The group seems all set to slink away before Davok interjects. "You're not taking our supplies halfbreed. Get out of the way, we're leaving." The looters start reaching for their weapons. The clink of metallic objects can be heard as one starts to pick up the sack.
Sariel
Fredric
Davok
Looter
Kaeldron
Claire
”Nobody-“ It was already too late. It seemed that violence was now imminent.
From the back of the group, Claire remarks to Alistair, "Did he just say 'halfbreed' in a rude way? Like... as an insult?! That's so MEAN." Claire puts her hands on her hips and calls out to the rude looters. "You should apologize!"
"HOLD!" Davok shouts. "We do not want your spoils or any more bloodshed! We want to track down Kenabres' traitors!"
Draghis stands behind her brother in support.
'Your city -- your home -- is dead! Do not prevent us from avenging it!"
She keeps her eye on the looter holding the "supplies" bag. If he attempts to flee, she will cast command on him, ordering him to "drop" anything he's holding.
Sariel holds his knocked arrow, just waiting for an opportunity to release it.
Fredric is just about able to stop himself moving forward.
He can feel the rage against these fools growing.
"Track them down then, we'll away nice and quietly. You're not tricking us out of our supplies. We aint got nothing that came from no traitors so it's of no interest to you." The looters look nervous but hold their ground unwilling to risk losing their spoils.
”Then you may go. We merely wished to ensure that you did not inadvertently carry with you the tools of the enemy and thus taint yourselves with the tools of the enemy. But there is no reason to spill blood here.”
"There ya 'ave it. Go on." Sariel nods toward the door, keeping his arrow pointed at the meanest looking of them.
Fredric watches the looters, turning and circling as necessary.
After they leave, he finally speaks in a voice, slightly strained.
"Let us...continue."
"We're just going to let them go?!"
"What could we have done? The only other way that confrontation could have ended was with their death. That's too harsh a sentence for stealing to survive in an occupied city. It also helps that they were taking from our enemies."
Draghis grudgingly nods in agreement.
"I Shall Make Allies Of My Enemy's Enemies," she intones. "Still, I wish they would have been reasonable and let us inspect their bag."
The siblings inspect the remains of the shop.
The looters clear out happy to have not had to defend their salvaged goods from such a heavily armed group.
Davok spots something overlooked by the looters... a secret door. Behind it lies a stairs that lead downwards.
The air in this basement is damp and musty-smelling. The walls and floor are packed earth, while dozens of gourds hang from the ceiling beams. A sludge of rotting plant matter covers the floor. Against one wall, a wooden table holds a strange apparatus that looks like a clockwork toy of a snake-bodied, six armed woman holding a sword in each hand. A tightly corked bottle, filled with what looks like water, sits before the statue. A wooden chest covered with engraved runes stands under the table, and a sinister image of a star surrounding a goat’s face is painted on the wall above the table.
The image above the crest as one of Baphomet’s symbols— one favored by his human worshipers rather than his demonic and monstrous ones.
Alistair flies up to the image of the star surrounding a goat's face and pecks at it. "See this? This is one of the demon Baphomet's symbols. On favoured by his human worshippers, rather than his demonic and monstrous ones." He trills angrily. "Blasted cultists. I know what to do with this..."
Alistair performs a magnificent fly-by attack, firing bird droppings all over the evil image.
"Oh, my. You're so smart, Alistair!" Claire gushes. She takes approaches the image and pulls out her charcoal. "It's a shame I don't have my paints... They're back at the -- well... They WERE back at the Lucky Bar." She sighs, then starts to cover up the evil image (and bird droppings) with her charcoal, until it's nothing but a big black spot. She slips her charcoal into her belt pouch and pulls out her coloured chalk, drawing a heart, stars, and a big overflowing mug over the evil symbol. She claps her dust covered hands, making a puff of colourful chalk and charcoal dust drift everywhere. "There! Much better!"
When she's done she looks at the others. "Did you find anything interesting in the chest?"
While Claire doodles Alistair flies around and pecks his way inside the gourds strung up from the ceiling, curious what's inside.
With the defacement of the vile symbol in progress, Fredric cautiously approaches the table to examine the other items. Without touching.
”I would bet that this is trapped. I’ll try to open it with my spear. Everyone, get out while I do this, should it explode or cause some other ghastly effect.”
As Alistair tears into the room to hit the symbol a voice is emitted “Ahh... I hope you are among Iomedae’s slaves... I would hate to think of mere peasants wasting such a personal greeting from Lord Baphomet!”
A pile of vegetation in the corner starts to move. A filthy creature that resembles a small, wide-mouthed fat child made from leaves, vines, tree bark, dirt, and pallid tubers emerges and begins shrieking.
Become nauseated for 1d4 rounds. This is a sonic, mind-affecting ability.
A mandragora rises spontaneously from a mandrake root that has drawn nutrition from the corpse or ichor of a demon. A typical mandragora stands at just over three feet tall and only weighs thirty pounds. However, its size hides the creature’s fantastic strength and brutality. When a mandragora attacks, its fingers grow into whipping, thorny vines nearly ten feet long, with which it makes its slam attacks. The thorns on it's vines carry a poison that fatigues and confuses those who are inflicted with it.
Shrieking the little creature moves forward, it's long vine appendages stretch out to try to hit Claire!
Claire
Kaeldron
Sariel
Fredric
Davok
Plant Monster
Seeing two of his allies bent low by a servant of Baphomet's corruption starts Davok off on a righteous tirade of verse and violence.
After he uses his Lay On Hands ability on himself.
