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With blood slowly oozing from Quinn's wounds and the slight pallor in his skin from the negative energy Wormgnash was emitting, the young man mutters under his breath.
"We need to end this fast, I"ll try and flank him"
Please let this be a good idea
What, I missed....this might hurt
"Okay Gervase, take him down"
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Annea brushes Bellisir's cheek with a wisp of her long hair, closing some of his wounds.
When Wormgnash reaches for his rapier, Gervase stabs him with her cold iron blade.
Despite his grievous injury, the vermlek hisses in gurgling voice, "You think that is enough to stop me? You have to—" He stops mid-sentence when the ranger thrusts her longsword deep in his guts. "Try harder... "
The second blow is devastating and fatal. His knees buckle, and he sprawls on the floor. Boom Sticks swings a cold iron hammer and Quinn slashes the prone and helpless vermlek with his claws to ensure Wormgnash never rises again.
Bellisir
Gervase
Quinn
Boom Sticks
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"Purification is preferable to destruction in all things," Soddy calls out as the dust settles and the group finally has a chance to catch their collective breath. "We should look at it more closely and see if we can repair or purify it first."
The leshy carefully picks herself up off the greasy floor and waves her healing wand in the air. "Is everyone okay? Do we need to run triage before we finish looking around?"
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“Such good teamwork. I’m genuinely a little sad someone else didn’t land the KO blow – you have ALL been so brave.”
Gervase doesn’t even spare Wormgnash a glance. Her focus is on the party and its success.
“Bellisir, if the damage you absorbed was inflicted on someone else, I think the outcome was questionable.”
"Is everyone okay? Do we need to run triage before we finish looking around?"
“I’m OK, Soddy.”
The ranger hands two CLW potions to Quinn. These being the one she claimed from Baron Sarini’s study and the second potion the mite mini-boss Ticklik carried.
“Drink up, little brother. You’ve earned this!”
"Purification is preferable to destruction in all things."
“On it! The Mayor wanted records about the Sarini’s victims too, right? They’re probably around here somewhere.”
After reclaiming her longbow, spear and lucerne hammer, Gervase hefts the Sarini cold iron longsword in both hands and begins clearing the demon-bile infused webs in both hidden rooms. She takes particular care around the altar, checking carefully for traps, tricks, loot and threats as she advances.
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"Right! We need all the records," Soddy agrees. With most of the group seemingly okay for the moment the leshy also turns her attention to the business of rummaging around the rooms. She does what she can to help clear the demon bile with her cold-iron dagger and also attempts to investigate the altar more closely.
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Bellisir staggers to his feet. Although Annea's hex has closed the worst of his wounds, blood still seeps from several others. His right hand closes around the wand he was able to acquire from his reputation as a fledgling Pathfinder Society agent.
"If either one of you know how to use this," he says, his gaze shifting between Annea and Soddy Daisy. "Then you have my blessing to use it as many times as necessary to speed my recovery along."
The monk places the wand of cure light wounds down and pulls the cold iron dagger from his belt. With grim determination, he begins working on clearing the web of demon bile from the altar room and stairwell.
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Quinn
The team works on clearing a safe path through the demon's bile to inspect the altar. Once dedicated to the infernal practices of the Sarini family, Wormgnash has corrupted it with his abyssal influence.
You step over Wormgnash's body and enter the room where the Sarinis stored records about their victims, rituals, experiments, and other secrets.
On the table, you find drawings and diagrams of some sort of portal, showing a vermlek stepping through what looks very much like the sacrificial pit in the adjacent room.
You also find a rough map of Saringallow with arrows and drawings of mites scribbled on it. It indicates that the fiendish fey were soon to attack the town in order to obtain bodies for the vermleks to inhabit.
There are six cabinets in the room, each full of documents. The shelves are neatly labeled, and you easily find the missing records in the cabinet in the northeast corner of the room.
Having defeated Wormgnash and gathered the records you need for the mayor, you discuss what to do about the corrupted altar.
Suddenly, the walls begin to shudder, portions of the ceiling begin to crumble, and small tremors ripple throughout the basement. The building’s age and the latent Abyssal energies from the demon’s bile cause the house to begin to collapse.
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Bellisir plants his feet in order to keep his balance as he feels the basement floor begin to quake. Seeing lots of dust and parts of the walls and the ceiling begin to fall and collapse, he quickly realizes the peril he and his companions are in.
"We have to get out of this house lest we be buried alive," he says, a small modicum of calmness in contrast to the impending destruction. As that last word escapes from his lips, he turns to see a cabinet toppling straight toward him.
Nimbly, the monk sidesteps the cabinet as it hits the floor with a resounding crash, breaking into huge jagged pieces.
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The tremors cause the cabinets in the records room to topple, but the entire team manages to dodge them.
