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The summoned dog howls in pain, when the zombie's sword cuts deep in its flesh, but undeterred it follows through with another attack, trying to rip the zombie's throut out of his bode.
Dus himself takes another step away from the monster, drawing and loading his crossbow, waiting for a good shot at the monster.
Click - accessing botting protocol for Sidi Yawgu - whirr - error - no protocol found - fallback scenario - initiate generic reasonable assumption protocol...
Sidi shrugs off the effects of the ghoul's scratches and strikes back, heaving his massive club and striking to the beat of the Black Crow's music.
Patros, still unable to move seethes at the ghoul right in front of him.
As Dus steps back and readies his crossbow, the dog he summoned jumps up at the bronze-clad zombie only to be knocked aside with ease.
Sidi attempts to stop the ghoul's furious assualt by hitting it square in the head with his great club. Teeth fly and it's jaw hangs loose, but the warrior-priest still stands and lets loose a gargling scream of pain and anger.
Selmy, whipped into a primitive ball of rage and aggression throws another wayward blast of air at the zombie before him. However, the only thing that flies are a few ancient embalming tools from a nearby display case.
The Black Crow continues to lay down some killer riff on his guitar, the sounds of which echo around the room so that he is almost dueting with himself. With a few additional notes, a spell is cast and the undead in front of Sidi and Patros start to slip in a great puddle of grease. The skeleton stands firm, but the ghoul falls flat on it's back.
Untir's spirit ancestors continue to swirl around the room seemingly gaining in power before the once more plunge through the bodies of the remaining undead. The remaining skeleton explodes into dust and the mighty mammoth's tusk clatters to the floor. Then the mummified ghoul, weakened by Sidi's crushing blow and already flailing around on the floor, writhes in agony. Moments later it falls silent and motionless, frozen in a pose of twisted anguish. The bronze warrior, however, carries on regardless even though it looks ready to fall apart at the seams.
Unperturbed by the events of the last few moments, the zombie continues to slash at the celestial do before him. The dog is almost decapitated by the attack and disperses back into the ether.
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Selmy finishes off the zombie with a concussive blast that rips the it apart. An arm flies off and slaps Patros on the back of his head, and thick black zombie slime slowly trickles down his back as he slowly regains use of his own limbs.
The room once again falls silent as undead are made regular dead and everyone catches their breath.
Now that there are a few moments to take in the surroundings you notice that the door to the office, once a pane of expensive frosted glass, now lies in broken shards on the floor.
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As soon as the fight is over, Dus sinks to the ground when the flow of adrenaline in his body ebbs and he starts to feel the pain the zombie caused with his brutal attack. The healing energies of Undir's wand let him shiver, and then, as if he wanted to get them out of his body, energy starts to flow through his fingertips whirling randomly through the air, winding and weaving arcane patterns before they fall together and form what seems to be a creature made out of water, sharp fangs growing out of his mouth, it's body a weird and constantly changing mixture of shark and tiger.
"There you are, my good friend." Dus whispers meakly, then he rises from the ground and starts to cast another spell, causing the air around him to shimmer for just a moment.
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Selmy sees the broken glass by the office door and tugs on the pants of the nearest party member.
"Me remember! Me remember! Get to office man say! Me remember! That office right? That office we go to? We did it!" He exclaims happily before wandering into the office to get whatever prize is obviously coming his way.
With the party healed, and Patros enjoying the benefits of a toughened hide, they continue on to their destination. Within the office, several desks lie overturned, papers in disarray and chairs smashed to kindling. A sturdy steel cabinet sits against the back wall, its doors much battered and dented. The mist here roils near the floor and ceiling, creating a strange patch of visibility stretching from knee-height to a few feet overhead. The smoky tendrils flow up and down the walls unnaturally and savage visages swirl to life, fanged mouths agape, before dissolving into mist once more. As you enter the room, the battered and torn body of an old man soon becomes visible under the mist, the remains of his bloodstained robes indicate that he was likely an employee.
Out of the unnatural mist coiling around the ceiling, two hulking men pounce from the ceiling with a howl. One jumps on Selmy, and one on Sidi, each slamming their massive fists on their target's chest. They are wearing the same robes as the unfortunate soul on the floor, but they are covered in thick, coarse hair, their foreheads are much more pronounced than an average mans, and their mouths can barely contain the large sharp teeth within. They start raving madly as they attempt to pummel and rip the two men apart with their bare hands.
It seems that the employees are suffering from a similar condition as Selmy and Patros, however their case seems to be much more severe.
