"What no trust after all this. I ate bugs we shared things. Alright we will do it your way. Ready to go when the rest of you are."
"We're on the way to the next skirmish? Finally."
The lizardfolk pulls the backpack off and turns it upside down. Nothing falls out. "No work here..." The other chuffs in amusement.
Alys looks at Adran, "He has a point. Time to get outta here."
"I believe our business dealings are done for the day. Let's be off and we'll see you, gentlemen, again in a few weeks." Roderick nods politely, eyeing the bag eagerly.
The lizardfolk look at the strix, who nods, and they begin leading the group out of the ruins. Once about a mile outside the ruins, reached by slogging through the dense undergrowth, the lizardfolk turn the pack upside down, and all the equipment previously taken cascades out in a noisy pile of weapons and items. The one in charge chuffs. "You straighten out. Give us time fall back."
The group is left in a small clearing in the jungle, as the lizardfolk fade into the undergrowth. Given how quickly they fade into the undergrowth, there could be a dozen of them surrounding the group without the group being any the wiser.
Adran picks through the things grabbing up his gear.
"Well that went pretty well. Just as I planned."
He winks at Alys.
Connor kept his mouth shut on the way out, but his eyes open. He noted the number of lizardmen, their armaments, their attitudes, the in and out of the ruins, even changes in the stone.
Once outside the physical ruins, he immediately interrogated Hero and Tenfa for their responses. Hero, wake up, Hero. Connor to Hero! Tell me what you experienced in that no-anything zone. as well as More surprises for you, Tenfa. A divine-free zone. Now do you see why this isn't a simple 'find the smugglers' assignment for us? Putting a temple on the islands of Atalantia will be tougher than I imagined.
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Watching the lizardmen leave, Connor had no doubt his own special backpack would work now. Stepping up to the pile, he told the others "No strategy until we're in flight. Let's get back to the campsite."
"Yes! No more talk of business for today! I've got a big enough headache as it is!" Replacing his various accouterments of mayhem Rory takes off.
Elara nods, retrieves her weapon then takes to the sky after everyone.
Alys also retrieves the staff and takes off with the others.
"Hey Wait up."
Adran follows after the others.
BOSS! WHAT THE HECK WAS UP WITH THAT! IT WAS LIKE BEING IN SOLID ROCK! I COULDN'T EVEN MOVE! DON'T YOU EVER GO THERE AGAIN!
Oh, deary, that was an interesting place. I get the most interesting sights to see! I figured I should play silent, never know who might notice me talking in a place like that. The voice practically has a dimple in it. I find it interesting that that place stops both your psionics and magic... there's a trick to it of course... but it took some serious power to create that place... It feels very very old...
As the group takes wing, they head up and out toward the city again.
"Adran, Elara, you tell us how to shake off any followers." Connor said as soon as they were airborne. He was grateful the astral constructs were still present. So the constructor wasn't needed as a "tether" to the astral constructs. That was informative, and fit his classes. Stay calm, Hero. Connor sent to his mirrored self. Yes, we have to go back. But not today.
Connor began relaying what had happened to his crystalline associates and companions while they were in the ruins. "That was the most powerful 'dead zone' I've ever seen. Hero was basically in stasis, stuck as a gemstone. Our divine 'partner' could have broken through, she claims, but I would hate to be in the same room when that happened. Obviously extradimensional spaces were nullified, as you saw with the packs, our backpacks, et cetera. So those ruins cover all three non-mundane sources. They must predate Atalantia itself..."
Connor looked down at the treetop level and wondered about dinner. Not that he needed to eat, thanks to his powers, but the thought of a good steak, and some ale to calm his nerves, is what he needed right now.
Roderick waits for the lizardfolk to fade from sight before he approaches the pile of equipment and begins moving blades back onto his bandoliers and sheaths. He checks the integrity of his extracts seals, then nods with satisfaction. He remains silent, aware that the group may well be followed.
Wings still tired from the exertion that morning, Roderick endures plodding pace stoically. Glad for a diversion, he opines, "I'm not so familiar with being out of the city, but false tracks and doubling back serve well enough in the city. Perhaps we can try that if we lose any pursuit. In any case, we should head somewhere other then directly towards the city."
He looks at Connor in alarm as he explains the power of the field, dropping a few feat before he can recover and regain his height with a few powerful beats of his wings. "That's certainly alarming. I'm not sure that I've heard of such a thing before. It would explain how they can safely handle so many magical goods without seeing their base destroyed. That assumes, of course, that it suppresses magic as well. Your wording lead me to believe that is the case, but I can not be sure. I'll mull over that while we fly, but it does present more pressing tactical concerns."
"Double back, keep an eye out, do a crazy ivan turn-around whenever the moment strikes. I'll take rear-guard." Elara ignores the 'dead-zone' contact for a bit; an irritating environmental threat, little else.
