The Matriarch charges the fighter in the hopes of subduing him before he comes to.
The WMD's claws and teeth screech as they skid off the warpriest's armor, but fail to harm him. The Matriarch tackles the fighter, who seems too dazed by the mind control to resist properly.
Vladimir slaps the cleric on the face--hard. She crumples to the ground, unmoving.
The warpriest, with enemies on both sides, hesitates for only a moment before going for the strange creature that just tackled his friend.
He ends up doing more harm than good when he accidentally hits the fighter twice instead.
The Matriarch starts to squeeze the ever living daylights out of the fighter. She intently keeps the literal meat shield between her and the warpriest whilst smiling wickedly at him from her cover.
"Hmm, that grabbing thing seems to be working pretty well. Maybe I should make a dedicated 'SIEZE HIM' button in here... BUT IN THE MEANTIME, "
Tikkik slams a fist into a button marked with flames.
The W.M.D. breathes fire on the warpriest at point-blank, missing the Matriach and the fighter.
"Blast, looks like the fire pipes must be clogged up a bit."
Vladimir goes to grab the cleric's unmoving body. "Oh, can you stop playing with them? The other tvo ran avay, but they might be back. Just take that priest out and be can regroup."
This girl could make a nice spawn, now that I think about it.
The Matriarch starts squeezing the fighter's life out. He struggles, trying to escape.
But his struggles are ineffectual.
The warpriest does his best to dodge the W.M.D.'s weak flames.
He avoids the worst of it, thengrowls and steps forward, holding his polearm in one hand while trying to strike The Matriarch with his gauntleted fist.
Only one strike hits, and not for that much in the way of damage.
"You know, Matriarch" says Vladimir, dragging the cleric over every bump in the floor he can find "it is vildly inefficient to focus on those already under my control. Vhat is the sense of crushing their vills if you keep strangling them aftervards? Uff. You there, priest, vould you kindly lie on the floor and take a nap?"
The warpriest promptly drops to the ground and closes his eyes.
Now that the danger of his dragon being wrecked was past, Tikkik calms down considerably.
"Soo... I'd really rather have a chance to fix this damage before we chase after the two Vladimir scared away. Maybe make some improvements... They have any nice stuff?"
Cephalon's various heads mutter among themselves. It takes the better part of a minute for his wounds to heal, at which point he turns to address his colleagues again.
"Why are we just letting them get away?!"
They're not getting away. They're running. Matriarch says as she drops the fighter. It will be a simple enough thing to catch up.
Vladimir assesses the state and gear of the adventurers in the room while his own wounds regenerate.
"Because Tikkik's dragon is half trashed, they headed to the Tear Pool and ve haven't explored the Torture Chamber. Ve'll get them in a vhile, perhaps it is better if I hide and scout ahead next time. No offense, Matriarch, but adding to their numbers vhile giving them info might be counterproductive."
"This voman vill be reborn as a thrall of mine in a few days, you can have the other tvo. Shall ve get to the Forge? Perhaps look for a vay to make Lord Cephalon fit in my angust and claustrophobic corridors? Or perhaps me and The Matriarch can hide here in case the tvo come back."
The Matriarch nods. Making them wait a bit will do their nerves well. I agree.
Cephalon, despite his vast intellect, doesn't know big words. "Fit in your what?"
"The HALLWAYS." Tikkik sighs a bit at the hydra's... denseness. "So that I won't be stuck behind your ponderous behind next time. Anyways, I really need to get to work on some repairs. At least there's plenty of armor lying around here I can use...."
The matriarch help gather the loot (living and otherwise) and carry out back right the Forge.
Once there she dumps what isn't alive and drags what is out until the ruined court. There she ties the captives in a standing positron, hands outstretched, between two separate sets of adjacent pillars. They were choose enough for her to talk to them both at once, but not so choose as to let them whisper to each other.
Once setup was complete she wakes them both with a painful but not damaging slap. Then she lays out the options for them, the Warpriest in particular.