Both creatures flail ineffectually at Untir's chest and back, unable to get past the man's armour.
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Patros, in an impressive display of athleticism, hops from a standing start 15 feet clear across the room. Landing behind Dus, he narrowly avoids bowling the halfling over as he rushes towards the creature attempting to pummel Untir. He then delivers a nasty gash along the creature's back with his falcata. It turns around to face Patros and howls as it beats its chest.
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"They have fallen to Angazhan's curse," Sidi cries as he climbs over the tossed and ruined furniture to defend his allies. "Poor souls!"
His sympathy does not inhibit him from swinging his elaborate club at the curator-turned-ape as it beats at Untir.
Move: Moving 35 ft over combination of difficult and regular terrain
Standard: Attack pink
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"They must have been affected by the same mist as Patros and Selmy, but likely have progressed much further along. This does not bode well for our teammates."
Untir takes a step towards the door, knowing that he escaped injury for the two attacks out of pure luck. He then turns his attention to uninjured creature and sends his ancestral spirits to harass him, to hopefully buy him time to retreat.
After climbing through the debris that once was perfectly decent office furniture, Sidi swings his great-club right into the wall, missing his target by some distance. Perhaps he feels more sympathy for the curator's predicament than he thought.
Untir, uncomfortable as the filling to an ape-man sandwich, steps away and calls forth his ancestral allies once more. They start swirling around one of the creatures, tugging at his ink stained robes and howling in his ears. All told, he doesn't seem to be enjoying the experience.
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Click - accessing botting protocol for Dus Grassbrow - whirr - error - no protocol found - fallback scenario - initiate generic reasonable assumption protocol - error - module malfunction - aborting...
The creature's attention is drawn to Selmy as he grunts and prepares his concussive blast, and on seeing the other ape-man it attempts to assert its dominance. It misses with a wild swing of its large arms, however, and the aerokineticist's blast hits it full in the face. Shocked and infuriated it stamps its feet and leaps away towards what he feels is an easier target.
It hops away, dodging any attempt to strike it, and in a feat of athleticism rivalling Patros' earlier long jump, it leaps up, grabs the door frame, and swings over Untir's head. Now behind his less muscular target, it renews its attempts to pound on Untir's back, raving happily as it connects with a hefty fist.
Meanwhile the creature with the red ink-stained robes, driven half-mad by the infuriating spirits, flails it's arms around at the spirits tormenting him.
It is at this point that terrified screams start coming from the steel cabinet at the the back of the room. The dented cabinet starts wobbling from side to side as muffled and hoarse cries of "Don't kill me!" are repeated again and again.
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Untir grunts as the ape-man smashes onto his back. He is certain he felt a bone or two break there. Seeing his retreat out the room blocked, he wavers briefly wondering which way to go. He fears getting himself trapped in the corner, but he knows if he moves the other way, he would be in the way of the rest of his allies. Sighing at the necessity, he steps into the corner, hoping that he is not making a colossal mistake.
He continues to commune with his ancestral spirit to interfere with the apeman, glaring at it with an unearthly glint in his eye.
The spirits tormenting the ape-man dissipate and it's angry gaze follows Untir into the corner. Relishing the relative peace, it raises a hand to strike its cornered prey, but falters when it catches Untir's eye. The spirits return soon after, now tugging at the ape-man's sleeves and holding back its strikes.
Sidi moves to Untir's aid, swinging his mighty club.
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The Black crow heads towards the cabinet to investigate and attempts to open the door. Unfortunately the door is stuck and the screaming grows louder "Aaagh! Get away... I'm too young to die!" Followed by blubbering.
At the same time the mighty crack of Sidi's club on the back of one of the cursed curators echos throughout the room. The ape-man howls in pain spraying saliver all over Untir's face before it turns to face the big Bas'o, clearly very angry.
Patros heads forward to finish the job he started, he angrily slashes at the creature through the door frame and, despite the cover, delivers a lethal wound. It falls to the ground with a thud, and lays unconscious. Moments later mist can be seen exiting his mouth and the ape-man begins transforming into a scrawny middle-aged human scribe. Alive, but bleeding profusely from several very large gashes.
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Dus seems to be a bit dizzy after the last fight, so he hesitates when suddenly a new opponent arises. Before he can act, his companions have already surrounded the new enemies, one already lying unconscious on the floor. Not willing to attack the other heads-on, he decides to use his crossbow instead and when a gap between Patros and Sidi opens, he fires a bolt through it, and just with a hint of a nod, he commands his eidolon to follow the missile. Instantaneously it jumps forward, trying to sink his fangs into the malformed opponent's body.
