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With polished brand, Lough dashes into the room, and reflects the light of his shield upon his famished foes, his own grin sinister as he takes advantage of the trick to cut deeply into the disembodied torso.
◆) Stride
◆) Spark Transcendence
~) Raise Spellguard Shield
~) Raise the Walls
◇) Cunning Epithet vs Torso
◆) Strike
↺) Attack of Opportunity
↺) Shield Block
And with that, covered in gore, an eerie light shineth, casting our paranoid hero into a handsome violet refraction - his left eye a glint of silver, sparking and fixed on any who dare strike at him, bewitching
them into clumsy-handedness!
Link
Why race a hare across a meadow, or a salmon up a waterfall? Why face a titan in a test of strength? Wouldn’t it be better to best your foes with a bit of creativity? After all, the stories that echo throughout history are always those where wits and trickery, rather than raw talent or power, win the day. You are trained in Deception. After you Spark Transcendence, you can Create a Diversion or Feint as a free action.
When the caligni leaps up and launches herself at them, Kka is a little surprised. "Whoa there, lady. Whoa! I don't know who boney here is, but we've got nothing to do with the urdefhaan. We're just paassing through. Sheesh!" But it seems that the caligni is in thrall to the floating torso, and as long as it remains, she is unlikely to be reasoned with.
Kka is about to defend herself when she feels her limbs stiffening. "Oh, great. Just what I needed."
She shakes off the worst of the spell, but if still feels a little sluggish as the feeling returns to her limbs. Stepping carefully past Lough, she takes a swipe at the malevolent floating torso.
Lough darts into the room, shines light in the eyes of the torso, then slashes at it with his clawed hand. Thanks to the feint, combined with Kka's battle cry, it's a crit!
Kka manages to resist the worst of the paralysis, but still is somewhat sluggish. She gangs up on the torso and also crits it!
Caligni
Kvit 54/54
Kka 94/94
Cherry Berry 88/88
Lough 96/96
Torso, Frightened 2, 48 damage, 1d6 persistent bleed
Torso is looking already halfway dead thanks to these two crits.
Cherry Berry and Kvit may still act.
Identifying Torso is a Religion check, by the way, or a more difficult Society check.
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Is that... singing?
You used to go to sleep to that!
I hate that lullaby
Do you now?
Faint sounds stupify Torso as the haunted melodies of Lough's youth play themselves out...
~) Of Verse Unbroken
Link
Though you are a warrior, you respect the power of song, oratory, and other arts, knowing it is these forces that make fights worth fighting. You gain the Energized Spark feat for your choice of sonic or vitality. When you critically succeed on a Strike, haunting melodies play around the target, making them stupified 1 unless they succeed on a Will save against your class DC.
When you Spark Transcendence, your divine spark releases a sublime song that harmonizes with your allies. Until the start of your next turn, any of your allies that starts their turn within 30 feet of you can hum to Sustain one of their effects that can be sustained. This is a free action triggered by the ally's turn beginning. Your song then ends, and that ally can't benefit from this ability again for 10 minutes. This is an auditory and mental effect.
Lough's strike makes a ringing sound that echoes in the cramped room. Torso just barely manages to not get overwhelmed by it.
Kvit reaches around the corner and taps Lough with the end of the staff. Lough should feel much quicker in an instant.
Cherry Berry can't do much from their current position, so they move into the room. As soon as the full light of their Light spell hits the torso, it curses and reaches for its eyes. Seems like the thing is blinded by the bright light for one round.
Once inside the room, Cherry Berry makes a knowledge check, shares what they know about the torso, and casts Shield on themselves.
Cherry Berry recognises this creature as an Owb.
These ancient denizens of the Shadow Plane appear as grayish humanoid torsos covered in translucent funeral veils of shadow. Silent and mysterious, they float about, absent legs to hold them aloft. They reach into the minds of creatures around them to whisper and mumble curses, threats, and strange bits of forlorn augury.
