Danica feels the strength being siphoned from her body. She unleashes whatever she has left in her weakened attacks and shouts at the creature, "CHOKE ON ME!!!!!"
The archon continues to fire its energy beams and the bugs continue to bite.
Tolvan uses his last pearl of power to recall Liberating Command. At the end of his turn, but before the plant thing acts he uses the now prepared spell to try to free Danica.
The spiritual weapon continues to attack the creature. Sonny raises his holy symbol and calls upon Sarenrae to heal his allies (excluding the creatures).
The creature tries to take another bite at Danica but the amount of wounds inflicted was just too much and instead it collapse on the floor. Seconds after that, the flesh start melting into a big pile of goo that spread across the floor of the room. Leaving a foul smell and a very slippery floor. In the goo, you are able to see the personal belonging of the man from which this creature spawn from. It is disgusting, but someone will have to dive in there to get them... if you want them that is.
"Whew. --Uhg!" Anna first breathes a sigh of relief but it quickly turns into a groan of disgust as the thing starts dissolving.
"Um, I'll check that gear if you promise to use that cleaning magic on me," she says to Tolvan before wading into the muck to gingerly retrieve whatever might be valuable.
I can clean you right up with cleaning magic as soon as we rest Anna. Sorry, not before. Tolvan apologizes.
Anna gives Tolvan a look that tells him he'll be paying for that later. She sighs, then mutters, "Well, we'll be going back out into the lake eventually. That'll wash this gunk off."
Danica falls besides the creature after it has been dispatched. The creature dissolves before her but she does not move. The amount of wounds and exhaustion from fighting this creature has left her immobile. "Stay where you are Anna. No reason for all of us getting dirty. I'll toss the items to you."
Danica approaches the items and one by one begins to toss the smaller items to Tolvan. Any larger items are slid towards Anna.
Anna doesn't waste the opportunity to not get slimy viscera all over her. She watches closely, however, to make sure everything of value is retrieved.
Tolvan casts Detect Magic and helps search, poking around with his staff and keeping friends away from the insects.
Danica, with the help of Anna and Tolvan as spotter, start getting items out of the goo. The floor is slippery like crazy and the slime seems to get into any and all opening of Danica's clothes. But after a few minutes of work, she is able to get everything out.
Letter and a statue. The statue has a magical aura.
Magical items : (Identified by Tolvan high spellcraft check.)
Shadow Mistmail
+1 wounding Sickle
Belt of Giant Strength +2
Non-Magical items:
Whispering Way amulet
Pouch holding 155 pp and a diamond
A bone scroll case that was holding the letter
Anna shows interest in the armor, but her attention is first on the statue and the letter with it.
"So that's the Sausage Effigy! At last! Do you know how long we've been looking for this?" She glances at Andjela. "Oh, yeah! You were there. With the Beast and all? Good times, good times," she says sarcastically.
She reads the letter and scowls. "It's our 'friend' A.A. again. Who's 'G.L.'? We met a Garrick, but his last name didn't start with an 'L'. Any thoughts on who that could be?"
She frowns as she thinks. "I wonder what this legendary mace he's talking about is. And this first line, 'Necrophagous secrets whisper through chronicles of Raven's tongue.' Sounds like Whisperer talk, but I don't understand any of it."
Anna's eyes suddenly go wide. "Mace! There was a mace on that altar! Do you think that's it? Tolvan, you didn't say what it was or what it did, what was it?"
Tolvan chuckles despite himself. Seasage Effigy. He reminds Anna. And yes, we have sought it for some time, if only to deny it to the Way. Now we know why they wanted it; to trade it for that "raven headed" mace that I picked up off that altar. They needed the mace for their dark ritual. Well they shall not have it. I think both of these items are at least minor artifacts and so resist my efforts to identify their properties. I will try again when we are rid of this place. And I recommend we quit it immediately. Their power is broken here. I have seen enough horrors in this deep well to last even an elven lifetime. Let us go and go now. Tolvan looks tired and nearly spent of energy.
Anna grins when Tolvan confirms that they've got something the Whisperers want. She laughs sharply. "We're finally ahead of them! We've got what they want! Ha!"
