Chapter Nine

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Nolanos groans, the sickly feeling still present, “Does anyone have anything that can cure poison?”

Gunnloda shakes her head, "I can detect it, but not cure it. Maybe it will wear off with time?"

"We best be gettin' outta here, lest more of us get sick." Urrak says, moving towards a door.

"I'll second that." Enna says, still feeling the effects of the poison trap she walked into.

"Right. Onwards and upwards.” Nolanos says.

Urrak pauses before opening the door, "Tinkerer, can ye sense a trap?"

"Let me see," Nolanos moves in front of her, going over the door carefully. "Looks clear to me."

Urrak moves in front once more to open the door, revealing another staircase leading up to a third floor, daylight shining through and the smell of fresh air flood her senses.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Nolanos says as he peeks around Urrak’s shoulder.

"Thank god, it looks like there's an end, or at least an opening to the outside. Let's get to the top. I need some air." Enna says from behind them.

"Agreed, let's go." Urrak starts heading up, the plastered stone of the walls and ceilings are cracked, then singed, and then completely missing.

The entire upper corner of this room appears to be blown out. There's bits of rubble across the floor, mostly piled to the outer wall, but for the most part, it seems the explosion caused most of the rubble to either fly out and away from the tower or otherwise disappear. There's a corner of the interior wall that's broken away revealing both a look into the adjacent room as well as piping that ran through the wall. There is another wooden door on the farthest end of the interior wall.

As they get to the top, all but Nolanos and Urrak seem to lose their footing on the slanted floor, unable to regain their balance.

Enna looks around, "Looks like this is where the batty wizard lost control with that explosion."

"This is why I don't mess around with all that mystical mumbo jumbo. Only causes trouble..." Urrak mumbles as she slowly steps into the room

"Heartily agreed, Urrak," Brimeia nods.

Urrak peers into the room barely visible by the crack in the wall, past ruptured pipes, seeing a long empty hallway.

"See anything?" Nolanos asks her.

Enna peers over her shoulder, "What is all that piping for?"

"Pipes are ruptured, may be more o' that poison y' ran into earlier. I'd say be careful, regardless."

"Agreed. Not looking to fall ill like that again anytime soon."

Seirixori moves forward, sniffing around the door, her nose scrunches, there's an odd smell, not poison, exactly, but something chemical that she can’t really place.

“Does it smell like the hallway downstairs?" Nolanos asks her.

Seirixori shakes her head no.

Enna shrugs, "Let's go ahead then, everyone hold your breath to be sure. Can't be taking any chances."

"Everybody ready?"

"Aye, slow n' steady."

Enna walks toward the wooden door but stops short of opening it. "Trapsmith?" She looks over at Nolanos and nods at the door.

"Be careful, dear." Gunnloda says, keeping an eye out.

"Let's go, I guess," Nolanos checks for traps and holds his breath before opening the door, not seeing anything but the pipes on the wall and nozzles in multiple spots, they quickly make their way through the room, and they open another door, piling into the room on the opposite end.

The new room has several small cages, many with the corpse of a creature that must have died in the explosion or its aftermath or due to starvation when Master Bakar was unable to feed them.

"What a madman..." Urrak steps into the room and looks around at the cages. Birds, a cat, some rats. Some of them look like they may have some sort of injuries or other oddities to them before they starved. Some have incisions and stitches.

As Brimeia steps into the room she lets out a quiet noise of shock and disgust. "Devilish dabblers," she grumbles.

"A power-hungry mad wizard mutilating and experimenting with life? Color me surprised." Enna remarks, feeling sick as she looks around.

“Coin, what in the world was Bakar up to with these creatures?" Urrak asks.

"Wanted to improve creatures."

"Improve? How?"

“That's horrific." Nolanos says, staring at a spot in the floor, “Why is the floor spongy… what?” he mutters to himself.

Enna looks ready to lunge at Coin "You don't--- you can't just--you let this happen?"

Coin tilts his head. "Cats want to fly too."

Seirixori makes to laugh and nods in her panther form at Coins comment.

"I dunno, Coin. Doesn't look like it worked too well." Brimeia says.

