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Fuin decides this is really just the worst job he can think of. He's fighting for his life against a giant pile of meat that will absolutely subsume his corpse and make him part of it. He had a job cleaning latrines at a restaurant in Absalom several years ago. Of course, calling it a "restaurant" is probably a lot more credit than it deserves; "human trough" would probably have been more accurate, based on both the menu and the clientele. And the state of the latrines. He lasted four hours.
This is so, so much worse.
It's awkward as Hells, but Fuin manages to get the hammer whirling overhead, then yeets it at the meatpile as hard as he can.
♦
♦
♦ Cast shield.
Lough wails on the appendage that's holding Fuìn, but it thrashes out of the way, shaking Fuìn violently with it.
Kka runs in and gangs up on the flesh-heap, giving a solid hit with fer fist, but doesn't leave a lot of damage.
Kvit hurls a skull at the behemoth and hits really hard, knocking one of its heads out of commission.
Fuìn then whirls his meteor hammer around up close and personal and hits a few tender spots. The creature roars in agony.
Cherry Berry maintains their holy weapon and causes it to lash out once more.
They then zap it with electricity.
The behemoth isn't looking good, but is still fighting back! It starts squeezing the life out of Fuìn. Its hold tightens, causing blood vessels to rupture and old wounds to open up again. Blood spurts everywhere, and the behemoth seems to absorb some of it into its own body.
Fuìn, please make me three basic DC 25 Fortitude saves for , , and bludgeoning damage, respectively. You also take 1d6 persistent bleed damage.
Behemoth, 125 damage
Fuìn, 16 damage, 3 DC 25 Fort saves vs 12, 13, and 13 damage, 1d6 persistent bleed
Cherry Berry
Kka
Lough
Kvit
Everyone is up! The behemoth is looking very bad, though it undoubtedly regained a bit of HP from giving Fuìn a love-hug.
Also, since it's no longer grappling, you're no longer next to it.
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Lough turns to Kka and Kvit "Do you not see!? Do you not believe!?!?"
He charges in to crush the interloper!
◆) Life Boost @ Fuin
◆) Stride
◆) Snagging Strike
Just before Lough charges to his "death", our hero's tiny spider friend crawls from his mouth and begins shooting webs all over his kayal ally, knitting the bleeding in sticky cob and silver strands!
Cherry whips their staff around, healing Funin of his damage while attacking with the spiritual weapon.
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Kvit tries to continue staying as far away as possible. He casts Guidance on himself and fires an icy bolt from his staff at the creature.
Fuin coughs as the beast squeezes, and the green half-mask is suddenly darkened by a large wet splotch where it covers his mouth. There is definitely some internal bleeding happening there.
Lough's quick thinking helps stymie some of it, but Fuin nearly collapses with a painful gasp when the meatpile drops him.
"Oh, you're paying for that," he croaks, and laucnhes the meteor hammer at it once more.
♦ Step.
♦
♦ Cast shield.
If Behemoth Strides/Casts a Spell:
If Behemoth Attacks An Ally: Cast protector’s sacrifice.
If Fuìn Is Attacked: Shield Block (Hardness 10).
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Fuìn resists most of the first squeeze's damage, but you definitely hear several ribs breaking at the second squeeze, and more bones at the third and final squeeze. After it lets go, Fuìn looks a bit like a wrung-out dishcloth. All of his blood seeps into the behemoth and its wounds partially close again.
Lough boosts Fuìn's life force, since he looks like he needs it. He then moves forward to bash the thing, but misses.
Kvit tries to lob ice at it, but misses as well.
Cherry Berry heals many of Fuìn's wounds, though he's still slightly wounded. They then attack as well, and miss.
Kka runs in and baps the creature, ganging up on it for sneak attack. She then casts Shield, still providing Gang Up bonus for the others.
With Kka ganging up on the thing, Fuìn lashes out in revenge, and connects! With one last swing of his hammer, the behemoth collapses, and the necromantic energies holding all of those bodies together collapse. Lumps of bodies fall to the ground and quickly disintegrate into foul-smelling gas, dealing points of negative damage to Fuìn, Kka, and Lough. But since none of you are in immediate threat of dying, you heal back up and continue exploring.
