Karana asks, “We are avoiding northernmost routes to clear the area before retrieving the bear, correct?”
She gestures toward the straight-east door.
Beau readies torch and rapier for their looming venture to and through the door to the east. "I'm amazed by your sense of direction, Karana."
The eastward door opens to a narrow corridor at the end of which there is another door leading north.
"No just the route marked with the fluffy bear face." Bea points out, referencing the goblin's map. Pointing at the door to the north in the hallway they were in "That one should be fine."
Through the door awaits a peculiar sight. The furniture in this former bedroom is all askew, revealing a huge pile in the center made up largely of garbage - filthy strips of cloth, bits of weathered wood, chunks of rubble and bent nails - although there are a few shining glints here and there. On the northern wall, scrawled in a childlike hand, are several words.
The eastern wall features a hole where the stones have been removed. A rudimentary tunnel stretches about three feet into the earth beyond, and the still-damp mounds of dirt next to it indicate that the work is quite fresh. Bent lengths of metal and what looks like rusty spoons lie abandoned on the floor at the mouth of the tunnel.
Searching through the pile in the center of the room yields some bent coins, a dented silver bracelet and a tiger's eye pendant on a leather thong.
"It says, 'Beware Mitey Dragons', but I think they mean Mighty, and not dragon mites, or dragons owned by Mites." Bea translated in a matter a fact tone.
"Looks like someone is trryin' to make a tunnel... to rreach somevherre, orr to exit this place? If the entrrance ve took is unknown to these frrogs and monkeys, they might be trraped herre and desperrate to leave." Gofran proposes.
Aside from that, he turns and heads to the former door to the north.
Amaya has been keeping her own council for the past while, but when she hears Beatrix' translation of the message on the wall, she walks over to inspect it herself, though she has no means of translating it. "You don't think that those dragon-things from the courtyard were able to write this, do you?"
Gofran leads the way into the adjacent room, where a steady dripping from the stone ceiling has created a deep bog-like puddle in the middle of the broken floor. Ringing the puddle are splintered pieces of wood stuck into the flagstones' rubble rising up like bizarre foliage.
The ranger's keen senses detect the subtle croaking of frogs as soon as he's through the door, so he's not taken by surprise when two boggards jump out of the puddle where they were hiding and attack.
The rogue rolls into the thick of it and lashes out at the boggard with his torch in the hopes of making it stumble back, and so having it expose itself to a vicious strike.
At the exploding sounds of splashing and croaking, Bea hurries into the room, slipping past Karana. "More of them. Did a whole army come through?" she concentrates on the one in front of Gofran, filling its mind with spiked cotton.
================================
Gofran leads the way into the adjacent room, where a steady dripping from the stone ceiling has created a deep bog-like puddle in the middle of the broken floor. Ringing the puddle are splintered pieces of wood stuck into the flagstones' rubble rising up like bizarre foliage.
The ranger's keen senses detect the subtle croaking of frogs as soon as he's through the door - something is off. Alak tenses as well, which alerts Amaya, Beatrix and Beau to imminent danger.
Bojas lowers the torch and peers over the flame into the room. He hears nothing but the crackling sound of flame consuming tar, and spots nothing out of the ordinary. "You sure there's something out there, Gofran ... ?"
"You heard a croak? Opening Doors sometimes can sound like that, usually more like a creak but croaks are possible." she rambles on, as she looks about for croakings.
Amaya peers into the room her eyes drawn to the area directly in the middle of the room, where the water lays stagnant. It draws her attention for reasons that she can not consciously fathom.
◆ Reserved to Point Out whatever she finds.
Peering into the pool, Amaya can vaguely discern two shapes crouched in the murky water.
Gofran looks at the murjy water, trying to figure out where to strike.
Once Amaya points out the shapes, Gofran manages to focus on one. There, a shoulder, a knee, the elbows tucked in, the bulbous head, two eyes looking right at him! Both his hands gripping the pommel of his greatsword, the ranger stabs straight down, slicing flesh. A red cloud blooms in the water, swirling like ink.
