Signe rushes forwards, lays her hands upon Lor Sinn and casts to try and breathe life back into the woman.
Ruka's attack comes up swiping through the open air, missing.
Somehow Sam's attack barely hits the creature and somehow he manages to barely bypass it's natural, only to see that the decapus has a strong resistance to fire and more than half of the damage from the wand doesn't seem to hurt it. Still, it does take additional injury from the magical attack.
Asuka is able to land a slash with her katana and Kaji's first attack misses, but he lands his second.
Though it's not slowing down yet, you notice that the injuries are starting to accumulate on the creature and its losing a lot of blood.
Not wanting to be poorly positioned as it is, the decapus flies over Asuka's head and moves in front of her to block the path of the tunnel such that she is the only creature that strike her it melee. . Once on the other side, it slaps a tentacle towards the tengu, but misses.
Ruka swings at the creature as it tries to fly away, finally landing a hit for the first time since the battle had begun. She takes a half-step forward, intent on getting within range again, not letting it away...
('No!')
...But Murasamemaru's mental shout combined with the realization that she almost stepped on Lor-Sinn's bow brings her back to her senses. She might not be much good with a bow, but she'll be no good at all if she dies now.
Dropping Murasamemaru to the ground with a wordless apology, she grabs Lor-Sinn's bow and aims it at the creature.
Asuka moves her sword back and forth as she prepares to slash. "Die, monster! You do not belong in this world."
Signe, reassured that Lor-Sinn at least has a chance now, turns back to the monster and focuses on it closely trying to fill the monster's mind with a blaring cacophony of discordant sounds.
Kajiwara darts forward towards the decapus before rolling underneath the flying creature to end up on the other side of it.
Kajiwara then whirls around in a defensive stance, lines up a shot point blank, focuses on becoming one with the arrow, and looses it.
Despite being the one yelling out invocations at random, hoping for one of them to work, no one was more surprised than Samton when one arcane utterance struck true and the wand shot out a fiery ray. He was no less surprised when said ray actually hit the decapus. "Yes!" And subsequently very disappointed to see the creature's rubbery hide prove itself partly fire-resistant. "Aw!"
Still, the projectile had had some effect. And the flying horror, albeit no doubt the dominant force in this scuffle, was undeniably looking quite ragged, the accumulated arrows, magic and sword blows taking their toll. This coupled with Signe's swift aid to the downed tiefling had Sam feeling just a bit optimistic. Cautiously so, but still. The previously so supreme decapus actually recoiling and fleeing their onslaught only bolstered this feeling. Now if only they could see this through. They were so close!
Taking a cue from Kajiwara's very impressive acrobatics, a feat the boyish young man couldn't help but think incredibly cool, the wizard rushed ahead. The wand's fire was of limited use, and their foe was now sandwiched between the man and tengu. If he could just aid them, then perhaps this fight was over. Reaching out a gnomish hand to the now much taller Asuka, he tried doing just that.
Ruka slashes the decapus as it moves away, but misses with her ranged shot as it settles in behind Ruka. Kajiwara is better trained with his ranged weapon however and easily finds an opening to bury his arrow into the creature.
Signe's spell fails to penetrate the decapus's magical defenses.
The creature tries to bite Asuka and fails and slashes at her with a claw and fails, but then it finds an opening to catch her with another claw and then when she's distracted it reaches out with its tentacle and smacks her down to the ground with a sickening crack.
Leaving the dying tengu be, the decapus slides out of sight to the west.
Desperate times, desperate measures. With both Lor-Sinn and Asuka down, things were taking a turn for the worse quickly. They needed to down this thing quickly, before it killed them. Kajiwara moved forward, quickly, towards where Asuka had fallen. Reaching the fallen tengu, he dove forward, attempting to roll past its flailing tentacles and get behind it.
Once behind the Decapus, Kajiwara takes a deep breath, sights in its bulbous body, focuses down to a single arrow point, and looses with an exhale, sending the arrow towards the decapus. That done, he holds his bow with one hand, his other shaped in a fist.
