As Raven moves up and away from the Black Tentacles, the Devil turns her gaze to him. As he closes, one of her tentacles lashes out at him.
Raven just manages to evade the sticky, suckered appendage, and end up wrapped up, just like Angelo.
Round 3
Jeska continues to pull against the web of black tentacles, but just cannot get herself free.
The Devil turns her gaze back to Angelo and smiles. Her tentacle starts to coil around him and pull him towards the mass of tentacles that passes for her lower body.
.
Struggle as he might, the tentacles writhe around him and pull him into their midst. He nearly disappears from view, the creatures lower body now inflated like a ridiculous lady's skirt, making up a cage of tentacles that hold the writhing synthesist within.
Angelo: Within the coils you are pulled, crushed, and contorted at all angles. At this rate, in minutes you will be reduced to a pulpy mass.
You are imprisoned within the mass of coils, and escaping by struggling is no longer even an option; there are just too many tentacles, and they are too strong. You will have to slash your way out.
Rotann growls in a hiss of rage, allowing his anger at this creature to fill him.
Pulling up a surge of energy and pushing himself beyond his normal limits, Rotann casts a spell, Hasting himself and his allies.
Angelo bites and tears at the tentacles wildly, hoping to tear free.
A swallowed creature can try to cut its way free with any light slashing or piercing weapon (the amount of cutting damage required to get free is equal to 1/10 the creature’s total hit points), or it can just try to escape the grapple.
Raven's claws rage against the creature's hide, but are unable to find purchase.
Round 4:
Rost and Jeska continue to struggle with the tentacles that grip them, trying in earnest to get free.
Both struggle valiantly, but fail to get free.
Within the creature's confines, Angelo continues to be crushed and compressed.
The enemy Devil, assailed now by Raven and barraged with bullets from Rotann, moves a pace back to gain space, moves her hands to work magic, and vanishes. A soft *pop* cracks the air as she disappears, often the side effect of a teleportation effect. Of Angelo, there is no sign. In her absence, the tentacles sprouting from the floor continue to writhe and contort, still squeezing Rost and Jeska.
With his target gone, Rotann immediately turns his attention to his allies. He reaches down and grabs a hold of Rost and attempts to pull him free.
Angelo continues trying to escape. His furious bites tear through the tentacles, and he steps away from the devil.
Just a few steps away, a massive horned and red skinned devil stands. He has horns erupting from all over his body, and pieces of parchment wrapped around them and trailing off in various places. This, it is no mean guess, is the Contract Devil that rules this realm. He looks up from the parchment he was reading, and looks directly at you.
Feeling desperate Rost writhed against the unatural bonds.
Round 5:
Rotann calls out, "Raven! Help me free Rost, then we can help Jeska!"
Raven flies over and grabs hold of Rost's other hand, helping Rotann to pull and help him struggle against the tentacles.
This room is not unoccupied, and you immediately hear the sound of shouting voices, which draw your eyes to two vile looking creatures. The first is roughly human sized, but green skinned, fanged, and covered in sharp looking spines. The second is very big, the size of an ogre, and it floats a few feat above the ground. It has the look of something undead about it, its flesh dry and desiccated, and its ribs form a cage locking in the struggling form of something that looks like a child-sized spirit.
They two beings are directly between you and the doors on the other side of the room. In an instant, you recognize those doors as the ones at the end of the hall you had been exploring, just seen from the other side. You also remember Rotann mentioning hearing the sound of pitched voices coming from beyond those doors. It appears that they are still at it. You do not understand what they are saying, but they seem quite angry about something.
Jeska will attempt to break free again on her next turn.
Angelo teleports again to the other side of the doors, and back to his friends.
"Guysss we got two more devilsss and what looked like a powerful undead posssssibly incoming."
Rost called upon reserves of strength that he hadn't really been aware that he had and surged his slight frame against the tentacle bonds.
With the help of Raven and Rotann, Jeska is pulled free of the tentacles and then carried back into the hall by one of her flying comrades. A moment later, Rost summons up a surge of strength via his inner will and manages to pull himself free, stumbling into the affected portion of the hall.
About the same time, Angelo teleports back into the hall, looking like he just escaped an otherwise certain death.
The black tentacles continue to writhe, looking for victims to scoop up and crush, but the party has now moved beyond their reach and into the hall.
"So, what is our next move? Angelo says there is a devil and an undead in that next room, we cannot explore the laboratory for tools and potions to use against these enemies until the tentacles subside, and at best, we will still have to face that she-beast again; and even though she fled, I would not count this conflict a clean victory. It could easily have gone the other way."
"Options? Opinions?"
While speaking, Rotann's hands move with practiced coordination, reloading his guns.
Raven shrugs.
"Well, if it is a spell, it should subside in about a minute or so; that would allow us to then search the room... Until then, I suggest that we stay on our guard, and heal-up."
He then pulls out a wand, and starts healing himself.
Angelo follows Raven's example and begins furiously healing himself using his wand.
The others showed wisdom in taking the brief interlude to heal their injuries so Rost followed suit. He had been beaten and battered so far in this "test" and was once again contemplating his decision to enter.