A dispellation can break the enchantment, but it requires power equal to or in excess of what created the field. Given the size and power, that would require a LOT of power. Given how long it's lasted, it's also possible that this is artifact level power. It likely dates from the times before the Arising, which means it's very very very old Atalantian artifacture. It could literally crack the island if it's taken down wrong or made unstable.
"There not following us. Dumb lizards are stuck on the ground. They acted pretty much how expected for some smugglers."
"Powerful indeed. In theory it might still be possible to break it, but I don't know of anything that would be available to us that would come near to sufficing. It is likely that the field is a remnant from some time long before the Arising. Given the size of the field, I find it unlikely that it could be broken through without potentially damaging the surrounding land. Potentially to the point of cracking the islands like a rotten twig while we're about it. On the whole, I would suggest we don't bother thinking about breaking the field itself."
Zigging and zagging, the trip back takes two days...
The trip back is, blessedly, uneventful. Toward dusk of the second day, the tired group manages to see the lights of the city they left twinkling out of the growing dusk.
"Right the last thing I want to do is enter that city without knowing how to deal with that b!%%$ and her cockroach consort! So let's talk strategy!"
Connor was in a funk the next two days. He made a power stone of his latest awakened power almost as a distraction to the difficult problem going through his head.
He also kept the bag of gems worth 8,000 gp in his backpack's extradimensional storage, after a long session of staring at the crystals to make sure they had not been psionically, or magically, tampered with.
Connor mentioned the nullifying field a few times with Roderick, going through his secondary school classes. "Anti-magical field and null psionics field." he concluded. "Which means no constructs, no powers, no power stones, nothing. Except the elementals we use in the latest skyship engines. So a skyship would plummet as soon as it got over the ruins, but the elementals in its' engines would survive. Clockworks, golems, psi-killers are the only self-contained constructs that would work. I'm at a loss to see how we could have gone into those ruins. Well, I would be crippled, but the rest of you have fighting ability beyond your powers, unlike myself. But it would have been 4 swords and a crossbow against 20 lizardmen. I don't like those odds."
----------------
As they approached Anshrin, Connor replied to Rory, "I fully agree. A list of characters: Zandra Bloodwing, the harpy in charge. Melithia the elf bi-, er, advisor lady, who turned out to be magical herself. Captain Anteres Wrathborn. His subordinate Callistia, who is holding our skyship. Klivant of the Kliasti Ruins, whom we were supposed to kill and didn't."
Connor ticked off several points on his fingers. "One, we can't tell her we found the smugglers because she told us where they were. Two, we were supposed to kill them for her. Three, her advisor wants to shoot us on the spot. Four, our skyship is impounded and I bet they haven't fixed anything from the bent engine blade to the scuff marks on the deck. So that leaves us making excuses when Rathborne said they were less than 20 to begin with, and trying to convince them that this meeting at the full moon is when we want to kill the smugglers."
Connor looked at his compatriots. "So either we sneak into Anshrin for mundane-type supplies and get caught, go straight to Rathborne and look like schoolchildren that didn't do their homework, or sit here and try to intercept the smugglers coming from the Kliasti Ruins, so at least we look like we've done something. And get some magical items for that rendezvous."
"So what's stopping us from going back in there and killing them all like we set out to do from the start?" Rory asks crossing his arms.
"They were able to catch us before we our best scouts were able to sneak in close and they've likely got the whole place bottled up tight with dead ends and killing fields throughout is one problem with that plan. Another is that we're a psionically inclined bunch and they take away our greatest force multipliers with that infuriating field. When we're outnumbered by foes of undetermined strength, charging blindly into the field seems like a foolhardy idea to me. If it's too risky to try a frontal assault and we can't sneak into the ruins themselves maybe we can try thinning their numbers with raids when they leave to make deliveries? If we make sure there are no escapees, they'll have to either send out search parties. They also have to be getting supplies somehow. We can ambush those parties as well. I don't recall our dear friend, Madame Bloodwing setting a time limit on our trip either. If we can take out a few, perhaps that will be sufficient progress to ask for more supplies and troops from the self-proclaimed Harpy Queen?"
Roderick mulls it over for a moment, "Another idea that occurs to me, though I'm not sure how viable it is for you, Connor. Could you probe the edges of the field using some construct that you can contact from a distance? It would have to be tiny and stealthy enough to escape notice, but there may be some unguarded way in and that could give us a hint where it might be."
"We have the height advantage no matter how well off in the jungle the scaly bastards are." Rory comments. "As to the picking off patrols that idea is out. It doesn't take a master tactician to put two and two together on whose causing the patrols to disappear. A siege may be possible in the long term. But we don't have the numbers to make that workable. How do you think they get to the surface?"