He called out, "If someone can strike it hard with a blade, we might take it down!"
"If someone can strike it hard with a blade, we might take it down!"
"O-on it!" Sam replied anxiously, shock at seeing the tengu joining Lor-Sinn on the cave floor obvious in his voice, in yanking a certain heirloom sword from said floor. Thusly armed, he... promptly passed it to its proper wielder, Ruka.
Even in the commotion of combat the wizard was not so foolish as to even consider jumping the decapus himself. No siree, Samton Verro was just smart enough to know his own strengths, and swinging a weapon was not among them. The party was in quite enough danger as was without him accidentally decapitating someone.
In the space of only a few seconds Asuka had fallen too. Her companions, her friends were being killed in front of her and she was too weak to stop it. It was the Swallowtail Festival all over again.
No. She wouldn't let them die. She would protect everyone. She had to.
Ruka snatches Murasamemaru from Samton's hands and charges forward, although even in her haste she carefully avoids stepping on the unconscious tengu. With teeth bared she takes advantage of Kajiwara's distraction to swing at the decapus' back.
When things were at their most dire, the party finds a way to rally and bring justice to this abomination. Kajiwara's strike penetrates its skin and it's eyes go wide, knowing the end is near.
The decapus had lived 10,000 years and did not expect it to end to these adventurers this day. It shrieks "Father! Help! Faaaathhhherrrr! Pazuzuuuu-!" as Ruka strikes the final blow, burying Murasamemaru keep into the creature's back and bring it to the ground.
As the dying decapus falls, black blood seeps from its body across the cavern floor, mixing with that of the fallen tengu and tiefling who lay on the ground nearby.
---
While you get your fallen companions up, you find the following items hidden in the southern cavern. A hoard that consists of a +1 light fortification light steel shield bearing the image of Castle Brinewall, a +1 returning starknife, a pearl of power (1st level), a ring of the ram with 10 charges remaining, a wayfinder, 1,320 gp, and 800 gp in jewelry and gems.
Two additional items of interest lie amid these treasures as well. The first of these is a darkwood-and-silver disc decorated with an intricate etching of Brinewall under the midnight moon. This disc radiates faint transmutation magic, much like the other.
The second item is a stone statuette of a bird-headed, four winged humanoid with his right arm raised.
Ruka brings down Murasamemaru for one last strike, not wanting to take any chances. Then without a backwards glance she rushes over to Asuka. Signe's already tending Lor-Sinn...Lor-Sinn!
"Signe! Lor-Sinn, is she alright?" She thinks she heard Signe casting some kind of healing spell, so maybe the tiefling is still alive? Although she's so still...
Her hands are shaking as she digs through Asuka's pack, something she wouldn't ordinarily do without permission but now has to. Grabbing a healing potion, she pulls the tengu halfway onto her lap to elevate her head as she feeds it to her. "It's alright, you're going to be okay, everything's going to be okay."
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"Lor-Sinn, is she alright?"
"O-on it!" Sam said again, none of his nervous anxiety leaving him even as the monstrosity's last shrieking breath left it. They still had allies at death's door, after all, no matter the decapus's demise. Turning on his heel and fumbling through his bag of spell components, he fished out a vial of black ichor, a substance not entirely unlike the dark blood flowing from their now fallen foe, as it happened. Dabbing a small blot of the stuff onto a finger, he touched it to the unconscious paladin and invoked his magic. Immediately the mangled flesh began stitching itself back together, not in the instantaneous miracle available to the devout, but more slowly, as if the natural healing process was simply massively sped up. Difficult as the young man found it to even look at the heavily wounded Lor-Sinn, he nevertheless let out a sigh of relief. They had managed to avoid losing anyone. Wow.
It was only in that wave of relief that the strained mind registered the flying horror's last words. "Wait... Pazuzu?"
