Kel turns her big, pleading eyes on the party, "Can we investigate the room with the pool and the dead elves? I fell that some rite, some ritual must be done for those poor elven souls."
Anklebiter scuttles over to Kelendra and presses the mithral chain shirt into her arms. He smiles sadly and pats one of Kel's hands. "There may still be some live ones ahead." is all he says.
Kel dons the new mithral shirt and turns to face the portal. "Yes, you are right Calla and Anklebiter, there may be live ones ahead, it is the better of two hard decisions." Before following the party through the portal, Kel checks on Bruendor again hoping his condition has changed.
Calla nods and, activating her ring before casting a quick prayer , ducks into the portal.
Kelendra's hopes were dashed as she realized that Bruendor's condition hadn't changed at all. Neither had Anklebiter's, and the goblin spluttered as the oracle doused him with water again. They turned to see Calla walk through the portal.
Anklebiter follows after Calla, stealthily hiding in her shadow.
"there she goes..." Lefrik mutters as Calla goes through the portal, "Desna save us all." And he follows through
Kel follows her human shield Lefrik through the portal both excited and afraid of what may lie beyond.
Duchess flutters back to the aboleth pool and sits on the edge. She gives Bruendor a cheerful wave and a thumbs up if she can see him.
Calla stepped through the portal, followed quickly by the others, leaving Bruendor behind to soak in the pool, breathing water, and generally feeling bad for himself.
Stepping through the portal is a dizzying experience, and it takes a few moments for the travelers to acclimate themselves. After a time, the surrounding view becomes clear, and it is much, much more than anyone expected. The ancient city of Celwynvian spread out before you, its graceful spires rising up among manicured boughs of a well-tended forest. Some of these buildings look familiar from you last few days of moving through the ruins of Celwynvian, but these stand in their original majestic splendor. From the way the buildings are laid out, you would guess that you entered at the western portion of the city, and are currently facing east.
Although the view seems real enough, it also seems off. Colors seem dim and dirty, sounds are muted, and the shadows appear strangely long and dark. Most disconcerting of all is the sky, or rather what takes up most of the visible sky. It is a vortex of swirling gray clouds, spiraling around a dark blot in the sky. The hole seems to hang there in much the same way as bricks don't, and you recognize it immediately as a much larger, much more abominably wrong version of the one you first encountered in the skies above Riddleport.
Behind you, the air continued to ripple and shimmer, but you cannot see back through the portal to the rooms you just left. There is only a blank greyness.
"Huh," Anklebiter says, summing up his feelings. "Weird. So where next?"
Kel resists the urge to immediately retreat back through the portal and instead focuses on the strange sky. "Could this blight affect every city, is it growing from this place?"
"This must be the Armageddon Echo...," Calla muses as she looks around.
"Let's see if we can find the elves."
She searches the ground for more blood or tracks.
Looking around, Anklebiter's arcane sight is completely flooded with arcane energies. It is the equivalent of being in a room with every surface emitting bright light. He instantly gets a headache from viewing the arcane energies. Looking down, and trying to clear his head, he spies what looks like a long scroll sticking out from under a bush just off the path.
Kelendra is unclear of what this place is, and Calla's observation seems about as good a guess as any. The inquisitor began scanning, looking for signs of passage. With her eyes, she followed the bloodstains on the ground to where the path diverged, some few yards ahead. The trail seemed to follow the southeast path.
There were people on the trails, elves mostly, but they looked ... odd. The figures seemed to be insubstantial, flickering in and out of existence, and not seeming to be much more than colored shadows when they remained "solid". The nearest was at the point where the path diverged, staring into the sky, clad in robes of green and silver.
"Ow!" Anklebiter hisses with pain as he cancels his spell and knuckles his eyes, tears running down his cheeks. "Too much magic - everywhere! Like being inside a spell! I..."
As sight returns, Anklebiter frowns at his find. "I see a scroll. But I do not trust it. Drow have been here however-long. Why would they let a scroll lie around except as a trap?"
"The path goes that way," Calla notes before turning her attention to the scroll.
"That seems like a strange trap to me. My guess is it was dropped by one of the elves dragged into here by the drow. Looks more solid than everything else in here..."
She casts a couple quick orisons and then picks up the scroll and hands it over to the goblin.
Kel submerges her fear and approaches the flickering man where the paths diverge. "Good day, kind sir, that is such a strange sight in the sky, what do you make of it?"
"Stand with Kelendra while I open it, then," Anklebiter says. "I have some protection against explosions. You don't. Stand well away. Take Minky with you."
Once the girls are a distance away, Anklebiter opens the scroll...
Unless Calla fends her off, Minky leaps to her shoulder and sits there quietly, dark eyes flitting every which way.
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Back in the aboleth's chamber, Duchess waves to Bruendor and beckons him to come up.
"Would you like to play a game to pass the time? How about 'I Spy'?" she asks.
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Bruendor chortles wetly at the Duchess' suggestion. Why the Hell not?, he reasons. He gestures to the homunculus to go first.
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Duchess sits down cross-legged at the edge of the pool, looks up, looks down, looks all around and then back to Bruendor.
"I spy with my little eye, something that starts with 'F'," she says, beaming.
