Billy Siphons some of the power from Treximas magic, but the hadis still suffer badly. Sigourney can tell that the three tied to the pillars are not yet dead, but all are in a bad way having been severely abused before the battle started.
negative
Inspire 1/4
Haste 1/10
Turn Order
Pinebrush
Billy
------------------------------------------
Hadi recovery checks
Trexima
------------------------------------------
Slick
------------------------------------------
???
------------------------------------------
Sigourney
Bold to act.
Combat status
Slick 233/233
Billy 151/186, see invisibile
Pinebrush 176/201
Sigourney 138/173
Reginald 70/105
Trexima, 29 damage, -10 speed, no reactions
Yezom, dying 2
Yilmaz, dying 1
Teffera, dying 2
Slick looks on in distaste as the lich drains those around him of their moisture. He feels the pull on his own body, but shrugs off the effects. Trexima would have to work a lot harder if he wanted to get his hands on Slick's bodily fluids.
He then launches into motion and quickly crosses the room to strike at Trexima. "The sooner we finish this, the better."
Reactive Strike (↺)
Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using.
Make a melee Strike against the triggering creature. If your attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate action, you disrupt that action. This Strike doesn’t count toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack penalty doesn’t apply to this Strike.
Protector's Sacrifice (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet takes damage
Reduce the damage the ally would take by 24. You redirect this damage to yourself, but your immunities, weaknesses, resistances and so on do not apply.
Warding Tattoo (Fiend) (↺) (1/day)
Trigger An enemy, hazard, or the environment makes an attack against your AC, requires you to attempt a saving throw, or causes you to take damage automatically
Until the end of the current turn, against the triggering effect, you gain a +1 status bonus to AC and saving throws and gain resistance 2 to damage.
The Paladin (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You fail or critically fail a saving throw
Adjust the result of your saving throw up by one degree of success.
Talisman: Snapleaf (↺)
Trigger You begin to fall.
This small, crystalline carving takes the shape of a tree leaf and attaches to armor or clothing with a simple strap. When you activate the snapleaf, you gain the benefits of feather fall and a 2nd-level invisibility spell for 1 minute or until you stop falling, whichever comes first.
Skeptic's Defense (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You are targeted by or are in the area of a mental spell or effect.
You don't believe in any mental twaddle, and you're certainly not afraid of it. You scoff and verbally refute the triggering effect, attempting a counteract check using your Intimidation modifier with a counteract level of half your level rounded up. If you succeed, you ignore the triggering effect, though any other creatures that were also targeted or in the area are still affected. If the source of the effect you successfully counteracted understands your language and has an Intelligence modifier of –3 or higher, that creature becomes stupefied for 1 round.
Blessed Denial (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet would become Frightened, Drained, Enfeebled, Sickened, or Stupefied.
You exude peace and protection, lessening a harmful condition as it falls upon an ally. Reduce the value of the condition your ally would take by 1 (to a minimum of 0). If the ally takes more than one condition at the same time, choose one to reduce.
Shield Block (↺) (extra reaction from The Paladin)
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.
Slick rushes forward and lands two telling blows on the lich. Sigourney begins to sense the approach of dozens of undead just as the rest of the group notice the scattered bones and skulls in the corners of the room start to move!
One moves into the centre of the room and lets out a bonechilling howl! Everyone seems fine except Pine who rather pales in the face of the horror! They then try chewing on him but he is far too quick.
The next lot tumble across the room at Sigourney and Billy, trying to chew on them. Both get nibbled.
A third mass erupts around Slick, chewing and biting at him but they simply cannot get past his armour!
Will Saves
, Bravery
, Resolve
, fail, frightened 2
Reflex Saves
, Improved Evasion
, pass
, pass
, probably evasion, crit due to evasion
P
S
B
, Bulwark +1, Evasion
, Bulwark +1, Evasion
, Bulwark +1, Evasion
All pass
Inspire 2/4
Haste 2/10
Turn Order - to make my bookkeeping easier I have pushed Sigourney into the top of round 2.
