"Ah... oh... you have met her already? How distressing. Mictena is, in vulgar terms, our superior. She's quite the potent psychopomp, and this corner of the Boneyard is within her jurisdiction. I would have recommended that, like us, you avoid attracting her attentions, but it seems it's too late for that.
"Like many psychopomps, Mictena is resilient against weapons not made of adamantine. Cold and electrical attacks have little effect, and she is naturally resistant against magic. As a catrina, she emits a calming aura, but don't let that fool you! She'll try to compel you into accepting her kiss of death--which is exactly what it sounds like. At least if you succumb, your last experience will be a pleasure-ous one.
"Beyond her innate abilities, Mictena is also an accomplished witch. Beware her magic and her eye of evilness!"
"Sounds to me like we'll need to take her by surprise if we're unlucky enough to meet her!" Alessandra muses. "Ulrich. Your spell of invisibility. Could you use it on me? If I could sneak up and grapple her she'd have a much harder time casting spells, and don't witches have a familiar animal? We should keep an eye out for it if we encounter her - it might be a weakness we can use."
Gabriella accompanies her sister as she leads Ellie somewhere private where she can rest.
~~~~~
"I'm sure we're going to see Mictena again - she's got a bug up her bony butt for us," Gabbi says with confidence. "And when we do, we're going to be hard pressed to cause her any pain."
"Yes I could, Alessandra. We must be cautious, for it sounds like she is a very powerful foe. We should enhance Ellie's prowess and protect her from mind control. Her flail will prove invaluable."
Once you are ready, you bid farewell to Umble and Thoot and follow the path they set out for you. After an uneventful hour, the road crests a low hill of thorns and dead grass before dropping into an enormous valley strewn with gravestones. The road is plain in the moonlight, but it suddenly wavers as a garden of bright flowers and high hedges rises up to block the road. From this high vantage point, the garden resembles an enormous skull adorned with flowers.
You can't see any details of the garden from this distance, but it's clear you must traverse it. Attempting to leave the Dead Roads to go around it would only dump you back into the Boneyard...
Kamosh will scout ahead! No dance of death today.
A fifteen-foot-high hedge surrounds the garden, covered with huge, bright flowers: chrysanthemums, dahlias, roses, hibiscus, begonias, and more. A wrought-iron arch, set into the flower-covered hedge, reads "Deathbower" in an ornate script.
Deathbower contains several open areas with features such as carefully manicured trees, ponds, benches, and bridges, like a pleasant garden. Four people tend the hedges just past the arch. They appear to be humanoids with burnished golden skin. They have painted their faces black and white to resemble skulls, and wear white tunics.
Beyond that, a statue of an elf stands in a small clearing. Several willow trees cluster north of the statue, many with nests built in them. Fallen leaves and baubles such as bracelets litter the ground.
Past another arbor with dark purple flowers arranged to resemble a spider web is a large pond of inky, still water. A wooden bridge crosses over its center.
Curving hedges create twisting passages around to the far end of the garden, where a wooden gazebo stands. Another arch seems to serve as the garden's exit.
"Why do I get a bad feeling about this?" Alessandra asks rhetorically as Kamosh reports back. "How do we want to do this? Try and talk our way through like we did with the tooth fairies? Not everyone in the Boneyard seems to agree with Mictena, we might be able to find allies or support if we're cautious. Or we could do it the way Gabbi wants to." She pokes her tongue out briefly at her sister, "And just bull our way through as quickly as we can..."
Gabbi returns Allie's out-thrust tongue with a glare and crossed-eyes.
"I don't see anything wrong with my way," she mutters to herself, her hands stroking her crossbow affectionately.
Ellie frowns. "I'm willing to give them a chance to surrender. But only the one."
She points at the gardeners. "Shall we go say hello?"
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Kamosh attacks the gazebo.
"We should prepare for a fight. It might take more than a few minutes, but this place looks like where our foe would lurk."
The gazebo seems unfazed by Kamosh's attacks!
Ellie frowns slightly as she recognises the strange humanoids. "Shabti. They're, uh, facsimiles of wealthy or powerful mortals seeking to escape judgement for their sins upon death. Grown from broken bits of mortal souls, shabti endure whatever cosmic punishments or labor might await their creators in the afterlife unless they’re discovered and freed by psychopomps."
"I think that means they're going to be loyal to the psychopomp who rescued them. I don't see this going well."
"We can always try." Alessandra responds. "If they've been freed from servitude they should have some sense of justice, and that's on our side here! Either way, we should go on."
