Yngvilda brings the pain a she buries her cold iron dagger into the belly of the creature. Looking down, the creature is surprised to see her blade cut deep into its thick skin. She shouts "COLD IRON!? YOU BROUGHT COLD IRON TO SLAY ME!? It tries to retaliate, but swipes harmless at the Ulfen woman.
The rest of her party attacks ineffectively, missing.
"Hah!"
Yngvilda is as surprised as she is delighted that the cheap blade she bought in an Opparan market appears to be genuine anathema to this beast, and she draws it back to strike again
Cwm leers at the creature, "you're a fan? See how these feel then!"
Determined, Penny tries again to weaken this foe. "Just need a moment to concentrate...."
She curses again, at her inability to be effective in this first encounter. "Must be something with this place. This is highly illogical"
”The trick is to work with your friends, not against them,” Tykent advises. ”Here, try assaulting it’s mind or wreaking havoc on its body now.”
Changing his approach Eldon chants a different spell, sending two darts of energy at the creature.
Thanks to Tykent lowering the demons defenses, Yngvilda's brutal blow, Edlon's missiles and Cwm's flashy dagger work, the demon collapses to the ground and begins to bleed out a dark and vile black blood substance. All in all, everyone in the party contributed to a brutally quick demonstration that they are a force to be reckoned with.
Oh, and then there is Penny. Surely her skills will come along in time . . .
With the demon dead, there is nothing further of interest in this room and the party will need to regroup and move back north to explore the other corridor when they are ready.
Cwm picks up his mitril dagger and sheathes it, "nicely done everyone." He ignores Penny, looking down to make sure the demon had nothing else of interest, "we should make a note on the ledger - One Demon, Deceased." Cwm laughs and walks toward the door, "onward?"
Tykent laughs at Cwm's joke. "But how many pieces of silver would you value it at?" he replies with a chortle. "Now come, let's stand just a little bit further away from it..."
With a content chirp, Hope lands on the old man's outstretched arm. She spreads her wings, shaking small golden particles from her feathers that shimmer and shine as if bathed in afternoon sunlight - much like the dinosaur herself.
"Yes yes. Great work all. This was a true test of your abilities, and I must say you all passed with flying colors. I agree with your plan. Let us continue onward. "
Yngvilda picks up her axe and puts her dagger away, and welcomes Tykents healing channel.
A nasty gash remains on her thigh though and she's got a bit of a limp.
"I'm good to go, save any more of that wonderful healing until one of us goes down"
Before leaving she checks the demon's body for items, then peers down the hole to ensure they haven't left anything behind. Finally shield and axe held high, she advances to the other coridoor
Heading south, east, north down the long corridor, the group turns west at another closed door. When Cwm declares the door free of traps, Yngvilda opens it up and finds six stone slabs that sit on the floor of this chamber. Heaped upon each are metal tools, gears, springs, and other parts for the construction of mechanical creations. There are no other visible exits from this room and it appears that the basement is now completely explored!
Cwm looks around the room and examines all the detritus on the tables but shrugs his shoulders and moves away so everyone else can take a look, "just some junk it looks like."
”Could be junk, could be valuable,” Tykent chortles. ”We’ll write it down and let the clerks sort it out. But this...” The old man walks over to the eastern wall and traces an outline of a door with his walking stick. ”This is much more interesting, wouldn’t you agree?” His eyes twinkle as he steps away, inviting Cwm to investigate the hidden door more closely.
Cwm strides over to join Tykent, "glad you saw that. Let me take a closer look." He runs his hands over the seam, feeling for a catch or button to push, applying pressure wherever it seems appropriate. He also rests his ear against outline to try and detect any sounds or odors coming through.
Completely missing the secret door, Eldon moves over to the piles of tools and components studying them closely.
After completing his investigation he turns to the others and goes to explain the purpose of the component but stops finally noticing Cwm and Tykent examining the wall.
"Well well, look at you with your keen eyes. Nice find. I was wondering when someone was going to point out the door. Now let me have a look at these gears and cogs."
"Meh, looks like a pile of junk if you ask me"
Yngvilda looks deep in thought when she enters the room.
"Gears, springs, tools ..., gears and springs and ... Clockwork!" This must be the clockwork lab, which means there's a SECRET DOOR!"
By the time she has this revelation though Tykent and Cwm have it open.
"Ah, well done!"
