"Well, that ain't good." Morga gripes, dismally dismayed at the sight of Vildran's spell vanishing into thin air. Autumn almost has the right of it, but the dwarf is certain this thing would follow them everywhere until it is destroyed. "Vildran, get outta there!"
She tries to attract the ooze's attention to give him a chance to skedaddle, casting Needle Darts at the thing. Perhaps, since the darts are made of mundane metal, they'll get through whatever magical shield it has? She can only hope.
She snaps her shield up, hoping the thing's whacks aren't strong enough to take her out in one hit. She's spent too much time dying already.
Vildran stares at his staff, shocked by the absorption of his spell. He's torn between fascination of the effect and fear of this ooze.
-
-
For its part, the sludge sweeps its pseudopod toward Vildran, this time connecting with a solid blow. Vildran's head rings from more than just the impact though, as a painful headache rises . The sludge follows by wrapping its pseudopod around Vildran's torso, grappling him. Then, the light that shines from it grows bright an envelops the poor wizard...
Vildran's headache intensifies massively and he can feel his grasp over magic begin slipping away from him.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
San
Morga
Vildran (17 dmg, stupefied 1, grabbed, guidance)
Iridescent Sludge (1 dmg, shielded)
"Abyss take us... Alright, lets try this then." San swaps his bow for the warhammer that's been neglected then approaches the slime.
"Curiosity killed the cat." Morga grumbles, knowing that curiosity is partly to blame for Vildran's choices in the last several seconds. And now he's going to die. Well, not if I can help it. Before charging in, however, Morga does a smart thing. Or at least, a probably-Autumn-approved thing: she casts Sanctuary on herself so that she can stay alive long enough to heal everyone from what is bound to be yet another we're-probably-all-going-to-get-too-close-to-really-dying skirmish. She raises her shield again. "Healing's coming, Vildran!"
No... n He can feel his mind starting to slip.
Feeble though his frame is, it's time to struggle visibly.
Looking back over her shoulder, Autumn is frustrated, but not surprised, to see that no one has had the good sense to follow her. With an inward sigh, she backtracks to peek inside the room, and is alarmed to see that there are now two elves trying to commit suicide. With a circular wave of her hand she conjures a thick, protective fog around San, then amends Morga’s reassurance to Vildran: “But you won’t get any healing unless you run away!”
-
Vildran struggles again and again to break free of the pseudopod currently wrapped around him, but to no avail. From a distance, Autumn forms an obscuring figment around San.
The sludge attempts to drain Vildran's magic once more...
and despite his before efforts he finds himself passing out . With Vildran limp in the sludge's grasp, it seems to have had its fill of him, because it releases his body. It goops its way around the less interesting San to get in reach of Morga . A pseudopod swings out at her, but she's able to deflect it with her raised shield.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
San
Morga
Vildran (18 dmg, stupefied 1, dying 1, prone)
Iridescent Sludge (4 dmg, re-shielded)
“Heinous,” Autumn gapes when the sludge sucks away the cleric’s spell. There is no way this magic-user is sticking around to fight a magic-sucking blob. “Be smarter than Vildran!” she urges the dwarf, without a second thought for the unconscious wizard. “Follow me!” Without waiting, she dashes down the hall and opens the door to the larva room. “In here!”
But though the con artist seems focused on retreat, she reveals another side to her plans: with her finger she traces out a path from Morga to herself, then through the door to the north, then sweeping back around to the west, as if suggesting returning to the laboratory through another door.
Seeing yet another spell get devoured, San figures he's their only hope to defeat this thing. Pulling from his experience with the guards at Sandpoint, he stands fast despite Autumn's suggestion. Just as well she runs. Her magic will just get eaten as well. Drawing his newish dagger, he swings the warhammer.
When Morga goes to cast her sanctuary though, the sludge's light gleams around her and the spell melts away, the energies siphoning back into a fresh new shield around the sludge!
"No!" Morga had really hoped that only spells targeting the ooze would be absorbed. Not so much, apparently.
At first, Autumn's commands seem cowardly and heartless, but when Morga glances over to give her a scowling reprimand, she sees the sorceress's gestures. Realization dawns on her: Trap it in the larva room. And it'll follow her because she has the magic it seeks. She nods once at Autumn, then begins slowly backing away from the ooze, shooting an agonized glance at Vildran's motionless body. "Come and get me, you vile pile of sludge!" She growls. Just before stepping out of the doorway, she makes eye contact with San and gives him a wink. Then she hustles after Autumn down the hallway.
The sludge's drain assaults his mind and magical connection, leaving him with a painful pounding in his head and the inability to recall how he would cast ignition. You notice that suddenly the sludge is moving quicker than before, energized by the ingestion of the magical potential.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
San (22 dmg, grabbed, stupefied 1)
Morga
Vildran (18 dmg, stupefied 1, unconscious, prone)
Iridescent Sludge (17 dmg, quickened)
Immediately regretting his decision to stay and fight, San throws off the grasping psuedopod and retreats to Autumn and Morga.
