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A telepathic scream echoes in your ears as 42 casts his spell and engulfs the spider-creature in flames.
The spider-creature however manages to avoid some of the flames. Meanwhile, 42 notices that his flesh has been darkened where the spider bit him, but he feels no ill effects...for now.
Alden steps up, issues a bold challenge to the spider, but the spider hoists its large body above the reach of Alden's weapon, and he misses. Notably, the spider does not take an attack of opportunity against Alden.
Constantin closes in on the spider, and Exiel steps up to stab at it, drawing blood, but just barely. His hooked lance barely penetrates its hide. Sue also rushes in and delivers a powerful punch, and unlike Exiel her divinely-empowered fist smashes through the spider's chitinous hide easily.
The spider shrugs off Sue's ki-infused attack.
On the spider's turn, it looks at all the tasty morsels in sight.
The spider creature leers at 42. The same chittering voice sounds out in your heads.
It then turns its attention to Alden, the gleaming armor and shield of the cavalier drawing its beady eyes like a beacon.
To your continued horror, the creature grabs hold of Alden, and practically hoists him into the air as it peels away his armor, shield and a good deal of flesh, then sinks its maw into the soft halfling flesh.
As 42 prepares to respond, he feels the area where the spider had bitten him is aching horribly and as he looks down, he sees that his flesh is now rotting and melting away...and the black patch is spreading.
Initiative Order - Round 2
Spidey - 23
------------resolved
42 - 19
Alden - 17
Constantin - 17
Exiel - 16
Sue - 15
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42 curses his arm as he feels the pain.
He knows he has to do something or this will end with a bad lunch. He defensively casts displacement. He takes a 5 foot step and touches Sue, who now appears a little bit off of where she just stood.
42 takes a 5 foot step back and pulls out a potion from his bag. He drinks the Cure Mod potion, and hopes to feel better.
Finally, he enchants his Ghost Touch Scimitar with +1, Speed and Vorpal
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Exiel realises that this huge spider could take out his party members in a heartbeat, and that two of his friends were in very immediate trouble. If there was a time for gambles, this would be it!
Reciting his incantation carefully, he conjures a handful of glittering particles and sends them cascading down on the spider-monster.
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42 steps back and chugs a potion, and as the cool liquid runs down his throat, he feels his wounds closing...but not where the spider had bitten him.
Initiative Order - Round 2
Spidey - 23
42 - 19
------------resolved
Alden - 17
Constantin - 17
Exiel - 16
Sue - 15
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Alden stabs furiously at the spider-creature, but is unable to land a hit. Constantin on the other hand delivers a couple of devastating strikes against the creature, and though his blade does not cut as deeply as it should, it still deals a significant amount of damage.
Exiel concentrates and conjures up a cloud of glittering particles. The spider creature attempts to shake it off, but it closes its eyes just after getting a faceful of the particles, which only causes the particles to stick even better to its eyeballs. Blinded by the particles, the spider is unable to avoid Sue's flurry of punches, and it is sent reeling from the impact of the blows. As Sue mentally projects her question, however, it occurs to her that the creature might not speak or think her language...
The huge spider roars in fury at your onslaught of powerful strikes and debilitating magic, and decides that if it is going to go down, it will take one of you with him. It sniffs the air for a moment, then goes for the one who had hurt him the most this round...Viscount Constantin Vladescu-Blakros!
Fortunately for Constantin, the blinded abyssal spider misses with both its claws, and does not rip his armor clean off his body. It does however manage to get a bite on the oracle, whose skin blackens from the bite...
The spider then tries once more to shake off Exiel's glittering particles from its eyes... but still fails.
As the spider dips its head down to bite Constantin, 42 sees his chance and moves up to slash at the spider's head, but his first strike bounces off the hard carapace, and the second is deflected by its chitinous skin. Meanwhile his flesh continues to burn as more of his flesh painfully melts and rots off his arm.
Initiative Order - Round 3
Spidey - 23
42 - 19
------------resolved
Alden - 17
Constantin - 17
Exiel - 16
Sue - 15
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Thanks to Exiel's efforts, Constantin and 42 manage to weather the Bebilith's rotting bite a little better than they otherwise would have. However, both are still severely ravaged by the ordeal.
You all search the cavern thoroughly, but find nothing apart from the corpses of more of the ice-breathing demons in the cocoons.
From where you are, there are 2 passages, one which you came from, which leads to the West from where you are, and which had a locked door along it (you have not tried the keys you have collected yet). The other is the new passage leading North-West. Where do you wish to go?
