Whereas Saronis takes another step forward to deal with any other undead coming forward. Once clear he states, "Mistress please bless me with a wish. I wish for a new blade to be created before me without any curses or negative ramifications. Please make a Masterwork Elvencraft court blade with undead bane and a +3 enhancement bonus."
After he wishes, "Mistress I wish that any curses upon this blade be banished or unmade."
Then later he can be heard saying, "Mistress please bless me with a wish. I wish for a new ring to be created before me without any curses or negative ramifications. Please make a Ghost Battling Ring (13k) ring with the abilities of a Kyton Ring (1.5k), Ring of Sustenance (3.75k), Dark Life Ring (1.9k), and Ring of Serene Contortions (1.8k)."
After he wishes, "Mistress I wish that any curses upon this blade be banished or unmade."
Round 1
The zombie staggers back from its chest being punctured but then lunges towards Cyril.
[zombie slam]1d20+6
[damage]1d6+3
[CMB for grapple]1d20+6
[bite damage]1d6+3
Round 2
[zombie slam]1d20+6
[damage]1d6+3
[CMB for grapple]1d20+6[/dice]
Cyril struggles with the zombie. Cyril will use an Inspiration Point to add to his CMB to escape the grapple.
Cyril dodges the slam and grapple attempt.
Round 3
[zombie slam]1d20+6
[damage]1d6+3
[CMB for grapple]1d20+6
Cyril is slammed by the zombie and re-grappled by the zombie.
Round 2
Cyril does not break free and takes another bite, no slam damage.
Round 3
The biting continues until the head falls to the ground, as the corpse falls you see Saronis sheathing his blade.
Round 3
The biting continues until the head falls to the ground, as the corpse falls you see Saronis sheathing his blade.
Cyril shakes himself off the decapitated undead. "Thank you, Saronis. That one kept getting the better of me. Onward."
Cyril continues to attack nearby undead along with the elf fighter.Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Saronis sticks by your side but he begins to smile and offers, "There you go, now you are getting a hang of this!"
You clear out about ten undead as Saronis holds back, though cleaving when too many are around.
Arthur and the large version of Ed join you soon after.
He asks as he is catching his breath, "Okay we ready to move into the ruins or do we need a break?"
He asks as he is catching his breath, "Okay we ready to move into the ruins or do we need a break?"
"No, Arthur. I fine. I just need a moment."
The young noble looks out into the sky.
"Mistress, please bless me with a wish. I wish for my Inspiration Pool to double."
"Mistress, please bless me with a wish. I wish my spell slots were doubled."
"Mistress, I wish that any curses myself be undone."
You clear out about ten undead as Saronis holds back, though cleaving when too many are around.
Feeling the wishes take affect, Cyril smiles. "After you, Stavian. Hello, Ed."
"Ed you go crazy with that gore of yours. Saronis you good with taking point and switching out if its just a few? Cyril you will go first, then I will switch with you. Does that sound good?"
Ed barks happily to Cyril, which is almost a roar in his large form. He carefully comes forward for a pet. Once given the go ahead he charges off to the East.
"Sounds like a plan, to the West then!" He takes point and when only a few undead are encountered he would switch with Cyril.
Using this process everyone is healed in the coming rounds and the others are ready to tackle the next threat. Also each of you kill at least 30 more undead. Giving you each another 4 wishes.
You feel a menacing aura and Saronis does not switch back. He instead kicks on the door to make it open and moves into the room. The room is littered with bodies and weapons. A skeletal death knight of some kind sits on its throne, holding aloft a goblet in one hand and floats a spinning knife above the other. "Oh! I have been waiting for you. You must have taken out most of my forces. Shall we have some pleasantries first or shall we get to it?"
Using this process everyone is healed in the coming rounds and the others are ready to tackle the next threat. Also each of you kill at least 30 more undead. Giving you each another 4 wishes.
"Ed you go crazy with that gore of yours. Saronis you good with taking point and switching out if its just a few? Cyril you will go first, then I will switch with you. Does that sound good?"
"Your tactics are sound, Stavian. Please, I beg pardon. A few more moments.."
"Mistress, I wish that my daily allotment of luck points doubles."
"Mistress, I wish for The Mistress Blade to have the holy weapon special ability."
"Mistress, I wish to possess the Bardic Knowledge (Ex) ability."
"Mistress, I wish to have the ability to cast detect undead at will to better serve you."