Over the course of a few minutes, even the bones and exoskeleton of the shanrigol behemoth turn brittle and collapse in on itself, leaving barely any evidence of its existence behind.
You have a quick look around the arena now that the giant flesh-blob is gone, and you find a few magical pieces of gear that seem interesting: A very unpleasant-looking and foul-smelling hide armour, a dagger with a green blade, and a war horn that suddenly transforms into a pouch filled with dust as soon as you pick it up.
Also, Hero Point to everyone for this nasty fight!
Kka half-heartedly punches the blob again and is amazed to see her little bony fist break through the creature's skin from the force of the blow. "Wow! Maybe I should be punching more often." When Fuìn's hammer connects soon thereafter and the behemoth explodes, Kka is flung to the ground by the force of the blast. "Holy smokes, Fuìn! That haammer of yours is full of surprises." She picks herself up and then starts picking bone shards from everyone's bodies and wrapping up their wounds.
She then looks through the remains and picks out the magical pieces of gear which she then examines with her limited abilities.
"Don't know about the armor and pouch, but thaat's a Serpent Dagger. Niiice!" She pockets it.
Finding nothing more of interest in the area, and not wanting to remain near the now actively rotting corpse of the behemoth, she heads for the stairs. "On the plus side, we won't haave to go through thaat dive of a taavern to get to this door. Let's see whaat's behind it."
Reaching the door, she looks it over for locks and traps.
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Lough pinches his nose as the Blat explodes. His spider knits him back up, re-stringing his lungs where the stank eroded the good bits.
"Let me see..."
"This pouch contains a magic cloud"
"Best way to test the armor is to try it on!"
Lough dons the Hide armor.
"How do I look!?" he turns to Kka, smiling like a fool.
The armour is a bit lumpy in weird places and smells faintly of death and decay, but otherwise is perfectly functional.
Kka raises the eyebrow over one of her beady red eyes as she surveys Lough in his new finery. She waves her hand in front of her face and scrunches her face in mild disgust. "Not sure it's doing you any favors there Big Maan. That armor looks positively ghoulish and stinks of rotting flesh. But hey! You do you Lough."
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Dejected, Lough un-dons the armor... if he can... and pulls back into his own well-worn splint...
"They don't even like you!"
"Nobody asked you"
"Ha! You think you have any real friends?"
"..."
"That's right. Nobody likes you. You are unlikable, little wretch"
"They like me I think"
"Nope"
"You are just trying to belittle me"
"I don't need any help doing that!"
"That is exactly what I'm trying to say"
"Whatever you say!"
"I'm done talking to you"
Kvit wrinkles his whiskers at the armor before he even touches it. As Lough begins to put it on he tries to stop him but fails "I'm not sure you really want to wear-" He sighs. "That's vile, but you'll be fine. Hopefully you won't need it if we do run into any ghouls. Especially since they probably won't like you wearing the skin of their breathren. Ghoul hide armor is rare for a reason..."
He agrees with the others' assessments on the other magical items. "All in all, that went much better than I feared. But, we should go before news reaches the tavern."
"The only one I know is the pouch. I agree that it would be useful for hiding."
"As for that armor Lough, I am going to have to request you take it off before the next time we go back to town. I don't want you to scare any of the townsfolk."
Fuin flies back and ragdolls into a wall like he just got Fus-ro-dah'ed and crumples in a heap. He doesn't move for several seconds, just basks in the pain for a bit.
"You know," he croaks with forced nonchalance, "That could have been worse. I feel like... on a scale of 1 to 28, that was only about a 25."
He gently tests each of his ribs while the others paw the phat lootz, and finds a couple of ribs still broken. He touches his chest, releasing a spidery wave of soft light-veins across his tattered armor, and clenches his teeth against the intense itching sensation as Desna's magic restitches the bones.
I don't think bones are supposed to itch, he thinks idly as he waits for the magic to finish its work.
