Lanterns hanging from the ceiling shine bright circles of light over three stone tables topped with metal slabs. A single lightweight chain dangles near each table. The remnants of a dead morlock lies on one of the tables. Dried splatters of blood cover the walls, floor, and ceiling.
While the rest of the group catches up, Zetty attempts to detect magic to see if she can sense any unusual auras in the room. Once she's done, she comments "A place where they did some grisly murders, looks like. Maybe even some of the stitching that ended up making things like that big fleshwarp monster we just killed." She eyes the chains skeptically, commenting "I wonder what the chains were for? They don't seem too rugged, at least not enough to be restraints."
She doesn't look eager to go inside.
The chains are hanging from the ceiling. They look like pull chains that might activate some mechanism.
"So who wants to lie on a table and pull the chain to see what happens?" Zetty winks at the group. "That or we can leave this suspicious looking room well enough alone. What do you all think?"
She spends a few moments trying to visualize what lies directly above this room on the floor above, but slowly realizes she's gotten a bit turned around with all the stairs.
"I really don't want to think about what this room was used for," Bella replied with a shudder.
"Okay, so unless you guys-" She looks at Bertolt and Kragga "Are looking for some mysterious chain action-" She grins cheekily. "We can go and see what's behind the next one."
Zetty heads over to the door at the end of the hall, sizes it up, listens in for and noises on the other side, waits for Bella to do the same if she wants, and then opens it up if all seems safe.
Rusted iron chains hang from the ceiling of this room, each ending in an oversized manacle. The octagonal eastern end of the room contains a circular pit covered by a rusted iron grate. Torn bolts and scrap metal dangle from the ceiling above the pit. Piles of scrap fill the four alcoves that open off the wide hall that constitutes the room’s west end.
"What an accursed place. If I could burn such a structure to the ground I surely would. Curse the stone architecture."
The cat hisses but nevertheless complies, moving over to look in the grate-covered pit.
Zetty keeps a safe distance from the central pit, but still enters the room to take a peek down the western hallway. "A bunch of scrap? Pretty weird. Does Nalfie see anything down there Vengis?" While Nalfeshnee investigates, Zetty starts looking at the scrap piles to work out what metal items were discarded there and why.
"Even if this place could burn Bertolt, think of all the history and artistry we could lose that way. And I doubt the evil things down here would just roll over and let themselves get burned alive."
Bertolt grabs his chest. "Of course we would rescue what we could first! But ah, we speak in naught by possibilities, ones that cannot come to pass. Let us instead focus on what we can do and continue moving forward."
The pit descends 40 feet to a room below. Rust and grime fill this octagonal chamber. A wide hallway leads to the south, and doors stand in the north and south walls.
Zetty quickly scribes an impression of the rusty pit, then flips a few pages over to look at her map again. "We've come across so many ways to go down to the floor below by now! Or maybe this is two floors down here. Who knows. By this point we've also got a pretty good idea for how these floors must have worked, right? An arena here for various shows and fights, and the losers are dropped down to the level below to be fleshwarped and experimented upon by the seugathi." She shakes her head "That's seriously horrible."
"Lets check this north room, and a couple of the others we missed. Then, if we're still feeling good, we could try to head down again."
Zetty briefly inspects the northern door in advance of opening it.
Three cells line the south wall of the next room, their bars only a few inches apart. Each cell contains a heap of rotted flesh and shattered bone. In the central cell, a copper key glitters within the fleshy muck.
Bertolt checks the cell doors for any sign of traps.
Assuming neither he nor his companions see anything amiss, he offers his own strength to open the locks.
The second lock gives him a bit of trouble and a bruised thumb, but other than that all went well.
Bella eyed the glittering key closely, "I bet it opens something interesting!"
Zetty wrinkles her nose at the horrors in the cells. These certainly weren't hundreds of years old, if they were still in the process of rotting. "Anyone remember a door elsewhere that was locked? I don't think we came across one. At least, not yet." She keeps well away from the flesh piles, keeping a lookout for the more capable Bertolt. "These don't entirely fit in with my guess of what's happening in this place. I thought this floor was more or less abandoned much earlier. So then these are..." She waves her pen at the flesh piles "What exactly? Did the seugathi bring victims back up here?"
Once Bertolt shatters the locks and forces the cell doors open, the heaps of flesh in each cell suddenly shudder to unlife, beginning to slurp and slither across the floor towards him!
The things move swiftly, converging on the dwarf and attacking him with fleshy psuedopods! His armor holds against the attacks!
Zetty jumps right into rallying her allies, drawing a dramatic rendition of Bertolt emerging triumphant from under tides of rotting flesh. "We've got this! Just... don't get surrounded!" As she inspires the group, she tries to undo the current pincer movement by striking fear into the three monsters. Inwardly, she crosses her fingers that these monstrosities can actually feel fear at all.
Bella studied the pseudopods, relaying her advice to her companions. She prayed for divine protection and then stabbed at one of the fleshy appendages.
"I was merely trying to-...oh be it no bother, fell these monstrosities!"
Two of the creatures are momentarily slowed by Vengis's spell, while the other one is unaffected. Zetty frightens the trio of monsters.
Bertolt brings his hammer and shield down, flattening one of the things to the ground and badly wounding it.