These haunting creatures are revered by calignis as proxies of the Forsaken—a strange array of ancestor-like demigods whom many calignis worship. Some even believe owbs are the Forsaken manifested.
A multitude of owbs visit and even remain to advise caligni communities, as varied in personality as the Forsaken. All owbs share a hatred of light and color, except for the flickering glow of the burning cold magic they can hurl as a weapon. Owbs who live among calignis tend to prohibit the use of light and color, using their curse of darkness to quench violators if necessary. The only other similarity across all owbs is their entrenched desire to manipulate their charges through mind-reading and deception, though such manipulation can be either subtle or overt.
Cherry Berry knows that owbs can use their claws as well as produce ice-cold flames to attack at range. They can try to curse anyone suffering from this cold damage, and if they fail their save, they also get light blindness as a curse effect.
They also have some darkness and shadow-themed spells, the most scary of which is Shadow Blast.
The owb mutters and curses to itself, still unable to see. It tries to cast a spell, but Lough's arm lashes out instinctively.
Lough's strike misses and the owb disappears from sight. At first you think it might've teleported away, but you still see blood dripping to the floor, so you think it just turned invisible. It then casts Shield on itself.
The caligni says nothing, despite you wailing on its compatriot. It looks at Lough, then casts a spell on him.
Lough, please make me a DC 28 Will save versus Ghoulish Cravings!
The caligni then whirls her war flail at Lough.
Caligni
Kvit 54/54
Kka 94/94
Cherry Berry 88/88
Lough, Haste, 75/96
Owb, Frightened 1, 52 damage, invisible.
Everyone is up! Lough needs to make a save versus Ghoulish Cravings, and the owb is invisible.
Kka notices the caligni attacking Lough. "Hey Lady! Whaat's the deal here? We're only beating up on your nasty friend here, not you. But thaat's about to change if you keep going the way you are."
With bright light flooding the room, Kka's Gloom Blade is less effective. She switches to using her regular blade and keeps whaling away at where she last saw the owb.
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↺) Reactive Strike
☀️) Eye-Catching Spot
~) Raise the Walls
◆) Raise Spellguard Shield
◆◆) Captivating Charm vs Orb
◆) Hasted Strike vs Caligni
~) Of Verse Unbroken
(emotion, mental, visual)
You focus your attention on a creature within 30 feet, overwhelming their senses. They must succeed at a Will save against your class DC or be fascinated by you until the start of your next turn. The condition ends if you use a hostile action against the target, but not if you use a hostile action against their allies.
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Lough swipes quickly as the Orb disappears.
"You presences is known. And now, short" he taunts. As divine power pulses from his left copper eye to his right silver eye, Lough presses a bewitching spell upon the disembodied torso, hoping it will focus it's efforts on him rather than his allies.
He eviscerates it's minion before his eyes, and starts keening in on a weakness that either of them expose.
↺) Shield Block
↺) Reactive Strike
Lough rerolls his reactive strike, and it hits!
Kka tries to intimidate the caligni, but she shrugs it off with her stoic demeanour. She then slices twice at the invisible owb, critting her first attack and missing her second. The owb interposes its shield, absorbing some of the damage, but the blow is devastating enough that you hear an invisible body hitting the ground. Owb is out.
With the owb gone, Lough swipes at the caligni, and crits as well! Then, to add insult to injury, Kka's blade lashes out once more and stabs her as well.
Caligni, 36 damage
Kvit 54/54
Kka 94/94
Cherry Berry 88/88
Lough, Haste, 75/96
Kvit and Cherry Berry are up! Lough can re-do two actions if he wants.
What Cherry Berry told you about owbs, you know that they tend to be puppetmasters, and this caligni certainly does not act completely natural. She might still be under the influence of whatever the owb did to her, but maybe you can snap her out of it...
"Please consider it, while many have challenged us so far here, none have beaten us."