Spirits buoyed despite the horrors they've witnessed thus far, Anna starts moving back towards the way they came. The grin fades, however, as she starts to pass one of the passageways they had skipped earlier. She suddenly looks unsure. "Um, guys? What if there's someone that hasn't been turned into a tentacle monster down here? You know? Or hasn't had their brains scooped out yet? I can't believe I'm saying this. You get in, get what you came for, you get out. That's the rules," she mutters to herself.
She stands at the crossroads, unable to make up her mind.
The wizard wracks his brain trying to recall the GL reference. Regardless, I think we will all to to Caliphas soon.
He listens with a worried look on his face as Anna talks about possible people in need. You are right my Anna, but my spells are all but exhausted. But we must know. Do you still have your ring? Perhaps our best chance is for you to scout while invisible. If you go, take this with you. He offers her a potion of gaseous form.
Sonny stops at the intersection and says "I agree with Anna. We should check this place out and your suggestion is a good one Tolvan. I have spells to use but they really haven't been all that useful against what we have come up against so I can always use them for healing spells if anyone needs it."
Anna lets out a resigned sigh. "Fine." She takes the potion and stashes it in a pocket inside her cloak. With a mental command, she activates her ring while flipping up the hood of her cloak.
"Be right back. Don't leave without me."
She makes her way silently and invisibly through the corridors they haven't explored yet.
Danica shakes her body and flops her arms in an attempt to get the goo off of her. She does the best that she can.
As she starts to move around she notices the many wounds on her body. She closes her eyes and whispers "I beseech you Bright Lady, your humble servant, to grant me health and vitality." Her hands begins to have a faint glow of the sun and she places then on her body.
"I'm feeling much better now. Let's finish this off."
Anna heads out to explore the first corridor eventually finding a very disturbing room. In contrast to the other chambers in these tunnels, the straight walls and level floors of this rectangular room display clear signs of worked stone. Strange copper and glass canisters are arranged along all four walls, sitting atop stone pedestals. More than half of the canisters hold disembodied brains suspended within some bluish fluid. Aside from that, the room appears empty.
Anna looks around briefly for signs of obvious dangers, then high-tails it out of there.
She lets the invisibility fade when she rejoins the group. She's out of breath and pale when she's visible. "Found the brains!" she says with a horrified look on her face. She points back the way she came. "Bunch of 'em, in jars. Like someone's pickling them or something."
Hmm/ Is it possible that some are still, well, for lack of a better term, alive? If so we should not leave them like that.
Already pale from seeing a whole bunch of brains in jars, Anna turns a shade of green when Tolvan suggests a possibility that she hadn't considered. "Aw, man, you think that they could be <ulp> awake?" She shudders as her imagination runs in directions she wishes it hadn't.
"Ugh! What do we do? The bodies we passed were dead, right? Even if they weren't, how could we put them back?" She makes a disgusted sound. "Gaah! This place!"
If the group wants to see the brains in jars, she reluctantly leads the way.
Danica follows Anna, remnants of the goo still dripping from her body. She stares at the brains in the jar and decides to cast Detect Evil, then all the other alignment detection methods available to her, casting towards the brains.
Andjela seems hurt, but stays away from all the positive energy healing.
She moves along with the others.
Sonny looks at Andjela, "You look hurt. I can use this wand on you to make you feel better."
Anna tries to wave Sonny off. "Wait! She's hurt by the normal healing spells. You gotta use a special kind of potion."
Sonny smiles at Anna, "I am well aware of Dhampirs need for negative energy. I am prepared in case she is hurt."
Anna's eyebrows go up. "Oh! Okay, then. That's good, 'cause I'm all out of her special potions."
Anna leads the group to the "brain" room to inspect the canisters. Out of the twenty-three brain cylinders, fourteen of them hold living ones. Danica studies them one by one and determine that most of them have evil auras, some don't detect as anything, and none are good. Going for the law and chaos axis, she finds that a few don't give any hint of anything, but the vast majority are chaotic. Again, she find none on the opposing alignment.
5 of the live brains are from skums while the rest are humans.
Sonny studies the brains closely and then announces "Of the fourteen living brains here five are skum brains and nine human. I don't know how we would tell which went to what body if we found them, but we might be able to save these fourteen people. We should search for records to see if there is anyway to determine which body they are from or what they were doing with them."
Andjela is grateful for the healing.
