Gung ho to push through the door, Fentus stops and listens to what the Kobolds have to finish saying, "Invisible, truly? Or just hard to see?" Looking to the others, "I don't know any magic that can reveal an invisible creature, yet, maybe we save this room for later? I'd hate to leave something waiting behind us to ambush us later though,"
One of the kobolds replies, "Makes little difference when you're dead, One of our minion goblins was killed by it, we hear. Transparent and squishy they said. But you know those simple goblins, always so dramatic!" He sniffs with a regal air, and with exaggerated posture, marches off to their old lair, leaving the group behind.
"Ah, there is a difference between 'transparent' and invisible. One likely lost on a goblin." Trista looks at the door.
"We could cast some powder or garbage into the passage to see if anything is moving it."
"Transparent and squishy?" Olaf rumbles, comically lowering his raised boot. "Maybe we come back to this one later?"
Stepping away from the door, "On second thought, maybe we leave that room for later, way later. . ." Looking around, thinking, "There were some double doors we passed by earlier, maybe we go check those out?"
"Suit yourself, but I'm still curious!"
Despite her protestations, Trista is fine going to the double doors.
Reluctantly, the group withdraws from the door they had planned, and circles back through the room that held the painting and out into the main entry hall for the dungeon. There, they find not a double door, but the remaining pair of a trio of single doors all set in the same wall. '
As they set about looking at the remaining doors, Trista notices strange pasty caking of dried slime along the lower frame of the central door.
Trista examines the door and, if all seems safe, yanks it open.
Olaf sighs as the thaumaturge's curiosity gets the better of her, and hefts his shield and prepares to enter the room, backing her up.
The door opens into a darkened room, but as the light spills inside, you can see a splintered table stretches across the center of this room, while broken chairs, moldy books, and general detritus litter the floor. Two bodies that appear to be frog-like humanoids lie sprawled on the floor near the center of the room. Of the several doors that provide exits from this chamber, the one to the southeast hangs wide open, while the rest are closed fast.
From under the table, a child like voice calls out in a strange language, but for now, you can't quite see what's causing it.
Looks puzzled at the situation before, eying the boggard's bodies warily, and confused by the voice from under the table. The language is familiar to Fentus in a way, his instincts take over, responding similarly.
Stepping around toward the table, before continuing,
Stepping out from the shadows under the table, comes an unexpected sight. Instead of a child, its a small mannequin-like doll dressed in full Hellknight array (not armor, just a robe with the groups symbols adorning it). The doll's eyes glow a bright red color, and when it sees you, rather than responding in kind, it shrieks in full-on, unrestrained rage.
The doll is clearly in attack mode, consumed by a burning anger. Its face contorted, little wooden teeth bared, fists balled.
Doll from Hell - Round 1
21 Doll
21 Trista
21 Valdrin
12 Olaf
8 Fentus
You watch with increasing horror as the doll seems to cast an incantation of some kind then slowly lifts off her small legs and into the air, floating about 5' off the ground but continue to shriek and shout in Infernal. it does not approach the PCs near the door, but is certainly threatening them.
Looking at the rest of the group, Fentus exclaims, "Guys this thing was left behind by the Hellknights when they left, I guess its got abandonment issues!"
Turning to the creature, speaking in Infernal
Standing back, Fentus prepares to try dazing the creature if it attacks someone.
Trista looks for some blessed herbs that she picked up at a temple on her way through Elidir and quickly runs them down the blade of her sword.
"I never liked playing with dolls."
She advances on the horrible plaything and swipes at it with her sword.
for
Doll from Hell - Round 1 - continued
Fentus tries reasoning with the doll, but it is clearly beyond the reach of rational discourse. He prepares a dazing spell on the doll, in case it attacks one of his allies.
Trista advances and slashes at the floating construct. Her attack hits the doll, slashing a cut across it and adding her magical weakness to it.
"Well I guess the talking is done." Olaf mutters as the hot headed thaumaturge charges in and attacks the, admittedly evil looking, flying doll.
Backing her play, he trundles into the room, sending an arc of electricty at the thing as he enters.
