Beatrix's frosty spell freezes a small patch on the ooze, while Kyrie's shield strikes send its mass quivering.
Gofran manages to escape the suffocating insides of the ooze, the gelatin-like substance of its body smeared all over his clothes, skin and hair.
Alak continues to hack at the ooze, careful not to cut Beau, slicing off huge swatches of the gelatinous substance. Between his sword, and Karana's bow and flame, the creature dissolves into great gobs of translucent goop. A greatsword that had looked like it was stored in one of the weapon racks behind it turns out to have been contained inside the creature's mass, and it clatters to the floor.
Gofran -21 HP
Karana regretfully does not have any more healing magic in her, except for that which stabilizes the fallen.
“Oh, Beau! Gofran! Are you…?? Oh, what a horrid creature!”
She is ready to defend her wounded friends if others attack while they heal… that is, assuming there is a means of magical healing that can help them.
Gofran uses the nearby wall for support as he tries to see the extent of his wounds. Everything burst and itches as he moves but he is sure that it could have been far far worse. "I had neverr fought an ooze beforre, but I fully underrstand my kin's hatrred and fearr o' them... it vould be a terrible vay to go, so ye have my deepest thanks."
Beau lost his appetite for chatter and quietly goes about applying aid to both himself and Gofran. Medical compresses, bandages, and ointments are all used and the party might need to restock on medical supplies rather sooner than later.
Amaya shirks away from the puddle of melted ooze, not entirely convinced that it no longer posed a risk.
"How in the world can something like that even be considered living?"
The young undine woman gingerly makes her way over to Beau and Gofran, offering a touch of healing, if they want.
Kyrie offers her own healing to the injured. ”I am just glad that you are okay. I think we should be especially wary of such creatures. I do not like them.”
Rested and recovered, the group sifts through the messy armoury, but other than the greatsword that had been inside the ooze there is nothing that could be useful or valuable.
With the break, Bea settles into a non-oozing nook to read and feed strips of dried fish to the tentacles coming out of her bag. When it is time to move one, she suggests "We've explored all around it now, so we should probably search the middle room."
After a break of say half an hour, Beau has mostly recovered from the ordeal of being hugged by a homicidal ooze. He's definitely aching for a stiff drink, but what adventurer drinks on the job? Surely not this one. "Yes, let's do that, Bea. Do you think there might be another ooze lurking in there? ..."
It's clear that the earlier encounter has gotten to Beau.
"Hmm..." the gnome ponders the problem of transparent oozes "oh, we could throw pebbles before taking a step to make sure they don't hover suspiciously in the air... like you did. Saving us all from a similar fate. But better to do it with something we wouldn't miss." she gives the man a bright smile.
Fishing through her pack, she comes up with dried clumps of seeds instead of pebbles, though in the back of her mind she is now adding Pebbles to her list of necessary adventuring supplies.
"I rreally hope ve do not find any otherr oozes arround herre." He then gets up as Beau, Amaya and Kyrie heal him. "Ye all have my grratitude. I shall rrepay ye in kind vhen I have the chance."
"Rright, lets continue ourr searrch."
Cautiously making their way to the central area of this wing, the group finds themselves in a large - and ooze-free room. A splintered table stretches across the center, while broken chairs, mouldy books, and general detritus litter the floor. Even with the recent ransacking apparent in the toppled furniture and haphazardly tossed items, the room maintains a certain air of gravitas - one can easily imagine the Order's leaders planning their missions around the table, moving carved figurines across a map.
And speaking of figurines, Amaya nearly tumbles backwards as she steps on something that rolls under her foot. On closer inspection, it is a polished obsidian figurine that seems to be part of a set. With a little investigation, a score of them are located, some shaped like Nail Hellknights in full plate, others like signifer spellcasters in robes, and the rest like more general, featureless humanoids.
”I do not like oozes. I also hope we do not encounter more.” Kyrie exams the figurines with mild interest. ”I wonder if these are pieces for a game.”
