Maritine looks at the wand as its passed about and puts out her hand as if it were an offering. "I can also. It's part of the job." She doesn't elaborate but it seems unnecessary given how the last few days had been - self righteousness would only make hypocrites if it wasn't immediately fatal.
"I will go if no-one else wishes. Just prepare for the worst. And search this room thoroughly."
Cracking open the door proves anticlimatic; no horrors are revealed, no chambers of terror.
Rather, a narrow, prosaic stairwell heads precipitously down to the basement level.
Taking the narrow stairs, the party descends into the asylum's lower levels, the thick stone of the walls and the no doubt infinite density of the earth or rock beyond muffling all sound but that of their breath.
The stairwell doubles back once, and then spills out into an equally cramped corridor that terminates at a narrow wooden door without a lock.
Listening intently, the group hears nothing beyond, and cracking open the door reveals a second narrow hallway, with a door immediately to the right, and a second a short ways down the left.
Mihaela and Yelena, however, also notice the outlines of what seems to be a secret door directly before them.
"Wait." Yelena puts her hand up when she notices the faint outline. "I think there's a door here. If Crove is hiding down here, behind a secret door seems like a good place to check. Not that I'm any good at opening them." Her smile is self-deprecating. "Someone mind making sure it's not trapped before we go in?"
"Sure thing. Us dwarves and secret doors go together like houses and fires.", the short sharpshooter quips, moving closer to tap at the door's hinges. "It'd be wise to stay away from me, I'm not entirely dwarven."
Lys carefully examines the door, peers and inspects, and declares it safe; that done, she cracks it open and peers into the dark hallway beyond. Their light illuminates a left-turn elbow bend some twenty or so feet down; the party makes their way stealthily down this length of cramped corridor and turn to see a blank wall in which a second door stands open.
A second secret door, that leads out into an open and warmly illuminated chamber.
A large circular table in this study is cluttered with scrolls, books, and an eclectic mix of strange devices that could be surgical instruments, weapons, or writing implements. A human skull bearing horn-like growths along one side and with a malformed jaw sits on one corner of the desk.
A tall, cadaverous human man of advanced years sits at this table, pouring over a large tome, quill in hand as he takes notes. Wispy white hair hangs from the edges of his balding pate, and he wears a leather apron over a long-sleeved white shirt. Countless instruments are secreted in loops and pockets before his apron, many of them hideous in appearance.
Yelena pokes her head around the corner, then immediately withdraws. "Crove?" she whispers to the others through a Message, but the question is largely rhetorical. She herself had said behind a secret door, (or two), was the most likely place for him to be, and he matched the description.
"Everyone get ready. I'll start by cursing him with bad luck, to make it easier for you to hit him." She takes a few deep breaths while waiting for the others to finish their preparations, then steps around the corner. Without a second's pause she makes a strange gesture with her hands, (not necessary, but sometimes the movements help her focus). Desna curse you for the damage you've wrought.
This is it. This is the man. One more, and then, this nightmare's over., Lys' mouth purses. Raising her crossbow at the man's back, she takes aim for the man's neck, the easier to bring him down. She exhales, then pulls the trigger.
Whether through luck, divine intervention or some cosmic balancing beyon them, the fact that they've managed to get the drop on Crove was as much a miracle as it was anything else - They would have to act fast.
Saying nothing save for the unsheathing of her rapier, Maritine nods to everyone assembled and with a quick tap on Lys's shoulder, waits for her to announce their presence with a well placed bolt, preparing to move amid the confusion.
Lys' arrow catches Crove right in his armpit as he reaches for another tome, causing the man to cry out in shock and nearly fall out of his chair.
His instincts are sharp, however, and he reacts with terrible speed: glaring down the secret passageway, he stands shaking with fury.
"How dare you!" he cries out. "How dare you!"
Opening his mouth, he exhales a vast and torrid stench into the air, visible in the form of swirling vapors of horrific green.
That done, he flees the chamber to the west (left door), even as thunderous steps sound from the floor above, causing dust to filter down from numerous cracks in the stone ceiling.
The foul vapours fill the room, and as Lys begins hacking and coughing, she runs forwards in the room, desperate to cut off the man's escape.
...thunderous steps? Walter is () very distracted by those thunderous steps.
"By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near," mutters the wizard, "but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind..."
Yelena goes to cast a spell of her own, but is overcome by a sudden feeling of nausea as the cloud envelops her. Retching, she retreats out of the corridor to make room for other combatants to enter. "He's trying...to run. Don't...don't let him get away!"
"Wait. WAIT!" The note in Walter's voice is not so much command as desperation... but it works just as well.The wizard's hands scrabble an odd, staccato pattern in the air as he hisses a series of ascending syllables. And then --
Everything slows. Sounds lengthen and deepen. The light itself seems to redden slightly. You can hear your heartbeats, and you can jump between them. You can go. Go, go, go.
