Uthe makes a point of searching in an area away from Jazadi.
Jazadi retraces her steps to the model room and starts giving it a more thorough investigation.
« The paladin might be on to something » . Dhakira follows Jazadi to help her look
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"I hope so. I'm not looking forward to Uthe blaming me for another screw-up if this doesn't work..." Jazadi sighs.
"For Brigh's sake, it's not like I deliberately set the tiles off just to make her day miserable..." The archaeologist grumbles.
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Splitting into two groups, since that never goes wrong, you go to investigate the other rooms.
Jazadi, Adol and Dhakira head down a long and winding stair to look at the model room. The gentle sound of lapping water echoes off this chamber’s
towering ceiling. The floor is covered in sand, and tiny stone replicas of buildings and streets fill most of the gallery, creating a room-sized map of Wati. A stark black pillar rises from the center of the room.
Meanwhile Say'ri, Uthe and Jamie head into the only room you haven't investigated. Carvings of somber women and vulture-headed angels adorn the walls of this chamber, and the smell of cedar, onions, and myrrh is overwhelming. Viscous amber fluids fill glass reservoirs, while stone bins of sand, sawdust, and salt crowd the floor. Hooks, knives, and other grisly-looking tools are neatly stored on several worktables along the walls.
A ghoulish looking woman is hunched over one of the workbenches but the moment she hears you she spins round, her huge teeth protruding as she lets out a painful sounding scream and leaps towards the fresh meat that walked into her realm.
"Have at you!" Jamie cries, rushing the ghoulish woman and slicing upwards to disembowel her!
"You are nasty, stinky, and should not exist!" Uthe screeches at the undead before unleashing a trio of magical bolts at the ghoul.
Jamie slices, Say'ri shoots and Uthe incants. The combined efforts pummel the ghast hard enough to fell most enemies. Unfortunately the creature is clearly not most enemies and screams in great anger before lashing out at Jamie.
Jamie's anger has left her vulnerable and the ghast takes full advantage, tearing at her frail halfling flesh!
--------------------------------
In the tiny city far below the rest of the group starts working their way methodically through the room. Sadly, despite an exhaustive effort they do not find anything useful, and certainly nothing as helpful as a holy symbol of Anubis.
Jazadi sighs in resignation. "Well, we tried."
"Though I really have to wonder--what was this room originally constructed for?" The archaeologist scratches her head. "To house a scale model of Wati? And if so, was this room a kind of recreational room or did it serve a city-planning purpose? Like ancient Osiriani preferred to model their cities in stone and miniature first before constructing them properly?"
Her expression turns pensive. "Could be. Might be an effective way to model potential traffic flows for both on-foot and chariot transportation..." Her musings continue in this vein as she leads the group back.
Jamie goes rigid as blood drips from her myriad wounds.
"Not so close!" Uthe calls out to Say'ri as the gunslinger closes with the undead creature. With much hissing and spitting, she sends another trio of mystical bolts at the vile thing.
"Though I really have to wonder--what was this room originally constructed for?" The archaeologist scratches her head. "To house a scale model of Wati? And if so, was this room a kind of recreational room or did it serve a city-planning purpose? Like ancient Osiriani preferred to model their cities in stone and miniature first before constructing them properly?"
"Good questions. I wish we had an expert on ancient Osiriani customs with us," Adol states as the search comes up empty, feeling an odd sense of loss as he does. Perhaps it was just the empty and cold of the subterrenean temple wearing off on him.
"Actually... given that this seems to be a temple, maybe this High Priestess ally of yours - Sebti the Alligator or such? - would be able to tell us more. Though we should probably focus on the here and now first, and see if the others were more succesful than us."
Walking with Jazadi and Adol, she muses: « I don’t know if we’ll ever find out. There are a lot of mysteries in this place, and maybe some of them are better left alone. But Adol is right, we should rejoined the others. It can be dangerous to get separated in here. »
The ghoul reels from repeated impacts. It's obvious that if it wasn't in such a blind rage it would probably have dropped dead already, but it hasn't and rips at Say'ri, trying to knock her back and open access to the paralyzed Jamie once more!
