Rallos shakes his head clear and darts back in to combat. He nods his head at Yasmin as he goes by.
Thanks yet again...
He moves next to Tot ready to engage the creature.
Ea's weapon crushes the outstretched arm of the advancing zombie... and, in dumb retaliation, it crashes into her... thorns stabbing into exposed flesh as its weight and momentum forces her backwards...
...at least the Pharasmin is facing a foe her own side, neither Titania nor Rallos can stand tall agains the plant rattling its way through the gardens - and they are too slow to avoid the jaws that clamp down at them...
Fury burns only brighter as the plant tries eat her and Rallos. She locks her sword in a death-grip and begins trying to free herself.
"Even MORE murderous plants?" says Yasmin in surprise. "I can distract it!" Launching ice once more at her foes, Yasmin tries to disable the creature and nearby zombie with ice.
Rallos tries to slip free of the creature's grasp
Ea continue her one-woman crusade against undeath
|
"Where the hells is some weed killer when you need it?!" Murassa yelled out as Titania and Rallos were grabbed by the mouth of the giant plant. Dismissing his weapon before bringing it back, now glowing with a reddish hue on top of the normal purple for the blade, he rushed forward to try and chop it down.
Again Yasmin's ferocious ice lashes across the verdant gardens... this time slamming into the carnivorous plant that has so easily captured two of her friends. Chunks of ice form around its outermost stems yet, for all of the the sorcerer's fury, her spell only marginally slows the abomination... and neither Titania nor Rallos can free themselves....
Ea, her one person crusade against the scourge of undeath, smashes the zombie after Yasmin's ice slows it even further...
And things get worse still when, after Murassa strikes twice, one of the 'mouths' of the flytrap lunges forwards and scoops Murassa into its massive orifice...
Sensing that her friends are in danger, Ea sends a wave of curating energy to restore their health
Tallos tries to squirm his way out, cursing as he does.
Yasmin tries to help Murassa break free from the flytrap's grasp.
"Second time's a charm?" says Yasmin hopefully. She tries to daze the flytrap again!
As Ea sends out a wave of healing energies, Yasmin further lowers the temperature in the cavern with her blasts of ice... lashing out across the gardens, the torrent of cold slams into Tianaia and Rallos' enormous captor and encased it in huge slabs of blue-white snow!!!
Tot wastes little time hacking the plant apart as soon as she's free.
"Phew, it worked!" says the sorceress in relief, as her friends are able to break free. If the flytrap is not hacked apart by the party's attacks, Yasmin sends in some Magic Missiles for good measure.
What had looked to be a desperate situation for the group, three of their number scooped up by the monstrous flytrap and exposed to the vile digestive acids of the plant, is turned quickly on its head by Yasmin's quick thinking... and her ever-reliable magicks. The carnivorous vegetation is unable to maintain any grip on its prey as the ice takes hold - and, dropping to the floor with weapons ready, Titania and Murassa quickly end the threat...
...all around, the carnage to the gardens is writ large - the vast musk creeper and flytrap plants are slumped like so much compost whilst, scattered where they fell, the long dead zombie creatures already appear to be decaying at a visible rate.
Exploring the area, and stepping over vast chunks of rapidly melting ice, the group find the skeletal remnants of a long dead warrior - the blade they once wielded has rusted away but their armour, a beautifully crafted chainshirt displaying the hammer of Torag, remains...
From here, the explorers could head northwards into the cavern (beyond the Spire Crystal and towards the building within the cave) or eastwards up one of two tunnels leading away...
Yasmin inspects the chain shirt of Torag. "That is some fancy armor! It will shield you from magics. But it is a double-edged sword, as it can also block beneficial magics, such as my ability to speed up everyone's movements." She leaves the item for others to decide if they want it.
She spends a few minutes helping the group to heal up.
Tot shivers as the wand does its work. She never liked the infernal healing spells used by the Hellknights, it made her skin feel as if a thousand needles were poking at her from all sides.
"Thanks," she mutters, feeling too drained after the fight for much more than that, though something prods her into asking Yasmin, "is everyone okay?"
It was a tough fight, but we managed to win it. Fate favored us, once again.
"Imagine if we had to fight all those creatures at the same time. I'm glad fate didn't require us to do that . . ."
Yasmin will cast Detect Magic again in case she can see anything interesting. She then considers their options for further exploration. "Not sure where to go next, but since we're here, how about these stairs to the east?"
Then we would probably be dead.
answers Ea with an emotionless voice
"East is as good as any direction, I guess. Unless that's where an incubus vampire is, then I would very much rather go anywhere but east," Tot replies to Yasmin's question while ignoring Ea's gloomy statement.
