"We'll make it swift, then," Remy says. "I'll be big for a few more minutes yet. Let's not waste them!" The monk leads the way down the stairs.
Soon, you find yourselves on the balcony Maddie described. As you step out from the stairwell, the four ghouls Maddie spotted earlier emerge, snarling and rushing to attack!
Flik starts performing and casts invisibility on himself.
Fergus will channel positive energy.
Maddie breaks invisibility to cast Magic Missile, sending the barrage of bolts at the closest ghoul.
Borgol suggests, "You go right, I go left?", and moves forward at the same time as his beloved, calling on Ol' Deadeye's magic to match her size as he swings his flaming sword at the ghoul.
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”Thinking the same thing!” Remy replies, leaping into the fray!
Fergus’s channeled energy blasts three of the ghouls, one of which manages to resist it somewhat. Borgol slices the nearest ghoul with his flaming sword, then Maddie finishes it off with a barrage of magic missiles. Remy’s flying kick nearly takes a ghoul’s head off! She finishes it with a punch before turning to kick the other one.
One ghoul rushes at Borgol, biting his leg. The other attacks Remy with a flurry of blows, landing one lucky hit.
Borgol shrugs off the ghoul's attack and returns to his normal size, whispering, "My turn."
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Fergus will step up and attack Borgol's Ghoul.
Flik rushes over to Borgol and heals him a bit.
Remy continues to unleash her fury upon her foe!
Remy destroys the ghoul she is facing with a trio of powerful punches. Meanwhile, Borgol stabs the other ghoul with his flaming sword, and Fergus finishes it off with two powerful chops of his axe!
Even as the undead monk falls, though, more enemies emerge to face you. Two of them are hideous undead--spindly, skeletal humanoids with moldy green flesh, long talons for hands, and a head that seems to be mostly mouth. Behind them emerges a pale dhampir clad in dark leathers and surrounded by mirror images--the necromancer Erigantus!
As the skeletal creatures race across the balcony to get within melee range, the necromancer points a finger at Flik and intones a powerful spell, attempting to snuff out the gnome's life force!
Borgol feels the terrible spell smash into him, trying to rip his life away before the inner light within him begins to burn, pushing the fell magics away. He smiles, "Sorry. I don't die that easily."
Maddie floats above the battlefield, continuing to throw Magic Missiles in a never-ending tide.
Fergus will double move in the direction of the necromancer.
Borgol once again doubles in size to engage with the foe that has rushed him, striking with sword and pushing it back with his shield.
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Flik switches to giving advice about attacking dhampirs, slips over and casts phase step on Remy, teleporting her into a good position to attack the necromancer.
Remy kicks the skeletal monster as it closes with her. She is about to pummel it further when she feels a small hand on her leg and hears Flik's voice. She delays, smirking as she suddenly appears before Erigantus. "Hello, there," she says as she swings on him. Her first fist connects with his temple as she tries to stun him, but her follow up attacks only destroy two of his mirror images.
Remy's punch leaves Erigantus stunned and reeling! Borgol slices his foe and slams it with his shield, but with not quite enough force to shove it away. Maddie blasts it with magic missiles as Fergus hustles to confront the necromancer.
The skeletal creatures move to flank Borgol, biting and clawing at him. The hollow claws threaten to drain the vindicator's flesh away!
Borgol feels a little woozy from the after effects of the blow, but maintains his large size as he presses his attack against his first target, trying to cut and/or slam his way out of the flank.
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With two powerful chops of his sword, Borgol's foe falls! He turns to swing his shield at the undead behind him, but the creature dodges the swing.
Flik moves over and lays an invisible hand on Borgol, healing some of his wounds.
Once he arrives at the foe, Fergus will bellow, I smite thee foul creature!
Remy unleashes another ki enhanced flurry, winnowing away Erigantus’s mirror images and hitting him with her last kick.
As Remy’s kick rocks Erigantus back, Fergus rushes in and brings his axe down in a critical smite! The blade slices the unfortunate dhampir clean in two! Blood and ruptured organs shower the dwarf as the necromancer dies a messy death.
The remaining undead continues to bite and claw at Borgol, but at this point, it seems like more of an afterthought...