Finally he gets up and shuffles over to the others, plopping down nearby to meditate and regain the lost power Desna's bestowed him. "That armor," he murmurs distractedly to Lough, "is super gross. I think Cherry's right. But, if nothing else, it should protect you from at least a few hits because your opponent will be understandably hesitant to touch it."
After you identify the items and heal back up, you go through the door to the west.
This room bears the rich stink of rot. Doors to four changing stalls prominently appear at the east end of this long hallway. Each door has a makeshift clockwork mechanism attached to it, and the mechanism connects to a lever on the eastern wall through a series of wires and pulleys. The hallway to the west is hung with four wide, tattered curtains. Another, thicker curtain covers the hall’s west end.
The doors to the north and south stop six inches from the floor and ceiling, and withered claws scrabble from them, trying to escape the tiny prisons. They're also clearly the source of the stench in this room.
Kka steps into the room, being careful to stay clear of the claws scrabbling out from the gaps around the doors. She examines the makeshift clockwork mechanism to confirm her suspicions that pulling the lever would cause the doors to open. "Unless we want to meet and greet our new friends behind these doors, I would not touch thaat lever."
She looks over at the curtain with interest. "Why do I haave the feeling thaat our jailkeeper is behind thaat curtain. Should we go over and say hello? Why not." She moves over to the curtain and flicking it aside, sings out, "Anybody ho-ome?"
Kvit makes his way carefully down the hallway, making sure to avoid the claws. He covers his sensitive nose. "I say we let these out somehow and send them the jailer's way. This is almost worse than the huge abomination we just destroyed."
Fuin frowns at them both. "I don't see any reason to go loosing those things. Also, shouldn't we check these other curtains that clearly lead to smaller spaces before going into the big space? Just a thought."
Cherry shrugs, having no real opinion themselves.
Kvit sighs, "I was mostly joking. No reason to let them out if we can help it. If there is someone in there-" He points to the "jailer's" room. "-then they can tell us what's out here before we stick our whiskers in it."
You pull away the smaller curtains. Behind each is a low table and you guess these were once a massage rooms.
With nothing popping out at you, you throw open the big curtain.
This round sauna is constructed entirely from polished stone. A wooden bench lines the circumference of the room, save for the exit to the east, which is covered by a thick curtain. At the center of the chamber stands a stone pedestal topped with a heavy bronze bowl filled with red-hot rocks. A wooden bucket full of water rests next to the pedestal.
At the far end of the room, a gray-skinned man lounges on a bench. His forehead is littered with "victor" runes. He slowly stands up and stretches. "Whelp, didn't expect any visitors. Anyway, I've been sweating here long enough, let me give you some privacy. Getting naked in front of strangers is always awkward."
Kka eyes the gray-skinned man with the multiple "victor" runes on his forehead. She puts her game face on and in an icy tone, says, "And who the heck are you? You one of those guys from the taavern? Whaat are you doing here with all those jailed naasties out there? You better come clean or this may be your last sauna ever."
The man backs away a bit, which is difficult to do in a circular room. "Wow, sorry, didn't know about the temper. I got kicked out of the bar a while ago, so I've been kicking it over here. And those guys have been there since I got here, I had nothing to do with 'em."
You think this might be the Murschen guy one of the patrons was talking about.
The guy looks over Kka's shoulder, looking to see how many people are behind her.
"Anyway, it's getting kinda crowded in here and I don't really do well with crowds. Mind letting me past, please?"
Fuin, who had just managed to jostle his way into the sauna, glances at the others inquisitively, shrugs, and steps aside.
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Kka scoffs at the thought of letting this clearly dangerous and untrustworthy individual pass them by. In his place, Kka would happily trip that lever as she slipped out the door, leaving them to deal with whatever was in those cells.