Nolanos bends down to inspect the floor, noticing the sponge-like texture seems to be flowing into the room from the other side of the door they haven’t opened. It’s unrecognizable but it’s sticking to his shoes, like a doughy substance, making it difficult to walk.

"I've seen enough, let's get done with this as soon as possible."

Enna nods, "If the bastard hadn't already blown himself up, I'd strangle him myself. Let's get out of here."

"Not out. Up." Coin says to Enna.

"Guys... you may want to check this out..." Nolanos gestures at the ground.

"The floor...it's soft? What in the nine hells..."

"What do you mean, soft?" Brimeia frowns, not liking the sound of that.

Sighing, Nolanos carefully opens the door, a strange pinkish-purple lump of flesh with several eyes and mouths greets them. A cage sits behind it, large and broken. As it sees them it starts babbling incoherently with its many mouths, speaking over one another in a cacophony of different languages.

Nolanos, throws his hands over his ears, and he starts gently rocking in the corner, "MAKE IT STOP!"

Something comes over Brimeia and she takes off, back the way they came. Seirixori, in her panther form, leaps into the room and bites down on one chunk of eye and tooth and gives it a little shake.

Gunnloda steps in after her, firing off a sacred flame, it just barely hits as Enna yells, "This is a gibbering mouther. The thing runs on insanity and is powered by some dark, dark magic! Everyone keep your wits about you!"

Enna mark’s her prey, pulling out her bow and an arrow. She fires and it flies through the air and catches the mouther in one of its throats, Coin steps in from behind Gunnloda and his dagger soars through the air, disappearing into the flesh of the mouther.

Urrak runs in, her greatsword at the ready and she slices through the monster, splattering black ichor across the walls.

The mouther screeches and the it spits out a chemical blob at the foes in front of it. Enna manages to spin away from the chemical glob as it sails towards Coin and explodes in a bright flash, Gunnloda, Coin, and Nolanos turn away in pain, their sight affected by the flash.

It lashes out at Urrak but she dodges and Nolanos is no longer cowering, but is unable to move, Brimeia manages to block out the voices and makes her way back into the room. The piercing screeches of the mouther finally reach Seirixori’s ears and whimpers at the noise as Gunnloda swings her warhammer down and flattens an eye or two.

Coin, effected by the screeches and the blinding light, lashes out wildly slashing Nolanos on the arm, "I'M NOT THE BAD GUY, FRIEND! Also OW!”

Enna takes a step back, drawing her bow slowly, focusing and her arrow flies, piercing it in one of it’s many mouths, it’s breathing ragged and movements slow.

In its dying breaths it tries to bite Brimeia but misses as Nolanos’ shoots an arrow, sinking it into it’s flesh, and it dies, melting into a puddle of flesh. “Ding dong, asshole.”

Brimeia shakes her head, the yelling in her mind finally stopping, “Hm? Over already?” She says, trying to shake off the feeling from before.

Urrak breathes a sigh of relief as the voices stop, Coin blinks out of his haze and address Nolanos, “Sorry.”

"Oh it's okay, I don't have any hard feelings. God that thing was gross."

"Horrifying." Urrak cleans her greatsword of the ichor and sheaths it.

"Good lord, is there anything good that can come from arcane magic? Ever?": Enna walks over to the fleshy puddle and retrieves her arrows, wiping them clean on her armor. Coin grabs his dagger with two fingers, cringing at the goop on it.

Gunnloda flicks her warhammer, some of the ichor falling away. "Yes, yes it was."

Seirixori however is having a small issue, the taste of the creature coating her panther tongue and she gags and hacks trying to get it out.

Urrak offers her waterskin to Seirixori, "Fancy a palette cleanse?" Seirixori awkwardly tries to drink the water, but it isn’t helping much.

Gunnloda looks over at the panther. "That probably didn't taste good, did it? Here." She pulls a hunk of dried meat from her bag and holds it out to Seirixori. She gives Gunnloda a small thankful nudge and takes the meat, thankfully it erases most of the decaying flavor in her mouth.