He then gets up as Beau, Amaya and Kyrie heal him. "Ye all have my grratitude. I shall rrepay ye in kind vhen I have the chance."
Amaya shakes her head, her smile easily finds it's way to her face. "If we were to keep a tally of who owed who, it would never end. We are comrades, are we not?"
"Yess, ve arre..." Gofran agrees. "... but therre is nothin' vrrong vith keepin' tallies. It is alvays helpful to be orrganized, no?" There is nothing wrong with tallies. Dwarves love organization.
"Time to frree the bearr? Perrhaps ve could trrick the birrds into enterrin' a rroom to avoid a confrrontation betveen them?"
Karana will gladly do this. “I would not think it trickery if we were to lure the birds to a tasty treat.”
She will try using her way with animals to direct the birds to a room where day’s rations awaits. (Not the berries she picked on the way here, though! Those are for Big Bumble. Plus, she ate too many that if she gave them all to the birds they would fight each other.)
Luring the birds away from the hallway is easy enough once food is presented, and thus the way is cleared for Big Bumble, should the bear decide to go that way.
Karana says, “That worked like a charm.”
She then bends her arm and offers a very corny smile as she moves her fist in an aw-shucks arc.
“And speaking of charm, I have prepared a Charm spell to compel Big Bumble to cooperate, in case the berries and my natural animal magnetism are not enough.
“Shall we, then?” Karana points to the cartoon bear on the map.
With some trepidation to his step, Beau commits to Karana's plan and follows her. Messing with a bear - there was no mention of that in the 'become an adventurer now!' brochure! "Say, if things go south, should we just make a run for it? No, I'm not saying it will go south, but if it goes south ... ?"
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“When chased by a bear, I do not have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”
Karana’s joke, such as it is, is followed by a remorseful facial expression—and a blubbering retraction:
“Oh—that is not true at all—I read that somewhere, and at the time—oh, but it is an awful thing to say, even in jest. No, I will face the bear. Things go South; I go North!”
Karana heads North(-ish) toward the cartoon bear on the map.
Beau blinks at Karana until he registers that she's joking. "Well, hopefully it won't come down to actual running! Brown bears are awfully fast, you know, especially so when their survival instincts kick in! How about we find a door to retreat behind instead if things go wrong? Last I heard, bears haven't quite figured out yet how door handles work ... that way you can focus on your job, knowing that everything is covered."
Bea knows nothing about bears so she just looks back and forth between Beau and Karana as they talk about them with mild interest.
Kyrie is surprised initially at the callousness of Karana’s statement, mostly as it seemed strange for her of all people to voice such a sentiment, but her assurance that it was only a joke dispels any lingering misgivings. ”I know it was a joke. I just want to say that ai will always intentionally run slower than all of you. ‘I am the first into battle and the last to leave it.’”
Most of the group retreats into the first room they had explored in the subterranean complex, leaving Karana free to work her charm on Big Bumble.
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Karana approaches Big Bumble carefully. Her eyes meet the bear’s—
“I have prepared two things for you, Big Bumble. Fresh berries and a magic spell. I am hoping I will not need the magic.”
If Big Bumble is calmed by Karana’s posture and gentle voice, she goes on. Yes, the bear does not understand, but words help her express her feeling.
“I do not want to use magic to calm you, Big Bumble. Not if I do not need to. Compulsion magic makes you do things that you do not want to do. You would live a lie for a short while. I prefer that over you growl, I stab, friends bring shield, blades, lightning and ice.
“Do you know I tried telling a joke to my friends on the way here? I am not good at telling jokes. Maybe some. My bee joke worked better than my bear joke, and I think I know why. The bear joke was based on a lie, and the bee joke was based on truth.”
She shrugs. “It is that, or bees are funnier than bears. Oh—you wish to challenge that? Then you must be a funny bear to prove me wrong. If you cannot understand what makes people laugh, start simple, as I have been doing:
“Start with what makes people smile.
“For a bear, not mauling people will suffice.”
