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Apparently unwilling to see what Johann’s bear form is capable of, Guido spills the beans... No! No! Please! I will tell you! We... we are supposedly restoring the aqueducts in preparation to defend the city from the coming dragon attack... In reality, we are preparing to facilitate the holocaust by introducing flammable oil to the water when the hour falls! Our master, Filippo Brunelleschi, is a servant of Lucifer! And I... I have made a deal with the Devil as well!
The man appears to be a Roman laborer, by his common work outfit. I am Guido, a muckraker serving Filippo Brunelleschi in the project to restore the aqueducts! This...shapeshifter!...snatched me after striking down three of my fellows in the shape of a great cobra!
Cobra Johann coils tightly around the last of the cultist laborers, who gasps a breathless cry for help, which albeit strangled, echoes back up the passage to their leader...
The four cultists approach with obvious apprehension... Johann’s forked tongue tastes their fear in the dank air... And no sooner do three of them get within ten feet of the deceptively coiled serpent hero when Johann strikes all three down and out in a matter of seconds! The fourth hurls his dagger from ten feet away... ...harmlessly bouncing it off the tunnel wall! AAAAAIIIIEEE!!!
Four figures appear out of the gloom from the right bearing torches and drawn daggers... In Italian: Zounds! A snek!
Johann’s intentions to remain vigilant are hindered by the many fascinating distractions the outlying districts of Rome have to offer: acrobats and jugglers performing in the streets for silver florins, musicians plying their trade for the same, and food vendors selling delicious-smelling fare from carts... He fails to notice the coming and going of a few dark-robed figures entering or leaving Catacombs entrances...
The cultist whose face Johann has bitten off screams in terror and despair at the thought of going on without a face... The unbearable thought drives the already unstable Roman over the edge! He leaps to a terrible death in the firepit, where his black robes immediately ignite! AAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!! In a matter of seconds, the cultist is consumed by the roaring flames!
Zagathoth’s falchion shears through cloth, flesh, and bone, and the cultists’ left arm flies away from his body, spraying blood! AAAAGH!! The east most cultist collapses on the floor in an expanding pool of blood!
as its little body is consumed by the flames In Italian: AAAAAIIIIEEE!! MY FACE!! It’s EATING my FACE!!!
The Fox’s mystic bolt sizzles and crackles into the east cultist’s flesh! GNAAAAAAAACH!!
The two masked devil-worshipping baby-killers are caught completely off guard by the sudden appearance of the furious Bear!
Johann charges like an enraged mother grizzly protecting her cubs into the hexagonal chamber to the north... Here, he encounters a chilling and infuriating scene: a pair of black-robes figures wearing skull-face masks are standing to east and west of a diamond-shaped firepit at the center of the chamber, in which roaring orange flames leap halfway up to the twenty-foot-high ceiling...
MOLOCH!! SOG MORDROX FERNIX VICTIMAS!! Infernal: MOLOCH!! CONSUME THIS VICTIM IN YOUR DEADLY FLAMES!!
From the north can now clearly be heard by all: MOLOCH ASHK NOXT GRAVAX!! MOLOCH ANGULF HABRAX!! ** spoiler omitted **
Mingled with the infant’s crying are sinister voices chanting in an evil-sounding tongue ... MOLOCH ASHK NOXT GRAVAX!! MOLOCH ANGULF HABRAX!! Infernal: MOLOCH ACCEPT THIS SACRIFICE!! MOLOCH BE PRAISED!!
The Necromancer lairs in a vault deep in the catacombs, west of where you....stopped the sacrifice....and down a winding stair....a moat of vile waters, in which the Dread Guardian swims, surrounds his underground island.... Beware the Dread Guardian! And beware the Necromancer! He will try to add your bones to his army of skeletons! Or feed you to the Dread Guardian....
The cultist cringes at the deft display of daggerwork and avoids making eye contact with Paddy, clearly intimidated by the rogue....
Grasping Alphonse's hand, the man kisses it and weeps.
The cultist blanches in terror.... Please have mercy, Monsieur! I cannot do this! He would make ghouls or walking corpses of us all! Hang me if you must....but please....let me give confession....and take once more the body and blood of Our Savior before I meet my fate.... He breaks down in sobs of remorse and grief for a life ill spent....
From Madame Jezebel's brothel, here on the isle.... A harlot's babe....
The cultists, clad in black robes and cowls, and masked with skull face masks, bore masterwork cold iron daggers (3), silver necklaces with inverted silver crucifixes inlaid with tiny bloodstones (3), and Satanic rosary beads with human teeth and finger bones in place of beads and inverted crucifixes (3). One of the three (the one tortured to unconsciousness by Nacht) also has a black leather scroll tube tucked in the rope cinching his waist....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! The cultist twists and shrieks in agony as The Beetle Man tortures and mortified his flesh.... He collapses, eyes rolling back in his head as he loses consciousness.....
One wounded cultist remains standing.... Even with the skull mask hiding half his face, his growing terror of imminent doom is apparent! In French: I renounce Satan and all his evil works! Forgive me, Lord Jesus! Have mercy on my wretched soul! Dropping his dagger, the cultist drops to his knees before Nacht and raises his hands together in a pleading or praying gesture....
Tumbling past the cultists, the nimble samurai snatches the wailing infant from the altar, then reverse somersaults backward past the cultists again, drawing two AoOs as he does so.... AoO misses.... AoO nicks the samurai's thigh for piercing damage with a curvy dagger!
Jimeno keeps the second cultist dodging madly to avoid his thrusts, only to move into Hisao the ninja's deadly thrust!
A flurry of cuts on the third cultist leaves him pale and gasping in pain!
AAAAARRRGGGGGGHHH!!! The ninja appears out of the shadows and misses with his first attempt to disrupt the cultist's spell, dodges the roaring cones of flame (mostly.... He stills takes a total of 6 fire damage from the two burning hands spells), and slips a retaliatory thrust past the cultist's guard and into flesh! The second cultist falls, succumbing from multiple wounds....
Paddy's rapier thrust takes the nearest of the two remaining cultists in the chest as he chants and forks his fingers.... Concentration check vs DC 15 to get off the burning hands succeeds!
Stabbing the cultists that Paddy stabbed earlier, bringing him closer to death!
Will vs DC 14 fascinating sermon succeeds! This cultist places a doubtful hand on the infant, almost as if to protect it, as Fray recites the Beatitudes.... Will vs DC 14 fascinating sermon fails! This cultist ignores Fray's assertion that the meek shall inherit the Earth....
The cultists fork their fingers at the adventurers and intone words of evocation, causing hellfire to spring out from their hands and blaze the advancing intruders! Alphonse, Nacht, Hisao and Paddy must each make two Ref saves, DC 12, to avoid the burning hands that sear for and fire damage respectively!
Paddy's rapier sinks into the second cultists, who screams in agony!
Alphonse sweeps the head of the cultist wounded by Nacht off of his shoulders with a bold stroke of his scythe!
Nacht's blow slices deep, drawing blood and a startled cry of pain and alarm from the skull-masked cultist!
Three black-robed, hooded figures wearing skull masks stand near the unholy altar, one laying what appears to be a sedated human infant upon the altar! They turn to face the adventurers as they enter the gallery.... Initiative |