Urrak turns to Coin,  "How close are we to the top, Coin?"

Coin shrugs. "Half? I don't walk. I don't know."

Urrak sighs, "Might as well push on."

"I suppose so. Anyone want to take the lead?" Nolanos asks.

In answer, Urrak opens the door and leads the group up another set of stairs. As they ascend, the once again see sky instead of ceiling, the floor partially missing, parts still crumbling to the floor below. When they reach the top they find another door.

Nolanos sends his clockwork raven around the floor, but all they see is mostly rubble, probably where the explosion took place. There are some shelves that once contained potions covering the walls near an alchemy station, but many of the vials have shattered, possibly due to the concussive force of the explosion. The fluids splattered across the wall and dripped down into a viscous puddle of goo. There is another sigil on the wall opposite the alchemy station. The raven flies back and sits on Nolanos’ shoulder and Urrak slowly opens the door, Brimeia moving to stand behind her.

Enna and Urrak poke around some shelves, Urrak finding a bottle filled with liquid that seems to be shifting between a thick vivid green and plain water and Enna picking one up with green cloudy liquid and a jellyfish-like bubble in the center.

Brimeia looks down and notices some of the liquid moving. She takes a step back, noticing what it is and says, “Be careful with your weapons!” Depiste her own words, Brimeia tries to stab at it with her javelin, stabbing it, but the tip of the weapon dulls, just slightly.

Urrak turns to look, in time to see Gunnloda throw in some of her Sacred Flame at the creature and it recoils in pain, “It’s an ooze!” Urrak calls out, “and this one loves the taste o’ metal! Be careful, everyone!”

The ooze reaches out a pseudopod and whacks into Brimeia’s leg, she doesn’t feel the hit, but the burning that follow is noticeable.

Coin stays back and seeing his hesitation, and not wanting her prized greatsword to be damaged, Urrak walks right up to hit and slams her foot down on top of it, causing it to splatter and fail to reform. "Remind me to get some new boots after this..."

Gunnloda chuckles.

"Well that was interesting," Nolanos enters the room and fully. Enna smiles a little, appreciating an excuse for some levity after the situation with the cages before.

Seirixori moves towards the other door and sits next to it, waiting, her panther form vanishes, and she’s sitting on the ground, her chin resting on her hand, “Let’s get on with this.”

"Still more to go," Enna agrees.

"Bad when red woman is better choice." Coin says, jumping as Nolanos disappears. "What happened?!"

"Ah, we've been dealin’ with the effects of another mad wizard with a penchant to teleportation. Mind ye, any one of us could poof out just the same at any time."

Coin repeats "poof" in Urrak's voice.

"Well, there's goes the traps guy. Anyone want to take the lead on that?" Seirixori asks, still sitting.

Enna sighs, "I guess we'll just have to watch our feet and tread carefully."

"I'll take the lead, should anything happen to explode in my face. I can take a hit." Urrak moves to open the next door and Seirixori scrambles to get up and away from it before Urrak opens it.

When Urrak peers into the next room she sees the entire floor nearly covered in rubble, some

parts of the floor are completely missing, having fallen to the floor below. Even some of the walls have fallen into heaps on the ground. "Tread carefully. Floor seems unstable at best."

Urrak makes her way across the room to the other set of stairs, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a piece of falling rubble from the floor above.

Seeing the mess in the next room Seirixori decides she's going to go back into a beast and she shifts into a wolf, easily leaping over the rubble.

“Good wolf,” Enna says.

“Good job, Seir!” Urrak says as she takes a look up the stairs that go around the narrow part of the tower up to a floor high above, it’s crooked and she’s sure it’ll be difficult for the group to keep their footing.

Seir barks at the acknowledgment and continues up the stairs without the others, other than the odd tilt and sway of the upper end of the tower, she doesn’t notice anything else out of place. Soon she makes it to what appears to be a landing and a ladder leading up to another floor. She sits next to the ladder, waiting for her companions.

"Before anyone else almost kills themselves..." Enna takes a hemp rope out of her bag. "Urrak, catch?" She throws one end of the rope towards her, but she misjudges the distance and the rope tumbles over the edge. “Welp…” Enna pulls the rope back up and this time manages to get enough strength behind it for the rope to sail to Urrak, who barely manages falling to the floor below as she catches it.