As soon as San catches up to them, Morga slaps a quick poultice on his wounds, then charges into the larva room, shouting: "Over here, sludge bucket!"
“Once it’s in the hallway, follow us,” Autumn whispers once San catches up. “We’ll try to trap it in this room.” She dashes in next to Morga, quickly clears the debris that the dwarf had stacked up earlier to block the western door, and then stands ready to open it once she gets word from San.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
San (17 dmg, stupefied 1)
Morga
Vildran (18 dmg, stupefied 1, unconscious, prone)
Iridescent Sludge (17 dmg)
Hearing the squishy thwack of the ooze just missing San outside, Autumn doesn’t hesitate and quickly opens the door back into the laboratory. “Close it once you’ve lured it into the middle of the room,” she says to Morga, then darts through and down the left corridor. Once she nears the southern door though, she slows to a stealthy tiptoe.
San tries to keep putting on damage in case their plan doesn't work before following after Morga and Autumn.
Morga's torn. She desperately wants to heal San, but isn't sure how far away they have to be to avoid strengthening that ooze. She also won't be able to heal him if he falls in here, with that thing. Autumn's plan will only work if no one else is stuck in here with it. Stubbornly, she stands her ground beside him, eyeing the door.
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
San (17 dmg, stupefied 1)
Morga
Vildran (18 dmg, stupefied 1, unconscious, prone)
Iridescent Sludge (25 dmg)
"Now's a good chance to get to Vildran, I'll close the sludge in here!"
San smacks the ooze one more time before retreating to the door and closing it.
As soon as she sees San emerge safely from the room and hears the door closing behind him, Autumn opens her own door and darts down the hall to close the other door behind the ooze.
"Right!" Seeing that the ooze is far enough behind San that he can escape its clutches, Morga wastes no time dashing from the room to revive Vildran. She drops to her knees beside him. "Come on Vildran! Come back to me!"
San gives the sludge a good smash and then you rush out and seal up the room from both sides. Thanks to some good fortune, the stone doors that are common in this complex seal up reasonably well, and while you suspect the sludge may eventually be able to force them open, it isn't able to squeeze itself around their edges. It seems you've bought yourselves a minute or two before it finds some other way to get to you!
Combat Over (for now).
Not long after you gather up, you can hear heavy thumping as the doors are tested by the sludge.
With a sigh of relief, Autumn hurries back to where the ooze originated, closing all the doors as she passes them. When she sees Morga tending to Vildran, she gives the dwarf a nod of acknowledgement and briskly strides past to the northern wall. “This must be the ritual chamber the boggards mentioned. Which means there’s a secret door to the laboratory with the sinspawn ...” She quickly runs her fingers over the wall, spurred on by the incessant thumping against the door—they might need another exit soon.
“If it gets through ...” she gives San an apologetic look “… you’ll need to fight it yourself. Our magic would just make it stronger. Just keep hitting it and running away—you’re fast and it’s slow,” she tries to reassure him.
When Vildran regains consciousness, she pulls out the faded red tome, quickly glances through it, then holds it out for the wizard to inspect. “See if this says anything about what the cultists were doing here. Were they trying to make the ooze?”
Presuming Morga succeeds...
Vildran blinks awake, immediately frowning in shame. His antennae lay flat on his head.
He emits a pained whisper.
One day I will be useful, and this will stop happening.
As if he was asking for the immediate opportunity, Autumn appears holding a tome in his face. He leans on one arm, and pushes himself up into a sitting position to accept the book. He's still feeling a little dodgy from yet-another-near-death-experience, but a tome is a welcome distraction.
Right. Cultists. Ooze. Let me see... He calms as he begins to flip through it, somber.
"San, get over here real quick. Let me heal you and Vildran at the same time."
"That'll have to do for now. That thing doesn't sound like it's gonna take a nap."
Now that she has a moment to think, Morga muses on the provenance of that particular ooze. It seemed to gain power from absorbing magic. Her eyes flick around the group. We're exactly the wrong set of people to go up against that thing. <sigh> Oh, well. We gotta do it anyway.
Morga heaves herself back to her feet and begins glancing around at all the apparatuses in the room. "If they were trying to make that ooze, was it because of us or because of something else?"
Autumn shrugs wordlessly at Morga’s presumably rhetorical question. Her focus is still on ensuring that they have another way out. Once she finds the secret door, she stealthily cracks it open a couple inches to see (and hear) if the laboratory is still empty—or if it’s been repopulated with more sinspawn.
