The divine decree likewise weakens Remy. Undeterred, the monk glimpses the fiend's vulnerability, then moves in to attack.
Edric and Remy miss, but Dewdrop hits the two-headed fiend with an acid arrow. The fiend snarls and focuses its gaze on the sprite, trying to sap her mind, then it bites at Edric, who avoids its attacks. The acid sizzles before sputtering out.
Success The target resists the nikaramsa's influence.
Failure The target's focus and willpower drain away; it becomes stupefied 2 for 1 minute.
Critical Failure As failure, but the target becomes stupefied 3 for 1 hour.
Having almost run out of spells, Dewdrop's will to continue the battle is fading quickly.
Remy circles to flank the fiend with Edric and unleashes a flurry of kicks!
Remy's blow stuns the fiend. It dodges some of Dewdrop's lightning, and Edric hits it once. The monster shakes off the stun and lashes out with its freakishly long tongues! Remy dodges, but Edric is hit, the force of the blow knocking him down. Remy raises her amulet to blunt the impact for Edric.
Even with the fog in her head, Dewdrop manages another spell.
Remy unleashes the fury of the flurry! She kicks the monster and stuns it again, causing it to take the full force of Dewdrop's lightning. Edric tears into the fiend. After shaking off the stun, the monster quickly opens a dimensional doorway and steps through it, teleporting away!
The fog eventually fades from Dewdrop's mind and she nods in agreement.
"We need to update Her Majesty on what's happening here if nothing else. If something happens to us, she needs to know that the Pharasmins may be compromised. She's never gotten on well with them in the first place because ... well, you know ... but this certainly won't endear them to her."
You retreat from the cathedral and return to Castle Korvosa, quickly securing an audience with Queen Nicoleta. Nicoleta scowls when she hears about the monsters that have taken over the Pharasmin church. "I know my vampires," the queen says acerbically. "Those undead you faced there are none other than strigoi, the oldest of vampirekind, predating even the nosferatu. In their true form, they are bodiless creatures of pure shadow and malevolence. A living creature must perform a rite of their own free will to draw the strigoi into their soul in order to give them a physical body in this world. This is no mere incidental incursion. Somebody did this deliberately."
The queen starts to pace, shaking her head. "The strigoi are very dangerous. Any guards I send to reinforce you would only meet their doom. What I can do, though, is authorize city resources to aid you in recovering from your forays into the cathedral. Right now, you three are our best chance of defeating the strigoi. I hope that I needn't advise you to keep this news to yourself. If word gets out that vampires control the Cathedral of Pharasma, it would cause a panic!"
"Strigoi?" Dewdrop hisses out. "I've read a little bit about them. I didn't think that there were any in this region. Obviously that author was mistaken ... or their sources were out of date."
She shakes her head.
"Yes, I'm going to need rest and we're going to need supplies."
After resting and resupplying, you return to the Cathedral of Pharasma. The top floor is quiet and abandoned, so you quickly make your way to the stairs down to the catacombs.
This unlit room is clean and unadorned. The sturdy walls of this rectangular room are well maintained, but recent gouges and brownish-red stains mar the dark stone of the floor. Rounded archways in the north and west walls house double doors engraved with broad spirals. The door to the north hangs partially open, and a faint, cool draft carries the scent of earth and dust.
Dewdrop spots a trap in the floor of this room. Thassilonian runes set with onyx are set to erupt with negative energy if a living creature crosses them.
"Are they being intentionally obtuse?" Dewdrop questions looking over the runes that compose the trap. "With this pattern, it leaves the rune of Cas as the weakpoint. All you have to do is convert it to a Casvar with a stroke right ... here ..."
When the change to the incorrectly identified rune fails to disarm the the trap, Dewdrop frowns.
"I thought for sure that would break the entire thing. What if we ...?"
"Well, how about this ...?"
"No? Then I'll try ..."
"She'll get it eventually," Remy says with a bemused smirk. Sure enough, after numerous attempts, Dewdrop is able to disable the trap.
"So, west or north?" Remy asks.
"See? Child's play," Dewdrop declares with satisfaction when the trap is finally disarmed. She flutters up to take a seat on Edric's shoulder.
Curved alcoves line the walls of this wide, L-shaped corridor, each bearing neatly stacked, aged bones. Some have been disturbed and scattered across the floor, and most show signs of having been gnawed.
Two immense scarlet walkers like the one you fought in the graveyard guard the doors at the far end of the hall. They quickly begin to scuttle towards you!
Edric slices into one of the creatures, wounding it badly. They lash out at him, one scoring a hit with a claw and a critical strike with its tentacles!
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature is slowed 1 for 1 round.
Failure The creature is paralyzed for 1 round, and is then slowed 1 for 1 round after recovering.
Critical Failure As failure, but the paralysis doesn't automatically end after 1 round. The creature can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns, and the DC cumulatively decreases by 1 on each such save.
"More of these things?!" Dewdrop questions in disgust before sending an arc of electricity to jump between the two of them.
Remy rushes up to support Edric. She lets loose a mighty roar before attacking the same foe as him!
