We should get moving from here. This place is filled with sorrow.
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As they walked something struck Yazi's thoughts. "... wait.... Shiraz was back in Kelmerane but... did anyone see Doc?" she asks, looking at the others. "He... wouldn't have just let them take her, he's a good buy, I even told him..." she pauses, "I told him to keep Shiraz safe... I told him... he wouldn't have ran away, he would have done... some... thing...." her words get caught in her throat as her face cringes.
"THOSE BASTARDS KILLED MY PUPPY!" she wails when she's able to form the words.
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Seeing as he's been to the Pleasure Palace before, Rayhan offers to teleport the group there to save time.
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After reconnecting with the others (as from what I gathered, Bartan wasn't there for the scrying and sadness) and hearing what they saw, Bartan offers Yazi a comforting shoulder. "If Doc was hurt, or worse, take solace knowing that the would have done everything he could to protect our friends. We will avenge him."
Once back by the skeletal dragon headThe things we saw did little to raise hopes. Only steel wills. It seems our home has been invaded, and my wife has been taken. Though she still lives, so there is still some hope in my soul.
"Jhavhul has wasted no time." Venema observed from her stone bed. "Yet look around us. The Efreeti general and his army was here for decades, even centuries, yet they did not till the land, put up landmarks, build buildings, or fight the lazy proteans to convince them to attend to their duties of keeping Kakishon pristine. Jhavhul does not build - he uses and destroys. I suspect he will do the same with his wishcraft, and if you use that information against him, you may discover what weaknesses he has."
"I will not leave Nex's mausoleum, save for the direst emergency." the dragon-head declares, "Yet I wish for your success in finding a way out of Kakishon and back to the Prime Material Plane of your homeland. I cannot scry often, but I will watch over your party. My only selfish desire is that you try to save this demiplane from Andrathi's and Jhavhul's damage, if you can. Artel and his helpers, and the gnolls and other natives should not die needlessly."
Khayal turns to his brother, Let's call the galley, it is time we move on.
Khayal gives his gear another once over while waiting for the boat to arrive. He checks all of the clasps and buttons. He pays close attention that everything is in just the right place.
While he has always been good with his gear, this detailed check may be more as a way to keep his mind off things than anything else.
The adventurers take their leave of Nex's undead guardian of his final resting memorial, and go back to the stone pier at the South end of the tiny island. Hajar blows the Golden Ram's horn, and just under an hour later, a familiar Nexian galley pulls into the port.
[ooc](If you're gone more than several hours or overnight, yes, the Nexian galley does move away and go...elsewhere. There is more than one galley, according to the book, and others are using them. Who, you ask? You'll have to find out...
Khayal does not fish on this short trip. He spends the hour pacing the deck, trying to think things out in his mind. As they near shore once more he stops pacing, I hope Dilix knows something that can help us.
When the galley pullls up to the pier, Khayal disembarks with a jump. Eager to keep moving.
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Khayal lands gracefully enough on the pier. Not quite captain Jack Spearow style, but not fall on face style either.
Even with his wife's mortality on his mind, Mastery Khayal must still show off... Bartan muses to himself. He climbs down and follows after his friends.
Hajar directs the helmsman golem to the main island of Kakishon, and the Nexian galley pulls out of the stone quay. This trip is fairly short, only a few hours up to the icy slopes of Aliskiren and directly across to the wooden Waystation pier to the central island.
The adventurers don't have to run up the stone pathway long before they are met by Neshari and four stone-faced jann coming down from the mountain area. "Have you been to see azer smith Artel?" she asks without preamble. "Something is wrong. The stars have begun falling, and Kakishon's lands groan like like an old man in pain."
Rayhan replies Yes. We mean to speak with Dilix about this. Please, take us to her with all haste.
The brunette nods, and the adventurers and the others go back up the white-colored road. It still takes over an hour to rise to the level of where the Brass Dome in the central mountains.
Neshari and her guards lead you up the side balcony, to where the jewel-wearing Dilix Mahad is pacing back and forth on the balcony. Her sharp eyes roam over the adventurers, and Dilix says "It has been less than a week, yet I sense both success and loss from you.", looking particularly at Khayal, and the man's weapons. "I applaud your speed, but do not keep me and my servants in suspense: have you found the trapdoor? This land," and Dilix indicates the jungle mountainside view with an outstretched arm, "has begun to tremble and shake like never before."
Bartan's hopes fall a bit as the woman mentions that she seemingly does not know where the entrance is. "Yes, my lady, we need your help with that, I think. Do you have any insights for us at all on its whereabouts?"