The caligni at first does not seem to react and looks at you blankly, but then realises the dark whispers have stopped. She releases her war flail and it clatters to the ground. She shakes her head to clear it, then seems to properly notice you for the first time.
"I... am sorry for opening hostilities. I was somehow convinced that you were after my life, and my clanmates's. But enemies would not offer mercy in the middle of a fight. Why are you here? You do not seem as murderous as most people we meet down here."
Cherry nods, "There does seem to be a lot of that going on down here. Maybe there's something in the walls? We are from the surface though, we started exploring because the top of the dungeon, the part above ground, started doing weird things."
Kka reacts in mild surprise as the caligni backs down under Lough and Cherry's entreaties. "Huh! That doesn't haappen very often."
After making sure the caligni isn't playing some sort of game to catch them off-guard, Kka puts her swords away and approaches. "No haarm done..." She looks over the caligni's wounds, "...well, a little maybe, but I can fix that right up."
Kka patches up Lough and the caligni's wounds as they converse. "Nah, we're cool with your caligni claanmates in the other room, but that owb thing we just killed was a real piece of work. I'm Kka, by the way, and this is Lough, Cherry, Kvit... and Sneakers. Soooo, whaat's your name and whaat are you caligni up to down here?"
The caligni looks surprised as the owb reappears a minute later. "Oh yeah, my name's Dulac. We're a bunch of caligni from the Darklands who are carving out our own little spot here. We encountered some urdefhan, but they were no match against our boss Urthagul. That is, until he found some shiny thing and got obsessed with it, so it fell to me to manage our little group. I honestly have no idea where that thing came from," she nudges the owb with her foot. "I guess I summoned it for help and it took over?
"But yeah, we're carving out our own space, but with all the monsters on this level and the urdefhan down below, it's been rough. I mean, we blocked off the entrance to the monsters, so they won't get close, but the urdefhans are a feisty bunch. They've now sworn a blood oath against us, so fleeing isn't an option for us anymore, either."
She glances at the papers on her desk, which mainly contain battle plans against a variety of enemies and under different conditions. Most of them don't look good.
You also look around the room and spot the hidden door. You open it, and... it's completely empty inside. "Oh yeah, that's the owb's hiding spot, I guess. It didn't want others to know it was there, so it hid whenever we had guests."
Kka gives the Owb room a careful going over to confirm that it is in fact devoid of anything valuable. She then points out the door and down the hallway to the rubble blocking the way. "Ah, so that baarricade over there is your work? Thaat's too baad, because we're going to haave to get through there eventuaally."
"As to your nemeses, don't worry, we'll taake care of the urdefhaans for you. Our job here is to clear out these Vaults of anything that might endanger to our hometown. If the guy you have in jail baack there is anything to go by, the urdefhaans definitely fall into the dangerous caategory."
She waves at the battle plans on the table. "What do you know about whaat's beyond the baarricade? You got a maap of the place or something that might help us out?"
Kvit is glad the fight was over nearly before it started. Underground it was hard to tell what time it was, but he felt like it was late afternoon already...
He examines the Own corpse as well out of professional interest. He listens as Kka and Cherry interrogate the caligni.
"How long ago did you block the way? For some folks witha blood vendetta they don't seem to be trying too hard to get through."
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"We sent several troops past the barricade. Very few came back. There's a giant cavern, with bioluminescent fungi, and several creatures have each claimed a corner of the cavern. There seem to be some mad-made structures, or at least doors into the walls, but we have no idea what's in there. We never made it that far. As for the creatures in there," she tallies them off on her fingers, "there's the giant spider. As in, immensely big. Each leg is bigger than a person. Then there's the tentacle monster in the lake to the west. We haven't seen its full size yet, but it has several long limbs that snatch us off the shore from quite a distance. Then the giant stinky death-lizard - not quite as big as the other two, but twice as fierce. The floating mushrooms themselves aren't that big of a threat, but the spores they release hurt like a mother, and the even bigger floating fungus with tentacles is even worse. Those shrooms are pretty slow, so you can outrun them, but they have quite a reach.