Bella studies the creatures, realizing that as undead heaps of flesh, they will be weak to positive damage but resistant to piercing. She stabs at one nevertheless, but doesn't hit.
Eyenia fires a burning beam of light at one of the uninjured monsters, scoring a critical hit and completely incinerating it!
Kragga moves to support Bertolt with a spellstrike. She, too, scores a critical hit, destroying the monster Bertolt struck down.
The lone surviving monster slowly attacks Bertolt, landing a hit.
Bella dodged around the surviving monster and healed Bertolt. Then she tried to disupt the monster with positive energy.
Zetty hurriedly scrawls details - it looks like these horrible flesh piles won't be here for more longer at this rate! She calls upon a telekinetic projectile, this time a hunk of the lock that Bertolt shattered, and sends it flying.
She tries to recall what she might know of these creatures in case they have some unpleasant surprises after death.
Bertolt blocks the worst of the blow with his shield.
The final monster quickly falls to your attacks. Zetty recalls that these things were lesser shanrigols, like the monstrosity in the arena. These heaps of discarded body parts were given unlife by foul necromantic energies.
You are able to safely claim the copper key.
"More fleshwarp mistakes. Maybe my first guess was right? That these were prisoners that the seugathi tried to transform, but failed. Or succeeded, I guess, but not in a good way." She shakes her head. "We've got that key at least. Bertolt, is it labeled?"
Zetty tucks her writing slate under her arm and asks "How is everyone? We've got a couple more places to check, like the doors opposite to the operating room, and the room furthest to the west on this floor. But we've been going for a while today... and seeing a lot of horrors..."
As she talks she makes her way back to the door opposite the operating room, in case people still want to push forward.
"I have minor wounds, but nothing to worry about. If there is healing to be done I can also patch up my shield, but it is plenty strong for more than one battle."
Shelves of dusty bottles and surgical equipment line the walls in this room. Cobwebs and dust hint that this chamber has remained untouched for quite some time. At the center of the room stands a solitary pushcart.
Searching this room locates an unusual key that fell behind one of the shelves. The key has a round shaft tipped with several teeth of varying length. The shelves contain two sets of healer’s tools, a set of expanded healer’s tools, and alchemical reagents worth 10 gp.
"There were indeed three doors that blocked our paths, but my hammer had made short work of them." Bertolt says with a chuckle.
"Hmmm... I guess we can hold onto them for any door we want to handle in a more quiet fashion. Who knows if they're to something close by or something deeper." Zetty takes another look around the room "The door opposite this one's a surgery room then, while this room has supplies for the surgery. Did they fleshcraft things here, or was this more mundane, I wonder..."
A little curious about what the cart would have been for, Zetty pushes it out of the room and into the hallway. As it rolls, she looks at its size and shape to try to tell if it was for moving medical supplies or people or something else.
Afterward, she asks "I think I spied a gate or something down that westward passage from the main hall on this floor. I wonder if it'd need one of these keys? Let's check it." She heads back out, east to the main hall, and then down the side passage back west. She keeps her eyes open for more spinning blade traps, remembering how alarming they were before.
Bella tended to Bertolt's injuries, "Can't have you going into battle hurt!"
After bandaging up the dwarf, she followed Zetty to the gate and examined it.
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A closed portcullis flanked by arrow slits blocks passage in this hall, but some of the bars near the north arrow slit have partially melted and twisted, perhaps caused by powerful acid. Zetty is able to squeeze through the opening and spot a rusty lever through the arrow slit. Using mage hand, she can pull the lever and raise the portcullis, allowing the rest of the party to pass through.
Beyond the doors is what seems to have been a security checkpoint. This central octagonal room is flanked on the north and south by single iron doors, each with a narrow viewing port and archery slit. The stone double door to the east features an emblazoned carving of a dripping skull, its mouth stuffed with weeds. The western double door is made of iron pitted with rust.
Not long after you enter this room, though, a humanoid shadow flows out of the walls! Resembling a woman gripping long blades, the shadow moves to attack!
The shadow flies up to Zetty and reaches for her, narrowly missing the gnome!
Bella studied the woman and offered her advice on how to fight the spirit. She prayed to the Dawnflower for protection, then cried, "For the Sun and the Fury!", and attacked.
Zetty quickly scurries back with a "Oh, its occupied, sorry, just a sec!" before she spins back around to regard the shadowy creature. A moment later, her allies rush in past her. Her sketching inspires the rest of the team as she tries to recall what this shadow-y being might be!
Light banishes darkness, and Eyenia had holy light in spades. She summons forth a holy blast and shoots it at the shadow.
Bella realizes that most forms of damage will not do much against this shadow! However, force and positive damage will bypass its resistance. Zetty recognizes it as a greater form of the shadows you have fought before.
Bella and Eyenia miss with their attacks, but Vengis' magic missiles prove effective. Kragga blink charges the shadow, missing with her sword but battering it with the explosion of force. She then turns her blade into pure force for a moment to lance the shadow!
The shadow turns its ire on the orc, attacking with its fell touch! It tears Kragga's shadow free from her body, weakening the magus. The stolen shadow attacks as well!
"THIS EVIL SHALL NOT IGNORE MINE WRATH!"