As Morin presses the panel, the southern door pulls open to reveal a horrific mass of fungus and decay sprawled out in a small closet in the shape of a man. The man-shaped mass of rotting flesh, intrusive vines, and blossoming fungi steal wears some trappings of its past life--armor which has been shredded, jewelry, and various pouches--but its chest has been ripped open from the inside. The corpse seems to have been positioned intentionally to lay sprawled out and leaning against the far wall as if resting with the gore and shattered ribs of its open chest cavity on display.

The bulky vegepygmy steps back from the door to let the party view their sacred shrine and gestures and stomps.

"That is disgusting."  Kelaria says it very simply, like observing the sky is blue or water is wet.  That it's Kelaria, who is used to pooping outside, saying it should impart some weight.

"I hope whomever that was had the fortune of being dead when they stuck them in there."  Zorden remarked before looking to see if there was any information being relayed alongside this viewing.

Morin considered the body in front of him, and the "sales pitch" that accompanied the horrific sight.

"I think we should kill these guys." He remarked, doing his best maintain a casual tone, despite his horror and disgust.  "Or...I dunno.  Let's just stick them back in the room we found them, and lock the doors.  I don't think we're finding common ground, here."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Sat 11 May.

"Kelaria, think you can smash the leader one before he knows what hit him?"  Zorden asked, gesturing at the contents of the closet as if he was pointing out something specific to pay attention to.

"I don't think we locked that other door in the room so trapping them there may be troublesome."

Even with Morin's warning, the sight of that closet leaves Cain without words for the moment. He shakes his head as he finally speaks. "I am fine with either. I assume other closets hold more unfortunates. Why would they even want to show us this?"

"I believe I can."  Kelaria answered, casually stepping into position like she was just trying to get a better angle.  "Say when."

"At your pleasure I'd think."  Zorden offered with a shrug as if he had no answer for a question regarding the grim tableau before them.

"This is completely terrible. I suspect this is how we will end up if we trust them. If we are too kind to just annihilate them, we should imprison them in a room. Forever." exclaimed Ionaya with disgust.

The sorceress turned to Kelaria and the others while moving into a position to flanking the smaller vegapygmy, "Say the word and I will help deal with the smaller one."

Morin nodded.  "Yeah, this is absolutely their plan for us.  The big guy seems like he's trying to sell us on getting turned into more pygmies voluntarily.  Sort of a "the good of the many" thing, since it's a two-for-one deal."

He sighed. Even though his pacifist ideals were marginal at best, he still felt a little bad about being the one to broach the idea of executing prisoners.  But locking them in a room for literally forever wasn't necessarily a less cruel option, and he didn't see any other way to handle the duo.  So instead he steeled himself to his responsibility as the talker of the group. He raised a hand to draw the pygmies attention to him, and away from their soon-to-be killers. "Okay, I'll count us down. Three. Two. One. Murder!"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:03, Tue 14 May.

Kelaria whirled the big hammer smoothly and brought it down on The Vegetable Cheiftain.  Such a disgusting creature with such a blasphemous proposal deserved no honor duel.

19:36, Today: Kelaria Ironclaw rolled 21 using 1d20+7 with rolls of 14.  Hammer Time. – 21
19:37, Today: Kelaria Ironclaw rolled 16 using 1d12+8 with rolls of 8.  Damage Roll. – 16

Assumed Power Attack but no other modifiers.

The muscular, anthropomorphic plant looks between the meatbags as they trade their gibberish, not sure what they might be saying but glad that they seem to be reasonable and merciful. He certainly doesn't seem to expect the last thing to go through his mind to be Kelaria's hammer. Which is as quickly as it happens--spreading the contents of the pygmy leader's head over everyone nearby ... a texture something like a camel's spit.

(Daily update, but anyone else who reasonably prepared to deal with the other pygmy can do so. Hardly seems worth combat turns.)

Ionaya waited for Kelaria to begin her attack before throwing her javelin through the other vegepygmy. Once it was down, she punctured it twice more, then immediately wiped the remains of the other plant off herself and her javelin.

"Despite my disgust of these plant creatures, I feel...sadness for the deaths of the people who they infested. I would suggest that everyone clean themselves, their clothes, and weapons of the remains of these plant creatures. Obviously, they can grow inside other people's bodies." She said in a cold tone, as a brief chilling breeze blew around her.

"Furthermore, we might want to carefully search the body for items that could be useful to us, but are no longer of any use to the dead."