"Mistress, I wish to remove any curses upon myself be banished or unmade."
"Mistress, I wish to remove any curses upon The Mistress Blade be banished or unmade."
You feel a menacing aura and Saronis does not switch back. He instead kicks on the door to make it open and moves into the room. The room is littered with bodies and weapons. A skeletal death knight of some kind sits on its throne, holding aloft a goblet in one hand and floats a spinning knife above the other. "Oh! I have been waiting for you. You must have taken out most of my forces. Shall we have some pleasantries first or shall we get to it?"
Cyril steps forward holding The Mistress Blade. "My dear sir, there is always room for decorum. Good evening. I am Lord Cyril Lucan of Camelot. Chosen and under the employ of The Mistress." Cyril bows courtly to the death knight.
"And what pray tell, is your name, sir?"
He drops his goblet and his lower jaw bone drops as low as possible. He begins to stutter, "Chosen of The Mistress?! Is King Joseph Waskalis or Jellena the high priestess with you?" His bones are rattling.
Cyril is taken aback by this frightened death knight. "Um, sorry. ..no. I am a Chosen, but I see myself as an employee of The Mistress, not one of her Familia. Looking back, I can understand your confusion. My apologies."
Some confidence comes back to the undead, "I am Sir Winston of Varnhold. It is unfortunate that we meet Lord Cyril Chosen of The Mistress. Who else is with you then?"
He confidently steps forward, "Another Chosen of the Mistress, Arthur Stavian at your pleasure. Can you give us your story that it may be weighed and possibly found wanting?"
He steps to the side and offers, "I am Saronis another Chosen of The Mistress and if you are found wanting, it won't be good for you."
Cyril thinks Varnhold sounds familiar.
"I'm afraid as you know, your current existence is an abomination to the Mistress, Sir Varnhold. I bare no hard feelings toward you, but I have a job to do. If you wish it, I shall pray to the Mistress to show mercy on your soul as I destroy your undead form?"
The massive antlered canine moves to the other side and bows its antlers, ready for a fight.
Begrudgeoning he agrees. "Yes I understand and am glad to hear you bear no hard feelings for me. Please do pray for my soul. Though I would tell you my story before we begin. A knight of Varnhold excells to follow the path of paladins. My fellow knights and I followed an unholy beast to this site. But it was only a minion. We slew the beast and then the boss appeared. A liche of some kind that poisoned our bodies to become his new minions. As you can tell we failed. The liche raises once a year and we hold strong to put him down each time. We are Cursed with immortal bodies and thus sworn to defeat that horrible wraith. It will be months before she rises again. Perhaps if you end the wraith by destroying its phalactery maybe we would be released as well? Would you be willing to try?"
If you agree Sir Winston gets up and points to the far wall of the room and says, "Go down the stairs and swim 120 feet down to a chamber. We cannot pass the stairs as some magic keeps us from it. I am sure there is much evil down there and it could be an immense labyrinth or hopefully just a chamber. Though we are talking about a demon undead liche, or something. We will not bar your travel and if any of the treasure here will help you just ask for it!"
He does point out several nice items and the skeleton wearing it stands to display it.
belt of mighty constitution +2 - 4000gp
horn of goodness/evil - 6500gp
ring of mind shielding - 8000gp
Cyril looks to the others. "Well, what do you think?"
He simply says, "Take the loot, take down an great evil, and be back in an hour to see our handy work. Yup sounds good. Also do you know what those magical items are?"
He identifies the belt pointing out its properties. He looks at Cyril and asks, "Can you identify any of them?"
Cyril steps forward, still leary of the death knight despite his word, and examines the three remaining items.
"Well, I believe that is one is known as a pearl of power. Once per day, these allow the possessor to recall any one spell that she had prepared and then cast that day. Hmm. Appears to be work on 1st-level spells."
"The ring looks well-made, but I can't determine what kind of magic ring it is. Same for the horn. Maybe it produces a sonic weapon. It is a nice musical instrument, regardless."
Looking back to Saronis, Cyril adds, "So, we are of the same mind in this. Plumb the depths in hopes of destroying a great evil, and hopefully allowing Sir Varnhold to rest."
He nods in agreement. He then simply states, "I will take the ring if neither of you want to experiment with it."
---
He follows Arthur down the stairs.
