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The goodest of canines munches at an Achille's tendon, apparently undeterred by the rotten smell. Held fast by the hardened substance, the golem has only one target in range; making hideous noises, it slams into the summoned dog.
With the golem stuck in place, Elric steps forward and swings at it with all his might.
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The shrike mask turns away slightly from the sight of the embodiment of pure goodness in dog form instantly vanishing under the walloping of putrid, meaty fists. Despite hearing Shane's words, Shrike does not intend to take chances by approaching the animated carrion with blade or mace. While it is trapped by the tanglefoot bag, she will remain outside its reach. In tandem with Elric, the longest blade of the leaf stabs out cautiously from the other side.
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Audria shakes off the last of the nausea and slips past Pava and Elric to get at the horrid monstrosity. Her hands are shakier than she wishes, but she still does what she can put this thing down and keep out of Elric's line of attack.
Pava hustles into the room, twisting around Audria and the golem, before lashing out at the construct's legs to slam and stick it to the ground.
Elric gets a good hit in, and so does Audria as they poke and hammer at the vile construct. Unfortunately, as Pava gets closer, it swipes at them, but the young Shoanti's kick finds the weaker ankle and sends the golem crashing to the ground.
The good news is that the thing is almost falling apart; one more good hit and the arcane threads holding it together will probably unravel, unable to withstand the damage.
Shane mutters "Damned thing killed my dog." The worst thing is, he's quite sure there's nothing he has that can do much damage to it, or even affect it. Or there might be, but it might help if it works at all. Golems are so damned varied, one never knows if the rare magic that does influence them helps or hinders unless they've done a good study of it. And I clearly only have the bare knowledge.
"Oh well," He says, "When in doubt of details, field experiments can be used to verify the data."
He shoots forward a gob of acid, hoping this isn't one of those rare constructs that just sucks the acid in and gets stronger or something.
The drops of acid dissolve some of the putrefying flesh to expose a bit of bone, but it is not enough to unmake the golem.
As the golem struggles to stand up, Elric immediately takes advantage of its vulnerable position.
As the vile golem tries to stand, Audria brings her halberd down on it with an overhand chop.
With a wet crunch, the horrible construct finally collapses and Gaekhen's severed arm rolls from its limp grip.
The room it was trapped in, once a pantry, is in shambles. Broken crates and shelves lie strewn about the place, with the foodstuffs and supplies they once contained scattered across the floor and trampled.
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"THANK you. I really disliked that construct. I'm going to miss that dog. I mean, he'll return eventually but still.." As he fusses over his dog there is a new scent in the air... smells of pine? It attempts to ease the stench of Carrion Golem lingering.
Audria pulls her halberd free and swallows hard as bile rises up in her throat again. She goes back to the passage that the derro had tried to flee down before looking to Shane.
"C-could you clean whatever ichor that thing had off of us," she asks the wizard.
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Pava scowls as they stretch through their new contusion. They retrieve some oilcloth and wrap Gaekhen's arm up as respectfully as possible.
"Ñawpa taytakuna lliwta waqaychasunkichik, Gaekhen. Manam ruwayta atirqanichu."
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Audria pulls her halberd free and swallows hard as bile rises up in her throat again. She goes back to the passage that the derro had tried to flee down before looking to Shane.
"C-could you clean whatever ichor that thing had off of us," she asks the wizard.
"Yes, of course. We could all use it, if anyone objects to it, let me know though." He begins with Audria, reminding himself he really must look to see if someone sells objects that cast this for those who can't cast it themselves. He doesn't mind, but she clearly would like to have it when she was alone too.
The sensation of being cleaned is likely a relief.
He moves onto each of them in turn unless declined.
Then, almost reflexively, casts detect magic again and looks at the remains and surrounding area.
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After helping tear the cursed flesh amalgamation back into its component parts, Shrike cleans gibbets and unnamed fluids off her spear point meticulously with a rag, which she drops on the floor. Sidelong, she watches Pava deal with Gaekhen's arm in silence.
