Ekan is more surprised by the sudden rage invading his mind than the teeth tearing at his flesh, but both intrusions are gone soon enough. He retaliates with a whipping arc of his kama hoping to connect this time.
Ekan's kama manages to nick the creature, but it appears he's hit a particularly thick patch of its hide--the monster continues its assault, undeterred.
Sylvia calls out "Ekan! Move a bit to the side--Conner can't reach the thing while you're in the way!"
"Ha! The world just got a bit less ugly!" Nicat crows as the first creature falls. "Now jump out of the way, Ekan, like Sylvia said, and we'll finish off ugly number two!" He darts past his companions, ending up at the toothy monster's side and swinging his sword wildly near it.
As impressive as Nicat's tumbling is, the monster isn't distracted enough to not take advantage of the halfling's movement. It lashes out with a bite!
Its teeth *CLACK* violently together as it misses the hobbit entirely.
Nicat's sword similarly fails to find purchase as the beast nimbly sidesteps his wild swing.
"Godsdammit you louts are in my way!" Eostre barks, out of spells that wouldn't cause friendly fire and uncertain as to whether enlarging Conner or Ekan in these cramped catacombs would be a good idea.
The monster disregards the hobbit beside it as it starts attacking Ekan with renewed fervour!
Though the beast's claws miss, it sinks its teeth into Ekan's shoulder and bites down!
The RAGE returns to Ekan's mind, stronger than before. Though it threatens to overwhelm him, his disciplined mind allows him to push it aside and focus on the fight.
Conner sidesteps past Ekans, standing between him and Nicat to get within reach of the last creature. With so many people around him, Conner limits himself to a single thrust, going over the thing's guard and down at it's chest.
Attack
Crit confirmation
Damage
Ekan tries to make room for Conner, and then tries once more to strike the foe. He's not feeling well, the rage surging building up
"WHy don't you DIE?" He snaps at the creature and strikes.
As Conner moves past Ekan, the beast bites at him!
It manages to bite into a particularly thick part of Conner's pauldron. Tasting nothing but metal, the thing *hisses* and recoils.
The retaliatory strikes from both the warrior and the monk open up large wounds in the monster's chest and belly, causing it to roar with a mix of fury and pain. Muddied red blood starts pouring down from its injuries.
Sylvia swallows and moves forward to get a better view of what's going on, stopping behind Ekan. "That's enough! This ends now!" She cries as she brings her glaive to bear!
The beast snorts and swats her glaive away with a swipe of its claw.
Nicat dodges nimbly past the creature, trapping it between himself and Ekan. He swings his sword in a flat arc to strike at it and the blade crashes into the rock wall, jarring Nicat's hands! "Dang it!" he cries out.
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Eostre hustles after the group.
"Slag, slag, SLAG! Will you people WAIT UP?!"
Eostre seems more frustrated by her relative lack of contribution to the fight than that the others might steal a kill...
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The last monster standing seems to come to a realization.
There's no way out for it...
"ខ្ញុំនឹងមិនផ្ដល់ឱ្យអ្នកនូវការពេញចិត្តនៃការមើលឃើញខ្ញុំឱ្យដើរសុំទានគេនោះទេ។. " The beast growls!
It then spurs itself to fight with one last burst of vigour, attacking the only person it's been able to hurt--Ekan.
This time, its injuries have caught up to it--its bite and first claw swipe miss the monk entirely.
The last swipe carves a bloody red swath across Ekan's chest.
Ekan is looking carved and bloody, and he retaliates with a burst of motion meant to finish this fight.
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Eostre blinks in shock.
"It...It TALKED!"
Ekan's flurry of blows utterly eviscerates the monster, splattering blood on the wall next to him.
"But what did it say? And why was I so..." Ekan trembles slightly , "So damn angry."
"I... I do not know." Sylvia nervously fiddles with her holy symbol.
"Ekan, do you need help with those wounds?"
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"I know," Eostre interjects, moving to the center of the group to get a better look at the monster.
"It was speaking in Aklo. It's a tongue you'll hear a lot from twisted beings and "things man was not meant to know," things like this."
She gives it a poke with the sharp end of her glaive.
"It said, 'I will not give you the satisfaction of seeing me beg.' Not really insightful. Just brutish blustering really."
