Avora decides the dragon threatening Sven is a higher priority and rushes forward, taking the hit but almost immediately feeling Lana's healing pulse washing away much of the damage. She moves into a flanking position and stabs the beast with her spear, chipping of large chunks of ice.
"Feel Milady's burning touch."
Ankih's fireblast strikes the clumsy construct, melting a large chunk of it away before the flame fizzles out.
Bugsby finds it within himself to summon forth one more glob of grease, this time trying to dislodge the wand that has been harassing everyone from the witches hand.
The wand squirts free as Radosek clumsily fumbles trying to hold on, cursing loudly. His normal means of attack gone, the witch pulls out a potion and drinks deeply, removing the last traces of damage he had previously suffered.
The dragon continues to assult the armored ulfen, its armor shredding claws raking across shield and arm.
This times Sven's armor holds up against the onslaught, and he finds himself no worse for wear after the strikes.
Seeing the effect of Ankih's fire, Kalt calls out, "Keep burning that damn thing, melt it down!" Then, in an odd echo of the fight against the bird woman one level below, Kalt flings a sling stone at the flying ice-witch, then moves below Radosek, drawing a dagger as he crosses the room.
Avora does the only thing she can do; continues stabbing at the ice construct. Unfortunately, her clouded vision causes her to misstep, and she stabs only ground.
Seeing that no one is in dire need of healing, Lana moves to help with the dragon in the only way she knows. Extending one gloved hand out toward it, she concentrates, speaks a word, and sends gouts of flame pouring over it.
Lana's spell melts away more of the dragon while it roars in protest.
Bugsby sends more acid at the construct while Ankih calls forth more of Sarenrae's fire. The divine fire flares powerfully and consumes the beasts head. It roars in protest, but the roars subside at the dragon slowly collapses into a misshapen hunk of ice. Bugsby then dispels his grease, allowing the group to move about freely.
Radosek growls as he realizes the rest of his forces have been defeated by this rabble. Calling upon his dark magics, his hands begin to crackle with dark energy as he swoops down to face the ranger.
Kalt goes to slash a the witch with his dagger, but Radosek grabs his arm, discharging the spell. The world seems to slow for Kalt as the dark curse takes effect, befuddling his mind and slowing his body. "You may kill me!" he whispers to the ranger, "But I'm going to leave you something to remember me by!"
Kalt seems to visibly wither as Radosek grabs him, his movements clumsy and his head wobbling like a drunkard's. He drops the dagger he's holding as his arm twitches violently with the fell magic coursing through it. He takes an uncertain step away from the witch, just enough to draw his blade from his belt, then swings it two-handed at Radosek, calling, "What have you done to me?" as he attacks.
Feeling nearly spent, Lana retrieves her bow with one hand while using the other to tap Sven with the wand.
Hearing Kalt's roar of dismay, Ankih will fire off his 3rd and final bolt of flame at Radosek.
"Burn! Foul witch!"
Avora, seeing the witch touch ground, moves to flank him and stabs with her spear yet again.
()
Bugsby sends out more acid, a bit more carefully now that the witch is surrounded by his allies.
Kalt and Sven's blades connect, drawing forth more curses from the witch, who rises a short 5' out of weapon range, and mutters more dark magics. The witches face contorts grotesquely as he vomits forth a cloud of spiders that bathe Sven and Kalt as they work their way past their armor and bit the tender flesh beneath.
They both feel poison course through their veins, and while the robust Sven resists the venom easily, Kalt finds his weakened state prevents him from shrugging it off full, and his arms further sag.
Kalt reaches to the floor and picks up his sling from amidst the swarming spiders, his head reeling from the combined effects of the curse and the poison. Shaking a knot of spiders off the sling as he moves, he steps out of the swarm, sheathes his blade, and readies himself to ward off any attacks.
Seeing the witch still up and flying again, Ankih drops his shield and draws his crossbow. Loading it, he takes aim at the foe.
" Bugs!! You are a foul and perverted foe. Why don't you come down here and roll in the dirt with your friends?"
Lana taps Sven with the wand again, then moves toward Kalt's pile of discarded weapons in hopes of finding his bow.
Bugsby continues to add his bits of acid to the fight, content to remain tucked in the corner and out of the immediate fray.
The swarm adds Avora to the mix as it shrinks away from where Kalt was to engulf the ulfaneque Taldan. With the witch out of reach, Avora flails away wildly at the swarm, but to no appreciable effect. Meanwhile, Radosek floats a bit higher, just out of Sven's reach again to quaff another potion that rejuvenates the witch.
Avora and Sven find the fangs of the spider swarm most unpleasant, and Avora feels herself growing weaker, the more of their venom that is injected into her veins
Kalt winds up and releases a sling stone, then quickly does it again, hardly needing the effects of Radosek's curse to cause him to miss.
Avora growls in frustration, but draws back and hurls her spear in desperation. When her throw misses and her spear lands on the opposite side of the room, she disengages to go and fetch the weapon.
Lana eyes Kalt's bow for a moment before realizing that there's no way she'll be able to draw it. Instead she pulls the dagger she always keeps at her side and flings it at the flying man... then crosses the room to retrieve it as it clatters to the floor.
The battle rages for several more minutes and wounds begin to take their toll on everyone. Radosek's magic eventually exhausts its supply of both offensive and curative magics, and he floats high out of reach to survey his options. After a moment, and a few more weapons tossed at him, he sets his jaw and jets over to the large mirror, casting one final spell.
