|
Merisiel and Valeros adapt their fighting styles in light of recent developments attempting not to exacerbate the situation with sharp weapons. The fighter attempts to push back on the creature attempting to eat him whole, and does it with some success, but the creature still persist to squeeze the life out of the human!
The other black pudding attempts to do the same towards the rogue.
~~~
Valeros grunts in pain as the acidic constriction of the monstrosity easily penetrates his armor and burns his skin badly. He grits his teeth and makes a heroic effort to strike the creature as hard as he can before he collapses from the agony .
Tracing arcane symbols in the air with his hands, Ezren again calls out "Regenboog van bliksem!" A band of lightning flashes between the twin black puddings, with a roar of thunder washing over the Pathfinders a moment later.
Merisiel shreiks at the hiss of acid on her skin and armor, before being cut short by a constricting tentacle of ooze. By all appearances, she is unconscious.
As the creature splits Amiri curses but does not stop her assault. Taking an hint from Valeros she decides to use the flat of her blade though...
→
→
→
Valeros drops his longsword on the pavement and pulls out a Lesser Elixir of Life and drinks it.
Momentarily uncertain whether to keep on attacking the ooze with fire, or saving her friend, Kyra's benign nature takes over. Merisiel is an old friend, and she is still in danger.
Again, Kyra prays for Saranrae. This time, the flames that fly from her hands are warm and gentle, full of life-giving force. The flames soar through the air to cover the elf, and in so they burn the wounds close, and wash away the acid.
"Merisiel!" Fumbus shrieks as he sees the rogue fall. He hurls alchemist's fire with both hands at the ooze.
|
|
A myriad of attacks using flat blades, frost rays, alchemical fire hit the creature from every angle possible! The oversized blob wobbles violently but still stands and refuses to let go of the badly wounded elf! Kyra turns to her deity to bestow healing upon the unconcious elf, forcing her to open her eyes once more in the heat of the fight.
~~~
If he is not Grabbed, Valeros picks up his longsword and uses two move actions to get closer to the thing. If he is Grabbed, Valeros will make attacks.
Merisiel gasps when she feels healing energy flow through her, then shreiks again as the tentacles squeeze the life from her. She manages to wriggle her arms between herself and the tentacles for the second contraction, but the third overwhelms her, and she lapses into unconsciousness again.
Amiri raises her blade again and smashes the flat part into the gelatinous monster again, and again, and again...
→
→
→
|
|
Amiri wrestles the ooze with the flat of her blade and eventually wears it down enough that it sinks right back into the emulsion from which it rose from. After waiting for a few seconds, no more creature seems to emerge from the waste indicating that the coast is now clear.
Further ahead from the area, you find a small chamber. This room appears to be a combination alchemy lab and bedchamber. Two narrow beds line the north wall, partially concealed by hanging curtains. Equipment-laden tables stand against the west and east walls. To your pleasant surprise, the pervasive chemical tang of the sewer is absent here; this room instead smells faintly of spices and tobacco.
At a glance, you find on the tables are several scattered notes on crafting golems and creating oozes.
The notes are all experimental dead ends. Taking some time to search the room, you realize the books stolen from Nexus House aren’t in this room; in fact, the only book here is a treatise titled “Living on the Shore of the Sentient Sea.” Which does come with some form of receipt indicating it was legitimately purchased from the Pathfinder Archives.
Two everburning torches provide light to this room. Among the alchemical equipment here are two lesser tanglefoot bags, a lesser elixir of life, and a magical dagger that seems to be attached to some kind of fancy contraption. To remove the dagger is a Thievery or Occultism check
Dagger of Venom
~~~
"Note to self: avoid sewers under alchemist's shops in the future," Ezren mutters once the ooze is destroyed.
Once the party moves into the next room - the wizard certainly isn't the first to enter - he quickly examines the notes and, once he has read them all, the dagger and related contraption.
"Blast! Whoever wrote these notes has terrible handwriting! I can't make heads nor tails from this ... this ... chicken scratch! Fumbus, Kyra, can either of you make any sense out of this?"
Ezren slaps the papers back onto the table in frustration. He stalks over to the dagger and glares at it.
"Oh, this. It's a dagger of venom. Useful, but I suppose it might be dangerous to pull it out of this thing it's connected to. Merisiel, would you like to do the honors?"