At the mention of 'things man was not meant to know', Sylvia pales and rests a hand on Ekan.
"Blessed Eternal Rose, I ask you--allow me to become the instrument of your holy compassion. Let me ease my friend's pain." She holds her holy symbol, letting healing energy flow into the monk...
The monk's injuries knit themselves back together almost completely.
The young priestess breathes a sigh of relief. "And you said you felt angry, Ekan? Why was that?" She asks, visibly dreading the answer.
"A thing that nasty, I'd rather kill it than see it beg," says Nicat with uncharacteristic cruelty. "Plus, I wouldn't even understand it if it started begging, so what good would that be? It could be telling me my socks don't match or my breath smells of limestone and elderberry wine, and I'd never know."
He sends his glowing pattern of lights down the hall, then says, "Anyway, looks like there are a couple of exits off that hallway we should check out. It's kind of amazing that no one checked this place out after the Chopper went nuts. Or maybe all this bad stuff has shown up since then."
He bows grandly and waves a hand graciously at Conner, saying, "After you, sir."
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Conner takes a steadying breath, and turns to Nicat, his armor, shield and sword dripping blood and none of it his own. "Never speak about my mother."
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"THAT didn't come out of nowhere," Eostre quips with a roll of the eyes to make her sarcasm abundantly clear.
As his wounds are healed, Ekan responds, "Thank you...and I don't know. It bit me, and I was consumed by this horrible rage. I haven't felt that much raw anger since I was a child," He confesses, "I didn't just want to kill it, I wanted it to feel every blow. I wanted it to hurt. I've never.." He looks a bit ill, "I don't think like that."
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"Interesting. Maybe their saliva carries a toxin that affects behavioral patterns...or it could be just magic, that, that works too." Eostre shrugs sheepishly. For all her studies, biology was not her strong point. She hoped to Nethys that Nicat or Conner didn't pounce on that with a remark.
Nicat looks at Conner in puzzlement, but nods along as Eostre speaks, clearly impressed. "Their saliva can carry oxen? And that's what made Ekan mad, eh? Wow, we're lucky we took them out as fast as we did. You sure know a lot, Eostre. Now let's go check out that hallway."
He follows behind Conner and Ekan as they move down the hall.
Sylvia nods in understanding at Ekan. She says nothing, instead offering a comforting presence.
The cavern branches off into three paths--one immediately after exiting the guard cavern, one near the end of the cavern to the right, and one that seems to go through a hole in the north wall.
Ekan nods, grateful for the understanding of his allies and moves forward
The party marches through the earthen tunnel to the east, coming upon what appears to be an old storeroom. The western wall of the room is broken down, revealing an interior cluttered with debris. Remains of old urns can be seen strewn about the room, and the centre of the room is engraved with a seven-pointed star. A stone door sits in the north wall of the chamber.
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Nicat looks at Conner in puzzlement, but nods along as Eostre speaks, clearly impressed. "Their saliva can carry oxen? And that's what made Ekan mad, eh? Wow, we're lucky we took them out as fast as we did. You sure know a lot, Eostre. Now let's go check out that hallway."
He follows behind Conner and Ekan as they move down the hall.
Eostre facepalms.
"TOXIN, Nicat. TOXIN. Not oxen. Toxin is another word for poison."
Nicat stops mid-stride and turns to look at Eostre, his eyes squinted shut in confusion. "What are you talking about? The tocsin is the alarm they ring on the cathedral bell when there's trouble in Sandpoint! It's not poisonous! Now, instead of making up new meanings for words that have perfectly good ones already, maybe we should see where that door goes. There's clearly nothing of interest in here."
Though he's too small to get himself into a very big huff, it's clear Nicat has managed to summon a lesser huff to wrap himself in. "Whenever you're ready, big man," he says testily to Conner.
Eostre facepalms even harder.
"Idiot!" she grouses under her breath.
Ekan sniffs the air, and looks to the side "What was that? Did something move past us? I smell blood."
Conner drops into a crouch, shield ready. "Something moved... Eostre, do magic to it."
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"What KIND of magic are you expecting, sirrah? I'm not a sorcerer able to fire things off with a snap of the fingers. I can't afford to waste spells."
