"Uh oh, it has friends!" Zetty scurries back, away from the front lines of this fight, but not before imbuing Bella's rapier with enhancing magic.
The ettercap leaps forward, trying to stick Grem to the wall with some webbing from its spinnerets! When the monk dodges, the creature chitters and leaps back into the room.
One of the spiders takes his place, biting at Grem, while the other one attacks Bella. Both take hits!
Zetty takes a firmer grasp of her writing slate and begins to draw renditions of the two smaller spiders. Thin, erratic lines from her pen form the webs that the ettercap is weaving. As she draws, a small nearby chunk of stone rises up and flies at the closest of the spiders .
Bella felt the sharp pain of the small spider's bite. She quickly moved behind the spider that bit her and stabbed twice with her rapier; she was aware that she was in a very exposed position, but hoped she could quickly eliminate the spider that bit her. "I should have expected such treachery from a self-declared king!"
"Pretty sure I said as much," Grem grumbles as he fights off whatever poison these spiders use. Lowering himself into his usual fighting stance, Grem unleashes a series of attacks on the creature's thorax.
◆ Mountain Stance
◆ Flurry of Blows [ooc](vs. Yellow)
Eyenia focuses on the ettercap. Dark whispers surface in her mind and she locks eyes with as many of the spider creature’s eyes as she can, sending the madness that lurks between the stars at the foe.
Bella moves behind the nearest spider and stabs it twice, dropping the arachnid! Grem steps up to the second spider and punches it once, then Vengis finishes it off with an electric arc, slightly scorching the ettercap as well. The web lurker resists Eyenia's attempt to daze it, but Zetty clobbers it with a hurled projectile.
The monster then leaps upon Bella, foiling her attempts to dodge as it sinks its fangs into her neck and claws at her!
"Aargh!" Bella stabbed at the tyrannical "king" and tumbled away.
Finally she quickly patched up her wounds, "You're not my king!"
With a critical stab, Bella pierces the ettercap's heart! The monster spits out blood as it falls at the halfling's feet!
The web lurker has gathered a fairly large stash of “treasure” that he keeps in a bundle of webbing affixed under the table. Most of these valuables are worthless trinkets, like rusty arrowheads, shiny rocks, bits of glass worn smooth by the surf, or neat seashells. Among the clutter is a mesmerizing opal, five shining sling bullets, and a type I necklace of fireballs.
Bella threw off the lingering effects of the "king's" venom. "I'm going to have a bit of a rest, I think." She sat down and took a break.
After a while, Bella's mind fog started to clear, and she took out her healer's tools and repaired the damage.
"Anyone else hurt?"
After tending to Grem's wounds she looked through the pile of treasure and suggested, "Some of this might be magical."
Grem looks down at the bite wound from the web lurker, but just shrugs his shoulders.
With the spiders and ettercap dead, Zetty sighs "I guess we need something a bit more reasonable than ettercaps or morlocks if we want to learn more about this place. This one had a real um, narrow worldview, if you know what I mean." She helps identify the magic items and then takes a step back to examine the room.
While Bella is healing, Zetty takes a long stick and cleans away the thick webbing in the room so that she can better see the walls, tables and the Absalom illusory model. Once it's clean, she starts creating a rendition of the scene on her slate.
If anything unusual stands out to her regarding the model or any of the decorations in the room, she'll try to recall what she knows about ancient Absalom (or other relevant topics depending on what she finds). She also takes 10 minutes to refocus.
When her companions finished their meditations, Bella said. "There's one more door along the long hallway that we haven't explored. Shall we check there next?"
There doesn't seem to be anything unusual in the illusory model of Absalom.
Bella leads the way to the next door. Shelves line the walls of this room, each filled with tools used for cleaning or repair work. A silver-headed cane lies amid a tangle of mops, brooms, and buckets.
None of these tools are particularly valuable, but even a brief glance is enough to note that they’re all clean and in good condition. The cane hides a silver blade; it’s a low-grade silver sword cane.
"Odd thing to be in a broom closet," Grem rubbles, but otherwise pays it little mind.
"I wonder who's using these?", Bella pondered. "They're being well maintained." She checked the side doors, starting with the one on the north.
The walls of thie room to the north have been painted, crudely and almost childishly, to depict a horrific Hellscape of burning mountains, rusting cities, and tormented souls.
A chubby, fly-bodied fiend glares angrily at you. "You should not be down here!" he snarls before moving to attack!
The fiend buzzed at Bella, slicing her with its mandibles.
Bella tumbled behind the fly-bodied fiend and stabbed with her rapier, then called forth a divine shield of faith. "The Dawnflower will prevail over the forces of darkness!"
"Ugh..." Grem comments, "They sure don't make too many pretty things to punch. But then I guess that's the point."
◆ Stride/Step
◆ Mountain Stance
◆ Flurry of Blows (Ki Strike)
Zetty's eyes go wide at the new creature's appearance "What the heck are you?" is all she says as she starts trying to recall if she might've seen such a thing before. She also starts the outlines of a sketch, trying to capture it in all its grotesque glory. As she does, a nearby bucket rises up and catapults itself at the fly-monster.
Eyenia conjures forth a blast of sacred starlight and slings it at the demon.
Zetty recognizes the devil as a zebub. Zebubs serve as Hell's messengers and spies. Their ability to share what they've seen with other creatures makes them especially useful—not only to other devils, but also to mortal conjurers.
Bella stabs the devil, but her blade doesn't seem to hurt it much. Grem moves to flank the fiend and delivers a ki-powered strike. Zetty and Vengis miss, but Eyenia blasts the fiend with holy light, doing great damage to its impure flesh!
