"Yes." Oscar nods, stowing the spear and hefting the axe. "We should put poor Luther down. Once he's at peace, though, let's not try ourselves on the drop; I'd rather go in through the exit from here."
Velrun grasps another axe, taking a few experimental swings with it, and also smiles. "This will do quite nicely!" Slinging the axe over his shoulder awkwardly he points to the stash recovered from the old alchemists shop before. "There are some useful oils we recovered which will prove useful methinks!"
Euphemia's examination of the axes reveals, maybe unsurprisingly given the other fake occult memorabilia scattered around the place, that the markings on the axes are nothing more than cheap imitations... but the axes themselves - they are robust enough for the job ahead...
...and so, with the honourable intentions of ending Luther's torment, the group head back into the labyrinth.
"If we're all ready, then..." The false cleric looks nervous and adjusts her grip on her dagger. "I don't know if we want to assume Luther is the worst we'll find, and to use the oils on our weapons to fight him, or if there's something even worse in the heart of the Spookshow that we'll want to save them for..."
Velrun shakes his in uncertainty, "I...I really don't know Euphemia. We just need to see if these axes are more effective against him...it, or whether we need to use the oils. Somehow," He glances uneasily about him, "I think other more dreadful things lurk in wait for us!"
"I feel we'd be better saving them. We need to work together - coordinate ourselves. He's in pieces, and his mind is gone. We're more mobile, and our ability to communicate and plan is our advantage. We should close from multiple sides, at the same time. Then someone draws his attention, concentrates on staying just out of reach." Oscar, desperately trying to apply unit strategy to the chaotic melee they face, suggests.
The animated puppet, grotesque as it is, that had once been Luther - or at least the upper half of Luther - is really little threat to the group... it is mindless, tangled by its own entrails and has nothing more than a rusty nail to offer as a threat... so, saving their oils and greases for a fight yet to come, the group make their way back into the sppokshow. They hear 'Luther' long before they see him again... a hideous half creature that slashes uselessly at Oscar as he moves around it...
As before Velrun begins humming an inspiring tune as he awaits to move into position.
Looking forlornly down at the mangled and almost assuredly undead husk of Luther, Euphemia brings a spark of positive energy to her hand and, recoiling internally but not externally, attempts to press it to him.
Oscar leaps into action opposite Euphemia, more effort going into not hitting the pretty healer than into hitting Luther.
Velrun's tune, hummed above the dissonance of the carnival music echoing through the passageways, guides Euphemia and Oscar's hands... first the witch's hands brand a fearsome scar across Luther's brow - and then Oscar's blade near cleaves the head from the zombie's shoulders...
Skipping forwards with undue frivolity, Drin brings his axe down...
...and, jumping backwards just in time, avoids the jagged steel slashed at him...
Seeing the former host of the Theatre Infernalis near destruction Velrun pauses his inspiring tune He then takes a giant slash at the monstrosity.
;
Luther's axe slams down upon the flailing form of Luther and, with a crunching finality of shattering bone, ends the threat. No longer pulling at the entrails trapped in the floor mechanism, he slowly - and grimly - slides back towards the central part of the painted 'Maelstrom' floor... and, as his weight moves into the centre of the trapdoor mechanism, a latch releases and the floor opens!!!
Velrun barely manages to leap clear of the opening!
As the floor pitches open and she loses her traction on the gore-slicked ground, Euphemia lets out a shriek. Her scrabble for purchase to avoid falling is unsuccessful — off into the below for her!
Oscar's axe shrieks across the trapped floor as he hurtles inevitably towards the centre; and down into darkness.
Caught by surprise as the trapdoor latches open, both Euphemia and Oscar plummet downwards... following the remains of Luther as they slip, with an unpleasant slickness, from the opened floor. Crashing to the floor, they find themselves in the lower levels of the labyrinth... with Velrun and Drin, both barely avoiding the fall, looking down from above...
The flickering light of an askew light reflector creates a strange strobe effect in this chamber, as unearthly shadows dance and play on the plastered-rock walls like an insane children’s magic lantern.
