Bubba makes a point of looking up and down the street. "Blessings to you, ma'am. We are researchers and a former supporter of the endeavors here suggested that something of interest could be found here. May we come in?"
Vug gives the woman a knowing wink.
The woman looks nonplussed, but dazzled by Bubba's charm she lets you in anyway.
"What might that be? There's only me and my poor wards here. The poor dears, they are really in bad shape."
She's not lying. The dozen poor souls who are crammed in on cots about the place all look seriously ill, some of them teetering on the brink of death.
Because of your brilliant oratory skills, she won't object if you want to search the place. She chatters happily while you do it, asking if you are a friend of Midas. He's such a nice man and he promised to send her a patch of Potions of Remove Disease, which should arrive any day now, but he's such a frightfully busy man, so we all have to get by as best we can, don't we, dearie?
As he stares down into the hole, he says, "Looks like another dungeon crawl for us boys and girl! Let's buff and go!"
When the party is ready, Valgrim feather falls down and looks around with his darkvision.
Valgrim lands in a circular chamber, 30 feet across. The walls of this domed chamber are made of red brick and lined with stone beams that arch up to a point directly overhead where the shaft leads back up to the sickhouse. An iron ladder descends from this shaft into the middle of the room’s floor. The chamber itself is empty, save for several rotting prayer mats strewn about. Each of these mats bears a simple black triangle. A fivefoot-wide hallway leads east, but a vaguely humanoid metal contraption whirring from hundreds of gears blocks his way, as it lumbers into action.
Roll for initiative.
The golem goes on 4 so you can all act, but note that it's dark down there so unless you toss down some light, only Valgrim will be able to see anything. The shaft is 100 feet deep so even Bubba's darkvision can't reach that far down.
Vug activates a sunrod and drops it down the hole.
"Are you okay down there Valgrim? I thought I heard something."
Valgrim delays for the party to go. "I got company down here, Bubba, large company! Sing brother, sing!"
Bubba starts down the ladder, singing another ballad of epic dwarven battle prowess, once anyone else that wishes to precede him.
Realizing it will take the party some time to get down, Valgrim tears up at hearing the dwarven ballad and attacks the golem, trying to gauge its strength.
Valgrim's furious attack manages to hit the golem in several sensitive spots and soon enough it bursts asunder into a flying inferno of spinning razor-sharp wheels. Valgrim takes 45 points of slashing damage (Reflex 18 for half). On the other hand, the golem will not be bothering you any more.
The alcoves are empty but
A fifteen-foot-wide pit yawns at the end of the short passage. The walls are lined with bricks and caked with mold and less-identifiable encrustations, and in the places where these growths aren’t too thick, strange figures and runes are visible carved into the bricks.
The shaft goes down again, deeper than your darkvision reaches.
Sensing the creature is going to explode, Valgrim deftly dodges the shards. When the party reaches him, Valgrim thanks Bubba for the inspiration! "We're definitely in the right place, those are the rotten green worms in the corner. Now, about these runes? I can't seem to decipher them."
"There could be more guardians further down, so let's be ready." Friar casts Shield of Faith on himself and Valgrim and then we ask Vug for a communal air walk potion, so we can walk down, instead of climbing.
Vug brews up an elixir of Communal Darkvision and gives everyone a sip, along with giving everyone a drink of Communal Air Walk. She also drinks a formula of Heroism, See Invisibility and Spell Resistance.
Vulcan drifts down, supported by the winds around him, bobbing lights illuminating the descent ahead of the party.
You descend carefully another 100 feet.
The well empties through the ceiling of an immense chamber, its domed roof a full fifty feet over a black floor worn smooth by the passage of countless creatures. Alcoves in the north and south wall hold wretched statues of worm-like monsters coiled around pillars of skulls and bones. A single object occupies the room’s eastern half—a huge statue of a three-headed monster. It towers thirty feet high, a powerfully built creature with skeletal legs that sprouts chains from its torso. The figure seems to be made of some strange black stone that looks almost like leather in places, and the eyes in its gaunt, skeletal face seem wet, soft, and almost alive.
It doesn't take a genius so recognize aspects of Norgorber, Urgathoa and Zon-Kuthon in this hideous thing. It's like a bad memory of the Overgod figure that you defeated way back come to life again.
Roll for initiative. Will get map up.
Valgrim groans, "Not that again! And this one is even bigger! Make that 3x bigger! () Uh oh!"