"And Lo, Hell's Servants Did Quake When Faced With Retribution!"
"Praise be! No mere cultist traitors face us, now! But a true aberration servant of evil! We will strike a mighty blow with its destruction!"
Sariel doubles over, heaving the remains of this morning's breakfast onto the dirt floor.
Draghis begins to bolster the party with her words, but the plant creature's scream doubles her over.
Claire clamps her hands over her ears! "Ohhh, it's so out of tune it hurts! The poor dear needs singing lessons!" Claire opens her mouth to try to teach it how to sing properly, then clamps both hands over her mouth, apparently deciding opening her mouth any more is a bad plan....
"Uh, ya' big babies. I've heard worse caterwauling from Claire. Yeeesh. You should try sitting with her during a showing of 'The Parchment.' Damned play gets her bawling every time. Once used my feathers as a tissue...." He shakes his head, then pokes at Claire. "Well? What are you waiting for? An invitation? Suck it up, Sweetheart. Let's get cracking!"
Claire clamps her hands over her ears! "Ohhh, it's so out of tune it hurts! The poor dear needs singing lessons!" Claire opens her mouth to try to teach it how to sing properly, then clamps both hands over her mouth, apparently deciding opening her mouth any more is a bad plan....
"Uh, ya' big babies. I've heard worse caterwauling from Claire. Yeeesh. You should try sitting with her during a showing of 'The Parchment.' Damned play gets her bawling every time. Once used my feathers as a tissue...." He shakes his head, then pokes at Claire. "Well? What are you waiting for? An invitation? Suck it up, Sweetheart. Let's get cracking!"
Kaeldron does his best not to start vomiting.
Sariel doubles over, heaving the remains of this morning's breakfast onto the dirt floor.
Fredric puts a hand against the wall and tries to keep the contents of his stomach in check.
Seeing two of his allies bent low by a servant of Baphomet's corruption starts Davok off on a righteous tirade of verse and violence.
After he uses his Lay On Hands ability on himself. "And Lo, Hell's Servants Did Quake When Faced With Retribution!"
Draghis begins to bolster the party with her words, but the plant creature's scream doubles her over.
Davok manages to dodge the things tendril like roots but is caught off guard as it bites him and almost drags him to the ground.
Claire
Kaeldron
Sariel
Fredric
Davok
Plant Monster
Kaeldron forced his way down the stairs, coughing and sputtering as he did so. Eyes watering, but full of determination nonetheless, he stabbed at the creature.
Seeing his sister also affected strengthens Davok's resolve.
"Redemption Offers No Solace To Those Who Do Not Forsake The Irredeemable!"
Behind him, Draghis tries to make her way fully up the stairs to assist her brother.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Fredric staggers up the stairs, aiming to at least distract the plant monster from his allies.
Sariel's still dry heaving.
Claire tries her best not to vomit all over her awesome boots -- which would be TOTALLY embarrassing!
Claire tries her best not to vomit all over her awesome boots -- which would be TOTALLY embarrassing!
Kaeldron forced his way down the stairs, coughing and sputtering as he did so. Eyes watering, but full of determination nonetheless, he stabbed at the creature.
Sariel's still dry heaving.
Fredric staggers up the stairs, aiming to at least distract the plant monster from his allies.
Seeing his sister also affected strengthens Davok's resolve.
"Redemption Offers No Solace To Those Who Do Not Forsake The Irredeemable!"
Behind him, Draghis tries to make her way fully up the stairs to assist her brother.
Davok barely dodges a vine like tendril. The demonically infused plant creature lands it's other tendril against the side of Kaeldron's head before biting Fredric and dragging him to the ground.
Frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect confusion and fatigue; cure does not saves but “act normally” result on the confusion behavior table ends the effect.
Claire
Kaeldron
Sariel
Fredric
Davok
Plant Monster -31
Claire continues to look ill for one more round...
Head ringing, Kaeldron forced himself to concentrate. The air was foul, and an unnatural haze seemed to cloud his mind. By luck or providence he was able to fight through it, and stab out once more with his spear.
Her mind clearing in time for her to understand what's going on, Draghis darts forward to touch Frederic long enough to cast Protection from Evil.
Kaeldron puts his spear through the creature. Over the next few moments the nausea fades and Kaeldron's confusion fades.
You find a toy which seem meant to push a bottle near it over but the mechanism is jammed.
Bilious Bottle
Marilith toy weighs 10 pounds and is worth 250 gp
Davok is silent as he is hit by a wave of fatigue after his swing.
With the monster’s death, Kaeldron ripped the spear out and shouted ”Lythertida!” His spear glowed with a golden light as positive energy ripped out, engulfing the party.
For roughly half a minute the energy radiated, only stopping when everyone’s wounds were fully healed.
"...Are you okay, Kaeldron?"
”Never better.” Uncharacteristically he grinned, the paladin usually being much more reserved. ”I knew that Lady Claire would have a great destiny. I have trained for years to earn paladinhood, and I never felt so close to the divine as I did just then. I could feel my lady’s power coursing through me.” He smiled, but in his eyes burned the light of the fanatic. With the zeal of faith he continued ”The only logical explanation is that her fate has caused the eyes of the gods to fall upon us. We are blessed to walk in the light!”
"I know the feeling! I experienced it myself earlier today! It is... empowering to know that our gods have taken note of our work to fight back the demons from Kenabres. I would like to think that Lythertida and Vildeis would be fast allies should they encounter each other."
Davok salutes Kaeldrom by thumping his fist on his armored chest.
Kaeldron enthusiastically returned the salute before going about finishing the search of the room.