I've heard that some insects have a hive-mind... Is this what they are doing here?
And, do you think you can to that? Make them whole again? No mean feat...
I lack the ability to even begin to save these people. I would think strong clerical magic would be required, including a heal spell to remove likely insanity from living through the ordeal of the procedure. Hmm, I wonder if there might be some way to communicate with these beings to asses their wishes?
"You really want to talk to a brain?" She rolls her eyes. Picking one of the human ones, she goes up to the canister and checks it out to see if there is some way to activate it.
Danica points to the individual brains that are evil. "These brains here have a malicious aura. As for the human brains.... wasn't there missing townsfolk? We did find skum bodies with no brains. Do these brains reconcile with the bodies we found with missing brains?"
"Anyways, evil brains needs to be dispatched. Any objections from anyone?" Danica removes her temple sworn and approaches the first evil brain.
Sonny turns to look at Danica, "Should they not be given the chance to repent? `Healing them may be beyond are abilities but we should try I think."
He then turns to Tolvan, "I am not sure what will be needed to heal them. I'll need to think for a bit and any notes would be helpful. I would think you could communicate with them trough telepathy or at least read their minds with some sort of magcic."
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Anna turns around from the brain devices and gives Sonny a look. "If they didn't question their life choices while their skulls were being opened up and brains removed, I don't think there's much hope for them now."
Anna takes one of the canister and inspects it to see if there is a way to activate it. She does find a few nods and switches. Trying to use them to communicate with the brain inside resolve with her releasing is from the canister instead. The brain slides out and lands with a hard plops on the floor.
Nearby, Sonny tries to recall if he ever heard of a way to reconnect a brain that was pulled out of a body. Sadly, aside from a miracle or a wish spell, he can't figure out how that could be done. Communicating with the brains telepathically would most likely possible but would require a spell of someone able to do it.
Sonny sighs and shakes his head "Without very powerful magic I don't think these brains could be put back in. Someone could communicate with them with the right spells though."
Danica stops ands listens to Sonny. She sheathes her temple sword, "You are absolutely right but we can not leave these brains, especially the ones with malice intent. They possess an evil aura about them. Do we leave them alone so the owners can return and use them for evil purposes or do we dispose of them. Maybe Tolvan can place them in that pocket dimension where we rest."
[b]They would simply fall our when the spell duration is up. With no way to save these souls I say we mercifully put them out of this twisted existence they are now in.[/b[
Anna jumps out of the way to save her boots when the brain she accidentally releases plops to the floor. "Eww!" She makes a face as she watches the brain closely to make sure it doesn't start crawling around.
When it just lies there leaking embalming fluid, she sighs. "Okay, one down."
She moves over to the next brain and starts tinkering with the controls one more time. "Well, I know what button not to push. Lemme see..."
It's more palatable fighting demons at the World Wound.
This time Anna seems to push the right combination of controls. A voice manifest in her head, screaming words barely understandable. It would seem that the trauma of having your brain remove from your body and stored in a jar leaves one quite mad.
Anna immediately claps her hands to her ears to try to cut off the screaming. "Shut up! Stop it! STOP!!" she shrieks at the brain.
If that doesn't work, she backpedals away from it, hoping that distance will help get her away from the insane mental screaming.
The moment Anna steps away from the brain in the jar, the voice in her head stop. The only thing that learned from this experience is that if she wanted to activate another one, it would be easier now that she knows the right sequence.
Sonny looks at the jars for a moment and says, "If you heard what is going on in the mind, maybe you should check the others to see if any can speak to you or tell you anything. Ask if it wants put out of it's misery. Maybe we can learn something."
Danica approaches Anna and says, "Do you need to activate the controls in order to communicate with the brains or can you use the controls while another does the 'mental speak'?"
Anna shakes off the mental screams best she can. She gives another dry look to Sonny. "They're just screaming insane. That seems like misery that they should be put out of to me."
She turns to Danica. "I dunno. I'll do it one more time, and you can stand with me. See if that works."
She goes to the next jar.
Anna tries to activate another cylinder, but can't remember the last sequence. With nothing left to do in the room, the group heads back toward the entrance. You are half way there when you pass another corridor you haven't explored yet.
With the artifact in your possession and the lack of sounds coming from that corridor, you wonder if it is even worth it to explore it.