San looks over the others to make sure there's no unnoticed injuries before inspecting the warhammer for damage. Finding none he prepares himself to lure the ooze in a circle until it goes down. "Just make sure I'm the only target. We don't want it chasing after you all unless we can't help it. It may have just been slow earlier due to the hallway. That thing is pretty big so it probably has to show down there"
-
Unfortunately this means Vildran has nothing to study. But Autumn does look through and verify that there isn't anything unpleasant waiting in the northern chamber. It's just as empty as the last time you left it.
Morga heals the group up. She doesn't have any clue what the sludge might be, beyond the strange powers it's already shown. She casts her eyes across the room and sees a great deal of magical or alchemical equipment or something in between. Vials and bottles cover what free space is left on both tables. The gears that were previously spinning within the various armatures built into the tables are now still. Clutter of various kinds, sacks of parts and satchels with odd objects poking out of them are scattered across the room. The acolytes were clearly not ones for organization. There will certainly be some useful things amount all of this, but it'll take careful examination to determine what's useful and what's junk.
San takes the initiative. Now prepared with a strategy to deal with the ooze, he approaches one of the doors to the room you trapped it in. Opening it up leads to the sludge getting a swing in as it surges forth. But a quick dodge from San, and then following it up with a patient approach of striking and backing off as he lures it in a big circle pays off. While the sludge is devastatingly dangerous to a group of magic users, it doesn't appear to be particularly bright. It follows the lure and he slowly smashes it into a greasy puddle.
Combat over (for real this time). You each gain a total of 120 XP.
Vildran plants his staff in the ground and stands up, still gathering himself. He follows San at a safe distance, holding an expression of disgust and pulling his cloak tighter. Of course that doesn't really protect his magic, but he's still coming to grips with the sort of vulnerability that this ooze exposes.
I'll just, stay back here.
Even after San pulverizes it he's unsure, eyeing the puddle warily and shifting toward's the secret door Autumn is opening.
Catching his breath from running from the ooze, "Well... that was fun. Good thing we kept Ragnulf's warhammer around. Any of the gizmos still active like the one in the other room? Or did the cultist break it enough that we don't have to... Either way, I still feel off from when that ooze grabbed me, like there's a fog getting in the way of my thoughts. Anyway, there should only be a couple rooms left up here." As he talks, he meanders around the room helping to look for anything interesting.
After San lets them know that the sludge has been destroyed and that it’s safe to come out of hiding, Autumn exhales a noticeable sigh of relief. For someone who depends on her magic as much as she does, a mana-consuming ooze is absolutely terrifying. “Thanks San,” she says gratefully. “Definitely a good thing you kept his warhammer. She glances at the potency rune on the weapon, then over at the rune inscribed on the now broken stone slab that had capped the well. “Do you recognize that rune? Maybe it’s a clue for what they wanted with that ooze?”
“The laboratory’s still empty,” she reports, gesturing to the room beyond the secret door which she now closes. “It seems safe enough to rest here for a bit while Morga treats your wounds.” For her part, the sorceress scours the room for anything of value that might be salvaged. Every now and then she pauses to bend an armature, or cut a wire, just to make sure that this experiment can’t be easily reactivated.
Breathing a deep sigh of relief that it's over, Morga sets to work treating wounds.
Vildran sits in silence, letting Morga work on his bruises, breaks, and cuts.
Thank you. He says plainly when she finishes.
He still needs a distraction from their latest experience. He joins San in analyzing various items around the room.
At any point they get near the puddle of ooze remains, Vildran gets nervous and skirts away from it or around it.
A thorough search of the room's contents turns up two full sets of sterling artisan's tools for metalworking, three vials of some teal-colored oil, a single vial that feels oddly light for its size (filled with pale blue fluid), a vial of silvery oil, a cold iron light hammer and a bone arrowhead on a string. All of the items other than the artisan's tools appear to be magical.
Autumn can see that there are traces of runes all along the sides of the well, inscribed in the floor, and on various pieces of equipment. With Vildran taking the lead on interpretation, you manage to work out that the armatures here connected the two rusted metal columns (the lower sections of the spires poking out above Rusthenge) to the magical worktables, allowing the equipment to gather and focus some sort of magical energy. However you can't tell what that energy would have been used for - beyond the well being involved in some capacity. The equipment here is complex and seems well suited not only for the purpose the acolytes had been using it for, but also for more general inspection of magic items.
The larger rune on the broken slab atop the well is an ancient Thassilonian symbol associated with the sin of envy.
Vildran runs his hand along the sin rune. Now this is the kind of thing he came to Sandpoint to study.
Sin magic and a device to gather magical energy. What was their end...? he wonders.
Morga hefts the cold iron light hammer. "Hm. I'll hang onto this one, in case we run into another one of those oozes. We'd better not, but still. Vildran, can you tell what enchantment is on it?"