"That Pazuzu?" The demon lord? One of the most infamous of that unholy pantheon? 'Father'? Well, surely that couldn't be right. Frightful as the thought that the group had just dispatched a literal demigod was, the wizard's rational mind protested at this. The decapus couldn't literally be the son of the demon lord, could it? Surely this was just the overly fanciful language of the devoted, or even some delusion of its. Well, regardless of any such parentage, the creature had apparently been some kind of devout follower. Perhaps that accounted for its unnatural power.
"Oh," he said as the still heavily wounded paladin showed some signs of life. "Uh, w-welcome back, Ms Imass." Awkward as the greeting was, Samton was very genuninly glad to have the tiefling back among them. Seeing someone so lively unconscious just felt strange, for one. "Ms Kaijitsu? Is Ms Narukami alright?"
Why was everything so sticky? And painful... ow! "..ghnnnn"
The tiefling slowly returns to consciousness, although given that their body felt like it had been crushed, sliced, burned and then dipped in acid, perhaps being awake wasn't such a blessing.
"Wssat? 'sapp'n." Lor-Sinn slurs out a few mangled words, eyes trying to focus on their surroundings. The sight of a lifeless tentacle a couple of feet from their face sends a jolt of terror through the tiefling which seems to fully awaken them to consciousness. "Izzit dead? Iz 'nyone dead?"
Kajiwara, having avoided the decapus's wrath somehow, kept watch as the others tended to their fallen comrades. Once Lor-Sinn awoke, he replied, "Yes, it's dead, and none of us are, but Asuka is still unconscious from her wounds, and I don't think Ruka and Signe are much better off. If you have any healing left, it would be beneficial to use it to get everyone back on their feet."
"She's breathing, but she won't wake up." Ruka's voice is quavering. Even in the flickering torchlight it's possible to see tear tracks through the soot on her face. Lor-Sinn's alive. Asuka's alive. Everyone's alive.
The sheer relief of that has her crying for the first time in years.
"Lor-Sinn, you...that thing you've done before. Where you heal everyone all at once. I know you're hurt, but could you do that again? No one's dead, but Asuka....she isn't waking up."
"Can do that. Don't even have to get up." Still somewhat groggy, Lor-Sinn expends most of their healing power in one big burst.
Signe watches in wonderment as everyone stands that little bit taller and looks a little less exhausted.
"Thank you Lor-Sinn, that's impressive considering what you've just gone through."
Signe sighs and looks around the cavern. "You can see why the rest of my previous comrades didn't make it through alive. I don't remember much of it myself, but I must be lucky to have survived this twice. We have done the world a favor."
"Perhaps whatever luck you possess, Signe, has watched over us as well."
The luxurious chestnut-brown hair his new gnomish form had afforded Sam was blown back into a great tufted tower, so powerful was the sheer burst of positive energy the paladin blasted throughout the cave chamber. How invigorating! "You've, uh, gotten real good at this healing stuff, huh?" he said with admiration, noting not only this display, but how Lor-Sinn had fixed him up with apparent ease when the decapus had first targeted him. It was very reassuring.
"You can see why the rest of my previous comrades didn't make it through alive. I don't remember much of it myself, but I must be lucky to have survived this twice. We have done the world a favor."
"I-I guess so," the wizard agreed, getting back on his feet and then offering the tiefling a hand to do the same. This only resulted in some slight shock at seeing the latter tower over him in short order. Man, being so short felt super weird. Not that the unassuming young man was used to being the tallest guy in the room or anything... "That thing definitely wasn't normal," he went on. "It could probably have, um, cleared much of the castle's original inhabitants with that wand of its alone."
The same wand that now rested in his tiny hand. Samton gave it a reverential look before stuffing the implement into a pocket. His now, he guessed. And on the topic of everything material, he only now noticed the veritable dragon's hoard of valuables the flying horror had amassed in the other end of the chamber. Gold, jewels, weapons, armor and more. He let out an anxious whistle at the sight, not so much in appreciation as at what the collection represented; a whole lot of people had probably died for this stuff. Well, he considered, we have no other real leads. Best get to work looking this over. And so he did.
