As everyone spills into the room, cautious not to touch anything, Dredd spots trouble. As Dredd files forward, Madaxa grabs his shoulder to hold him back just before he would step on a pressure plate hidden on the floor.
After closer inspection, it's revealed that the ceiling above this location is rigged to swing open and drop dozen of iron rods on the pour soul stepping on the plate.
”Good job, Madaxa. Should we keep going north?”
Madaxa gives the all-clear and Dredd opens the door the door and finds multiple corridors with doors.
Madaxa moves east, checking the floors and doors wide open field and strawberry trees for traps.
Madaxa moves wEAST and finds the door to his north locked. The door to his south reveals another corridor with two more doors. One of which connects to their previous room and another leading south which appears to be unlocked. The door to his immediate west also appears to be unlocked.
”Shall we keep going west?”
Madaxa looks south toward the lefthand door and raises an eyebrow. He points it out to Zarzuket, "unless I'm thoroughly lost, I think that loops back toward where we were a few minutes ago." He walks down and listens to see if he can hear the others.
Assuming he's correct and the door isn't trapped, he continues South, "let's see what's down here."
Dredd grows impatient as the chambers leads in all direction, a labyrinth of sorts.
"Unless we know something otherwise, we must check every door. Keep going." Dredd claims ready to push ahead.
Sura, looking a bit more than lost herself, stays close behind Dredd following his lead:
"I'll let you open all the doors first." she says, with a smirk and a wink.
Madaxa checks the door and sees not only is not trapped, but someone recently brute-forced their way down through it. He lets Dredd put his shoulder into to it and help move it open again.
The room beyond presents a scene of both natural wonder and evident destruction. A dozen large geodes, their surfaces cracked open, lean against the walls. Each geode is filled with hundreds of tiny, pale green crystals—noqual, known for its magic-resistant properties. Some of the crystals have been forcibly removed, their broken pieces scattered across the floor like glittering debris.
To the south wall, two cages built to contain larger specimens of the geodes show signs of force; their bars bent outward near the base, creating gaps wide enough for something to escape or enter. The ambient light catches on the fragments of noqual, casting eerie green reflections across the chamber's uneven surfaces.
Suddenly, the quiet is broken by a low, unsettling moan. From the shadows between the geodes, a figure shambles forward. An undead zomobie monstrosity. Its movements are jerky and unnatural, its eyes glowing with a malevolent light. As it spots Dredd, it lets out a guttural growl and lurches towards him, driven by a relentless hunger.
Additionally an alien-looking beast with bluish fur and multiple legs, growls and moves toward Dredd as well.
Krachxton summons up the force of the elements and surrounds both foes with freezing sea-spray.
Zarzuket tries to figure out what the blue-furred creature is.
Unless what he learns about the creature gives him an obvious reason not to, he then zaps both enemies with electricity.
Both creatures partially avoid Krachxton's cold blast.
Zarzuket can't recall anything specific about the creatures, so he zaps them both, which seems to injure them normally. Better than normally actually, one of them seems unable to avoid the arc and is injured more than the other.
Sura's fear spell is partially effective, instilling a small amount of fear in the blue creature.
Both creatures surge forward (as fast as they can through the icy ground, that is) and move to flank Dredd. He gets bit twice and punch once between the two enemies.
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Madaxa slips around Dredd and leaps over the icy floor to race around behind/beside the blue creature.
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Seeing himself become flanked, Dredd tries to prepare, but is overcome with strikes from both sides.
Recoiling from the pain, Dredd holds his ground, staring down the foe now being flanked by Madaxa. He uses the opportunity to attempt to demoralize this foe before striking it. He focuses briefly, trying to self recover from some of the damage he has absorbed.
The dwarf moves up and targets the Blue creature to focus and try to takke it down.
Sura searches her thoughts and memories for anything she might have read regarding the blue creature, while casually singing softly to help ease Dredd’s pain.
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Zarzuket casts electric arc on both enemies again, followed by guidance on Dredd.
Akatas have no auditory senses are immune to auditory effects. They are weak to salt water.
Zarzuket's spell effects the undead creature more than the blue one, but both suffer damage. Madaxa and Dredd finish off the blue creature and Krachxton redirects his blast to the undead creature and quickly finishes it off.
”The situation seems urgent enough that I don’t think it’s wise to spend eight hours harvesting the crystals. How about we just take a few minutes to rest and heal and then move on?”
Recovering from being a practice dummy for the creatures, Dredd nods. "Yes, A little rest sounds good, though I wish I knew more about these creatures and how they got here. Perhaps we can return here once we have cleared the rest of this place, to gather some resources."
Once everyone is satisfied with what they could learn here, Dredd grabs on tight to his weapon and continues on straight north back through the hall and to the northern door. If Madaxa confirms the door looks good, Dredd will enter.
Inside the storage closet, Dred finds two piles of rusted iron ingots sit in alcoves to the east and west of this closet, although one of the ingots appears to be untouched by rust.
The iron ingots here are worthless, but one rust-free ingot is in fact a silver ingot worth 100 gp. In addition, digging through the rust you find cold iron light hammer under a stack of rusty ingots.
Sura muses to herself out loud, with a small grin, "Maybe we can just grab a few fragments for research. For science?"
She gives Dredd a once over and determines that he is well on his way to feeling healthy and does not require further attention. She makes a mental note to review her spell repertoire when the opportunity arises.
She moves ahead to the hallway, allowing room for the other party members.
”Should we go west next?”