While Calla, and then Anklebiter scrutinize the scroll, Kelendra moved to the figure staring into the sky above. At her inquiry, the elf turned distractedly to her. "Of course it is strange. The real question is how much longer it is going to hang about? Many have already left, fearing it is a dire portent of something or another, but I think it is more likely that it is simply a temporary phenomena. A celestial event that will pass in time. Not unlike an eclipse or a shooting star."
Meanwhile, Anklebiter took the large scroll off some distance and carefully unrolled it. With one eye closed, and wincing away, he relaxed as he saw a map. It looked to be an overhead view of Celwynvian, with newly inked letters marking some locations. Another piece of parchment fell out as he unrolled the map; the writings in a beautiful elven script a legend of sorts.
E - Gateway
F - The Library of Reenai
G - Verithes Park
H - Ekardani's Estate
I - The Pavillion of Reason
J - The Academy of the Arts
K - Vista of Visions
L - The Crystal Conservatory
M - The Fluted Goblet
N - Garden of Eternal Ease
O - Talgoren's Residence
P - Markets
Q - Observatory
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Bruendor looks about, wondering exactly what Duchess had chosen. As a quick guess, he points to the aboleth's body, mouthing a word at her.
Fish?
Calla looks with surprise as the elf answers Kelendra.
Huh. I was expecting him to be an echo.
Not wanting to disturb their discussion -- she knows enough about herself to know tact is not her strong point -- she keeps an eye on the area as the conversation progresses.
Kel hides her surprise at the response and continues the conversation. "That is the question, isn't it, how long will it stay around, maybe even what year will it go away? Still, it's been here for some time and, as you say, many have left already, what percentage of the city would you say have departed?"
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Duchess giggles shrilly, claps her hands and kicks her feet. Finally, she shakes her head, grinning.
"You got it wrong!" she titters, lying down at the pool's edge. "Two more guesses and if you get them all wrong, you have to do something I say! Second guess."
"We have a map!" Anklebiter says as he joins Calla and shows his find. "Now if only we knew where to find that stupid Drow Wizard, we'd be in business..."
The Goblin's ears twitch when he notices Kelendra speaking with the ghostly Elf, and he half-hides behind Calla. "Um. If this is the past from before the Starstone - sort of - these Elves wouldn't know to fear Drow, but they probably do know Goblins. Someone else ask him if he's seen purple Elves, please?"
Calla shrugs at the map.
"Not sure what good that will do us, but might as well hold on to it," she says. "At least it didn't blow up. Some spots with new ink; could mean they've taken up there or that they're somewhere else since they didn't know about that until they discovered them and noted the locations."
Lefrik has been gaping into the shadow filled world with a sense of both wonder and dread, "Unnerving." He sees Kel talking with the elf, or is it a memory of an elf? And says to himself, "I really need to learn another language."
To Anklebitter, he admits, "I don't understand much of how this all works. A shame we can't find some ancient blade of power from this before time, like in all the stories, and bring it back with us to save the world in the present. But then, would that be possible? Or does it risk changing things for the worse? Makes my head spin."
"If this place really is an echo, then I doubt anything we do here can change the past, my friend. But right now, we need to concern ourselves with safeguarding the future!"
The elf mumbled something to Kelendra about "...too many...cowards...easily spooked..." but was obviously too taken up with his thoughts on the phenomena to carry on a conversation.
As Calla looked about, she saw a few more semi-solid elves like the one Kelendra was talking to, as well as others that looked to be far more shadow than substance. These latter bunch didn't seem to be interacting at all with their surroundings, but simply drifting along aimlessly.
Calla shrugs as they don't get answers.
"I guess we follow the crimson brick road?" she suggests, pointing again to the trail of blood.
Anklebiter will fall into the middle of the group, a wand in his hand. He is not bringing up the rear, but also not forging ahead. The Goblin moves as stealthily as he can, so long as this does not hold up the group; if he is to have any shot at helping the others with his spells so depleted, he needs the element of surprise!
Kel uses a rock to mark their path for Bruendor to follow if he travels through the portal after the party has moved on down the road. "I hope Bruendor can find us, or that we can find our way back to him."
"Duchess is with him," Anklebiter says, confidently. "She can find me, and so she can guide Bruendor to us."
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Bruendor glares a bit at Duchess' mention of a forfeit, and he begins to think about the surroundings. Not sure what else she'd have in mind - all that's in here is the pool, the doorways, the aboleth, and us. Everything was an illusion. Maybe she's being tricksy...
Floor?, he mouths to her.
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The homunculus goes rolling around, her whole body quivering with silvery laughter.
"Wrong, wrong!" she chirps. "Last chance! Last chance! Guess! Guess!"
Calla moves forward, bow in hand, standing next to Anklebiter and behind Lefrik.
She ghosts along, as silently as possible, though Lefrik and Kelendra's presence likely make that a moot point. Her eyes dart here and there, looking for anything more solid that could be a threat.
Lefrik will take lead... ready to shield the others
E - Gateway
F - The Library of Reenai
G - Verithes Park
H - Ekardani's Estate
I - The Pavillion of Reason
J - The Academy of the Arts
K - Vista of Visions
L - The Crystal Conservatory
M - The Fluted Goblet
N - Garden of Eternal Ease
O - Talgoren's Residence
P - Markets
Q - Observatory