Elisile also listens for the source of the sound.
“You must do what you feel is right Alwyn Agnarsson,” she murmurs to Alwyn. “We will stay until we discover the fate of Vethran and the others missing, and your comradeship and abilities will be sorely missed if you were to go now; but it is important I think that you see your father before he meets the Lady of Graves.”
She looks at the newcomers. “And if your fellow Shoanti are to accompany us for a time, we should know each other. I am Elisile Starbrow, archer, tracker and wizard.”
Alwyn shakes his head. "After," he says firmly.
The group cautiously move through the fog, getting the dimensions of this large room. It appears to be a ruined temple. Although portions of this cathedral have collapsed, leaving mounds of rubble on the floor and crumbling walls, the chamber retains its sense of menacing awe. Four black stone pillars support the roof, invisble in the fog above, and on the floor between them the image of a three-eyed jackal seems to glower from striations in the stone itself. This image glows with a soft rusty light that illuminates the entire room from below. Alcoves to the north and south contain statues of a jackal-headed pregnant woman. Each clutches a pair of kukris crossed over her chest, and a reptilian tail winds down around her taloned feet. To the west, what once might have been a stone pulpit featuring other statues seems to have been partially buried under an ancient collapse. The walls of this room are densely decorated with hundreds of carved runes.
One of the alcoves appears to have collapsed, creating a rough crack in the wall wide enough to walk through. The sound of tapping seems to come from this direction.
"I am Tikrok. I have some skill in emulating both creatures of this world and the elements that it is made of though I can only change shape a handful of times before I become over taxed. Unfortunately I cannot speak in these forms unless one of you can speak with animals. My devotion to the natural world also gives me mystical control of some parts of it. My friend here is Arthur. He can accomplish magical feats by pure willpower. It is truly a breathtaking sight. I am lucky to have come across him on my path here."
"Is anyone still banged up from our fight with that abomination?"
Tikrok rummages around in his pack and pulls out a wand. "I can patch up anyone that needs it. I can't use these while I'm using a different form so I need to do so while I can."
"I'll take a form that uses sound to see to help scout in this fog. Once I change to another combat form I will want to stay that way as long as I can."
Tikrok bat flaps over by the runes squeaking trying to draw attention to them.
Sefayll studies the newcomers before offering, "I am Sefayll Valerian, former signifier of the Order of the Nail and skilled in enchantment magic. I can use the healing wand if need be, but not if it is subsumed into your fighting forms." She's reserved and polite, just delivering the facts.
She has overland flight active and floats upward, curious to see if the ceiling holds more iconography like the walls and floor.
"There is little doubt that this was a temple to the Mother of Monsters. Interesting that it has apparently existed under your little town for many years and no one was any the wiser."
Sefayll flies to where the tiny creature squeaks insistently.
"These runes are not old, certainly nowhere near as long as the walls themselves. Perhaps a few days. Sadly, the characters are familiar, but I'm not able to read them. I will have to work on that - this language seems to turn up often."
"They runes describe prayers to the Mother of Monsters in a rhyming meter," says Elisile. "Let us move now in the direction of the tapping."
"Squeek!" Tikrok bat flies towards the crack in the alcove trying to be as stealthy as he can.
The group move cautiously through the crack. In the cavern beyond, blood is decor; swathes of it lie spattered on the wall, and pools have congealed and begun to rot on the ground. Bits of flesh lie scattered as well—whatever happened here, it ended poorly for many.
The sound of tapping is louder here, coming from a rough passage to the east.
"Should we push on?" Camlo wants to get out of this hole about as much as he wants to find any survivors....
Tikrok briefly lands on Camlo's shoulder and nods. He then takes off into the room, grateful that he doesn't have to walk through the gore. He is going to fly around the room checking for other hazards before heading east.
Tikrok finds no traps, and the group press on further. In the next room, three chambers that might once have been separate have become one, joined by collapsed walls and the erosion of ages. Bloodstained fragments of chain shirts, shields, swords, and clothing lie strewn about this room haphazardly. The walls are decorated with countless scribblings carved into the stone.
A man straightens up from where he is carving on the wall with a chisel and a hammer made from a snapped sword pommel. He looks bedraggled, his clothes are filthy and he has several weeks of beard, but a feverish light of intelligence burns in his eyes. At his feet a hideous hound prowls, coming to attention when the adventurers come into sight. Its body is heavily muscled and bone spurs project randomly through its skin as if pierced from within. It has three heads - one that of an ordinary dog, the other two human with faces wracked in pain and weeping pus.
The man looks curiously at the group, and then speaks:
"V-v-veteran? What in all the hells...."
Holy crap!
The ex-signifier listens carefully to the man's speech, noting that the man she knew would not have used it as his default language, especially not to his friends and cousin. She tries to tease out meaning based on the scraps of the language she has picked up in their travels.
Using her helm, she telepathically points out the oddity of the man's choice of language to each of the companions, but she can only do so one at a time.
"VETHRAN?! What in all the hells?! Lo'j? Hemlock? What the hell kind of devil sorcery is this?"
Elisile stands with eyes wide, one hand covering her mouth, her body trembling.
After a moment she seems to make a concentrated effort to control her trembling and withdraws her hand, wiping her palm on her pants leg.