Just as the cursed curator is going to take out its frustration on Sidi, it is stunned by the sudden appearance of an arrow in its shoulder. Dus had somehow managed to aim through the gaggle of bodies in front of him and only missed the ape-man's heart by a few inches. The arrow is followed up the swift-moving Eidolon, dodging the hampered attempts of the beset ape-man to fend it off, it pounces and takes a chunk out of his forearm.
In an equally impressive shot, Selmy manages to focus his blast and the stream of concussive air shoots through the momentary gap created by the pouncing Eidolon, hitting the ape-man in the gut. The impact forces all the air from his lungs, and just before he slumps unconscious to the ground, you are sure you see some mist flowing out of his mouth as well.
Just like the first creature, this ape-man quickly transforms into a scrawny middle-aged human with greying hair. He's not bleeding as badly as the first man, but the internal damage must be immense and he is sure to die before too long.
Even with the combat over, the hoarse screaming coming from the cabinet continues as enthusiastically as before.
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"They seem to have been the museum curators. Before the transformation. We must save them."
He quickly kneels beside them, applying whatever first aid he can to stabilise their wounds.
"Do any of you have rope? I seem to have forgotten to pack mine. I would like to bring them to consciousness. They might know something useful. But better be safe than sorry and to tie them down first before I do so."
Untir withdraws his wand of healing, first to deal with his own wounds. He grunts with both pain and pleasure as he feels his bones knitting back together.
He then turns his wand to the two unconscious forms, using just enough charges to bring them back to consciousness.
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Untir manages to patch up the two unconscious men, keeping them from immediate danger of bleeding out while they get tied up. With a couple of charges from his wand, the two men take a sharp intake of breath and open their eyes. One of them still looks to considerably worse than the other, but they are both awake and appear to be suffering from the worst hangover you've ever seen.
While the two unconscious men are being tied up and healed, Sidi walks over to the cabinet. With one heave, the big man rips it open, tearing the inside latch clear from the door, revealing a portly man with ink-stained robes. The man barely fits in the cramped container but somehow manages to retreat further inside with wide-eyed shock and horror "Aaagh! No, no... Don't kill me!"
The man seems a little unsure at first, especially given how Patros currently looks, but Sidi's offer proves too compelling. He cautiously takes Sidi's proffered hand and, with considerable effort, manages to pry himself free from the confines of his hiding place "Th... Thank you! I've got to get out of here. I'm just a... a scribe. I didn't sign up for this!" His voice is hoarse from all the screaming and he is clearly still terrified by the whole situation.
Looking around the tattered remains of the room, he shakes his head in disbelief "We were just cataloguing our... Our newest acquisitions when the mist suddenly flooded the room..." His jowls quaver and shake with terror as he speaks "Tendrils of it seemed to pour down K... pour down Kadarnik's and Yannis' throats and they went stark mad! What they did to poor old Milgen..." He glances at his co-workers, tied up at the back of the room, and then down at the dead body of the other scribe. With fear turning to anger he suddenly starts yelling "It’s those idols, I’m sure of it! I smelled something wrong with those hideous monkey-faced things as soon as Lugizar brought them out of his pack. I've a nose for trouble, I do! No one listens!"
The man starts to calm slightly and starts nodding "Yes... Yes I suppose you can. I'm sorry, it's just that this whole situation... It's just..." He takes a deep breath and looks to the Black Crow "You've seen them before then, the Tik Taan? Then you must know those idols are cursed! I mean, they must be..." He starts excitedly rummaging through the wreckage of one of the desks and produces a piece of cloth "Look here, See?" He presses it into the Black Crow's talons "It's a warning of some kind, I'm sure of it! Not that anyone else believed me..." The cloth (made from beaten bark) looks quite ancient, and the inventory tag states that it was catalogued along with "Tik Taan Idols, courtesy of Lugizar Trantos". The writing on the cloth, however, is less clear.
It also includes a powerful chant that, it claims, will dispel the idols' influence over men.
He then grabs Dus by the shoulders "You must stop this madness! The idols were in the East Exhibit storage room when all this happened." He motions at the mist surrounding the room "Nigel was taking stock of all the new pieces in there." He's starting to grow more agitated again and keeps glancing at the door out, pointedly ignoring the two men who have been tied up and the dead body on the floor "Saldak? What's happening... Who are these people?" They ask meekly, still a little dazed.