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Itty bitty Pai can hardly see a darned thing with all these big guys in front of her, so she scampers into the barracks and hops along atop the beds, calling out: "Reidog's right! Everyone back in here so we can flank it! Phew! It stinks in here!"
Wrinkling her little nose at the big stench coming from the pipe in the barracks, Pai activates her Air Shroud, then takes a deep breath of fresh, clean air. "Ahhhh!"
Myth is a true sharpshooter and his arrows hits the center of the rune that powered this construct!
You see how one second ago it was a menacing threat and now can witness its body parts sinking to the floor.
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"Hrm! Way I heared tell, goo-lems 'r' supposed ta be tougher'n that."
Putting his axe away, he starts to examine the body to see if it left behind anything interesting.
"We done in here? Still got ta find tha Lashmistress and deliver what she got comin'"
Reidog chuckles to himself, enjoying his pun.
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Myth ponders a moment before speaking. "Maybe we should not give these items to the Lashmistress as that is what the Aspis wish us to do...withholding them might increase the tensions between the Lissalans and the Aspis. Or, as we suspect the Calistrian Priestess has sabotaged the dagger, we give her that and that alone...
"Either way, we should look for other opportunities for sabotage..."
The chanting is starting to intensify and you really see no cultist walking around.
You check out the small room.
The cultists keep a few mundane stores in these rooms, such as food and spare furniture.
The next small room you enter looks the same as the last.
You continue to the eastern room.
This room contains several mats and low beds. The walls of this room are deeply carved with jagged runic symbols. A small table sports a large brick of burning incense, but the incense’s heavy scent does not quite disguise an underlying sharp smell.
While nobody is here at the moment, this is clearly a prayer chamber.
Looking around, Myth with his keen eyes sees a set of forgotten rune-decorated prayer beads underneath one of the mats.
The underlying smell in the room is clearly carbauxine. It is probably leaking through the carvings in the walls.
(Carbauxine is a colorless gas that is a byproduct of heavy carbon deposits. It heavier than air and highly flammable, and will violently combust if exposed to an open flame. Additionally, long term exposure has poisonous effects.)
Long-ago, dwarves learned how to harvest carbauxine gas safely, using it to create exceedingly hot flames that could be used for smelting. Based on what you know on the subject, one of these forges is dangerously close to the safehouse. Could the underlying smell be carbauxine?
(Carbauxine is a colorless gas that is a byproduct of heavy carbon deposits. It heavier than air and highly flammable, and will violently combust if exposed to an open flame. Additionally, long term exposure has poisonous effects.)
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Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, Pai drops her Air Shroud so she can smell what Calvert is talking about.
"Yup, he's right. It's probably leaking in through those deep carvings. It's poisonous if you're exposed to it for a long time, but we should be fine if we leave soon. I have an ability that can protect up to four other people from breathing it for a couple of minutes, if anyone's interested."
Once everyone has decided what they'll do about her offer, Pai will activate her Air Shroud ability again.
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Myth smiles. "T'would appear we have another opportunity...Pai, I will gladly take you up on your offer m'lady, if you please...I'll try to widen these carvings into cracks and let more of the gas leak in...
"I would advise those who cannot be protected by Pai and have no alternate protection, leave the room while we sabotage this room..."
Once Pai's Air Shroud is in place, Myth will use his tools and any other objects around that he can find to open up the carvings into cracks, if possible...
You were able to create some holes.
You put Myth’s practical skills together with Gru’Gar’s knowledge of natural caverns and at the end use Reidog’s strength and you have an incredible talent of destruction.
You can almost hear gas streaming out of the holes of the carvings in the walls.
You enter the northern room, and pass underneath a large sheet with a Sihedron rune placed just above the entrance.
The chanting is audible very loudly now!
The centerpiece of this stark stone chamber is a low stone dais designed to display a statue. A black sheet painted with a seven-pointed rune hangs before the southern exit.
The western exit is a set of doors consisting of iron bars an inch in diameter and six inches apart, like those of a cage.
On the dais probably stood the elaborate rune-carved contruct of a creature with a serpent’s body, a woman’s torso, six wings, and a Sihedron rune in place of a head, that attacked you and that you destroyed.
The party moves to the western room.
As you move past the bars, you see several heavy black curtains with a seven-sided rune on them. As a matter of fact, you see several layers of these black curtains.
As you move past, you start hearing loud chanting and drums. Once you reach the last, the sound seems almost deafening compared to the silence of the rest of the safehouse.
This cavernous stone chamber may have once been an underground amphitheater. Several curtains painted with a seven-pointed rune obscure a complete view, but steep stairs and rows of stone benches descend into a central pit.
Pounding drums and the rhythmic chanting of dozens of voices reverberate throughout this chamber. Many of the cultists whip themselves with barbed whips and then whip the blood onto the woman and the altar in the middle of the room.
Peeking into the pit, and with some effort, you count no less than 25 people in the room, not including yourselves. Cultists are gathered in the pit, on multiple layers of stairs and benches. The lowermost level contains a small stone altar, and a woman leading the ceremony. Her body turns into a fiery form in one moment, and she lets out a stream of colours that move around the room in the next.
* * * *
The cultists all chant, except for one. A man approaches you quickly after you enter.
He was clearly tasked by guarding the entrance. He speaks in a hushed voice, thought the cultists below probably couldn't be roused by full-blown shouting either:
"I don't know who you are, but you shouldn't be here. Explain yourselves, or leave."
Based on his appearance, the man seems like a younger acolyte tasked with mundane assignments until he gains experience, or an even younger member joins in.
The man lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes the hand resting on his weapon once he hears you are 'with' the Consortium.
"I see. Still... you can't be here. You will interrupt the rituals. I understand you have something for us. I will be more than happy to pass on whatever you brought to the Lashmistress once the ceremony is finished, but I will not disturb her now. And neither will you."
"She expressed she doesn't wish to speak with you anyway, but she told everyone to expect you arriving today. Unfortunately, you chose a bad time if you wanted to negotiate anything. Just give me whatever you brought and I will pass it on. The Lashmistress would contact - or have someone get in touch with - your people afterwards."