Velrun quickly hops down to rejoin the others, unwilling to leave his friends now.
"Look at these scorch marks," Velrun points out the rear wall, "Something was aflame here, and recently too!" He then gathers up the rusted nail from the remains of Luther. "This must be what we are looking for!"
Oscar drags himself wearily to his feet, gulping as he sees the axe embedded in the floor a foot from his head. Quickly he pulls it up, and with a muttered word sets the head alight.
"How many is that, now?" he asks Velrun wearily.
Euphemia winces and rubs at her side, taking a moment to catch her breath before even getting to her feet.
"Well, that was pleasant..."
The thick haze of smoke makes the flickering light in this room even more disturbing... and Oscar's illumination, whilst providing some visibility, does little to ease the bizarre atmosphere. And it feels almost inevitable when, with a groaning and dragging sound, the animated corpses of the Theatre's actors emerge through the smoke and lights... their eyes are dead and their mouths slackly open as they stumble forwards with flailing arms...
Velrun again starts humming an encouraging ditty about a small force triumphing against overwhelming odds.
"Euphemia!" wails the noble, wading into combat with a will.
"It's no good!" he complains "I've no training with an axe!"
Euphemia recoils from the dead creature, a sense of disgust lodged in her throat, before narrowing her eyes and bringing a glow of positive energy to her hand.
There is a stench of burning flesh as one of the re-animated corpses recoils from Euphemia's touch... staggered somewhat by the attack, the retaliatory lurch forwards is clumsy and feeble. Drin, on the other hand is inexpert with his swinging axe and leaves himself open to the crunching attack of Brarl... and he falls backwards, unconscious...
Dagger in her other hand, Euphemia makes a mad slash for the lurching creature,
"DRIN!" Velrun cries out as he steps forward to slash at the undead monstrosity.
Swinging wildly Oscar pushes past the... 'creature. Not a person. Not anymore.'
This time, maybe girded to fury by Drin falling, the friends are far more deadly in their attacks - steel strikes again and again as the group push the things that were once human backwards and away from their dying comrade...
Growling, a low bestial noise that belies the thought of any remaining humanity, the attackers shove Velrun and Euphemia backwards - away from their dying meal and back towards the rear of the chamber...
There is a sudden noise of rushing gas... and the heat at the back wall of the room soars...
Desperate to save his dying friend Velrun steps forward over Drin's body and slashes again at the zombie...
The false cleric yelps and stumbles over her own feet as the undead forces her back. In the heat of combat she doesn't quite understand what the hissing noise is, but the heat at her back is enough to make her heart skip a beat with dread...
Oscar continues working his way around their dead foes - only to see Euphemia pushed into a virtual oven! Screaming wildly he flails at Cynthia's back.
Flames, cold but intensely bright, wreath Euphemia in a veil of ultraviolet - blinking and rubbing her eyes, she staggers away from the fake fire.... past the attackers who have started to chew at the unconscious Drin. Neither Oscar nor Velrun, who are unaffected by the light, can land a blow...
Splotches of light dancing in her vision, Euphemia is somewhat relieved when she comes to the conclusion she has not been roasted alive. The sensation of cold leaves a prickling on her skin, but the adrenaline is flowing by now and she pushes through the physical sensations to try and come to Drin's aid...
... but it would really probably help if she could actually see beyond her swimming, starry vision.
C'mon, you can do this! Velrun grunts as he again hacks at the zombie...
Euphemia, relying on sounds and instinct more than anything else, misses wildly as she staggers around with her blade... Velrun, on the other hand, smashes his axe deep into the neck of the reanimated theatre worker. It jerks twice against the impact, either in surprise or by some rudimentary instinct trying to pull clear of the blade, before falling still...
Oscar continues to flail away with the axe, to little effect beyond keeping his target distracted. "I need a dagger!" he screams in frustration.
Something rudimentary, a long suppressed biological imperative for survival, stops the last zombie's initial feeding upon Drin. Standing clumsily, the thing that was once a woman called Cynthia turns towards Oscar with vacant eyes and a slack mouth...