This shirt might come in handy...let's proceed. I say let's go up these stairs. I'll check it out first. Rallos says as he sneaks up tge stairs and scouts ahead.
With Rallos leading the way, the group cut their way through the gardens - and, whilst their scout creeps up the steps away from the verdant caverns, they wait. Rallos does not have to travel very far, the stairs only rise ten feet or so from the floor of the cave, before he arrives at a wooden door of midnight black. Listening for a short while, he is fairly confident that someone - or something - is talking somewhere beyond the door.
Very carefully opening the door, only slightly ajar, Rallos peers beyond... into a stark and barren cave - a jarring contrast to the life-filled gardens - that accommodates a 20-foot-wide shaft with a levitating stone platform floating in the middle. Facing the pit is a stone seat big enough for an ogre... and, standing before that seat, a large humanoid - his pallor telling of his undeath - slowly chanting as a glowing circle of runes on the floor starts to spark with an effervescence...
Can I get a look?
Ea tries to identify their foe
Tot peeks under Ea's and Rallos' arms and raises an eyebrow.
"Uh, do we really want this guy to finish before we deal with him?"
"Nope!" says Yasmin in answer to Tot's question. She is using the Wand of Heightened Awareness (+4 to next Initiative check) and casting Haste, getting the party ready to move!
- The Pharasmin cleric has heard tales of devourers - the undead remnants of fiends and evil spellcasters who became lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse. Returning with warped bodies, alien sentience, and a hunger for life, devourers threaten all souls with a terrifying, tormented annihilation... it is their touch that is to be feared - for these monsters can rip the living soul from their prey!!!
It's a devourer, a very powerful undead. Beware their touch... they can steal your souls. Try to get it from a distance.
Tot, who'd been about to charge the thing, quickly pulls out her bow and starts shooting it with arrows instead.
Rallos quickly loads his crossbow.
Whistling through the air and thudding into bone dry flesh, Titania's arrow finds its mark... a silent scream pours from the undead's desiccated throat as it turns toward the open door...
Ea calls for Pharasma's help, and a spiral of grey fire engulfs the undead creature... but the damage doesn't seem too heavy, to Sister Zalinsel' great displeasure
Rallos moves up and fires his bolt and then draws his rapier, ready for close combat.
For the briefest of moments, it seems that the great creature - its husk starting to turn towards the group - will emerge unscathed from Ea's blast of granite grey fire... but it is slowed momentarily - enough even for Rallos' fired missile to find an easy target...
...but too soon, it is upon them - a towering monstrosity of death... its skeletal fingers reaching out to grasp at Rallos. The merest glancing blow from the devourer is enough for Rallos to feel his life-force ebbing away... and towards the monster itself.
Tot drops her bow and brings out her sword, with a flourish, her sword is in her hands as she goes up against the vile monstrosity before them.
Titania's blade, expertly wielded as ever and with a large exposed area of dead flesh to target, crashes into and through the undead's ribcage... there is a strange whistling of air as a hole is punctured in the parchment like skin - but it fights on...
Yasmin speaks arcane words of power and touches Rallos, who suddenly disappears from view!
Rallos fights the soul sucking attack and lashes out with his rapier after stepping up to close the distance.
Ea's grey eyes seems to become all white and a Strange, lamenting song, not far from the gut wrenching wails of the someone losing his loved ones to Pharasma, echoes on the Walls of the cavern.
The reverberating song-complete with silvery runes glowing in the darkness- bounces back in a spiral toward the priestess and engulfs her companions.
strangely, they find confort in the sounds and feel protected from the unholy attacks of the undead by the glowing runes
Titania's attack is powerful enough to stagger the creature momentarily but it is Rallos, slipping from view entirely as Yasmin's magicks take hold, whose bladework is beyond compare... three times an invisible blade crashes through parchment dry muscle and onwards past bone - but it is not enough to stop the enormous beast...
Displaying strategic intelligence way beyond that displayed by other undead, the creature steps backwards and, muttering arcane phraseology, turns to face Rallos...
The swordswoman squeezes between the pillar of rock and moves to the other side of the creature from Rallos. She focuses on putting the blade right were she wants it as she kicks off the stone throne and adamantine flashes in the emerald light.
Stepping into the room, Yasmin holds aloft her metamagic rod and sends the most powerful blast she can muster against the terrifying enemy before her.
Ducking the sweeping claw from the beast, Titania moves behind the creature and plunges steel through cracking bone and rasping muscle...
...jerky and spasmodic as it moves now, the fell energies that keep the monster animated are dissipating with each and every blow...