Vladimir drags the corpse of the cleric back to his bedchamber, leaving her on his bed, where she will awaken as spawn in a few weeks.
Then he heads to the forge, taking out a notebook to note the value of all the found objects. Ah, financial mathematics, one of the joys in life. Or undeath.
Looking over your defeated foes' gear, you find (ignoring cheap non-magical gear):
Cleric:
scroll of greater magic weapon
scroll of mark of justice
masterwork heavy mace
bracers of armor +2
headband of inspired wisdom +2
mind sentinel medallion
gold holy symbol of Nethys
Sorcerer:
+1 dagger
amulet of elemental strife
bracers of armor +2
cloak of resistance +3
lesser dazing metamagic rod
headband of alluring charisma +4
5 flasks alchemist's fire
593 gp
Warpriest:
+2 bec de corbin
+2 full plate
amulet of natural armor +2
belt of physical might +2 (Str, Con)
cloak of resistance +2
headband of inspired wisdom +2
dusty rose prism ioun stone
ring of protection +2
350 gp
Fighter:
+1 composite longbow (mighty +5)
+3 adamantine warmhammer
+2 full plate
+2 heavy steel shield
belt of giant strength +2
cloak of resistance +2
ring of protection +2
2268 gp
After several minutes of scribbling and enchanting, Vladimir produces a large, faintly magical sheet of parchment.
"Here! I've marked all of the items ve've gathered, their market value and how much they vould be vorth in the Forge for each of us. To claim an item, just mark it in the apposite place, and it vill calculate exactly hov much each of us took. That vay, ve can be sure no one takes too much a share. On a side note, perhaps I could disguise myself as one of them using this hat and scout ahead."
When we use the Forge, we'll just need to update boxes H8 to H11.
I could have done a better job with a small database, but it seemed overkill.
"Very nifty. Now I'm going to go and use the Forge to fix up my masterpiece some. It's woefully underequipped for the task, but will have to do." Silently, Tikkik decides that after this is done with he'll have to put a secret lab down near the employee lounge for this kind of situation.
"That should do it for now. But how to improve things...."
Before suppressing his domination on the two victims, Vladimir checks that they are properly bound and chained, and the warpriest's sacred symbol is taken away. He then dons his newly acquired hat of disguise and sets it to mimic the fighter's appearance.
"So, I vill scout... No, have to mimic their accent, or lack thereof. I will scout ahead to the torture chamber, pretend I escaped and lure them here, where we will ambush them. I will try to spin them a false tale as well. If they spot me, I'll be running like a madman out of that hallway. So try to set up a trap while I'm out. And perhaps, Cephalon, we could make up some item to temporarily shrink you, so that you don't get stuck in the hallways like earlier."
The matriarch nods her approval. I like it. But we should get these two to tell us more about who we are facing. It may help your ruse.
She then proceeds to wake the prisoners and explain the Xill reproductive progress in grisly detail.
The Matriarch's... persuasive nature gets the fighter talking, though the warpriest seems determined to just scream about Gorum all day. You get from the fighter that this group of four had no clue that another group of four had entered the dungeon, nor indeed that anyone else was in the dungeon at all other than your minions. Bizarrely enough, he seems to be telling the truth about it.
As for command structure, he claims an unfamiliar venture captain sent them in--one who didn't identify himself but did have proof of his position.
In the meantime, after some debate, Tikkik grudgingly gives in to the practicality of giving the W.M.D. a belt of Giant's Strength. In clearly the only logical method, he removes the buckle, stitches it into a loop, and uses it to replace one of the dragon's drive belts.
The Matriarch's eyes narrow. Someone up the ladder knows what they're doing.
I think the Gorumite was yours, Vlad. I hope watching this wretch proved instructive?
The matriarch walks up to the fighter and plunges her sharp ovipositor into his chest cavity via that soft spot between his collar bones. It's painful. And graphic. And wet-sounding. The priest probably doesn't like it very much. Especially when the matriarch says, Was this one yours, Vlad dear, or mine?
