"Bug...guys?" Connor asked, following Adran. He was still trying to imagine "pointy head".
"Ya, guys that were big bugs walking around. They seemed like they followed someone that we never saw, cause my father always told us to hide, and I'm good at hiding."
Flann investigates the rust-colored piles gathered in the corners of the tunnels.
Adran continues to lead the team down the passage as they chat.
The group splits up, heading up the seeming maze of corridors, but they find that it's less of a maze and more of a shattered wall with cracks. All of the paths leading up lead to the same thing, a vast dimly lit cavern. The cavern has a ceiling about 12 feet higher than the floor at the edge of the cliffs that drop off into a deeper cavern. The cavern itself is dimly dimly lit by something, but what it is is obscured by the heavy thick yellowish red fog that fills the depths of the cavern. The smokey mist roils and boils and the smell of sulfur is overwhelming. Something reddish lights the mist from underneath in several areas, the mist itself seeming to somehow help spread the light around. At random, pillars of super-heated steam erupt from the mist, coating the ceiling in boiling water that drips down afterward.
For those that check the strange piles of yellowish stone, they find that they consist of chunks of near pure sulfur, ranging from pebbles to fist sized rocks.
Coming up behind Adran in the passageway, Connor surveyed the fog-filled cavern. "How's your wing strength, Adran?" Connor asked, just as another steam bout released from below. "This looks more like a hover, than a race."
"So I can get up there without any problems, but I won't be able to retake this form until I puddle for a while. I'll still follow you, and if I need your attention, I'll make a bunch of swords, like this!" as he speaks, the "Elf" moves his arms and when they regain their position, he is wielding what looks like a pair of rapiers. He also has what appears to be an oddly shaped boot on one foot.
"Might be a passage down this way. In case we don't want to go gliding off cliffs." Flann points south. "Sulfur can cause inflammation in the lungs. Very dangerous if there are any glowing lava pits down there."
"Er, yes, Telv." Connor responded dubiously. To Flann, Connor said "Since we can't see, I'll defer to your wisdom, Flann. I did say we need to avoid any lava. Steam and sulfur isn't much better. Let's try that passage."
The group walks south down a tunnel, which rapidly brightens with a hellish red light and heat begins pouring down the tunnel.
At the end, they find a bubbling chamber of molten stone that sheds light and heat in equal amounts. Three small platforms float in the lava, leading to another tunnel, should anyone wish to leap from platform to platform.
"Worth a look, I guess." Flann assumes nobody's eager to play hot-scotch.
Connor cursed at the sight of the chamber. "More lava!" he hissed. Looking back behind him, Connor told the others "We have the choice of burning our pinfeathers or being steamed." With sweat already breaking out on his brow, Connor turned, looking at everyone. "We are still running against the clock. Do you want to try the steam-chamber, with me carrying Telv in the bag of storage? No amount of protection we have will shield us from this magma here this time."
"Okay, I'll climb inside your bag of holding. I think I should fit, but I won't be able to change back once I change, until I puddle."
Assuming the group gives their assent, Telv will slip into ooze form and climb into the bag of holding.
At the ledge above the steam-filled chamber, Connor took out a sunrod from his backpack, using one of his artisan's tools to hammer the rod into a crack in the floor of the cave. When Telv was secure in the bag of storage, Connor rolled up the bag and tied it to his backpack.
Striking the sunrod's tip to activate it, Connor explained over the hiss of the vents "We'll be flying through fog, so this light is in case you get disoriented. I'll be using my crystal light" - Connor indicated his open ring on his hand - "to see as far ahead as I can. Our goal is just to get to the other side. I'm going to hug the South wall. As soon as I land, I'll take Telv out and put out another sunrod. Call out to each other - let's wing this together!"
Connor backed up a bit, testing his wings again, before he took off, right arm with his crystal light ring outstretched.
"Going straight!"
"I think I'm still going straight! Looking for a ledge!"
Connor sees a pair of massive stone doors to the south at first, and then another dimly lit chamber to the south past it.
Finally he comes up to a wall, and is forced to hover.
Around him, steam explodes, but fortunately, no closer than 25 ft away during his flight.
Flann follows.
The heat differential makes flight very difficult to maintain for the out of shape Flann.
When he sees the wall, he'll veer south east rather than attempt to hover or risk hitting Connor. "Ahhhhhh!"
Flann makes it 50 ft behind Connor when the fog under him erupts in a guyser of steam, slamming him into the sharp spines on the roof!
Lungs burning, Flann manages to catch the air under him, and avoid perceived death.
Connor saw the doors. Can't stop. he thought to himself. Peering past the fog as he hovered, Connor called out "East-by-Southeast before the cave wall!"
As Connor swings to the south and east, guysers begin to erupt all around him, 15 ft away, then two in rapid succession just 5 and 10 ft away, on either side! The updrafts pound him and he comes to a landing finally on the stone escarpment, nearly piling into the wall as the steam behind him pushes him forward!
Connor folded his wings carefully, trying to prevent more hurt happening to him. He took off his backpack, untying and unrolling the bag of storage, holding it open towards the ground so the contents would spill out. "Telv, you can get out of there now!" Connor called out.
Going back to his backpack, Connor got out a sunrod and his artisan's tools, using a tiny hammer to activate the chemical tip and then pounding the sunrod into a crack in the floor. "Over here, flyers! Over here, flyers!" Connor called out, matching his voice to the tone of the hammer on the sunrod, followed by the hammer striking the cave wall next to him.