Opening the door the the west, you find a different forge stands in the east, west, and southern wings of this room, each accompanied by an anvil of a different size. A hammer sits atop the largest anvil. All three forges burn hot, filling the room with a dry heat. Large, shaped plates of iron litter the room, leaning against various walls.
As Dredd moves into the room, he catches the attention of two small, vaguely humanoid creatures with awkward limbs and slack lumps of skin hanging from their frames. They both run up to him and chomp on him with their sharp jaws. After attacking once, they cower and make themselves very small, protecting their vital organs and gaining some extra defense.
Zarzuket is alarmed enough by the injuries to Dredd that he taps into his divine font. "Θεραπεύω!" he shouts.
He then looks at the small creatures, hoping to identify them.
Dredd Recoils as he is quickly struck twice by this new foe, though feels some reprieve as his allies rush in right behind him.
Dredd moves in around the now seemingly shielded creatures to allow an opening for his allies. He stares down the Pink enemy before shouting "You have made your choice!", then quickly thrusts to attack.
Krachxton moves in as well, joining the attack on the pink-skinned one. Sadly, his footing is off and he swings into the ground.
Madaxa steps up behind the creature attacking Dredd and stabs it in the back!
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Zarzuket successfully identifies these wretched creatures as pusks, the lowest and least powerful of all demons. Of particular note, he recalls these creatures being weak to cold iron weapons and items and tend to cower for more defense.
Sura's needle darts would have hit the creature if it hadn't cowered into a defensive position, so instead the metal fragments miss and hit the ground nearby.
Dredd successfully demoralizes his foe before burying his guisarme into it and dealing a fair amount of damage to the demon.
Krachxton's attack gets off on the wrong foot and he can't put together a solid strike, even with Sura's helpful anthem.
Madaxa however delivers two solid blows on the flanked demon with Dredd, sneakily delivering a precise strike in the back for just enough damage to eliminate the pinkish colored one.
The demon comes out of its cower and rakes its claws against Krachxton, critically injuring him before ducking back down into a defensive position again.
Sura rushes into the room past Madaxa, her hand making a scooping motion in the air as she concentrates on picking up a loose, but sizable chunk of stone from the floor. As she strides past, her eyes lock on to the remaining enemy, locked in concentration and with a flourish of her hand, launches the stone forcefully at it.
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Zarzuket repositions himself to get a better look at the remaining enemy while moving further away from it. Knowing the monster's weakness, he then shoots three cold iron projectiles at it.
Madaxa spins and strikes the other pusk.
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Krachxton focuses on the surrounded target, slamming it with stone fists.
Dredd, Zarzuket and Sura all come up short against the smaller, defensive creature. But with a show of force, Madaxa and Krachxton put and end to the foe with multiple powerful blows!
Once the threat of combat is over, you scan the smithy for anything of note. The hammer on the anvil is a cold iron warhammer and there is another unopened door leading north.
”Good job! If my understanding of the layout of this place so far is correct, we have only about half the rooms on this floor left to investigate. After we’ve rested and healed I suppose we should go north, unless someone has a different idea.”
Madaxa nods to Zarzuket, "sounds like a good plan." He eyes the warhammer, wishing he had the skills to melt it down and make a new rapier.
When the party is ready, he move to the door and takes a listen.
Opening to the door to the north reveals a very large and very complicated room beyond.
Torches illuminate this fifteen-foot-high chamber. A pair of massive columns of rusted metal loom in large alcoves to the east and south, each fitted with complex hinged armatures and drooping lengths of wire that connect them to one of two large metallic worktables. Gears grind slowly and glowing crystals periodically pulse from these worktables. A stone well ten feet in diameter stands in the center of the room between the two strange worktables, capped with a stone slab engraved with a singular broad rune with three downward spikes. Bookshelves line the northern wall, though most of their contents have fallen to ruin—save for one faded red tome near the center of the northern wall.
As the party takes in the scene, the faint echoes of past experiments and the heavy weight of the room's purpose hang in the air. Suddenly, their presence is noticed by a group of three cultist currently engaged in adjusting the crystals and gears on the worktables. They react with hostility, recognizing you as intruders.
"This looks a bit ominous. What sort of project could they be up to in here?"
Sura whisper-shouts to Dredd at the head of the column, “WHAT...do you see !??”.
Sensing the tension in the air, she closes her eyes and intones a few verses intending to calm and steady the nerves of her party members. She subtly casts magic weapon on Dredd’s guisarme, its glow shimmering in the hallway, highlighting her companion’s faces, showing both concern and anticipation.
Madaxa slips through the others and runs in, sliding to a stop next to one of the tables. There's a whistle as his rapier whips through the air toward Magenta.
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Zarzuket moves into the large room and explains to Madaxa how to disable the workbench.
Krachxton hustles in and hurls a rock quickly at the one in brown robes from behind cover.
Much to his surprise, Krachxton's blast hits the cultist on the far side the room.
Madaxa moves in and delivers a fantastic opening strike with his rapier, injuring the closest cultist. His strike seems to madden the cultist, sending him into a frenzied rage.
Dredd sets his gaze on the cultist closest to him. He succeeds in intimidating him, but misses with his guisarme.
Zarzuket moves to the bench and demonstrates to Madaxa how to deactivate the machine. The sound of a powerful energy winding down fills the room, but still remains in a lower, constant thrum.
The cultist adjacent to Madaxa returns the favor, piercing the rogue with dagger. It misses its second attack and then takes a cautious step away.
The two cultists on the far side dash forward, one attack Krachxton and the other Madaxa, but only Krachxton is injured.
Madaxa puts one hand on the table as he tries(?) to tumble behind red before attacking.
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https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4920&Redirected=1
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