Anarath squints up at the creature, wondering what it might be – some type of aberration he suspects.
Whatever it is, it appears to be hostile, and he will treat it accordingly.
Anarath
Arodwumm scoops up the dagger, "Thanks master."
He takes aim and throws it as hard as he can at the thing.
Arodwumm's (or more accurately Dohrlok's) dagger buries itself in the scaly flesh of the thing. Soundlessly one eye rapidly twists to meet his stare.
Dohrlok scowls at Arodwumm, throwing away his dagger as soon as he got his scabby hands on it, then places his crossbow neatly on the floor. He takes a few steps back, estimates the height of the creature, and takes a running leap to grab it out of the air.
The dwarf lands under the floating creature with a thud, still scowling and clenching his empty hands, staring up at it.
The creature floats frustratingly just out of Dohrlok's reach, even with his jump.
It focuses an eye on him, exerting apowerful arcane force on his mind.
Anarath, with few useful spells remaining, takes another shot with his bow, his aim better this time.
“It seems to be an over-sized speciman of a creature called a strangling lurker,” the elf tells his companions.
Dohrlok feels tendrils of soporific and alien thought break through his mental barriers and strangle his thoughts, bringing him into a stuporous state.
Sorry couldn't resist. It was my mistake originally.
Corvin takes another mad swing at the thing, the fighter's veins popping in frustration.
The dwarf throws one of the grey shards. "Damned creature, die and die now."
Stuporific!
Corvin leaps into the air, brutally slamming both fists into the creature. There's a sickening squish as one of its large eyes is crushed into a gooey pulp by Corvin's blow. The remaining eye pitifully heads to the ceiling, trailing its broken other half behind it and desperately sending stuporous thoughts into its attackers mind in a meager last defense.
Corvin too succumbs to the soporific powers of the creature.
The dwarf grabs the falling Corvin and starts shaking him. "Master! Master! Wake up!"
If that has no effect he will pick up another grey shard for next go.
Corvin's head lolls slightly as Arodwumm shakes him but does not awaken.
The strangler coils up in in the shadows, and glares down at you all cautiously.
As Corvin is let go by the strange dwarf, he topples over with a massive crash.
He twitches in his sleep.
“I’m a wizard, not a warrior,” Anarath mutters as he lines up his bow for another shot at the half hidden creature. However, this time his aim is better.
Anarath's arrow pierces the remaining eye and buries itself deep inside its flesh. It remains floating motionless in midair, slowly descending with foul smelling ichor dripping onto the mulch-covered floor. A faint almost rustling sound can be heard from amongst the vines where the white tubular things hang.
Dohrlok and Corvin remain unconcious for several minutes after the aberration's fall.
"Master, well done. It was your bowfire that killed it. Master, thank you. Thank you!" babbles the terrified dwarf.
He points up at the hole, "They will hear us, master. We must be quiet!"
"Shhhhhh" finger to his beard.
Anarath brushes away both the praise and the need for silence. “One of the advantages of travelling with Corvin,” he mutters, as he looks closely at the horrid creature for any signs of further movement, “is that you need never wonder if someone has heard you coming – just assume that they have. See if you can wake them up – slap them about if you must.”
Anarath carefully approaches the corpse and prods it with the tip of his sword.
Lots of slapping later....
Arodwumm steps away from the waking figures.
"Master they are coming too."
"Phuagh, nagh... 'Swear, no, dinnin touch yer daughter, nossir...Agh..."
Corvin stands up, falls back down, then sits back up.
"Someone musta spiked my drink. Where are we?"
Anarath is succinct. “Tower, Grimmbold Manor. There are kobolds and worse about. We’re climbing up,” he points to the vines above, “there.”
Arodwumm helps the warrior back to his feet, carefully avoiding the spikes.
Dohrlok sits up, a frown on his face for so many reasons. "That enemy was an unsuitable opponent for a Stone Fist," he grumbles, standing and getting his bearings. When he sees Arodwumm, he says, "You may keep the dagger...now that you've touched it."
He retrieves his crossbow, moves over to the ladder and looks up to the next level, ready to keep moving. Whenever it looks like the rest of the group is done looking around, etc., in the room, he'll begin to climb.
Anarath is succinct. “Tower, Grimmbold Manor. There are kobolds and worse about. We’re climbing up,” he points to the vines above, “there.”
"Gotcha, 'Narath. Up. Go. Yeah..."
"Thank you Master." Arodwumm politely takes the dagger from the body.
Satisfied that the group is ready to proceed, Dohrlok begins to climb to the next level.
You climb the strange ladder and emerge into a cavernous chamber. The ceiling is at least 30ft above you, obscured by dark shadows and thick strands of some pallid tubules filled with black liquid that pulses regularly. The strands extend from a central nexus, a misshapen sack of black fluid suspended from the apex of the ceiling. As you look more closely you notice another pulsating, tumorous mass above it. It looks as if its grown right into the domed ceiling. A milky sack covers the alien mass, obscuring it’s details from vision. Thick strands of pale, rubbery white stringers extend from the occluded mass and merge with the walls near the floor, vanishing into the lower part of the tower. Four door-sized plates of something black and shiny are set into the slick black walls at regular intervals. The air in here is moist and humid, filled with an acrid stench that bites at the back of throat and nose.
Scattered about the room are short black pedestals with strange occult devices perched on them and hand sized divots in their otherwise smooth surfaces.
There seems to be no sign of the kobolds you heard earlier.