Sigourney
Pinebrush
Billy
------------------------------------------
Hadi recovery checks
Trexima
------------------------------------------
Slick
------------------------------------------
Swarms
Bold to act.
Combat status
Slick 233/233
Billy 141/186, see invisibile
Pinebrush 176/201, frightened 2
Sigourney 128/173
Reginald 70/105
Trexima, 97 damage, FF end slick turn 2, -10 speed, no reactions
Yezom, dying 2
Yilmaz, dying 1
Teffera, dying 2
Sigourney absolutely notices the hordes of undead spilling into the room. Fortunately for her, this isn't the first time she's had to fight skull swarms. First things first, she tries to figure out what kind of swarm she is looking at.
She hastily strides into the middle of the room and lets out a burst of vitality from her knifewand.
"Uh, no! Get these things out of here! Life Sign - Healing Word!"
Once she is in position, two things suddenly happen. First, a blue thought bubble bursts from her head! She suddenly becomes legendarily knowledgeable about Trexima. She tries to recall what exactly he seems to be resistant to...
She shares the information she gains with the party.
Sigourney's patron takes the time to act now and puppets Reginald to do his thing!
Reginald does his thing and splits into strings, trying to pin Trexima down!
He then squeaks to the revived Hadis in a concerned yet terrified manner, as if he is trying not to grit his teeth in fear.
Warmed from Sigourney's healing, Billy quickly moves away from the skulls. Staring at the lich, he concentrates his energy to extend his magic and sings,
♫"Your reign of terror ends. Your evil won't advance.
We're here with our new friends. I'll sing and you can dance."♫
Billy casts Uncontrollable Dance targeting the lich.
Reginald unleashes his stitching at the nearest swarm which nimbly avoids the worst of the damage.
Sigourney then darts into the room and unleashes a burst of vitality. She does not recognise what sort of swarms she is dealing with but she does realise that Trexima is resistant to all physical damage save for magical bludgeoning attacks.
Billy targets the unfortunate lich with his powerful enchantments. Trexima sneers at him and then the spell takes hold. He struggles to try and overcome it but his feet begin to twitch. In horror, he begins to dance!
COMBAT OVER
With Trexima destroyed you can restore the hadi leaders who are extremely grateful.
, fail
, fail
, fail
, pass
Slick terminates the now tap-dancing Trexima, then helps slay the surviving skull swarms. "Nice one Billy. Our friend here didn't know what hit him." He kicks the desiccated remains of Trexima to indicate who he's referring to. He calls out to Sigourney. "Is what's left of the lich heading to the Boneyard yet? Can we do anything more to facilitate that voyage? I would love to be a fly on the wall when Trexima is trotted out to face Pharasma for his crimes."
Moving quickly to the prisoners, Slick helps free and heal the wounded hadis with a couple of prayers to Gorum and the laying on of hands. Once everything is under control, He leaves Billy to negotiate with the recovered hadis and goes back to Trexima's body to search it thoroughly for the promised Harrow card they'd come for.
When Trexima starts dancing, Billy casts some Musical Accompaniment and joins in, attempting to mimic the lich's moves. The bard instructs, "Your heart isn't in it, Trexi. Let's take it from the top. This time, with feeling." He mocks the former Lord until Slick terminates him.
Billy then helps free the wounded hadi, retrieves his jug, and pours drinks all around, "Good to see you again, Yezom! Would you and your family care to join in some refreshment?" Indicating Yilmaz and Teffera, Billy confirms, "This is your mother and uncle?" Billy turns to them. "Greetings. I'm Billy, an entertainer by trade. As you can see, I can teach anyone to dance -- even cruel overlords." He adds, "You're safe now, and if you need help repairing your home, my friends and I are happy to assist."