Everything shifts as Walter's magic does something. Her sense feel sharper, her body feels....stranger. Crove seems slower.
Slower and reachable.
She knows what she's going to do is foolish. It comes from a lifetime of doing foolish things - what's one more?
Reaching into her coat for a bag of viscous liquid and with her rapier firmly gripped she takes a deep breath - it feels like it takes forever - and holding it as best she can she looks over to Mihaela, nods once toward the other passage and then charges forward. Everything is so strange; is she faster or the world slower?
It's irrelevant at the moment, the cloud stinks a vile stench untouched by temporal shenanigans and stealing the strength of her legs with its foulness. She grits her teeth and pushes on regardless.
With a battle cry of a retching heave she lunges at the escaping Crove and attempts to burst the bag of liquid in her hands against his legs or at his feet, so long as it hits and slows him further.
Kolthis felt Walter's magic change the world around him. It was if everything in this horrible lair was submerged in water, and he was looking clearly from above. His movements were quicker, as was his ability to process the information coming in from the cramped battlefield.
Crove was trying to get away - but there was no way Kolthis would let that happen.
Muscles flexing with arcane strength, he bounded after the man, passing through the vile cloud that had stopped the others in their tracks.
He ignored the stench that tried to wriggle its way in to him. Crove would need to do much better to get through the heartiness of this dwarf! Moving quicker than he thought possible, Kolthis caught up to the man in no time, and swung his hammer for all his worth to try to stop him right then and there.
"Stop right there, you scum! It's time you answer for your actions."
Kolthis runs like the wind, scything through the noxious fumes as he pounds down the hallways, bursts into the secret study, turns sharply to slam past Lys into the next small chamber - an office? - and then runs back south to explode out another door, only to see Yelena directly before him.
He's run in a full circle.
But Crove is there, having done the same and slipped out the door to the west, standing in the elbow of the hallway, breathing heavily and patting his pockets as he searches for some tool.
The dwarf's hammer cracks into his side, crushing ribs, and throwing the old man against the wall. Blood spurts from between his liver-colored lips, but despite the grievous wound and the bolt still sticking out from his side, he doesn't fall.
Instead, the turns to glare at the dwarf with a malice that is inhuman for all its intensity.
More thunderous steps sound from the floor above, as if great trees were pounding down on the asylum's stone hallways.
"It's here!" hisses Crove, eyes lighting up with something akin to manic delight even as his eye develops a tic and the last of the blood drains from his face. "It's here! If you've any desire to live, stay your hand! We must work together to destroy it! Agree, and I shall dispel my cloud!"
Crove (holding action, will attack if attacked in turn.)
Lys
Martine
Kolthis
Yelena
Mihaela
Walter
Her lungs on fire, Lys struggles to get the door in the room open as she tries to cut off Crove's escape. And cue the orderlies..., she thinks as the door opens. On the third try, she manages to shove the door open, stepping to the other side, crossbow at the ready.
Yelena freezes, looking up towards the noise even as her stomach continues to roll. Walter had said that the creature would grow more powerful if it could kill its summoners. He had not said that it would be unsummoned in the process.
Brass Dwarf. It had been invulnerable in the past, but maybe, just maybe...
"Agreed." Crove must answer for his crimes, but if the creature is here, they can't afford to fight on two fronts. However heinous Crove might be, he was clearly a powerful mage. If they were going to kill this thing, if that was even possible, then he would be...useful.
If nothing else, they could trust that he would fight his hardest. Self-preservation was a powerful motivator for any man.
Kolthis held his hammer inches from Crove's pale face, considering the options. The thunder of steps around them drove home the need for an answer to the wicked mans proclamation. He matched the malice of Crove's glare with his own, turning his hammer to hold the spiked end up to the man's eyes. "Or" he growled, "I could kill you right now to dispel the cloud, spare the monster a chance to get stronger, and kill it ourselves, without waiting for you to backstab us."
Yes, do it. Kill him. Kill him now. You can't trust him. He summoned the monster and he deserves to die.
The voice in his head had been silent, but it was now mirrored his own thoughts - why did this man deserve to live when he had brought this terror into this world in the first place.
"Agreed."
Kolthis glanced momentarily at Yelena, serious look on her face as she looked up towards the source of the sounds. She had agreed quickly. Had she seen something in the cards, or was she concerned about their ability to handle whatever this creature was?
As much as he didn't want to let his man go, Kolthis wanted more to ensure that they would all make it out of this alive. He had promised to protect them, and it seemed like this decision would make or break that promise.
"If you could have done anything to this thing, why didn't you do it before? What do you know that we don't? Tell me, right now - give me a reason - and I won't turn you into food for the worms."
Thunder echoed louder, closer.
Kolthis smiled, putting every bit of malice and disgust he could muster behind it. "Quickly now, Crove. It sounds like your pet is hungry."
"A man who will allow the death of hundreds to save his own worthless self is not a man who can be trusted," calls Walter from across the room. "He can't be trusted and he deserves to die. Kill him."