"Honestly, the urdefhan are a bloodthirsty bunch, but at least they give us a mercy killing. What's on the other side of that barricade isn't as forgiving."
Kka nods as Dulac lists off the bad guys on the other side of the barricade. "Okay, thanks. Good to know whaat we might run into out there."
She turns to the rest of the group. "Before we taackle the baad guys on the other side of the baarricade, how about we go baack and check out the laast of the doors we came across?"
Assuming everyone's okay with her plan, Kka leads the way back to the caligni room. "Hi again. Don't mind us. We're still exploring. We got rid of Dulaac's Owb, so she's a lot friendlier now."
She moves over to the southwestern door ("Excuse me; just checking whaat's baack here.") and looks the door over.
The caligni look up in confusion. "Huh? Dulac's what now?" But they are ignored and don't really press the matter.
This square chamber is filled with a jumble of open boxes, casks, bundles of torches, and faintly glowing plants.
This is clearly a storage chamber, and not very well organised at that. Things are thrown in haphazardly and supplies lie in uncategorised heaps on the ground. Looking through the stuff, you do find three amethysts you think would be worth around 20 gp each.
Kka pockets the gems and once satisfied that there's nothing more, moves back into the main room and checks the secret door that sneakers found earlier.
Kka opens the secret door and finds a long hallway that terminates into a spiral stairway going down. Looks like this is your way to the next level.
Kka confirms that the hallway end in the stairs leading to the next level down and then rejoins the rest of the group in the caligni room. "Looks like thaat's the way down once we've cleared this level. How about we go check out the small pier and see whaat those lobster-like creatures are about?"
She leads the way north through the door they originally came through and then continues north to the door at the other end of the hallway, which she then checks over.
"Why do they seem to be hiding all the stairs?" Cherry asks. "Also, when do we restore the circle? Walking back to the surface is getting longer and longer."
Kka opens the door to the pier.
A lone dock, rotten and rickety, juts out from a shelf of rock. It looks long unused, and no vessel is tethered to its moorings.
A big crustacean-like creature sits on a nest of some kind, angrily snipping its pincers angrily at Kka as she peers around the corner. A second of these creatures is clearly just below the water surface, waiting to pounce. The remains of a torn-up caligni litter the ground in front of the nest.
The creatures are hostile, but don't seem to attack just yet.
"Doesn't look like anything worth the trouble here. Let's get back to the stairs. Or we head back around to our gem-obsessed friend. No boat either, though I have a way across for us."
Kka eyes the big crab-like creatures and wonders how intelligent they are and how tough they might be in a fight. She also wonders what they might be hiding in that nest of theirs.
"Hey, Kvit. Any idea what they are?"
In the end, she can't help but agree with Kvit. "Yeah. They don't seem to be much of a danger to us right now. We caan deal with them later if we haave time. Let's go see if that Gug's jewel opens the secret door."
She goes all the way back to the bottom of the stairs where they first entered this level and checks to see if the large jewel they got from the Gug fits the concave indentation.
Kvit and Lough recognise these lobster-things from things they've heard before, but can't really put their fingers on what they are, exactly.
You head back to the not-so-hidden door. You slot the lens in the indentation and it fits perfectly. You give it a twist and the secret door slides open.
This large, circular room is made of pale stone and covered with dust. At its center stands a single, stone-lipped pit. A twisting ribbon of blue light coils and twists in the air, extending from the ceiling down into the pit. The stone of the ceiling and the walls of the pit undulate in the eerie light as though the stone itself were suffering.
From this side, you clearly see a hidden door in the southern side of the room.
When the jewel fits into the secret door's indentation perfectly and the door pops open, Kka pumps her fist in triumph. "Yes! I knew it would work."
