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”Hey Bub” Lough walks closer, his copper (left) eye gleaming with otherworld appeal ”Tell you what. You and the gem want to become one? You know, absorbing its power, all that? Well. All you need is for the gem to be prepared” he lets the vague sentence hang, and outstretches his mechanical arm ”You see this gem? It’s got a name. And I and it are one” and ”Ain’t that right, Borbo!?” then the sink ”I know how to fix it so you can join. Special preparation. You gimme them gem, I’ll fix it up, and give it back to you” flashing his slag eye once more ”Whaddya say?”
The gug doesn't react to Lough approaching or his speech, until he shoves Borbo's gem in his face. He coos and keeps staring at Borbo.
"More shiny. Give me," he wheezes in Undercommon. "Give me other shiny too."
Still sitting on the ground, three grasping hands stretch out towards Lough's metallic arm and scrabble to pry out the power gem.
"Oh yeah, first you stick Borbo in a devil-hole, now you give Borbo to the leader of a cult. This will not go wrong at all."
Kka looks on skeptically as Lough tries to convince the gug to give up his jewel. "You really think this is gonna work? This guy may be ugly, but he don't look paarticularly stupid to me."
When inevitably the plan starts going awry, Kka rolls her eyes and looks for a patch of darkness against the wall to blend into.
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”Oh! You are totally invisible over there! Where has Kka gone?!” Lough’s sarcastic tone flows like honey acid - he dislodges Borbo from his dynamo, which gives a whirring powerdown sound… and hands his loud mouthed pink crystal to the gug in exchange.
”Babysit this insipid blubber, will ya? See you never, probably!” he bids goodbye to his enemy-turned-friend-turned-powersource.
And having sealed the deal, never intending to return ”I’ll be back with this gem prepared” Lough looks once more at Kka, and walks away with a nod to the rest, where once outside, he hands the gem to Cherry ”You seem the responsible one” winking at the leshy cleric.
The gug gurgles happily as he gets his claws on Borbo, but refuses to let go of his own gem. Seems like he isn't the sharing type. He holds up both gems in some sort of puppetry play only he is aware of.
From her hiding spot in the shadows, Kka watches the interaction between Lough and the gug play out. The gug now had two of his four hands occupied holding jewels that he didn't didn't want to let go of. "Too bad we don't have a couple more gems for the big lug to hold onto. With all four hands occupied, he wouldn't stand a chance in a fight."
Lough tries to sweet-talk the gug into handing over the gem once more, but the gug has lost interest in him and doesn't listen any more.
With the gug now showing no interest in handing over either gem, Kka readies herself for what is likely to turn into another smack-down. From her point of view, the creature owed them a jewel, and if he wasn't going to hand it over willingly, then maybe Kka could help the process along a little in her own way.
She sneaks up behind the enraptured creature as quietly as possible and waits for his attention to shift to Borbo. As soon as it does, she surreptitiously relieves the gug of his original glowing jewel.
Kka quickly snatches the gem from the gug while he's occupied with Borbo, and his one-track mind doesn't even register the fact that it's gone. Kka quickly runs back to the group to examine the loot.
It turns out to not be a gem at all, but a large convex crystal circle, roughly the size of a wheel of cheese. A red cloud swirls within it, giving the eerie impression of blood.
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Kka holds her breath as she carefully lifts the glowing jewel from the fixated gug's hand. She's surprised by how easy it was; the gug was apparently super mesmerized by Borbo and beyond caring. Once she has it in her possession, she throws Borbo a silent salute and mouths, "Good luck" before leaving the area.
Once back with the others, she shows them the jewel and examines it to figure out what it might be.
"Holy smokes! This is a Crimson Fulcrum Lens." She hands it over to Lough. "I think it haas something to do with Nhimbaaloth. What do you make of it big maan?"
She examines its shape. "I think it might fit in the indentation we saw in thaat secret door earlier. Whaat do you guys think? Should we go baack and give it a try?"
Kka raises an eyebrow skeptically as Lough tries to mount the plate-sized lens onto his eye. "I don't know, Lough. Not sure it's doing you any favors. You might just want to keep it in your pocket."
