With Morga healed and the rest of your recovered, San nudges the northern doors and they smoothly swing open at his touch. A soaring domed ceiling, thirty feet tall in the center, gives this massive chamber a sense of majesty. Marble floors and stairs leading up to a centralized dais, drawing attention to the bloody stone altar at the center of the room. A twisted apparatus of strange metals stands atop and above the altar, the mechanism rising rising to 10 feet tall and with cables and tethers anchored to the ceiling. The blood drenching the altar seems fresh, but the only visible victim is the mangled remains of a large rabbit. Motifs of a seven-pointed star appear on most doorways, and on all sides of the altar, as do images of spiky horseshoes of rusted iron. The room is brightly lit by over a dozen torches.
The room is occupied by four figures, three robed like the cultists you met on the surface. The fourth is a stout dwarf in what once must have been fine steel full plate armor with a brass trim. Now, that same armor is tarnished by rust clinging to every surface. The dwarf, who appears to have been leading a chant, immediately stops as the doors open. He turns to the south and raises a warhammer in salute "You return! How keen my lord's insight. Behold, behold the grandeur of the works of Xar-Azmak!"
-
|||| INIT ||||
Morga (1 dmg)
Vildran
San (Rust Creep - Stage 2; -1 penalty on Athletics checks)
Autumn
White Dwarven Leader
Blue Cultist
Green Cultist
Orange Cultist
San takes stock of the room and their foes. Putting aside his wonder at the... sculpture(?) hanging from the ceiling, he takes aim at the closest cultist and fires two arrows. Between arrows, "Autumn, I think your magic will be most helpful here."
Autumn nods imperceptibly at San while she quickly surveys the large chamber, gauging the enemies’ strength. Fortunately the hound is missing, but the cultists are just beyond the reach of her phase bolt, and there’s no way that she will be the one to close the distance. No matter—she can just pry into their minds instead. She begins with an assault of words, meant to goad the dwarf into revealing more about his patron.
“Never heard of this Xar-Azmak,” she scoffs dismissively. “Did he do anything important?” One emerald eye decays into a dull, lifeless grey as her magic reaches into the dwarf’s mind. An instant later, the tattoo on her forearm flares to life, conjuring an invisible shield of force.
"I heard he wears clogs and causes wretched farts." Morga remarks dryly. She casts Bless to buff her allies and raises her shield in preparation for whatever comes next.
Still no cythnigot in sight... I suppose that's good news. he remarks as they enter the room and survey their very predictable danger.
Well, I have to use these sometime!
He unloads one of his force barrages, which had been prepared for cythnigot's, at the dwarf.
-
The dwarf rushes toward your group, proselytizing as he does "Know that iron will always be weak to the tide of rust!" He swings his warhammer down upon San, but the agile elf is able to step out of the way. The blue cultist rushes in as well, but chooses to weave around San to get into a flank and then stab carefully with his dagger. The positioning pays off as he scores a precise hit . The remaining cultist rushes in to attack Morga, but she's able to keep his dagger at bay with her shield.
|||| INIT ||||
Morga (1 dmg)
Vildran
San (4 dmg, Rust Creep - Stage 2; -1 penalty on Athletics checks)
Autumn
White Dwarven Leader (8 dmg)
Blue Cultist
Orange Cultist
"Know that iron will always be weak to the tide of rust!"
"And then what?" Morga asks as she steps back to flank the blue-robed cultist with Autumn. She draws her starknife and jabs it toward his midsection. "Have you thought about what happens to rust when there's nothing left?"
Autumn’s face darkens when the dwarf resists her attempt to twist his mind, but the cleric’s blessing eases her frustration, filling her instead with confidence to press the attack, even when one of the cultists rushes dangerously close to her. Instinctively she thrusts out her arm, gathering a flickering arcane essence to plunge into the foe beside her.
With the enemy’s life blood gushing out of his wound, she glares defiantly at the other cultist. “Really?”
San growls as he is set upon by the dwarf with the hammer. Trying to think quickly, he tries to remember how to best handle foes like this.