She eyes to familiar ribbon of blue light as it coils and twists in the air and disappears into the pit. "Seems Belcorra's blue light is back. I wouldn't go anywhere near it unless you've got a hankering to get fried." She gives Lough some side-eye. "And that means you, big man. I can still smell your burnt flesh from when you freed that poor dwarf a few levels back."
She carefully slides along the rounded southern wall of the room and up to the not-so-hidden door to check it out.
"I don't think it was pleasant for any of us. And I would like to avoid it if possible."
Cherry will help Kka search with their own pserception.
The southern secret door leads to a small corridor with another door. That door leads to a vast cavern.
This patch of fungus sits lower than the rest, though it bears no signs of cultivation. Amid the other fungi are bulbous green growths. The back wall of the cavern is visible through a cloud of drifting spores; it isn’t natural rock, but a pale, curved, seamless stone.
As you open the door, you disturb a cloud of spores that's hanging in the air. As you look around, you see a giant balloon-like fungus slowly descending from the ceiling, with tendrils reaching out towards the disturbed spores. Even from this distance, you get the feeling it could easily reach out and grab you.
Lough 96/96
Kvit 54/54
Kka 94/94
Cherry Berry 88/88
Fungus, frightened 1
Kka screeches out a battle cry, and though the fungus doesn't have any discernible means of perception, it still winces at the noise.
Everyone is up!
Identifying this thing would be a Nature check.
Kka pauses to give Kvit and Cherry a chance to do whatever they have in mind, then charges in and starts hacking away at the huge fungus with her blades.
Not wanting to deal with spores directly again, Kvit creates an animated statue from the surrounding stoneworks.
It lumbers forward and punches at the fungus.
Cherry looks at the plant, hoping to identify it.
Then they wave their staff and casts Shield Other on Kka.
"Be careful, it has a long reach."
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Storming into the room, Lough's shield glows with faint light, casting a protective aura around himself and Kka. The light is faint though, unperturbing the fungus, but potent, fuleing Kvit's magic with bolstering song.
◆) Stride
◆) Spark Transcendence
◇) Raise Spellguard Shield
◇) Raise the Walls
◇) Cunning Epithet
◇) Of Verse Unbroken
◆) Strike
~) Of Verse Unbroken
↺) Attack of Opportunity
↺) Shield Block
Slow to arrive, he hurls hurls his chakram, carving a chunk of mushroom flesh, and catching it, bends one brow, his vision keen and evasive, as he prepares to cross the breach into the creature's clutches...
Kvit summons a stone ally to harass the fungus. It lumbers up to the enemy and swings at it, but misses.
Cherry Berry tries to think about what they know about the thing, but comes up empty. They cast Shield Other on Kka.
Lough tries to catch the fungus off-guard, but fails. He chucks his chakram at it and it connects! The sharp edge of the chakram cuts deep into the fungal flesh, releasing a cloud of spores that make it difficult to see.
Kka then jumps in and slashes twice. The first crits due to Gang up and Frighten, the second one hits because of it.
More clouds of spores erupt from the creature, but it doesn't have any additional effect.
The fungus is already below half HP after this round.
The fungus twists around in the air, whipping its tentacles at everyone in its reach.
The fungus immediately tries to grab hold of the construct.
After that, the fungus wheezes, releasing a different kind of spores around itself, and they start to infest Kka!
Kka, please make me a DC 26 Reflex save or take poison damage, as well as 1d6 persistent poison damage!
Lough 96/96
Kvit 54/54, free Sustain
---> Kvit's statue, 1/35
Kka 94/94, Shield Other, 11 damage depending on save, 1d6 persistent poison
Cherry Berry 88/88, Shield Other with Kka
Fungus, 99 damage
Everyone is up! Kka needs to make a DC 26 Reflex save, and Kvit has a free Sustain thanks to Lough.
Slashing damage seems to be extra effective.
Remember that everything in the spore cloud is Concealed and requires a DC 5 flat check to target.