Kvit knows what this thing is too and that it contains a slice of Nhimbaloth. "You may want to keep it away from your book. I don't think the book as a sliver of Nhimbaloth, but you can't be too careful with these things."
"It's a little big for you Lough." Cherry says honestly. "But you do you."
"It might make you mad though, or sad, the being associated with it is not a nice one."
While you're discussing the gem, what to do with it, and where to go next, you hear a bloodcurdling scream coming from the area with the gug, followed by a gurgling sound of pain, then silence. Before you can react, a spectral image of a furious woman comes flying around the corner, shouting curses at you.
"HOW. How did you lift that lens off him so easily? I gave it to that stupid gug because he's one of the fiercest warriors I have. And now you walk in, distract him with some stupid talking marble, and get one of my lenses without a scratch on you. Gah! Get out of my lighthouse or you'll regret ever setting foot in here!"
She casts a spell, and the cave walls shift into the outskirts of Otari. Otari is on fire, people are running back and forth, and a legion of devils, monsters, and monstrous humanoids are slaughtering everyone unfortunate enough to get in their way. You're powerless to stop it, held in place by a giant creature pinning you to the earth with a giant paw. Its monstrous maw with too many teeth appears before you and chomps down on you, turning the world black for a few seconds before you're back in the cavern.
Everyone, make me a DC 33 basic Will save or take mental damage. On a critical fail, make me a DC 33 Reflex save or you believe you're stuck in the creature's mouth and stunned for a minute!
The woman is nowhere to be seen. Looks like this was only a warning.
A wooden double appears of Kvit and just as quickly disintegrates. Kvit stands stock still, frozen in horror.
Kka jumps back as the ghostly woman flies at them from around the corner. "Uh, oh!" Not again..." Before she can say anything more, she is plunged into the terrifying vision of a burning Otari...
...before snapping out of it with a nasty migraine. "Ho-leee smokes! Thaat was intense. I take it thaat was Belcorra herself. About time we finaally met the old girl in person."
Kka takes the time to heal everyone of the mental damage that the vision imparted on them.
Kka watches Kvit go down under the impact of the ghost's presence. She rushes to his side and waves some smelling salts under his nose.
Once Kvit regains consciousness, Kka realizes that treating everyone's mental problems in a cave full of maddening whispers might not be such a great idea. "Uh, Let's go somewhere less whispery so I caan treat everyone properly."
She leads everyone away until they are out of range of the whispers before spending the time to treat everyone back to full health.
Kka quickly applies some emergency healing to Kvit. He wakes up, but is still completely paralysed with fear until he's had time to catch his breath.
Kvit lays there paralyzed with fear, whiskers twitching occasionally.
"Looks like we have upset the lady of the house." Cherry mutters. "And she doesn't like to talk."
Once everyone is back up to full strength and Kvit stops shaking, Kka says, "Looks like we're good to go. How about we go see whaat's behind the other doors leading out of the caaligni room?"
Kka leads the way back to the caligni. Once there, she greets them. "Howdy all. We're baack from seeing your boss. You were right; he really is taken by his new jewel. We barely got a word out of him. Anyways, don't mind us. We're just paassing through."
She moves to the southeastern door and gives it the once over.
Kvit steadies himself with his staff and looks quite sullen. whispers and an illusion. How could I not... He sighs.
He waves weakly in the direction of the caligni. "yeah, sure, wherever as long as it's away from this room."
"I would prefer not to come back here if we could help it. I'm not sure if she would be able to reappear."
You walk back to the caligni. They've finished their soup and are curious about how their boss is faring, but since Kka isn't offering much, they don't press the matter.
Kka opens a door. It leads to a narrow hallway, with a door on either side. You decide to take the door to the left. This door is locked, so you pry it open and continue.
This room is clearly meant as a prison. The room is bare and contains only a single prisoner. An urdefhan, a creature with see-through skin, so you can clearly see his muscles and bones, is lying facedown. He seems dead, but as you can clearly see his heart beating and lungs inflating and deflating, the guy is obviously pretending to be dead to ambush anyone opening the door.