After sipping his honey mead, he explains, "We're on a mission collecting these harrow cards to save the world. We could use trusted allies -- especially impressive creatures like yourselves who have bravely survived the lich's reign of terror."
Once he's recovered from the magically-imposed fear, Pine realizes that there was nothing to be afraid of after all. "I thought liches were supposed to be powerful?"
The compared to the noncombatants and bystanders...
"That was a bad plan. He can't threaten to attack innocents after he's already started doing it. That doesn't make us stand down, it forces us to keep fighting!"
Stowing his weapons, Pine takes out his medical tools instead and moves to help whoever needs it. "Do we know how to be sure we really got him?"
Sigourney smirks as she senses the void energy in the room dissipate with the destruction of Trexima and the swarms.
"Good riddance. I think he's gone now, but I can detect magic to be sure." She reassures the rest as she casts Detect Magic.
She tries to walk towards Trexima to loot him, but without his void energy to guide her movements she keeps walking into walls and other objects along the room. Sick of fumbling around, she deactivates the Silent Hag and reactivates her light. She picks up all the items on Trexima and identifies them
"Oooh, a wand of Necrotise? I'll take that for now. Same with the Tangled Briar, I could use the extra vitality. I could use the staff, but I would have Healing though - Billy, how do you feel about Necromancy?" She tosses the staff over to Billy.
"Hmm, no spell book though...Hey Yezom, do you know where your former master would have kept his personal belongings?" Sigourney asks as she refocuses for 10 minutes.
With his soul cage destroyed Trexima has no way back from the judgment of death. The hadi's slowly emerge from the niches in the wall. Yezom, his mither and uncle are all grateful for you saving them from the lich. They readily agree to aid you in any way they can.
Yezom approaches, Thank you for all you have done. Trexima used the chamber beyond here, the old ossuary, as a place to punish those who displeased him. I am sure he did not live there though. There may be chambers beyond that one but none of us have ever seen them or even seen a way of getting to them. However, you must have resources well beyond our own, perhaps you can find a way?
Once everyone is healed up and ready to go, Slick wanders over to the door leading to the old ossuary. "If there's a spell book to be found, Sigourney, presumably it is through here somewhere." He opens the door and steps through. Gripping his sword, he scouts out the room to see if there is anything of interest. In particular, he is looking for the chambers beyond that the hadis mentioned, so takes his time looking for hidden openings or secret doors.
"I'll be right behind you, Slick." Sigourney says. What's the worst that could happen now?
Just in case, she takes a minute to activate the Crystal Ball and creates a Prying Eye 20 feet ahead of her, showing off the ball to the party if the ball is completely dark.
Re-casting Musical Accompaniment periodically to keep the mood festive, Billy follows the group.
He helps Slick search as he explores . When Slick stops and suspects something interesting, Billy sings,
♫"Our search is expeditious. We're looking everywhere.
This wall is most suspicious. Let's take some time to hear."♫
Billy casts Clairaudience, sending an invisible ear on the other side of this wall, and listens.
The group head into the chamber they met Trexima in. Billy hears nothing with his spell. The place is eerily silent and there are far fewer bones here now that the swarms are gone. You poke about in the nooks and crannies. check out the various niches that once held books and tomes and also check out the larger alcoves that might once have held bookshelves. Slick and Sigourney are fairly convinced that there is nothing here. Wherever the lich hid his workshop, it wasnt here.
However, Pine and Billy both spot something off in two spots. Peering more closely they realise that a pair of doors have been covered by powerful illusion magics. Trying the doors it is apparent they are locked, which, once she pierces the illusions, Sigourney recognises as powerful lock spells.
Perception
, Master
, Master, +2 visual and hearing
, Legendary, +1 visual
, Expert, +2 visual
Slick is about to give up and head out the room to look elsewhere for the chambers beyond when Billy calls out that he's found something. Slick goes over to see what it is and is surprised. "Good eye there Billy. Not sure how that slipped past me." He scrunches his eyes and looks closer at the locks. "I'm no expert, but those look like they'll be tough to get through." He turns to Pine. "You want to give it a go Pinebrush, or should I just kick the door down?"
