Dimitri desperately attempts to fight off the effects of the creature's attack, but fails.
Geist pounces!
Crummock then lazily flaps forward, and pimp-slaps the creature with a Heal.
Crummock's heal spell is absorbed by a dark coloured shield...
Only one rake misses due to its blurred nature. The rest of the attacks land on the creature.
It moves backwards, then tries to rip Crummock's soul out of his body.
Einar does not manage to hit a vital spot.
Crummock dodges its attempt to try to crucify it.
Dimitri and Crummock's spirits continue to dissipate.
Geist, unsure what is going on, withdraws to defend Crummock's body.
Mr. Whiskers creates a Force Sword and gives it to Greta.
Greta charges at the Advanced Cruxifixion spirit.
Following his first attack at the undead thing, Einar enlarges as he begins to rage, his Cambion ancestry becoming prominent, he attacks the ghostlike creature with his sword, "Time for you to rest in piece."
Einar's first strike misses the advanced Cruxifixion spirit, due to its blurriness.
The Advanced Crucifixion spirit backs away from both Einar and Greta.
Very diminished now, the Cruxifixion spirit attempts to crucify Einar.
Einar feels the pain of his soul being ripped out of his body as he collapses he collapses in a heap on the ground as a translucent copy of him is suspended above the spot he collapsed, crucified in midair to a translucent X shaped structure, held in place by translucent nails.
Greta flies after the creature, determined to end its unlife.
Greta manages to slice it to tatters and it dissipates.
Mr Whiskers realizes the interior of the monastery is heavily warded. Scrying, or any form of peeking through doors is blocked, and there is a Forbiddance spell in place once past the doors.
Eventually, Dimitri and Crummock manage to force their spirits back into their bodies, but it is a close thing.
With a shaky sigh of relief, Crummock channels his energy inward, rejuvenating his spirit.
He then does the same for Dimitri, and Einar.
Crummock looks at the front door thoughtfully.
"Прямо тогда. Если это то, что они охраняли переднюю дверь, я считаю, что это будет жесткая гайка. Давайте не будем входить, как убегающая телега ..."
He then points at the main dome.
"Как насчет того, чтобы мы туда вошли?"
Crummock, Geist and Einar check out the main dome but find themselves repelled by the purple light.
Mr. Whiskers sits down and pulls out a book as Einar and Crummock try to find another entrance.
After about fifteen minutes study, he is ready to go.
"Shall I try to dispel the Forbiddance spell? If anyone has anything that would help me with this, now is the time to use it."
Mr Whiskers tries to dispel the forbiddance, but realises the magic is too strong.
Frustrated, Mr. Whiskers admits "It seems I can't get rid of it that way. There is still a different way I could try, but it is expensive and I can't do it today."
Looking to the others, he asks "Do we try to break through anyways? It will hurt and we will not be able to teleport at all."
'looks like we need to be ready for anything.' Following Crummock's lead Einar waits to the very last moments and casts shield, mirror image and Heroism. shrugging his shoulders, "Just in case right."
Before Einar begins casting he asks Crummock, "Crummock could you pull out your wand and heal some of these cuts and scrapes? Also, I feel drained anything we can do about that now?"
Mr. Whiskers looks carefully at the protections on the building and does not like what he sees. Even if I can get through this, it would likely kill Nivean. I don't have any good way of telling what is ahead either, other than it is going to be very powerful magic.
I really hope Rasputin isn't that good at magic!
Looking back at their mad scientist, Mr. Whiskers asks "Виктор, ты можешь рассказать мне что-нибудь об обороне здесь? Было ли это что-то, что вы сделали, чтобы заблокировать доступ к размеру, или это был Распутин? Вы знаете, был ли пароль, и если да, то каким был пароль?"
Crummock nods, and heals the party.
"Posmotrite. YA predostavil yemu «Mirovoy yakor'» i «Mirovoy dvigatel'», i vse, chto ya poluchil, bylo smert'yu v kachestve moyey nagrady. Net, ya ne znayu, chto on sdelal, chtoby zablokirovat' dostup k razmeru, ni chto-nibud' o parole."Viktor answers bitterly.
Look. I provided him with the World Anchor and the World Engine, and all I got was death as my reward. No, I have no idea what he did to block the dimensional access, nor anything about the password.
As the party passes the threshold, they feel as if the air itself has become thick with dread, as their vital energies are sapped away from them. Crummock, Mr Whiskers, and Greta feel something hostile directed against them.
The intricate and beautifully tiled mosaic floor of this chamber is a weathered with weblike cracks. Numerous alcoves holding statues of saints and martyrs, each with fresh blood dripping from its eyes, run up the walls to the ceiling overhead. The air smells of decay, and the whole place is lit by eerie purple lights. The rest of the area is covered with purple mist.
An aged crone is perched in one dark corner of the room, sweat dripping form her lank hair and down her bony frame, as she struggles to rise, gasping for breath. She gnashes her iron teeth and feebly attempts to stand, crashing against a nearby baptismal font. " You have heard my call, and you have come," she coraks, barely above a whisper. "My son, he is destroyed, his chapel beyond in ruins. Come children, take me to my Dancing Hut,"she croaks, barely above a whisper.
Mr Whiskers recognizes the aged crone as Baba Yaga, and the party thinks that what she says is true.
Now that he is inside, he also realises the entire place is under the effects of desecrate.