"Will Saves, that is likely what you need in case it is cursed or whatnot, so I will play with it and hopefully figure it out before we have a fight on our hands." He then walks up and takes the ring and the horn. He slightly bows to the slightly rigid slow moving skeletons and Sir Winston and ventures to the stairs.
Down the stairs he follows in the back of the group keeping an eye on the undead before following.
Down the stairs some 60 feet before you find that the rest of the stairs are flooded.
4 Swim checks DC 15, along the tunnel when you find a current that is pulling you from the main tunnel. Likely the reason it got flooded.
It takes 5 rounds to get to the current. 4 rounds of standard actions or full move actions if you want. Then 6 more rounds before finding the end of the submerged stairs/tunnel.
Walking up out of the water it seems the Liche had already dealt with the water before as a quick wind picks up from both sides to air dry you quickly.
You see piles upon piles of metallic wealth. A lot of it is dirty and covered in rust but still easily cleaned.
Just for curiosity, Cyril casts prestidigitation on a nearby pile of metallic wealth to clean it.
Cyril cleans off some of the wealth....
The investigative wizard bends down to looks at the uncovered wealth more closely.
"Alright, everyone. I shall cast heightened awareness on myself, then begin to cast detect undead and detect evil alternately", Cyril explains. "Hopefully this shall help us find the phalactery and not allow me to go insane."
Scanning around the room with detect undead you don't uncover anything. With detect evil you quickly see there are many evil magical items in the trove. One, an anvil, seems to have the strongest aura.
Cyril points out the items detected with evil energy, the anvil being the strongest, to the others. The wizard tries to decipher more information about the anvil.
It has a lot of spells on it, covering most of the schools of magic. It looks very stout. Noth8ng rings a bell that this might be apart of a legend or story.
"Hmm. Turning an anvil into your phalactery is a good idea. Very harm to destroy along with the magic spells encased within", Cyril states.
He nods in agreement, "So do you know much about phylacteties? I sure don't. Like a liche has one but that is as far my knowledge on the subject. "
He shakes his head saying with a dour attitude, "Don't ask me!"
Standing beside and looking at the anvil with Detect evil and magic you realize the evil aura is not coming from the anvil but from within it.
Cyril examines the anvil m ore closely. "The more I study this evil aura, the more it appears to be inside the anvil, and not the entire unit." The investigative wizard thinks aloud. "Hmm. Would it be possible to draw the evil within out somehow? I don't think conventional cracking will work." "Damn."
"Hmm."
"I think I shall begin the process of casting the identify spell", Cyril decides. "Unless this anvil is an artifact, i should be able to tell us more."
Saronis picks up a random weapon and walks up, then he states with a wry smile, "We can at least try!" Then he does on overhead chop with the warhammer smashing it upon the anvil. The head shatters as if it was made of glass. "Okay, I still wanted to try it."
With the aid of your spell you come to learn the basic qualities of the anvil. It is an Anvil of Creation. You wonder which plane it came from as they are all attuned to a specific plane as it was created there. Each day if you work on a specific element that is attuned to the anvil you can bestow a magical enhancement of up to +3 enhancement each day.
Dusting his hands off, Cyril explains the name and properties of Anvil of Creation. "Like all evil things, working in this anvil sounds tempting. But we can wish for that weapon enhancement after slaughtering some undead."
The young noble sighs. "Maybe a better way of destroying this Anvil of Creation will be found elsewhere in this lair. Let's looks around and see if we can find anything of use."
He walks around finding weapons and brings them over one at a time until ten were piled up and he found a dark bladed greatsword. He just stands there enamored by the sword.
He looks for possible tools and weapons but picks out the magical ones first. He makes sure to not touch them without a blanket or rag. He does pick up a magical stone hammer studded with emeralds and with silver lines. The blanket catches fire and he drops both the hammer and blanket as it quickly burns.
He takes a few moments to try to identify it.
Then he calls Cyril over and assists, to identify it.
Cyril examines the hammer without touching it.
It is a crafting hammer, a magical tool to help with creating items, it confers a +5 bonus on craft checks. Once per day it can be used to make an object as if you casted Create armaments without the need of the material component, otherwise with the diamonds you can use the ability at will. It appears that only an evil undead can use it and it has the curse of hellforged upon it, anything touching it will take 1d6 fire damage per round.
"It's an evil undead magical forging hammer", Cyril frowned. "It only works if your an evil undead."
A bit exasperated at the situation he points out the obvious, "Okay don't touch it... oh Saronis looks... enthralled, should we do something about that?"