Preening a bit at Garret's praise, the herald alights on the halfling's head and sits cross-legged in his hair. "Se queen and se prince are both powerful and born to rule, neither is willing to relinquish that which they believe rightfully theirs. Queen Carnassial led us well, for a tihme, but now hehr time is ovehr. Plus se queen started it fehrst! After se prince's ascendahnce, she denounced him and claimed he had stolen sacred teef for himself. Se prince denied it, and said even if he had it merely proved se queen hoarded se best teef for hehrself! She sent se Fangwinder to slay him shortly sehraftehr, but Prince Uspid is cunning and trapped se assassin in a side chambehr! Se Queen now holds se uppehr floor while our rightful rulehr languishes down here, like a miserable dirtwalkehr." The herald starts, then gives Garret an apologetic pat on the head. "No offense intehnded, of caourse."
Regardless of which direction to ascend, the stairs lead to a narrow balcony that rings the grand staircase and is open to the fountain below. Stairs descend from the east and west and two hallways lead south.
The center of the south wall contains a small stage, raised two feet above the ground. The backdrop of the stage is a grimy city street, with a red-and white striped pole. The stage contains a doll-sized reclining chair. A doll lies in the chair, its bloody mouth open wide. A second doll stands over the first, clad in a blood-spattered white smock like a barber dentist, triumphantly holding aloft an extracted tooth.
"Charming," Silvia comments, her voice dry as bone.
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Zsofia turns to gaze wide-eyed at the herald. “Oh, WOW, one of these rooms has an unstoppable assassin trapped inside? Which one? I’d hate to accidentally open the door to its prison, y’know, while looking for the... privy.” She looks down at herself, in all her ectoplasmic phantom glory, and sighs. “Or something.”
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Sensing the unease from his companions, Wallace places himself between them and the "angel." I am the bulwark upon which Evil breaks.
With the stage set before them, he clenches his jaw. And this is only the first waypoint we must pass through... He clears his throat. "Is this an exhibit or was there a play on recently?"
The fairy herald sniffs dismissively, but appears to take the question at face value. "Pehrfectly stoppable, or it would not still be in zat room, no?"
Further discussion is interrupted when the two dolls on stage both rotate their heads to stare with painted eyes at the group's approach. Moving with the jerky, stiff motions of a badly mimed marionette, the barber-dentist tosses its wooded tooth over its shoulder, where it clatters on the stage behind it. "Oho! More patients!" it says in a reedy voice. "Not all at once now--one at a time, one at time!"
The other doll jerkily rises from the chair, still clutching at its red-spattered mouth. "Ish nah sho bah!" it reassures you, gesturing at the chair it just vacated. "Haf a sheat!"
Far from ordinary marionette dolls, these creatures are the somewhat tragic constructs known as Soulbound Dolls. These small, sentient dolls contain a fragment of another creature’s soul. The binding process strips most of the individuality from the soul, making a new soulbound doll an almost blank slate. Despite this process, fragments of the original creature’s personality remain.
Garret looks at the dolls with thinly-disguised disgust and says, "Uh, no thanks, I don't need any dental work at the moment," and continues moving along as the herald leads the way.
"Right, I'm good," Silvia replies, keeping her distance from the dolls.
Ketra blinks rather incredulously at the dolls coming to life. "Uhh..." She glances at the herald "Are they supposed to do that? And can you make them stop doing that? Is it something the Prince or Queen set up?" She rests her hands on the handles of her machetes. Should the herald play any kind of evasive games regarding her questions, or if the dolls show any signs of approaching for tooth extraction, she'll draw them.
Sanduro jerks back when the creepy dolls begin to move and speak. "No, no, NO, I don't need a dentist. Or whatever the Hells those things are supposed to be." He swipes a hand across his suddenly damp brow and takes a firmer hold on his bow. "The, um, inhabitants of this castle are particularly single-minded, aren't they?"
At Ketra's accusatory question the tooth fairy herald just gives a confused shrug. "Sey haf nevehr moved before since being gifted to se Queen many years ago! It is your own fault for having such alluhring teef!"
The dentist-doll puts its hands on its hips and gives you all a disapproving tsk sound. "Oh come now, there's no reason to be so shy! I'm a master of my craft!"
"Ish twue!" the patient-doll adds. "Mah fae' bahree 'urts at ahwl!"