Sounds fancy, but I'm not much of a dagger-girl..." Amiri notes sounding utterly serious.
Fumbus rushes to the elf and pours an elixir down her throat. The alchemical compounds breath life back into her. He sniffs the empty bottle and says, "Maybe cherry-flavored next time."
Merisiel groans. She rubs her temples and opens her eyes to see Fumbus looming over her. "Thank you, Fumbus. I'm not sure what you're talking about, but cherry sounds delightful." She licks her lips. Checking herself over, she pulls out her own lesser elixir of life and downs it.
Seeing herself still covered in cuts and bruises, she asks, "Does anyone have any bandages?"
------
Upon hearing Ezren mention the dagger, Merisiel's eyes gleam. She looks over the contraption, and attempts to remove the dagger.
"We should take a moment to recover from our wounds." Kyra says, sprinting toward the fallen rogue.
"Merisiel, lie still, and let me tend to you wounds. Valeros, you too, come here."
The cleric takes some bandages and assortment of ointments from her backpack, and starts treating the deadly wounds of the two adventurers.
"We definitely need to heal up before moving onward. That...thing was pretty tough. I wonder what other horrors we will run into?"
He looks at Ezren. "Ezren, be sure to let us know all you can about anything else we run into. We don't want to create more of those monstrosities. This one almost killed us."
Valeros pulls out his last Lesser Elixir of Life and drains it down.
He then moves over to where Kyra tends Merisel.
While Kyra heals the others, Fumbus sets up a makeshift lab and begins brewing some strange concoctions. After a few minutes, has three more alchemist's fire vials.
Merisiel imbibes her final healing potion and feels back at 100%.
Valeros downs the Lesser Elixir of Life .
Valeros shakes his head and grips his longsword tightly. "Let's go!"
"Right, let's go! I'm getting bored!" Amiri snorts as she clutches her gigantic sword.
"Hmph! I've been waiting for all of you."
|
|
The group carefully moves deeper into the sewers and finds themselves within an extremely large area of the sewers. This large, vaulted chamber is filled with a shallow pool of greenish slurry and is ringed by a stone walkway. Large inflow passages to the east and south add slow rivulets of sludge to the pool, which drains lazily away to the northwest. An enormous metal contraption, 20 feet in diameter, with gears and hoses assembled in a multitude of parts stands in the middle of the pool. Four round legs support the machine, and several hoses slurp the slurry in the pool. The contraption chugs and hums ominously.
Two humans, and a doll the size of a dog seems to be standing around working on the machine. The humans, who you presume are the Ohrlavis, are tall, wiry Garundi twins with high cheekbones and dark skin pockmarked with acid scars from long years of alchemical toil. Both of them have long, dark luscious hair that shines in the reflection of the torches decorating the chamber. Bijan wears his hair in two thick braids while Zaynap wears hers high on her head in an untidy bun. The twins both wear studded leather armor with straps and hooks to hold an array of alchemical tools and vials of alchemical weapons. The doll is a stout, fleshy doll made of pale clay. It has rough facial features and an unfinished appearance, including several warts and rough knots.
The twins clearly look unhappy as they observe your arrival! Bijan shouts, "Get out of hear or we'll have to use force!"
~~~
"We would like to ask you some questions about the Open Road Pact. Will you stand down, and answer?" Kyra asks.
Seeing the hostility in the eyes of the Ohrlavi twins, the cleric prepares for the worst and prays for Saranrae's blessing.
|
|
Kyra's quick glance at the doll is enough to inform her that the doll is one infused with fragments of a creature's soul gibing it sentient life.
On the other hand, the Orhlavi's are trained alchemist to the book.
The soulbound doll looks around the room and eagerly waits without making any funny movements.
~~~
Valeros uses his actions to move into position while demanding that they surrender or face old fashioned justice.
Ezren steps up to the room's entrance so he can see what's going on.
"Oh, bother. Let me see, what do they say in those copper-piece novels Valeros is so fond of? Ah, yes. Ahem!"
The aging wizard puts on an over-the-top gangster accent. "Say, that's a pretty fancy piece of machinery you got there. Sure would be a shame if somebody ... fireballed it."
Returning to his normal voice, he adds, "Just back up a step and do what the lady tells you, please."
