Despite the creature's reliance on sonic attacks, Bella believes that it might be weak to similar attacks if you could somehow turn the sound back on it!
Bertolt was completely caught off guard and falls to a knee, ears bleeding.
Eyenia almost powers through it, but ultimately succumbs to the horrendous cry.
Bella proposed, "Alright Kragga, flank together?"
If the orc replied in the affirmative, she agiley moved around the side of the creature to give the woman better chance to hit.
Kragga weathers the sonic blast with only mild discomfort. "Let's do it!" she growls to Bella. Casting a spell, the orc blinks across the distance to strike the monster! She then drops into her arcane cascade stance.
The monster rocks back from the force of Kragga's blow. Bellowing angrily, the creature bites and claws at the orc.
Bella stabbed twice at the reptilian beast, then prayed to the Dawnflower for divine protection.
Bertolt rises from his knee and charges forth!
Zetty still isn't totally recovered from the resonating wailing, but she focuses on continuing her inspiration before calling out "No more of that wailing, you lizard... thing! If you're going to make noise, you might as well laugh!" She turns her writing slate, showing off a picture of the lizard beast rolling on the floor in laughter.
Eyenia's eyes blaze with light as she blasts a ray of searing, holy power at the beast.
Kragga momentarily transform her sword into force, scouring the monster's flesh. She then channels fire into the sword and strikes again!
The creature completely resists Zetty's attempt to make it laugh. Vengis lands a critical hit, while Bertolt hits with his shield. Bella and Kragga land good strikes as well.
The monster continues to focus on Kragga, trying to take out the orc! It nearly succeeds, narrowly missing with its second claw. Kragga stands bloodied and beaten but unbowed!
Bertolt cries out as he is ignored and Kragga is focused. "COWARD MONSTROSITY, YE SHALL FACE MY WRATH!" His hammer crackles with lighting as he brings it down!
Bella furiously stabbed at the monster, trying to bring it down before Kragga collapsed.
]
Zetty quickly lifts a vial from her bandolier, tosses it directly up into the air, and then draws a line propelling it across the battlefield. As she does, a stream of ink lifts off her slate and slaps the vial, sending it tumbling right at the monstrous foe.
Bella stabs the creature from behind, and Zetty hits it with a dread ampoule. Then, Bertolt lays into it with sword and shield, slicing and battering the monster until it finally collapses!
The seugathi watching from the gallery scribbles some notes on a piece of slate, gripping the chalk with its tentacles. Then, the creature slithers off through a door on the upper level, leaving you alone in the lower chamber!
Zetty blinks in surprise "Wait, was it taking notes on our fight? What did we get ourselves into?" She heads over to the frontliners "Let's back off, just in case it brings another monster like that over. Kragga is looking... bad."
Bella looked over Kragga's wounds and commented, "Hold on, this is going to take me a while." She took out her ,medical supplies and set to work.
After an extended period of time she was finally done saying, "I think you're going to be left with a few well-earned scars, Kragga"
Kragga staggers back up the stairs to a safe room and sits heavily on the floor as Bella tends to her. When the halfling mentions scars, the orc grins. "Good. Scars build character."
Eventually, the magus is back at full fighting strength. "So, what now?"
While Bella works, Zetty keeps watch until she gets distracted by the remains of the giant skeleton the group fought earlier. She wanders back half an hour later with a big scroll she stuffs into her pack . "Feeling better Kragga? I say we go straight south down those stairs. Maybe we can find another way down to the floor below - a way that seugathi isn't expecting us to take."
As she gets to the door, she looks it over for more traps and the sounds of anything from the other side.
The door here opens up onto the balcony of the massive arena. A wide walkway around this cavernous chamber looks out over the stone arena floor 30 feet below. Six balconies with built-in seating provide the best view. Each balcony has a bright torch jutting from it, illuminating the entire arena while leaving this viewing level shrouded in shadows. An enormous metal gong on the eastern end of the chamber hangs on thick chains. Two steep staircases lead down from the central balcony on the north side of the arena floor.
Looking down into the arena floor, you can see a gargantuan monstrosity of horrific proportions. The thing resembles a vaguely serpentine mass of faces and other assorted body parts melted together. Fortunately, it appears to be dormant for the time being..
"We should avoid disturbing such a fearsome beast if we can. I shall remain here while you scout, I fear my skill at stealth is paltry at best."
Zetty's eyes almost pop out of their sockets at the grandiose grotesquery of the creature in the arena below. In contrast to Bertolt, she rushes to the railing - quietly if she can - and immediately starts getting her first impressions. She's at rapt attention as she mouths to the group "W O W. That's one gross monstrosity. Did they make it out of a bunch of other monsters, or does it naturally grow that big? It's so horrible!" Her voice bubbles with excitement at finding something so unique.
Fleshwarpers, regardless of their origin or training, create a shocking amount of waste. When the discarded remnants of aberrant flesh are heaped together with an accidental mixture of alchemical compounds or odious energy, the mass can quicken and regain life. Without the guidance of a fleshwarper, these aberrant body parts form into a shanrigol, a mess of bone, muscle, and sinew.
Shanrigols that grow with the additions of many living victims can become truly enormous in size and pose a greater danger in their expanding hunting territories. Many shanrigol behemoths absorb enough brain matter to form crude intelligences and take a serpentine or humanoid shape!
While she tries to capture the heft of the monstrosity on her page, Zetty whispers back to the others, describing what little she's heard of fleshwarping. She ends with "This Shanrigol's so big that we're probably in trouble if we try to fight it. Maybe we can sneak by and continue at the other door. After I'm done with this though!" She points to her slate "What do you think? Try to slink by?"
Bella tried to figure out what the creature was, but didn't know much; she shook her head in reply.