Remy's roar leaves both monsters frightened. She pummels the foe Edric attacked, leaving it stunned. Dewdrop's lightning proves effective, exploiting the enemys' weakness. Edric hacks at the stunned monster, nearly taking it down.
Both foes reorient themselves on Remy. Despite the monk's attempts to dodge away, she takes a few hits, the claws and tentacles battering her.
The sorceress repeats her spell.
Remy glimpses the walker's vulnerability then kicks it twice as her wounds bleed.
Dewdrop takes out the wounded walker with her lightning blast and harms the other one. Edric fails to hit, but Remy's kicks leave the creature stunned! It recovers and attacks the monk, scoring a hit, but she resists some with her amulet.
Another arc of electricity flies from the fey's hands.
The second monster goes down under your furious assault!
"Those are scarlet walkers," Dewdrop explains. "They're denizens of the Plateau of Leng. It's a demiplane of nightmares within the Dreamlands." She looks back at Edric and Remy. "I may have done a little reading about them since the last time."
Confident that she's clarified sufficiently, she sets about healing her companions.
"Let's see what they were guarding," Remy suggests, nodding thanks to Dewdrop for the healing magic.
The face of this sturdy stone double door is inlaid with a series of spiraling runes worked in silver. All around the edges of the door’s frame, deep scratches indicate something tried to claw around the door, The claw marks fade as they near the door, as if the stone itself has healed the damage. The silver runes consist of a repeated phrase: “The Lady’s servants need only show their faith to gain entry to this sacred space.”
As you approach the door, it glows blue, and the door unlocks and opens quietly, closing once you pass through.
The north and south walls of this wide crypt feature two rows of alcoves stacked one atop the other, sixteen alcoves in all. A dozen alcoves contain stone sarcophagi. At the far end of the room stands a small stone altar bearing an hourglass, a water font, and a gently curved dagger; a statue of Pharasma seated upon her throne looms just beyond. The air in the room is stale.
Three people are huddled in this room. Two are dressed as Pharasmin acolytes, while the third is a woman in Grey Maiden armor. They all look half-starved and fatigued. The Maiden readies herself for a fight, but when she ses you, she quickly backs down. "Thank Pharasma and all the gods! Rescue at last," she sighs. "Please tell me you have brought some food!"
"I am Yniesse Zenderholm," the Gray Maiden says. "I lost my family during Queen Ileosa's rule, and I wanted to visit their graves before getting to the work that brought me back to Korvosa. These two acolytes escorted me through the graveyard, but when we returned to the cathedral, we saw it had been overrun by vampires and those giant red spider-things! We fled here to the crypt and barely escaped. Fortunately, the wards on the door kept those monsters from getting in, but we've had no food for days now!"
Once you have reached a safe location, Yniesse explains why she and the other Gray Maidens of the Erinyes Company have come to Korvosa. Officially in service to Abrogail II, Imperial Majestrix of Cheliax, and dedicated to the powerful infernal Queens of the Night, the Erinyes Company believes its ultimate goal is to reclaim Korvosa in Ileosa’s name. Yniesse herself is a passionate devotee of Eiseth who received a charge from her patron to seek out the infernal duke Lorthact, Eiseth’s treacherous ex-partner. After months of painstaking research, Yniesse pieced together enough details about recent events in Korvosa to suspect Lorthact had some hand in shaping the city’s history. Ileosa’s manifestations gave Yniesse the excuse she needed to return to her hometown with several of her agents. None of these agents realize their commander is more interested in Lorthact than a possible return of their beloved leader.
Howver, her return to Korvosa awakened a powerful mix of nostalgia for her hometown and shame for her actions during Ileosa’s reign. But she is still trying to sift through clues about Lorthact's presence in the city. Before her disastrous trip to the Gray, she researched the birth and burial records of the Ornelos family—the lineage of the Acadamae’s headmasters—suspecting the school’s association with diabolism had ancient ties to Lorthact’s influence. While researching the burial records with Bishop Keppira, they noted strange discrepancies in the burial records for the Acadamae’s founder—in particular, no official gravesite for Volshyenek exists. Keppira suggested it was likely a paperwork error, but Yniesse suspects Volshyenek brokered a deal with Lorthact.
"I'm sure Volshyenek is long dead," Dewdrop says with confidence. "Most likely a recording error. 'Never attribute to maliciousness that which can be attributed to ignorance or error.'"
She considers more of Yniesse's story.
"It wouldn't hurt to do a little more research into Lorthact, though. Infernal influences can be subtle and difficult to unearth."
Yniesse nods. "I will return to my fellow Maidens in Whitecaps to make sure they are safe and perhaps convince them that there is a better way to use their training. But if you do end up facing Lorthact, you can likely distract or frighten the cowardly devil by confronting him with Eiseth's wrath. Threatening to reveal his presence to the church of Eiseth may potentially shift the balance in your favor."
She departs along with the two acolytes of Pharasma. There are still a few chambers below the church to explore...
"Let us seek out any further dark denizens here before reporting back to Her Majesty," the sprite declares. "Onwards."
"But when someone forgets about a past evil it has a tendency to happen again." Dewdrop says with a raised eyebrow and her fingers adjusting her glasses. "So we shall endeavor to remember only so that her reign isn't repeated."