Urrak grounds herself as she ties the rope around her waist and Enna makes her way back to tie it to something in the alchemy room they just left.  "Where did that dang shapeshifter go...?" Urrak mumbles to herself.

"Okay, now we have a failsafe." Enna grips the rope, “Urrak, hold steady and brace yourself!”

"Aye, will do!" Urrak braces herself against the walls of the stairwell

Brimeia makes her way forward, running her hand along the rope to keep herself on course. However, she’s trying so hard Brimeia tries not to look too closely at anything but the path in front of her or the height, that she misses a loose rock and slips. The sudden fall causes Brimeia's grip on the rope to falter and she slips over the edge to the floor below landing on her back with a loud  grunt, “Ow!”

"BRIMEIA!" Urrak leans to look down and sees her companion prone on the ground. "YOU ALRIGHT, MATE?"

Enna moves forward, hearing the thud and Urrak yelling. "WHAT HAPPENED?"

Gunnloda, from the other room, repeats the question, "What happened?" Coin repeats the sound Brimeia made when she yelped and fell.

“Damn clumsy Tiefling fell through the floor!" Urrak yells back at them.

"Oh, no! Are you ok, love?"

"I'm coming over. We'll get her back up." Enna moves through the door, making her way along the edge of the wall. Enna safely makes her way across, looking around,"Where did Seirixori go?" Urrak nods to the stairs and Enna starts to make her way up, "Urrak, make sure the Tiefling gets back up okay."

Enna slowly makes her way up, she makes it halfway up before her foot slips as she tries to transition through the tilted stairs. “Shit.” She manages to sprawl out and stop herself from falling down the stairs, smacking her face on the edge of a stair as she does. "Ow. Graceful."

Enna gets up and steadies herself, she starts to head back up. She slips again, but this time manages to catch herself, but she’s starting to feel queasy. Enna decides it's safer to crawl than attempt to walk up the stairs and makes it to the top.

Meanwhile Brimeia’s pride is suffering a little more than her body from the fall, "Ugh. Maybe I'll just stay here," Brimeia grumbles.

Gunnloda finds herself sitting right next to Brimeia, flat on her back.  "Oof."

Coin peeks over the edge and makes the sound of a deep sigh.

Gunnloda sits up. "Oh... hello, dear. Glad I didn't land on you."

"Ah, you too?" Brimeia sighs toward Gunnloda.

Coin manages to get to the stairs with Urrak. "Up?" He repeats the sounds Brimeia and Gunnloda made when they fell, complete with the clanging of Gunnloda's armor.

"Aye, Coin, you can go up. We've two people we need to get still." Urrak says to him.

"That creature... Come on, dear. Let's at least dust off." Gunnloda stands and puts her hand out to Brimeia to help her up.

Brimeia reluctantly clambers to her feet, accepting the cleric's assistance. "Thanks."

Gunnloda cracks her back. "Do you need healing, dear?"

Brimeia, looking a bit sheepish, answers, "Yes, please."

Gunnloda puts a hand on her shoulder and heals her with a smile. "You'll be ok."

Coin calls up to the top. "More rope?"

Enna yells back, "That's all I've got, unless wolfy here has some hiding in that fur of hers." Seirixori just huffs at her.

Urrak pulls out a climber’s kit and hands Coin the rope, "'Ere, more rope for ye."

He takes it, looks at it, looks at her, looks at it, looks at her. "How is this going to help?"

Urrak sighs and moves to throw one end of the rope to Enna. The rope falls right back down in her face. "Augh--damn" Coin moves past Urrak.

Urrak turns to the hole, ignoring Coin and yells, "BRIMEIA, GUNNLODA, GRAB THE ROPE, I'LL PULL YOU UP ONE AT A TIME."

Coin comes tumbling back down the stairs. He's oddly silent when he does, though.

Gunnloda gestures to the rope. "Do you want to go up?" Brimeia shakes her head, and Gunnloda yells up at Urrak, "We’ll stay down here! Let us know if we need to come up for anything!"