As the scholar examines the hammer, Morga observes: "I suspect you could linger here for weeks studying this stuff, but we have a cult to root out and kill. Let's identify a few of these things that could be useful and keep moving. Later, after we've cleaned this whole place out, you can come back here and study without fear of being attacked. Okay, Vildran?" Her voice has a hard edge to it, despite how accommodating she's trying to be.
Vildran (and his antennae) perk up and look around the room as if they were being attacked again at that very moment.
No, that's not what she meant.
Oh, okay. He stutters and hesitates as he pulls himself away from the rune.
He imagines they need to head South from here and approaches that door. But he dare not take the lead from San or Morga.
"So useless,” Autumn murmurs inaudibly to herself as Vildran ignores the proffered hammer and instead tries to lead the way onwards, but fails at that too. It’s quite clear that the wizard is still traumatized by his near-death encounter with the ooze. Though she feels for him, it’s probably best not to rely on him too much.
Sucking gingerly at the cut on her finger, the sorceress intervenes, redirecting the cold iron hammer to the other, more competent elf instead. “You’re right,” she agrees with Morga in a low voice, “but I think we’d better let San do the identifying for now.” In addition to the hammer, she suggests that San identify the bone arrowhead and the vial of pale blue fluid for now, though she insists that they take everything for safekeeping. Who cares if she hasn’t the first clue about metalworking—those artisan’s tools are clearly worth several platinum.
There’s no need to study the room itself further. Though it would be nice to know exactly what the cultists are up to, in the end it doesn’t matter much—whatever they’re doing is bad, with a capital B, and needs to be stopped. Autumn gently nudges Vildran aside and listens at the southwestern door before cautiously opening it a crack to see what lies beyond, then closes it again. She has no intention of leading—that’s Morga’s job—but perhaps she can be a bit more stealthy than the armor-clad dwarf.
San nods at the proffered items and checks them over. Only taking a couple minutes, he's quickly ready to move on. "Thanks for the medical attention. That ooze was slow but it hit pretty hard." Looking along the room he looks to where Vildran was headed. "I think you're right. There were a couple rooms down that way we haven't checked yet."
-
-------
Autumn checks the door to the south-west and can hear the same banging from somewhere beyond it that you were hearing back in the main interconnecting hallway. It doesn't seem immediate, so you open the door, revealing a straight hallway leading south. As Morga and San lead that way, you can all hear the metallic banging is louder. Morga opens the door at the end of the hall.
The first thing you notice is the blast of dry heat that blows past you. Morga looks into a rather well-appointed smithy. 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 rusted iron litter the room, leaning against various walls.
Two bloated humanoid creatures with rat-like heads cavort to the southern end of the room, waving hammers and banging on various scraps of metal as well as the forges themselves. When Morga opens the door, one glances over and notices you. It shrieks in Abyssal, but none of you recognize the language. However as they raise red hot pokers into the air, their malevolent intentions are rather clear.
San and Morga are the quickest to act.
|||| INIT ||||
San (stupefied 1)
Morga
??? Yellow Rascal
??? Blue Rascal
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
Vildran (stupefied 1)
Autumn murmurs inaudibly to herself as Vildran ignores the proffered hammer
San strides into the room to get a shot on one of the... creatures. "What are these things?" Planting his feet he takes cover behind one of the anvils and fires a shot.
Vildran runs his hand along the sin rune. Now this is the kind of thing he came to Sandpoint to study.
Sin magic and a device to gather magical energy. What was their end...? he wonders.
"What are these things?"
"Nearly dead, that's what." Morga growls, advancing into the room. It really doesn't matter exactly what they are, does it? She plants her feet, then tosses a Guidance spell back in Vildran's direction before raising her shield. Hatred radiates from her eyes as she glares over its shining steel edge.
With his mind still somewhat foggy from his encounter with the ooze, San only manages to identify a couple of the items. The oddly light vial he identifies as an oil of weightlessness and the cold iron light hammer he recognizes has a basic (+1) potency rune inscribed on its head. Despite the spotty results, San is quick, and that means you're quickly able to get going.
While San is speeding through the items, Vildran tries to identify the teal-colored oil.
Earlier, Vildran identified the teal-colored oil as magical anticorrosion oil.
-
Of the two rascals, the yellow one seems to be unable to pull itself fully from its play on the forge. It makes one final effort to bang on the anvil before it lazily weaves a spell in the air with its poker and directs the power at Morga.
Morga pushes off the worst effects of the spell through raw fortitude, but time still briefly seems to speed up around her. Meanwhile the second rascal rushes for her with its hot poker. The speed of its advance for a creature of its rotundity catches her off guard, but she's still able to block one stab with her shield before the second gets in and scores her side
|||| INIT ||||
Autumn (Stage 2 Rust Creep)
Vildran (stupefied 1)
San (stupefied 1)
Morga (14 dmg, slowed 1)
??? Yellow Rascal
??? Blue Rascal (9 dmg)