Spot 15
As you look at the black floor, you notice a triangle etched into the floor by lines of spiky white runes. Suspended over its center is the hanging sack and above it the membranous mass with the man floating inside it.[/ooc]
Spot 18+ [spoiler]Out of the corner of your eye you think you see one of the black pedestals shift slightly. It seems taller suddenly, now at perfect waist height for you.
Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) 12
"See masters, it moved!" as Arodwumm points at the alien pedestal now perfect for him to sit on.
"Slumber, watcher, 'till the spheres
Six 'n twenty thousand years
Have revolved, and I return
To th' spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon sh'll rise
To th' axis of th' skies;
Stars that soothe n' stars that bless
With a sweet fr'getfulness:
Only when me round is o'er
Shall the past dersturb thy door..."
Corvin looks furtively around the room.
"Not good..."
Dohrlok scratches his head, clearly at a loss. "This entire place is unpleasant."
He sighs, then steps over to the shifty pedestal. He prods it with a crossbow bolt to see if there's any response, then looks to see if there's anything on top of it. He'll also inspect the divots. He will not, under any circumstances, step on the runes.
There is nothing atop the black pedastal aside from the two side by side divots, which you note aren't shallow. They're in fact quite deep and narrow but as you watch they expand slightly. Nothing happens when you prod them with a crossbow bolt.
"Hmmph." Dohrlok is nonplussed by the strange pedestal, slightly didturbed by the divots, and just generally grossed out by the entire situation. He takes a deep breath, trying not to breath through his nose so he doesn't get the full stench, then walks to the nearest pedestal that has something on top.
What is the "occult object"? Does the pedestal he just left do anything else unusual? He'll keep an eye on it as he walks away.
There are three pedestals scattered about the room in a rough triangle, each one possessing a different item.
The nearest of the pedestals has upon it what at first appears to be a grey lump upon it but as you approach you recognize it for what it is; a shriveled grey head standing on a dull metal platform. Aside from being severed, the bald head seems relatively undamaged and surprisingly doesn't smell despite looking like it's been dead for some time. Perhaps it's mummified. On closer inspection you realize that tiny runes have been branded onto the pallid skin around the closed eyes and mouth.
Scattered about on the second, larger pedestal, which is at the edge of the room near one of the bony plates on the southern wall, are half a dozen sheets of crackly parchment covered in cramped script written in a tongue you don’t immediately recognize. Atop the parchment is a small box, no bigger than your clenched fist. It’s exquisitely crafted so that it the box appears as a seamless whole, a small solid cube with only an incredibly fine seam at the top that indicates a lid. The tarnished metal of the box’s lock is engraved with a complex pattern of geometry that seems at once a mass of random squiggles and also a set of perfectly symmetrical figures. The lines are fascinating, almost hypnotizing and were you not looking so very carefully you would have entirely missed the impossibly tiny keyhole at the metal’s center. The box looks to be crafted of the same materiel as the desk that Corvin smashed earlier and is slightly damp to the touch. A ragged feather pen sits in an inkwell crafted from a rat’s skull.
Floating atop the final pedestal is a wonderfully intricate mass of silvery rings slowly revolving around a central sphere. As you close on it you take note of every fascinating detail. The sphere around which all of the almost three dozen silvery rings rotate is made from interlocking plates of burnished bronze. The rings themselves at first appear to be a solid metal but as you look more closely you realize that they’re in fact some kind of barely translucent arcane illusion marking the path of the tiny gemstones. Orbiting the sphere on each of the fine arcane rings is a flawless gem, each one a different shade and each one scribed with a single, unique rune. Painstakingly lowly the incredibly complex device revolves about itself, forming and breaking conjunctions and eclipses of the minute bodies. On the pedestal below the revolving model are scattered dozens of sheets of complex diagrams and formulae and equations that seem to be depicting and analyzing the strange mechanism.
For those who were stung by the bug thing in the desk
Anarath is the last to climb up to the next level, taking his time gazing thoughtfully at the corpse of the oversized strangler. At last, Midnight squawks softy into his ear then flaps upwards, and the elf slowly follows.
When at last he does gain the next level he stops and looks about in mixed horror and fascination, his eyes flitting from feature to feature, taking in the whole without really concentrating on the details. His eyes do linger for a few moments on the shiny black plates. “That makes little sense,” he mutters. “The proportions and spacing indicate doors, but they would lead out into the thin air surrounding the tower.”
After his initial look around, the necromancer begins studying the objects atop the pedestals in greater detail. “I think it may be best not to touch anything, unless we can first determine its purpose,’ he murmurs.
Unless his knowledge of the arcane tells him that to do so would be a bad idea, he walks over towards the head, and leans close to look at the runes – does he recognise them?
If not, he addresses the mummified cranium – “Speak, head.”
As Corvin finishes reciting his poem, a crippling pain builds inside his head.
"Aw, f&%@..."
He slumps to the ground. Blood oozes from his eyes and nose.
“Corvin!” Anarath calls sharply, then looks about for Arodwumm. “You! Is there anything you can do for him?”
Anarath is not sure what he is more worried about – the fact that Corvin has collapsed, or the fact that he was recently spouting poetry.
Try as you might, you are no more able to recognize the devices than anyone else. Nothing in your studies of the arcane has been similiar.
However, as you kneel to examine the runes on the floor that form the triangle, you do recognize those. Many are similair to those that would be found in your own spellbook, hailing from the school of necromancy. Many more seem similiar to transumtative symbols and some are unfamiliar entirely.
Arodwumm rushes over to the fallen master. He quickly checks his body for signs of damage and health.
Wildly he tries to make head or tail of the symbology of the room. Is this the work of the Last Night? The work of demons?