Kka tries to hold her breath as the poisonous spore cloud envelopes her...
...but gets a mouthful of the stuff regardless. "<Cough!, Hack!> Yuck! Thaat stuff tastes naasty."
Spitting out a gob of spores, Kka continues slashing away at the fungus.
The poisonous fungal spores start taking their toll.
Cherry moves forward to keep Kka in range. After moving into the secure looking corner, Cherry points their hand and releases a blast of holy fire.
◆Stride
◆◆
Kvit moves into the room to get a better view. Lough's seemingly chaotic new powers somehow make funneling energy to the construct easier than last time.
Kvit attempts to burn out the fungal infestation.
Kka takes a mouthful of toxic spores, but luckily Cherry Berry siphons off some of the harm.
Kka slashes three times at the giant spore bag. First attack crits thanks to Gang Up, second one hits thanks to Gang Up, and third one is a hit as well. With all the gashes in its body, the balloon-like membrane deflates with a wet pffffrt and the fungus collapses in a heap on the ground, sending spores flying. After a minute, the spores clear up and you can see clearly again.
Now that you have time to look around the cavern, you see several things. To the southeast, you see the following:
The towering fungi around these overgrown paths are laced in thick webbing. Within are a few humanoid figures, too shrouded in webs to see clearly.
Hiding high on the ceiling is an absolutely massive spider eyeing you.
To the northwest, you see this:
Toward the end of the fungal path, a masonry structure juts out from the cavern wall, a door at its center.
In front of the door is a hooded figure observing you. They're quietly muttering to themselves. They also carry a bow, but it isn't aimed at you.
To the southwest, you see a secret door hidden in the cavern wall.
Lough 96/96
Kvit 54/54
Kka 85/94, Shield Other
Cherry Berry 80/88, Shield Other with Kka
Kka quickly sizes up the situation. "Whaat do you guys think? I say we take care of the spider first if we caan get to it. Any chaance you caan get it down from up there, Kvit? Cherry?"
"I can make it unpleasant for it to stay up there, maybe knock it down with coral. I can also get one person up there with Air Walk. I only have three spell slots with damaging spells in them, but all of them have the range to reach it." Cherry says quietly.
"But maybe we can talk to it? No reason to start a fight if all it wants is to be left alone."
Cherry Berry thinks about what they know about spiders, but comes up blank. Most spiders are venomous and can spin webs, but you're not sure what this one is capable of.
Kka seems dubious. "I don't know about thaat. All the spiders I've run into haave all been pretty stupid and uncommunicaative. They've been more kill-you-first-and-not-ask-questions-later types." She points to the poor humanoid figures shrouded in webs above them. "As I expect they found out the haard way. If we don't waant to join them, we should strike the first blow."
Unfortunately, Kka has no way of reaching the spider where it currently hangs with any of her weapons, so short of strolling over and letting the creature jump her first, she didn't know how to bring the spider down within range of her swords.
"Just leave it, but keep an eye on it. Either it comes down and we kill it, or it stays up there and we deal with the more important mystery ahead." He gestures towards the figure apparently guarding a door.
"Or I could tick the spider off if you're that keen to deal with it."
He surreptitiously gestures towards Sneakers to have him sneak his way over to get a better look at the figure in the meantime.
"Although..." Kvit peers up at the various humanoid-shaped ... Packages... Possibly full of abandoned equipment and other things... "Maybe some additional equipment will be beneficial to our cause."
Sneakers sneaks forward and peers under the hood of the hooded figure.
He sees a green-skinned woman with living snakes for hair, looking right at him. She keeps muttering to herself, with baby-like utterances. She looks at Sneakers with curiosity, but clearly does not view him as a threat. The snakes hang limp down her head, lethargically moving back and forth, barely interested in Sneakers.
It's a Society check to figure out what kind of species this woman is, and a Perception check to Sense Motive her whole deal.