“It’s not Vethran,” she murmurs to her companions, “or at least he’s not in charge.”
She reaches up to reveal the Sihedron medallion hanging around her neck but concealed within her tunic, then raises her voice and speaks to the sribbling carver.
|
Turning his back on the abomination's corpse, the handsome heavily armored man uses a piece of fabric to clean his blade and chestpiece from the creature's fluids.
Arthur breathes heavily as he sheathes the rune-carved greatsword to its mid-back hilt, the weapon partially obscured now by his red and orange silken cloak.
His elven ascentry becomes quite apparent now that adrenaline isn't rushing through the group's bodies, and he lets the others speak while he mess with some stray hairs that he return to their place behind his long elven ears and under his thin golden tiara. "I am Arthur... Of the Road, as I hail from far away but have no place that I call home. Not until I arrived to these lands, at least." his arms seems thick and strong even under his full plated armor, he is certainly more muscled and heavy that most individuals with his ancestry "I heard the Heroes of Sandpoint might need help, been saved by Tikrok on my way and now I won't rest until I know what is going on." he finishes with a smile.
Arthur makes small chat, trying to extract some information about the groups' finding, but the half-elf turns silent when they find Thassilonian writing "Interesting... Not as interesting content judging by what you said, Lady Elisile"
The half-elven 'knight' keeps her blade ready just in case, and he prepares to launch himself to battle when the group finds the clearly insane man and his unholy hound, but as soon as Camlo calls the man by name his face turns to confusion and he lets his blade rest over his shoulder.
"What in the name of the Dreamer happened here? What is this nightmare? Answer, man, and better make it a credible explanation!"
Vethran cocks his head to one side as he considers Elisile's suggestion.
He squints at the Sihedron medal about Elisile's neck.
Tikrok flits about the room without going to close to the man and his... dog. After a few laps he finds a place up high to land to watch Elisile exchange gibberish with the odd man.
“Vethran is still in his body – just not in control of it,” Elisile tells her companions. “I’m … not sure exactly what has been done to our other friends – or if they can be saved. The entity possessing Vethran seems to be a remnant from the ancient empire of the Runelords – and a worshipper of the Mother of Monsters.”
She continues speaking to ‘Vethran’.
The man replies scornfully.
He frowns in remembrance.
"But Lamashtu decreed that I should live again. Something, a disturbance, reactivated the runewell and my spirit reawakened. When the men came to see, it was a simple matter to seize this flesh.
"So the runelords are no more? That is good, I bear them no love. Who rules in their stead?"
Elisile says to her companions in the common tongue, “The man who possesses Vethran died in the disaster that destroyed the ancient empire that once ruled these lands. We may be able to exorcise the spirit … or there may be some other way to force him to leave Vethran’s body. I fear that Lo’j and Belor Hemlock may be lost to us. The man is a fanatic – I suspect he will soon attack us, but when we fight back try to do as little harm as possible to Vethran’s body.”
"Possession is often purported to be by a spirit whose desire to remain on the Material Plane is more powerful than the pull to Pharasma's Court because of some task they must see completed. Have you any indication of what it is the spirit needs to complete? That information might help us in sending it to its final reward once and for all."
After a long moment of consideration, the enchantress shakes her head, "I don't believe we have the resources to force the spirit out of the body, but any attempts to strike the spirit will only hit the body. We will have to pull our punches if this comes to blows lest we seriously harm the wizard."
“The task he wishes to see completed is to take rulership of the Thassilonian Empire,” Elisile answers Sefayll. “It’s somewhat beyond our capabilities to help with that; be ready to fight. He will likely have the powers of a priest, wizard or both.”
She speaks further to the Thassilonian revenant.
The man replies:
"The orange pool? Yes, that is a runewell of sorts, though not the one from which I we reborn.
"No empires? So petty kingdoms rule above? What of their forces, their military might and their magical capabilities?"
Elisile tells her companions, “This man was reborn from a runewell – something similar to the orange pool that Illes, Alwyn and I discovered in the catacombs beneath the Old Light before we defeated Nualia. If we can find it, perhaps we can use it to reverse Vethran’s condition. Sefyall, if you can use the spell with which you subdued Mokmurian, do it now – or anyone anything else can do to incapacitate this imposter.”
In Thassilonian she says:
His spell enables Illes to follow along, but at this point he is still reeling listening to this alien parasite puppeteering his cousin's body. Elisile seems so much more calm and controlled than anything he is feeling right now that the bard keeps his mouth shut for the moment and lets her keep this thing talking.
Sefayll frowns, "Are you sure? Right now?"
The man looks at Elisile expectantly.
“Unless you think I can talk him out of Vethran’s body? I don’t,” answers Elisile. “If Illes wishes to try he is welcome, but he may not have the right frame of mind for it.”
She turns back to the man wearing Vethran.
The man looks annoyed.
A blast of raw chaos rips outwards from the possessed mage.
On her turn, she will try to feeblemind the possessed mage.
Illes is completely caught off guard by the opening assault and left frozen in its wake.
Sefayll casts feeblemind at the possessed mage.
Sefayll casts her spell. The possessed mage rocks back for a moment, but his eyes focus again and he barks out an order to his minion.
The beast leaps to attack the signifier, all three heads bearing wicked fangs.