"Oho! Not a customer but a vandal!" cries the first doll when Ketra's machetes scrape free of their sheathes. "That won't do at all!" Both dolls begin whispering spells...
-ROUND ONE-
Ketra
Sanduro/Zsofia
Patient Doll
Dentist Doll
Wallace
Garret
Silvia
"Alluring!? Oh come on." Ketra winces "Gimme a break here." She spins her machetes for a moment as she whispers to Verun "Stay somewhere safe, if you can." and then dashes in toward the dolls.
Circling around the first of the two, she positions herself in readiness to strike but waits for Zsofia to move in as a distraction.
Sanduro sees Ketra running towards the dolls and takes that as his cue to act. Holding his bow out of the way with one hand, he calls on Pharasma's power and a ball of churning flame appears above the palm of his free hand.
"I don't know what you things are supposed to be, but your pale imitation of life has to end!" Sanduro throws the tiny fireball at the nearer of the two dolls (the brunette).
Zsofia charges in behind Ketra, running straight at the doll targeted by Sanduro's fire spell.
Ketra darts forward with Zsofia, striking from opposite sides against the dentist-doll. The strange construct ducks the machete, but takes Zsofia's kick directly to the chest with a splinter of wood. Sanduro for his part lobs a conjured gout of flame that finds its mark--paint blackens and peels under the onslaught but it's movements don't slacken.
Drawing a dagger from a sheathe behind its back, the dentist-doll stabs at Zsofia, but the phantom bandit nimbly dances out of the doll's shorter reach. The other steps bad and makes a calming motion to Ketra. "Shhh, ish all gonna be ohay. Go to shleep..."
-ROUND ONE-
Ketra
Sanduro/Zsofia
Patient Doll
Dentist Doll (-9)
Wallace
Garret
Silvia
Garret considers what he might know about these constructs, specifically if they might have resistances against his Ear-Piercing Scream or Daze spells, damage resistance, or elemental resistances/immunities.
"To Hell with that!" Silvia shouts as the horrible dolls suddenly wielding magic and knives. She leaps down into the auditorium and maneuvers for a clear shot. As soon as she sights down the horrible thing's tiny face, she pulls the trigger.
Ketra blinks her way through the sudden grogginess, then spreads her arms out, machetes extended. "How about none of that, thanks."
---
Realizing that two of his three attack spells would be useless against the constructs (and the other would damage his allies as well), Garret settles for drawing his light crossbow and firing a shot at the Patient Doll since it is not currently in melee with any of his allies.
Ketra coils up and springs to the side, stepping quickly and confidently around the patient doll until she has it trapped with nowhere it can easily back up to. Her machete comes down towards its head. "No more teeth for you."
The little ball of fire reappears in Sanduro's hand as soon as it his the dentist doll. The duskwalker follows Silvia into the auditorium and lobs the flame at the patient doll.
Zsofia continues to beat on the dentist doll. "I didn't like you barbershop butchers when I was alive and sometimes needed you! I don't like you any better now that I don't!"
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Silvia lands on the lower stairs, drawing a chorus of "Ooooh!" from the assembled tooth fairies watching. Her pistol's bark draws audible gasps and one or two involuntary cheers as the bullet sends splinters flying away from the dentist-doll!
Garret's crossbow bolt finds its mark, but rebounds without apparent effect. As the dentist-doll staggers from the bullet's impact, Ketra's machete finds the grain and takes its wooden head off, which rolls across across the floor to rest at Wallace's feet. Saduro lobs another fistful of fire at the other doll and is rewarded by the crackle and pop of more blackening wood and peeling paint.
Unfortunately, Zsofia's haymaker is poorly aimed, and the doll ducks the blow before darting in with its knife to slash at where the phantom's femoral artery would be. Zsofia, accustomed to knife-fights from her previous life as a bandit, slaps the dolls hand aside and the knife cuts only air.
-ROUND TWO-
Ketra
Sanduro/Zsofia
Patient Doll (-8hp)
Dentist Doll
Wallace
Garret
Silvia
-ROUND THREE-
Ketra
Sanduro/Zsofia
Patient Doll (-8hp)
Dentist Doll
Wallace
Garret
Silvia
Silvia quickly reloads her pistol as she tries to sidestep for a clearer shot on the remaining doll, but can't quite thread the needle.
At least the tooth fairies are fans.