"Alright, you two stay put! We'll be back for ye!"

Gunnloda carefully edges over to look down. "That's a loooong way down." She moves back over to where Brimeia is. "Think I'll stay over here."

Brimeia doesn't bother going over the edge to look and stays put. "Ah, someone reasonable."

"Should we go back to the stairs at least? Through the Death Rooms?"

"Well, do you think the other rooms any safer than this one?" Brimeia asks Gunnloda.

"I think we're safe enough here. The floor wasn't crumbling under us here."

"Ah good. Let's wait til the rest get back then."

~\*~\*~

Enna looks up to the room Seirixori hasn’t bothered to glance at and sees that it is just that, a decorated room. "Let's finish this… the others seem to be okay." Enna calls down the stairs, "Urrak, make your way up here."

Seirixori nods and nods her head for Enna to go up first.

"We're jus' leavin' 'em then? You sure?" Urrak yells back.

"We've got to move on and we've already cleared those areas. They'll be able to back up our rear in case anything happens. And I don't trust that tiefling to get up these stairs with the way she's been fumbling."

Urrak goes to climb the stairs, she slips a few times, but manages to stay upright without any ill-effects, Coin however starts to follow with Urrak’s rope, and halfway up trips and tumbles back down again in a heap of feathers and claws.

Seirixori, tired of waiting, takes several tries to scramble her way up the ladder. Enna and Urrak follow behind her clumsy attempts to climb a ladder as a wolf.

While the smaller items of this room are scattered a bit, and anything round has rolled against the outer wall, this is clearly a personal space. There is another sigil on the wall that allowed Master Bakar and Coin to teleport directly from the entry to this room. There's a bed on one side and shelves, a chair, and a desk around the edges.

Ten minutes later and Coin makes his way into the room, looking tired, battered, and bruised. He pulls a door open to a set of drawers and a small closet. He opens a drawer and pulls out a small ring. Placing it on his finger he says, "Coin can fly. Meet at potion shop and I will bring MAGIC SHARD?! You can have other things," he says, gesturing at the drawers and he starts moving back towards the stairs.

"...I hate that damn bird." Urrak wraps the rope he handed her before leaving back into a neat coil and places it back in her pack. "Might as well look around."

It doesn’t take long for Urrak and Enna to scour the room for treasures, a decent amount of gold, fine cloth, silver mirrors, perfume, two fancy looking cloaks one blue and silver, the other blue and gold, a shiny dagger and a heart shaped necklace.

Seirixori, seeing that Urrak and Enna are really the only ones who can carry stuff, makes her way back down. Urrak and Enna following shortly after they shove everything into Urrak’s bag.

Gunnloda greets them as they reach her and Brimeia, "All clear up there? Where did that bird run off to?"

"Ran to his shop, we'll have to meet him there for the shard." Urrak says, hefting the bag onto her shoulder.

Seirixori changes back into her regular form, "Are you alright?" She asks Gunnloda, her face filled with worry, having not seen the tumble.

Gunnloda shrugs. "A little sore. I'll be glad to be back on solid ground."

Urrak turns to Brimeia, "And you Brimeia? That was quite a fall."

Brimeia's eyes dart furtively for a moment. "Uh. Fine. 'm fine."

Gunnloda smiles, "She'll be all right."

Seirixori shakes her head, "Well, Coin took off, so we might as well get out of here and back to the shop."

"Aye. Sooner the better"

The group heads back to the shop where Coin meets them in the alley outside of it, shard in hand...claw. Urrak reaches for the shard and asks. "So just what does this magic shard do, anyway?"

"I don't know." Coin responds.

Upon further inspecting it, she realizes it looks similar to the pieces of the component.

"Let's just get out of here," Seirixori pulls out Poni and readies to teleport everyone out.

"Seconded." Brimeia mutters, her ego still a little sore.

"Sounds like a plan."

Gunnloda says, "Yes, please," and puts her hand on Seirixori's shoulder. The other’s follow suit and soon they’re all back in Poni’s basement.

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