Disoriented, gagging, Flann does everything he can to follow the light and sound.
Flann continues along, dripping hot water and wincing as the flight makes his scalded skin rub against his clothes. Finally though, wings damp, stinking of sulfur, and with a headache from bouncing it off the ceiling, he is almost next to Connor when a plume of steam shoots up between them! The blast of steam, for a second, makes each of them thing the other is gone, but then it clears, and reveals both Atalantians still alive and well, if wincing from hot water splashes and coughing from sulfur fumes.
Flann finally manages to sort of crash and land on the landing on the other side.
Annoyingly enough, their female companion simply glides over the fog, zipping left and right and avoiding all the plumes of steam and water, somehow knowing exactly where to fly as she crosses over.
Connor saw it all, but was stuck being mesmerized by Flann's performance and annoyed by Volita's impassivity.
Coughing from the steam and sulfur, Connor stopped his recital, going to his backpack and pulling out a crystal rod tinted a light blue color. Pressing it into Flann's hands, Connor stated "Dojres of body adjustment. Eight charges. Use it."
Telv climbs out of the bag as instructed. He has stuck to his face.
Flann chooses to believe the djores works well because he's good at healing powers. After two activations he hands the crystal back. The steam is still rising from his armor, but the burns and bruises have healed, blistered skin peeling away to fresh pink flesh. "Sand, sweat, and dead skin. I've half a mind to wish for a bath when we reach the end of this. Laundered clothes, at least."
"What are clothes?" asks Telv
Seeing his Map of the Southern Continent stuck to Telv's jaw, Connor said "We still need that!", taking it off of the person and putting it into his backpack.
"We haven't reached the Plane of Water challenge yet." Connor warned Flann, taking back the crystal. To Telv, Connor answered "Protection, fashion, and comfort against the environment for us mortals." The non-shapeshifting ones, at least, he thought to himself.
Seeing the party still missing one member, Connor shouted over his shoulder "Adran! This way!" Turning forward again, Connor said loudly "Volita! Unless you see a staircase, join us over here!"
"I saw a pair of sealed doors - we'll have to come back if there's nothing but cave walls on this side." Connor told the others.
Adran just barely avoids a plume of steam as soon as he steps off the landing, and another near the end of his first 6 seconds of flight!
His harrowing flight continues as yet another plume of steam misses him by a few feet. By the time he slams into the ground next to Connor, the poor halvavian is soaked with hot steam, with feathers that are dripping, hair plastered to his head, and feeling like he's been a lobster in a pot, skin red.
"I think he's okay - Flann?" Connor dubiously asked, as he helped Adran up.
"Okay - everybody spread out - find a staircase!" Connor said loud enough for Volita to hear him.
"I hope there is just a door to get back out and we don't need to come back this way."
He says hatefully as he takes Connor's hand to hop up.
"So now where?"
The group wanders around, and Adran eventually finds a small pool of lava near a small cave entrance, and that cave turns hard right and then goes down stairs.
"Oh hey, don't go over there, more lave. Boss found some stairs in here. Come on let's move."
"Better than the stairs going back to the lava pool over here." Connor called out. "Everybody to Adran's stairs!"
Telv follows along behind Connor.
The group heads down the stairs, and find themselves in the familiar prison cells, 10 to a floor. Almost immediately, a voice assails them from the first cell on the left. "Please! Is that you? The ones from before? I swear I didn't do anything! I don't know why I'm here! It's been so long since they put me here, no one even visits me anymore! Please please let me out! I promise I won't do whatever it was if you'll just tell me why I'm here and let me go! Please? Is that you? I can't see you... Your the only ones who've been here in ever so long, it must be you again..." Looking over, it's the same small girl from several floors up, who was mute before, but this time she is speaking, but her eyes are gone, just a band of flesh where her eyes used to be, if she ever had any. She begins to sob, but the sound is off, likely because she has no eyes to actually cry with...
"whoa that's a bit creepy. Trapped on multiple floors in different manners, must be crazy powerful and broken into multiple vessels. I'm curious to what she it, but I assume we are leaving her so lets find what we came for."
Adran continues on looking for the cell they came to open.
"Hey, hey, hey. Maybe... Maybe she's on a floor below too. The one we want. Would it be worth our time to at least ask her if she can see what cells she's in? Just don't tell her what we're looking for..." Flann watches the eyeless prisoner.
Flann senses sadness, desperation, and loneliness.
Flann's ears itch also.
"Hey, uh, we've seen you on another floor, but with eyes. Can you tell us what you see in other cells? Can you see the cell numbers across from the cells where you're kept? -otherthanthisoneobviously." Flann watches while she answers.
Telv inspects the young girl that the group is looking at.
"We. Don't. Have. Time!" Connor gruffly says, diverting his eyes away from the Wingless girl in the prison cell.
Seeing Flann talk to the occupant, Connor rebutted "Look, I think we're in the one-fifties jail cells. Which means Volita's is at the end. And we just have one more 'elemental' level to go before reaching the two hundreds!" His wings unconsciously half-opened, showing his impatience.
The girl wipes at her non-existent eyes. "I think.. I see cells.. so many.. with so many things in them, scary things, why am I with them? I.. I see 147, 149, 193, 195, 205, 207, 241, and 243."
The girl seems genuinely scared, lonely, and desperately unhappy, as well completely clueless why she's locked up.
The girl looks exactly like the last one, down to the same stains on her clothes, other than her eyes being missing. There's no scars, the skin is stretched smooth as if she never had eyes.