Fortunately Say'ri is able to dodge, duck and parry all the creature's blows. Perhaps there is hope yet?
With a hiss of annoyance that the thing is still alive, Uthe sends yet another trio of magical bolts into it.
Say'ri distracts the ghoul as Uthe hammers it with a final barrage and it falls! As the creature collapses it shrinks in on itself, ending up as little more than a desiccated corpse. Apart from a finely crafted breastplate none of the neatly packed tools and other boxes in this room provide anything of use until a final box proves to contain a lot of miscellaneous jewelry, including a holy symbol featuring a jackals head - the symbol of Anubis!
By the time the downstairs explorers return there is little left of the battle apart from the corpse, and Jamie's numerous wounds...
Completely unharmed, Adol leads the way back up. "I'm afraid we couldn't find a-" he starts, then notices the halfling's rather serious wounds along with the strange scent of smoke lingering in the room.
"-healer for Jamie?" he finishes, susprised. "Did something happen here? We, ah, didn't hear anything. Or are we interrupting some Falcon-specific occult ritual I wasn't informed of?"
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"There was a ghoul thing." Say'ri says drily, pointing to the corpse on the floor. "It got Jamie but we managed to take it down before it did too much damage."
She tosses the holy symbol across the room to the paladin.
"Was this what you're looking for? I hope so because I don't have many bullets left!"
"It got Jamie but we managed to take it down before it did too much damage."[/b]
"Ugh, speak for yourself," Jamie groans as the paralysis finally wears off. She sits heavily on the floor, taking deep breaths and examining her the deep claw marks across her body.
"Do you need some healing, Jamie? I have some limited capacity, but I don't want to get in the way of a more established healer should someone else offer it," he says, and glances at Dhakira.
"I enjoy having all of my organs inside my body, so... Yes, I would like some healing," Jamie says acerbically.
When Dhakira rejoins the other group, she’s appalled to see Jamie’s injuries. « Oh my poor dear! » . She runs to her and casts Cure Serious Wounds
She follows it by a hit of the CLW wand
« There. Are you feeling better? » Looking aroung, shetries to assess if anyone else needs healing.
"Skillful healing, to put the lung back inside of her so quickly," Adol compliments the priestess, then he looks to the south. "Are we ready to pass that sentinel with the holy symbol, then?"
He takes to the front and waits for the signal to start heading out.
”Thank you, Dhakira. That is much better,” Jamie says, poking at the restored skin across her torso. She gets to her feet and hefts her curved blade. ”Let us finish what we came here to do.”
At Say'ri's touch, Uthe starts and her head spins around with a jingle of bells, the ears lowering and her tail stiffening. An instant later and the ears relax and her eyes close in embarrassment. "Sorry. We're sorry," she says. "We hate things like ... like that." She tips her head in the direction of the defeated ghoul. She presses into the woman's touch as if to show that the gunslinger wasn't doing anything wrong. The fur of her tail takes a little longer to settle down, though.
"We have the symbol now, so shall we move past the guardian?" she asks.
« I agree with you, sweet and fierce Uthe, these things are abominations, sorry to have left you », and she nods to Say’ri and Jamie to include them, and continues « to face it by yourselves. Now let’s continue on our quest. » She gets ready to follow whoever starts walking towards the guardian.
With Adol leading the way, holy symbol of Anubis raised high you return through the doors you left ajar. The enormous guardian stirs into motion and then halts at the sight of the amulet. A moment of experimentation shows that Adol has to remain between the golem and the rest of the group so Say'ri leads the way into the next room and Adol brings up the rear.
Beyond the doors a raised, pyramidal platform in the center of this large, circular chamber holds an opulent sarcophagus, bedecked with human skulls and profane symbols scrawled in blood, standing between two braziers burning with blue flame. An elevated walkway runs around the perimeter of the hall, behind massive stone statues of Pharasma that support the room’s domed ceiling. Elaborately appointed crypts, each fit for royalty, sit beneath each statue’s feet. Hundreds of desiccated bodies lie haphazardly strewn across the chamber’s polished floor.
