Rosemary walks into the room up to the stand that the obsidian egg sits on and throws it to the ground. The fragile obsidian instantly smashes into many pieces and the darkness is broken revealing the room to all. Periodic holes spaced evenly all around the room in the stone of the floor and two doors that are visibly bared and will take some effort to unbar.
A hissing screaming sound almost akin to a curse can be heard from the floor and a red coloured mist, looking like blood seeps from the floor and quickly fills the room reducing visibility.
Something ascends out of the floor besides Rosemary, sliding past her armour seeking out the pulsing veins near her skin slicing them open and absorbing her blood into itself. Before she can react it seems to shiver excitedly before sliding back beneath the floor out of sight.
A Vampiric Mist! This aberation can sense blood in the same way as using the scent ability and it has darkvision.
It is resistant to non magical weapon attacks and is immune to precision damage and critical attacks but is vulnerable to fire! It's Misty Form can also temporarily spread out around it causing a red haze in 20ft. radius that it is immune to.
It's touch attack will drain blood and damage Con while healing it making it faster if it heals over max HP.
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Knowledge(dungeoneering):
Yzera, from the back of the group, calls out.
What the heck? Vampire mist? Use fire, or magic weapons if you have any.
With that, she steps into the room, raises her hands to form an arc before her and speaks arcane words in you have never heard from her before. Suddenly, a wall of flame springs forth from her hands, burning through the mist and filling the room with the acrid smell of burned blood.
Cast Burning Hands
Damage: <-- +50% if vulnerable
With a painful groan as the her lifeforce wanes slightly, Rose infuses her blade with magical power and swings at the mist and lashes out with lightning.
Shocking grasp.
Without any way to damage the mist, Carnadine moves to one of the sets of doors and starts struggling to unbar it.
Moving into the mists, Kelvar touches Rosemary with his wand, giving her the ability to regenerate lost health.
Yzera sends flames out from her hands into the misty room. The entire room seems to catch on fire for a few seconds as the flames ignite the vulnerable mist. Everyone can feel the heat and gets a little singed. It even seems to spread to the space under the floor and more hissing screams can be heard by the creature.
With the mist in the room now gone Kelvar moves to Rosemary and she flails her weapon around and Carnadine rushes to a door (which will take a full round action to unbar).
The creature screeches again and this time comes back above the floor next to Carnadine.
Unfortunately the semisolid misty creature is not able to get past Carnadine's defenses as he dodges away from it's seeking tendrils. It clearly does not want to allow anyone to escape so easily.
Carnadine understands the mechanism and takes the time to unbar the door.
Drawing upon the gifts bestowed by Asmodeus, Kelvar cast a spell to enhance his weapon with magical energy, and then created a double of himself to draw the creatures ire.
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Round 2
Hearing the creature scream, Yzera moves into the room and once more raises her hands, calling upon the arcane magic within her to destroy the strange vampiric mist.
Move to AA15 (20' to the right, I cannot move on the map)
Cast Burning Hands aiming directly north (should hit the mist, but none of the party.)
Damage: <-- use 1 Arcane Reservoir point to increase caster level by 1
--> +50% if vulnerable, DC14 reflex for 1/2 damage
Burn creature, burn. The anger and annoyance in Yzera's voice is readily apparent.
The misty creature slides out of the way of the flames reducing the amount that washed over it. It screams in pain. As Carnadine tries to unbar the door it takes the opportunity to attack.
Through the pain and blood loss he is able to lift the bar and the door to the north is now unlocked.
Rosemary moves and slashes at it carving a gash through the soft foamy body but it seems to shrug off some of her considerable damage from teh strike.
It turns around again at Rosemary, seeming to curse at her and attacks with its tendrils, trying to seek out her blood again to feed it.
The vampiric tendrils tighten around one arm and slice open her skin, drawing from her blood stream deeply before she can slice off the tendrils and pull her arm away.
Seeing the tendrils wrapping around Rosemary's arm, Kelvar runs up to the creather and strikes at it with his enhanced weapon, hoping to drive it off.
He then yells at Rosemary, "Move through the door Carnadine has opened!"
Carnadine reaches deep for the reserves from the Supreme Lord of Darkness and opens the door.
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Round 3
Unsure what else to do, and with the strange mist creature still between her and the newly opened portal, Yzera continues to use her new magic hoping to put an end to this strange creature.
Cast Burning Hands directed straight north which should hit the creature, but miss all party members.
Standard: Cast Burning Hands, use 1 Arcane Point to increase CL by 1
Damage: <-- +50% if vulnerable, DR14 Reflex for 1/2
Burn, burn creature.