Alak strides up to the edge of the pool, his eyes roving its depths, his own greatsword poised to strike. He doesn't seem to detect the wounded boggard at first as he slashes downward blindly, but his second swing connects and more blood clouds the water.
In reaction, the boggards explode out of the deep pool, screaming and brandishing their clubs. The wounded one swings at Alak, who stumbles backwards and catches the first blow right on the side of his knee with an audible crunch, almost falling as his leg gives way. The second one attacks Gofran, but the ranger parries them both with his sword.
Purple boggard: -26 HP
Alak: -22 HP
Kyrie jumps at the sudden eruption of combat. She rushes in front of Alak and enters her battle stance, sweeping horizontally with her shield to try to hit the boggard.
Karana draws her spear, double-thrusts at the nearest foe—
—and admits to herself she needs more practice.
The boggard ducks under Kyrie's shield swipe as Alak hisses in pain. She can hear the armiger breathing heavily behind her, the scrape of his sword on the stone floor as he uses it to push himself upright.
"A-hah. Hhh. That... hurts." He takes a deep breath, then lunges with his uninjured leg forward while driving the point of his greatsword towards the boggard. His back leg buckles again and Alak almost falls forward, but recovers at the last moment. His follow-up strike is a simple, utilitarian arcing diagonal cut that leaves a deep gash in the amphibian's torso while entirely avoiding Kyrie.
Purple boggard: -40 HP
Alak: -22 HP
Beatrix stumbles back from the boggard's leap at her and Gofran, only for her back to hit the wall behind her rather Too quickly. "get it together, little bee" her sisters would say, if they were here, but they are not, so she says it for them. Gathering her courage again, she faces the frog people and releases the insane vivid purples from the abyss.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=44
Then she slips past the creature to get behind it and hopefully out of the way.
Amaya responds as quickly as she is able to Alak's cries of pain. Instinctively, she reaches out and snatches up the clean, dripping water from the air, and uses it to soothe and bind the armiger's wounds. She then steps around the corner of the doorway to a spot that she hopes is out of the way of the worst of the battle.
◆ Stride
The boggard in front of Beatrix turns away at the last moment and avoids the effects of her spell entirely, while the other one seems momentarily dazzled.
Purple boggard: -40 HP
Alak: -11 HP
Gofran moves around the uninjured boggart while looking for a weak spot, hoping to protect Bea and free space so Beau can enter strike the enemies. He then strikes with his greatsword.
Beau drops the torch and rushes the frogling. "Hey!", he yells at the vicious frogling with enough hostile intent in his voice to get its attention and grabs it by its vest. "Leave my friends alone!"
The uninjured boggard manages to avoid Gofran's strike, but its triumph is short-lived as Beau grabs him from the side, driving the point of his rapier between the ribs.
It retaliates by unleashing a horribly-sounding croak, then swinging its club at Beau twice, gravely injuring him. Alak winces at the sound, and the other boggard presses his advantage, rising his club to strike. However, Kyrie was waiting for this exact moment and she heaves upwards with her shield, catching the amphibian in the chin and knocking it unconscious. Alak, who had blocked the blow with his sword, gives the champion a grateful nod.
Purple boggard: unconscious
Alak: -11 HP
Beau: -21 HP
Frightened 1: Amaya, Beatrix, Alak
Facing that she’s not a good fighter, she raises her shield and blasts Beau with healing light.
“You have got this, Beau!” she cheers the wrestler in grammatically-correct Taldan.
Kyrie nods grimly as Alak is no longer in danger. She is not a fan in the slightest of having to protect a hellknight, but she is sworn to protect this group.
Gofran is angry and wishes to finish this foe fast, so he attacks quickly and viciously, like a madman, taking advantage of the fact he is flanking with Beau.
Gofran's onslaught drops the remaining boggard like a stone, overwhelming its defenses and inflicting grievous wounds to it.
