Unsure as to what is best to use on a creature such as this, Uthe throws a dollop of acid at the beast.
"Well someone had a high opinion of their magical powers. They must have really believed in the favors of their god!."
She follows her companions in what seems to be main worshipping room of the temple, hoping it's not a mistake not to go right away after the scoundrels. She's awed by the magnificence of the room, but still manage to react fast enough when a new enemy appears. "What is this monstrosity?"
Her allies seem to have the combat well in hands, but just in case, she touches Ammon and casts Resistance on him.
Uthe has no idea what it is, although she has a niggling feeling that she has missed something when the acid does not seem to effect its skin in the slightest.
The featureless face turns directly at Ammon, and gazes at him with intent, so much so that Ammon can feel himself almost sucked into the creature's very mind.
Ammon's eyes go wide, and he rounds back, displaying the exact same confused and crazy look as when he nearly killed Jazadi.
But then... whether it was Dhakira's protective magic or simply recognizing the mind altering effect himself, he closes his eyes and mutters to himself. "No, no. That's not right. Not enemies..."
Somewhere through the haze, someone calls out that coldiron weapons were needed to really injure the *real* enemy. He drops his weapon idly, draws his backup Coldiron Falcata and strikes.
...Of course, being mind affected made him extremely sluggish and the monster avoided it easily.
Jamie reloads and fires but comes up short!
Her acid ineffective, Uthe switches to cold.
Jazadi snaps her whip at the beast again!
Dhakira almost takes a step back when she sees the murderous look in Ammon's eyes, then let's out a sigh of relief when the crazy look seems to leave his face.
Then, seeing the tide of battle beginning to turn against them she takes the wand out and casts Bless on the group.
The monster starts casting with strange guttural sounds but it is overwhelmed by the mass of action around it.
Ammon snaps out of it, looks for a weakness and strikes!
...Or so he thought.
Jamie loads a cold iron crossbow bolt and fires it into the creature's eye!
Another whip strike...
Touches Ammon and casts Guidance
Sure that if she can just match the mystical rotation vector of creatures aura her spell will be effective, Uthe sends another blast of cold towards it.
Alas, it still fizzles into nothingness.
The creature tries once again to cast, as only Jamie's bolt seems to cause it any irritation but again, it is too distracted by the the Falcons!
-34
Jamie shoots again!
This time, Jazadi tries to trip the beast up!
Emphasis on 'tries'.
« Wow! This thing is hard to hit! »
Seeing that the fight takes longer than it seemed at first, Dakhira starts casting Summon Monster I.
Seeing Say'ri provide a flanking distraction, Ammon tries to capitalize!
Ammon's large swing manages to behead the creature, its head tumbling to the ground with an echo that reverberates around the cathedral.
Searching this cathedral reveals nothing of note and no further clues as to the use of this temple or the other party that looks to be here.
An immense tiled pool, empty and no more than two feet deep, lies beneath a vaulted ceiling covered with images of celestial beings. Four columns stand beyond the pool to the northeast, each carved to represent one of the four primal elements. A ring of hieroglyphs encircles the base of each pillar.
Jazadi takes a look around the room.
Uthe looks over the pool nervously, but with a lack of water it's not as threatening as it might at first appearance. Only then does she look over the room for mystical auras.
"We think they're down in the lower level," the amurrun muses, voicing aloud what everyone else already believes.
Dhakira also takes a look around, especially the stone work, looking for secret doors.
« I think Uthe might be right, and we should check downstairs. »
Jazadi knows that large, shallow pools were not uncommon in ancient Osirian architecture, particularly on temple grounds, though this one is unusual in that it is indoors.
Exploring the rest of the ground floor, Uthe is proved right and no further living or undead are found.
A small shrine occupies a raised dais in the north of this room. Two waist-high fonts stand on either side of the altar, and a small wooden cabinet is bolted against the eastern wall. Two rows of stone benches stand to the south of the dais. Searching the wooden cabinet you find some damaged religious articles. Though damaged, the religious articles are still solid silver. The knife can be used as a silver dagger with the broken condition. The chalice is worth 30 gp
The southern area of this large space contains a long stone table, two benches, and two wooden hutches. Just visible behind a partition wall to the north is a kitchen with tables, cabinets, and a stove in the corner. Around a corner to the south stands a stone enclosure with a rounded top and a hatch set in the front.