She then busies herself looking around
Pushing open the secret door in the eastern wall, the party finds the passage behind is quite narrow. Only two feet in width, the feeling of claustrophia sinks in as you squeeze into the cramped passage. First east, then south, then west and finally north, you travel what seems like at least a hundred and fifty feet before the secret tunnel opens back up on what you presume to be the western side of the lab.
Moving south, there is a passageway to the east and south. Taking the east one first, you come up to an iron gate that hangs ajar. The room within is bare, except for a conjuration circle of silvery metal inlaid in the stone floor and a small, rickety table on which sits a thin journal.
”Hold.” Tykent puts out an arm to stop his companions from entering the hidden room. ”We are not alone. Eldon, Penny, what magics can you detect from here? Yngvilda, you mentioned a ‘fly-devil’...”
Cwm slides up to the corner and tries to surreptitiously determine what is in the room. If he's able to reach the gate to close it, he'll prepare himself to do so if it looks like whatever is in there is about to escape.
Yngvilda looks warily around trying to see what Tykent is seeing, her axe and shield at the ready.
She whispers to Tykent.
"I mentioned an accuser devil, do they fly? The note we found said "conjure and accuser devil" and it was crossed off."
Responding to Tykent's request, Eldon mutters softly to himself for a moment casting his magic to assess the room.
Unsurprising Eldon detects magic coming from inside of the circle. An accented, small sighing voice says "Yes, yes. I'm here. No need to cast spells. Where's Hunclay? He's long overdue to release me. Do you mind laying a blade or object across that circle please? I'll be on my way afterwards."
Looking around after casting his spell Eldon says, "Hey, there's..." but is cut of by the voice.
Peering towards the circle he excitedly asks "Are you a devil? I've never seen a devil before, show yourself!"
"Sure thing. Break the circle and I shall reveal myself. it replies.
Cwm shakes his head and whispers to the others, "that doesn't sound like a good idea."
"What? seems like hes being straight forward with us. Can't you tell? I'm sort of an expert in these things. Sure, lets let him out. Maybe he can tell us more about the rest of this place. Yes. Hey you. You, in the circle. We let you out, you help us, right? right?"
Cwm looks aghast at Penny. "I have an idea, why don't YOU hop in there with IT! Let us know how that goes."
"I have no reason to harm you, you have done nothing to me and I shall do nothing to you. I wall I want is to go home. Will you not send me home?" it asks.
"You're saying that breaking that circle will send you home? I don't like the idea of keeping a creature imprisoned and we do have to clear this place out."
"Correct. I have a spell that I can use to teleport home, but I cannot cast it until I exit this circle."
"Yes yes, right. We will get to you. Just one moment though while i browse this journal. You seem like you have been here for some time. Surely you wont fret waiting slightly longer hrm?"
Penny walks around the circle to the table and takes a look at the journal. She casts Detect Magic on it to first detect if there is any sort of magic aura's emanating from it.
Assuming it seems stable she picks it up and begins to read it.
"Hold on Eldon, the Baroness might not pay us if we free a devil to go rampaging around town."
She turns toward the circle and shouts:
"Show yourself! How can we trust you if you hide from us?"
Cwm watches Penny and prepares to run if she looks like she'll break the circle. She whispers to Yng and Tykent, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Reading the journal left here, Penny surmises that Hunclay used this chamber to conjure and interrogate outsiders using lesser planar ally. Usually, he would merely pay an offering to the outsiders and then question them for research purposes, but now and then he had other uses for them. His last conjuration remains here, trapped inside the magic circle and unable to leave. He describes it as a single accuser devil named Chirit. The devil was being obstinate against Hunclay's requests for information on how to magically and permanently disguise a book so as it would look like something else, and so Hunclay left the thing bound here, alone, to ponder the wisdom of its actions. He intended to come back down here and interrogate it some more, but there are no more entries in the journal and apparently he died before he could do that.
"How can I trust you not to attack me if I show myself! This is a defense mechanism again groups of people who randomly show up and want to kill me!"
"Hrm yes. Definitely an accuser devil. Did you all say you were looking for it? I am sure you have more questions before we even contemplate freeing it. i'll start. Why are you here, and what do you plan to do if we free you?"
"We found mention of it in Hunclay's notes is all. It's certainly an interesting development that we need to Think on"
She tries to indicate that they should discuss the fate of this devil away from its hearing, but she mostly manages to wink in a strange way and look unwell
"Go home. I don't want to be here anymore. I trapped against my will." it says flatly.