Maritine coughs wetly and spits blody bile onto he asylum floor, glaring daggers at Crove. She wants to agree with Walter - to drive her rapier down Crove's throat until he choked - but Crove was like the others. Predictable and cowardly. He would do whatever it took to stay alive and betray them as soon as it was viable.
They would simply have to betray him first.
"Fine." she hisses, a brief glance and the tiniest nod to Mihaela - They'd done this before. The Ravengro Gambit. It might need a better name.
"Get rid of the cloud. Then we deal with your beast." Her words don't sound sincere, but she doesn't care. She'd feed Crove to his own monster if she was certain it would vanish once she did so.
Crove's snarl is a near permanent fixture on his face, and he continuously darts nervous looks up at the ceiling.
"If you could have done anything to this thing, why didn't you do it before? What do you know that we don't? Tell me, right now - give me a reason - and I won't turn you into food for the worms."
"You poor, pathetic, deluded fool! This divine elegance is from beyond the stars! It is so beyond our - but never mind. I have laid a trap for it. A chamber that shall strip it of its invisbility, and allow us to strike at it while it is weak! Work with me, and I shall both show you this room, act as the bait to draw the entity to the chamber, and help in its destruction."
At Walter's words, Crove snarls again, fair rolling his eyes in an agony of frustration. "Your petty morality will get us all killed!"
"Very well," he says to Maritine, and snaps his fingers, dispersing the noxious cloud in instants. "See? I have done my part! Now, hurry!"
So saying, he leads the group south, casting spells as he goes , into a large chamber whose floors are inscribed with a great runic circle. The air feels greasy and wretched, and all of you find yourself laboring as you enter the chamber, as if your very will were being sapped.
"Here we shall await it," says Crove, striding into the center of the room and looking up at the ceiling once more from whence dust sifts down. "When it arrives, you shall engage it in battle. I shall effect magics to destroy it. Are we agreed?"
Crove is clearly hiding some facet of his plan; from the way he smiles as he speaks it, you get the sense he doesn't plan to destroy the entity.[/spoiler]
Just as he finishes speaking, the ceiling wrenches, cracks, and for a moment you think you will all be buried. Then an avalanche of rocks cascades into the hallway beyond, as something vast and malefic begins its imminent descent into the hallway. Only the swirls of dust give its presence away - it's clearly still invisible.
Initiative
Knowledge (arcana)
"He's speaking the truth about the invisibility. Otherwise... this roomhas been charged with negative energy. It will empower any undead who enter it."
Sense Motive
Walter is too busy analyzing the spell to pay any further attention to Crove.
-- Wait, I'm near the top in initiative? Dang. Okay well, here's initiative ordered for convenience: Lys, Walter, Yelena, Kolthis, Mihaela, Spawn*, Martine, Crove
*assumes the Spawn has a lower Dex than Mihaela.
BUFF ROUND
Everyone cast a buff if you've got one. I already have Mage Armor on --much good may it do me, my AC is now a whopping 17 -- and I can throw a Protection from Evil as well --
-- Ah wait, that gives me an idea.
Yelena follows Crove into the room, eyes never leaving him even as the creature prowls overhead. She may believe that allowing him to fight alongside them is the best choice they have, but that doesn't mean she trusts him.
"I would recommend dispelling the protection spell," she comments. "It will do nothing to protect you from the creature, and will do much to hinder us. Unless, of course, that is your plan?" She smiles at Crove, oddly sweetly considering the bite in her words. "Use us as shields while you try to control your...pet?" Her eyes narrow. "I believed that allying with you was our best option to stop this thing. If at any point you make me stop believing that, I have no qualms about killing you. Do you understand?"
While waiting for Crove's answer, she brings her hands together in a brief prayer. "May the Starsong guide and protect us all."
Crove gives a disdainful wave of his hand at Yelena's words. He's utterly focused on the descending monstrosity.
"I dispel the circle, we lose our ability to remove it's invisibility. Hush, woman, so that I may concentrate!"
Buff round:
Cast Protection from Evil on myself, from wand. AC is now 19 -- still pretty dismal -- but summoned creatures can't touch me, woo.
Move to be adjacent to Crove.
Initiative in buff round is now: Lys, Walter, Yelena, Kolthis, Mihaela, Spawn*, Martine, Crove. So, Lys and Kolthis are up.
Her bowels once again under her control, Lys throws a violent look at Crove. It pains to aid him, but I'd say we risk it. Unless a death at the hand of the monster's what he wants. Beware, hunter, for morality is a flimsy shield, and all that.
Loading bolts into her crossbow, Lys frowns. "Yeah. We'd concentrate a lot better without an insane sociopath amidst us, too.", she snaps, as the crossbow clicks and whirrs.
Maritine and Miheala make sure that the both of them are close enough that when the time is right, the two of them can strike Crove before he can take advantage of the upcoming chaos.