Remy turns from the fallen necromancer to see Borgol still in trouble. She races around the balcony to reach a flanking position with the vindicator. "Take this thing down, Borgol!" the monk shouts encouragingly.
Borgol shakes his head to fight off the strange feeling from the attack, then snarls, returning the favour of the attack.
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Borgol slices and slams the undead creature, badly wounding it. Flik heals Borgol's wounds some more as Fergus hustles to assist in the melee. The monster tears at Borgol with its teeth and claws.
Remy finishes the undead monster off with a flurry of crushing punches!
Remy shrinks back down to her normal size as Maddie's spell expires. Once you have caught your breath from the battle, you explore the rom that Erigantus emerged from. This once much larger chamber seems to have originally been a communal banquet hall, but now the large tables, elegant chairs, and chandeliers lie in rubble on the floor, and the north and east walls have collapsed into ruin. A small but relatively comfortable looking campsite has been erected to the east.
Erigantus has gathered what treasures he could from the shrine, and has now organized these prizes in his campsite. This collection of valuables includes 2,500 gp in minor trinkets (silverware, jewelry, gemstones, and the like), but also a partial collection of ancient stone tablets that weigh 15 pounds each. Each of these four tablets functions as a divine scroll. The spells contained on the tablets are blade barrier, heal, shield of law, and wind walk.
Other treasures include an illuminated manuscript describing in excruciating detail the culinary habits of a bloatmage named Chundakus—a disturbing, oversized text almost a foot thick and 3 feet wide that weighs 45 pounds and is worth 3,000 gp; a marble-and- obsidian sweetmeat dish with a rim decorated with silver-encrusted imp canines worth 600 gp; a superb mandolin-lyre (a lyre of building) painted with an astonishingly vivid urban scene; a rolled-up Minkaian rug depicting dragons feasting on laughing monkeys worth 750 gp; and a lectern of wood and iron that depicts a wolf devouring lambs with angelic faces.
The lectern is deep enough to hold several books and also contains a secret latch. When triggered, this latch causes the top of the lectern to spring open and reveal a hollow that contains a divine scroll of symbol of pain, a divine scroll of create undead, and an arcane scroll of horrid wilting.
There is also a grisly tome that bears a leathery flesh front-cover, twisted rib binding, and a hundred pages of blood-scripted verse and grisly diagrams. This can only be the Bone Grimoire, the first portion of Runelord Zutha’s phylactery and the focus you need for the runewaking ritual.
Flik is drawn to the Bone Grimoire, but stops himself from examining it too closely.
"A horrifying book. No doubt a reflection of Zutha's twisted spirit."
Borgol nods, wincing slightly as he does, then mutters, "I really need that breastplate.. And a magical shield...", as he reaches for the wand of healing. "Think we'll need another one of these soon, at this rate," he sighs as he starts the process of healing, keeping an ear on the others and their discoveries.
"We got what we came here for," Remy says, carefully stowing the Bone Grimoire in her pack. "It's time to head back to Magnimar."
***
Indeed, the return journey to the City of Monuments is uneventful. Now that you've secured the Grimoire, the next step will be to make the journey to the risen isle of Xin to put an end to Runelord Zutha. According to Sorshen's instructions, you must bring the tome to a site of great power just off the shore of Xin, a small islet atop which lie the ruins of a tarnished temple once devoted to the seven convictions of rule—convictions that the runelords perverted through their descent into sin and excess. Through the use of the runewaking ritual at this site, you can force the Bone Grimoire to transform into an approximation of its undead author, prompting an early manifestation of Zutha’s body even though the entirety of the Gluttonous Tome is not at hand. If this reduced but still quite dangerous manifestation of Runelord Zutha can then be destroyed, the remaining fragments of his phylactery will crumble to dust, and one of Golarion’s most dangerous necromancers will be forevermore dead.
You should be sure you are prepared for the ritual and the upcoming battle before departing Magnimar.
School illusion (shadow); Level 7
Casting Time 70 minutes
Components V, S, F (a portion of the Gluttonous Tome), SC (up to 8)
Skill Checks Bluff DC 28, 3 successes; Knowledge (arcana) DC 28, 2 successes; Spellcraft DC 28, 2 successes
Range touch
Effect a shadowy simulacrum of Runelord Zutha
Duration 1 minute
Saving Throw none; SR no
Backlash All casters take 2d6 points of damage.
