Kilarra uses her flanking advantage to really lay into her strikes.
Rose’s robe releases cold energy, though even if the creature is harmed by it at all, the counterattack is hardly an incentive to let go!
Lacking training in the fine art of escape—which Rose would not need if handcuffed but against a grappling creature, she is weak—and too horrified by the way blood was sucked from her wounds, the vigilante merely dangles limply from the beast’s grip.
“Ohhh, nggg… yes. That is the way, Kilarra, I shall—uhhh!—distract it…”
Garrosh lets fly two arrows in quick succession.
Kilarra manages to slice into the Star Vampire, but it seems to resemble a starfish, having no decernible anatomy.
The cold does not seem to affect the Star Vampire much, as Rose hangs in it's grasp.
Ann and Piotr close in with the Star Vampire, as Garrosh sends two arrows flying in it's direction,one falling short and the other nearly hitting Piotr.
The Star Vampire, seeing Kilarra as the greater threat, drops Rose and attacks her, grabbing her with its fanged mouth and draining her blood.
Kilarra is not fazed by the creature draining her.
Winter channels to heal Kilarra's wounds.
Now free of the creature’s grip, Rose strikes back!
There is a frenzy in Rose’s eyes. When the creature grabs Kilarra, Rose practically hisses the word, “Die!” Her bladed talons and hip slash at the beast!
"Let. Her. Go!" Piotr tries to reason with the thing as he hacks away with his sword at its arms. Ann doesn't really know where to stab.
Rose catches it with a single talon, while Piotr slices it with his sword. Ann stabs at it with one of her daggers but her daggers seem to be not very effective.
Unfazed by the magical fear, Kilarra notices the monster lapping up her blood. "It's the last thing you'll get to drink, fatty."
Kilarra draws her silver dagger and enters a great rage, making a single tear through its flesh.
"Down monstrosity!" - Garrosh continues his assault.
As Kilarra stabs at the Star Vampire, it stops moving.
The room has nothing of value and searching the room beyond yields a creaky stairway leading downwards.
Violet flies in, but saves the wands energy.
“Well if you’re all going to risk personal injury or worse clearing this place of monsters, least I can do is check the next unfamiliar door.”
Violet will examine whatever door leads to an unexplored room.
You'll need to deal with the bookcase - there's a quest item in there - eventually
Searching the surrounding buildings, the party finds a one storey building outfitted with an outhouse and an external awning to shelter firewood. Among the mundane toiletries is a bar of soul soap.
Going to another outbuilding the party ascends the stairs to find a closed door. They can smell something very planty beyond.
Kilarra takes a moment to calm down, letting the rest of the group get a bit done first. The only thing she does is activate another pearl to get a Bless Weapon spell again.
At the door that smells plant-y, Kilarra takes a good sniff and says "Probably something bad is growing. Hey, someone lend me a magic weapon for the next fight, will ya? Imma make it burn."
Rose freezes up at the plant smell. She looks down at her own plantlike morphic weaponry. “I wonder if we are about to face the thing I was meant to become.”
"I only got the one that's magic..." he offers the longsword he's been carrying, and then pulls his regular one "But this'll do for a bit."
Rose asks Ann, via message, Do want to peer inside, Ann? Or shall we enter?
If the others are ready, Rose asks Violet to distance herself before she leaps onto the ceiling and opens the door.
Ann's scouting duties are on request again, so the dark-haired woman slips into the incorporeal and then sticks her head through the door to see what is awaiting them.
This nicely appointed room contains a wide bed covered with a homey quilt, a low shelf, and a writing desk. Tapestries hang on the wall, and the room smells faintly of sandalwood. A pitcher plant as tall as a person stands in the middle of the room. Ann notices the mouths of the pitcher plant twitch slightly.
Ann's head comes back out from the wall. "There is a pitcher plant in the middle of the room, as tall as my brother. The plant has... mouths and they are twitchy." she pauses for a moment then adds "And there is a nice looking quilt in there as well."