"Xorn? The 'heart'? What is this?" Dilix asked, confused. "My spells have only told me that what once was stable, is now unstable. And the mountains agree."
Khayal, normally quite in these types of meetings, decides to voice a thought, Is there a center of this instability? A place from which it seems to be coming?
"The instability comes from the edges, of course. If you could hear them, the mountains here are voicing their pains as their foundations move." Dilix states crossly. "As for the Proteans, they lie beyond the edges - at the Isles of Not. They opposed us almost as soon as Jhavhul arrived, and when he was not chasing the wizard, the efreeti was battling them across Kakishon."
"You have yet to answer my mistress - what is this 'heart'?" Neshari adds.
Perhaps it is the center. Is there a place that is resisting the instability. A place that remains more stable than the rest?
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The dusky-skinned woman with rich clothing and jewels blinks. "I have touched every foundation stone here at the Pleasure Palace." she declares, "And used my spells in every direction for a day's travel on this island. If there was a 'heart' to Kakishon, the stones would have told me. I was not allowed to leave this island under Jhavhul, and depended upon Neshari," Dilix says with warmth in her voice, "traveling to the other islands via the Nexian galleys to find out more about this demiplane for me."
The lighter-skinned brunette picks up the unspoken question. "While the islands are varied, and made for adventurers and hunting parties of all kinds," she answers, "none had the look of a center or 'heart'. But I am not versed in speaking to stone or using spells like my mistress." The woman apologizes to her leader.
Dilix begins pacing again in front of the balcony that looks over the northern side of Kakishon's jungles and mountains. "Obherak, Jhavhul's other lieutenant, had more freedom than myself." she tells you, bitterness back in her tone. "Obherak is a shaitan almost as arrogant as Jhavhul - the efreeti must have seen some of his own ambition in the man, but not enough to threaten his goal. Obherak proved him wrong, for he broke with the general when Jhavhul killed Andrathi, and with him, our only chance of escape from this pleasant prison. The shaitan took the bulk of his followers with him to Khandelwal, an island to the west of here. Obherak was never strong enough to actually challenge Jhavhul, but now that the efreeti is gone, he would consider this demiplane his lands. I and my servants stayed loyal, for all the good it did me."
The tanned woman continued pacing back and forth, and you see Neshari fret, raising a hand in concern, but Dilix ignores her. After a silence so long it starts to bore some of you, the earth-genie woman speaks again. "Obherak was Jhavhul's front-line attacker in his army. While the efreeti took out any actual threat, the shaitan and his followers would get behind the front lines and attack the enemy with a pincer move. A dangerous strategy, and with a high casualty rate - but the efreeti always did treat everyone else but himself as expendable. If there is anything valuable in this demiplane, beyond mere trinkets or the azer's smithy, Obherak would have found it. And secured it. With Jhavhul gone, Obherak would fancy himself the new king of Kakishon."
Dilix turns back to you. "Find Obherak." she commands. "He will have a squadron of warriors around him. But Obherak visited nearly all the islands, and chose to stay on one since Jhavhul's rage doomed us all. He must have a reason."
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"It is likely that he found exactly what we need." Nasir says quietly. Neshari's response to Dilix's emotions, and the warmth the earth-genie woman clearly has for her servant made the dancer smile, and she wanted to not only get home so that they could save their loved ones, but also see some degree of....justice done here for those forced to serve, then discarded.
Hajar nods at the Janni.
So, this Obherak will know where the Heart of Kakishon can be located? And what of the Xorn? Have you dealings with them?
"The Xorn are lazy, gluttonous beings." Dilix says dismissively. "They see gemstones the way you or I see a side of beef or a shoulder of ham. I know not why Archwizard Nex placed them on the isle of Ismaizade to the East, other than as a natural counter to the unusually large gems that grow like trees there - diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and the like." She looks up at the adventurers, asking "Who told you of this 'heart'? I was not aware of any other person of experience in Kakishon, save the master smith. And he would not care about the Xorn, or leaving Kakishon. The Proteans would only seek this 'heart' to destroy it, from what I have seen of them. They called themselves guardians and caretakers first, but as we battled them, the shapeshifters grew homesick for their plane of origin."
Yazi's response only gives a puzzled look from the dusky-skinned woman.
"There are no dragons here!" Neshari bursts out, instantly putting a hand to her mouth contritely. "What my servant means," Dilix says, "is that if Jhavhul had learned of any nearby dragons, except for the Turtle King, he would have moved to enslave such a creature immediately. Their firepower is too awesome for the general to overlook as part of his army. You found this dragon on the Isle of the Dead?"