Childlike souls tormented and scoured of innocence by the flames of Hell and then reshaped by the mad whims of the archdevil Baalzebul, accuser devils embody the foul, merciless, and pervasive corruptions of the infernal host. From the depths of the Pit they rise in buzzing, shrieking plagues unleashed to taint the land, despoil weak flesh, and reveal exploitable secrets. En masse they display little of the cunning or subtlety typical of devilkind, spreading ruin at the will of their fiendish masters. Alone, though, a zebub is a craven, deceitful thing, lurking in darkness and filth, endlessly spying and vying for the petty favors of greater evils.
Accuser devils are almost exclusively formed amid the cesspits of frozen Cocytus, the seventh layer of Hell. Within the Pit they serve countless infernal lords as messengers and spies, with droves being unleashed upon myriad mortal worlds with a mandate to seek out souls ripe for corruption or those whose sins might lead to greater damnations. Many zebubs overstep the freedoms of such vague missions, seeking to manipulate weakwilled or easily intimidated mortals into all manner of trivial evils, dispensing shrill orders in their buzzing, childlike voices. Despite the fact that many zebub plots end in the zebubs’ own revelation and destruction, few diabolical lords allow the slaying of their spies to go unpunished.
The zebub’s ability to grant other creatures visions of what it has witnessed makes it an unusually useful creature to many conjurers. Relatively easy to conjure with a spell like lesser planar ally or lesser planar binding, an accuser devil can be an invaluable spy. One simply orders the foul little devil to become invisible and then inf iltrate an area where visual information is hidden, with orders to teleport back to its point of origin to grant visions of what it observed to its master. Those who make use of accuser devils in this manner should take care to watch their own actions or what they reveal, of course, for such a creature can just as easily be bribed or intimidated into revealing visions that some conjurers might not want being made public. It’s common practice among conjurers to kill their accuser devils once they’ve completed their missions of infiltration and observation.
These lesser devils stand just over 2 feet tall and rarely weigh more than 25 pounds.
"Now that I, yes me, have identified this creature as the accuser devil you all sought, let me fill you in on some more details your weak minds may not grasp."
"We can't leave this to its own devices. We must return and tell the city sages about this for the proper way to deal with it. For now it should safe, trapped here."
Penny looks at it. "Poor soul. I believe that you don't want to be here. I know you were summoned against your will, but we cant just have you go about on your own. That would just be silly my friend. Sorry to you, for the situation you are in"
"What?! You are just going to leave me here until Hunclay comes back? He's been gone for a long time? You can't just leave me here alone!" it cries out.
Yngvilda wordlessly leaves the room and waits for the others before closing the door.
"It may be able to shed some light on the book that Hunclay wanted to mask, but it is a devil will probably lie. We need to kill it. Without some way to make it visible though it might be difficult."
Looking to the magical members of the group, she says
"If I enter the circle will it still be bound? Cwm and I could systematically carve up the area until we hit something, but I don't want to set it free."
Leaving the room and joining the others, Penny stands with her arms folded as she provides her 2 copper.
"If you enter the circle, you break the seal, it will no longer be bound. As for how to handle it while it is invisible, I wish you luck. Perhaps together we may be able to overcome it, but at the moment, there is nothing I possess at this point in time which will help us see any invisible creatures."
She pauses to assure everyone is listening.
"My suggestion, would be to attempt to trick it into revealing itself before we break the seal. We then must use that opportunity to stop it from going invisible once again. So if anyone has anything that might help keep it stunned, dazed, or otherwise unable to act, that would be the time to engage. As for me, I have a few thunderstones which have a small chance of prevent it from casting spells for some time."
”We can’t just leave it down here for the clerks to find,” Tykent adds. ”Definitely wouldn’t count as safe.”
Penny lets out another sigh, as her voice becomes more 'karen-ish'.
"Look. Its not going anywhere. We are not prepared to fight it. Lets wrap things up, head back into town and let them know what we found. We can pick up supplies and them certainly come back to rid the world of this devil. However, if you are more interested in visiting the plane it came from, by all means go ahead in and break the seal."
it yells from inside the room.
"OK. Invisible things are hard to kill, and I could do with a rest and an ale. Let's go have a rest and a resupply"
Cwm has lost track of time and wonders aloud if they should keep working and head back later or go now., "and does anyone have a marking spell or anything just in case someone else is snooping around?"