A different kind of nausea rolls in her stomach. Two days ago that arm had held her, lifted her up, spun her, caught her, pushed her away, vaulted and wheeled with her. The smell of pine trees, sudden and realistic, pushes in on her senses, mingling with the rot of— many bodies, dead for days, lingering smoke and char, burned hair and cooked meat—
Abruptly, Shrike leaves the ruined pantry and the ruined alchemy lab before Shane gets to her, striding back to the corridor they came in by. She returns to the lab after a minute or so.
"Bad air in here." The croak is even croakier than usual. "Ready."
"I'll lead," Audria says quietly before moving as quietly and carefully down the passage as she can manage.
Audria and the others advance cautiously into the eastern corridor. The air doesn't smell much better than the stench felt in the vicinity of the carrion golem, although the notes are slightly different - excrement and sweat layered over putrefaction.
Talanaliel whispers (as much as birds can whisper) to Audria. "I hear someone talking, but I can't make out what he's saying."
Ahead, the path forks to the north and south; a stone pillar stands in the center of the intersection. The voice that Talanaliel heard seems to be coming from the right.
Audria turns to the others and holds her hand with her fingers out as if she were using a hand puppet. She opens and closes them a few times before pointing to the right (south) corridor. Once she's warned the others that there's someone talking up ahead, she moves up to the intersection and tries to see if there are any lurking dangers down the other paths.
Shane, not dazed and recalling the rightful reprimand when he snapped out of it loudly, moves quietly and keeps his over-educated yap shut.
Pava's lips thin, and they point towards the sound of muttering. "There's a Lamm to slaughter."
"Maybe." Shrike cocks her head, listening for what Audria reports Talanaliel heard. She trades spear for bow and, when everyone is ready, eels quietly around the corner, hoping to get off a shot before being noticed if the voice belongs to a clear foe.
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Audria, Shrike, and anyone else peeking around the corner spot a huge, lumbering figure waddling up and down the rocky floor of a large cavern to the south. He is marginally humanoid in shape, almost as wide as he is tall, with fists the size of his lumpy, misshapen head. The metal elemnts of his leather armour clink with every heavy footfall, and he mutters to himself in a low baritone.
"That meat head is really wrecking the place, huh? Father will be angry." He stomps at something, or someone, out of sight. "Quiet, you! No talking! Not feeding time yet."
Shrike puts an arrow on the string and motions the others over in case they want to take advantage of the huge figure's inattention to attack from range first as well.
The bizarrely squat giant is talking to someone — perhaps prisoners, or perhaps worse: hungry undead. Either way, he clearly works for the necromancer.
Audria shoulders her halberd and pulls out her bow as she moves to get a clearer shot at the strange creature. After seeing the horrors of this place, she's not in the mood for mercy.
Shelyn, I pray that you can forgive me for this.
She nocks an arrow and watches Shrike out of the corner of her eye.
Even with arrows flying at him, the massive humanoid is very slow to react. He slaps at his upper back, trying to get at Audria's arrow sticking out from his enormous trapezius. "Hey!" he bellows, his voice reverberating off the cavern walls and triggering showers of dust from the ceiling. "Who let the stirges loose?"
Pava flings themself past the towering figure, twisting their klar into his liver instead of going for a quick kill.
Shane had hung back, now he wonders at his lack of foresight as he realizes now he must expend his efforts in just joining the fray
Too slow in his armor to get into proper flanking position, Elric opts to just stride forward and whack the misshapen figure.
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Pava and Elric almost take out the lumpy giant; blood flows freely from where Pava's klar has stabbed him, and the hammer strike almost breaks his left knee. Roaring in pain, he turns to challenge his attackers, swinging his massive fists.
His bellow echoes through the vast space and down the corridor to the north.
And... there is an answer, although perhaps not what the giant was hoping for. From the ten-foot-deep pits bordering the cavern, hoarse voices call out.
