Macaria gives all the help she can. "Are you wounded?" She carries no food, but gives them water from her canteen. If they need stitching, she channels her divine power - removing Cabbadgehead from the area.
Torsten's familiar isn't sure what the creatures are. The two freed prisoners are weak but uninjured aside from bruises and scratches. As long as you avoid the room with the otyugh, you'll be able to escort them to safety without difficulty.
”Lets do this right quick then. Get ye two out. When yer free, head to the watch. Talk to Cressida Kroft. Tell her what’s what, so if we don’t make it down here she can take appropriate action, aye?”
”Aye, as good a plan as any. Let’s make it so.”
The door to this room is boarded over. It looks fairly recent and can be torn down with a few minutes of work.
”Right. Cover me while I tear this down. Don’t want anything jumping on me while I break this down.”
"Enjoy yourself, my friend," Yhrrilka says, making sure nothing sneaks up on them from behind.
It takes a couple minutes for Torsten to remove the boards. On the other side of the door is a wrecked pantry. Broken crates and shelves lie strewn about the place, with the foodstuffs, firewood, and other supplies they once contained scattered across the floor. The cause of this destruction? A foul-smelling abomination of body parts stitched together with thick black thread. The instant the door opens, it lunges forward, mindlessly swinging a severed arm marked with Shoanti tribal tattoos.
You realize this creature is a form of Carrion Golem. They're riddled with disease and prone to going berserk. Like all golems, they're mostly immune to magic, although the corpses that make up their body can sometimes be affected by certain types of necromancy.
The runes on Torsten's ioun wyrd flashed, causing his pack to light up. He coughed "Carrion...golem...magic doesn't work." Eyes watering, he kicked it hard the shin with his left foot, then leaned in and delivered a solid punch straight into it's forehead. In doing so, he leaned in, putting his full weight behind it. Not stopping, he continued with his left elbow to the creature's head, and then an upper cut from the right.
Ril's hair stands on end and she forces herself to keep composed. Preparing herself, she takes a step back, knocking away one of the alchemy worktables in an effort to make a "dance floor."
"Bring it out here, friends," RIl says, confident in Torsten and Macaria's abilities.
Maca quickly steps back and, when she notices the corrupted aura, tries to counter it.
Maca will Invigorate (1 SP) and, thanks to Restore Health, remove the nauseated condition from the target.
Torsten trips the golem and begins to heavily pummel it. The golem mindlessly stands back up .
The wrecking ball that was Torsten put his fist through the golem’s head. Struggling to get it free, he said to his companions ”Hope the necromancer hasn’t fled already. ‘Cause just getting cleaned up is alone gonna make a long day even longer.”
Yhrrilka shakes her head at Torsten, chuckling to herself as she kneels down over the construct. "We'd all love a piece of Lamm, Torsten, but he's not our main priority here." Exmaining the tattooed arm, she muses, "Do we think this belonged to the fellow we're looking for?"
"We should keep it and show it to him. Pity I can't preserve it properly."
"Agreed. Torsten, one for your new magic bag," Yhrrilka says, holding out the arm for Torsten to take.
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Torsten took the arm, and out of morbid curiosity gave it a swing. Rigor Morris, and perhaps embalming fluid, had made it into a decent enough club. Then, realizing how bad it looked, he put the arm away. With an awkward cough he said ”Lets keep moving...”
The nauseating mixture of decay and strange chemicals fills the air of this large room. Glinting saws, pliers, long stitching needles, and other surgical equipment are organized on shelves and benches along the walls. A sturdy wooden table in the center of the room supports a large humanoid shape - a thing stitched together from a patchwork of dozens of different bodies. The thing would stand nearly seven feet tall if it rose. Its head is strangely small for its massive frame - a head crowned with brown hair and bearing a scar upon the left cheek.
Yhrrilka's face betrays her anguish at seeing the young man's corpse has been used like this. "Torsten, please, the arm," she says in a quiet voice. When he produces it, Ril looks and tries to figure if the skin matches between the arm and the head.
"Oh, I hope we don't have to find all the rest of him separately," she says, as the term 'scavenger hunt' rises in her mind with an entirely new, much more sinister meaning.
The arm and head are definitely from the same body.
Holding the arm up to the head, Yhrrilka says, "I believe we have more of the fellow we've come for here." She begins examining the construct, hoping to both figure how to get the head off, and see if any other parts of it might be what they're looking for.
"If it's not just sewed on, I might have to..." she makes a chopping motion at the neck.
"Well, let's get on with it then, aye?" Torsten said. "Thing might well come to life. This place is a house of horrors it is. So make sure that ye cut the head off with one blow." Not for the first time he wondered what kind of mad man could make such a place his home.