As you retreat back through the room with the corrupted altar, the dying and panicking mites trapped in the demon’s bile web blindly grab at anything they can.
You can tumble past them or try to wriggle away from them .
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COLLAPSE!
The team manages to tumble through the room with the corrupted altar, avoiding the grasping claws of the dying and panicking mites trapped in the demon’s bile web.
Rolling barrels make movement in the flooded cellar difficult. You can attempt to dive under them or try to slip to the side .
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"Ohhh, into the water...be sure to hold your breath!"
More confident in her ability to simply duck under and avoid the barrels that way than try to swim around them, Soddy takes a breath and heads into the water...
...but it's hard to keep from getting waterlogged when your entire body is rather porous.
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Gervase passes her second potion sponge of touch of the sea to Annea before entering the water and slipping any barrels aside as she crawls across the surface.
“In the event you don’t want to use the potion, please give it to someone else, Annea.”
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Quinn looks down at the dark, murky water and dips his finger in.
"I am so happy we took out all the nasties in the water."
With that quick statement the young man jumps into the water and swims over to the stairs.
Quinn sputters a bit and barely gasps out, "aagh, I think I got something in my mouth"
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The monk brings up the rear out of the web-filled room and back to the landing and the waterlogged cellar full of water and floating barrels. He watches most of the others duck nimbly aroud the side of the barrels, their movements cause the barrels to cut off his path through the room. Once more, the words of Uncle Fu rise in Bellisir's thoughts.
"A wise man once said, 'If you cannot go over or around an obstable, go under it.'"
Bellisir steps back as far as he dares in the direction of the altar room and then sprints forward. Waiting until the last possible moment, he leaps forward and spreads his arms, executing a swan dive into an opening in the water amid the barrels.
He feels his stomach and upper legs scrape the bottom, but at the same time he uses his toes to push off and continue his forward momentum before arcing up and breaking the surface of the water.
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COLLAPSE!
Bellisir dives under the rolling barrels in the flooded cellar without difficulty, but Boom Sticks and Soddy Daisy swallow a lungful of the brackish water. They drag themselves out of the water and onto the base of the stairs, vomiting up most of it along with some blood.
Gervase and Annea swim around the rolling barrels with considerable skill, but one of the large casks careens into the back of Quinn's head, leaving a wicked welt on his crown.
Quinn
Boom Sticks
Soddy Daisy
The precarious stairs leading out of the basement are falling apart. You can either attempt to scramble up the the stairs or try to tread very carefully .
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“Well that’s one of your essential minerals sorted for the next week, Soddy. Not enough iron stunts a plant’s growth!”
Gervase watches carefully for obstacles on the cellar stairs.
“I believe there are still three CLW potions left from Baron Sarini’s study. Quinn, it would be a shame to let them go to waste.”
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"Everyone out. Quickly!"
Bellisir stands on the landing, making sure that everyone else is safe before he attempts to extricate himself from the basement before everything collapses. Doing his best not to rush despite the danger, the monk treads carefully, trying to watch to see which stairs look the most sturdy and which ones are warped or look as if they could snap under his weight (a very bad situation given he's carrying so little on his person).
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COLLAPSE!
Heeding Gervase's advise, Quinn quaffs a healing draught, then the team hustles up the crumbling stairs. Soddy Daisy and Quinn do what they can to help Annea find a safe path to the top. It almost looks like everyone's made it up unscathed, but then Bellisir slips on a shifting step and face-plants onto the stairs, chipping a tooth and biting his tongue.
Quinn
Boom Sticks
Soddy Daisy
Bellisir
There's panic in the kitchen! A stream of frenzied rats blocks the way out. You can try to herd them away or you can attempt to tough out the situation and wade through the rats .
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As the group makes the kitchen, Bellisir suddenly remembers something. He and his friends aren't the only one in danger of the house falling around them.
"Annilda. We have to make sure she is able to get out of this house," he says, calm on the outside but worried for her and her 'baby' on the inside.
The monk calls out for her, trying to make his way through the rat swarm not to get outside but to get back to the stairs going up.
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COLLAPSE!
One way or another, then team finds a way through the stream of frenzied rats blocking the way out. Only Gervase struggles to herd them out of her way. One of them sinks its incisors in the ranger's ankle, nicking a vein.
Bitten, battered, and bruised, you escape from the crumbling manor, just as it finally collapses in billowing cloud of dust.
Quinn
Boom Sticks
Soddy Daisy
Bellisir
Gervase
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Soddy surveys the pile of rubble and debris that was once the manor, largely ignoring the layer of dust that quickly begins to settle over her form.
"Well, that's one way to solve the problem."
She turns and peers around, shielding her eyes with one viney little hand. "Um, I hope that Annilda got out okay. Bellisir, you were trying to go back for her - did the big stairs get blocked off?"