Violet recognizes the plant as a Basilrond. It can spew hallucination clouds and infest people with it's spores.
Hallucination Cloud (Ex) As a standard action once per minute, a basidirond can release a cloud of invisible spores in a 20-foot radius. All creatures within the area must succeed on a Fortitude save or be affected by powerful hallucinations as long as they remain in the cloud plus 1d4 rounds after leaving the area. A new save must be made each round a creature remains within the affected area. A hallucination cloud persists for 5 rounds before dispersing—a strong wind causes it to disperse immediately.
Any creature struck by a basidirond’s slam attack is coated with spores. The creature struck must make a Fortitude save or these spores take root in his flesh, and particularly in his lungs.
Violet tells all she knows of the plant.
“It can’t move as fast as you guys, so I guess it’s your call whether you shoot it until it gives chase or… take your chances with the punchy-swordy stuff.”
"So the thing just puffs out a cloud of spores? It doesn't shoot them out?" Piotr asks and if the answer is yes he'll start to pull out his trusty sling, only to frown, sigh and go with the short bow instead. Ann stands ready to open the door for the troop of archers when they are ready.
“Yes, but it’s not rooted in the floor. If you hit it, spores might burst and embed themselves in your skin.
“So if you’d rather shoot it first, or surround it and make short work of it, that’s up to you!”
Violet can sense Rose’s eagerness, but she uses the message spell to advise her, let Garrosh call it, or follow whichever fighter charges. But wait…
From her position on the ceiling, Rose says, “I will open the door. If anyone wishes to get in position to charge or shoot…”
Her next words are magical, and with a flourishing gesture, the door swings ajar at Rose’s command.
This nicely appointed room contains a wide bed covered with a homey quilt, a low shelf, and a writing desk. Tapestries hang on the wall, and the room smells faintly of sandalwood. In the centre of the room.is the man sized pitcher plan, or more accurately termed Basilrond.
Winter casts guidance on Piotr.
Piotr pulls the bowstring back, lines up the arrow with the enemy plant, and Releases!
Then steps back a bit so the plant can't get him. Ann, who does not have a bow, goes with him.
Garrosh steps back, as far away as possible from the door to the room with the plant, perhaps even slightly down the stairs while still keeping a line of sight, and readies an arrow.
Rose takes note of Garrosh’s move. She crawls back along the ceiling, above Winter. “Very well, evil plant. You shall come to us.”
She only speaks in the hope the plant will move out the door if it can. When it does, she will strike!
Via message, she tells Violet, Kindly fly out. Say when.
Violet zips down the stairs, outside, and to east window that allows her to see into the plants room. She will tell Rose when to strike the walking plant.
And if her Starlight Burst can emanate through glass, she will startle the creature with an attack!
As the plant shuffles to the doorway, both Garrosh and Piotr shoot at it.
Piotr's arrow bounces off while Garrosh's arrow hits it's mark.
The plant seems unaffected by Violet's blast of light.
The plant releases a lime green spore cloud catching everyone, including violet.
Winter screams fearfully, "It's a viper! Get it away from me!" and drops her dagger.
You’re suffocating! Stand in place, hold your breath, and clutch at your throat for 1 round.
You’re sinking in quicksand! Fall prone and spend 1 round flailing your arms and legs as if trying to swim.
You’re melting! Grasp hold of yourself in an attempt to hold yourself together, and take no actions for 1 round.
Violet slowly flutters to the window sill, desperate hands pressed against the glass. “Noooooooo, I’m mellltinnng, mellltinnng… whyyyyyy?”
Rose looks to Violet in horror. “No, ma petite amie, it is as you forewarned: the creature plants ideas in your mind. You must believe you have my ability to take a liquid form. Control this, Violet! Be - yourself!”
Rose shifts a few feet closer, but from the ceiling so another warrior may also fight as she hacks at the plant for its audacious attack on her tiny sweet friend!
Piotr growls in frustration, dropping the defective bow, and charges the thing.