"All right, all right," she says. "I notice you didn't exactly come equipped for this. I wish Haazek was here, he always liked axes..."
Before engaging in the grisly task, Ril examines the body, trying see if it can be done without hacking at it further.
Whoever's been assembling this golem is no amateur. The head is securely fastened to the torso. Fortunately, although the golem is complete, the requisite animating forces have yet to be provided. It's not going to suddenly attack the first person to get within reach. Probably.
Ril grimaces as she looks it over. "Okay, looks like I'm doing this the hard way. I do it on three. Like, on three. You know, one, two..." she makes a chopping motion with her sword.
Doing her best to line this up properly, Yhrrilka raises her sword, then brings it down on the neck of the creature.
Yhrrilka's sword slices through the golem's neck with minimal difficulty, and the head falls free.
Lifting the head as respectfully as she can, Yhrrilka hands it to Torsten. "If you think you can get this in the bag without looking to weaponize it," she gives him a little bit of A Look, "We can proceed."
Torsten felt a sudden urge to do just that with the head, just because he was told not to. Feeling somewhat ashamed at the reaction he put the head away. ”Well then. Should be enough to get the reward money. But we’re not done here yet. And nice cut.” He added.
"Thanks. My first beheading," she quips, before immediately feeling conflicted by the questionable humor.
Taking a moment to get her bearing, Yhrrilka notices two passages on the west wall. "That," she says, pointing to the southwest, "Looks like it heads back the way we came. Huh, must've missed a passageway, maybe. Check that first, then go there?" She nods her head at the second tunnel.
Macaria agrees with Ril's indication, and she waits for Torsten to get into the tunnel first. She'll close the march, ready to assist.
As usual, Torsten deferred to Ril's judgement when it came to strategy. She had a good head on her. More than what could be said for the golem she had decapitated.
Two wide, freestanding bookshelves furnish this room. The shelves are filled with row upon row of carefully-arranged tomes and scrolls.
Resource
The books stored here are mostly treatises on necromancy and golemancy, but there are also a large number of books about diseases and plagues.
Loot
Scroll - identify
Scroll - command undead
Yhrrilka takes a few books down and thumbs through some pages at random. "Well, doesn't this guy have the most interesting reading material," she says scornfully. "Still, as much as I'd love to read through this stuff, get a feel for what this mudak is up to, I'd rather catch him and beat that information out of him." She pauses, considering a moment. "Or, just stab him and be done with it."
To that end, Ril gestures back to the other passageway.
Torsten nodded. "Looting can come later. And I prefer the latter, to be honest. Fooker probably knows a few choice curses that he can cast on us." He said, following Ril.
"Whichever opportunity presents itself, Torsten. And for the record, his severed arms, I figure you can play with all you want. That is, if you want the Lamm stink all over you that much."
This chamber holds a large four-poster bed and a simple writing desk, along with a full-length mirror propped up against one earthen wall. As the door opens, a zombie that had evidently been posted to keep watch moans loudly and begins to shamble forward. You can hear the sound of spellcasting from the next room.
Torsten walked forward, kicked the zombie's legs out from beneath it and then stomped on it as it hit the ground. "Right, blast the fooker in there." He said, looking back to Ril and Mac.
"Gladly," the half-orc said, running to get a clear shot.
vs touch
Fire
Macaria's trick needs a much closer range, and so she just enters the room and stays a bit behind, expecting Torsten to go ahead.
Torsten smashes the zombie, clearing the way for Yhrrilka to launch a gout of fire at another zombie in the room beyond. Behind it is a blue-skinned humanoid. Unlike the others you've encountered, he's hovering near the ceiling of the chamber, out of easy reach.
The room itself is well-kept and contains a narrow bed, a relatively empty shelf holding only a few books and some bones and skulls, and a long bench. A man's torso, the chest bearing numerous tribal tattoos, lies on this bench. The right arm is still attached and periodically thrashes and clutches at the air as if it were alive.
The (now injured) zombie charges at Torsten!
To say that Torsten destroyed the zombie would be an understatement. It came at him, and the dwarf grabbed the zombie by the arms and pulled. The arms came off with a sickening 'pop.' Having stopped it's charge, he let go of the arms and brought his fists together onto each side of the zombie's head. The skull did not hold up, and what was left fell to the ground.
The now blood covered dwarf turned to his companions and said "He's yers, eh? I'm a mite bit short for this."
"I should learn to move things with my mind, just throw you around the room. Until then..." Standing on the bed to get a better shot, Yhrrilka launches a gout of fire at the man(?).
vs touch
Fire
Maca patiently waits until Torsten has finished all his 32 hit combo vs the zombie, then steps in and tries a shot at the flying blue figure.
"You! You did all this! You'll pay, Lamm!"