Pinebrush shrugs. "I suppose it doesn't matter now that the person we were sneaking up on is dead, but I'll take a look."
Pine fiddles with the magical lock for a while and eventually it clicks open. Pushing open the door reveals a short corridor leading to a large domed room of bluish stone. The ceiling is some forty-foot-high, vaulted, with a jagged spike of softly glowing crystal hanging from its center.
Sigils in several languages correspond with rings etched in the floor and wall, forming markings in a variety of patterns and materials. At the center is a raised platform with a stone lectern. Blue-white fire burns on a rod attached to this reading stand. The floor slopes downward toward the rear outer edges, eventually falling off into a stone trench. A sickly sweet scent hangs in the air.
As Slick peers into the room a soft, clicking, hissing rises from the far side. From the pit rises a large, skeletal serpent with balefully glowing eye sockets. It moves to the attack!
Initiative
, +2 item visual/hearing, +2 circ scout
, Perception +24, +1 circ if visual, +2 circ scout
, +2 circ scout, +2 item visual
The snake creature slithers forward towards the entrance. As it does a cloud of choking dust and bone fragments swirls up around it. Both Slick and Sigourney begin to cough uncontrollably.
Fort Saves
, Juggernaut, fail
, pass
, pass becomes crit, crit
, crit fail
, pass
Sigourney attempts to take a deep breath and stop choking on dust.
"Ack...I'll be fine, just give me a moment..."
Slick starts coughing at all the nasty dust kicked up by the large snake and it looks like it's going to overwhelm him...
...when he suddenly sneezes violently and clears his lungs of the evil powder. "<Sniff! Snort!> Ahhhhhh... much better." He turns towards the skeletal serpent and beams it a wicked smile. "Now it's my turn."
Slick and Sigourney manage to resist the choking dust. If it understood common the snake would hiss back, No, not its not mortal, that was just my aura, which, sadly, everyone is now immune to.
It takes a deep breath and exhales a miasma of boiling black energy over all of you. Sigourney recognises it as a 7th rank vampiric exsangunation!
, fail but no effect
Fort Saves
, Juggernaut, crit pass
, pass
, pass becomes crit, fail
, fail
, pass
Pine ducks out of the way of the blast but Sigourney finds her flesh withering before her eyes.
Turn Order
Snake
------------------------------------------
Billy
Pinebrush
Slick
Sigourney
Bold to act.
Combat status
Slick 233/233
Billy 155/186, see invisibile
Pinebrush 201/201
Sigourney 111/173
Reginald 74/105
Snake, 31 temp HP
Sigourney starts to grow wrinkled.
"My...My skin! Do you know how many long it takes me to do daily preparations ? I'll get you for this!" She yells back.
Sigourney's patron acts first before she does, enabling Reginald to do his thing.
Sigourney faces the snake and unleashes a fearsome presence, trying to threaten it in every language she knows. "We killed Trexima. We will kill you next." She exclaims in Aklo, going down the list of languages she knows.
She then tries to Recall Knowledge about what she overheard at any point in time about the Snake and how what she knows about it.
She uses her Loremaster Spells (Loremaster's Etude) to boost her cognitive ability.
Reginald does his thing and splits into threads, trying to stop this snake from getting closer to the party. A primal part of him tells him this - snakes are a natural predator, therefore the bigger the snake the badder the predator. He prays that the snake doesn't choose to eat him up.
Seeing the glowing crystal in the room, Billy grins at his friend, "Maybe go easy on this crystal, Slick?" After waiting for Sigourney to describe the creature, the bard sings out inspiration.
♫"Our searching, we thought a safe bet.
But turns out the lich had a pet.
.....For good Desna's sake!