If Vladimir is disquieted, he doesn't show it. "Thank you, my dear, but I only claimed the dead Nethys follower. You can do with them as you see fit."
He then breaks off in a run, pretending to flee towards the torture chamber.
And the Matriarch pounces and then implants the Warpriest and shifts her into the Ethereal as well so the two can witness each other dying.
"Fah. Do you two always have to be so dramatic about that? It's distracting."
Tikkik warms up the W.M.D., satisfied at how it is now just a little bit stronger.
Come now, TikTik. Just because our floor isn't technical doesn't mean it's not beautiful in its own way.
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One of Cephalon's heads pipes up. "Once you've taken your picks, see if you can preserve whatever's left."
Another seconds the notion. "I'm sure my chefs can do something with them."
A third mutters, "If there are any of them left."
Two more heads get into a short argument over whether or not the plural of 'chef' should be 'chefs' or 'cheves', which ends with them trying to bite each other, but not being able to because the other heads are in the way.
The matron pats the hydra's right front knee. Don't worry my dear. Those are just incubators. There will be plenty left when my children are done with them.
Vladimir runs into the torture chamber to find it... deserted. Sure, it looks like someone's been through here--the animated items are scattered about in pieces on the ground, and the altar has been rather violently smashed--but no one is in here at the moment. The passageway is rotated to connect with the maiden's tear pool.
"Bah! Disruptive barbarians, without even the courtesy of being here, ready to be slaughtered."
Vladimir heads towards the tear pool. Poor Lyudmilla has likely been killed again.
Vladimir does his best injured-fighter impression into the tear pool... where he finds the archer and alchemist from before chatting with yet another 'classic' party of four, warily watching the entrances. They all bring up their weapons as Vladimir enters, but then the archer started to lower his bow, saying, "Beler, how'd you escape?"
"Beler" scans the room, taking in any detail about the six enemies in the room.
"They... they let me go, something about sending a message, and having us know what we were to expect. They killed the others, and... oh gods, they even stripped me of my weapons! It was terrible!"
"I believe that they mean to launch a surprise attack at us, this place is full of traps and hidden passages. And I'm not sure that we could take them in straight combat, they are strange and powerful creatures."
"But I believe that we could get the drop on them! From what I've heard while they thought I was knocked out, the two largest ones were severely wounded and had to retire to a secluded place to heal: a small, stealthy vanguard party could get the drop on the two weakest ones, a four-armed whatsitcalled and a charming, dashing, good-looking vampire. But it's risky, we can't go all together or we risk them getting alerted, and I'm not sure we could win a straight fight."
The four new adventurers include a lightly-armored man with clouded eyes and a mysterious smile (his appearance practically screams 'mystical holy man'), a woman still pointing a very fancy-looking crossbow at Vlad, another woman in classic 'robe and wizard hat' attire, and a man with what looks like three different polearms strapped on his back.
The archer looks over at the others. "I knew I got some of them good! If it weren't for that magic I could've shot 'em all full of arrows!"
The crossbow-totting woman frowns at him. "But you said one of them's a hydra, right? It's probably all healed up by now, right?" She glances at the wizard, who nods in agreement.
"Beler" opens his arms, feigning ignorance.
"Uhm, I don't know about their magics and whatsnot, I just overheard them speaking of some ritual of sorts taking up their time. I don't know the details."
"But I know one thing, and that's I've spent a fortune for my hammer and armor, and by the Gods I'm going to take them back! Let's go loud and go together, or go quiet with a small thing, but I'm not going to sit here for much longer, I'm taking my weapons and smashing them on those hydra heads until they stand still for the last time!"
While waiting for Vladimir to return with a crop of adventurers to ambush, Tikkik paced the W.M.D. back and forth a couple times, making sure everything was in working order, while contemplating plans for what he wanted to do once he had enough more parts, and mumblingly practicing his ranting. His one concession to stealth was staying in the back of the large chamber, knowing he could always rocket over to the other side of the room if he needed to.