Drask snarls as they are suddenly overrun by half a dozen creatures. He swings his axe in wide arcs to begin cutting them down. He focuses first on the one next to Mok so that the spellcaster can be freed up.
”AAAGGGHHHH!” Veltariel cries out as the acidic bite scorched the flesh of her thigh where the thing bit her! She pushes it off and tries to retaliate with a kick, but can’t put her full weight on her leg to make it fully effective...
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When the creatures swarm them, Esrisi is not quite ready for them. By the time that they have inflicted numerous injuries to the team however, she's ready to unleash some payback. After just telling Veltariel about she needs to be involved less in combat and more focused on support, she finds herself in exactly the opposite situation.
Veltariel worked best without these creatures hanging all over, so Esrisi works on the creature between them first. Without much thinking about it, her left fist flies forward with tremendous power and embeds itself into the fleshthing. She tries to follow it up with a jab from her right hand, but she isn't able to time her punch accurately.
"What sin do these represent?" she asks Mokhasi.
Seeing the arcanist in particular was vulnerable, Caroliss creates a duplicate Mokhasi to confuse the enemy!
At the same time, she blesses Sapher to give her luck in battle!
"They seem rather hungry for things that don't eat." the dwarf comments as she keeps teeth at bay with her shield, smashing her hammer into the side of one of the others.
Based on them doing elemental damage Mok would suspect from what he recalls these were likely attempts at wrathful sinspawn.
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Mokhasi recoils from the bite, and sighs when his allies dispatch the foes, "Thankfully, wrath. It appears to simply be damage that they do. The other sins are more... complicated." Nodding in thanks to Caroliss, he notes the fact that most of them have been dispatched, and shoots another glob of acid at the creatures, targeting Esrisi's target, then putting away his flask.
But the acid shoots into the ceiling above Esrisi's head. "Sorry. They are resistant to much magic, other than this, I think."
Drask slices into the creature near Mok and then bites it and manages to kill the horrid little thing. Es and Vel tag team the one between Vel and Drask dropping it as well. Sapher smashes the one that had previously bit Drask crushing it into a goo puddle on the floor. Carliss stands back while the others fight and grants both Mokashi and Sapher a boon as duplicate images of Mokashi spring up around him and Sapher feels lucky. Mok, no longer threatened by the flesh monster casts a spell at the one on Es, but misses as the glob of acid nearly hits her hair burning more of it off, luckily it hit the wall instead.
While Es and Sapher are able to avoid the bites of the ones attacking them, Vel is not as used to being right in the middle of a fight and is slow to react as the one on her bites her again. This time the wound stings with a freezing pain.
Veltariel cries out as another sinks it’s teeth into her arm. She pries it free and bashes its “head” with her fist as she backs into the corner. She looks akin to a frenzied animal as her blood trickles from her open wounds on her limbs and her face is contorted in pain and anger.
Seeing the mighty half-orc cutting through his foes, Caroliss transfers Calistria's blessing to him!
Drask seamless turns around, scraping blood across the floor as his axe twirls into the next creature.
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Veltariel is getting destroyed by these creatures and Esrisi knows she needs to act quickly before the elf is killed by these creatures. Sliding over towards the one between and Drask, Esrisi tries to punch it with her left hand, but misses. She follows her punch up with a spinning kick from her right foot which connects solidly into the creatures body.
Sapher turns her attention to the one gnawing on her shield.
Waiting for Caroliss, once Drask is eventually blessed by her luck he goes to work on the creature attacking Es. After two solid blows he slices the creature in two and then turns toward the one on Vel trying to bite it but missing. Freed up from Drask killing the one Es moves to go help her new best friend Vel landing a solid blow but not killing the creature. Luckily Vel, as Es has learned, is a pretty capable melee combatant as well and smacks the thing so hard she sends it flying into the adjacent wall and kills it. Sapher, even with her chicken guidance, still misses the one that it gnawing on her shield. Mok pulls out his spear to try and help Sapher but only hits the door frame instead.
The creature finally finds an opening and bites Sapher as she feels a burning sensation from the wound as if the creature bit her with fire. However, the thing is not long for this world as the group gangs up on it and puts it down.