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42 pulls out a wand of cure light and casts it upon himself several times.
He walks over to his broken armor and puts it back on. The glamor that is on it, make him look like he is wearing a fancy dress suit that has been torn and tattered by some wild beast. He looks down at his dress, "better than walking around nude."
He removes the empty bottle from the cure mod potion he used and fills it up with the poison from the spider. "hopefully I'll be able to find a cure for this... or use it later."
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42 aims a well well-placed blows at the hinges of the door, and it quickly opens to his universal pathfinder's key. However, to Exiel's disappointment, what lies beyond is not a treasure room or a potions cabinet, but yet another passageway.
On the Northern wall of this passage, a string of lobarian runes surrounds a waning crescent moon carved into the wall.
The ritual works by uttering the phrase "I, [name], sacrifice my [the relevant sacrifice] to the Three Who Are One" at each stage. There should be more runes further along the passageway to indicate when you should invoke the ritual phrase and what the relevant sacrifice would be. Traditionally, success results in a transformation into a crone at the end, whilst failure at any point results in swift and immediate punishment at each failed stage. This allows it to also serve as a powerfully-protected passageway.
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Exiel nods as 42 gives his translation, then looks to the South walls and points out another set of faded runes on the Southern wall.
"Blessed be the path you are about to walk. Cling not to what you were, but only to what you shall become."
Exiel suddenly realises that he knows the significance of these phrases.
"The phrases are part of a "croning ritual" performed by older witches to celebrate the symbolic and spiritual transformation from motherhood into their elderly years. Most witches revere crones for their wisdom and see the ritual as a blessing, but there is no requirement to undergo a croning ritual if one is not ready."
"The ritual works by uttering the phrase 'I, Aram Zey, sacrifice my manliness to the Three Who Are One' at each stage'. Except that you substitute 'Aram Zey' with your own name and 'manliness' with whatever the relevant sacrifice is. There should be more runes further along the passageway to indicate when you should invoke the ritual phrase and what the relevant sacrifice would be. Traditionally, success results in a transformation into a crone at the end, whilst failure at any point results in swift and immediate punishment at each failed stage. This allows it to also serve as a powerfully-protected passageway."
Exiel thinks a little more on this and says, "If I were to scan for magic as we proceed down the hallway, we should be able to identify the right places to stop."
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You proceed down the hallway, and eventually Exiel's detect magic spell picks up the presence of magic, which he manages to pinpoint as a single glyph.
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Exiel bites his lip as he considers the rune and his companions' words.
"We should be fine as long as we do not complete the ritual...but the difficulty is that I do not know how many stages there are to it. I would think, however, that there would be more than one..."
Exiel takes a deep breath, steps towards the rune and declares "I, Exiel, sacrifice my youth to the Three Who Are One." He then braces himself and steps past the rune.
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42, Alden and Constantin perform the first part of the ritual, and like Exiel they get past without incident. As Sue attempts to tumble past, however, the glyph flares brilliantly. She feels her strength draining from her as a stream of sand issues from the glyph and engulfs her, leaving her looking alot more haggard than before.
You just saw Sue trigger a glyph of warding and a Sands of Time spell attached to it. It would appear that this is how the ritual is protected. Unlike the normal spell, however, this version appears to reset itself immediately rather than being expended when triggered.
Further down the path, you encounter a second glyph. Though the 4 blokes in the party did not suffer any ill effects from performing the first part of the ritual, you realise that none of you know how many stages there are to the whole ritual.
The glyph has an abjuration aura.
The runes denote that the right word to use in the ritual-phrase described by Exiel earlier is 'fertility'.
The glyph is shaped in the form of the Iobarian word for 'fertility'.
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42 whistles. "Sands of time." 42 looks at Sue, "Guess you're the mother Mother now... feel any wiser? he laughs a little. "Hopefully it will wear off in 30 minutes."
42 looks at the next glyph "Hmm, Fertility...." He steps forward and walks through the glyph as he says "I, Test Subject Number 42, sacrifice my fertility to the Three Who are One."
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Exiel sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and nods. "At least we know that the spell is not permanent, but it will last for a good amount of time. In my experience, it usually lasts for almost an hour at least."
Exiel raises an eyebrow at the next glyph, then sighs. If nothing adverse happened to 42, he declares, "I, Exiel, sacrifice my fertility to the Three Who are One." He then steps past the glpyh.
If something bad happens to 42, Exiel will just walk past the glyph instead.