Karana’s joke, such as it is, is based on truth. Not being attacked and having to fight or cast compulsion magic will put a big smile on the druid’s face.
As Bea waits in the other room she says quietly, "I hope he doesn't eat her."
After removing the makeshift barricade that barred the way to Big Bumble's lair, Karana eases the door open and peers inside. The smell hits her first - blood, spoiling meat, dung. The interior of this formerly stately bedroom looks like a crime scene, with mauled and half-eaten boggards and charau-kas sprawled haphazardly on the floor in pools of blood, splintered furniture, bed curtains and rugs torn to shred, and piles of bear poop.
Big Bumble raises its massive head from where it had been resting on its paws and peers at Karana with its small eyes. As the berries are offered, it sniffs cautiously in their direction, but then seems to catch the scent of something else and its posture becomes alert and attentive. Clambering to its feet in a motion that sends its fur rippling across, it rears up on its hind legs until the head is almost brushing the ceiling then falls back to all fours with a whoomp that sends the air rippling and stirs Karana's hair.
It snorts once, then shoulders past the elf into the corridor, muzzle moving in wide arcs at it sniffs the air. It begins to move faster, barrelling down the corridor towards the central hallway, and veers out of sight towards the exit, claws skittering on the stone floor.
Karana knocks on the door where the others are.
“Um… Big Bumble did not want to stay and chat. He ran faster than I could cast my spell.” Her berry-colored lips flash a smile of relief. “He made no attempt to harm me, however.
“He is quite capable, as some boggards and simians had learned the hard way.”
"Where did he go? The goblins and kobolds are still out there and in the worst case... there is the town." Bea worries "We should follow him." the little gnome pauses and looks at Karana "I am glad he did not eat you." she smiles then hurries (hopefully with the others) in the direction of the bear.
"What did you tell him, Karana? ... ", Beau says in what's almost a whisper. Confused and confounded, he can't help but shrug and accept the fact that no matter what just happened, the bear is gone and the problem most likely has been solved.
She actually has a straight answer for this. “I believe he understands the feeling of my words, not the words themselves. I said I do not wish to cast compulsion magic on him, nor do I wish violence upon him.
“It is possible he understood I am not a threat and my intent, if not to force his mind magically, was to free him. So he ran out the door, making no attempt to attack me as he passed through my ‘personal bubble.’” Karana makes quotes in the air with her berry-stained fingers.
“If Big Bumble has left the building, I do not expect we will see him again. He is fast, and he has been eating well. The boggard and simian corpses are partially eaten.” To Bea, she asks, “Do you think Big Bumble has returned to the goblins? Doing so willingly would likely mean he wished to be the Bramblebasher mascot.
“If in the wild, not to worry. I believe he will avoid civilization in that case.”
Bea worries a bit more "I think we should check on the goblins and kobolds, just in case."
Karana nods, and is willing to go ahead. (Ahead, she understands, is behind Kyrie’s shield.)
“Kyrie, if there is trouble, I will attempt to magically Charm the bear. I do not like compulsion magic, but it is preferable to violence.”
"You've been blessed with wisdom and insight that the bear will never have, so using that to steer the bear onto a path of non-violence is simply you picking up the mantle of responsibility ... which, given your blessing, seems like the burden you're supposed to - no pun intended - bear."
Amaya just smiles at her friend, pulling her in for a quick hug. "You did well, and you had the best of intentions. That's all that matters."
"Do ve need to check the goblins? I do not believe the bearr is smarrt enough to hold a grrudge against the goblins, but even if it does... vell, the goblins brrought it upon themselves by trrapping a vild bearr in theirr basement." Gofran objects, but knowing his thoughts will probably be ignored by his soft-hearted allies, he joins them.
Karana blushes a bit as she is pulled into the hug, which she gladly accepts. Whether the blushing is from the hug or the comments on her wisdom, she does not say.
Smiling brightly, she replies to Gofran, “I believe it is necessary. Bea’s concern is valid—Big Bumble’s way of thinking is affected by his goblin masters, so however unlikely, what she fears is possible.
