasmic blobs dissolve around them. She helps Sira back up to his feet and looks around at the others. They have all handled themselves well, everyone is still alive, and indeed Dr. Quolorum is already finishing off his task of collecting those precious samples. In response to his parting words she calls out, "You're quite... welcome..." but the little gnome is already gone. She shakes her head in amusement. "I guess we'll have to wait and see what he wants in the morning."
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Once again, the following morning, you receive the expected letter from Dr. Quolorum.
Some of you may already be familiar with the monolith’s reputation or learn of it from the villagers in the nearby Dunhob..
chasing you.
Some of you may know about the region’s history and its connection to the monolith.
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"The Monolith huh... If I remember correctly, it has glyphs designed to keep a great evil from escaping from the Kellid burial complex that is buried beneath it and the Dunhob folks sprinkle iron shavings around it to prevent the evil creatures from escaping the place."
"I don't know if the iron shavings mean anything, maybe the evil beneath the Monolith are weak to iron. Hard to say. But we will likely have to fight whatever is down there."
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Genryl shudders as the others start explaining what they know about the monolith. "Well, that just sounds lovely... So is there anything we can prepare to try and fight this 'great evil' in case it escapes., or it's influence is leaking out? Welp, it seems like the doctor is wisely not joining us today. If we are going to investigate though, we can't dally around here too long, buit I want to check something really quick first though."
Using Illirigarde's harrow deck, Genryl does a single card reading, curious what the occult infused cards would have to say about today's outing. Taking a look at the card he gives a snort. "Well, that is ironic. It's The Theatre, which represents prophecy, particularly when true prophet acts as the puppet of the gods. Maybe today we will get to meet a true prophet or maybe the cards are telling us that they are a true prophet..."
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With whatever information you managed to gather, the party makes its way to the monolith. The great monolith of the ancient Kellids towers over the barren hillside. A distant flash of red lightning silently illuminates the muggy air, revealing a hole that gapes in the slope like a toothless mouth. Several dozen feet away rises a low mound of dirt and loose rock.
As you draw closer to the monolith, you see quite a number of carvings on the surface.
Very clearly on the ground are also tracks leading from the monolith to a nearby newly dug tunnel in the ground.
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Yu walks around the monolith taking in the words and images on it, and attempting to decipher what is there. "Um, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but I don't like what is here." Yu first points to the Gorum's Eye. "See, this here is a glyph of protection known as Gorum's Eye. Also, " again Yu points them out on the monolith as appropriate, "there are glyphs here for protection, stone, grave, pit, and evil. If I was to make a guess, this monolith is a grave marker for a very evil something."
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Lucifer looks at the symbols but stops when he realizes it would take longer for him to decipher them.
With Yu describing the purpose of the glyphs, he goes to the dug tunnel with his sword drawn. "It seems either something dug its way to whatever is beneath the monolith or something escaped by digging out from the monolith. I can't tell which."
Lucifer examines the tunnel to see if it is big enough for him to crawl through if needed.
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Caena peers at the markings and the tracks but can't make head or tails of any of it. At least she can understand what Yu and Lucifer have to say about them, and none of it sounds good. "Evil you say? Then it's a good thing we're here." She draws the rapier out of its scabbard with a metallic scraping sound.
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Genryl shudders as the lightning flashes down. "I sure hope more of those ectoplasmic beings aren't popping up over there."
Shaking his head to forget about the things that he can't fix now, Genryl sidles up to the monument and takes a look around.
No finding anything interesting or important, he just listens to everyone's comments. "An evil that had to be sealed, something either digging into or out of the mound and a series of nearby murders... Is it just me or does this just sound like a grape press set for disaster?"
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With the hair standing up on the back of their necks, the party makes its way very carefully into the freshly dug tunnel. The tunnel extends only a few feet through the soil before meeting a stone, partially collapsed hallway. The passage to the northwest is choked with fallen rubble, and it extends to the east. The walls and ceiling of this eerie chamber are made from row after row of stacked bones, layers of skulls, rib cages, and arm and leg bones piled from floor to ceiling and cemented in place. On the far wall, red dyed skulls have been arranged into the symbol of an eye within an elongated hexagon.