Rory lowers his head in deep thought stroking his beard.
"If I had all the tools I normally I have I'd just blow the bastards to hell and empty the whole f#%*ing contraband crate on the harpy b%$!*'s head."
Then turning to the assassin and soldier he adds.
"What do you have to say?'
"I was weak in there. I also wouldn't be able to wield any of my weapons. So besides for sneaking and taking out the guards in the trees I have little to offer at taking the place."
"My mind bolt is less than reliable in that field too. Suppose I could still clobber them with a big stick but I think we want to fight them outside of that thing, so we can actually all contribute at our full potential. So how about we throw a little surprise party at the ocean inlet where they are expecting to meet us?"
Roderick mulls it over for a moment, "Another idea that occurs to me, though I'm not sure how viable it is for you, Connor. Could you probe the edges of the field using some construct that you can contact from a distance? It would have to be tiny and stealthy enough to escape notice, but there may be some unguarded way in and that could give us a hint where it might be."
"My astral constructs don't give feedback - I could make a few dozen to fly around, and they would disappear when they hit the edge of that null pisonics field, but we would need spotters to see where that happened. It would take three or four days, and we would be spotted well before we finished making the map." Connor replied.
"So how about we throw a little surprise party at the ocean inlet where they are expecting to meet us?"
Connor stroked his chin, thinking, as he looked at the ground. "If we get there first. If they don't already have someone there. If we can make traps to lure the lizardmen into to reduce their numbers. If we can make bullet-resistant shields, redoubts, out of nearby trees and logs, to hide behind while the lizardmen are in the kill zones. They had the Strix with them - he can fly, and is one of their main gunners. Take him out first. If they come in a skyship of their own, we're sunk. If they march in, we have a good chance of taking them out. If they send their own scouts, we can decoy the meeting with some astral dummies, if I get lucky on the sculpting."
Connor looked up. "I like that plan. As long as they haven't found a way of prying off stones from those ruins and making portable null psionics fields. Those would be a game-changer. So assume that they have, as well as magical weapons and support. Go mundane in order to kill them first."
"I can go in first boss. Look for signs of the strix. I know where a sniper would set up. If he is there I can find him and take him out."
"Now that we don't have to worry about nullifying fields, we should scout the inlet port. We should skip Anshrin entirely and go to the port, now." Connor said, agreeing with Adran.
"Any objections to going to the inlet?" Connor asked everyone. "There's not much chance of an uninterrupted shopping trip in Anshrin, not yet. As much as I would like more jeweler's supplies, I think getting to that beach first, before the lizardmen, takes precedence."
"You do understand the stupid thing you're asking right? Have you considered the reason why they want to make the trade on the surface?"
"Sure, that's why we're not going to be able lure them up in the air. We still have air superiority and that's all we're going to have."
"And they will have all the magic at their disposal. Up to and including that delightful crate of destruction we sold them!"
Alys purses her lips and looks at Connor: "We have some experience with detonating magic equipment." she then grins widely and innocently "Let them bring the highly volatile contraband, let's see how they will use that against us while we're up in the air shooting it to bits."
"You can always calculate the probability of a wild magic storm hitting the coastline at the same time as our meeting." Connor drawled. "The resultant interactions would be...interesting."
Adron is doing his little thing whistling and pacing about.
"So I zone out, did we have a plan or what?"
"We are going to the inland sea to this inlet the lizardfolk wanted us to meet at. And we are setting up an ambush with multiple kill zones." Connor declared. He sighed. "And hope we can pull this off, because if they retreat back to their ruins or bring some kind of big magical stick, we're sunk."
"I think we've honed down our options. Rory is correct, we could ambush them as they emerge, but a few will slip through and who knows how long we'd have to lay siege. Trying to see them all dead in one large attack might be for the best. Let's go take a look at this meeting place, cautiously. If I were them, I'd have watchers there as well."
"Get me in close, I'll sort out the rest." Elara casually grips her polearm. "Recon's good to do first."
The next few days went by swiftly for Connor. It was, after all, not much else than flying. No resources. Not much to do other than look at the wildlife. He made a few maps, committed them to memory, then erased his chalkboard and drew new ones. Connor found a few edible plants, roots mostly, to change the variety of the stew each night.
-------------------
At last the team winged their way close to the inland sea. Connor began circling the beach where various trails met sand. "Not much here!" he called out to the others. "Mostly rock, sand, and an abandoned longboat!"
Connor landed near the broken longboat, his astral constructs landing in a circle around him. Connor mentally sent them out north and south along the beach, probing the sands for any hidden dangers. "Let's start the survey!" he called up to the rest of the team. The northern trails would be the most likely avenues of approach.
"It seems most likely they will approach from the north west trail. I will go walk and fly it an look and see where there sniper may move in and set up."