"Kill him! Please! Get us out of here!" At least one person is sobbing, and someone is scrabbling up the sides of one of the pits, sending down showers of pebbles and dirt.
Glancing behind them, Pava notices that the pit contains a few heaps of moldy straw, a wooden trough with filthy water, and a couple of prisoners - a human and a dwarf, both women.
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Now seeing their target, Shane contemplates his next action. His specialty is illusion, and this thing has a mind so it comes to him that mayhaps bringing a simple blinding ray, however temporary, might give an advantage in this scuffle to his allies.
Then he hears the cries for help, and subtle goes out the window
His fingers rub the rhubarb leaf and adder's stomach over the dart with one hand, while the other makes complex gestures ending in a pointing motion. Words roll off his tongue 'Sagit Zyss', only to leave the minds of those listening as soon as they hear it, and an arrow of acid launches forward!
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Audria drops her bow and readies her halberd as she moves up. As she does so, her mind races as she thinks about how the giant sounds less like some evil jailer and more like some scared child. She hears the cries of the captives, but she can't ignore the teachings of her faith, either. She believes it'll be hopeless, but she has to try, some part of her demands.
"Surrender," she tells the giant as she gets in range. "Give up! I don't want to kill you, but I will if you keep fighting."
The giant stares at Audria for a few moments, his mouth moving as he sounds out her words. Then he shakes his head violently, spittle flying.
"Can't! Can't! Father will be upset!"
Then, just as he seems about to charge the paladin, Shane's acid projectile hits him in the throat and he collapses backwards. The floor shudders as he falls, and some of the prisoners cheer.
"I suppose I should feel sorry for him, family is... complicated." He admits "We should probably free the prisoners before 'father' gets here." He casts detect magic almost immediately, trusting others will be quicker finding and using keys.
Audria lowers her halberd and stares at the giant for a moment. She understands why they would cheer, but it still feels wrong to cheer someone's death. It's not as if the death of an evil person undoes the harm they've inflicted.
She says a silent prayer over the dead giant before moving to help those that have been held captive.
"Can you tell us what happened," she asks after she helps haul them out of the pits.
His bellow echoes through the vast space and down the corridor to the north.
"We should probably free the prisoners before 'father' gets here."
The mask tilts grimly as the giant falls. "He warned whatever's here. Better hurry."
Shrike picks up the bow, brushes it off, checks the string and slings it over her shoulder. She approaches the pits where the shouting and pleas came from, and the bizarre sharp-beaked bird mask cranes down at two women, one human and one dwarf. Proof that the necromancer and derros have been kidnapping live victims as well as buying up the bodies of the already-dead for their profane experiments. The shrike mask briefly looks over her shoulder at the giant's corpse. The strangely childlike speech of the lumpen monstrosity had disturbed her, but now she only wishes she had had better aim. Her head turns back to the women. "Gonna get you out. Hold tight."
She'd left her rope at Zellara's, finding it too bulky with the extra weapons bristling from her back. Now she wishes she hadn't. She looks around for anything that looks similarly long and sturdy, and , reverses Thorn and grasps it carefully just below the spearhead, keeping her arms away from the razor-sharp, oddly angled other blades. She gets down on one knee and lowers the safe grip of the six-foot weapon down into the pit for the prisoners. "Grab this. Use it to walk up the side." When they get close enough to the top, she grabs their arms and hauls them over the side.
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Shane detects a magical aura outside what he and his companions are wearing and carrying; after a few moments of concentration he determines it is the armour worn by the dead giant.
There is no ladder or pole nearby, so getting the prisoners out of the pits is challenging. In the westernmost pit, Shrike lowers her weapon. The human woman clasps her hands together to give the dwarf a boost, then she climbs out herself. They both collapse on the stone floor, gasping; the rents in their clothes show prominent bones under filthy skin.