She stands in his way. "I don't think so bub. Laast thing I need is for you to go letting those uglies baack there loose for us to deal with. Why don't we all just all sit down and enjoy ourselves in here for a while... together. Maybe we could get to know each other a little better." Her tone of voice suggests strongly that the gray-skinned man is not being given a choice here. She then frowns as she remembers something. "Heeeey! you aren't by any chaance that Murschen guy that the spider lady in the taavern talked about? If so, I should tell you that she really doesn't think much of you."
The guy puffs out his chest with pride. "Ah, my reputation precedes me." He deflates, then frowns and sits back down. "That sounded much lamer than the shows made it look like. Anyway, yes, as I said, I caused a bit of a stir at the tavern. Got banned for life. Doesn't matter much though, the scientists like me enough that I can get some food from them, so I won't starve anytime soon. Do miss the friendly bar brawls, though."
Kvit suddenly finds the upper half of the walls much more interesting. "Kka, I know you may be enjoying this, uh, crusade I guess, but this might be an opportunity."
He turns to Murschen, "You seem to be well accomplished, relatively speaking... Your reputation could be much more significant when everyone finds out you were able to singlehandedly take out the huge abomination in the arena."
Murschen does a double-take. "Er, what? What do you mean? That huge pile of... things is gone?"
He seems to be reassessing you guys.
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”Yeah, Bub. We took it out. Easy.”
Lough, stark naked and unbashful about it, leans back in the sauna, totally relaxed, his armor and effects in a neat pile in yonder corner, all tensation in his developed musculature - covered by a thin healthy layer of soft voluptuous padding - at rest. Both of his arms - metal and monstrous - stretch upwards exposing his handsome armpits - wild and bushy and laden with perspiratory salt - his hands cushioning the back of his head.
He allows Murschen to “reassess” without so much as paying attention enough to return the favor!
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Lough disrobes.
”C’mon guys, let’s sit for a bit. Nice and hot. Whaddya think Borbo?”
"Borbo likes to sit and sweat for a bit."
...
"Wait, Borbo doesn't have a body. Why is Borbo sweaty?"
Kka was concentrating on Murschen and did not see Lough get into his birthday suit. When the big man talks, she looks over at him and almost instantly snaps her head away in visible distaste. "EW! Lough! Is thaat really necessary? I'm pretty sure this isn't the best time to be taking a sauna." She sighs heavily in exasperation.
She glances back at Murschen. "Yeah, we took caare of the big guy in the arena. Lucky for you, cause it was waiting for you just outside the door when we bumped into it." She waves at the trapped creatures in the other room. "Pretty sure your friends out there won't be much of a chaalenge for us either, you know... if they were to be accidently let loose. But then, of course, we'd be forced to hunt you down and accidently beat you to death. I don't think either of us wants thaat, right?"
Kka ponders the impasse. "Okaaay then! How about this for an idea. Now thaat you know where we staand, we let you go and you decide how you waant to play it. But no funny business, eh? If the uglies out there decide to join us for a sauna, well then..." She makes a screeching noise as she moves a claw across her neck. "If you want to go back to the tavern and claim the behemoth's, um head for yourself..." She shrugs. "... knock yourself out. We don't caare."
She stands aside to let Murschen pass, but tightens the grip on her swords. Kka looks closely at Murschen's reaction and body language to gauge which way he might jump.
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Lough breaks from leisure a moment to open one eye - the grey one.
”I’d listen to the bird if I was you Bub”
Closing the eye, he shifts into a more comfortable position: now laying on his back and stretching his legs upwards along the wall, which incidentally spills his undercarriage out over his belly upside down. He seems to relax even deeper.
There is a moment where it seems he might use his voice to add more context to his curt comment; it soon passes…
Kka can't get a good read on Murschen's reaction, but you do believe he's quite taken aback at your declaration that you killed the arena behemoth.
Murschen shudders at Kka's speech, but eyes her suspiciously. "So, um... You killed the thing and you want me to claim the credit for it? Why? What's in it for me?"
