Uspid's eyes light up greedily at the prospect of fresh teeth. He waves the tooth fairies over and they extract the tooth that each of you choose.
The toll taken, Uspid looks all of you over. "You look a mighty strong lot. I will give you your stamp, but I need a small favor first. My mother" -- he sneers at the word -- "refuses to acknowledge my rightful claim as ruler. I have locked her up in the upper level of the castle. If you ... take care of her for me, I'll send you on your way with a stamp and a little something extra to show my appreciation." He reaches into a pouch and pulls out a key. "To get to the upper level, you have to enter a locked door in the gatehouse on the ground floor, then cross the bridge on the third floor to the main castle." He hands the key to one of his tooth fairies, who flies it over to you.
Argus absently reaches over and touches Amanateia's arm without ever taking his eyes off the mustachioed fey.
"No. W-we are n-not murderers. We p-paid the toll. Now give us the s...s... stamp." His eyes harden on the little weasel.
Uspid blanches a bit at Argus. He clears his throat. "Okay. Fine. She has the stamp, so you have to go up there either way. How you get the stamp from her is up to you, but I can make it worth your while if you consider my offer."
Argus takes the key wordlessly, keeping his eyes on Uspid the whole time.
Uspid looks annoyed. "As I said, use the locked door in the gatehouse on the ground floor, then cross the bridge on the third floor to the main castle. She's in there."
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Dellan shrugs. "I stopped listening after 'blah blah blah murder for me'." He strolls out and heads for the locked door downstairs.
Once the party is away from Uspid and his cronies, Dellan doles out the remaining gold teeth to those who want them. "Seems like a waste of good magic, but..." He will then use the wand on them to heal the gold tooth into place.
Argus gives Uspid a meaningful stare and then strides out, staying behind the party to guard their backs in case the creature attacks. He could sense its evil; he has no trust for it remaining cowed for long.
Once they're downstairs and Dellan is handing out teeth, he snags up a molar and sticks it into place, relieved when the magic seals it in. "T-thank you Dellan. I am-m ugly en...enough as it is, w-without m-missing m-more t... t... teeth." He gives an awkward chuckle, and you can see two of his teeth were already missing. He doesn't ask for them to be replaced with gold, however.
After considering the gap with his tongue all the way down the staircase and back into the guard house, Ray sighs and takes a tooth. "It's not as satisfying as I thought," he says. There is a slight tinny whistle on the s'es.
Once everyone is situated, Argus tries the key on the heavily locked door and prepares his glaive.
The door opens easily with Uspid's key. This room contains the remains of a wooden table and two chairs, and a ladder on the western wall leads up to the second floor.
As Argus opens the door, a hissing sound comes from the back of the room. Next thing he knows, a horrible thing that looks like the skeleton of a snake comes rushing at you.
This is a necrophidius. It is a construct with DR 5/bludgeoning. Its bite can paralyze.
It has a Dance of Death ability that can daze anyone who sees it.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp)
Raybin (14/14 hp)
Creature (0 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp)
Bold may act.
"Ugh, a necrophidius. Gross little constructs. Not undead. Anybody but Dellan got a mace or hammer? This thing is made of bones, hard to cut. Also if it starts wiggling weird avert your eyes, it'll stun you."
He moves backward. "Fan out so it can't get to more than one of us at once. Easier to flank, too."
He readies his mind to launch a ray of energy at the thing if it gets within 10 feet of him.
Argus nods at Ray and backpedals, readying his glaive to slice at the creature as soon as it comes through the door.
Amanteia moves past the doorway and conjures a glob of acid, waiting to imbue it with the last bit of energy until the creature emerges.
The necrophidius comes around the corner and through the door. Argus's glaive smacks it but barely scratches the surface. Amanteia's acid splash hits the door jamb and burns the wood there.
It lashes out at Argus with a bite but Argus knocks it away easily with his glaive.
Dellan lands a solid blow with his mace and is satisfied to see several of its bones break and fall away.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp)
Raybin (14/14 hp)
Necrophidius (6 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp)
Bold may act.