Sanduro takes a short step for a better angle, repositions his bow, and lets an arrow fly at the remaining doll.
Zsofia takes a 5' step to get into a flank with Ketra, then does her best to stomp the patient doll into kindling.
Ketra, seizing on the opportunity, enters a practiced stance. With a smile to Zsofia, she takes three steps, each one ending in a sudden, quick swipe of her machete.
Having nothing more effective to try at this point (and not wanting to give his most potent magics away to the observing faeries, Garret maneuvers for a clean shot and fires his crossbow again.
...but the bolt flies high.
The remaining doll sees Sanduro take aim and throws up a hand to block--the arrow splits its arm along the grain, instead of its head. Zsofia and Ketra close in, a flurry of machete chops and and ectoplasmic stomps mostly ineffective--but sufficient, as the the broken, twitching doll stills.
"I'm fine," Silvia says, habitually cleaning the barrel of her pistol and replacing the spent shot.
Zsofia blows on her knuckles. “Maybe just a splinter. Oh, you mean among the living. Never mind.”
Ketra whirls her machetes, half expecting the smashed dolls to get back up and continue their creepy show. When they don't, she huffs "Not hurt, except maybe to my self esteem. Creepy little things! And slippery too." She turns to the "herald" and asks "Sorry about breaking your art piece, but it had to happen. Where to next?"
"Indeed," responds Garret, cocking and loading another bolt in his crossbow--just in case. "Still, they attacked us first, and I am firmly attached to all my teeth."
"That's my line, Garret," Silvia teases.
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As the party banters in the aftermath of the victory they hear the sound of clapping coming from the assembled fairies below. Prince Uspid, eyebrow raised in arch curiosity, says something in Sylvan that sets his subjects to whooping and hollering, clacking their pliers clapping their hands.
"Se Prince says it is a delight to witness you mortals do battle--a fine final performance for zose dreadful dolls." The herald-fairy settles itself back into the nest it has made in Garret's hair. "He also says not to exhaust yourselves before you meet se Queen--she can smell weakness and is without merci."
The stained-glass angel does nothing, merely standing where it has been since the group paused. It's hard to tell if it's even aware of your presence until you start moving again, at which point it follows with that same horrible sound of crunching glass.
"So if the Prince's enforcer doesn't actually fight," Sanduro calls up to the herald from the back of the group, "what does it do?"
Under her breath Ketra suggests "I figure it fights us, if mister herald doesn't like what he sees." Louder and with some intentional bravado, she says "Yep, honor to perform for you. And don't worry about us. Something like this isn't going to exhaust anyone."
As much as they'd like it to, I bet.
She sighs, then gestures with her head to the herald "Lead the way."
Quietly considering to himself that he chose well in not revealing his magical talents, Garret was perturbed nonetheless by the herald’s familiarity with his coiffure. Doing his best to suffer through it, he realizes that the faeries see mortals as toys to manipulate and entertain...
”Come, let us finish this matter so we may be on our way,” he says to the others, growing more uneasy at being embroiled in this familial squabble.
"Let's," SIlvia says, still eyeing the glass monstrosity.
As Garret sweeps the area with Detect Magic he notices that the red and white striped barber-pole on the dolls' stage glows with strong universal magic. Upon closer examination, it turns out to be a white rod about 18" long, decorate with a red ribbon wound along its length.
The dolls' stage is built into the side of a central wall, with two hallways flanking on either side. Several of the tooth fairies flit partway up the stairs to watch your progress, whispering and gigglign to one another. Regardless of which path you choose, your group finds itself circling around to a narrow hall. Several arrow slits provide a view into the Dead Road and mists outside, while the opposite wall boasts a pair of fine mahogany doors.
"That is se doors leading to se stairwell. Se stairs go up up, to se Queen's chambehrs," the herald informs you with its too-wide grin and sly voice. "Se Prince has it kept locked since we can but fly wherever we wish!"
The faerie herald is lying, you're sure of it. Not about the door, exactly, but about what's behind it. There's a nervous energy underneath its carefully languid pose in Garret's hair, and the other faeries hanging back are behaving like a pack of children about to watch a prank come to fruition.
"Perhaps a prize for our efforts," says Garret, having decided to surreptitiously detect for magic. He goes over and plucks out the barber pole and tests its suitability for a walking cane, smiling with satisfaction.