Zed lets the effects wash over him without effect. Once Gaelan delivers the fatal blow, Zed lets his haste and bane die out, firing off a new branding ray at the barbed devil, then closes the distance and frowns at the final outsider to deal with.
Magic Vestment (12 hours)
False Life (12 hours)
Freedom of Movement (2 hours)
See Invisibility (2 hours)
Sola Aura
Inspire Courage
Lastwall Phalanx (increases AC and saves vs evil depending on number of adjacent allies)
Judgement (boosting AC and giving brand right now, until combat is over)
Haste (via full plate of speed, 1 of 10 rounds used now)
Round 3: Barbed Devil
The devil drops the flaming bow and tries to claw Zed twice.
Zed returns the swings in kind.
Gaelan thanks Iomedae for her assistance with the jackal and moves over to join Zed and attack the devil.
Zed returns the swings in kind.
[Dice=Tetsubo Attack (SA, IC)]1d20+18+2+3
[Dice=Damage (IC, SA, PA]1d10+12+3+2+9[Dice=Tetsubo Attack (PA, SA, IC)]1d20+13-3+2+3
[Dice=Damage (IC, SA, PA]1d10+12+3+2+9
Sola quickly heals herself again as she flies back into the fray. Taking up position above and behind Zed, she stabs at the demon.
Solanis, Gaelan, and Zed team up to kill the barbed devil. The party sustained some injuries, but survived.
Gaelan quickly heals himself and looks around at the status of his party members.
Bright sunlight, more like fire surrounds Aja who is still standing in the door frame. Like a witch burning on the pyre, but never consumed, she speaks "Fire of Sarenrae, heal my wounds."
She then steps inside and
feels a malevolent presence.
Mostly through this own power and finishing off with a wand, Zed heals the wounds he collected.
Sola looks down at the drops of her blood dripping on the stone floor and scowls. "That thing got a few good hits on me, I'm sorry to say. Should I start using up one of the wands or would someone like to use their own spells or powers to heal me up a bit?"
Zephra stares dully forward while they recover. At Sola's question, she looks over. "I think there are probably more enemies. We should use wands to heal ourselves before we go looking for them, to stay ready for more battle."
Drawn out of her reverie for the Lady of Graves, Zephra takes her own advice.
Aja comes inside and immediately fills an invisible wave of force grip her body, then slam her forcefully against the wall, , and then down to the ground, where she lies prone on the floor.
Zed moves to Aja's side. "Pharasma give her strength."
Seeing Aja struggle, Sola accompanies Zed to the sorceress’ side while she continues using the wand.
Zephra comes over to help Aja as well.
"Together we stand."
"Dame, since the force does not affect you, grab Aja and fly her to the center of the cathedral. The presence appears to be geographically limited to the entrance. The rest of you stop subjecting yourselves to the force and get over here."
With Zed's quick intervention and Sola's presence, Aja adjusts to the evil spirits easily.
Aja was bleeding good.
Aja and the party pass through the entrance without any more telekinetic shenanigans. There are rooms to search/places to discover. Where do you go now?
"We stick together, the creatures here are powerful enough to see through invisibility and scouting attempts."
"Dame Solanis's magical tactics probably help us more than it hurts us to stay clumped together," she says flippantly. "I wish we could remove the unholy magic on this temple, but it is probably beyond my powers, at least for today."
Sola smiles at Zephra's sentiment. "Let's remove the unholy inhabitants first and then we can worry about cleansing the vile magics later," she answers with a hint of (attempted) humor. With her spear at the ready, she takes up her usual position above and slightly behind Gaelan and Zed and follows them over to the first door left of the entrance.
"Let us proceed." Gaelan leads the way, looking for traps and other "malevolent presences".
Northern section of map:
Room with closed door in NW is in area of malevolent presence. Will skip unless Solanis wishes to explore on her own since she is immune to presence's effects.
Proceeding clockwise, next room is rubble - nothing of interest.
Next room: Fresh bloodstains spatter the walls and floor of this rubble-filled chamber. A makeshift, bloodstained altar stands in the center of the room. It is unholy but other than that, not much of interest.
Next room with the water: Three pews face a raised stone baptismal font containing clear water. Torn tapestries depicting spirits of the dead awaiting Pharasma’s judgment cover each wall. Nothing here except due to the corruption of this evil cathedral, the water is unholy.
You can move east toward the choir where the jackal man was or south.
You head east toward the choir. Cracked stone steps descend steeply into this dedicated choir, which holds a long table covered in the eviscerated remains of obviously humanoid corpses. A once-opulent bishop’s throne overlooks the choir from the east, its jewels and gold sheeting long plundered, and now covered in greasy, foul-smelling brown hair.
Further east, about 20' away, you see a cracked altar smolders with gray fumes; upon it are stacked foul offerings of bloody skulls and broken scythe blades.
To the S, you see a 5' hallway heading further east.
"We should at least look into all the rooms we pass."
"I agree, Aja," Sola answers with a nod, "we can't risk letting enemies approach from behind if we can avoid it. If we move together to that final door on the north wall that we skipped, I can open it to see what's beyond."
Once her companions have positioned themselves as close to the mysterious door as they can without risking the malevolent force, the winged knight glides the rest of the way and swings open the door.
Solanis senses the telekinetic force trying to grab her but resists. She opens the door to find rickety wooden stairs spiral around the inner perimeter of this tower, leading up to the bell tower you presume.
Gaelan approaches the unholy altar and looks around.
”Just the stairs up to the bell tower,” Sola reports, “we should be able to get a good view of the surrounding area from up there, once we finish clearing the rooms down here.”
Zed does his usual scanning for any undead, both with magic as well as his eyes. Traps are also an interest, to be sure.
Sola follows Gaelan back towards the altar, skipping the collapsed door, in case anything goes wrong. She takes her usual position just above and behind him so that they can continue to protect each other.
As the party moves about, Zed hears a subtle chorus of voices whispering in a cacophony of languages, of which he only understands some phrases in Common. Suddenly, both Solanis and Zed feel a malevolent force trying to enter their mind, but they resist. They move forcefully, away from the altar and the effect subsides. Gaelan is unaffected.
Finding nothing of interest on the altar other than it gives off a desecration aura and effect, the only way to proceed is down the narrow hallway to the east.
Dozens of decapitated human heads preserved as crudely mounted trophies adorn the walls of this tall, imposing 70' long and 10' wide hallway. There is a door to the right 60' down the hallway and the corridor turs left at the end.
Zephra does her best to stay beside her teammates to gain and grant the most benefits, but she is unsure where to go and follows rather than leads.
Zed takes point, side by side with Gaelan if possible. He scowls deeply at the severed heads. "You shall be put to rest when this is settled." He quietly promises them.
So we go as a group to stay within fearless aura and get benefit from Lastwall.
Sola nods to the others and falls into formation as they begin moving down the hallway. "I remain of the opinion that we shouldn't leave unchecked doors behind us," she offers as they approach the door on the right.
"I agree, Sola."
As the party walks down the hall, the faces of the decapitated human heads slowly animate and contort, their mouths gasping and eyes bulging as if trying to take in breath. At the same time, all of you suddenly feel the air from the hallway and your lungs being sucked out of you!
Zed was well prepared for some kind of necromatic trickery, and he holds strong.