Surprised by the cultist suddenly in his face, Vildran throws his staff into it and launches a flame bolt at him.
and then safely steps away.
San knows of dwarves, but can't quite place this particular one or evaluate his weaknesses. As a result he just focuses on punching, and gets in with one solid hit. With no cultist in his personal space, Vildran sends a small bolt of flame over at the orange cultist instead, scorching the fellow's robes badly.
San is left holding the front line as the dwarf and remaining cultist strike and stab away at him. The dwarf roars "Doubt Xar-Azmak's power at your own peril! Decay will come for you!" as he swings upward. He gets past San's guard and strikes a fairly glancing blow with the weighty weapon, but the words seem to get under San's skin just as much. A follow-up swing is even more vicious, but this time San's able to dodge out of the way. Meanwhile the remaining cultist snarls as he stabs away, first at San , and then stepping in at Morga and scoring another cut .
|||| INIT ||||
Morga (4 dmg)
Vildran
San (11 dmg, Rust Creep - Stage 2; -1 penalty on Athletics checks)
Autumn
White Dwarven Leader (25 dmg)
Orange Cultist (5 dmg)
Deciding he doesn't like getting hit by the dwarf, San attempts to disable that threat and remove the war-hammer.
Bolstered by Morga’s deadly attack and the effectiveness of her own phase bolt, Autumn recasts her spell at the dwarf. “Decay comes for all,” she counters his threat with insidious, twisting magic meant to sap his greatest strength. Let’s see how he likes facing decay himself.
"Yeah, yeah." Morga grumbles, launching into a lecture as she jabs her starknife into the orange-robed cultist. "Fanatics can't reason or think. They only 'believe' and 'feel'. True understanding comes from the balance between those two. Not that I expect you to get it."
She raises her shield, anticipating retaliation.
Vildran laughs nervously when Morga starts her combat-lecture.
No, they won't get it! Better to save your energy for smashing and slashing them! Once they are subdued you can assert an education program!
He releases a barrage of force missiles at the dwarf.
Though San doesn't manage to loosen the dwarf's grip on his Warhammer, after backing off he does land a well aimed shot with his bow. The dwarf takes the shaft to his shoulder and keeps fighting. The dwarf suffers Autumn's jealous hex, growing feeble, but even so debilitated he still manages to deflect the phase bolt aimed at him.
Meanwhile Morga brings down the orange cultist with a quick jab of her starknife, before readying her shield. That shield will go unused for now however, as Vildran's barrage of force batters the dwarf past his breaking point. A strange expression of confusion flickers across the dwarf's face as he falls, face first into the stone.
Combat Over
Now that you aren't actively fighting, you can see the strange apparatus atop the altar slowly grinding and spinning, many of its metal plates tinged with rust, but some still showing clearly unusual hues underneath.
San breaths a sigh of relief as the rusty dwarf goes down. "Good job team. I thought the heavy armor was going to be quite the obstacle but we got past it. That hammer though..." He winces as he stretches out the shoulder where the hammer glanced off his armor. "It's in much better shape than the armor. Morga, do you think you could make use of it? And while we're at it..." San grins sheepishly, "I could use some medical attention."
Morga inspects the hammer. "Hm. Probably not. Shouldn't leave it lying around, though." If San doesn't want it as a backup weapon, she tucks it away before getting to work on treating his wounds.
Since she only just patched herself up a few minutes ago, she casts Heal on herself instead. "I hate to do this, but I doubt that's the only resistance we'll meet down here. That fungus wolf thing, for one."
She packs up the healing gear and brushes off her hands briskly. "Now. What's up with the spinning thing?"
While Morga tends to San’s wounds, Autumn’s instincts trend to other matters: she carefully searches all the bodies, looking for clues—as well as gold and other valuables. There ought to be some kind of reward for mucking around down here.
“He spoke of his lord, so someone else is in charge. We need to stay careful.” When she notices that the apparatus is moving, she frowns. “Should we just destroy it? Whatever it’s doing isn’t good.”
Vildran shudders.
I was hoping we got these characters instead of the cythnigot, not in addition to.
He very carefully approaches the altar, first checking it for traces of magic.