Argus steps back and swipes at the necrophidius again. He isn't likely to hurt it much, but he can keep it occupied while Dellan smashes it to dust.
Now that it's in range, Ray fires his energy ray out of the blasting rod at his side.
Amanteia takes a step back and fires another glob of acid.
Argus again strikes the creature, but does very little damage. Energy Ray scorches and melts several of the verterbrae. Amanteia continues to be a huge disappointment.
The necrophidius then begins to sway and ululate. The effect is hypnotizing and the party finds it difficult to look away, despite Ray's warning.
Argus and Dellan are entranced by the snake's movements, much to Ray's chagrin.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp, dazed [8 rounds])
Raybin (14/14 hp)
Necrophidius (13 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp, dazed [6 rounds])
Bold may act.
Amanteia instantly recognizes what has happened. "Dammit, Ray, we have to kill it fast!"
It's now or never.
She fires an unerring missile of arcane force at the thing.
She moves another ten feet away from it.
Somnius launches from Amanteia's shoulder and swoops at the snake.
Ray steps up and fills a cone of air with a gout of flame from his blasting rod.
Amanteia and Somnius do minor damage to the snake, then Ray's flames engulf it and Somnius. Somnius deftly ducks between the snake and Ray and manages to not even get singed . The necrophidius also dodges the worst of it, but even more of its bones char and melt.
Then the necrophidius turns with lightning speed and snatches Somnius out of the air. The tiny dinosaur blinks out of existence with a little pop! as air rushes into the tiny space he occupied a moment before.
Amanteia, for her part, doesn't seem fazed.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp, dazed [7 rounds])
Raybin (14/14 hp)
Necrophidius (24 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp, dazed [5 rounds])
Bold may act.
Ray cringes as he launches his flames, momentarily forgetting Somnius was in that mass, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief when the pterosaur seems to be unharmed, then yelps when he vanishes with a pop. "What??" He gives Amanteia an alarmed glance, but when she seems unaffected, he assumes that was part of the plan, so he lets himself relax a bit. Gotta ask her about that afterward.
He looks at Argus and Dellan, the two that have dealt the most damage to this thing, but they appear to be out of commission for a good while. He sighs. "You want something done..." He raises the sword and engages the necrophidius.
Last one.
Ray's swing misses the necrophidius and hits the hard ground, and, uh, that makes him deaf. Amanteia again hits the snake with a missile, but she looks pretty concerned now that she is completely tapped out.
The snake attempts a bite on Ray but he dodges easily.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp, dazed [6 rounds])
Raybin (14/14 hp, deaf)
Necrophidius (27 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp, dazed [4 rounds])
Bold may act.
The ringing in his ears is really distracting, but Ray goes ahead and swings at the necrophidius again anyway.
Amanteia pulls out a scroll and approaches Raybin.
Ray's sword hits the necrophidius and bounces right off. It lashes out at him again and this time he barely gets his arm up in time to protect his throat .
He feels his limbs begin to seize up. He looks at Amanteia with panic in his eyes.
She screams "NO!" and, suddenly, he feels fine. He has no idea what just happened but he is glad for it.
Amanteia (15/15 hp)
Argus (21/21 hp, dazed [5 rounds])
Raybin (8/14 hp, deaf)
Necrophidius (27 damage)
Dellan (16/16 hp, dazed [3 rounds])
Bold may act.
Amanteia reads the magic on the scroll and then touches Ray on the shoulder. The parchment crumbles into dust, and suddenly Ray sees the ground (and the necrophidius) ... get further away?
Then he realizes he's friggin' huge.
Ray looks down at himself, then down at the necrophidius. "Huh. Yeah. This'll do."
He grips the massive sword in two hands and swings down at the necrophidius.
Bob flops into the air as he falls off the giant man's shoulder, flapping frantically as he yells, [color=blue]"Gah, crap! What the f+%$, man?? Warn me!"[/color] He flies off to sit on Argus' head indignantly, absently pecking lightly at the scalp while the half-orc drools merrily.
