This time the Mage Sword hits!
Mr. Whiskers starts huffing and puffing while touching a brass dragon's scale. Then he lets out a 60' line of fire!
The fire avoids his friends. Unfortunately, it also doesn't affect the queen.
The mage sword strikes her and she looks like she is about to fall over, but NOT QUITE YET!
Crummock shifts to a flanking position with Einar, and attempts to pimp-slap the queen again.
Geist then works on whatever is left.
Crummock reaches out with one glowing hand, leaving her just short of falling over, then Geist finishes the Queen off.
Geist and Greta are fine, Crummock not really.
The blight fire for Crummock fades.
Greta and Geist fight off the blight fire successfully.
Searching the Queen yields. Astring of rare blue pearls around her neck. However, the crown is only a replica made of gold-plated copper worth only 150 gp.
This long hall extends deep into the fortress, ending in a mass of long-cooled lava that overwhelmed the rear of the chamber. Partially buried in the volcanic rock is a large iron throne atop a dais of polished, red-veined marble, both covered in a thick rime of ice. A small balcony high on the northeast wall overlooks the length of the hall. There are 5 baykok bodies on the floor, each yielding a +1 composite longbow(+3 str).
The party finds a hidden flagstone, which Einar promptly lifts.
Eight wooden crates lined around the walls hold a total of 80 gold ingots stamped with the sword and crown of Vashliq (worth 200 gp each). A mahogany coffer lined with velvet (worth 70 gp) contains a potion of displacement, a potion of fly, a potion of good hope, a potion of haste, a potion of heroism, and a potion of nondetection. A platinum casket (worth 2,000 gp) contains a ring of mind shielding, a tome of leadership and influence (+3) wrapped in silk (50 gp), bracers of armor (+8), an emerald and topaz necklace (worth 5,200 gp), and an engraved red gem on a gold chain that appears to be a periapt of wound closure but is actually a periapt of foul rotting.
In addition, a suit of +1 spell resistance half-plate (SR 19) hangs on an armor stand in one corner. Finally, seemingly carelessly tossed in one corner is a burlap sack containing a gold crown that is a masterpiece of craftsmanship and set with the finest gemstones. The crown has an overwhelming aura of evocation and is worth 15,000 gp.
When Mr Whiskers examines the crown, he sees a vision of Bremagyr’s crown set within an ornate wooden wall cabinet in Mametqul's tent.
The party sees a chamber leading into darkness beyond.
Einar sees through the fog seeing a rusted iron cage containing a swarm of wasps.
Opening the key with the door found from under the bed in D9 reveals a windowless room. It appears to be a jail cell.
Crummock, looking decidedly pale, breathes a sigh of relief when the blightfire abates.
"That was too close for comfort."
He then kicks the corpse of the Queen.
"So much suffering, and for what?"
Crummock then sets about healing the party.
He then nods to the others.
"Looks like we almost have this place cleared out - only two rooms to go. I'll hang back, and let Einar and Geist take point."
A wide window looks out from this chamber over the fortress’s flooded moat ten feet below. The air is heavy with the pungent smell of filth.
Einar, Greta, Mr Whiskers and Geist see 3 rancid-smelling mounds of animated ooze has about its shifting countenance the hideous shape of a half-melted man.
He knows they are omox demons, have 10 DR/good, can liquid leap.
As long as an omox is in contact with liquid, it can use dimension door as a swift action; its starting and ending points must be connected by a contiguous mass of liquid.
And they have the following SLAs:
At will—create water, greater teleport, liquid leap, telekinesis (DC 19)
3/day—gaseous form, control water, poison, stinking cloud
1/day—acid fog, summon (level 4, 1 omox 30% or 1d4 babaus 60%)
Greta looks rather unwell, but staggers up to her feet.
Mr. Whiskers casts Mirror Image.
When the door opens, Mr. Whiskers attempts to blind the creatures.
"Oh noes! We can't see!" They exclaim frantically. Then they stumble their way blindly through the window with surprising dexterity, , falling into the flooded moat 10 ft below.
Crummock moves forward to peer into the room, to see if there is anything worth looting.
Mr. Whiskers moves up to the rest of the group where he can see better. "Go ahead and loot! I'll wait here. Stay within 30 feet of me!"
He then stands ready.
With two puffs of brown smoke, and two BAMF sounds, the omox demons reappear behind the party, where Mr Whiskers used to be standing. "We're back, Rat! We'll show you what we do to people who wiggle their paws at us!" They threaten. But when they BAMF back, the party notices this time they aren't standing together.
Greta moves up, and tries to splatter some of their own muck on them.
Mr. Whiskers casts his sword spell, having it attack the blind one. He then moves out of the way in case Einar decides to charge the other one.
For a moment, the mage sword strikes into a brown shield, wavers, then cleaves through it.
The mage sword should have struck a vital spot... Except they don't have any, because they're all muck.