Kka spots the urdefhan and immediately sees right through its pathetic attempt to play possum and try to get the drop on anyone coming through the door. "You aren't fooling anyone, bub; your own body betrays you. You might as well get up so we caan haave a closer look at you."
"Soooo... whaat's the story here? You got a name, bub? Whaat's an urdefhaan doing down here in the Vaults and why did they lock you up? Come along now; don't be shy. We haaven't got all day. Tell me why I shouldn't just cut you down where you staand before we go on our merry way."
The urdefhan sheepishly stands up and looks down at the floor, angry at his poor attempt at deception. "Name's Huglu," he mumbles. "I got caught sneaking into the caligni camp. We're in a great war, our two tribes. We will drink their blood and dance on their corpses, and yours too, if you oppose us. The great war champion Khurfel is on our side and shall help us crush these pale-skins."
He starts trembling with rage as he speaks, completely caught up in his story of bloody conquest.
Kvit knows the basics of urdefhan culture.
The violent warmongers, occultists, and poisoners known as urdefhans dwell within the Darklands. They were created in eons past by the mysterious First Horsemen of the Apocalypse to serve as agents of the end times within the Material Plane. Urdefhans continue to honor their creators by worshipping the wretched beings who rule over the plane of Abaddon, and like their fiendish lieges, urdefhans exist for one reason and one reason alone: to kill.
While urdefhans are humanoid and dwell together in large groups, this is where their similarities to surface ancestries end. Their visages are horrific, with transparent skin and musculature displaying their glistening entrails, gleaming bones, and perhaps worst of all, their baleful red eyes. This, combined with their gaping maws full of sharp fangs, works to create the false impression that these beings are some sort of vampiric undead, not creatures of living flesh and blood. When an urdefhan’s life comes to an end, their flesh quickly curdles and then bursts in a wave of awful corruption that spreads to the flesh of other creatures in the area. The typical urdefhan views their eventual demise as a disappointment, for once they’re dead, their chances to kill will finally come to an end.
Urdefhans’ primary concern is death and how to inflict it in the goriest, most painful, and widespread ways. Beyond this ethos of violence, urdefhans concern themselves only tangentially with matters such as formal modes of warfare or aspects of their damnable religion. When an urdefhan is not actively engaged in violence, their giddy cruelty is tempered only by a sense of self-preservation that ensures they survive long enough to spread the “blessings” of their daemonic patrons. They pass the time between wars inventing new weapons, developing new diseases, and researching awful new magic, all in preparation for the next inevitable conflict.
Furthermore, Huglu is what they call themselves an urdefhan warrior. One of the least impressive combat-ready urdefhans, they are no match for you at your current strength. Still, they're powerful combatants and they pack quite a punch. Most urdefhans have some innate spellcasting ability and they can bite you and drain your blood, causing you to either become Drained 1 or Enfeebled 1. Interestingly, they have negative healing, meaning they count as undead when it comes to vitality and void damage.
Cherry sighs, "Is anyone in this tower not at war with someone else?"
"You know the surface knows you are coming at this point, correct?"
Kka listens to Kvit's recounting of urdefhan culture. "Huh! Not the friendliest of people then. Doesn't leave us with many options, does it? Either we finish him off before he tries to do the same to us, or we lock him baack in his cage and move on."
She turns back to their prisoner. "Whaat do you think? Want to take a shot at us here and now, or would you prefer we leave you in here to rot a little longer?" She grips her swords fully expecting the urdefhan to take his chances with them.
Huglu answers Cherry Berry. "We don't care about the surface world. We like it down here just fine. As long as they don't tread on our territory, you're safe."
Huglu then scoffs at Kka. "Of course I'd rather be free. And I'm not stupid enough to attack you. I'd rather teach those mask-freaks a lesson for throwing me in prison."
Despite his words, you get the clear impression that Huglu will turn on you as soon as you turn your back on him. He's visibly angry and seems to want to lash out at anyone. The only reason he hasn't attacked you yet is because he's still cowed by Kka's intimidation, but that'll wear off soon.
Kvit watches Huglu warily while informing the others. "Unless you have a good reason for us to let you out, we'll just be on our way.