The creature moves with speed, dodging both Kelvar's attack and some of the flames roaring his way.
As Carnadine opens the door to reveal another hallway beyond, our vampiric mist hisses anew.
Rosemary slices at the creature but the attack goes wide.
The creature attacks Carnadine again, draining some of his lifeforce but unable to get a solid grip.
Carnadine enters the hallway and again taps the deep reserves from the Supreme Lord of Darkness.
Adopting a defensive posture, Kelvar shouts, "I'll cover the escape! Yzera, Rosemary, move!"
With a nod, Rose moves past the mist through the door, touching it with corruption as she moves on.
The creature lashes out, determined not to let anyone escape. Almost completely ignoring everyone else it sends out many more tendrils than before as Yzera tries to move past it. They hit their mark sliding past her armour and finding some major arteries, slice in. She moves too quickly for much blood to be gorged but the damage is done and she begins to bleed.
Everyone else gets out of the room and into the hallway, past the creature which stays at the open door, screeching horrible sounding curses in it's language.
Pulling out his wand again, Kelvar touches Yzera with it, giving her the gift of Infernal Healing.
"It seems it can't move outside of the room. I could try to kill it with spells, but I think that maybe I shouldn't waste my spells." Rosemary looks at her comrades quizzically and then back to the mist with spite.
"There's another door out of that room. We may need to go through there. However, we could find more resources in here to fire it. I say we move forward." Carnadine offers.
"Let us see what other fire-based resources we can perhaps find. That may prove the more effective option. I do not know that we managed to cause it significant injury."
The creatures misty form struck by the frost ray freezes and cracks, seeming to be affected normally. Soon after, it returns below the floor, sifting itself through the holes.
Above the new door is another of these 'Lessons' the Cardinal wanted you to learn.
"Cruelty is a tool not a pastime. Be ruthless to thy enemy but reward those who serve thee well."
While everyone contemplates the lesson, Carnadine suggests, "everyone, heal yourself as much as you can."
With the danger removed you all turn to observe the new door. The next lesson's inscription above it.
"Cruelty is a tool not a pastime. Be ruthless to thy enemy but reward those who serve thee well."
It is unlocked and opening it reveals another stone room. There is only one thing in this room – a torturer’s rack. This cruel implement is functional and ready for use but currently empty. The chamber is lit by an oil lantern that hangs from the center of the room. There is nothing else obvious here.
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Yzera looks into the room as she mulls over the lesson:
Cruelty is a tool, not a pastime? . . . Be ruthless to thy enemy, but reward those who serve thee well?
She then looks to her companions:
He Who Walks In Blood prefers a swift kill, so clearly that rule is not my Lord's.
Ruthless and reward. Perhaps it is directed to make sure that one's enemy should be left dead, but is the enemy is willing to turn, then reward them to secure their loyalty?
Carnadine looks around and detects for Magic.
No magic is detected in the room.
"I believe that 'cruelty is a tool not a past time' means that you should not be cruel out of hand, but only when it will accomplish something. The second part, I believe, means to show no mercy to those who oppose you, but not executing underlings for failure."
Carnadine detects a magical aura coming from the torturer's rack but is unable to determine anything else.
The Torturer's Rack is identified as a Rack of Truth. Strapping a creature to the table subjects the subject to the effect of a Zone of Truth spell as long as they are on the table(DC 12 will save). A successful intimidation check to demoralise the subject will give an extra -2 penalty to the save against this item only.
"Betrayal is not a failure, it means they are now your enemy, and ruthlessness must be applied. You do not reward underlings who fail, but you don't execute them on a whim either. One does not throw away a useful tool."
Responding to all the brainstorming about the lesson, Carnadine says, "And how does all that translate into action?". He sets down his greatsword and lays down on the rack.
Rose moves up and straps him in. Smiling she says, "This is getting interesting."
"I'm in good hands." Carnadine grins at Rosemary.
As Carnadine lies on the rack, Kelvar examines the rest of the room
The instant Rosemary fastens the straps for his wrists and ankles, Carnadine feels a force grope his mind but manages to resist whatever effect had been activated and simply lies there.
The room seems entirely void of anything else useful or interesting for this lesson.
Rose is much to interested in the delectable situation with Carnadine to notice much else.
Rose begins to peruse the tools.
"Anyone have any suggestions?"
"Yeah. Nothing happened to me, so this obviously is not the key to the lesson. Release me before something attacks us." Carnadine concludes.
Kelvar continues studying the room with his magic sight, trying to learn more of it's function.