Tasha stabs the final ghoul twice through the skull, and it falls!
Among the bones and tattered clothes, you find a magical coyote cloak.
Tasha's personal physician, also known as Ruinë, sees to the swashbucklers wounds. Again. "Hold still, hold still. I'm almost done. Let them search the stuff, you need this closed up." she says, brushing some hair from her face.
After several minutes of work she says "Alright, done! Anyone else need help?" she asks, looking around.
Tasha smiles down at the half-elf that's quickly becoming her personal healer. "You take such good care of me. I assure you that I'm not doing this on purpose for a little special attention," she says. She reaches out and touches the side of Ruinë 's face.
Once everyone's been seen to, she directs them back into the catacombs towards the other unexplored area.
Ruinë smiles back to the swashbuckler, a small timid smile playing across her own face. "I try. Oh, and are you sure? I am beginning to wonder if shouldn't invest in some better protection for you? Maybe some heavier armor? I am worried you are sustaining so many injuries."
Tasha shrugs at the suggestion of heavier armor. "I don't know how well it would work wearing something all heavy and bulky," she says. "I feel like it would weigh me down. We don't have any right now anyways. We'll worry about it when we're done here."
Alainn steps in to help Ruine and deals calmly with Tasha's various remaining wounds while her companions flirt.
"Why did we come down here anyway?" She asks eventually. "The druids know we are not theirs, it was obvious. So why help them, it's illogical?" As she often does Alainn cuts to the heart of the matter without bothering with pleasantries or any of the normal conversational steps in between.
Ruinë is not flirting, she is healing. She doesn't know how to flirt. "To eradicate the evil stain on this place, Alainn. Can you not feel it? We cannot in good faith leave this place as it is. Something must be done, it's our duty!"
"Our duty is to the circus." The gnome responds with a shrug. "To our companions and animals. We are not paladins." She doesn't object, and doesn't stop patching everyone up - but she does continue being the annoying voice of logic.
"I just thought..." she tries to defend herself, but stop midway through.
Ruinë's shoulders slump a bit as she lowers her voice "Alright. Sorry Alainn. We can go if you like."
"We're not going anywhere, yet. We said that we'd find Harlock and at the very least we should confirm that he's not down here," Tasha says, patting Ruinë on the shoulder.
The gnome shrugs again. "I will not leave you, and we are here now. I merely wanted to establish the logic behind our actions." Or lack of it is unspoken, but obvious none-the-less.
"We can't go yet, fam. Whatever's happening here led to Thunder's death and we can't let that go unpunished. It will give other troupes ideas."
Tom looks around the room and starts heading to towards the open door.
"At the very least, being boarded into the crypts i gives us some privacy to consider our next steps."
This chamber contains a marble statue of Saltbeard, one of Gozreh’s legendary servants. Saltbeard is an old triton with a grim expression—furrowed brow, dark eyes, and pursed lips—as well as a large and imposing beard. The statue grips a metal trident in its hands. As with the Statue of Fury, this statue is magically illuminated by an iron brazier set into the stone in front of it.
The bodies here are all more recent. Many of these burial niches are empty, reserved for the bodies of still-living hermits. Most of the corpses in this section have now served as meals for the ghouls; limbs are scattered all over, with occasional gobbets of flesh still clinging to the bones. The stench of death and decay in this section of the catacombs is overpowering.
A particularly ugly ghoul lingers here. His skin is stretched tight around his face, giving him a perpetual grin that he emphasizes further with jawbones strapped to his face as ornaments. He’s lounging under the statue of Saltbeard, where his ghoul minions feed him delicacies from among the dead hermits in the catacombs. One ghoul is by his side; the other searches the niches for bits of flesh or marrow. As soon as he sees you, he orders his minions to attack and raises his shortbow!
Ruinë sees the ghoul hiding in the room and doesn't hesitate or wait for instructions on how she should proceed. The undead must be vanquished! She says "Begone, abomination!" as a ray of fire springs forth from her fingertips.
The lead ghoul shrieks in pain as Ruine's spell sets him ablaze. He fires on the half-elf but fails to hit, though he manages to pay out the flames. The other ghouls dash in to bite at Tasha, but she blocks both attacks.
Tom shields his face from the blistering heat before reaching for his knives.
"I'm not thrilled about being in these crypts anymore... at least these things won't escape and eat our audience."
Tasha steps forward while her blade weaves this way and that. "We shall put you down, rotting thing; Make no mistake," she says just before stabbing at the ghoul in front of her.
Alainn examines the creatures and fires on the leader before retreating away from the creatures claws.
Following her first attack up, she launches another fire ray at the creature again, hoping to erase him from this plane.
Grelda bashes the lead ghoul with a telekinetically hurled skull.
Grelda, Alainn, and Tom all strike the lead ghoul before Ruine finishes him off with another ray of fire! Tasha fails to demoralize the other ghoul but scores a hit regardless. That ghoul bites and claws at her before stepping back, making room for the next one to leap in and do likewise. The tiefling takes two light hits.
Resisting the familiar coldness creeping through her flesh, Tasha stands bold between her family and the undead horrors, stabbing again and again.
Alainn examines the ghouls movements critically before putting an arrow through one of the ghouls eyes - for all the good it will do to an undead creature...
