Lanatir crawls to follow Aakif.
Zyrel sighs "Clever, Aakif. I am going to stay here for now." he eyes the blades "If that turns out to be more than a room, call for me. Right now I'd like to make sure the door doesn't lock behind us all."
never trust a priest. Pop was always wise in his warnings
Elsa crawls through, muttering
Inside the room is an odd sight. A woman hangs suspended from the ceiling from thick spider webs, though in stark contrast to the corpse on the throne she’s perfectly preserved.
When Elsa and Armanus enter the room with Aakif, he channels some life into them.
Then he tries to look over the body of the preserved woman, looking for cause of death.
As Aakif goes to study the woman her eyes snap open. A wicked grin spreads across her face as eight spider legs unfold from her back.
Her voice is smooth and deadly, "Fools. You should never have come here. You will meet only death."
"Monster. We will watch the Grim Reaper drag your soul to Judgement!" Aakif swears before getting into a combat stance.
Lady, I'm in a real bad mood.
touch attack
With a sudden word and a cast, a blast of lightning strikes at the spider woman
Lanatir prepares to move in.
The tiefling brings his double-pistol on bare once again.
The woman drops from the cieling, landing in front of Aakif. She gives a wicked grin before latching onto him with her spidery legs.
Aakif tries his best to stay calm, and trust in Abadar and his companions.
Lanatir moves into the room and strikes at the spider-woman with his Curve Blade.
Elsa moves to see whats going on, but keeps her distance
Zyrel moves to fire, then hesitates as his keenly honed foresight warns him of the disastrous outcome.
Instead, sighing, he drops his bow, murmurs a few words and follows Lanatir' lead.
The tiefling reloads both barrels of his gun.
The woman flinches as Elsa's magic missles hit her and gets even angrier when Lanatir cleaves a deep gash into her side.
She tries to grab Aakif even tighter, whispering, "I will devour you like I devoured the rest." However, Aakif was ready, and manages to break free of her clutches.
She scowls and crawls backwards on the ceiling, getting away from the dangerous spot between the two elven warriors.
Aakif feels empowered by the success of his faith. In a deep voice, he bellows
"In the name of Abadar, I command you to fall!"
The spider-woman’s eyes go wide as she falls to the ground.
Lanatir steps forward and nods to Zyrel.
He slashes at the spider-woman again.
Zyrel eyes track the falling woman, and as Lanatir moves he mirrors the other elf, stepping forward and lashing out.
Armanus levels his gun at the still spider-woman and fires.
Elsa launches another magic missile
The party's attacks go wide, though Elsa's magic missiles hit home.
Finding herself on the ground, the spider-lady is far from pleased.
She slashes at Lanatir with a clawed leg, but the nible elven warrior dodges her attack easily.
Aakif steps in with his dagger drawn, and harries the spider woman to help Lanatir hit.
Zyrel steps forward, his sword held high, then pauses "Nearly... Now." he shouts as he strikes, all his breath surging at once into a deadly strike, timed to occur just as she glances at Lanatir.
Assisted by Aakif's distraction, Lanatir strikes.
Elsa, seeing the fight in hand, holds her action
Armanus follows Elsa's train of thought: no need to waste expensive ammo if it's not needed. The tiefling still holds his aim on the spider-thing.
Together, the dynamic, destructive duo of Zyrel and Lanatir finish off the spider woman, and as she falls her body shifts into a horrid amalgam of human and spider, eight bulbous eyes and large, spiked mandibles.
The temple is silent again.
we meet so many interesting people here. Moving on?
Elsa cast detect magic and examines the body
Zyrel shivers "Burn it?" he asks Lanatir, indicating the abomination oozing between them.
"Outside, afterwards, if you wanted to do that, Zyrel. You need quite a pyre to burn a body and it makes a lot of smoke. Let's move on once Elsa is done."
Zyrel scowls, then goes to retrieve his bow.
While walking out he turns to Elsa and Armanus "It's dead. Hopefully it stays that way."
Elsa shrugs. In this place, who knows if it will stay that way
"So, do you think when they said 'bring me Abbot Sanahi's head' they meant it literally?" Zyrel sighs "They did, didn't they."
Elsa smiles
They didn't seem to be the sort to use metaphor
"Very well."
The tiefling kneels down before the body and begins to harvest the head, using the sharp dagger he brought. After a few minutes of grisly work, Armanus places the head in a sack.
"Do we think this was the Abbot? Or merely an underling?
We were led to believe that the Abbot was male: remember, 'You can tell Abbot Sanahi that he and his cronies aren't welcome here!'
I suppose we may as well bring the head and explore the rest of this cursed place."
Exploring the complex, the party finds a few things of interest.
In the spider-woman's chamber, a lacquered wooden box contains a fair amount of ornate Vudran jewelry and a small book written in an unfamiliar script. Eight passageways extend from the main chamber, with niches in the wall containing bodies wrapped in webs, many of them exhibiting partially spidery features.
One in particular is a very well dressed man with mandibles growing from his face.
That's just wrong
Zyrel looks around, and puts his hand over his face, thumb and middle finger pressed to his temples.
"Are we going to need to take all their heads?"
Removing his hand he sighs. "Any of them could be undead, so we'll need to be careful. Can someone start scanning for auras? Additionally, there's been one trap already, and could well be more. Someone needs to look. Is anyone an expert? I only did a few years as part of standard schooling - Lanatir, was that before or after you dro... left?"
Does anyone know disrupt undead? Shoot each one with that and see if they wake up. Or maybe Aakif can cook them. That's a thing priest can do, isn't it? She looks at the figures.
You know, a description of the guy would have been good
"No, necromancy was somewhat frowned upon when I was studying. I suppose we could solve two problems if Lanatir decapitates them. Usually I'm opposed to defiling corpses but..." Zyrel gestures to the area around them.
Zyrel summon four globes of light, positions them behind him and turns to casting his eyes over the tunnels looking for dangers.