The eastern pit contains three prisoners - a halfling man, a human boy who is unconscious, and a human man whom those who have previously met him recognize as Dalmano Imperiosus, aka Dal. In the southern pit there is only one person, a brunette half-elven woman.
Audria blinks as she sees Dal. After helping get the others out and making sure they were breathing, she gently pats him on the cheek.
"Dal, wake up. Please," she begs the man.
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"The armor is magical."
He moves to the gasping human woman and dwarf who climbed out, "Pardon, this much I can do." A gesture or three, and suddenly both of them, and their clothes, are clean.
He looks at the other pits. "I don't have a rope on me."
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Unlike the rest of his fellow prisoners, Dal seems to have kept most of his strength, so he helps lift the halfling first so that he can climb out of the pit.
"Audria! Blessed Hound, I never thought I would see you again! Look, I'm alright here, going to take care of Timmeon until he comes to. Get the others out, and take care of Rolth and his acolyte. They are the most dangerous."
The two women who had managed to climb out of the pit nod their thanks to Shane. "Water," gasps the human. "Do you have any clean water?"
As soon as the two women are out, and realizing from the voices that there are more, Shrike moves to the next pit and lowers her spear again, only then recognizing the human man. "Dal," she croaks, stunned. The halfling clambers up with Dal's help and the weapon's haft to hold onto, and she grabs him when near the top to help pull him the rest of the way. "Hunter's mercy. Is the boy hurt? Abella or Audria can help. Or throw the wand down." Dal is some kind of frogmaker, and knows a lot about magic. He'll surely be able to use the wand. Probably.
While the others decide what to do for the unconscious boy, she moves to the final pit. As she reaches the side, her whole body jerks like she's been stung, and a tiny rush of air sounds through the mask. She kneels down and lowers the haft of her spear again with urgency. "I—Can you climb." The croak sounds less harsh and more choked than usual. She can't imagine any simple pit like this holding Ivy for long unless she had taken some serious injury.
"I'm sorry, I don't have any water on me." He says "I'll see if anyone else has some."
And he looks about to see if anyone does inded have some "Anyone?"
"Dal! You're alright," Audria cries when she sees the missing mage before helping the halfling man up.
When people start asking about water and rope, Audria realizes she doesn't have any of either.
"No, I didn't think about water or rope. Which of us is the fastest," Audria asks. "Whomever it is, they should go get some of both. The rest of us can stay here and keep everyone safe."
"Duckling, it's ten feet. Soldier boy, you've got the bulging biceps, want to hop down there and boost him up? We can human ladder this, then get them all out."
Elric peers over the edge of the pit, then glances back at the northern corridor.
"I should be able to climb down and back up again without too much effort, but it will take time to get the boy out. And as Dal says, we still have a dangerous spellcaster and his minion to deal with. They are likely alerted by the shouting and could easily ambush us while I'm down there." he says, not taking his eyes off the northern passage.
"Dal and the others are not in immediate danger, so the best thing to do might be to clear the rest of the complex before we attempt a rescue. If we don't want to wait for that, I would like a couple of you keeping close watch on the north passage while the rest of us work."
Dal shakes his head at the offer of the wand. "He's not hurt. They've been... experimenting on him. Go and clear out the place, then come back for us." He is supporting Timmeon's head with one arm, while with the other he makes shooing motions. "Go. We'll be alright."
In the southern pit, the half-elven woman has been holding her arms crossed against her chest, as if hugging her own ribs. At Shrike's questions, she uncrosses them, revealing poorly healed stumps at the ends of her forearms. There is a hint of her old defiance in the gaunt face as she smirks. "I could try hooking that pole with my elbows, but the frogmaker is right."
Elric supresses a shudder at the sight of the woman’s amputated stumps.
”We’ll be back once we make them pay for their vile deeds, you have my word.”
Then he grasps his hammer and heads for the northen passage.
Shane hates the idea of leaving these folks here, but Elric may have the right of it.
He fights a sigh, and prepares to follow
"Fine, but if we're leaving them behind for now, let's move fast."