Elká's eyebrows attempt to jump to the moon when Allie says the facsi-copies ought to be susceptible to a sense of justice. "You're a hopeless optimist. Surely they'll side with the bone lady when it comes to a brawl. After all, she's the only one who can get them out of their sorry state! Well, whatever, sure, let's try talking to them since they most likely will ask us how we're enjoying the weather when we stroll on in."
You step through the arch into the garden proper. As soon as the shabti gardeners notice you, they stop pruning the flowers and prepare to fight. One says, "Mistress Mictena said you would be coming. It is our honor to stop you."
Two of the shabti rush at Elly, swinging fists st her temples. The others look at Elka and Gabby, suggesting that they carefully remove and set aside their weapons, armor, and spell components so that their equipment won’t be damaged in the fight!
"Hate to say I told you so!" Before she finishes speaking, Elká is already halfway towards his foe.
[ooc]Move action: move
Std action: attack
Alessandra concentrates and a burst of silver moonlight washes across her friends.
Ellie barely winces as she is struck; in return she delays her counterattack while she studies her opponent closely, looking for an opening.
Ulrich holds his finger out for Kamosh to peck, and uses the blood to coat himself in a thin swirl of negative energy.
Targeting one of the shabti that attempted to influence her, Gabriella responds with a crossbow bolt.
"You first," she mutters.
Elka slashes one of the shabti with her claws. Gabriella fires a bolt, but the gardener brings an arm up and deflects it away!
The other two shabti move in to attack, all of them punching and kicking and scoring solid blows!
Gabriella steels herself against her foes, reloads her crossbow and fires at one of the shabti facing her sister.
Kamosh flies forth with a touch of fatigue!
Elká feels how the air is almost entirely knocked out of her lungs when a vicious elbow finds its way to her thorax. "That hurt!!!"
Now badly hurt, Ellie narrows her eyes and smashes her flail against the opponent she was previously studying.
Both Ellie and Elka drop one of the shabti, sending them sprawling across the manicured lawn. Gabby's target whips an arm up to deflect her bolt away again! Perhaps ranged weapons aren't the best choice here... The shabti twists and avoids Kamosh's peck.
With the shabti proving to be irritatingly agile Alessandra reaches out to pin him.
"Now Gabbi!"
As Allie grabs the shabti, both remaining ones try to strike her with knees and elbows, but none connect.
"Hold him tight!" Gabbi shouts out to her sister as she reloads her weapon. "Stupid, arrow-dodging, fils de pute," Gabbi mutters to herself before firing again.
Ulrich goes over to one of them and harries them with his staff in order to help shield Alessandra.
Kamosh helps Alessandra by pecking!
Ellie steps in and swings her flail at the next available target.
"Ha! At least you tried to stop us!"
The remaining shabti fall before your brutal assault!
Allie collects the shuriken with interest, "I'll hang onto these - they might come in handy."
She scans the garden carefully for magic before pointing to the gap in the hedge. "That way I guess..."
This open space is tiled with gray bricks in intricate patterns. Inset mosaics display various scenes of a stylized skeletal woman releasing humanoid figures from painful situations—from torture and illness to mourning fallen children. A short dais in the center of this space holds a statue of a thin, robed male elf clutching a dagger to his chest. A look of resigned sorrow is etched onto the statue’s face. A gap in the carefully pruned hedges leads to the north.
Alessandra examines the statue for magic and, assuming she sees nothing, urges the group to press on.
Faint magic auras come from the statue's dagger and robe.
"This is odd." The dhampir says, approaching slowly. "A lot of magic. Has he been petrified?"
As Alessandra approaches, the statue suddenly animates! It intones words in Elven as it steps forward, brandishing its dagger.
Elká shrieks when the statue starts to move. "Even the hot darn ornaments are against us in this place!"
Allie feels her blood burst into over-drive as the construct moves and she settles into a ready stance.
"That's a graven guardian. We're going to really need your flail, Ellie. They're very tough. I don't know if I'll be able to help with this."
'This' meaning her crossbow which, despite her misgivings, she raises, aims, and fires.
As she suspected, the bolt pings off the stone causing no damage.
The statue hesitates a moment, then its movements begin to speed up as it hastens itself!
Ulrich draws his metamagic rod to extend this shield spell he thus casts on himself.
Ellie nods as she recognises the graven guardian herself: "I've read about them! Good thing I have this."
With that, she charges into melee.
Allie too leaps on the construct, trying to lock its stony limbs as new-found power courses through her body.
Elká eyes the statue with palpable dread dripping off her face. She glances down at her gnarly oversized fists and imagines how painful this is going to be. "Eh, any of you got a spare two-hander by chance?!"