Karana is gradually becoming hardened to the realities of battle.
“I will stabilize them, or not.”
She waits for approval before offering life-saving magic to killers. If no one responds either way, she will save both enemies.
"Au...", is all Beau manages as he slumps down to the ground. With shaky hands, Beau inspects the ghastly wound the boggard inflicted and then quickly averts his eyes. It's all fun and games until you're the one bleeding.
And so, trusting entirely on his nimble fingers, Beau gets out the needles and holy disinfectant water and starts fixing what's broken without ever looking at the wound itself. You'd almost think he has done this before.
"So where to next?" Beatrix asks as she rolls out the goblin's amazing map. "We have the bear, the skull, or the fang?" there is a brief discussion sparking a mild discord between the gnome and the dwarf about the value of finding out what the intriguing skull is and the likelihood that is undead which could wait. In the end, the gnome relents to the dwarf and she agrees "Fangs then. Past Karana's pretty birds and..." she traces the path on the map, showing and getting everyone's approval before rolling it back up and giving it to the tentacle in her satchel.
Gofran, noticing the tentacle for the first time, points to it. "Do ve need to vorry about that, Bea? I do not vant to prry on yerr business but... aside frrom octopus and squid, which I've hearrd arre delicious, tentacles arre usually attached to dangerrous things..."
Bea reaches into her satchel and scratches whatever is inside, making it thrum like a purr. "She is Matilda, an octopus... mostly. Like he did with all things, my father experimented on her a bit." her tone was not a happy one in her memories of her father, before lightening as she continues "I had the job of feeding the ones that lived so, we grew attached."
"My sisters though share your sentiment. They have threatened to eat her on several occasions if I leave her in our room, so here she is." the gnome takes her hand back out of the satchel, wrapped in Matilda's fleshy appendages accompanied with mental whispers of More Petting Please!, but Bea wiggles free and Matilda settles back in "She is also very shy."
Karana is not concerned, so much as she is intrigued. “Bea, please let me see your mysterious tentacled friend later, when the time is right. I can better understand an animal by assuming its form. I do not know if my magic will allow this, but I wish to try.”
For now, she will agree to any given path, and she will keep her shield up. (She will also pet the tentacle, if allowed, but she does not ask this… yet!)
Deciding to leave Big Bumble where he is, for now, the group retraces their steps to the central hallway, where the emperor birds are huddling unhappily in the dark. They squawk and flap a little as they catch sight of the party, but do not seem otherwise threatening.
Moving eastwards, it becomes clear the the southern side of the hallway mirrors the northern one, with three angled corridors radiating south-east before bending southwards, out of sight. Towards the end of the hallway, a mass of rubble chokes what had been until recently a double stairway, presumably leading both upwards to the courtyard, and downwards to another level of the citadel.
At the eastern end, three doorways open to three separate rooms. Those who can see in the dark figure that the rooms are laid out in a somewhat fan shape, with the north and south areas framing the central chamber. The latter has a large, splintered table that stretches across the center of the room, while broken chairs, decayed books and general detritus litter the floor. A strange, pasty caking of dried slime is smeared along the entrance door's frame, which suggest to Gofran that some sort of ooze passed this way several weeks ago.
The view through the other two doorways suggests two mirrored entry hallways, devoid of furniture except for faded oil portraits on the walls. Closed doors connect to other rooms further inside the complex.
Once again armed with rapier and torch, Beau shadows Gofran and goes wherever the dwarf goes. He shines a light on the dried slime and throws a frown at the dwarf. "Whatever left that behind can't possibly be good news for us. What could it be, a giant slug? Some sort of nasty demon or devil? Or one of those quasi-sentient oozes I've heard horror stories about?"
He then turns around to face the entire group. "Now's the time to prepare for the worst. There's some funky-looking slime on this doorframe that promises trouble in the room up ahead."