Tasha scores a critical hit, and Alainn’s arrow brings down the first ghoul. Grelda moves up and smashes the other ghoul which Tasha has previously wounded with a projectile, taking it down as well. All the ghouls have been slain!
Aside from the lead ghoul’s composite shortbow, several treasures are scattered around the statue of Saltbeard. They include 20 sp, a jade-and-silver necklace worth 15 gp, a coral statuette of a dolphin with emerald eyes worth 40 gp, and a climbing bolt. The metal trident can be pulled from the statue’s hands; it is a fighter’s fork.
Alainn examines the bow with approval, but doesn't even try to draw it. "I can't use this." She says, "Too much draw. Might be worth hanging on to though. Someone back at the circus can probably use it."
Once the threat has been eliminated, the cleric makes her way over to Tasha to examine her injuries. "Have a seat, let me look." she asks even though it comes across as instruction.
After a brief examination, she begins to close her wounds and do what she can to relieve her pains.
When she's done, she asks "Can we go back now?"
Tasha sits down obediently with a smirk. "You enjoy this, don't you?" she asks. "Bossing me around, I mean." She leans in close to the half-elf. "Don't get too used to it," she whispers with a grin.
"When you're done flirting..." Alainn calls over.
Ruinë smirks at Tasha's comment "Well, someone needs to look after your body! You brazenly dash in front of ever blade like you're invicibeable!"
The cleric is caught off guard by the gnome's comment. She inhales a short breath and offers a quick retort "We most certainly are NOT flirting!" she says, crossing her arms. "I am merely tending to her wounds!"
Aren't I?
When you emerge from the crypt, you find the two Gozren retainers and their trained frog-beast waiting for you. ”You’re back! I knew you could slay those ghouls!” the first man says.
”Yeah, thanks! Of course, we can’t let you go any further into the hermitage so, now we gotta kill you,” the other says with a menacing grin. They raise their tridents...
"What?!" Ruinë exclaims, "No! We don't need to fight! We took care of the ghouls, let us be on our way please? I really don't want to hurt you."
Tom's voice grows serious. "yes... we killed the foes you were too afraid to confront. What makes you think it won't be easy to dispatch you too?"
Tom throws a small burlap pouch of flour at the wall next to the frog monster, attempting to distract it with the 'POOF' of white.
"Typical..." Alainn says, already carrying an arrow on the string for the inevitable betrayal.
Grelda unleashes her last barrage of magic missiles at the frog-beast.
"Yeah, that's not really going to work for us," Tasha replies casually. "We have a show to do later and the show must go on. Unfortunately you gentleman won't be alive to see it."
Grelda, Ruine, and Tom focus their attacks on the frog-thing, and it quickly falls! Tasha demoralizes the first Gozren retainer before poking him in the arm with her blade. Alainn studies the man and points out his weak points before shooting him twice!
Both men howl with fury as they whip themselves into a rage! The wounded one stabs Tasha and raises his shield while the other moves in to attack the tiefling as well. Tasha narrowly manages to twist away from what would have been a devastating strike, but she is still badly hurt!
Turning her attention to the undead creature that just tore into Tasha's body, the cleric repeats her previous fire strike but this time against the other soon-to-be-burned-to-a-crisp creature.
Grelda hurls a projectile across the room, not hitting anything but the far wall.
Tom tries to spring over Tasha and the cultists to flank, has a false start and tries a second time.
Making it through the second time, Tom takes a stab at the cultist in between he and Tasha.
Tasha stumbles back for just a moment. She lets out a low growl before stabbing back with her blade. "Someone would tell me if I had one of Tom's targets painted on my back, right?"
"Not one of mine, soramont. You'd KNOW if it were mine."
Tom winks at you from around the cultist. "they'd be MISSING you if it were one of MY targets"
"And still with the flirting..." Alainn sighs, sizing up their foes as she looses an arrow and falls back to keep distance between them.
There is a lull in the fighting as almost everybody on both sides fails to hit their opponents. Alainn scores the only strike, her foe blunting it somewhat with his shield.
Back to Alainn, she can't see Ruinë loses her patience and calls out loudly, throwing her hands up in the air
"Oh you weren't. I mean. Ha ha."
Groaning as her face flushes red, she tries to focus on the enemy instead, throwing a divine lance at him.
Tasha spares a glance and a raised eyebrow at Ruinë and then at Álainn before turning back to the Gozren she's attempting to pierce with her weapon. "Do you know anything about women?" she asks conversationally.
Grelda makes up for her previous failure by hurling a broken shard of wood from the enemy's shield into his throat! Coupled with the divine ray from Ruine, the man goes down, leaving only one foe left.
Tasha directs a smirk in Grelda's direction. "You could have at least let the man answer my question," she says.
Tom tumbles around to flank with the last cultist.
Once flanking his target he unleashes 2 more knives.
"Cultists know NOTHING of women, except where to sacrifice them. Really, Sora, come to my wagon and I'll teach you some KNIFE PLAY"
"You've moved beyond flirting then. I apologise." Alainn replies, and only Tasha who happens to be looking, sees the grin flicker across the gnomes face.
Tom’s knife slices the Gozren’s shield apart, drawing blood from a deep wound. Alainn scores a hit as well. The enemy turns his fury on Tom, stabbing the rogue twice with his trident!