Ray's additional strength powers the enormous sword right through the bone. The necrophidius falls to the ground in two pieces. It twitches a few times, then falls still.
A few moments later, Dellan and Argus regain their faculties.
Ray's earspop with the magical healing and his hearing returns. He works his jaw once or twice to ease the pain from popping. "I'm big now and I still got a spell left in me. I say we keep going."
Ray flexes experimentally, checking out the giant-sized bicep.
Argus flushes slightly as he wipes the drool off his chin, hoping no one noticed. "W-we are d... down to a few sp...sp...spells and little in-n-nate healing. It m-might be best to r... rest. w... wish to sp... sp.... peak with this woman w-without b... bloodshed, but c-considering our stay so far, I'm-m n... not hopeful."
He touches Ray again to heal his remaining wounds.
Argus sighs. "I s-suppose I could go a little f..further. What about you Am...manteia? Rest or m-move forward?"
"I have nothing left. I will be of no use if we run into trouble, and I think we all know we are going to run into trouble. The psychopomps said we only have to walk off the road into the mist to get back to them; we can rest safely with them and it's only a couple hours walk to get back here in the ..." -- she looks at the ever-present moon in the sky -- "uh... morning."
Argus nods. "W-wise w-words. Let us go b-back to the ps-sychopomps and r... rest."
Ray's disappointment is punctuated by his sudden shrinking back down to size. "Aww." He sighs wistfully; for one glorious moment, he was useful in combat.
"N-not a bloody kn...knight," he grumbles as he leads the party out of the strange keep and to the side of the road. He peers apprehensively at the thick, cloying mist just off the road, before taking a wide, stumbling step into it.
When you all awaken, you find Amanteia already up and speaking with the psychopomps. Somnius is sitting on her shoulder, good as new, as if he hadn't been bitten out of existence by an assassin snake construct yesterday.
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Dellan is also up, simply listening to every word the psychopomps have to say. He has never in his life had the chance to meet the sacred servants of his goddess, and he'll be damned if he doesn't take the opportunity to soak up all the information he can from them. He's never been a great student, however, and has no ideas what sorts of questions to ask them, so he simply listens.
When Ray wakes up, Bob is staring inscrutably at Umble. It would be foolish to place human emotions on an animal, even one as smart as Bob, but one might be inclined to say the raven is... sad.
Ray shrugs off the bird's weird behavior and joins the others. "Morning." He glances around. "Maybe."
He notices Somnius good as new and says, "Okay, Amanteia. Spill it. What's the neat trick you pulled yesterday with your familiar. He just... voiped out of existence when the necrophidius bit him."
Amanteia sips her coffee and gives Somnius a scrap of sausage. "Somnius... isn't real. Well, no, that's not exactly what I mean. You will have to excuse me; I don't understand it fully myself. As near as I can tell, he is a part of my imagination that I give life to through my dreams." She looks at the others. "I assure you, I know how crazy that sounds. I have been dreaming of him for as long as I can remember, and the dreams always seemed so real. He has only started existing outside of my dreams in the last year or so, around the same time that I started manifesting magic." She turns and rubs his scaly head, and he nuzzles against her finger.
"He is fast and elusive but exceedingly fragile. The first time he died was one of the worst experiences of my life. He had only been around for two days. I didn't understand what he was -- what he is -- but I somehow knew that he was connected to me, a part of me. So when I accidentally hit him with an acid splash while practicing and he just disappeared, I nearly went mad with grief and guilt. I thought I'd killed him. But then that night I dreamt of him, and there he was when I awoke, like nothing had happened."
She takes another sip of coffee. "He died a lot those first few months while we were figuring each other out. We can't communicate, exactly, but I get ... impressions of his feelings, so I am pretty sure that it doesn't hurt him to die. The necrophidius seemed sure to kill at least one of us, so it seemed a good time for Somnius to get involved."
She looks at Bob. "I don't suppose you come back to life, Bob?"