The creature shrieks and raises its hands. "Alright, alright! Don't kill me! I have the ability to record things I see and share the memories with others. Spare my life, and I will share a special memory with you!"
Bella eyed the devil suspiciously, "This memory better be a good one! Betray us and you die." Maybe it can tell us something useful.
”This is the most recent memory I have of another surface-dweller coming down to these halls,” the zebub says. The flylike fiend buzzes over to Bella and reaches out to place a hand on the halfling’s arm. As it does so, the rogue receives a flash of information as the creature transfers its memory to her.
The memory shows a lanky Varisian man running through the dungeon's corridors. He is badly wounded, and he staggers through the door to the washroom and closes it behind him. The memory ends.
Bella recognizes the man as the adventurer Otari Ilvashti. That room was where you saw the glowing green light that claimed to be Otari, so it stands to reason that it might actually be somehow related to the town's namesake!
Bella described the memory to the others, "I saw who I think is Otari Ilvashti, badly wounded, staggering through the door to the washroom. That's where the glowing green light came from, which claimed to be Otari!"
She studied the zebub and asked it, "How long ago was this?"
"Wow, that's the most recent memory? I guess you were blind to all the guys who came in here a week ago and got caught by the morlocks?" Zetty cocks her head to the side as Bella relays what she's learned. She continues sketching the Zebub as she talks. "Yeah, how long ago was it?" She knows very well that it must have been at least 400, given the time the Roseguard were still around, but she figures it'll be an OK way to check if the devil is lying with the vision it showed.
Thinking over the story, Zetty adds "So I guess maybe that means something attacked Otari here, and although he escaped, he made it only to the washroom before dying... because that green light's got to be his ghost, right?" She blinks "That's exciting! But also a bit... I don't know. That group he was a part of were serious adventurers. Anything that could beat him is probably pretty fierce."
The devil confirms that the memory occurred 400 years ago. It's common knowledge that Otari died battling the evil sorceress Belcorra Haruvex during that time. Perhaps his death, though, was not as cut-and-dry as the local legends would have lead you to believe!
"If there were other surface-dwellers that came down here recently, they didn't come barging into my room here," the zebub buzzes with irritation. "I am bound to these halls to serve as their janitor. I give the morlocks a wide berth!"
Bella said to her comrades. "I think we should try to follow Otari down the stairs." First however, she healed herself and checked the other door opposite the devil's room.
A pair of hulking humanoid objects stand quietly in this chamber, each covered in a thick layer of dust. Closer inspection reveals them to be clockwork assistants. They are broken beyond repair, but you identify eight gemstones used as bearings in the broken clockworks. The gems are worth 5 gp each.
Bella exclaimed, "These gems look nice!", and set about working to remove them.
After that was done she studied the map that they'd been making and said, "There's a blank spot in the middle here, next to a dead end. I'm going to search there. We also haven't seen any sign of the stairs down from the floor above; I'm tired of swimming through the cave to get down here!"
Searching the halls thoroughly, you find a few hidden doors. Some lead an empty meeting room and abandoned guard post, with stairs that lead up to the upper level of Gauntlight. Another hidden door leads to a plain, circular room that is empty save for a single image of a moss-covered skull on the eastern wall. The symbol radiates magic, and studying it further, it seems to activate an elevator, which will cause the floor to descend to a lower level.
Bella remarked, "Here's another way down, but I think we should follow the green light that called itself Otari. Let's try to pick up it's trail."
She returned to the secret door leading to the staircase leading down, where she'd previously seen the light descend.
Grem dutifully follows along with Bella, making sure that she comes to watch over her while she sets about exploring the place. The dwarf takes everything in stride, including the knowledge given from the janitor-demon. When she mention following after the spirit of Otari, despite the absurdity of it, he just nods and continues following.
|
"Well, the mystery of the cleaning room has been solved," Vengis says with a gesture toward the bound cleaning devil.
"I suggest we leave it alone. Perhaps it can clean up the rest of this place with the morlocks gone," he says.
"As for going down, I agree we should try to follow this 'Otari' fellow. Perhaps he can help us figure out how to turn off the lights here."
Wrapping up her sketch of the devil, Zetty waves "Be good now." and heads off with the rest of the party. She nods to Vengis "Weird to have such a powerful devil as a janitor, but I guess Belcorra was serious business. Even after four hundred years, its still around and still bound by whatever is keeping it here."
She follows after Bella in her final explorations of the floor, detecting magic and inspecting the scenery - both for things to inspire her and for any potential memories things might trigger.
Upon reaching the secret elevator, she comments "I think you're right Bella. If that really was Otari's ghost, I feel better following that than entering the Nhimbaloth Cultist Express to the lower floors." She points at the mossy skull.
The stairs beyond the secret door that the green light disappeared through lead down to a hall. Across the hall is another staircase leading back up. The hall ends at a door to the east, while to the west, thick clouds of white mist fill the hall entirely, making it difficult to discern any details.
Splintered, rotten wood lies scattered around this hall. Of the glow, there is no sign.
The bizarre flying cat with the one bulging eye hovers nearby.
"আমি সম্ভবত বলব যে আমি এই ধারণার বিপক্ষে, 'কৌতুকপূর্ণ নয়'," it says in some sinister language.
Eyenia looks at the cat a bit suspiciously but then shrugs. If it wanted to say, eat fingers as it had mentioned before, it would have already.
Zetty peers down each side of the hall, detecting for magic as she does. "Pretty sure that cloud of white mist isn't natural. Weird that there would be stairs going back up here... not sure what they would even lead to! Do we want to go back up that way first, just in case? Otari said something about being down below, so it'd be a long shot, but I'm curious."
Bella agreed with Zetty, "Might as well figure out where the other staircase up leads. In never hurts to have another escape route." She explored the other way back up.