;
Valachi sighs in frustration.
Delia grows frustrated by the thing's constant fading in and out of the walls. "We need to move to the open with no walls beside us. Stop letting him pop out on us."
She moves into the room, and lobs another globule, for what it's worth.
------
The elemental swings at the ghostly figure from inside the cell where it once floated.
Father moves in to face the spirit like the others, crowding around it.
Father moves up to the apparition and smashes his magical fist through the position of the transparent form. As he does the spirit appears to crumple inward. The Lopper starts screaming, "No, no no! Not a single head! Give me the blood, let me take the blood, no-ooooooo..."
The spirit pulls together, crushing itself into a tiny glowing form, growing smaller and smaller, until it vanishes from sight all together. The voice of the lopper cuts off, with only a small echo trailing behind in the dark stillness.
Incorporeal Subtype: An incorporeal creature has no physical body. An incorporeal creature is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality. In addition, creatures with the incorporeal subtype gain the incorporeal special quality.
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally.
An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature’s Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).
An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.
An incorporeal creature’s attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.
An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Perception checks if it doesn’t wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to its melee attacks, ranged attacks, and CMB. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.
Format: incorporeal; Location: Defensive Abilities.
While Valachi confers with his god, Ried goes back to attempting to cast sift on the bottom of the oublliette.
"That was horrible, but it looks like definitely 2 down now. When he hit me, I went off to some weird place. Thought I was dead, and then had been raised by a priest and my friend, Gharen. But if the Lopper was correct, maybe it was Father Charlatan. Did you all see anything? I'm not entirely sure why it stopped, there were flashes of white light and my vision would darken occasionally."
"I did channel Phrasma's healing gift several times, and once in particular to save you from bleeding, but I don't think that would have been all that was needed," Ember answers Ried.
"Who is still injured?"
Ember hold forth a wand...
Delia looks around, dismisses her elemental once she's certain that the Lopper is not just hiding again, then answers Ember's question. "Father and I are fine. If that was the Lopper, Reid suffered under Father Charlatan, and we dealt with the Piper upstairs. It seems we should only have to worry about the last two. Before we find them, do we know their things, and whether we could use them against them much like we did the flute and the axe for the Lopper and Piper?"
"Alistair has the Splatterman's spellbook and I have the Maruaders hammer"
Ried's sifting of the oubliette's depths does reveal some interesting articles. First and foremost is a pile of bones, equal to one complete human skeleton. Although there is no sign the bones have been disturbed or molested by scavengers, both legs appear to be broken.
Among all the bones there is 30 ft of frayed rope, a scattered assortment of coins, a broken crossbow, a longsword, a heavy mace, and a ring of keys.
"Keys, now we're probably gonna need those. Someone got some rope I can take down with me?"
"I'll hold the rope," Valachi offers, uncoiling his silk rope and bracing the end.
Ried is able to climb down without difficulty, and with Valachi's help, climbing out of the hole presents no major challenge either. Ried can see that without the rope however, trying to climb out would have been a worthless endeavor; the walls are smooth and polished in places, leaving no hand holds, and no way to climb out at all without assistance. Even trying to place his feet against the wall to help climb back out provides little assistance as his feet keep slipping away. In the end, the best solution ends up being merely anchoring himself to the rope and having Valachi pull him up.
He shows what he has collected to the group. The only objects that registered magic were the mace and a small stone he would not otherwise have even noticed, let alone collected, had he not looked first for magical auras.
The Crossbow is presently broken, but was of masterwork construction, and the longsword is also a masterwork blade.
Heavy or light xbow?
Delia nods at Reid's information about the items, "So, the hammer seems straight-forward, but how would we use the book?"
"I'm not sure ... Alistair is the only one who has perused it. I asked him a couple times to look through it myself, but he has avoided discussing the topic," Ried tries to sound less insulted than he is, but fails.
"Alistair, what have you found in the book?" Ried asks the wizard.
"Additionally, these latest items here have some arcane prowess to them. This mace is enhanced to be slightly more effective and this stone is a stone of alarm. Good for protecting something we don't want touched, I suppose. Although it's probably more useful just to sell it."
As you stand there in the quiet of the dungeon, a sudden stillness looms through the place as Ried stops speaking, and the echo of his voice dies. Only a distant dripping of water can be heard.
"Yeah, that's creepy ... this place is so ... dead. Let's take the time to search for secret doors in here, just in case, and then move back to the junction room, heading to the west."
Ember sets about healing Valachi.
"I could use the mace, if no one objects," Ember says after Ried has made his determinations.
"Absolutely take it!"
Ried passes Ember the heavy mace +1
The team scours the chamber for more secrets, but none are revealed. The cell doors have all been opened, probably with the very ring of keys you found in the oubliette. It appears that once the escape was begun, all of the prisoners were let out. None of the cells is anything more than a cell for prisoners, and as a result, none has any secret compartments or doors within. Returning to the main chamber that contained the colapsed stairwell and the remains of the flaming skeletons, the next decision faced is only on whether to head south or west.
