"Reason? We have already faced a similar creature, and as you remember we need to retrieve the whole body lest we risk war between the Shoanti and Korvosa. Given the current instability of Korvosa since your king's death, I imagine the city could ill afford a war."
"Arianna's right," Gyllan says, nodding at the beautiful Varisian as he speaks, "we need to recover all the bits and pieces of this Shoanti, if we can, to avoid further chaos in the city. I already took a look in that otyugh's den, and didn't find anything useful - and it smelled like all the hells rolled into one. But at the time, I didn't know I was looking for legs, so we may have to take another look. Let's go there first."
He leads the way back towards the otyugh's nauseating chamber.
Iozif snorts amusement and finishes looking over the room. He nods his agreement with Gyllan's suggestion. As the others are preparing to leave, he nods towards the derro and asks, "Should I ...?" He trails off and hefts his longspear meaningfully.
Iozif steps up and forcefully thrusts his spear into the bound necromancer, his face stony and devoid of emotion.
Iozif proceeds to follow Gyllan towards the otyugh's lair.
Gyllan slowly turns his head to face Iozif, then nods. "He's done nothing but evil all his days, better to end them."
And with the pronouncement, Vreeg the Necromancer is off to face the judgement of Pharasma.
The heroes backtrack a bit until they are in the room that once held the otyugh, the foul mud and muck may contain some of the body parts they are looking for.
With enough searching, the party finds a few trinkets left over from other corpses along with a set of mostly intact broken up legs and hips marked all over with the bold Shoanti tattoos.
The trinkets include an amber necklace, a silver dagger, and a wax-sealed metal flask.
Detect magic reveals the liquid in the metal flask is magical, the rest mundane.
On the way to the otyugh's lair, Iozif pauses and draws a dagger to carefully cut the Shoanti's head free of the monstrous body. He bundles it into a spare sac, his face stony by the end of it. It's not so different from your courses. Just keep that in mind. You are simply caring for a patient.
Once they've retrieved the items from the otyugh's lair, Iozif takes a moment to study the magical elixir.
"I'm afraid I'm unable to determine this potion's use. Perhaps one of you would care to give it a try." Iozif opines as he studies the potion in his hand with frustrated curiosity. "Shall we continue? If I may have a moment, I can craft an extract to add a degree of armor as we storm this new room, Gyllan."
"This is goin' ter take weeks teh wash out o meh clothes," Ulgrim grumbles after sorting through the pile of muck. He's happy to wait for the alchemist to prepare his extracts.
As the group starts to line up outside the closed and locked door, they still hear the sound of the monster inside beating on the door to be let out. A series of growls, groans, and other unintelligible sounds comes from the beast within.
Iozif swigs his potion in a quick gulp, sticking the iron vial back into his bandolier. He ignores the bitter taste and stinging sensation that radiates from his gut to his arms. "Right, ready to be done with this. Let's see what this monster is."
"I'd appreciate that very much, doc," Gyllan replies to Iozif. "Hearing that thing smashing about in there without being able to see it is making me more and more worried about what it is. So a little extra protection would be great."
Looking at the boarded-up door, Gyllan offers a suggestion, "I say we clear these tables out of the middle of the room, yank those boards off the door, and then let it come out to us. We don't know what the space is like in there, and I'd rather be able to surround it - I've been jumped by alley thugs that way, and it'll work a lot better than fighting the thing one at a time in the doorway, I'm guessing."
After helping the others clear tables from the middle of the room, Arianna takes up a position at the far end of the room. "Ready when the rest of you are."
With the infusions made, Gyllan unbars the door, while Corso lays down a coating of grease after the ranger has returned. With the tables in the alchemy lab pushed to the side, there is enough open space for everyone to manuever well.
Soon the creature beyond the door realizes it is opening, and as the others watch, it smashes through the door. The creature is a disgusting amalgam of human parts. The foul-smelling pieces have been stitched together with thick black thread in a shape that approximates a man, yet is certainly NOT human. The staggering shape lurches from the darkness of the room beyond, holding another tattooed human arm in its grasp, and gurgling a cry as it shambles forth to attack.
Carrion Golem - Round 1
17 Corso
14 Gyllan
14 Carrion Golem
12 Arianna
5 Iozif
2 Ulgrim
.
Gyllan steps forward, blade in hand, and waits to see if the disgusting creature falls on the greased floor. "Let's get on either side of him, Corso. If he goes down, I'll step in and hack him up."
Carrion Golem - round 1 - continued
As Corso lays down a layer of gooey fat on the floor, Gyllan stands ready to attack the monstrous golem if it successfully crosses the slippery patch. Both men gasp for air as the noxious odor of death and decay reaches them in advance of the carrion-thing, but both men withstand the smell and do their duty.
The golem, sensing live flesh, roars in outrage and advances swinging the arm it wields like a club as it comes. Hitting the slippery patch, the patchwork zombie slips at once and with a cry of frustration, ends up prone in the entryway.