"You're the wizard, I can't tell you how to do your job. Just..." He waggles his fingers vaguely.
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Sylvia looks behind her, her hands tight around her glaive. Her face pales.
"Wh--what... what is THAT?" She points a shaking finger down the passageway the party just entered.
Standing at the end of the passage is an old man clad in bloodied rags, his grey beard and his hands blackened with old blood. His face is twisted in pain and fear, with streaks of dirt running from his eyes... which have been gouged out.
"Help me..." He says in a whisper that, though it is quieter than a mouse, seems to fill your ears. He reaches a hand out in desperation before fading away...
Sylvia just stands there, too shocked to speak.
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"I've studied the fabric of reality enough that I can friggin' shape it to my will. I don't just waggle my damn fingers. You want me to cast a spell you're gonna have to be a little bit more specific about whether you're goin' for firey death or makin' a bandit into a sheep, or just bringin' the damn ceiling down on their heads. Tosser."
Eostre looks about to go another rant when Sylvia's shout causes her to whirl around and see the apparition, shuddering a bit as she hears its whispered cry for help.
"Well...s+$@. Now we've got a ghost to bust, too."
Nicat stares in wide-eyed fear at the apparition before them, though his expression softens at the man's plea for help. "I swear he looked familiar, though I can't place his face... How can we help him, does anyone know?"
"I have so little knowledge of what we face..." He mutters, and stares where the figure was, "Did you see the wounds on him? He must have died in a horrific fashion. No wonder he wants help. His soul needs rest."
Sylvia finally gets up the nerve to speak. "Isn't... wait. This place is under the Chopper's home... does that mean...?"
She takes a shuddering breath.
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"That we just got begged for help by the ghost of the crazy serial killer that terrorized the town a decade or so ago, who seems like he may not have had a choice in his craziness after all? Yes."
"So...we ignore it then?"
"That's who it was! You're right, Eostre and Sylvia. I did recognize him, it was Jervis Stoot!" Nicat says excitedly. "He's been dead a long time...that's creepy. I've no idea how we lay him to rest, but maybe we'll learn something in this place. Let's see where that door takes us."
He moves over to the door on the north wall and listens at it and gives it a quick scan for anything out of the ordinary, then steps back for Conner to take the lead.
Aside from the seven-pointed star engraved on the door, it appears to be safe to open.
The door opens into a narrow corridor that goes forward for 15 feet before abruptly turning west for another 30 feet and north again. The walls are made of elaborately carved stone, in contrast to the earthen tunnels of before. The corridor branches off to the east, and there is a strange room to the north. The room to the north appears to have a statue of some description as its centrepiece.
Eostre cautiously approaches the statue, glaive outstretched to poke anything potentially dangerous. She scans the area.
Nicat advances with the party, keeping his distance from the statue. When he can, he peers down the hallway to the east, sending his dancing spheres of light down it to illuminate the passage.
The spheres of light illuminate the long hallway, stopping at the entrance to another, larger room further away. The seven-pointed star is engraved in 10-foot intervals on the walls.
A red marble statue of a strikingly beautiful but, at the same time, monstrously enraged human woman stands in the middle of this room, her stony expression twisted in fury. The woman wears flowing robes, and her long hair is held back from her face by an intricate headdress of hooks and blades. In her left hand she carries a large book, the face of which is inscribed with a seven-pointed star. Her right hand holds a glittering metal-and-ivory ranseur.
The room seems to be safe, and upon closer inspection, it appears that the ranseur can be removed from the statue's grip.
A stone door is to the north of the room, a hole in the wall leading back to the earthen tunnels is to the west and a hallway with a series of stairs is leading up and to the east.
"Hmm, stairs going up from here...wonder where they come out?" Nicat mutters to himself. "Guess we'll check them out later." Raising his voice so the others can her him, he says, "I think we should take a look down that hallway we passed, so there aren't any weird, oxen-mouthed baddies or other nasty surprises lurking behind us, then we check out the door to the north."
He then moves closer to the statue of the angry woman, continuing to speak, "But first, I wonder if borrowing her fancy weapon will make something terrible happen?" He studies the statue carefully, waving a hand around it to sense for the presence of magic and looking for any moving parts or anything that might trigger an unpleasant surprise.