With a worried glance in Greta's direction, Mr. Whiskers says "Once we've sent these creatures back to their own plane, we may want to retreat as well."
"Don't worry. I'm fine. At least better off then he is. " She glances at Crummock. Then a shadow passes over her face, "Or Dimitri is." She remarks sadly.
Crummock, coming to a decision, casts Quickened Divine Favor, flaps forward, and pimp-slaps one of the demons.
Geist pounces forward, smiting his foe!
Crummock touches his demon and it withers under his touch.
As they are sneaky, dirty cowards...it tries to do a disappearing act.
Geist damages, but does not manage to grapple that sludgepile demon.
It turns to the party, giving a huge fart hoping it will distract the party so it can get away.
No one is nauseated, but the whole place is full of..fart gas.
Geist attempts to bite it as it tries to run.
Einar who can see through fog, also stabs it as it tries to run, and it splatters on the ground.
The demons do not return, and the party manages to search the place in peace. They find a staff of heaven and earth amid the filth of the demon's lair.
Recalling that Einar mentioned something about cages of wasps, Crummock takes the Amulet of Mighty Fists from Geist's neck, and replaces it with the amulet from his own neck .
"If there be cages full o' wasps, we might need to deal with swarms o' the little blighters. Mr Whiskers? Do ye still have some charges in that staff o' yours?"
He then casts Divine Favor on Geist.
Mindful that the fog in the next room will mess with the others, he moves to the back of the party, and prepares to use the newly-discovered staff to blow it away.
As Einar opens the door, Crummock's gust of wind blows away the fog, revealing...
Coffered arches support the high celling of this chamber. Small iron mesh cages, alive with flitting black shapes and glowing red eyes, hang suspended by hooks form the arches stone groins, Empty alcoves on either side of the room apparently once displayed painted iconographic figures, but the plaster has been chipped away until only distorted figures that seem to have sprung from the depths of hell remain. Double doors exit to the northwest and southeast and a flight of stairs descends to the southwest. The smell of sulfur and refuse are strong in this chamber.
The party sees 3 cages with swarms of black and yellow wasps with hungry red eyes. They are being attended to by a wiry, wicked female looking like little more than burned blistered skin pulled over bones. Tiny horns jut from her forehead and she has razor sharp talons springing from their long fingered hands. She also appears to be flying and rather oily looking, and her image is rather blurred as well. There are 3 roiling wave of flesh at the door and amid the fatty surge wriggle half-formed limbs and a dripping tumorous face, which are knocked prone by Crummock's gust of wind.
Mr Whiskers recognizes the female as a pithag. It has 10 DR/cold iron and magic, and has spell resistance.
Eh Mr Whiskers knows all about lemures.
Both Greta and Mr Whiskers know NOTHING about the wasps.
The wiry wicked female does not look very pleased seeing the staff of heaven and earth held in Crummock's hands. She glares at it as if it was a hated enemy. She makes a gesture and one of the cages open and the swarm surges out and flows to strike Crummock.
Then she turns on Geist, Greta and Einar, and spreads her hands out wide as a cone of dark energy hits the lemures and Geist, Greta and Einar.
Geist, Greta and Einar feel waves of necromatic energy surge over them, sapping their energy.
Geist attacks the swarm.
Crummock buggers off.
Geist attacks the swarm but his attacks don't seem to be fully effective...
Faint transmutation, Faint illusion, faint conjuration.
Greta starts lemure a-clearing, stabbing swiftly with her ranseur.
And the area near the door is now clear of lemures!
"The staff is almost empty, but I do have other spells. If I'm to use the staff, people will need protection from electricity. Can you do it, or must I?"
If Crummock can't do it, Mr Whiskers says "Well this is one less spell to kill swarms, but it is probably worth it." and casts a communal resist energy electricity using the rod to extend it.
He also casts Mirror Image and gets out his rod of electric metamagic.
Mr. Whiskers takes a step towards the swarm saying "I don't recognize these things..." and let's loose with a blast of cold.
The swarm manages to dodge some of it, but its still damaged by it.
The glaive does cut into her, but does not seem fully effective.
"Yeah right, you came barging into my door." She growls back.
The lemures move foward, like a rolling wall of flesh.
Then she flies backwards, hiding behind the lemure wall as Einar cuts at her another time.
But it misses due to her blurred image. She then flees back to the cages, uses another quickened open/close on one of them, and manually opens up the last cage, setting the wasps free.
Crummocks wasp swarm withdraws and sticks onto him like glue.
Crummock sinks down to the floor as the poison overwhelms him.
One of the swarms go for Mr Whiskers, but Mr Whiskers is perfectly fine.
The other goes for Geist, who gets a good bite as they come in.
"Do you want me to use winterwolf form to help with the swarms?" Greta turns her head back, looking at Mr Whiskers, worried. "It'll take a while though."
The party also hears something enormous sludging its way up the stairway west.