Seeing Crummock casting defense spells, Mr. Whiskers decides to put a couple on himself. He casts shield using the rod, and then mirror image.
---
Ick! It is going to take forever to get the stench of this place out of my fur!
Mr. Whiskers wrinkles his nose at the smell. He then takes a moment to peer at the woman seeking any signs of dimensional anchors, enchantments or illusions. Best to be cautious, I doubt that Rasputin...or should I think of him as Otik?...would leave her here like this. There is something going on that I don't understand yet.
'The crone here, how anticlimactic, she certainly wouldn't mind if we search for spoils. Smiling a toothy smile, nodding toward Baba Yaga and then the temple. "Excellent, it's about time something got easy. Crummock and Mister Whiskers would you assist the great hag will Dimitri, Greta and I search for treasure." Einar points Greta and Dimitri forward, "Победителю побеждает трофеи." Einar then begins to look around.
"I wouldn't suggest celebrating yet, Einar. Please don't wander away, if we are to take her home it should be all as one group!"
Feels too easy...
'I know Mister Whiskers wouldn't want me to take something from innocent people, this is all Rasputin's lair.' Holding his fist up, Einar shrugs, "We can wait till she's ready to go, but I definitely want to take a look around for some trinkets before we leave." He smiles a toothy smile. 'Rasputin won't have any need for them anymore."
Mr Whiskers detects 3 faint divination auras around her. And her most powerful spell/spell like ability available for use is quickened crushing despair.
"The chapel is in ruins. In our magical duel - we destroyed everything. There is nothing but rubble. Come children, do not tarry and help me back to my Hut, where your rewards await. "
The party believes that she is telling the truth and they think that if she said everything has been destroyed, it would be.
"Agreed. We should deal with whatever is deeper in this complex, before retreating. We don't want to leave any nasty surprises behind us..."
Proceeding onwards, leaving Baba Yaga's behind , the party sees the heads and limbs of several shattered statues litter the floor of the chapel’s nave, where two spiral staircases lead upward into darkness. Dozens of thick wooden pews are piled to the apex of the chamber’s partially collapsed vaulted ceiling and across the width of the nave, totally obstructing the view to the transept beyond.
Greta informs the party according to her engineering knowledge those pews look mighty unstable. A little force in either direction would probably cause them to give way, resulting in a small cave in
Einar nods his head in agreement with Crummock and moves along with him. Listening carefully to Greta's explanation he asks, "Should we just knock it down and be done with it?"
Crummock shakes his head.
"Before we do that, let's check what's up in the small towers..."
He then nods to the eastern one.
"Shall we try that one first...?"
Nodding and heading toward the eastern tower, einar smiling toothy smile turns and tells Victor. "Приходите на Виктора, не нужно отставать, нам может понадобиться, чтобы вы что-то отключили."
As the party heads towards the stairs, suddenly the pews collapse in a dangerous rain of splintered wood and sharp nails. Einar and Crummock are buried in the collapsing pews.
Geist manages to avoid being buried.
The rest of the party sees three creatures with razor sharp incisors protruding from their black beards, with wide bulging eyes, wielding longswords and dressed in the severely cut cassock of Orthodox priests, with all 3 mimicking each other’s movements and mannerisms, as if unsure of how to act without the guidance of others.
Both Greta and Mr Whiskers recognize them as nosferatu - a type of primitive vampire. They have DR 5 wood/piercing, fast healing 5, can dominate humanoids as a standard action and they look like they have antipaladin levels.
'stupid pile, I knew we should have thrown a grenade on it.' Seeing the pile begin to fall, Einar tries to dodge, to no avail "Blast" Moving around a little, 'At least not very injured, still need to get out.' Einar begins to rage, enlarging as his cambion ancestry becomes prominent and attempts to force his way out of the pile.
Mr. Whiskers hesitates, then seeing the others move on apologizes "We will be back, but something must remain or the abominations outside wouldn't still be here."
I hope I'm right about this. Baba Yaga doesn't suffer fools well.
He then follows the others.
Mr. Whiskers casts Ectoplasmic Black Tentacles on the area behind the pews so as to catch the two creatures to the south in it.
"Будем надеяться, что эти два человека будут заняты, пока мы сосредоточимся на одном на севере."
As the black tentacles grapple the nosferatu - Baba Yaga's suddenly changes into a bluish-purple-skinned daemon with a snake-headed tail, goat horns, and an unblinking red eye in the middle of her forehead.
A wave of crushing despair engulfs the party as the creature moves forward to bite Dimitri.
The nosferatu that is not grappled tries to telekinetically hold Dimitri in place.
.
Fustrated, it snarls as it pakours up the ceiling.
The other two trapped in the black tentacles discoporate into swarms of bats and swoop forward to engulf the party.
Everyone except Dimitri is nauseated by the swarms as they are bitten by multiple bats.
The wounds bleed - so everyone bitten by the swarm takes 1 point of bleed on their next turn.
Viktor looks injured now.
'Blast need to get loose!' Einar throws his shoulders against the collapsed wood.
Mr. Whiskers' AoO on the swarm as the first of them move through his space.
Mr Whiskers strikes at the swarm ineffectually.
"I am Serafina and I will not let you hurt my beloved!" She declares as she transforms.
Greta moves away from the bat swarms.
Mr. Whiskers scurries as fast as he can back towards the door he came in.