Was she here all along? Or was it the gods performing an intervention of sorts.
Whatever it was took a backseat compared to what looks like an angry doll speaking in some diabolical language trying to kill them. Needless to say, this wasn't exactly how she was expecting to spend her time here. At least it wasn't fire this time. Yet still pretty terrifying.
"And the doll thinks our bodies will be enough comfort for it?" She asked exasperated. Yet she was ready and able to provide some help, moving close enough to give a quiet prayer of assistance to her allies.
Doll from Hell - Round 1 - concluded
As the melee begins, Olaf also enters the chamber to support Trista, casting a spell that discharges a bolt of electrical energy at the floating doll. He smirks a bit as the full force of the arc burns into the small target, leaving the scent of ozone in the air.
Apparently deep in battle suddenly, Zainab moves close to Trista, offering the blessing of the Fearless Claw when she gets near enough.
End of Round 1
Doll from Hell - Round 2
21 Doll (levitated, 6hp dmg)
21 Trista (blessed)
21 Zainab (blessed)
12 Olaf
8 Fentus
The doll floats 5' farther away from Trista and then casts another spell, and a dark black ray emanates from its fingertip aimed right at Trista. Fortunately, the ray misses blasting the wall behind the party, but even with the miss, Trista feels the bone chilling cold flash past her, lucky to have avoided that beam. It continues screaming in Infernal the same mantra over and over.
"Praise Jaidz, and thanks for the good luck."
Trista follows the doll and attacks it.
for
for
Olaf move around to flank the creature and spellstrikes, magic infused blade slashing down in an overhead arc.
Fentus moves into the room alongside Zainab, the trusty companion he has grown fond of these past few days of adventuring with, and prepares and throws a small ball of fire at the doll.
"Don't be to thankful. We're still having trouble hitting this thing."
Zainab nervously moves next to the doll child while expanding the range of her spell to include Olaf. Once that was done, she decided to take a stab at the doll herself.
Her timidness in the stab made it fairly easy for the doll to dodge.
Doll from Hell - Round 2 - concluded
Trista leaps after the floating fiend, striking at it twice. The first attack misses but the second hits with a satisfying crunch, splintering some of the wood body of the animated creation.
Attacks from Fentus and Zainab miss the wounded foe, but Olaf lands a crushing blow, combined with a magical claw strike that finish off the infernal doll, which drops to the ground with a thunk.
End of Combat
"I didn't know that Hellknights even kept dolls. How strange!"
Trista examines the remains of the creature and then looks for anything else that might be unusual around the room.
Eying it warily, "I agree, I wouldn't have taken Hellknights for dollmakers, the more I learn about this organization, the stranger it seems,"
”Could that have been some type of familiar?” Olaf muses as he observes the crushed thing on the floor, ”More powerful than most I suppose.” he adds before shrugging and looking around the room.
Looking around the room, Fentus will bend down to further examine the doll, activating his Detect Magic to examine any lingering magical aura's of the doll. Hoping to glean some clues as to how its made or what is original function was before going mad.
Trista doesn't find anything on the body of the small doll, or on the fallen cultists, but scattered through some of the debris in the room, she finds a two or three obsidian figurines which seem to be shaped like Nail Hellknights in full plate or Hellknight signifier spellcasters. They may once have been part of set like chess pieces. She feels like if she spends more time sifting through the rubble, she might find more pieces.
Fentus finds no lingering auras on the now-broken doll, but he does recall studies about soulbound dolls being created when a portion of a soul was placed into them, by some especially bitter or angry caster. This doll is clothed in apparently hand-tailored garments with Order of the Nail insignia sewn upon them. It clearly was well cared for and was perhaps a familiar, mascot or something akin, but apparently was left behind (based on its constant shrieks of "take me with you" when the Hellknights left the Citadel behind.
There are 4 doors in this room (besides the one you entered) all are closed fast except the one in the southeast side, which is left slightly ajar. More of the white, dried slimy stuff that was on the outer door, is also along the jam and underside of this door.