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Esrisi looks around the room and calls to Caroliss "I think Veltariel got hurt pretty bad Cars. Can you use that wand of yours to help her out? Anyone else hurt?" she asks looking around, somehow amazed she herself didn't get injured. In fact, Drask, Sapher and Mokhasi are all injured. She was the only combatant on the battlefield who wasn't bleeding, so she counts herself lucky in that regard.
After Caroliss comes in and wands everyone back to better shape, Esrisi moves into the opened room and studies room, casting detect magic.
There are no signs of magic and other than cages, ruined tables, and skeletal remains there is little else of interest in the room. There is a closed door to the south east.
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Mokhasi looks at the bite wound on his arm, ”I am hurt, but it was not especially bad. The wound was essentially cauterized, so it is sore, but I am happy to continue. Sometimes when you are a pathfinder, you get hurt by monsters. That is always a risk.” Mokhasi cleans off a bit of the blood around his wound, ”yes, please heal Vel, of course. For reference, I am training in our downtime to learn more druid magic - I should have a way to stiffen our resistance to attacks before too long.”
Drask checks out for the latter half of what Mok said, but he grunts unhappily in response to his dismissiveness of the wounds. "Heal. We have that wand thing." He frowns down at his own new wound on his thigh. "These may be small wounds, but they can cost our lives if we suddenly face a more dangerous foe."
Vel stands a few seconds with her hands up, her weight favoring her I injured leg, her bitten arm hanging a bit lower than the other, and her eyes frantically farting about for anything else that may prove a threat. Her arm and leg have at this point developed long trails of blood that is dribbling onto the stone floor, and her breathing is heavy and frantic.
When Esrisi says her name, her head snaps towards her as she slowly comes to terms with the realization that the fight is over for now. She leans against the stone wall, her head resting against it as she closes her eyes and lets out a breath of relief.
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Esrisi helps Veltariel back to her feet, grimacing at her injuries"Are you okay? It looks like they really wanted to take you down. I'm glad we stopped them so quickly."
While Caroliss is wanding everyone, Esrisi moves to inspect the door to the southeast looking for traps or other items. . Finding none and once everyone is fully healed, she informs the party she is opening the door.
. Caroliss calls on her goddess to heal the groups sounds, having delivered vengeance.
The magic wand does the rest of the work.
"A little fire, a little acid, such an eclectic mix of injuries."
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Mokhasi stretches his arm, and scrubs away the rest of the residue using his President ”Ahh, or that will work too. Please thank Calistra for me, Caroliss.” He grins at her, and then offers to clean anyone else up that may be feeling grimy and gross. Afterwards, he grips his spear resolutely, facing the door and ready to move on
After Caroliss tends to everyones wounds and they are back to full health Es moves to open the southern door after making sure it was safe. There is another brief hall leading to a closed door, checking it out Es opens it to find a small room.
A stout iron portcullis blocks the eastern entrance; its winch stands to the side. A skeleton, still in scorched half-plate armor it wore in life, is slumped over the winch.
Drask is quickly learning to hate this place and all of its traps, so he stops the others when they see the skeleton. He grunts towards Mok, as if to say And what is THIS one going to do?
The skeleton doesn't appear to be animate, at least not yet, and when others check for magic they find none.
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Esrisi moves to the fallen body, taking a knee and examining the armored character. "Would this better help one of you? It didn't help this pour soul, but it looks like very defensible armor?"
Esrisi detects magic again, looking for magical presence on the armor or the gate.
Moving to the gate, she doesn't even try to turn the winch. She just points to it and says "Big guy, you're up."
The masterwork half-plate is rusty but appears to still be useable.
Drask glances at Sapher to join him as he moves and clears the skeleton away. He places this corpse gingerly on the ground, carefully arranging its arms and legs and trying to keep it as intact as possible. Then he moves to the winch and with the help of Sapher tries to turn it.
As soon as Drask moves the skeleton, the bones crumble to dust leaving only the suit of armor behind. As Sapher and Drask work together they slowly raise the portcullis, it screeches and whines the whole way, but they manage to get it up completely and set the locking bar.
When the bones crumble Drask looks intensely sad for a moment. He helps to turn the winch, then returns to the pile of dust and collects as much of it as he can, placing it in the most prominent place in the room. Then he bows his head and appears to be in prayer, and for the moment that he does the shadowy image beside him does not bow his head, instead seeming to look at Drask.