“The detour should only take a couple of minutes—a minor inconvenience, if it turns out that all is well.”
Kyrie nods in agreement. ”I think I would have done the same if I had the same ability with animals. I am also fine the detour.”
Big Bumble's trail is easy to follow through the torn underbrush as it beelines towards the edge of the forest several hundred yards to the west - in the opposite direction of Citadel Vraid and the kobold-goblin encampment in it.
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What Kyrie considers good judgment means a lot to Karana. She whispers a thank you to her.
Once it is obvious the bear ran off to the wild, Karana is confident that “Big Bumble is not domesticated. He has chosen to flee into the wilderness, and we should not follow him.”
"Thank you all for indulging my worries." Bea says with a grateful gleam in her eyes. "Now to the section marked with a skull on the map?"
"Ve should do just that." Gofran nods to Bea and once more takes the point.
Karana is gradually beginning to notice that nobody else sniffs while searching. She also notices most people at the Great Dreamhouse snore, which she thinks she does not do, but people who snore also think they do not.
In any case, she is beginning to think her nasal passages are quite clear, perhaps because of the eighteen summers and winters in which she did not breathe second-hand smoke. Forgive me, Father, she thinks apologetically after her judgmental thought on his habit.
Karana begins exploring the first right-hand corridor, which bends to the south after a few steps, mirroring the structure of the northern passages. It ends in a door, beyond which lies a dark and somber room, with the walls and ceiling painted black. Four monuments loom in the center, each with prominent carvings of black-winged angels and various stylized pentagrams. Burnished plaques on the floor next to each mausoleum bear the names of those interred within, while atop the northern wall near the ceiling the words "Sepulchre of the Nail" are carved in Common and Infernal.
An opening is visible to the east, and a door is set in the wall south of it.
"I don't like crypts." Bea says flatly, which given her creepy interests might be a little odd, but it is still there. "I just expect bad things to break out of them to try and eat our heads. Almost to the point, it would be better to be preemptive in the matter, but that would be desecrating the dead if they are not undead and definitely something that is frowned on." she sighed, shifting her sense to more of the arcane.
Beatrix senses the presence of magic in the room.
Heavy footfalls and the clinking of armour announce Alak's presence, who looks around the room with something approaching reverence.
"Let us try not to desecrate these particular dead, if it can be helped." His tone is light, but underneath there is a forceful emphasis. "To be interred here, they must have been the leaders of the order." He begins reading the names on the plaques, sounding them out loud.
"Mistress of Blades Xera Dalphine, Master of Blades Renten Viselli, Paravicar Yenesta, Paralictor Loreen Sinelle... Huh. I was wrong, these were not the Lictors of the Nail." He runs a gauntleted hand lightly across the dusty, sculpted folds of an angelic robe. "They must have been quite noteworthy. I hope we can find some records about who they were and the deeds they performed to deserve such honour."
Karana replies to both Bea and Alek, “We will only fight the corpses if they become animated and attack us. I think in that case, it is the necromancer who desecrates the body. To fell the undead honors the dead. I would not wish for my remains to be used as a puppet; thus, I wish to be cremated when my time comes, so I shall leave no remains to animate.”
Creeped out by all this talk of death and the impermanency of it all, Beau busies himself by checking if all his gear is in place. Once that's done, he ensures that his torch is roaring and ready to smack some undead if there happen to be any in the corridors ahead. "Ok, so we go in all quiet, have a look around, make sure the dead are doing what they ought to - nothing, and hopefully that's that? Got it."
"There is magic in the room." Bea informs the others. She doesn't know if it is a danger or a boon, so that is all she says.
Gofran nods to Alak's request, even if in his mind it was unnecessary. The idea of desecrating those entombed here have never crossed his mind. "Of courrse Alak. Do ye believe that if ye announce ourr prresence herre and inforrm that ve vish no harrm, the dead vill not rrise?"