"I don't want to know how. There's a good chance I won't like the answer," The cleric responded with a shudder.
She agreed to spend some more time looking for pieces. "Does anyone have a better idea on where we should go?"
Trista seems very interested in finding the chess pieces. "I hope the whole set is still here."
The monotonous task of searching through thr rubble occupies Trista's hands and eyes, but leaves her mind cler to chat with her companions.
"Tell me, Zainab, what brought your to our call to adventure?"
Spending about 20 mins to thoroughly search the rubble and debris in the room while they talk, the group finds all the pieces of shaped obsidian chess set. The Hellknight pawns are simple warrior, and the other side is a mix of basic and featureless humanoids, but there is definite craftsmanship in the making. All together the pieces are worth 20gp.
"Well, this is probably dangerous, but I don't want anything sneaking up behind us."
Feeling pleased at finding all of the chess set, Trista optimistically checks and opens the door to the southeast.
While looking for any other clues, Zainab looked up to face Trista with a nervous smile. "I just had a feeling something was going on in this town. I've been traveling for some time now, but it seemed like I'm needed here right now."
Watching Trista search for all the chess pieces, Fentus contemplates when his next meal is going to be. Mumbling to himself, "Its a shame I gave my rations to those kobolds, I'm kind of regretting it now."
Looking to the others and to the conversation between Trista and Zainab, "Ahh the call to adventure, does anyone need more reason than that sometimes? Speaking of the doll, I'm not sure what its grand purpose was, but it seemed to contain some fragment of the soul of its creator. Maybe we can find some manual left over on its creation, if its a common Hellknight creation,"
The door to the southeast was already slightly ajar, so as Trista comes upon it, it opens rather easily. As the light spills into this darkened chamber, you see toppled armor racks are scattered throughout this wide room, as well as anvils, hammers, tool sets, and other supplies that were once used to repair the iconic Hellknight armor. The room appears to be rather ransacked, and the large fallen racks, scattered equipment, and other detritus on the floor seem to make travel across any part of the room difficult.
"What a mess. I wonder if there's anything that isn't ruined." Trista turns to Fentus. "Aren't Hellknights known for being...tidy? I wonder why they left all this behind."
Trista will go in the door.
Trista slowly picks her way into the ransacked room. Lots of shiny objects on the floor and tables reflect light, but nothing really appears to be of any value. Anvils line the southeastern wall, but they are all long-cold. All of the bits of armor or tools seem broken, in disrepair, or not a complete set. However, as the crafty thaumaturge looks around, she sees something in the more northern part of the room that catches her eye. It appears to be a sword-hilt, the proximal end of the blade at least partially visible before debris covers the rest. The blade is probably 30' of cluttered terrain from where she stands right now, just at the edge of the bright magical light.
"Fentus, could you bring the light in? I think I see something interesting in the corner." Trista waits for the sorcerer to brighten things up a bit. "I don't want to break anything--including myself--stumbling through the darkness over there."
Looking around the room, "I don't think the Hellknights would leave this place like this, must've been the goblins. . ." Holding his torch aloft, he'll also cast Light on Trista as he trudges into the room, "Sorry, should've been sharing the light this whole time. Be careful, something could be lurking in here, more dolls maybe,"
Olaf follows Trista into the room, looking about in the dark. Frowning, he quickly chants out a cantrip and his shield starts to glow like a torch .
Raising the glowing sword in front of herself, Trista carefully scoots her way through the room, intent on reaching the surviving blade.
"If anyone needs like for themselves, I can do so as well," Zainab adds to the group.
Even with the additional light, Trista cannot see the transparent gelatinous slime surrounding the sword blade, and walks right into the monstrous trap. You all watch in horror as she is engulfed inside the ooze, weak acid begins eating away at her flesh.
Ruined Armory - Round 1
29 Zainab
21 Olaf
16 Gelatinous Cube
11 Trista (13/26hp, engulfed)
5 Fentus
Seeing the ooze engulf his compaion Olaf mutters "Oh, that would explain..." before charging forward and slashing with his blade while chanting out a spell.