Gyllan's readied action goes off since the golem came within reach, and he slices the prone creature with his greatsword, damaging it as it rolls on the floor.
From its prone position, the golem flails for Gyllan's leg, trying to hit the man where he stands. The awkward blow still lands against Gyllan's legs, causing 7 hp dmg.
With few other alternatives that could be helpful, Arianna focuses on the creature, attempting to curse it with misfortune.
Gyllan is startled by the smash against his leg from the prone monster, and his counterattack misses by a mile.
Gagging slightly at the wave of decay washes over him, Iozif wastes little time in stabbing the source of the odor with a wordless cry of disgust.
Ulgrim shoots the carrion thing, shuddering in horror at its appearance. Drawing on his ki, the dawrven guardsman puts three arrows into the thing's face in under a second.
Crit
Confirmed
Hit
Hit?
Carrion Golem - Round 1 - concluded
Arianna tries to send a hex onto the flesh golem but the hex has no effect.
Iozif manages to retain his stomach contents, and his stab at the fleshy creature is successful, but the spear point slips into the undead flesh rather too easy, and its obvious the wound caused to the golem isn't great.
Ulgrim follow with a flurry of arrows against the downed golem. One of the missiles strikes the golem square in the brainpan, doing considerable damage, while the others have less than par effect. The combinatino, however, is enough to bring the creature down, and it lies on the floor, still as death.
The arm of the Shoanti brave you seek appears to still be clutched in the fingers of the now-defunct construct.
End of Combat
"Nice shot, Ulgrim!" Gyllan calls out, more than a little embarrassed at having completely missed their foe as it lay flailing on the floor. He reaches down and tugs the Shoanti warrior's arm free of the golem's death grip, and holds it up in distaste.
"Well, Iozif, what do you think?" he asks, holding the arm well away from himself. "If any of us are suited to putting this poor, mistreated bastard's body back together, it's you."
"Can we do tha' somewhere wha' ain't here? I'm right bloody sick o' this place," Ulgrim says, ignoring the compliment to his shooting.
Arianna nods in agreement with Corso's assessment.
"Do we have all of his pieces now, or do we still need to pay 'Big Yuck' a visit." she asks with a resigned tone in her voice, as if she already knows the answer to the question.
Iozif looks faintly green and he quips feebly, "Can't really walk around wander around with a dismembered corpse, eh? I suppose I'll go ahead and get this started" Guiping back bile and trying to remind himself he's not doing anything he hasn't before in treating wounds, Iozif tries to sew the corpse back into decent form.
Knowing the work will be messy, and the final product will be less than desireable to look at (but perhaps better than a bunch of parts), Iozif begins threading the body of Gaehken back together again.
With a little aid from Gyllan, who points out the man's right arm from his left, just in time, the corpse eventually comes together. While the stitching leaves ugly scars, and the parts are sorely disjointed, the overall effect seems only mildly off-putting, as long as the corpse is laid out prone.
Standing from his gristly work, Iozif looks at his 'masterpiece' and shrugs, "I hope that is sufficient to appease the Shoanti chief, though I honestly couldn't care less at this juncture. How shall we proceed now? I doubt that we'll be particularly popular carrying a disjointed corpse throughout the city. If we had a cart that would be ideal, though I don't recall seeing anything of the sorts." Iozif retrieves a spare rag and cleans his hands thoroughly as he speaks.
The heroes half-carry, half-drag the valuable corpse out of the dungeon, moving slowly and carefully, so as to not undo Iozif's fine needle-craft. Reaching the surface via the mausoleum grate, they see that dusk is creeping up on the city, night soon to follow.
Looking as far around Potter's Field as they can, they fail to see anything, but unmarked graves breaking up the monotony of the barren and desolate place.
Not a cart or wheelbarrow in sight.
"Well, these clothes I'm wearing are actually an illusion. I could strip down nekkid and give the body me robe. It'll be a wee bit short on the dead lad, but better 'han nothin'. Then I can use me magic sleeves tae cover up me manhood, lest any lasses lose their minds with lust," Ulgrim comments in his signature monotone.
Gyllan gives Ulgrim a puzzled look. Why's he wearing illusionary clothes? Must get awful breezy sometimes... Shaking his head and focusing on the matter at hand, he replies, "Well, that seems a workable approach. Maybe me and Ulgrim tote the body like he's dead drunk, instead of dead dead. Corso and Arianna walk along in front and complain about what a drunken ass our friend made of himself, Iozif brings up the rear scowling, and we hope nobody gets too close to see what we've got. And we snag the first wagon we come to."
He glances at his companions, shrugs, and says, "It's an idea. What do you think?"
Iozif's eyebrows wrinkle as he looks at Ulgrim from the corner of his eye. I'm not sure if that was intended to be jocular or not. He slowly nods to Gyllan's idea, adding, "That seems like a passable solution given our limited resources at the moment. I've also a blanket I can spare if that would help somehow. An impromptu sling, perhaps?"