Zarzuket runs to the other workstation and deactivates it.
As the cultist stabs him, he pounds on him with a big stone hammer.
Not finished, Dredd strides forward, following [pink] and thrusts tw m ore times quickly at the cultist.
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Sura cautiously steps into the room, quickly assesses the situation and attempts to confuse the cultist in red in hopes of distracting them from attacking her companion.
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Krachxton delivers two critical strikes against his foe, quickly taking him down. Dredd also lands two solid hits against the cultist in front of him, taking him down as well.
Sura spell stuns injures the cultist, causing it to reach for its head and groan in pain.
Meanwhile, Zarzuket successfully deactivates the other workbench, stopping whatever terrible thing was likely about to happen!
The cultist reaches for the workbench and tries to activate it, but cries out in frustration when nothing happens! It tries to activate it again, but still nothing occurs. "NO!" it cries, now understanding it has little chance for survival.
Zarzuzet sends a jolt of electricity towards the remaining cultist, taking a bit longer than usual because of the distance.
Zarzuket's electricity does the trick and brings the remaining cultist down!
”There seems to be a lot going on here. We should look over this place thoroughly before we move on.”
Madaxa bends down to search the cultist then joins the others searching the lab.
You spend the better part of an hour in this room searching the chamber. You are able to gather together enough tools to constitute two full sets of sterling artisan’s tools for metalworking, three vials of anticorrosion oil, a vial of oil of potency, a vial of oil of weightlessness, a +1 cold iron light hammer, and a dragonbone arrowhead.
The biggest treasure in this room is the access to what you see notated as the Vloric Spires and the powerful magic they allow a spellcaster to channel, though this is hardly portable wealth.
An arcane spellcasting PC can make use of this energy to gain a +1 status bonus to Arcana or Crafting checks made in this laboratory to examine or create magic items, and to all rolls made to cast rituals.
Furthermore, you feel confident that by deactivating the worktables, you have inhibited Meitremar’s goals and plans.
"These Vloric Spires are fascinating! Not especially useful to us, though, since none of us use arcane magic."
"After we've finished healing and resting, I guess we should try the door to the east."
Moving east, you open a doorway into another larger room. A glowing Sihedron rune is engraved on the ground to the north. In the southern end of the room, a vast copper cauldron, green with age, stands on thick iron legs over a blackened fire pit. Crumbling books line the shelves in the southeast corner, while worktables are covered with potions, oils, and salves that surely expired several centuries ago.
As the party surveys the room, their presence disturbs the ritual's current guardians. Two initiates, previously absorbed in maintaining the magical integrity of the ritual circle, notice your party. Breaking their concentration, they immediately command the disturbing creature within the circle-a grotesque, human-faced larva, to attack.
The larva, bloated and unsettling with its disturbingly human features, writhes as it frees itself from the confines of the circle and lunges towards the party with the initiates.
The three creatures block entry to the room and attack Dredd a total of six times, but are unable to penetrate his defenses.
Krachxton creates a long spear of stone and stabs past Dredd at the wriggling fiend.
"Ooh, a sihedron! This looks even more interesting than the Vloric Spires. But I suppose we should focus on the enemies at the moment. That larva-like creature appears to be..."
Then, unless what he remembers about the larva gives him a obvious reason not to, he zaps the larva and the initiate to the south of it with electricity.
Madaxa grabs Dredd's shoulder and uses him to swing up and hopefully over the larva.
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Dredd holds his ground, protecting his allies behind and acting as a roadblock for these foes. Seeing his weapon illuminate with a familiar glow, a slight smirk shines through as he strikes out thrice, attacking with Madaxa on the larger foe between them.
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In an overwhelming display of force, the party eradicates the three threats in the room. The skirmish is over in a matter of seconds, leaving the party to look over room with the glowing sihedron.
About a minute after the battle concludes, the glowing star fades out, going inert, as the ritual has been disrupted.
Closed doors go both north and south from this room. A quick check of the southern door reveals a hallway you traversed earlier.
Zarzuket recognized the larva as an abyssal petitioner.
“A petitioner instead of an actual fiend? They must have been up to something strange here!” Zarzuket trembles with excitement, but with a few minutes and some deep breaths and prayers, he just barely manages to regain the necessary clarity of mind to cast Scholarly Recollection before investigating further.
Zarzuket then looks around the room. “OK. Sihedron, circle, room full of old objects, two cultists, petitioner from the Abyss…what were they trying to accomplish here?”
While Zarzukey talks about the big picture, Madaxa examines the doors to the north and south.
It's apparent to Zarzuket that they were performing a planar binding ritual here, but the reason why is beyond his knowledge.
Madaxa finds the door to the south unlocked and opening into a previously explored corridor. The door to the north opens into another winding corridor as well, with doors west, north and south before emptying into another larger chamber about 50' to the east.
"Before we go north, I believe there's still a few doors in the southern part of this complex we haven't checked yet. Maybe start with the southern door in the corridor to the south of here? And before that I need a few more minutes to meditate again. Sorry."
Sura kneels down to stare intently at the now inert star, tracing its outline and refocusing her thoughts. She muses out loud, “I wonder who, or what, they were trying to conjure here...”
She then nods in agreement with Zarkuzet, “I think we should check out the rest of the south and circle our way back up, although I do wonder what that room to the east holds?”
Before moving north, Zarzuket convinces the group to sweep the south.
The first room they come to is a refuse pile. Heaps of ruined furniture and skeletal remains cover most of the floor. Not much seems of use here, so you swing around to the room to the south of this and find a room with multiple stone toilets, but the ancient magic that once kept them clean and fresh has long ago failed and the odors here are not pleasent.
Madaxa leads the way out into the big room (D3) and the doors to the north. He puts an ear to the left one and waits for the others to line up with him.
Madaxa waits until everyone is in place and then opens the door.
The stench from over-full chamber pots is overpowering in this vast, dusty chamber. The remains of archery targetspractice dummies, and wooden training posts lie sprawled around the room—it appears that components taken from these old furnishings have been used to build a few rickety-looking beds to the north. A feeble oil lamp glows from the center of the room, perched on an old sawhorse. The only exit is the door you opened.
A lean, sleek dog with overlarge ears and narrow paws turns to face you as you open the door. Not recognizing you, it howls an unearthly, ear-piercing screech.
Krachxton moves in and swings at the annoying puppy. "Ah, quit yer howling. we're not gonna feed you."
Zarzuket is unafraid of the yeth hound, which he does not yet realize is a yeth hound.
He then realizes that the yeth hound is a yeth hound. "It's a yeth hound," he says.
Then he zaps it.
Instead of zapping the yeth hound, Zarzuket sends three metal darts towards it.
Sura wonders aloud, “Are we sure it’s a yeth hound? Either way, I don’t think it wants to be petted!” as she steps in view of the creature, - vaguely resembling, in appearance only, the street dogs that would run about the city. She casually strums her fingers, splitting a metal blank into 3 projectiles and sends them directly at the possibly-a-yeth-hound.
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Madaxa eyes the dog and barely notices it's screech. He bolts past it to provide some flank for Krachxton, slashing at it with his rapier.
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