Failure All casters gain 1 permanent negative level and are exhausted until that negative level is removed.
EFFECT
This ritual can be performed only at a site like the Tarnished Temple of Xin, where a potent legacy of Thassilon’s pre-runelord values still exists. The ritual creates a temporary and weakened version of Zutha from a portion of his phylactery, drawing power from the Shadow Plane to
manifest a simulacrum-like incarnation of the runelord. If this manifestation of the lich is destroyed before the ritual’s 1-minute duration expires, all three portions of the Gluttonous Tome crumble to dust and Runelord Zutha is forever slain; otherwise, as the ritual expires, Zutha’s temporary manifestation melts away into a heap of corrupted flesh and the portion of his phylactery used in the ritual emerges unscathed.
Borgol says, "I'm thinking we should take some time to prepare, here. Figure out how to best equip everybody - and how to divide up the work of the ritual, versus preparing to fight."
He suggests, "Not sure if Maddie and Flik can manage the ritual on their own, but that would let Remy, Fergus and me make ourselves ready to attack the moment that Zutha appears -- with as much magical assistance as we can manage to cast or drink from a potion bottle."
"Any protections we can buy against necromancy spells will likely be literal life-savers," Remy says. "If Erigantus could almost kill Borgol with a single spell, we have to believe that Zutha is capable of magic that is much, much worse."
After several days in Magnimar, you finish your preparations, including securing defensive magic and upgrading your gear. You board Tyalee's Whim, recently returned from Korvosa. Captain Sursha, 'Elbows' Eddi, and the rest of the crew are happy to catch up with you during the three-day journey to the isle of Xin.
The green kiss of rotting seaweed clings to the shores of this small isle, its shoreline made complex by dozens of protruding islets and jagged sea stacks. The strange and jagged architecture adorning the isle itself seems devoured in many places by the passage of time or hidden by growths of strange fungus, but the ruins stubbornly refuse to give up their glory. Fragmented statues, once-magnificent temples, and gracefully curved streets remain to give hints of what was once a glorious city. From atop one of the smaller isles to the southwest, the massive columns of the Tarnished Temple beckon.
Borgol begins counting and watching his friends with the spell, Okay, when they're almost done, it's time to make some defensive magic.
Remy uses her ki to strengthen her skin and accepts a mage armor spell from Maddie. She reaches out to squeeze Borgol’s hand as she waits beside him for the ritual to complete.
”It’s just a Runelord. We got this, right?” she asks, trying to sound confident.
Borgol chuckles, "Not even our the first one."
Flik will perform his hymn of restorative harmonics before starting the ritual, so everyone will have delay poison for 11 hours.
Flik, with Maddie's help, performs the ritual, confident in his abilities, as inspired by Sorshen.
Flik and Maddie perform the ritual, drawing upon their knowledge of magical traditions while cajoling Zutha's lurking spirit to take the bait and manifest in a physical form. Upon completion, the sky darkens and clouds roil menacingly. The Bone Grimoire shudders, its pages bulging outward until the ancient text splits open like an infected wound. Crackling energy emerges from the book, the ritual's backlash injuring Flik and Maddie.
A festering travesty of bloated flesh and fury spills out of the wound and then rises to his feet with a cry of pain and freedom! Magic crackles around the simulacrum of Runelord Zutha as several spells activate, including a shroud of mage armor that surrounds him. "In order for me to live again, you must die!" he intones in a sepulchral voice.
Before you can react, Zutha flies into the air, raising up 30 feet. He casts a quickened displacement spell on himself before targeting Flik with a finger of death!
Blade in hand, Borgol leaps into the air, following the Runelord, "Then I guess you won't live," he says, swinging the blade.
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Take 10 + 10 + 4 + 4 = 28
Flik will call on his store of knowledge to see if there is any weakness that the team can exploit.
Then he starts dispensing advice and casts virtuoso performance to send a skald song ringing through the air.
Saying a curse as the Runelord flies in the air, Fergus will switch to his crossbow.
He misses.