.....A skeletal snake?
Let's crush it without a regret."♫
Then focusing on the undead serpent, Billy decides to attack with divine holy fire. Concentrating on his Shadow Signet, he casts Holy Light.
♫"This snake it seems undead. It's time to say good night.
Let's put it straight to bed. And shine some holy light."♫
With the spellcasters having done their business, Slick gets down to his own business. He strides in, sword in hand, and with a quick head feint to throw it off, starts hacking at the skeletal serpent.
Reactive Strike (↺)
Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using.
Make a melee Strike against the triggering creature. If your attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate action, you disrupt that action. This Strike doesn’t count toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack penalty doesn’t apply to this Strike.
Protector's Sacrifice (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet takes damage
Reduce the damage the ally would take by 24. You redirect this damage to yourself, but your immunities, weaknesses, resistances and so on do not apply.
Warding Tattoo (Fiend) (↺) (1/day)
Trigger An enemy, hazard, or the environment makes an attack against your AC, requires you to attempt a saving throw, or causes you to take damage automatically
Until the end of the current turn, against the triggering effect, you gain a +1 status bonus to AC and saving throws and gain resistance 2 to damage.
The Paladin (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You fail or critically fail a saving throw
Adjust the result of your saving throw up by one degree of success.
Talisman: Snapleaf (↺)
Trigger You begin to fall.
This small, crystalline carving takes the shape of a tree leaf and attaches to armor or clothing with a simple strap. When you activate the snapleaf, you gain the benefits of feather fall and a 2nd-level invisibility spell for 1 minute or until you stop falling, whichever comes first.
Skeptic's Defense (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You are targeted by or are in the area of a mental spell or effect.
You don't believe in any mental twaddle, and you're certainly not afraid of it. You scoff and verbally refute the triggering effect, attempting a counteract check using your Intimidation modifier with a counteract level of half your level rounded up. If you succeed, you ignore the triggering effect, though any other creatures that were also targeted or in the area are still affected. If the source of the effect you successfully counteracted understands your language and has an Intelligence modifier of –3 or higher, that creature becomes stupefied for 1 round.
Blessed Denial (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet would become Frightened, Drained, Enfeebled, Sickened, or Stupefied.
You exude peace and protection, lessening a harmful condition as it falls upon an ally. Reduce the value of the condition your ally would take by 1 (to a minimum of 0). If the ally takes more than one condition at the same time, choose one to reduce.
Shield Block (↺) (extra reaction from The Paladin)
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.
Pinebrush looks down at his weapon. Sharp, pointy, precise. Very small compared to these giants. Very good for getting in between the bones.
Which is less useful when the enemy seems like it might be all bones?? Still worth a try.
Pine follows Slick and uses the distraction to make a few jabs of his own.
Reginald unravels himself at the snake which, despite being very nimble, fails to get out of the way. It is entangled in threads but shrugs off the worst of the fear spell. Sigourney recognises the creature as a hollow serpent, a dangerous form of guardian undead. They are fast but their minds are weak (will is lowest save).
Billy inspires his allies and then blasts the creature with holy light. It gives a soundless scream and writhes in pain.
Slick charges in but it isnt fooled by his tricks. He still manages to land two solid blows (both regular hits).
Pine flutters forward into the creature and lands two blows. It seems, despite it bony appearance, that his weapons are fully effective. Despite the punishment it has taken the creature is still active!
It's eyes burn with pure hatred towards Billy, it would clearly like to get at the little Bard but Slick is in the way. Hissing at him, it strikes, its fangs sinking into Slicks shoulder. Its coils whip round, wrapping Slick tightly and then its mouth gapes wide open as it tries, but fails, to swallow him. It then lashes out at Pine with its tail, which misses by a fraction.
, fail
, pass
, hit
, crit, restrained
, fail
Inspire 2/3
Turn Order
Snake
------------------------------------------
Billy
Pinebrush
Slick
Sigourney
Bold to act.