After helping finish off the remaining vegepygmie, Cain takes another look at the body in the closet. Killing in cold blood is not something he likes to do, but the state of the unfortunate person in there at least made dealing with the vegepygmies look like the lesser evil to him.

"Not sure I'd want to get any closer to... that. Or take anything from it." He start casting a spell to see if there was anything of value in the closet.

OOC: Detect magic to see if there's anything magical in there. I suppose we should also check out the check out other doors/closets?

"It's worth a look."  Morin replied cautiously. "Russet mold is deadly stuff, but I don't think the bodies are infectious after they get pygmied.  If they are, the mold will puff spores at anything that gets close."  Diving once again into the voluminous scrollcase at his waist, the bard pulled out another magic scroll, this one with a spell of unseen servant.

"Which is why my invisible associate here can be in charge of the dangerous work." He declared.  Staying a safe distance away from the body himself, he instructed the servant to retrieve the corpse's jewellery and belt pouch, then pat down the remains for anything else of value or interest.

Kelaria produced a dagger and used its flat to remove vegetable goo while the others worked at retrieval.  Disgusting creatures.

Zorden stood clear while Morin's spell went to work.

While whatever might be retrieved might be useful, as had been pointed out, they would need to be sure to appropriately clean anything they were taking with them.

"You know," Morin mused as he watched his servant work.  "When we were coming in, there was a decontamination room.  The room with the nozzles, not the one that was shooting lightning everywhere, the other one.  Looked like it was working, too!  Maybe we could toss all this stuff in there on the way out?"

"For all we know that might well make things worse."  Zorden commented with a bit of a shrug.

"Wonder if there's a bag or box we can put this stuff in."  He looked around in the room they were in to see if there was anything not covered in mold that might suit.

The party gets to the exciting work of sending in an Unseen Servant to do all the potentially risky work for them. The servant retrieves from the corpse a silver holy symbol of Brigh, a ring which Cain identifies as a ring of protection, pouches containing three fungus-encrusted potions of Cure Moderate Wounds, and twenty gold pieces. It then proceeds to pat down the mass of fungus and gore ... but it's impossible to tell if that accomplished anything besides disturbing the remains.

The party then proceeds to investigate behind the other closed doors and finds similar grotesque displays. Locking each door open(so as not to end the Unseen Servant spell when they close) and sending the servant in to retrieve the plainly visible gear and pouches, the party collects another 54 gold, three more silver holy symbols of Brigh, three masterwork light hammers, and even a suit of masterwork chainmail armor which remarkably was not ruined by the emerging vegepygmies or invasive vines.

(Khonnir's Scroll of Unseen Servant 1 > 0)
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:23, Yesterday.

"Well, at least we got something out of this mess. We should return their symbols to Joram, along with the news of their fate."

OOC: Not really interested in anything here. I assume we also picked up that magical hammer?

"A magic ring is always handy, though it'd probably fit better on one of you two." At this, he gestured to Cain and Kel, the two frontline fighters.  "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to touch it before a thorough cleaning."

While Morin normally made a point of recovering the bodies they found, and bringing them back to town for burial (or more accurately, badgering someone stronger into doing so,) he figured he'd make an exception for the disintegrating masses of fungus in front of him.  Instead, he simply dipped his head in respect to the fallen heroes he had just looted, doffed his hat, and solemnly intoned: "Whoever you may have been, you died as heroes in the pursuit of knowledge and justice.  We commend your souls to the Whisper in Bronze, and inter your remains here in this heart of technological mystery."

Closing the doors to the makeshift tombs and sealing them with his keycard, Morin turned back to the others with his usual grin.  "Right then.  Onward and upward!  There's still a few rooms we haven't had a chance to look at.  Hopefully there's something more relevant in them, or I'm at a loss about our next move."

OOC: I guess we head north from the plant room.  There's a room or two we haven't checked there.

"Hopefully there's something."  Zorden echoed Morin's sentiment in agreement and prepared to move into the areas they hadn't explored yet.

Kelaria said nothing, she already thought this cave was amazing.  The Metal she saw here had been astonishing, and the other sights were a bonus.  She just grunted as she got the last scraps of vegetable mess off of her.

Ionaya requests one of the potions of Cure Moderate Wounds and one of the silver holy symbols of Brigh. She made certain that both items were clean and clear of any vegetable or fungal matter before fully accepting them.

"We need to make certain that we are all healthy and clean of this vile wetness. Likely there are worse things ahead of us but, we will prepare and persevere!"