In the center of this macabre stands a shirtless figure, with two slouching figures wrapped in bandage, slumped on either side of him.
"So you are the fools who invade my sanctum!" The voice is impossibly clear, despite the full face mask. "You bodies will join my army and your souls will serve me for all eternity!"
Fortunately the villainous habit of monologuing gives you plenty of time to act!
"For Ammon!" Jamie cries as she rushes at the nearest mummy!
The amurrun is initially torn between aiding her allies or attempting to disable the masked figure. She settles on the latter, although whether because of Say'ri's declaration or her inherent independent nature is anyone's guess.
"You! Are you Nebta-Khufre? The one supposedly responsible for all this death!?" Adol calls out to the masked figure, and is about to charge him when Say'ri commands otherwise.
Instead, he rushes the other mummy, blocking of their path to the group with Jamie, and calls on divine power to guide his blade!
Jazadi winces as Jamie and Adol move to engage the mummies and prepares a spell to protect them from being affected by fear!
Saying a brief prayer towards the statues of her goddess, Dhakira moves forward 10 feet and tries to summon a few of her hyena friends.
To her great pleasure, Pharasma sends three of her heralds to help. Henri and Helene appear behind each of the mummies, and Hortense to the southeast (in diagonal) to the masked figure. They all attack.
Henri smites evil and attacks the mummy on the left
Helene smites evil and attacks the mummy on the right
Hortense smites evil and attacks the masked figure
Jamie, Henri and Helene all throw off the aura of fear that the mummies provoke without much issue but Hortense is struck down with paralyzing fear!
Jamie's magically hardened blade cuts through the mummies flesh with increidble ease - it seems the blade is specially designed to defeat such foes! Adol meanwhile summons the power of the Gods to strike his foe with holy fury. His presence helps Henri hit the undead, although not to upend it.
Uthe attempts to incapacitate the mask-wearing necromancer, but he throws the spell off. Jazadi finds her magic un-needed and Say'ri waits for the necromancer to do something dangerous...
The mummies aim heavy blows at their opponents, battering aside their defenses.
The necromancer soars into the air and begins intoning magical words of power, when Say'ri's bullet hits him in the face! The mask doesn't even crack and the mummies below suddenly move with increased vigor, even as the bodies piled below the pyramid begin to shamble their way upright!
Red 48/60
Blue 49/60
Boss 82/83; 70/80
Adol staggers back and attemps to heal when his parry attempt fails. Afterwards, he strikes back against the mummy that struck him!
Jamie grimaces as she takes the hit, but she continues to strike back with Nashor's Tooth!
While Hortense stands frozen in fear, Henri and Helene each attack the mummy in front of them,
Henri
if successful, tries to Trip
Helene
if successful, tries to Trip
Dhakira takes out the wand of Bless and casts it on her allies.
Uthe growls low in her throat when the man resists her magic. Resists her magic! "You are nothing but a stinky human that traffics in foul sorceries!" she spits out before beginning another spell.
Adol strikes a mighty blow at the mummy and thanks to Henri snapping at the mummies heels he lands a critical blow and the divine power in his sword reduces the mummy to ashes in an instant!
Jamie meanwhile lands a blow of her own, but even with the magic of the Natron Fang the blow is not a strong one. Helene lands some damage as well though, the pair working well to wear their enemy down as Dhakira blesses her allies. Uthe joins in, speeding her allies up to the same pace as the mummies, giving the fight the bizarre quality of seemingly occurring at twice normal speed!
Jazadi moves towards Say'ri and snaps her whip at the zombie menacing her friend as Say'ri backpeddles and takes aim at the flying caster once more.
The zombies shamble about, oddly fast thanks to the magic impelling them, while the necromancer incants another spell. Say'ri sends a second shot into the mask, but he continues undaunted and the floor beneath Jazadi, Say'ri, Uthe and Dhakira turns to molten glass, threatening to pin the four of them in place!
Blue 27/60
Boss 74/83; 60/80
Frustrated by the mummy's resilience, Jamie steps up to the necromancer and attacks with blinding speed!