Combat status
Slick 189/233, restrained
Billy 155/186, see invisibile
Pinebrush 201/201
Sigourney 126/188
Reginald 72/105
Snake, 262 damage, immobilised, frightened 1, enfeebled 1, no reactions
Billy sees the serpent glaring at him. With his hands still aflame from the holy fire, he asks innocently, "What?" He grips his Staff of Final Rest and casts Disrupt Undead at the creature.
Oddly, with extra time on his hands, he bring up a magical shield.
Slick is impressed that the snake took his blows in stride. Usually, when he hit something that hard, they tended not to get back up. "This one's going to be tougher than I thought."
His words become prophecy as the boney boa bites into him and then starts constricting the breath out of him. He watches helplessly as its maw opens to swallow him, but the serpent can't seem to get past the oversized sword now pinned tightly against his body.
Slick struggles to get free...
...but with nothing to show for it. Nevertheless, he persists...
...and finally manages to squeeze himself out from the less-than-loving embrace of the boney one. Now free to act, he swings his mighty sword in a wild arc hoping to make some sort of contact with the enemy.
Reactive Strike (↺)
Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using.
Make a melee Strike against the triggering creature. If your attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate action, you disrupt that action. This Strike doesn’t count toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack penalty doesn’t apply to this Strike.
Protector's Sacrifice (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet takes damage
Reduce the damage the ally would take by 24. You redirect this damage to yourself, but your immunities, weaknesses, resistances and so on do not apply.
Warding Tattoo (Fiend) (↺) (1/day)
Trigger An enemy, hazard, or the environment makes an attack against your AC, requires you to attempt a saving throw, or causes you to take damage automatically
Until the end of the current turn, against the triggering effect, you gain a +1 status bonus to AC and saving throws and gain resistance 2 to damage.
The Paladin (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You fail or critically fail a saving throw
Adjust the result of your saving throw up by one degree of success.
Talisman: Snapleaf (↺)
Trigger You begin to fall.
This small, crystalline carving takes the shape of a tree leaf and attaches to armor or clothing with a simple strap. When you activate the snapleaf, you gain the benefits of feather fall and a 2nd-level invisibility spell for 1 minute or until you stop falling, whichever comes first.
Skeptic's Defense (↺) (1/day)
Trigger You are targeted by or are in the area of a mental spell or effect.
You don't believe in any mental twaddle, and you're certainly not afraid of it. You scoff and verbally refute the triggering effect, attempting a counteract check using your Intimidation modifier with a counteract level of half your level rounded up. If you succeed, you ignore the triggering effect, though any other creatures that were also targeted or in the area are still affected. If the source of the effect you successfully counteracted understands your language and has an Intelligence modifier of –3 or higher, that creature becomes stupefied for 1 round.
Blessed Denial (↺)
Trigger An ally within 30 feet would become Frightened, Drained, Enfeebled, Sickened, or Stupefied.
You exude peace and protection, lessening a harmful condition as it falls upon an ally. Reduce the value of the condition your ally would take by 1 (to a minimum of 0). If the ally takes more than one condition at the same time, choose one to reduce.
Shield Block (↺) (extra reaction from The Paladin)
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.
Sigourney continues blasting away at the enemy.
She says to the snake in Necril: "No one is getting swallowed whole today. Go and face your judgement!"
Noticing Reginald's fear, she stuffs him in her sleeves.
The snake shrugs off the worst of Billy's spell. Slick eventually manages to struggle free and strikes the creature solidly on the skull which promptly cracks. The bones collapse to the ground as the thing is destroyed.
COMBAT OVER
Combat status
Slick 189/233
Billy 155/186, see invisibile
Pinebrush 201/201
Sigourney 126/188
Reginald 72/105
Sigourney dusts off her hands (and tentacle). Reginald pokes his head out of the sleeve, relieved that the snake is gone. He takes up his perch on Sigourney's shoulder.