Merisiel clutches her rapier, which she would have refused to move without, and steps around to the other side of the alchemists.
Her politeness is thinly veiled behind strained words.
"We just want to talk about a document we've been seeking. However, if you use force, so will we."
She attempts to intimidate the alchemists into backing down.
Fumbus approaches, but stays towards the wall. "You do a'chemy, yes? Me too! Maybe we talk about your work and share? You make the doll? That's fun!" He pulls out a vials of liquid ice to show them that he is also an alchemist.
"Your choice is easy: surrender or die. And just for the record, I'm ok if you choose to die here"
Amiri advances and places herself in front of teh duo of miscreants her giant sword in hand, ready to rage and dimsmember the thiefs...
|
|
Ezren takes a second look at the machine and realizes soon, that it's tougher than it looks but even worse is the potential horror and nature of the machine. This protoplasmic extruder draws in the arcane slurry from Quantium’s sewers and magically transforms the slurry into dangerous oozes.
The alchemical pair shakes off most of the threats hurled towards them but are visibly shaken when Amiri and her weapon comes face to face to them. However, Bijan yells in response to your threats, "You'll never take us alive!" And moves further back into the sewers hurling alchemical flask at the barbarian. As the bottles break on her skin, lightning crackles and shocks the warrior! Merisiel feels a slight shock from the lightning as well.
Meanwhile, the twin sister named Zaynap, begins to mutter a short verbal command before retreating back like her brother. She then hurls a single flask towards Valeros, zapping the human fighter.
Suddenly, the machine begins to churn loudly, and seems to be slurp the slurry around. Out of one of it's sides an ooze like creature emerges and forms. It begins to attack the nearest goblin!
~~~
Valeros does what he does best when a reaction is triggered; he swings at the triggering person or thing.
"The machine! Try to shut it down!" Kyra shouts, realising in horror what the contraption is able to do.
The cleric advances carefully further into the room, and prays for Saranrae to unleash a ray of fire to get rid of the machine-created ooze.
→
→
The goblin seems to avoid most of the acid, but suddenly he feels his arms becoming very heavy. Before he can call out, his body stops responding.
Ezren hurries in the room, shouting everything he could understand about the machine. He stops in front of Kyra and, calling out a few words of arcane power, spreads the fingers of his hand wide. A cone of flame erupts from his fingertips, engulfing the jelly-like cube and barely missing the paralyzed goblin.
|
|
Before Zaynap could act, Valeros reacts with a well timed swing to injured the alchemist badly. The sword cuts deep into her thighs, and causes her bleed profusely.
Kyra realises the dangers the ectoplasmic machine created ooze poses and turns her attention to destroy it through a divine fire blast! The slow moving gelatinous cube is easy to hit, but only it's outer slime melts away, looking like it barely took a hit.
The doll begins to retaliate by turning on Kyra, waddling it's little hands and legs in and waving them furiously. Fortunately, his small stature allows Kyra to merely avoid him by taking a step back!
Ezren follows Kyra's lead and dives into combat releasing a cone of fire from his palm. The Ooze barely moves and get's caught in the burn, but still looks relatively healthy.
Amiri strong arms Bijan with some powerful strikes while under the effects of rage.
~~~
Valeros moves into a spot where he can strike both of the twins if one goes down on his first swing.
Sensing that Zaynap needs assistance in getting killed, Valeros aims to oblige her by attacking mercilessly via his Double Slice feat.
Fumbus patiently spends time trying to understand the ooze while his body fails to respond.
|
|
Valeros strikes strong, hard enough to critically wound the alchemist, but she remains stupidly valiant and refuses to give up!
After being shocked, Fumbus attempts to recall things he would know about the ooze called the gelatinous cube. It does not have the ability to split apart like the black pudding, but it is clearly immune to acid, critical hits, mental, precision, unconscious and visual effects.
The alchemical pair take a guarded step backwards and continues hurling alchemical components at the Pathfinders. Acid covers Valeros and Amiri as the bottles smashes against them.
The ooze attacks and attempts to engulf Fumbus and Kyra by moving through them!
~~~
Kyra sees the gelatinous cube approaching and manages to keep her distance to it. She draws her scimitar, and delivers two swift blows to cut some jelly of the main body.