Rex looks at Yeldrid, cocks his head, and blinks a few times. "Wait, what halflings?"
"The ones to the west that Hob was talking about," Isamu says, with a nod at Hob.
"The ghost children," Hob says. "They're decent folk. Live just outside the Wood."
Yeldrid points out the halfling village on the map. "The cartographer was talking about them. Sorry, Rex, I thought we were on the same page here."
"So is this place not safe for Trin anymore? I thought it was the plan to leave her here? But instead we are taking her to the Halflings? Then we an set a trap for the Visitor thing, yes? This sounds good."
"Well, good luck," says the Hob, as the silence stretches on. "May the Courts be with you, for all the good it'll do. Just...one thing." She reaches out a little hand. "Trin, take my hand a moment."
Trin looks at Rex and the others uncertainly, then reaches forward. They flinch slightly as Hob grips their hand with evident firmness. Hob whispers something in a tongue none of the party can understand, her voice low and melodic. It sounds like a rhyme of some kind. She releases Trin's hand afterwards. Trin steps back, looking unsettled.
"There's not much I can do," Hob says. "Not against the Visitor. But that might help." She suddenly seems very tired. She reaches forward and takes the pineapple in both arms, struggling slightly beneath the load. "Now be off with you! The gangles will take some time to work out the soul is going west, but they will work it out. The demons move quick when the Devil's got his whip."
The group departs from the strange cottage, and makes their way down the path. As the sun is beginning to set, and their minds are beginning to turn towards thoughts of camp and rest and a warm supper, they notice a clearing up ahead. From the clearing comes the sounds of song—a beautiful voice, singing in an otherworldly tongue the party does not immediately recognize. The voice is almost inhuman.
At the center of the clearing is an old ruined watchtower—how old is difficult to say, though it is absolutely verdant with plant life. The singing seems to echo from something inside.
The path leads directly past the watchtower. Trin, however, seems quite taken with the music. "What is that?" they ask wonderingly.
"Something either fair or foul," Isamu states, ears perked up but hand resting on his rapier hilt. "It could be a forest-spirit singing to the sunset, or it could be a beast that sings to lure its prey in. Or perhaps it's even something else."
He looks over at his companions. "Either way, it seems like something that we should be careful of, but probably not something to pass by and leave unknown so near where we'd like to camp, yes?"
"Don't worry Trin," Rex says with a smile. "My nose can sniff out evil. We'll know their intent soon enough. Lovely singing. Hard to imagine its malevolent." He strides confidently forward, sniffing about for signs of evil.
As Rex approaches the tower, he becomes surer that the singing is coming from something within—but high-up.
Isamu follows Rex's lead, hand on the hilt of his blade. He keeps his eyes and ears open to complement Rex's nose.
As the group begins to head towards the tower, Yeldrid pulls out his earplugs and sticks them in. He has a strange feeling about this.
Rex continues, undeterred, on all four and head to the ground. He obviously did not intend to take a stealthy approach.
Lily moves around, looking for another way into the strange tower, wary about whatever the source of the singing is.
Utterly enchanted by the source of the music and oblivious to the world around her.
Yeldrid's going to follow suit in scanning the walls for an alternative entrance. He also gets his grappling hook ready to start climbing.
Yeldrid takes in the full scope of the area, the earplugs keeping him focused. Yeldrid taps Lily on the shoulder, points out any openings for her, and takes off his gloves and boots and moves towards the tower slowly.
Completely noiseless in his approach.
The group splits into two as they approach the tower.
Walking with Lily, Yeldrid notices a place about fifty feet up where the plant life has broken through the stone, creating a sort of natural window. It's very overgrown, but he thinks one could push past the flowers and grass to make it into the tower. He begins to rapidly scale the tower.
As Rex and Isamu enter the tower, they see that the interior is remarkably barren. No plants grow in here. The ceiling is only about eight feet up, making it rather claustrophobic for Isamu. An old trapdoor lies in the northwest corner, while to the right rises a ramshackle wooden staircase leading to the second floor.
For both groups, the singing suffuses the very air around them. It's getting hard to hear each other over the otherworldly melodies—save for Yelrid, of course, who can't hear much of anything anymore.
Isamu was a bit uncomfortable with the whole splitting-up thing, but he doesn't mention it.
"I think this singing must be some kind of magic," he half-yells to Rex. "Yeldrid may have had the right idea with those earplugs. We should keep an eye out for something like that for ourselves, just in case."
Tired of yelling, he points at the staircase, then gives Rex a questioning look.
"What?" Rex yells over the singing. He looks back at Isamu and notices the others are gone. "Where did the others go?" he wonders out loud. He follows Isamu's finger to the stairs and nods. But when he gets to the stairs he pauses on the first step. It felt rather unstable. Instead of stepping on the next, he bangs his hand on it a couple times to make sure it was sturdy before proceeding.
The stairs feel safe.
Lily will stick with Yeldrid, easily scaling the building's exterior. Isn't this music beautiful? She asks, a somewhat dreamy expression on her face.
Isamu throws an anxious glance at Trin , hoping they're doing okay in this situation. He waits for Rex to lead the way, then follows him up.
'What?' He tries to keep his voice low, 'Sorry, mate, I can't hear ya with these in. You okay? You look a bit outta it.'
Trin seems fascinated by the song, and follows readily behind Isamu.
As Rex and Isamu emerge into the second floor of the tower, they see that the remaining floors above seem to have crumbled away, creating a vast upper shaft all the way up to the attic sixty feet above. Meanwhile, Yeldrid pushes his way through the vegetation, crawling through ferns and flowering plants to gaze into a brilliant sea of azure lights.