"Well, I'm sure there are certainly no more surprises left in store for us. Shall we open the door to the next chamber when we are ready?"
She spends 20 minutes Refocusing and some time Detecting Magic and Casting Read Aura to find anything magical about this room.
Examining the room, Sigourney is drawn to the glowing crystal at the centre. It is clearly a powerful magical item. Sigourney recognises it as a powerful aid to necromantic magic. The magic is focused on the crystal and the runes surrounding the lectern on the floor. However, given the crystal is some 10' long, embedded into the ceiling and focused by the runes it isnt possible to move it.
"Oh neat!" Sigourney exclaims. "It would be nice to have as a portable item, but I don't use necromancy and I highly doubt we will ever be scryed on or damaged by positive energy. At least the Hadi will make use of it...Assuming they don't already know about it."
Slick's wild sword swing after escaping the snake's grasp lands perfectly and cracks it's head open like a ripe watermelon. He then stands quietly as the shower of now deanimated and desiccated bones falls down around him like a gruesome shower of death. "Hmmm. A powerful lich with a giant snake for a pet. How not at all derivative. I wonder what other surprises Trexima left for us."
When Sigourney describes the necromantic advantages of the room, Slick frowns. "Maybe we should just destroy the crystal. Leaving items around that facilitate necromancy rituals doesn't seem like such a great idea to me. The last thing these hadis need is to encourage some new lunatic to show up and try turning himself into a lich." He shrugs. "But I guess we can let the hadis decide for themselves what to do with it. It's no skin off my nose. After all, we're unlikely to return here once we leave."
Slick gives the room a once over to see if Trexima left anything of value behind, and then once everyone is healed up, goes over to the northern door to examine it. "Pinebrush! See if you can get this door open for us, otherwise I'll try kicking it off its hinges."
"Huh. That wasn't that bad."
Pinebrush looks around the room a bit to check for anything else dangerous before tending injuries.
Billy nods to Pine. "Yes, not that bad. Good thing he didn't join Trex at the same time." Turning to Slick, "Good idea to ask the hadis if they'd like us to destroy the crystal."
While Pinebrush tends to his wounds, Billy strums his lute softly and refocuses. After helping search the current room, the bard brings up his Musical Accompaniment and follows the group to the next (and last?) door.
As the group discuss destroying the crystal Yilmaz and Teffera peer around the door. NO!, they both shout in unison. Dont do that, we could make use of it, No, not, you, me, dammit you old fool
The two of them disappear arguing over who gets to use the ritual chamber.
The door to the north is unlocked. Opening it reveals a chamber with a divan, chair, shelf, and a chest, all crafted from fine wood ornamented with silver and ivory. Patterned hangings of sheer blue, violet, and white cloth with silver tracery line the walls. The chair and divan have pillows of matching hues, and a zebra hide drapes the divan. On the table, blue-white fire burns in a jade bowl shaped like a turtle. A censer carved to resemble a two-toned mask of darkwood and ivory stands near it. Alongside these objects rest papers, several peacock feathers, and a tome bound in leather, ivory, and silver.
8th dispel magic, falling sky, horrid wilting, polar ray
7th contingency, eclipse burst, fly, spell turning;
6th cloudkill, mislead, purple worm sting, scrying, teleport
5th acid storm, banishment, grim tendrils, illusory object, wall of ice;
4th dimension door, freedom of movement, sanguine mist, vampiric maiden
3rd bonewall bulwark, magic missile, paralyze, stinking cloud, vampiric touch
2nd darkness, horrifying blood loss, mirror image, resist energy, see invisibility;
1st fear, fleet step, gritty wheeze, necromancers generosity, ray of enfeeblement;
Cantrips (8th) all arcane
Rituals blight, create undead, dread ambience, ward domain
Sigourney instantly makes a beeline for the spellbook.
