“Hold still”, Lyssa says and she presses the wand of healing into the wound. Oslando grinds his teeth to hold in an agonizing scream. Within the blink of an eye, the knobbly tip of the rod closes the wound as a warmth spreads throughout his body. She notices how one of the white stripes quickly turns into the same blue as the rest of the stave.
(20 versus AC) (16 versus AC) (13 versus AC)
Merodius, observing the nearing vindicator, turns to his allies and runs towards them. Right before he gets the chance to get near them, the acolyte quickly stabs him in the back before getting out of reach.
“I’ll take care of the big one”, Mero shouts, still rushing towards the vindicator, slightly limping with pain. “Bruq, go for the shield, now!”
As the satyr follows his command, Alexander focuses his crossbow on the acolyte, realizing his bolts won’t penetrate the vindicator’s thick armor. The projectile whistles shortly as it travels through the air and makes a squishing sound as it enters his body, killing the foe.
With a swing of his glaive Bruq tries to drive the soldier back, but the vindicator knocks his weapon away with his shield, leaving himself exposed just long enough for Merodius to attack. The vindicator looks down to see a weird construction with a white mask below its pointy head. He can read the mixture of bravado and anger from his artificial face.
“Get away from my friends!”
(Spell save DC 14 versus constitution 8)
The sorcerer claps his hands together and a loud, thundering sound echoes throughout the entire church. A wave of high pressure bashes against the shining armor. The vindicator tries to resist the burst of energy and stand his ground, but he gets pushed back for about ten feet, his armor rattling and his shield blown away.
(23 versus AC)
Oslando doesn’t give the vindicator any time to recover and runs towards him. Before his opponent can react, the half-elf has burrowed his knife deep in his neck. With all of his body weight he pushes him to the ground and stabs his shortsword through the helmet’s vizier.
As a nasty gurgling sound slowly dies away behind the mask, blood gushes from beneath the horned helmet. He pulls his weapons back in a slashing movement and their last enemy collapses.
Death and bloodspill fill the air with a gloomy, metallic taste as they recover themselves.
“Thank you, Lyssa. He really got me there.” He looks at the metal around his wounded shoulder. He can see a fully healed scar hidden beneath the red smudge. “If no one objects, I would like to claim the black sword that gave me this. It will remind me to not rush into battle.” Oslando puts his knife back on his belt and picks up the longsword, swinging it through the air from different angles to test his skill.
Bruq walks up to him. “Also”, he satyr says, “it apparently cuts through armor as if it isn’t there and that’s bloody convenient.” He taps on the cutting edge of the black sword, as if he’s a blacksmith instead of a cocky hunter.
“Looks good on you”, Mero tries to say enthusiastically, but they can all hear the pain in his voice he tries to suppress.
“Are you okay?” Lyssa looks worried.
He shakes his head as response to her question. He presses his white glove on one the wounds, but no blood leaves his body. “It’s a new sensation, but it is far from a pleasant one. Maybe you can lend me the staff of healing, please.”
As the siren walks towards the sorcerer, Alexander blocks her path. “That won’t be necessary”, he speaks and he turns towards Merodius. He gets down on both knees before him, lays his sceptre on the ground and presses his both hands against his chest. “Don’t speak about this, puppet. You did well.”
Struck with confusion, Mero experiences a warmth radiating from the palm of Alexander's hands and a faint blue light finds the source of the pain like a needle in a literal haystack. He sighs in relief and simply nods as a sign of gratitude.
“I’ll have the shield, in that case. No point in wasting perfectly good equipment. Anyone interested in the helmet befuddled with blood and brains?” The cleric picks up the tower shield, not nearly big enough to fully cover him. “No? Me neither.”
They walk up to the golden shrine, looking around to find where the escaped cultists have run off to, but they are nowhere to be seen.
“There must be a way to open the floor here”, Bruq says. “I saw them jump down.” He taps on different tiles on the floor with his polearm, but nothing seems to happen.
“Didn’t he shout to mess up the statues? We should inspect those.” Lyssa walks over to the four plain statues with Oslando, while Merodius and Alexander inspect the altar for details.
(Perception 9)
“The altar only shows four burning statues”, Mero says. “I can’t make anything else of it, really.” They turn towards the others, who are inspecting the stone figurines carefully to find an answer to this puzzle.
The first statue holds a plate with some dirt on it and, laying on the soil, they see a small seed. A name is engraved in the plate.
“Corellon”, Oslando reads aloud, before walking to the next statue. There they see a plate with a small tree grown from the earth, but it is leafless and almost lifeless as well.
“Raven Queen”, he says, this time more mumbling to himself than letting the others know what he is reading. The next plate holding figurine has a small tree risen from it, smaller than the previous one, but with more vitality left in it.
“Pelor.” He inspects the final plate, observing a full-grown tree with many leaves on it.
“Let me guess”, Lyssa says to him. “This one says Sehanine?”
The half-elf nods. “Correct.” They all line up, a few steps away from the scenery, and all look in different directions, trying to connect the dots.
Merodius rubs his hands together. “Boy, I love a good riddle.”
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