The mottled off-white, gray, and brown coloration of the bone walls makes an ideal backdrop for the two pale centipedes that lurk in the southern corners of this room just below the dyed skull glyph. They scamper forward to feed when you enter the room!
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Genryl gives a jump as Sira comments about the centpedes. Squinting in the gloom created from the various light sources, he tries to spot the creatures while commenting, "Oh, good not an undead creature and probably not some emmination or after affect of the 'great evil...' but certainly damned near impossible to see!" ...escpecially with all of these flickering lights that my eyes can't adust to easily.
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Sira downs some magical protection extract while Lucifer draws his sling.
Before the rest are able to react, both centipedes charge straight towards the frontliners - Thorur and Caena! The dwarf's armor is strong enough to repel the fangs of one of the centipedes but the other finds a chink in Caena's armor. Its sharp fangs punctures her skin easily, injecting venom into her bloodstream!
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Caena feels the poison coursing through her veins, slowing down her reflexes. Thorur steps around the centipede and swings his waraxe at the vermin, but it easily dodges the clumsy attack. While Sira repositions himself, Genryl strikes with his longspear. Although not well-trained in combat, the weapon finds a chink in its carapace straight into its head, killing the beast with one strike.
With the vermin taken down, you are then better able to examine the room. Beside where the centipedes were hiding is a short passageway leading downstairs, ending at a door. Also, along the southern wall, you find that the pattern of red-dyed skulls is the same as the carving on the monolith outside, what is referred to as Gorum's Eye. For some reason, the ancient Kellids had seen the need to place this symbol both at the entrance to the caves, and also here.
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Caena stands with the rapier hanging loosely from her right hand, still slightly stunned. What exactly just happened? At least the centipedes are lying dead on the floor, and she doesn't see any more creeping out of the shadows, so she pauses to lean up against the wall. "Good work taking care of those things. Just... give me a few seconds. I don't feel too great." Though her arms and legs feel rather sluggish, she shakes her head and tries to pull herself together.
Eyeing the skull patterns on the southern wall, she adds, "Skulls in the haunted tavern, skulls outside, skulls down here. I guess it makes sense if something was buried here, but I can't say I'm enjoying the skeletal theme."
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Yu uses his prepared CLW to heal Caena.
After doing that, "Um, I don't wish to alarm you all here folks, but there is something really wrong here." He points out both of the Eye's. "They really want to ward here. Something major must have frightened them so much to do this. Be on your guard."
For the first time, Yu actually pulls out his sword, and holds his CLW wand in the other hand.
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Genryl gives a grunt of satisfaction at seeing the centipede go down under his clearly unskilled hands, before he looks over and sees Caena's pale face.
Dropping the spear he rushes over, taking a quick glance at her wound and feeling her forehead. "It looks like Caena's been poisoned! If anyone has any healing supplies or knowledge, I'd appriciate the help."
With Thorur's help and the kit, Genryl has an easy time of trying to isolate the venom and help prevent it's spread.
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Lucifer puts his sling away, but keeps his sword out. Not wanting to get in the way but wanting to attempt to provide some help. Lucifer assist in the healing of Caena the best he can.
Giving as much aid as he can, hopefully not hurting her in the process. Lucifer looks down the tunnel. "Let me check for traps. A place like this usually brims with stuff like that."
Lucifer carefully moves down the hallway, spotting for traps.
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Genryl wipes the sweat from his brow after it seems Caena is over the worst of her poisoning. Standing back up he picks up his longlongspear and inspects it for damage, before keeping it in hand.
"If anyone cares to make a verbal wish, I will be able to open the door at the end of the stairs from a distance-as long as it is unlocked or otherwise devoid of difficulties preventing it from being opened with ease."
Giving the sylph a smile, Genryl comments, "You know what, that might be pretty useful. Unless anyone has any objections it sounds like a plan!" Genryl dramatically clear his throat, before continuing in a deeper almost serious voice. "'I wish the door at the end of this hall was open!' There is that a proper wish making voice?"