The party takes this moment to pounce, as Sven hacks his divinely powered axe into the witches leg, severing muscle, bone, and sinew, and sending him to his knees. Avora and Ankih quickly follow, adding spear and scimitar to the growing number of wounds on the fallen man. The mirror manifests into an image of an extremely attractive woman with striking blue eyes, a flawless complexion, and lustrous platinum blonde hair pulled back to frame her proud face. Those blue eyes watch as Bugsby and Lana join in the attack, their daggers sending more witch blood to the tiled floor.
"The Tower." rasps Radosek as he coughs up his lifeblood, "Has fallen." Kalt, who had taken a moment to retrieve his enchanted great sword, takes this moment strike. "And so have you." mutters the ranger as he sends the vile witches head bouncing across the floor.
The woman in the mirror displays no emotion, and simply waves her hand over the mirror, the vision of her slowly fading, but as it does, the sounds of people screaming can be heard echoing through the mirrored surface before they are silenced by the spell ending. Then, there is only wind howling at the hole made by the dragons arrival, and the ragged breath being drawn by the victorious party.
Kalt watches Radosek's head roll and bound across the floor of room, amazed that they've all survived the encounter. He looks to his friends, asking in a strange, muted voice, "Is everyone all right?"
Before anyone has time to answer, he drops his blade clattering to the floor, then slumps down himself, holding his head in his hands, then shaking it vigorously as if to try to clear it. "What did he do to me? I feel as if I'm walking against a biting wind when I try to move, the same wind clouds my eyes and fills my ears, freezes my fingers as I grip my sword..." His voice trails off and he looks up, his eyes bleak and hopeless, asking again, "Do any of you know what this is? Or how to remove it?"
Ankih freezes in shock at the sight of the white haired woman in the mirror.
Irrison? It looked like her but...older somehow. Not her then, but a relative? Oh, Milady. Let it not be so...
Shaking his head he turns to examine Kalt.
" I'm not sure my friend, let me think..."
He will then burn his last channels to heal the party.
Ankih examines Kalt and cannot determine what is wrong with him, after the healing he looks physicially fine.
Lana sighs as the healing leaves her feeling much better. "Was he the last? Who was the woman?" I hope that's all the conflict for today... I'm so drained.
Kalt gets to his feet and moves about the room, listlessly at first, then with a bit more determination in his stride. He collects the array of weapons he scattered on the floor during the course of the fight against Radosek as he listens to his friends' conversation.
"She might be his mistress, as you say, Bjornson, and a lovely one at that," he says, "but a cold mistress she was, if she could watch him die without blinking those icy eyes of hers. And judging that he chose to die to tell her we had taken the tower, I'd guess she's also his master."
Dropping his eyes to Radosek's headless corpse, he asks Sven, "Did that bastard have anything of value on him, anything that might undo this evil magic he's put on me?"
After a thorough scouring of the body, and liberal use of detect magic, the group finds quite a few items of note. The first is the icicle wand Radosek was using to summon the icicle spears, a nice amulet, cloak, and a ring. The room itself contained a magical cauldron from where the ice elementals spawned, and a number of alchemical items strewn about the room, 2 flasks of acid, 3 alchemical fire, two of liquid ice, 2 flash powder, a sun rod, 2 tinder twigs, 3 smoke sticks, and a decorative silver box with 3 applications of cold iron weapon blanche. The box itself is worth about 50 gold.
Kalt begins collecting the valuables off what's left of Radosek, treating the corpse none gently. As he does so, he responds to Sven, "I agree, I'd like to be shut of this place. But we should see what's through these doors, in case we might learn something about Radosek and that other witch." He gestures to the door to the east, near where he's searching Radosek's remains, and says, "Let's start in there."
He then looks to his other companions and says, "Any idea what those magical items we found do?"
After thorough examination of the area, there is no sign of Gilganis' body. Kalt looks and listens at the doorway and hears nothing from within, and it opens without issue. A large bed, wardrobe, reading desk, and bookshelf take up most of this circular bedroom. A Carved ice statue of a striking, robed woman with an owl on her shoulder stands next to an alcove of crystalline tiles. To the south, a white curtain hangs in the doorway. A tossing of the room reveals nothing of interest, as the wardrobe is empty and anything of import from the desk has been removed.
In the room past the curtain, several crates urns, decanters, and storage boxes fill this small room. A mirrored vanity and chair sit next to the east window. A second ice statue, this of a tall imperious woman stands in the center of the room. As soon as the curtain is disturbed, before any enter, a female voice echoes through the room. "The uninvited shall wither and die like the frost covered bloom. You should never have ventured here, and you'd do well to leave before my return!" Scanning the room with detect magic indicates multiple auras of a variety of schools in the room beyond.
Upon hearing the voice threaten them, Ankih frowns in pensive frustration.
" We should be very cautious now. I am out of healing and all but my orisons. Lana has the wand, but I believe she said she was running low as well." As he speaks he gathers up his gear, putting away his scimitar, hooking his shield on his pack and loading his crossbow.
" Bugsby, can you disable or bypass any traps and wards?"
Bugsby ponders the magical auras a moment and shakes his head negatively.
[ooc]Based on detect magic, we should be able to (with 12 seconds of study) determine the most potent aura. Another 6 seconds should get us the strengths and locations of all the auras with no rolls.
Lana sighs tiredly and studies the swirling magic.