The sword is magical. Pik says matter-of-factly.
The sword is magical. Pik says matter-of-factly.
"Good thing he didn't actually hit any of us with it then," Elransil says.
The ranger steps closer to the stairwell and listens for any more monsters.
"I think you will make more use out of it than I." Manx nods to Erodel.
"Rad, what do you make of this misshapen creature?"
Pik chuckles as Erodel asks, You're the only one here that uses one of those things. I don't think anyone will object.
Pik doesn't appear very interested in the creature, feeling as if it's origin is obvious.
It is Radoslav, the man says flatly as he bends down to collect some samples from the thing. And I have seen nothing like it. It is either new species or creation of existing species and experimentation. Interesting idea, I would like to find whatever process created this.
You now have two options, go back the way you came or go down the dark stairs. You do not hear anything else on the stairs.
Looking down the stairs, So...who wants to go down into the dark and spooky dungeon first?
spooky, spooky caws the raven.
Pik chuckles, Yes, thank you Roak. That didn't make it worse at all.
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Taking the sword, Erodel will sheathe his other blade. "I'll put it to good use!" he says, giving it a few practice swings in the air.
Looking around at the others, Erodel will be the first to descend down the stairs, shield lighting the way and magic sword in his other hand. "I say we get to the bottom of this dungeon." He calls from over his shoulder.
Down the spooky stairs you go into the largest room you've been in yet. The ceiling of this strangely cold chamber arches to a vaulted height of
twenty feet. The floor contains eleven wooden lids strewn haphazardly over eleven five-foot-wide pits in the ground. From the darkness within these pits echo up strange shuffling sounds and, every so often, a low moan.
Should you venture close to the edge of one of the pits and look down, what you see is a single human zombie, a pitiful creature left over from a time before the founding of Sandpoint.
There is yet another tunnel leading from an open doorway in the middle of the southern wall. It goes about 20 feet before branching off to the east. The short hallway leads to a staircase that once led deeper down to yet another underground level, but has long since been blocked off by a cave-in.
The other branch leads to what appears to be a spherical room with what appear to be several objects floating around in it.
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Slowly going down the stairs, Erodel lets the shield illuminate the room while his armor creaks with each step. It's only once he has reached the bottom and starts to look around that the shuffling and the moan can be heard. "There's something down here!" he calls to the others (if they have not already descended).
Perception:
As soon as Erodel enters the room, he too begins to float.
This strange room consists of a fifteen-foot-diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space—a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red metal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.
Radoslav will follow Erodel and take a look around.
Pik looks down into the pit, We should put that creature to rest.
At the floating room, before entering, he stops and looks within.
As he notices the other pits, Or creatures for that matter.
He whispers to the raven on his shoulder, who takes flight into the room. collect, collect it caws as it gathers up the items one at a time. I won't be needing the dead raven, Roak.
He examines the items with Detect Magic as they arrive.
Seeing everyone else floating around, Elransil has to give it a try. He walks past the zombie pits and into the room, trying to see if he can swim in the air as he looks around the sphere.
As he moves around the room, he'll call out to the wizard.
"Manx, do you have any magics we can use to deal with the zombies? I'd rather not use up all my arrows on them and then have to climb down to retrieve them."
Pik hands the scroll and wand to Manx without a word and then turns to examining the book.
Pik hands the book to Manx. Recognize the language? He'll also give the bottle to anyone that asks for it.
"Aye, I can deal with the zombies." Manx walks up to each pit and fires acid splashes until each zombie is laid to eternal rest.
Manx accepts the wand and scroll from Pik, "I can use this wand, what about you Radd?"
"As for the language, let me take a look..."
Pik looks quizzically at Manx as he refers to Radoslav as "Rad" again. I'm beginning to suspect you are trying to upset the man. I had originally assumed that you were simply oblivious to common courtesy, but no one is that blind. With that he goes back to looking around the room.
You are interesting man, wizard. Perhaps sociopath that also likes starting fights? Lucky for you I have no further need to study human anatomy.
He turns to walk back the way they came.
And you are welcome to the wand. I can use, yes, but I prefer weapon and claws.
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Levitate allows you to move yourself, another creature, or an object up and down as you wish. A creature must be willing to be levitated, and an object must be unattended or possessed by a willing creature. You can mentally direct the recipient to move up or down as much as 20 feet each round; doing so is a move action. You cannot move the recipient horizontally, but the recipient could clamber along the face of a cliff, for example, or push against a ceiling to move laterally (generally at half its base land speed).
Manx, you see that the spell on the book is to preserve it. It is written in Abyssal and is an ancient prayer book dedicated to the worship of Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters.
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Ever so slowly, Erodel 'walks' down the air and back to safe ground and quickly leaves the room. "Let us not do that again..."
"So this was some sort of... experiment chamber?!? This town keeps showing us a stranger side of itself." As he walks around pits of the zombies.
Heading towards the cave in, Erodel inspects it to try and determine how recently it occurred.
Knowledge Dungeon/Eng?:
Elransil's head jerks around as he sees Pik hold the bottle of wine.
"If you don't mind," he says as he gently takes the bottle for a closer look.
"This bottle is the same type and the same year as the one Tsuto was drinking in his office. In addition, we've found a mutated goblin down here and no recent corpses. So either these monsters didn't mind having Tsuto and his goblin friends rummaging around for free drinks, or whoever controls these creatures wanted them down here."
The ranger looks around at the bizarre rooms, remembering the torture chambers and cells.
"So why would they want them down here? Is there some old cult of Lamashtu still down here, or does the goddess just want to stir up trouble? And where did they make these creatures anyway? We seem to be passing holding areas for creatures but not much else."
He turns to the more magically learned members of the party.
"Pik, Radoslav, Manx - does anything we've gone past so far look like a place to actually make monsters?"
"I am not as familiar with transmutation as I believe Radoslav may be, though this book," Manx waves the book, "but this is some sort of prayer guide to Lamashtu."
"But we haven't seen any cultists, at least yet. There are still more tunnels that need exploring. Maybe Tsuto and his goblins barred the door after they ran into some of the sinspawn."
Elransil nods. "You're right; they could have stirred all this up like a hornets' nest."
Anywhere is place to make monsters if you have the parts. These experiments are interesting, but a thing made by a god and a thing made by hand take...different workspaces. I will study the samples and whatever notes we find.
"tallyho!"
Following the tunnel that goes east from the statue room, you alternate walking up 4 short hallways and 3 short flights of stairs. They lead to a amall, round room that appears 15 feet in diameter and has a small (5ft wide), circular stone pool lined with skulls in the middle of the room. Smears of what looks like blood mar the pool’s rim in places.
Manx would prefer to be near the middle of the group, or next to last.
Pik follows behind Erodel and Radoslav, standing back quite a bit from them.
Radoslav stands to Erodel's side and about half a step back.
Initiative
Stealth
Radoslav is about to follow after Erodel, who had just stepped into the room, when a flying head with tentacle dangling from it swoops down from the ceiling at them at lets loose a shriek.
Round 1
Elransil steps into the doorway, trying to get a bead on whatever made that noise and shoot it down.