Velrun, once again in the grips of his adrenaline fueled stage, steps closer to attack the last remaining zombie...
Velrun's axe, somehow expertly wielded this time, takes the zombie's head off at the shoulders... what would have caused a fountain of blood on a living foe brings nothing more than a grim ooze of dark material from the heinous wound. With the pair of ex-Theatre employees dealt with, it takes a few minutes of ministrations to bring Drin back to consciousness... but it is clear that he is in no fit state to continue the fight...
...the way forwards, into the depths of the spookshow, seem ever more perilous - the mirrors of the reflective maze ahead of the friends are now somewhat warped and bowed, as if half-melted by some hellish heat.
Velrun shoulders his axe and nearly gags as he searches the grotesque remains for the next Nail.
Once he has completed his search he motions to the entrance he motions to the passage ahead. "I see no way but ahead here to proceed..."
When the undead is felled, Euphemia staggers back a few steps to rest her back against the wall and slowly slide to sit down on the ground, breathing heavily. At least until the lights dancing across her vision have cleared up and she realizes the condition Drin is in, which is just dying and not dead, and begrudgingly drags herself over to him to administer medical care.
At Velrun's motion, she sighs heavily and pulls herself to her feet. "Indeed. No way out but through."
Oscar drops the axe from nerveless fingers, desperately wiping his hands on a handkerchief already stained with repulsive fluids.
"I don't know how to use an axe. In the middle of this no-longer-faux Hell is no time to learn. I won't gainsay you your commitment, but..." he sighs "If I'm to be any use, then I need a weapon. If we could rest, and I could reacquire my spells, then I am sure I would be helpful, but as it is..." He looks to the ground "I think all I can usefully do is distract our foes. In which case, how can I help you and Euphemia to succeed, Velrun? Your last stroke was exactly what we needed."
Velrun offers Oscar a reassuring smilw here. "Relax. I think I know what you can use here." He takes out the remaining scrolls they had looted from the old Arcanist shop, handing them to him. "While I could attempt to use these scrolls I think they are better suited for you Oscar."
The rising heat, the vaguely sulphurous fumes that are seeping through the corridors and the increasingly uneasy feeling pervading through the Theatre all suggest that there is little time now to rest... something bad is happening here and it may soon be too late to stop it. With the trapdoor through which the group had fallen now latched closed again, it seems the only way forwards - short of attempting to tear down the walls - is through the maze.
"And, if you'd feel better with steel in your hand..." Euphemia offers her dagger out to Oscar. "I can take your longspear again."
Oscar takes scrolls and dagger "Thank you" he says quietly. "These scrolls may help - and I'm sure I'm better with a dagger than with an axe."
He looks to the halfling "What of Drin? I'm loathe to leave him here alone, but just as loathe to force him through whatever dangers await us in the maze. I'm not sure, in his current state, he could dodge whatever happens to us."
"I don't think we have a choice here Oscar," Velrun shakes his head grimly, "Time is running out here. If we don't stop...THIS from happening, then we are ALL doomed."
James looks grim. "Onward, then."
Onwards, and into the disorienting maze, the group push on... Drin, stabilised but barely conscious, being left behind in the chamber. The heat is oppressive and, moving around in peripheral vision, the adventurers repeatedly see skittering shapes within the labyrinth... real or imagined, the nagging feeling that there is something accompanying the group is ever present...
...and then, just as the friends feel that they are nearing the end of the maze, they arrive at what appears to be a dead end - stopping for a moment, each are confronted with the vision of small winged quasits tugging and pulling on the four corners of the mirror they are staring at... horrifically stretching the subject’s reflection.
Queasy, and disoriented, the group finally emerge from the maze - extreme heat seems to have melted the walls and displays of the final chamber of the spookshow; the wire framework and clockwork mechanics of the boulders that once stood here are now exposed in scorched, jumbled, and half-melted piles. The silver tracings of the visible half of the summoning circle arcs across the floor, and the exit lift beckons beyond that.
...and there, slumped in the circle, a vaguely humanoid shape is lethargically moving around.