Wordlessly he returns to the others, ready to move forward.
Sapher gives the deceased a small prayer, then nods to Drask ready to move on. "He died at the winch. Was he trying to keep something out or trying to escape?" a question but as she starts to move through the entrance, trying to keep an eye out for bad things.
Once the gate is up, Sapher will rearm herself, then move forward. Slow and steady like any proper dwarf should.
Sapher leads the way as the group falls behind. The walls, floor, and ceiling of this curving corridor are sheathed in rusty plates of iron that have been bolted in place. Scorch marks mar this armor plating at periodic intervals, and the gnawed fragments of blackened bones are scattered here and there. Row after row of tiny runes have been etched into each iron plate.
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"Oh." the oracle says, unable to process how he was tracking the time so accurately. "Uhm. Couldn't you just do it now real quick? What if on the sixteenth minute we're fighting and I get hurt? You wouldn't want that, would you"
When he elaborates on the drawback of wands she adds "Couldn't you just learn it instead then? Aren't you a wizard?"
She asks What is this thing?"
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Mokhasi pauses, ”yes, I can, but I would prefer to wait. Every time we use the wand it costs us 15 gold. As a merchant, I understand the value of gold - 15 gold means less money for other things we might need in the future. So: I will refresh your armor in a little while. No, nobody wants anyone to get hurt, everyone has value.”
He takes a breath, ”I already know it, actually,” and he shows her his spellbook, inscribed with runes and writing in a mix of polyglot and elvish, ”here. It is a simple spell. But I am not a wizard. I draw power from my own force of will, as well, though this discipline does require some of the focus and memorization that a wizard would require... Anyway, what was the question? Right, I did not memorize it today.” He shrugs. ”Limited options - I had to save my mental energy to deal with all the other potential threats. Plus - we have the wand. You can do a lot of adventuring in one hour!”
He turns to the writing and tries to make sense of everything using detect magic.
”This chamber is some sort of planar rift siphon. I read about these in a book on ancient Thassalon. They were used to focus planar energies. The walls and their rune-infused iron plates are designed to create a thin spot between the planes at the center of the maze. This may be why we have been seeing so many outsiders here.” He snaps his fingers ”I just figured out - we can disable the entire machine by pulling off at least ten of the plates, each at least ten feet apart. That could stop these meddlesome nupperibos and things like that from coming in to this complex.”
”Which we should, the Aspsis consortium could cause untold havoc if they got their hands on this ancient magic.”
"Ez, could you help me take a look at these runes, with a bit of magical assistance?"
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Caroliss nods in agreement with Mokhasi's assessment. "Careful, folks. I think right now, the rift siphon is focused on Hell. That might explain all the devils we've been fighting."
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Scratching her head she asks "Well if you aren't a wizard, what are you? A force of willzard? I mean that doesn't sound nearly as exciting as Wizard. You definitely need a shorter and more appropriate name."
"Huh?" Esrisi says as Caroliss tears her away from Mokhasi's dissertation on magic. "Uhm, yeah. One moment please."
Turning back to the Willzard, she adds "Ok so fifteen minutes, right? Don't forget please."
Esrisi moves over to Caroliss and helps provide some guidance with the runes. "Rift sipons of hell sounds etremely ominous. Can we not mess this up?" she mumbles "I'm not going to touch anything."
Esrisi moves behind everyone to the rear of the group so that while they are busy dealing with hell rifts and Willzards and what not, she can take a moment in silence to think.
Ez risks a glance at Veltariel standing guard, studying her for a moment. Had it only been two days since her hair had been chopped to hell and she was beaten unconscious nearly twice by the elf? While it seemed her talk last night with the ranger was extremely effective, she begins to think about what the long-reaching consequences of it are.
"Yes, everyone start taking apart these iron plates. But be careful!"
Caroliss starts off the process by trying to use her longspear as a giant lever, to pry out a plate.
Sapher takes off her shield and slides the hammer through the hoop. "Okay, be careful dismantling the hell rift... good advice." the dwarf muttered loudly, reaching out to grab a plate and GENTLY moving it.
Drask uses the picks from his climbing kit to start finding spots for leverage, then wedges his axe in to pry the iron from the walls.
If it requires it, Sapher will break out her crowbar to do the same.