Kka shrugs. "Okaay then. Your choice, bub." She closes the door and relocks it.
"How about we check this door now." Kka indicates the door to the east directly across the hallway, then gets to work on it.
Kvit watches Huglu warily while informing the others. "Unless you have a good reason for us to let you out, we'll just be on our way.
"If you lock me up again, I ever get out, I will hunt you down, tear out your eyeballs and make you watch yourself get hacked to bits by me and my kin."
You shrug, close the door again, and lock it again. You instead focus on the door across from it.
This room is a jumble of pillows, furs, blankets, and rugs. Several empty jugs litter the floor.
Seems like this is the sleeping quarters of the caligni up north. There's currently no one in it. You rummage through the room. You find a pouch with 25 gp, 10 sp (so, 26 gp total), and a greater cheetah's elixir.
Kka pockets the finds. "Looks like thaat's all there is. Let's try one of the other doors."
She walks back to the caligni room. "Thaat urdefhan you have locked up is a real piece of work. Not sure why you're keeping him around. You guys better make sure he doesn't get out."
She moves to the southeastern door and looks it over.
The leader of the caligni here shrugs. "Eh, prisoners of war and all that. Maybe we can exchange him for some of our boys they captured. Small hope, really, they tend to execute anyone they capture, but that doesn't mean we have to stoop to their level."
The southeastern door looks fine. You open it, and there's a small L-shaped hallways, terminating in a pile of rubble that's meant to block off one side from the other. It won't be difficult to un-block it, it'll just be arduous and time-consuming. Remains of bioluminescent funghi cling to the rubble.
There's two doors, one to the east, and one to the west. You decide to investigate the eastern door first.
This drab chamber contains a few bedrolls and a box with several earthen mugs atop it. A desk holds stacks of paper.
Among the papers seems to be a map of this level. The northeastern part of this level seems to be be mapped out, up to where the gug is. The only part of this part of the map you haven't discovered for yourselves is basically directly north of your current position. It shows a small pier, and several lobster-like creatures have been scribbled on it.
There also seems to be the beginnings of a map of a different level. Only five rooms have been mapped out so far.
A is called the "great hall."
B is simply called "bunks."
C is listed as "strange dead - keep out."
D is called "rubbish pile."
E is "Galudu's room."
"Be careful, he is really obsessed with revenge." Cherry says as the party moves on.
Kvit snorts at the threat.
"We're making good progress. When we get back to town I'll look up a few spells suitable for removing rubble."
After examining the maps closely, Kka pockets them. "These might come in haandy later."
Examining the rubble, Kka is not convinced that they'll need any spells to get past it. "Nah, no need to go baack to town for spells. Looks to me like a little time and some elbow grease are all we'll need to unblock it. No need to get dirty now though. Let's check out these other doors and maybe go see whaat the small pier with the lobster creatures are about first."
Kka moves to the door at the elbow and checks it over.
Kka is right. Clearing the rubble will take an hour or so, but nothing some determined people won't be able to do.
You take the other door.
This sparsely appointed chamber contains a single mat in the far corner of the room and a small desk on the south wall with an iron strongbox sitting under it. A bowl with some gray gruel and a spoon are the only items on the desk.
A caligni is bent over at a desk, examining war plans against the urdefhan encampment elsewhere. It looks like she hasn't slept in a few days and she seems malnourished, despite several bowls of days-old gruel littering her desk.
Over her shoulder hovers a floating torso. It spots you, then whispers in the caligni's ear, barely audible enough that you can catch it. "More intruders. They must be allied with the urdefhan. Best wipe them out," then smiles maliciously at you. The caligni grabs a war flail from beside her desk and makes ready to attack.
The caligni remains silent and does not bother with a yell or a warning of some kind. She murmurs a spell, and Kka feels her limbs locking in place. She then produces a shadowy disk in front of her, protecting her from harm.
Kka, make me a DC 28 Will save versus Paralyze!
Caligni
Kvit 54/54
Kka 94/94, DC 28 Will save vs Paralyze
Cherry Berry 88/88
Lough 96/96
Torso
Everyone is up!