Ann rushes after him, or at least she tries. The floor suddenly shifts like sand and her foot pushs through, her body dragging down quicker than she thought was possible. "Piotr!!" she screams in horror.
Rose lashes at the plant from the ceiling, sending green ichor all over the place as Piotr runs at the plant with his sword drawn, and cuts it down.
Eventually the party recovers from their hallucinations and Piotr finds a block of magical incense on the table.
Piotr recognizes it as an incense of meditation. Finding the door to the next room neither locked nor trapped, the party opens it.
This slightly dusty room contains a pair of mostly empty bookshelves and a couple of comfortable chairs.
Garrosh spots what appears to be an accounting ledger on the book shelf.
Rose gets down from the ceiling. “I hope never to become so plant-like that I explode into green goo like that abomination.”
Rose casts Guidance on Violet so she can look around.
“Rose, I don’t envy your melting ability. It’s scary turning into a puddle!”
Violet checks for traps.
Rose melts and becomes a puddle on the floor. After a couple seconds, the puddle rises, reforming her body as normal.
“There is nothing frightening about this… now. It did take time to grow accustomed to the feeling.” She thinks back to a day she would rather forget. “Quite some time.”
Garrosh spots that the ledger is magically trapped and anyone reading it will be subject to being paralyzed.
Rose will cast guidance on anyone who might try disabling the device.
“I can probably handle the trap, unless one of you is especially good at this sort of thing.”
"I've had my moments." Ann says, slipping past the odd bean that is Rose, and settling into seeing what she can do.
Rose casts guidance on Ann and aids her.
As everyone stands back and Ann tries to tinker with the trapped journal, she realizes that it is waaaay beyond her skill and in fact she doesn't really understand how this trap really works. It spectacularly blows up in her face. There is a flash of yellow light as a yellow serpent lashes out from within the journal. However Ann is quick enough to avoid the serpent's bite.
In the bookshelf, the party finds the following books :Argument Against Reality, Delusion: A Pact with Sanity, Esoteric Delves into the Waking Mind, and Mystical Sites of Eastern Casmaron.
Each book could likely fetch 500 gp to a collector.
The walls of this room are lined with fine wood panels. The furniture includes a desk sitting under a window opposite the door, a high-backed chair, and a couple of small bookcases packed tight with scrolls, volumes, and notebooks. "So does anyone know where Count Lowls headed to?" Winter asks the party.
Garrosh realizes anyone leafing through the desk will be subject to an explosive runes trap. The desk however has part of a map sticking out from beneath some books.
Rose asks everyone to leave, and for Violet to get especially far away.
“If there is nothing magical about the map, perhaps I can move it magically without causing an explosion. But better I only harm myself, and not the lot of us, should something go wrong.”
Rose manages to mage hand the map out. An annotated map shows Lake Encarthan and the lands to the south. The count has drawn a route from Thrushmoor to Xer, traced a line down the Sellen River to Cassomir, and then marked the coast to Katheer, from which he plans to mount an expedition to the lost city of Neruzavin.
However Garrosh still thinks there may be additional information to be gathered if they could do a thorough search of the desk.
The party realizes that they might likely trigger the trap and destroyed valuable information and head back to the Sleepless Detectives. The door is opened by Shevan who Piotr asks to see Cessadia. Before long,the party is in Cessadia office with Cessadia at her desk, appraising the party cooly. "So, what have you go report?"
Rose presents the map she was able to take. “There were other valuables with it, but this was all I could obtain without causing an explosion.” She explains the situation with the trap. “Aside from that, the people there seemed dangerously obsessed with hallucination and… there were some creatures. Vampires, but if such a thing can ever be deemed ordinary, these vampires were grotesque abominations.”
Rose currently passes for human , but still wonders if she is no less an abomination than the creatures she helped destroy.
Cessadia examines the map, and looks for a moment she was about to say something, then stays silent. "So what is there in Iris Hill at the moment? Has the place been cleared?" Cessadia asks Rose