He activated his wand.
- 62
- 73
- 77
- 82
Does anyone else require healing?
The team is able to perform their healing in the hall, and moments later the tentacles retract, shrinking back into the tile floor, leaving it looking as though they were never there. They lasted perhaps a minute and a half in total.
In their absence, the lab looks quiet. Most of the tables were jostled, or even overturned in the fight, and so now it looks quite the mess. However, there is no sign of any threats within, and nothing appears to have followed Angelo back through the doors from the neighboring room.
Raven fires-up a Detect Magic, and begins searching the room.
The room contains every variety of test tube, jar, alembic, vial, and beaker you could ask for, but little, if anything, registers as magic. To the side of one table there is a book that registers magic, and a second glance at it reveals it to be a spell book. You find a great number of potion ingredients and spell components, as well as many fluids and organs of a suspect nature in this room. Acids, bases, human(oid) body fluids, organs, etc, but nothing else of magic.
"Maybe this is that crazy old man's spellbook." Rost says somewhat disjointedly as he gazed around at the strange lab equipment and ingredients. He shivered at what all of it could be for and could only guess at the evil that had been done here.
Raven nods.
"Let's take it to him, and see if it is."
"Yesss, then perhapsss he can help usss here. Thisss place may be beyond usss otherwissse."
When you enter the library carrying the book, the Chelaxian looks up and his eyes instantly go wide. "THAT"S IT! My spellbook!" He runs to you and clasps the book to his chest. He looks down at it reverently for a moment, and then clasps it to him again. He reminds you of nothing more than a child clutching his favorite toy he thought lost. Tears start streaming down his face, and his feet look like they want to start dancing.
A moment later he looks up his face filled with wonder, "I can leave! After all these years I can finally leave this dreaded place."
Looking around, you notice that the plain faced woman who remained behind with the mage is no longer here.
"Where's the woman?"
"She left not long after you. She said that she was going to find you. She did not?"
"Remember? She feared the tentacled woman...who we obviously just met. Perhaps we gave the Mrs. Wiggly the perfect opportunity to take a second shot at grabbing her...so to speak anyways."
Rosty shivered at the memory of being squeezed out by those rubbery tentacles and he wouldnt wish it on anyone.
The wizard flips through a few pages of the book, making sure that they are all intact, and that the book truly is his.
"Best of luck to you all. If you choose not to take the deal, you are probably wise, though it will mean your deaths. I do not know if it is true, but the Devils claim that if you die here, they can take your souls anyway. I hope for your sake that they were lying, but I suppose I will never know. When at last I die, that beast will have claim over me, and Hell is now my destiny."
He moves to the door of the room, clutching his spellbook to his chest. He hesitates at the threshold as if preparing to cross an imaginary line. He then steps out over it, and laughs, and then turns left down the hall. He moves to the large brass doors, pulls one open, and disappears inside.
"Damn. We're trapped in hell. What are we going to do here?"
I for one would much rather die here then have my soul be some devil's plaything for eternity. We could at least see what this Devil's deal is and then make a decision.
"Thossse thingsss in there were no minor fiendsss either. We've got a tough fight on depleted resssourcesss ahead of usss. Ssshall we buff up and go handle the undead next door?"
Raven shakes his head at Rost.
"I dare say that man thought that the Devil's deal was 'reasonable'. Agreeing to any deal with a Devil is a *terrible* idea..."
He then sighs.
"Still, we have time yet; it sounds like we have some undead to crush, first!"
"As for preparing, I have few spells that would benefit us in that manner. I can cast Greater Invisibility, but only once. It would allow me to provide uninterrupted range cover for the team. Alternatively, I could cast it on Angelo, as he seems adept at using surprise to inflict greater wounds. Of course, using it now means I'll have no chance to use my strongest spells on the fight with the Contract Devil. Of course, since survival is of more import than any prize, we could rest at some point to regain our strength; destroy this undead in the next room and then fall back to a defensible position to rest. I for one require only two hours of sleep to fully regain my strength. Doing this would allow us to throw everything into this encounter and hopefully still be at full strength when we face the Master of this realm."
"That sssoundsss like a good plan. I can cassst greater invisssibility myssself. I can alssso hassste us, and grow a set of hornsss. Then I will alssso need two hoursss of ressst to get back to full ssstrength."
"Then ready your weapons all and use your magics, yes? When all are prepared we will enter the room together and attack! Shall we stay together or spread out upon entry? Any special tactics anyone should use? Angelo, you said the enemy inside is Undead correct? Any other threats?"
Rotann moves to the door, makes certain all four of his guns are loaded and ready, and then waits for a cue from the others that they are ready to proceed.
"Yesss. There was alssso a ssspined devil of some sort. Letsss focusss on the undead firssst. If we're both invisssible we ssshould make quick work of it."
I have enough left to take on these undead but afterwards if time permits then rest would be much appreciated. And this time I will be better prepared for combat.
Rost casts a few spells armoring himself for the dangers of the battle to come and then nods that he is ready.