"Oooh...look at all these spells." She speedreads through the book.
"It's a shame I can't use all of these, but...Polar Ray! That's amazing, I wanted that one for a while! Horrid Wilting would be incredibly effective once we stop fighting undead. Cloudkill, Purple Worm Sting, Acid Storm, Stinking Cloud...Mediocre. Wall of Ice! Amazing, I'd like that...Gritty Wheeze, Bonewall Bulwark? Wow, those are some uncommon spells." Sigourney flips quickly to the back of the book.
"Wow! He has Livewire, Ancient Dust...I could use one of these! Let's check the rituals...Ooh, Ward Domain may be neat."
She hands the book to Billy. "See what spells you want from this. If you or anyone else has no complaints, I'm going to sit down at Trexima's desk and try and copy these spells. I may be some time."
Sigourney is so excited to have new spells that she digs her heels in and starts cramming.
When it seems that the hadis are in agreement about keeping the crystal and the necromancy ritual room intact (if not exactly on who gets to use it), Slick shrugs. "Knock yourselves out. It's your funeral."
Once Trexima's loot is collected and safely stowed, Slick looks around the place one more time to make sure that there are no further hidden rooms and that all the bad guys are dead. He is pleased that the hadis have agreed to aid them if called upon to do so. "Looks like our work here is done. We better head back to get Shanaca at the enclave before we head to the sunken upper city to see what's going on there."
"Ugh, do you have to do that now? Boooooored!"
The group returns to their base. Usilket is keen to hear all about your adventures and is suitably impressed at your defeat of Trexima. Truly he has been a thorn in the side of Kho for some time. I suppose he could have made a useful, if untrustworthy, ally but surely the hadi's will also be of help.
Shanaca approaches and asks Are you free now to help my people? We lost another of our scouts yesterday. They were hunting at the edge of the lake and something took them. Slimy grey tentacles erupted form the waters and dragged them below, or so the witnesses reported.
When Sigourney sits down to learn some spells, for an hour, Billy asks, "Wouldn't you be far more comfortable in the Harrowheart reading room?" But the witch is of a single mind and Billy's happy to wander around.
Looking over Sigourney's shoulder at the lich's spellbook, Billy sees an interesting spell, Spell Riposte. He makes a note to ask Sig to help him learn it later.
While Sigourney's looking at spells, Billy looks over the harrow cards with Slick. "Good idea, my friend. I think I can make use of The Marriage card." During his next daily preparations, Billy will invest this card instead of The Rakshasa.
In the morning, Billy activates The Carnival to get a glimpse into the future to find out who he might meet and whether they can be trusted.
Sigourney fixes Shanaca with her Biographical Eye to find out more about her.
Now flush with cash after selling loot, Sigourney goes on a serious spending spree. She buys new scrolls and formulas, happily upgrades her staff, buys a wand of a spell she heard from some wizard was supposed to be very cool, and reluctantly pays off her 400 GP debt to Slick. Somehow, she retires to bed poorer than when she woke up.
The next day, Sigourney prepares for the underwater adventure by optimising her spells and potion selection for aquatic combat.
The route to the lake is rather difficult. Luckily, Sigourney is able to Sustain the Magical Disc to float above it all, saving her the need to walk. Her focus is split between Sustaining the spell once every 6 seconds and Detecting Magic in order to find any strange magical presences.
Edit:
Reginald, excited to finally be able to talk, is excitedly jabbering to anyone who could give him the time of day. He points out interesting things he sees from his vantage point on Sigourney's shoulder and will not shut up for the entire trip.
While out shopping with Sigourney, Billy is happy to chat with Reginald. Their conversation is really interesting. "So after describing so many, what is your favorite cheese varietal?" and "Do you have positive or negative feelings about the lute?"
The next morning, Billy shuffles his Harrow deck and draws his daily Harrow Omen card.
And he uses The Carnival to learn about whom we might meet the next day.