"When things are quiet, we can try introductions." Bea gives the elven woman a smile, reaching in to pat her friend again.
In the new room, she whistles low. "So big... and more stairs down. So there is another level. Interesting." After looking around the room with her arcane senses quickly, she suggests. "The first northern door here, then work our way along the wall?"
Gofran raises his eyebrows, not expecting an octopus outside of water... "And does yerr bag has vaterr forr herr, orr vas yerr fatherr experriment rresponsible forr herr brreathin' airr?"
"Prrobably an ooze and those arre alvays bad news... ve dvarrves hate 'em. As farr as I know, most arre mindless, so much like vith the possible valkin' dead to the south, ve could leave them be forr now." He answers to Beau and then nods to Bea. "Norrth seems good..."
He then scouts ahead.
The northern hallway is still decorated with the remnants of homages to the order of the Nail's most storied deeds. Tall oil paintings, many of which are damaged but still recognizable, depict Hellknights gaining the upper hand in clashes with bandits, opposing armies, and terrible monsters.
Alak trails after Gofran, watching the paintings keenly, leaning close to read the artist signatures. "Ah!" he exclaims, stopping in front of a tableau depicting three Hellknights battling a black dragon in an ominous swamp. A fourth Hellknight leaps from a rise behind the dragon with her halberd raised, ready to bear down on the dragon's back, while a robed figure in the background attends to a wounded knight. Alak points at the signature, which reads "R. Stagram."
"My great-great-uncle. I've been told he was a talented painter, but I have no eye for art, to be honest. And if it was really good, they would have taken it with them when they moved, no? Still..." He trails off, gazing at the painting, lost in thought.
Kyrie observes the art with thought and care, though the disapproving frown does not leave her face. At least they are fighting a dragon and not some caricature of a “savage” as she would expect from this order. ”I have not known hellknights to be sentimental. I have known them to value practicality or ideals far removed from sentiment.” Her still-disapproving frown speaks to her opinion on such people. ”I think they either left this painting because it was not important enough to them to take or because it served a purpose.”
She looks over the painting for any hints of hidden usage, including testing to see if the frame is movable.
Aside from a little water damage at the edges, the painting is intact, and with careful work it could be removed from its frame and rolled up. It might be worth something to an art dealer or private collector, or perhaps the Breachill town council would be interested in acquiring it.
Bea nods at the question about water "That is part of the 'mostly', she can live on land as well as on water, just likes a good dunk now and again for the skin."
"yes they are still talking about you. it's either you or art at the moment, you see." she says to the tentacle wrapped around her hand.
In the room she keeps her thoughts about dragons to herself and looks at the paintings for anything 'more' interesting. While keeping her arcane senses open every once in a while.
Unlike the others, Beau isn't focusing on the painting but on any possible threats. The signs are there that they ought to run into resistance and this keeps him on edge.
Karana is focusing on the paintings, including the smell!
"Door at the end of this room? We can see if it loops around to the other side." Bea suggests when she realizes that the paintings are more of the same.
As usual, Amaya has been keeping her peace during their exploration. She never was a chatty girl, and the stone over their head makes her feel a little more subdued than usual. Still, as they are walking down the hallway, and the painting catches Alak's eye, the young oracle can't help but smile at the very human-like expression on the knight's face. "I don't think you have to be an appreciator of art to appreciate something with a personal tie. In fact, I don't think anyone would appreciate such a thing, despite it's value, than someone like yourself who is tied to it by blood."
-------------
Amaya can't help but notice Bea's conversation with Gofran about her little octopus friend.
At the mention of water, she adds, "If he is ever in need of a fresh dose of water, please be sure to let me know." She gives the young gnome a warm smile.
Gofran says nothing about the painting, since he never had any real interest in them, preferring sculptures as many dwarves do. It looked nice though.
He doesn't agree with the notion of experimentation on living animals, but he feels his feelings should be kept to himself. As Bea mentions the door, he nods. "Prrobably do so..." he then moves to inspect it.