Delia looks at the two remaining hallways and posits her suggestion to the others. "Well, if this level follows the general shape of the one above, then the space to the west is larger than the one to the south. Taking a quick peek south may not take as long. Sound good to everyone else?"
"A slight deviation from that most hallowed of ancient archaeological texts, The Dungeon Rules, but your reasoning is sound. Lets go!"
Valachi nods, flexing his claws.
Moving to the south, the group first encounters an open door leading to a chamber off the cell block, much like the guard chamber that contained the skeleton of Gortis Vurch. Here however, the fire that raged all that time ago seems to have spread to the room and destroyed most of what was here. In the corner there is a mechanism of gears and pullies, heavily scorched and not appearing functional.
Returning to the hall your travel south is arrested by a latticework of iron and rivets; a portcullis. You vaguely recall seeing on on the northern cell block, but in that case it was raised. Here it is down, and even a cursory glance is enough to tell you it is far to large to lift by hand. It is a mass of rust, but a touch on it brushes away enough rust to see that there is still good steel at its core. It might be possible to batter it down, but it would take significant effort to do so. This must be what the damaged pulley system in the guard room was intended to lift.
All said, until this gate is moved, there will be no exploration of the Nevermore, and its secrets may be lost to time.
Glancing through the bars by the flickering lights of your Ioun torches, you can make out the vague shapes of the cell block, and they appear much like the one to the north. The shadows of an oubliette are visible here too, though this one appears to be flooded with brackish water. Some of the walls in there have colapsed as well, and standing water seems to take up the back portion of the chamber now.
Any chance of using some rope to rebuild the pulley system?
The chain attached to the pulley is still intact, so a rope is likely unnecessary. It is probably not strong enough to lift the portcullis either, which likely weighs several hundred pounds. It appears that some of the gears are too warped to turn. They could theoretically be removed and replaced, but you would have to find or manufacture replacement gears to take their place.
Disable Device
"Hmm, I don't see a way past this immediately. Explore a bit more and see what else comes up?"
Ried casts Sift through the bars, searching the areas he can see. However, there does not appear to be anything stark to be revealed among the areas to which he has line of sight.
"Continue searching, then?"
Delia watches the efforts of the man in dealing with the gate, "Well, it appears that fate saw fit to enforce whatever rules the book you mentioned before may hold. So, I guess I'm for going west now as well."
Proceeding west you come up to another portcullis, closed like the last one you encountered. There are two doors on either side of the gate, and one would imagine that as with the southern one, one of these rooms will contain the mechanism needed to raise the gate, though only finding it will reveal whether or not it is in working condition, or damaged like the last one you stumbled upon.
Is the southern door ajar? If not, Ried will search for traps on both doors, Take 20.
If so:
"Valachi, would you be so kind as to lead the foray into this room? "
Valachi nods and steps forward cautiously.
This guardroom contains a single large table with two chairs astride it and a single sagging cot pushed up against the eastern wall. Several battered cabinets line the northern wall, with a few arrows and bits of chainmail lying scattered on the floor nearby, yet the most eerie sight are the three fractured skulls sitting on the table next to a heavy hammer. It looks as if someone has arranged the fragments of the skulls in some sort of pattern, as if an attempt had been made to construct a fourth skull from the broken fragments of the trio on the table. The leathery body of a long-dead dwarf, his wiry red hair and beard still strangely vibrant in death, lies slumped on the ground behind the table.
As you enter, three of the skulls on the table burst into flames, float into the air, and turn to regard you. A spirit seems to rise up from the dwarven bones at the table, appearing as a sobbing dwarf wielding a ghostly hammer. A fourth ghostly skull floats in the air nearby, its
cranium laced with cracks and missing a knife-shaped shard of bone along the side.
The Skulls fly at Valachi, attempting to slam into him with their flaming forms.
The dwarven ghost steps forward, into the same space as of of the skeletons, and strikes at you with his spectral hammer, crying the entire time.
Ried hollers, "Valachi, the hammer is in my pack!"
He cooks up a bomb and tosses it at the skulls.
;
; ; can remove up to 4 splash squares and add 1, 10 feet away.
Father hears the sounds of another enemy before the group, and tries to move up as best he can to see what it is they face. He passes the doorway with Valachi in it, and stands beside the portcullis on Valachi's other side. He prepares himself to deal with any enemy that should try to leave the room and threaten anyone else.
Delia moves up to stand across the hall from the doorway with her back to the opposite door. From what she can see in the room, the sight of flame concerns her. She once again has to decide to go with fire to resist the burn of the enemy, or water to try and douse the flames. Until she gets a better look, she just tries to find a good angle to see where she will need to summon.
I can see the labels now. Ried will 5 foot north and then throw 3 squares south eliminating Valachi.
"I can't reach it from here," Valachi grunts at Ried while he tries to defend himself.
"In that case ..." Ried pulls out the hammer after he throws his bomb, "I'll bring it to you in a second."
Ember moves closer, and casts Bless on the party.