"Uhm... We've have another one of those discs now," Sam, recently transformed back into a human, said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cache, going over every part of it. He held up the wooden disc. "Same magic as in the other one, or at least related. I can tell that much." Good news though this was, the young man appeared more taken with another item they'd found. He looked at the wayfinder's intricate machinery with deep appreciation, starry-eyed even, it representing a culmination of both engineering & magic. Heck, it was even related to his passion of cartography. "Aw, this thing is way cool..."
Feeling much better now, Lor-Sinn climbs to their feet, smiling at gnome-Sam's praise. "Thank you! I guess it's all the practice I'm getting, you people keep getting hurt. Not me, of course. I was, uh, just napping earlier." The tiefling sticks out their tongue at the decapus corpse, the self-irony evident in the tone of their voice.
Glancing over Sam's shoulder, that tone becomes excitement and triumph. "Ah, the second and third discs, well done! We have all the keys now, we just need to find the door!"
Asuka finally wakes up from Lor-Sinn's many channels. "Shelyn's Bounteous Bosom! That was horrible. Is everyone okay now?" She looks at the discs. "Oh wow! I think that's just one of the discs though, Lorrie."
Sam briefly looks at a few of the items, but the general consensus seems to be that the party wants to leave this cavern and get somewhere to rest before digging into the specifics of what they found here.
Once everyone is healed and back on their feet, they grab what they can from the newly discovered items and begin packing them into their bags before they depart. Lor-Sinn picks up the disc, Kajiwara picks up the shield, Signe the pearl, Asuka the statue and Ruka begins coopiung coins into her bag.
As you begin to return to the secured room to rest, Asuka feels particularly lethargic. This battle has worn her out far more than she anticipated and she struggles to keep pace with everyone.
Signe follows along behind everybody noticing that the, usually vibrant, tengu is lagging behind. She falls back to walk alongside Asuka.
"Are you okay? Have I missed a wound perhaps? I can always try and help you some more?" She asks with concern, placing a supportive hand upon Asuka's shoulder.
Asuka’s face furrows in frustration as she tries setting down the statue, only for it to appear on her person again. ”I think this statue may have a slight curse on it.”
Kaji turns at the sound of Asuka saying curse and, looking at the statue, he says, "Sam, we need you to inspect this now."
Dutiful as always, Sam looked to the strange statuette as a physician might look at a gangrenous limb, eyes concerned and wondering how it might be amputated from the unfortunate tengu.
"Cursed?" Lor-Sinn examines the statue with concern.
Signe eyes the statue suspiciously and takes a cautious step back.
"Aye, I had a bad encounter with a cursed ring once. Luckily, I wasn't the one at the wrong end of the curse, but it was still nasty to watch. We should be very cautious."
Those trained in religion recognize the statuette as a depiction of the King of the Wind Demons, Pazuzu.
Taking a closer look at the statuette, it seems that this is a depiction of Pazuzu destined to fall into the hands of his worshipers.
You're unable to ascertain the exact function of the curse, but he can assume that it likely targets all that do not worship Pazuzu.
"Well, it's a statue of the bird-demon-god Pazuzu, and it's meant for those who worship him. I can imagine that if you don't... oh, wait, I got it! He's upset that you have feathers and don't worship him, so he cursed you." Lor-Sinn proclaims.
"But wait," Sam joined in, one hand on his chin, "if Pazuzu is lord of all that flies, then surely that wouldn't include tengu. They don't fly. Do they?" He cast an academic glance over to the still suffering Asuka for confirmation. And then realized that this point was as pedantic as it was pointless.
"Er... Never mind. B-but I'm pretty sure I could research some spell that would remove the idol's curse. Although that would probably take some time..." he finished lamely.
”Perhaps Koya will know a way to remove the curse - her or perhaps the sprite we encountered outside the castle walls.”
Returning to the same location that they rested at previously, the party secures the room and ensures privacy for the evening so that they may rest, recover and inspect their newly acquired treasure before continuing on in search of a cure for Ameiko.
"Hm. Neat."