What Rex, Isamu and Yeldrid initially mistake them for are hummingbirds, for their size is not dissimilar. But these creatures are no hummingbirds. With long, colorful plumed tails and elegant swanlike necks, they resemble a species of exotic bird unfamiliar to all in the party save Isamu—minuscule, great-winged peacocks. The creatures swirl in a densely-packed swarm, filling the chamber with heavenly music.
As they see Yeldrid, a few of them stop singing and eye the catgirl with evident interest. "Good evening!" they call out. "Splendid, wondrous evening! Welcome to the Lost Tower, travelers! What are your names? Your beautiful, beautiful names?"
Isamu gazes up at the creatures with obvious delight. Surely these creatures could not be dangerous?
"Isamu. Nakano Isamu," he replies to their question, too entranced to bow to them as would be polite. "And might I enquire as to your lovely names?"
"Isamu...we shouldn't...we shouldn't talk to them...their bad...but soooo pretty. Oh look at that." Despite knowing something was very wrong here, Rex couldn't help but continue to watch. Sure it was just swirls of grey to him but somehow it was still a sight to behold. The dancing and singing was intoxicating.
Yeldrid looks at his companions, looks at Lily, and turns away from the bird creatures. He begins fiddling with some components. He pulls out his gun, seems to break it in half with a loud crack, and refits the new components to the gun. It is now making a clicking noise, much like the small device Yeldrid gave Trin, and appears to have two square chambers attached to it.
He says nothing as this goes on and refuses to look at them.
Isamu gazes up at the creatures with obvious delight. Surely these creatures could not be dangerous?
"Isamu. Nakano Isamu," he replies to their question, too entranced to bow to them as would be polite. "And might I enquire as to your lovely names?"
"We have many, many, many! There are so many of us. But you may call us the Shining Singers! We love to collect stories, stories, but we have also..."
They pause, hearing the click from Yeldrid's gun.
"Hm. What's that pretty little thing you've got there, pretty little thing?" The voices are distinctly suspicious.
Yeldrid, able to hear the birds cries even through the earplugs, smiles, 'A horn. The clicking is the metronome. It helps keep you in tune. I do love a good music performance, and I wanted to join in with my own instrument!' He pulls himself into the tower proper and puts himself by Rex's side.
The guns mechanism begins to ping more frequently, rattling within their chamber and filling the air with the sound of a whistle.
'Allow me to show you how it works.'
Yeldrid's gun fires louder than ever before, sending small pieces of shrapnel in dozens of directions, smashing apart stone, plant and floorboard indiscriminately as he struggles to keep the weapon trained on one place. A small bolt shoots out of the side of Yeldrid's gun, the rattling seemingly pulling the weapon apart as the device struggles to keep momentum, and the whistling noise is now in full-pitch.
There is a pause.
"I have never seen a horn like that," says one bird suspiciously.
"Never seen one like that, that, that!" chirps another.
"Kitty has a sense of humor!"
"Kitty has a ."
As Yeldrid readies to fire, the strange, shimmering, singing birds streak towards him to attack!
'Shake the other two awake! I can't stop them once they are on me!'
"Even when they're mad they are just sooo pretty," Rex says lazily.
There's something wrong here... Isamu thinks, frowning slightly as he watches the fighting start. I should be... doing something...
...Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon at the fascinated creature, automatically breaks the effect. A fascinated creature’s ally may shake it free of the spell as a standard action.
As the smoke and shrapnel clear from Yeldrid's cacophonous shot, the shining singers scream. Shimmering figures fall, bloodied, mangled. Yeldrid's horrid device has killed scores of them—but still there are more.
And in the midst of such horror, the beautiful song is disrupted. Their forms...shift. Their tails shorten and thin. Their feathers dull, colors fading from blues and greens to plain browns, blacks and grays. Suddenly, they do not look so pretty after all. Yeldrid's and Rex's heads begin to clear...
Their song dismissed, the birds shriek and dive towards Yeldrid. Yeldrid finds himself immersed within the swarm. Talons latch onto his clothes, his arms, struggling to find purchase. At first, it is merely annoying—they don't seem to be going for the catgirl's eyes or anything of the sort. Then Yeldrid feels his grip on the stone wall weakening, and realizes that they are attempting to pull him.
So, Yeldrid can still move around—he's not rooted to anything. That said, he will retain the Entangled condition after doing so, as enough birds will cling to him for the rest of the swarm to "catch up" on their turn. They'll still be able to try to pick you up, too.
A DC Acrobatics check (opposing their Fly check) is sufficient to escape their grasp as a standard action.
With little in the way of ranged weapons, Isamu draws his rapier and takes a defensive position at the top of the stairs. "Stay down there, Trin!" he half-shouts.
Meanwhile, he desperately looks around the tower, searching for anything that might help him climb, or that could help Yeldrid land softly if he were to jump into the Tower.
Isamu finds a ratty old mattress amid a mass of rubble that once, perhaps, was a bunk bed.
'No, no, no, HELP! SOMEBODY GRAB ME! I DON'T NATURALLY LAND ON MY FEET!'
He is going to try and scramble out of the birds clutches while he has the chance.
Failing this check, he is going to sheath his gun. He might need it in a second.
"Rex!" Isamu shouts as he dashes over to the old mattress. He starts trying to move it over to about where he guesses Yeldrid will fall. "Help me move this! Yeldrid, hold on just a little longer!"
With the trance broken, Rex begins to bark furiously at the manipulative birds. At the sound of his name, he turns to Isamu. "Yes? Oh. Good idea." He grabs the mattress with his jaws and pulls it along with Isamu.