Blasphemous Shouts

"This is very different and difficult, fog which limits visibility and an apparent invisible creature," Paullus surmised.

"I hope this thing does not wrap my face in its folds," Ciprian shouted.

Erevel then felt an attack from south of her, but she managed to avoid being grappled.

Ciprian felt the grab slide away from him being helped along by the grease he cast on himself.

Gavril found that the creature had moved and delayed his turn.

Armania cast a fireball to the east of her excluding her compatriots.  Ursina found that there was a creature just next to her as she tried to move forward so she attacked.  Erevel attacked where Ursina had indicated a creature was lurking, as Ciprian cast see invisible and continued his Bardic Performance.  Paullus, directed by Erevel also attacked to the north.  Gavril finally moved next to Ciprian to try and block the hallway.

Ursina and Paullus felt the creature attack and Ursina was grappled and could not breath or speak as her face was covered by the vaporous outline of the creature.  Then Gavril felt the other move up next to him and Ciprian saw the creature, waxing in and out of sight in a vaguely humanoid form.  Gavril was missed by the creatures attack.  Armania once again cast a fireball to the east excluding her fellow adventurers.  Erevel, Ursina and Paullus all attacked the grappling creature and it let go off Ursina.

Ciprian and Gavril attacked the creature near to them and it stepped back and was again not visible.  Another gust of wind blew down the hallway, dropping Armania and Paullus to the floor.  The party continued its attacks and no one found themselves grappled as they finally finished off the second Aerial Servant.

"I'm low on spells.  I'm not sure we should continue any further exploration," Armania declared.

"Let me find this last door here, I think the angel head is sure to be inside," Erevel rejoined.

"But first we need some healing," Gavril noted as Paullus and the rest of the party agreed.

The party returned to the broken angel room and prepared to rest once again.  Ciprian again started his Greater Path of Glory so that everyone could regain 110 hit points.  Then the party began to identify the magic items they had picked up.  First off was a Hand of Glory with a Ring on Maniacal Devices on one finger, a Periapt of Health, Boots of Friendly Terrain (desert).  There were also two scrolls of Mass Cure Serious Wounds, scroll of Hold Person, and a scroll of Horrid Wilting.

The rest time was had and the group awoke refreshed except for Armania who bolted upright during sleep, eyes wide open and screamed from nightmares.  She was fatigued and could not memorize any new spells.

"I'm not going anywhere without new spells," she mumbled.

"You still have the spells that you didn't use before the sleep," Ciprian said encouragingly.

"And you have some wands that are offensive, as I recall," Gavril added.

"And how did we get into this room?" Agna queried.

After some cajoling and the promise that the group would not venture deeper into the Mysterium until Armania could rest the group set out again for the room that made up the square around the angel gate.  Erevel could feel where the wall was slanted and there should be a door and with her presence she disbelieved the hidden nature.  Gavril had no such luck and the door appeared to be magically locked like all the others.

With some help from Erevel, Gavril finally saw the door and proceeded to disable the magic lock and opened it.  Inside the room looked very much like the other three rooms, filled with books, journals, shelves, chests and boxes.  Also there were four creatures. As this lithe humanoid moved, its flesh shimmered and wavered, temporarily breaking apart into motes of shimmering light. Each of the monsters held longswords and the first cast a spell, the second cast a lightning bolt at the doorway striking Erevel, Gavril and Paullus.  The other two cast spells of an arcane nature unknown to Erevel.

Gavril again waited for Erevel to charge in which she did immediately and struck at the lightning bolt caster.  The damage seemed to be reduced as Gavril then roared into the chamber and attacked the same creature.  Armania waited for Ciprian, assuming he would identify the monsters.  The turned out to be Axiomites, that resisted cold and fire and were immune to electricity and had regeneration.  He then began a Bardic Performance and Armania entered the chamber and cast Starfall whose force bolts knocked three of the enemy prone and blinded them, while the fourth merely took damage.

Ursina entered the fray with her holy book and Agna fired arrows at the creatures.  In an instant the standing Axiomite shifted into golden, crystalline dust that looked like a shifting mass of glowing mathematical symbols and equations.  It then fired Order's Wrath on the party inflicting damage to all but Ciprian and Ursina.  The other Axiomites either fired lightning bolts or attacked with their longswords.  Erevel did in two of the enemy in one turn and the third fell soon after.  The fourth was incorporeal in its dust form but took full damage from Armania's magic missiles.  As it shifted back to solid form to attack the Axiomite took more damage from Erevel, Ursina and Agna and fell on the floor.  The party moved around to all the enemy to make sure they didn't regenerate to life.

 Gavril began sniffing the room and looking among the contents.  The books and other materials in the room contained a wealth of information on the planes. There is information on the outer planes as well as the inner planes, and notes and treatises on thousands of demiplanes. The works here detailed the phenomenon of planar rifts, complex explanations of some of the most common teleportation errors, and catalogs of the types of creatures one could encounter in nearly any plane beyond the Material Plane.  There were three scrolls tucked in three different books, a scroll of dimension door, a scroll of planar adaptation, and a scroll of teleport.

When the party again was healed of some damage they headed toward the northeast corner where the map indicated some other rooms or chambers.  Two open hallways covered with fog led to the east while another door was hidden by the Guards and Wards.  Again Gavril unlocked the door and opened it revealing another smaller room.  This room was crammed with cases, shelves, and cabinets, alongside a large number of preserved snakeskins and the skull of some sort of large fish.  Seeing the skull Gavril entered to see if it could work on the broken angel.  As he began to head to the skull the books within the chamber began to tear from the shelves, their pages opened as ghostly images of screaming instructors and ranting fanatics emerged from the pages and began shouting a cacophonous diatribe.  Gavril took sonic damage from the noise but then continued to look around the room.  The chamber held texts that might be considered blasphemous to Nethys and the practice of magic in general. Shelved alongside these ranting pamphlets and brash treatises were collections of works seemingly poorly suited to teaching the concepts and practices of magic. 

DM's Notes: The party earned 7466 XP for the night and now have 193,954 XP requiring 26,046 additional XP for 12th level.