Samton examined the opalescent pearl, part of the haul the group had recovered from the dungeon, in the morning sunlight. Sitting by an open window, the trinket glittered really very beautifully and while he could appreciate it as such, the young man's regard was primarily scholastic. He understood that not every point of light within the little orb was wholly natural. Yes, a potent little arcane engine. Very neat.
"So, uh," he hazarded to the others, "are we finishing up here or below ground first? I don't particularly mind either way."
2nd: Alter Self, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Steal Breath
"Let's finish above first!" Asuka may be getting dragged down by the cursed stone, but she won't let it deflate her boundless energy and optimism.
”Agreed. Let’s finish the floors above ground before going into the final dungeon.”
The party returns to the unfinished room on the second floor that they previously unlocked from the outside on the battlements. Rather than approach from that direction again, they surmise the entrance to this room from the inside by heading south of the circular ballroom that you encountered Kikonu in.
Listening at the double doors, you can hear the sounds of chanting from the inside. Opening the door and pushing your way in, you find dozens of paintings of a towering humanoid figure with four wings, a bird’s head, and a scorpion’s tail decorate the walls of this room, seemingly painted in blood. Old pews sit in a line facing the eastern wall, where a hideously defaced statue of a winged woman stands.
Inside you find a dire corbie dressed in filthy robes caked with blood—filth that mats her feathers and smears her beak and talons as well. She stops her chanting as you enter, turning to you angrily and preparing to punish you for your interruption.
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"Uh, Ms Ameiko is Ms Ruka's older sister, you see," he hurried to explain, simple face apologetic and earnest. "She's from Sandpoint, or, well, we all are. Uhm, that's a village south of here, just north of Magnimar." Best to add these details, the cartographer reasoned; no particular reason an Ulfen should know where every hamlet in Varisia was. "We're all part of a caravan, and when we approached Brinewall, uh... Ms Kaijitsu - t-that'd be Ms Ameiko - just collapsed. We first thought it was a fever, but if so it was unlike any fever our, um, resident healer had ever seen. Couldn't find any sign of poison or malign magic about her either, or at least not c-conventional magic. In the end we reasoned that something in the area must be responsible and given the entire fort full of beasties, well... we thought that'd be as good a place to start as any."
Boy, that sure sounded like grasping at straws when put like that, huh? "I-it's a slim hope, I know," he acknowledged with a wry grin. "But we didn't know what else to do. W-we hoped that whoever ruled here would be able to tell us something. Unfortunetly, Kikonu the Oni was completely clueless himself. So now, uh... Now we just..."
Now what? Now they stubbornly explored every last cranny of the castle because acknowledging that they probably weren't going to find anything to help Ameiko here would be too painful? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Samton's rational brain was perfectly aware that they were in all likelihood too late, that finding a 'cure' for the woman here had been a gamble in the first place. Young as he was, however, he wasn't ready to admit this just yet.
"W-we'll see what we can find, yeah?" the wizard concluded with a none too convincing smile. "We owe that much to her. S-sorry, did that answer your question? Y-you should ask Ms Ruka if you want to know more about Ms Kaijitsu. Uh, I can tell you that she used to run a, uhm, tavern. Oh, and that she was an adventurer once. A-and she was always good to me..." His voice faltered. This last bit made the young man ashamed to even consider giving up.
"Hey, uh... We're glad to have you with us, Ms Signe. It, uhm, means a lot for you to be willing to help us help Ms Kaijitsu."
"I will talk to her at some point Samton, thank you. I think, however that now may not be the best time if we all want to survive this day. Can't do with her being distracted."
When Samton suggests that she was helping in order to help this Ms Kaijitsu, Signe is taken aback but hides the emotion quickly so as not to offend the boy. "Well, yes, certainly it helps me from a difficult predicament too you see? But always happy to help another woman in need!"
Signe shoots Sam a dashing smile before rising and heading back off to 'retune her fiddle'. More realistically she spends the time watching the interactions of the others to try and figure out how they all work and get along with each other.