You head back down the corridor that you disarmed earlier, following the tracks you found previously and head down a set of stairs.
A stone bench sits against the eastern wall of this octagonal chamber in the crypts. Black tiles line the floor, walls, and ceiling. A short passage to the south ends at a gate of bronze bars.
There is no dust on the floor here but through the otherside of the gate at the otherside of the next chamber, there is an impressively large clay statue of Nethys.
The gate to the south is closed and locked but Jamie and Jazadi manage to open it between them. As soon as it opens, a couple of seconds later, just before people manage to walk through it, it swings back closed and relocks. Jazadi and Jamie both figure it will continue to do this and needs unlocking each round.
"Bloody footprints again... came from beyond the door and went up the stairs. Something went wrong for the other group, most likely." He stands up from his kneeled position and reinforced his grip on his sword. "Not that we need any more reason to be cautious..."
When the relocking mechanism comes into effect, Ammon frowns. "Maybe there's a trap directly behind the self-locking door? I say breaking the mechanism just in case, especially with the bloody prints from behind it.'
Dhakira stays alert to any danger. « Say’ri, did you check for traps before going through the door? »
She continues « If you don’t find a way to unlock it permanently, I agree with Ammon that we should try to brake it. We don’t want to worry about having to unlock it on the way out if we’re in a hurry, like being chased by something nasty for example. »
"That, too. Good point, Lady Dhakira." Ammon says, watching Say'ri go by herself with no small amount of worry.
But she was the leader, and leaders had to lead by example, right?
Surely nothing bad would happen to the supposed inheritor of Horus' faith, one who also had strong lineage to the pharaohs of old?
Uthe holds up an hesitant hand and seems about to say something regarding 'stupid humans running off into danger by themselves,' but presses her lips together and remains silent.
Fortunately, nothing seems to happen to Say'ri as she walks through the door, and she finds that with some pressure, she can hold the door open for long enough for everyone to pass through, it just closes when she stops exerting the pressure.
As Say'ri takes another step further into this new room, you here the sound of rock or stone grinding before noticing that the statue of Nethys from this room has begun to move! It seems to look almost lifelike now awakened and starts swirling its quarterstaff as it approaches.
"Think we need adamantine to really damage that thing!" Ammon shouts. "Hey, Say'ri, you did make some bullets from the flail too, right...?"
Still, he'd do his best to strike the thing while he could!
Dhakira starts saying to Say'ri "No! Don't let the door close... What's that?" She turns around when she hears the statue come to life. Looking towards Jazadi.
She starts casting a spell.
Jamie shoots the statue.
"That's a construct. Don't bother throwing magic at it--it's highly resistant to all forms of it." Jazadi unlimbers her whip and tries tripping the statue!
Before starting to cast "Ammon, can you tell if it's evil?"
The construct swings its quarterstaff with prowess at Ammon, but he sees it coming and manages to dodge.
Watching parts of the clay body begin to repair, Jazadi also thinks that this construct can most likely heal itself continuously.
-10 +2 = -8
"Also, I think this thing can keep fixing itself! Kill it quick!" Jazadi says as she snaps her whip again.
Dhakira finishes casting and Bulb, a Small Lightning Elemental appears, if possible in a flanking position to attack the construct. Then she takes out her wand and casts Bless.
Then the elemental attacks with a Slam
plus
Ammon quickly drops his sword, which was becoming a habit at this point, and takes Say'ri's gun, holding it by the Barrel.
Well, now that he had the monster's attention anyway, he just had to keep it! But Say'ri's taunt was hard to top...
...unless...
"Who's Nethys?" He asks, just as he strikes!
"He is the insane god of magic," Uthe responds to Ammon's question in spite of it not being asked of her. Having nothing but magical attacks, she remains behind the others as to not impede their efforts.