Shanrigols are resistant to piercing and slashing damage. As undead aberrations, they are healed by negative energy, but they are weak to positive energy. They can attack at range by firing shards of bone from their bodies.
Zetty keeps close to the others as the creature's characteristics are described in whispers. "I'm ready to go around it for now, but at least we know what to avoid and what to try when fighting it. I think you'll be our big hope Eyenia, with your healing magic." Zetty eyes the monstrosity again "I'm happy to check elsewhere and come back later, once we're all ready for this fight. "
You give the arena a wide berth as you make your way back to the western wing of this dungeon level. There are numerous intersecting halls and stairs here the lead to several doors you have yet to explore.
Zetty keeps her eyes and ears open, alert for the monster behind them in the arena suddenly jumping into action.
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You make your way to a double door at the base of a set of stairs. The door is barricaded with several bars of twisted metal scrap and a sturdy wooden shelf, but you are able to move them without much trouble.
The curved east and west walls contain tables with small, built-in ovens. Wood fragments, heavily dented pewter serving dishes, silver flatware, and crystal shrapnel litter the floor. A wide alcove to the south ends at a cloudy window overlooking the arena. An array of magical glyphs glows next to the window.
A large goblet suddenly flies across the room, smashing into the far wall. "It's your fault! You're to blame!"
A chunk of wood launches itself in the direction that the goblet came from. "No! You are the one that sealed our fate!"
A moment later, the flickering forms of two spectral skeletal humans appear in the room. They both turn towards you menacingly.
"Can't get out!" one shouts.
"Trapped here forever!" the other one adds.
Zetty peeks cautiously into the room from behind the remains of the wooden shelf the group moved to open the doors. She glances over the kitchen equipment, then focuses on the magical glyphs for a moment When the goblet flies across her vision, she almost brings an arm up to shield her tablet.
When the two ghosts manifest, she cautiously calls out "Umm, we opened the door for you? Who's to blame doesn't matter much right?" While she attempts to calm them, she tries to think on what this might be - is this a haunting? Or are these some kind of undead? Or is it maybe just an illusion?
Bella tried to figure out a way to calm the spectres, "Maybe we can help you; let's work this out together."
Bella recognizes the spirits as poltergeist, doomed souls with unfinished business that haunt the location of their death.
The poltergeists hesitate at your calming words. "Is it true? We can get out?"
"We have been trapped here for so long!"
"Sweet, sweet freedom! Show us the way!"
The spirits wait until you describe the path out of the dungeon. They then rush out of the door. As they do so, they vanish in a puff of cold wind.
Searching the room, you discover a dented, lead-lined steel box. The mechanism is jammed, but Bella is able to coax it open with enough finessing with her thieves' tools. Inside is a type I ring of wizardry with the symbol of Nhimbaloth on it.
The door in this room opens onto a staircase leading down. The stairs are choked with trash, making the passage difficult.
The transparent stone wall looks out on what appears to be a massive arena. The glyphs on the wall control the magic infused in this stone. A creature manipulating the glyphs can make the wall ethereal (it still resembles transparent stone, but creatures and objects can pass through it), render it opaque, or change it back to transparent stone, as well as control what part of the arena it shows.
"Well, that was good, I think? Hopefully those spirits will be released to Pharasma rather than sticking around, now that their anguish has been all settled. Kind of hard to tell with ghosts."
Zetty spies the ring in the box and comments "Ooh, fancy! Shame I don't have the right type of magic. I don't think you do either, huh Vengis? We could always take it and sell it for something more useful though."
After studying the glyphs and how the magical wall functions she raises her inkpen. "Oh! Maybe we could use this to easily fight that creature. One person controls the wall, moving it to different views of the arena, as well as making it ethereal or solid, and everyone else sends their best projectiles through at the big fleshwarp! With the opening moving all over the place, it will struggle to track us or counterattack."
"Restless spirits are always best to set free. Ones powerful and malicious enough to be of concern would not be taking part in such petty bickering." Bertolt quips with a chuckle. He frowns in thought at the shield. "Can such a construct be moved and activated so quickly? Perhaps...we do need to destroy such a foul monstrosity, but not if it would be recklessly throwing our lives away."
After trying a few different configurations of the wall, Zetty nods "This'll work! It takes a bit of finesse with the glyphs, but the wall changes quickly enough. We could alternate it from the north and south ends of the arena, with two people working the glyphs, while everyone else sends their regards to that big monster. The monster won't know which way to shoot its spikes, and if it does, we'll have already made the wall solid."
She draws out her plan on a piece of paper and shows it to the rest of the group.
"I've got my hunter's brooch to let me throw some positive energy at it, so I'll plan to be in the smashing side of things. Everyone in on this plan? If it works well, we'll be down one sharingol without anyone hurt, for once."
"I do not understand how this artifact works, but I shall trust in your wisdom and follow your lead. Let us slay that monstrosity!"
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Zetty's plan turns out to be a shrewd one. Alternating between making the wall solid and ethereal, you are able to rain spells and arrows down on the shanrigol behemoth in the arena below. The bone shards it fires back at you break harmlessly against the solid wall, and the creature lacks the intelligence to adopt a new strategy. When the thing has taken more punishment than it can stand, it collapses, its foul flesh rotting away and sublimating into a foul-smelling gas that lingers for a few moments before dissipating!
Flushed from the tension of keeping the wall moving and alternating in solidity fast enough to evade the bone shards, Zetty punches the air as the creature expires. "We got it! Nice teamwork!" She grins "If only we could manage every scary thing that easily."
She moves the opening a few more times to carefully survey the arena for other dangers, then sets it back to connect to its default location. "Alright, time to take a look back the other way." She leads on back up the hallway the way the team came, then to the first door on the left. She listens in for any action from the room ahead as she gets close.