Kka rolls her eyes at Murschen's reaction. "Weren't you just whining about being kicked out of the baar? If you play it right, this could be a way to work your way baack into their good graaces. The up-side for us is that we get to keep our consciences clear by not cutting you down where you stand... which from where I'm standing, looks like the smaart move here. Good thing for you no one ever blamed me for being smaart, eh? <Ark, ark>"
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Cherry stays outside of the sauna unless they have to go in. 'I don't want to be a steamed vegtable.'
Murschen looks at Kka and the rest like they're insane, shrugs, and leaves. Outside, he sees Cherry Berry standing guard. He slips off the medal hanging around his neck, hands it to Cherry Berry, mumbles "Your friends are crazy, you know that, right?" and runs out of the spa.
It's a platinum medal, worth 20 gp.
As far as Cherry Berry can see, Murshen has left the lever alone.
Fuin smirks behind his mask as he watches Murschen flee pell-mell in nothing but a towel, but after he's gone, Fuin frowns again. Why did that fill him with such a mean warmth? What had that guy done to them? Nothing, right? So why had Kka acted so hostile?
And more importantly, why did I get joy out of it? He's never been like that before. Today has been a day of weirdness. First the thing with the potion earlier, now this.
Musta got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, he thinks irritably before jostling his way through the narrow hall to take up at the front with Kka again.
"Whatever," he grunts. "Where to next?"
Kka keeps an eye on Murschen as he makes his hasty exit. She nods in satisfaction when he does so without touching the lever. "Huh! Turns out he waasn't all that stupid after all. I guess he gets to live another day."
She glances at the medal that Murschen gave to Cherry. "Niiice. Thaat should fetch us a little something baack in Otaari. Let's see what else he left lying around in his hurry to leave us." Kka then does a search of the whole area, making sure not to get too close to the imprisoned nasties.
Once she's done making sure there's nothing they've missed, she stands up, and not looking directly at Lough, says, "Soooo... we done here Lough, or should I call someone to give you a massage and a facial?" Then, waving in the direction of the cells, adds, "And what about those guys. Leave them alone or put them out of their misery?"
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”Almost done” Lough uncurls his legs down the wall, and rotating on his bare hind haunches, assumes a crouching position, with his hands pressed against the floor and his elbows splaying his legs open - not unlike a toad - and leaning forward, tilts slowly until his entire body weight is suspended by his arms’ strength, head a tripod, then shoots his legs back vertical, stretches up and back, blood rushing to his brain from the inversion of his entire body.
He holds the position a few moments, breathing in and out, then reversing his stretch, plunks his feet back onto the ground, and comes to rise.
”Alright. Let’s go get ‘em…” grabbing his effects, our lewd hero rerobes, suits himself back into his armor, grabs his shield, and makes a beeline for the next group of folks to open their portal ”…And put ‘em out their misery!”
"Do we really have to?" Cherry asks. "It doesn't feel right, but I guess leaving them in the cells would be just as bad in the long run."
Kka shrugs when Lough casually mentions putting down the poor things in the cells, with Cherry reluctantly agreeing that perhaps that was best. Kka tended to agree; it would likely be best for everyone in the end if they were sent off to meet Pharasma as soon as possible. "Caan we at least figure out what they are? Are we talking fleshwarped abominations here or are they already dead in some way?"
Kka tries to catch a peek at one of the creatures to see if she can tell what they are:
Kka thinks the combination of the stench and the withered claws, these are probably ghasts, stronger forms of ghouls that can sicken you with their smell. Though they can paralyse just like ghouls, you've grown strong enough that they probably don't stand a chance against you.
Kka also checks out the sauna for loot. Murschen has stashed some stuff under his bench. A gold and emerald ring worth 40 gp, a ruby-encrusted dagger worth 70 gp, and a fine mithral bracelet worth 20 gp.
"Mr or Ms Ghast," Cherry says to the creature in the first cell. "Are you sure temporarily avoiding the Boneyard worth the sufferings being an undead creature like yourself brings?"
A sharp hiss comes from the changing rooms "We don't wanna be undead. We got experimented on and died, then some a##$#@! stuffed us in here for some reason. Our hatred against our tormentors keeps us alive. But your lecture might bore us back into the afterlife again if you keep talking like that."