Zachary sighs and wipes the worst of the flecks of chitinous gore off of his face and clothes.
"Are you well?" he asks the gnome, Derkut, politely.
Arriving, Aramil looks over the other two. "If anyone is badly injured, I might be able to help a couple of you out. This task has proven to be much more dangerous than I initially thought."
"I appreciate the offer, but I have only minor scratches. I shall be fine, Zachary says, nodding.
Derkut checks the cut on his arm, but it doesn’t seem to be deep. He does a quick run over Restil as well who seems to have escaped unscathed.
“I’m good. Pesky critters but we got them. Should probably stick together though, this is not a nice place.
He takes a step towards the exit of the room. “Your search?
"A plant creature that, upon being electrocuted, exploded into spores that caused Gaetius and Lac to temporarily lose their minds."
Derkut frowns. Bad spores i bet? You don’t get hope ones underground.
"Something like that," Gaetius agrees "whatever it was, it didn't do us any favors."
Turning to Aramil he says "I could certainly use some tending to my wounds. I thought I came to the warrens prepared adequately for anything we would face, but somehow my connection to Iomedae has waned while we have been down here. Foul forces must be at work..."
Aramil pulls out his lute and begins playing a soothing melody on it, one which specifically relaxes Gaetius and draws the pain away from his injuries.
SOOTHE (Healing, Mental, Necromancy, Positive) SPELL 1 p. 257
Casting Somatic Casting, Verbal Casting
Range touch; Targets one willing or unconscious
living creature
Duration 1 minute
You grace the target’s mind, boosting its mental defenses and healing its wounds. The target regains Hit Points equal to 1d6 plus your spellcasting ability modifier when you Cast the Spell and gains a +1 conditional bonus to saves against mental effects for the duration.
Heightened (+1) The amount of healing increases by 2d6.
Aramil looks to the goblins, then says, "Well, as long as they don't come back to life on us, I guess we don't have to kill those four - someone did the job for us."
"True, but I wonder who, or what else is operating down here aside from the goblins. Perhaps we already encountered it in the form of the centipedes, but somehow I doubt it. Still, let us count our blessings that we don't have to deal with those four."
Zachary frowns and mutters prayers to Pharasma as he examines the bodies.
As Zachary moves into the room Gaetius informs him "I can see a wound on each of them - a single large hole in the neck. Whatever did that is something we need to be extremely wary of."
"Agreed," Zachary nods solemnly at Gaetius's statement.
"It also appears that they've been exsanguinated," he explains with concern after further examination.
"I can think of nothing good that would do such a thing," he tightens his grip on his glaive, "Let us proceed with all due caution."
Derkut blinks. They what?”
Gaetius faces the gnome and says in a deadpan voice "The have no blood left in their bodies. Whatever put that hole in them also took all the blood, or they were otherwise drained somehow. Either way, we need to be cautious."
The cleric stares off to the unexplored section of the crypt for a few seconds, then asks "Who is taking the lead to scout ahead?"
Aramil shrugs. ”Perhaps we should stick together? I wouldn’t want one of us to get ambushed.”
Gaetius shrugs in response. "Let's form up then and get moving. The remaining goblins aren't going to kill themselves."
Zachary feels his rage surge up at the desecration, his vision blurring and then sharpening into painful clarity as the ambient spiritual energy enflames his own spirit. He growls under his breath.
"We must find whoever committed this blasphemy," he snarls quietly, then begins praying under his breath, apologizing to Pharasma for what happened here, asking for strength to punish the perpetrators, and promising that he will return and cleanse the shrine once he is able.
"Well, then we must decide if the perpetrator or perpetrators lie to the South or to the East. I personally favor venturing to the East - what say the rest of you?"
Derkut ignites the desecration and Zach’s muttered words and sets off to the south, searching for anything that might help identify the purpose of this room. Restin flies off of his shoulder and zooms around the northern side of the room.
Derkut completes his circle of the south end, and then heads back to the entrance with an impassive look on his face. He is distracted by Reatin, who after circling the pool a couple of times suddenly dive bombs to the pool. The eagle pulls up at the last seconds his talons wet but clutching a small idol. He swoops over to Derkut and drops it into the Gnome’s waiting hands.
Derkut takes a quick look at the idol, and then hands it to Zach with a questioning look.
He then addressed Aramil. “South locked thrice, heavy locks. East is unlocked, but trapped. Not too cunning, we can avoid.
Zachary glares at the idol, considers for a moment, then smashes it on the ground, stomping on it if that's not enough to break it.
"Erm, you alright there, Zachary? It's just a stone idol, isn't it?"
”No!” he snarls in reply, his rage bleeding into his normally quiet and gentle voice.
”It is a profane idol to Lamashtu, the demon goddess. It is corrupting this Pharasmin shrine. I cannot tolerate this.
Gaetius watches all this unfold from the doorway to the room, finally entering after Zac goes crazy on the idol. "I'm no priest of Pharasma, but perhaps I can cleanse some of the corruption" the cleric offers. In a low murmur Gaetius walks around the chamber, pausing to touch the water and statute, offering his prayers to Iomedae to remove some of the defilement here.
Derkut is the first to react to the presence of the quasits. He slows himself for a breath though, focusing his attention on the demon near Gaetius. Then he crosses the space between them and slashes at the demon. The demon dodges his strike quickly easily, and laughs at the attempt.
Anticipating bad things when hearing the smashing of the idol, Ziggie is quick to whip up his crossbow, and attempts to intercept the mini-demon zooming towards Gaetius.
Aramil plays a melody on his lute, an angry thing that seems violent. A piece of rubble floats off the ground and flies towards one of the quasits.
It misses horribly. Aramil's song then shifts into a more inspiring tune, filling his allies with courage.
Zachary swings his glaive at the minions of evil that profaned his goddesses shrine, his rage and Aramil's song giving his blows extra force.
Gaetius acts to defend himself, casting a quick spell to shield himself, then swinging his longsword at the attacking demons.
His first strike hits home, slashing the flying demon, while his follow up attack with the sword misses after the creature begins flying erratically.
Restin swoops in over the quasit and then Derkut strikes. He slashes the quasit out of the air and it crashes to the ground.
Aramil continued his playing, returning to the aggressive melody, as he flung another rock from the ground at a quasit near Gaetius.
He then returned to the inspiring melody, but this time with a more dramatic tempo.
Zachary continues to swing at the flying demon, though his strikes are becoming increasingly wild.
As the last quasit died, Zachary sighed and tried to relax himself, rolling his neck out and breathing carefully.
"I am glad that is dealt with," he finally says, cracking his knuckles and shaking his hands out from where he'd been gripping his glaive over-tightly.
"Shall we proceed?" he asks the group, his genial nature fully restored.
"That could have gone worse," Gaetius agrees, as he moves about the room finishing his cleansing ritual. "Which door do we take though? The trapped one, or the locked one?"