Monument of Destruction

"We do not know if Lowls is still in Neruzavin or not.  If he left the Big Book behind it would have cost him dearly to get to Carcosa.  But maybe he doesn't care or know at this point," Ciprian mused as the party finished healing and wondering where to head next.

"We should get that sword for the Ghost, Upianshe, maybe she can help us then," Gavril added.

"Let's get going to the next chamber at least," Erevel said.

As the party was discussing the next move Kaklatath entered from the west, "So another battle won. But we still need to find my body and clean up the lower level.

Aeptolinu indicated that the way to the Monument of Destruction led through the narrow passage to the northeast.  He headed in that direction followed by Erevel and Gavril in the lead of the party.  The passage turned around a corner to the southeast and the to the south leading into a chamber larger than the party could see.  Gavril and Erevel entered an area of a sickly smell of feral musk, rotting flesh, and acrid sweat surrounding two fly-like creatures. Their wings filled the air with a dreadful drone even when the creature was still.

Ursina, at the rear, moved forward somewhat and waited for something to happen.  Gavril moved toward the nearest fly like creature but then started retching on the wall as the smell overwhelmed him.  Ciprian moved forward and lit a sunrod to cast more light into the cavern.  

This revealed hundreds of boulders are piled high, creating a crude, twenty-foot-tall altar that leaned against the east wall like a crumbling ziggurat. There were items perched atop the stones, and designs of fearsome red ochre decorated the facade.  A total of four of the fly creatures could now be seen along with a large menacing biped bristling with spiny ridges, coral horns, and needle-sharp teeth.  The amphibious creature seemed to have emerged from some poisoned sea.

At this the fly creatures began moving, two turned invisible as a third seemed to cast some sort of innate spell that summoned three wasp swarms covering Armania, Paullus and Ciprian.  The fourth moved up and a ray of black negative energy hit Erevel who felt a reduction in ability.  Armania stepped out of the swarm and then cast Invisibility Purge to reveal the two flying creatures, one was right behind her and one was next to Gavril.

Paullus moved to flank with Armania and found his attacks were less powerful than normal against these monsters.  The large creature took a step sideways and cast a Stinking Cloud on everyone but Ursina.  The droning of the flies were enough to nauseate the heroes at times as they felt overwhelmed by the dreadful noise.  Ursina moved forward somewhat and cast Bless on the party.  Gavril recovered enough to attack but found his weapons did not do much damage.  Ciprian then identified the flies as Druj Nasu, outsiders that were immune to fire and had energy reduction to electricity.  The large creature as a Ghawwas, another outsider that had energy reduction to acid and a power called Boiling Sea, which could boil any water it was in.

Ciprian then tried to intimidate the creatures and began Dirge of Doom.  The swarms of wasp began to burn but the fire did nothing to the Druj Nasu.  Two of the Nasu headed off to the south to escape from Ciprian, one taking attacks from Erevel and Armania as it left, the other from Gavril.

Another Druj fired a black ray at Ciprian but he avoided the touch.  The fourth executed a fly-by attack on Gavril.  Armania stepped out of the Cloud waited to see how the battle was going.  Paullus fired arrows into the fray after stepping out of the Cloud.  Erevel moved twice to get next to the large creature.

The battle now proceeded with the enemy attacking with bites, claws and a sting by the Ghawwas.  Gavril tried to flank but Erevel would move out of the way.  Then Gavril was flanked himself.  Armania tried a lightning bolt but it fizzled as the monsters seemed to resist it.  Paullus hit the Ghawwas with double critical arrows.  Erevel's attacks landed repeatedly but Ciprian and Ursina were slow to make their way through the Cloud to help their party.  Ciprian did begin a Bardic Performance against the Ghawwas as he continued the Dirge to frighten the two retreating Nasu.  The swarms, interestingly not moving, continued to burn.  All the while the party tried to avoid becoming Nauseated from the droning and the cloud and even when the Druj hit someone with claws.

At length another lightning bolt did manage to hit the creatures and the multiple attacks finally downed the large amphibian.  When one Nasu was left it tried another innate spell but apparently failed.  Seeing itself alone it began to fly away, took opportunity damage and was felled by Paullus final arrows of the battle.

Again during the battle there were times that members of the party felt some external help when they failed to save or hit on an attack roll. Some spirit or manifestation of the Snarl was apparently helping them.  After healing was applied Ciprian floated up to the top of the pile of rocks and found expired candles and a variety of skulls perched atop it. Most of the trinkets atop the altar were of negligible worth, such as broken holy symbols dedicated to good-aligned gods from across Golarion. The most
noteworthy treasure was a magic bronze bastard sword that rested atop a small pile of boar ribs.

Ciprian took the sword which had a strong aura of Conjuration and Divination. "Well we now have Upianshe's sword but we may have to fight her again to help her recover."

Gavril piped up "We also had to seal the Flying Polyps away and kill the evil in the lake.  Who knows what that is."

"How can we seal them away again, do we have to make a large rock to cover that well?" Erevel wondered.

"The well was just a secondary seal.  If the Polyps are loose in the underground then there are other ways for them to escape.  We have to seal them back up again." Kaklatath stated rejoining the party.

"Can you help us seal the wards?" Ciprian inquired.

"If you can return me to my body, I have some ways to help," she responded.

"I think we should go see the Heretic scholar.  Perhaps it has some other relevant information." Gavril suggested.

Meanwhile Ursina had done a heal check on Erevel and determined that her negative levels were not going to go away soon, but were nor permanent, cast a Restoration to recover them.  Then Aeptolinu was leading them once again toward the south.

"Beware the two Nasu that fled, they will probably try and attack us again." Ciprian warned.

Aeptolinu headed to the south and then west, calling into another cavern that there were some world adventurers in the Snarl looking for some knowledge, "Eshimal can we enter?"

A low abyssal voice responded in a language no one understood but Aeptolinu continued forward.  Ciprian, Erevel and Gavril were following closely through an area of broken basalt, little different than any other they had seen in the snarl.  Walking through they did notice a rusty greave pinned beneath an immense chunk of rubble.  Ciprian heard the sounds of all sorts of animals, birds, reptiles and the like which suddenly fell silent.

DM's Notes: The party earned 4800 XP for the evening.