Rodrigus ' Doom (The Catacombs of Ascendent Court, Part IV)

The Headless Horseman

   After escorting the surviving Greycloaks to safety, the party attempted to return but was attacked by the Headless Horseman and his Nightmare mount; until the squad returns the talisman to his crypt, he will keep reanimating and haunting the catacombs. The Nightmare breathed a huge cloud of smoke, obscuring the enemy while an aura of fear affected those who got too close. Simimel and Grimwald stepeped forward while Pumpellio did his best to counter the fear with his song. The horse disapparated and the smoke cleared, leaving the Headless Horseman. It finally fell, and once more Simi's Elixirs of Life restored the health of the squad. 

Moving to the double-doors past the cliff room where the demons were, Valcos checked for traps, and then stepped back, hiding in the shadows while Grimwald opened the double doors. The door's antechamber was guarded by two Skinstichs, hulking golem things formed by patchworks of rotten cloth and grotesque skin, with stray bits of straw poking out the seams. They were infested with stinging ants, which swarmed threateningly. One of the Stichskins stood on an alarm plate, which we later learned would have sounded an alarm if the squad had let it advance. 

Mr. Gone moved past the creatures and their swarms to erupt with an acid spray. Pumpellio cast a Sound burst, which also disrupted the swarms. Valcos fired arrow after arrow, and Grimwald and Simi attacked. The first Stichskin fell without leaving the alarm plate, and the second was almost dead when Skinsaw Cultists attacked from the adjacent Mustering Room, an area around the corner used by the cultists to gather for their missions aboveground. 

The Mustering Room was characterized by a corridor partially broken and collapsed in on itself, resulting in a layer of fine gravel strewn across the flagstone tiles. To the southeast, an alcove with one curving wall is similarly falling apart, though several modest attempts have been made to domesticate the nook, including a slumped wooden table with six matching chairs and a series of low shelves covered in boxes along the walls. A double door to the southwest marks an exit; otherwise, the corridor continues to the northeast. 

Skinsaw Cultists

The five Skinsaw Cultists, named Hippa, Sammi, Leofrid, Perl and the ill-fated Rodrigus, dressed in a harlequin costume and carried shortswords and war razors. Simi and Mr. Gone blocked their advance while Valcos and Grimwald filled the air with arrows. Pumpellio kept up a Hymn of Healing, repair wounds to Mr. Gone almost as fast as the Cultists could create them.

Rodrigus attempted to get past them with acrobatic maneuvers, but Mr. Gone sent him tumbling back, to die without ever reaching the melee. 

 Next to the Mustering Room was the Armory - A former family crypt now used for storage. While gathering loot, Valcos dodged - mostly - a trap of falling bricks, that bruised his pride worse than his body (he had failed to find the trap!). Next the squad entered the Bloodstained Room. A bloodstained iron grate has been set into the ten-foot-by fifteen-foot hole in the floor of this gallery. Blood drips down through the grate into a wide pool of blood set into the floor of the chamber below. A long, spiked rack like a macabre clothesline hangs from the ceiling above the grate, with several humanoid corpses impaled on it. Numerous corridors and doorways exit the area in nearly every direction. 

(The session paused here for the night).