"Uh oh...after you, Valgrim."
On his turn:
Swift action: "Well! As I was saying earlier,..." Bubba picks up the thread of his tale from the previous battle right where he left off. There are elements of the previous Overgod battle added in for flavor, of course.
Standard action: He will also cast haste on the party.
The huge creature makes a gesture and a vicious spiked chain appears out of nowhere and starts tearing into Feres, hitting three times for 40 points of damage.
Then you are all up.
Round 1: Valgrim
Frustrated he knows nothing about the creature, Valgrim ponders his options and none of them look good. He retrieves his Potion of Keen Edge and as a standard action, splashes it on his falchion.
Round 1: Friar
If creature is within 40', Friar casts Prayer on the party and then moves 20' west away from the creature, putting Valgrim between him and the beast, to foil any charge attacks!
Prayer: Allies within 40-ft.-radius burst centered on you gain +1 luck bonus to attack, damage, saves, and skill checks; enemies receive -1 penalty on such rolls; duration 14 rounds.
Friar casts Spiritual Weapon of his own () on the creature!
Initiative
Holding one of the rods at his hip in hand, Vulcan utters a single word as his outline begins to flicker and blink in and out of existence. Immediately he gestures before unleashing a devastating roar of thunder that echoes apocalyptic-ally through the chamber.
Caster level check to overcome SR
Valgrim Round 1:
Then he attacks the creature fighting defensively:
Friar Round 1: He cast prayer (not spiritual weapon) since creature is within 40' and his SR roll was already submitted in previous post (SR check = 29), which I assume is sufficient to pierce SR. Creature is -1 hit, damage, and saves for next 14 rounds!
SR roll for Haste vs. Vug's SR:
SR roll for Prayer vs. Vug's SR:
Vug throws a force bomb and two daylight bombs at the monster.
with rapid shot, heroism and prayer:
force bomb,
daylight bomb #1,
daylight bomb #2,
force bomb (Ref DC 24 or fall prone), daylight bomb (Fort DC 24 or blinded for 1 minute)
All bombs are sticky bombs and do 14 damage the next round on a direct hit.
The monster is tough as nails and makes all of its saves. It takes some damage from the Shout and Vug's bombs, but it has fire resistance 10 so only the force bomb has its full impact. Valgrim cuts deep, too.
Then it goes into a battle frenzy and tears into Valgrim for 88 points of damage, while the chain slashes at Feres for 22 points. You can see some of its wounds closing as it fights.
Then you are up again.
Vulcan explodes into action with a violent barrage of weather, sending razor sharp shards of ice and an empowered lightning bolt slamming into the fiend.
Vug keeps throwing force bombs at the monster.
with rapid shot, heroism and prayer:
force bomb,
force bomb,
force bomb,
force bomb (Ref DC 24 or fall prone)
All bombs are sticky bombs and do 14 damage the next round on a direct hit. (Last round's bombs should be doing 14 + 4 + 4 = 22 dmg this round)
Valgrim Round 2:
Valgrim goes on full-offensive fighting defensively:
Friar Round 2:
Seeing the vicious damage taken by Valgrim, Friar casts Grace on himself as a swift action, then casts Heal, holds the charge, and walks behind Valgrim and touches him, "Be brave warrior! Sarenrae watches over you!"
The creature absorbs the quickened lightning bolt, but the other one hurts it bad, as do Valgrim and Vug.
The creature topples to the ground, all its unholy energy spent.
Friar still heals Valgrim.
Valgrim smiles at his teammates. "Thank you Padre and all of you! Great work! Hey, look over here, this wall is hollow!"
Friar casts Summon Monster V to summon an Earth Mephit, who casts Soften earth and stone on the wall as a 6th level caster, molding the stone wall into clay, allowing the party to cut, shape, or excavate areas they may not have been able to affect before.
Feres's divine companion turns the wall to clay and you easily cut your way through it. The air beyond is stale and seems to have been sealed up for a considerable time.
The room, which is roughly semi-circular is empty apart from four large chests the size of streamer trunks. There are no visible exits.
The chests radiate magic.
Valgrim checks the chests for traps and the rooms for any secret passageways:
"Vug, can you open the chests?"
If Valgrim gives the chests the all-clear for traps, Vug will try to disarm the traps. If there are traps, she summons a mite to try to open the chests (with poor results, presumably).