Drisquar hits the mayor twice, one of them critically critically. The skeletal creatures continue to swarm him, attacking with bony tongues and claws, but this time only land a single hit. The mayor, shifting, seems to have noticed Anaxian's psychic assault. While the dracolich fails to penetrate the abolich's mind, the Mayor—still unable to actually see Anaxian's tiny, hidden self—responds with a Locate Creature spell aimed at all nearby liches.
Illia- continues to swim towards one of the mysterious circle of figures, which she can reach in two more rounds. However, she is now close enough to identify it as what appears to be a humanoid of some sort, hovering in the water and strumming a harp.
Meredian, Big Anaxian, and Sir John wait, staring at the eel-like aboleth in silence as they contemplate whether or not to allow it surrender—and the creature waits patiently, unmoving, as they do so. Jiator continues to play his ice violin, scattering the last of the skeleton army in fear.
Where Meredian destroyed the makeshift walls forming around Hungry Doom, the walls have once again begun to re-form, growing organically out of the bedrock; but they enclose nothing but dead Skum and Mouthers, as the Shoggoth has swum a hundred feet away, continuing to engulf Gillmen and Aboleths.
Illia- continues.
Anaxian continued his psychic assault.
Anaxian considers a moment. "Acceptable. Kill the mayor."
"This seems to be wrapping up nicely." Meridian continues to watch her companions annihilate the enemies.
The eel-aboleth swims forward again, a blur in the water at rapid speed, closing 400 of the 500 feet between it and the Mayor.
"Ya know, you are really starting to annoy me" Dris lashes out at lighting speed, attacking the mayor with a hopeful devastating strike, before darting past all of his foes.
He then streaks by the various enemies surrounding him
One he is a good 200ft away from the mayor, Dris heals himself, before preparing to charge headlong back into battle.
(I don't actually remember now why I rolled it, but I'll leave it there)
Actually this is pretty irrelevant...
Drisquar hits the Mayor again, though not as hard as he had hoped. As he flees, the swarm of large skeletons swims after him, though not fast enough to catch up.
And then Anaxian re-casts his Magic Jar, and the Mayor fails to resist it. As the dracolich begins to get a feel for his new body, the eel-aboleth slams into him, three sets of jaws disorientingly tearing into undead fish-bones. While the Mayor is not quite dead, the assault does tear his tail clean off, and a fistful of diamonds spill from a cavity in his body and out into the water.
Tentatively, the last survivor of Voshgurvaghol prods the Mayor with one of his glowing tails. "Is he finished?" he asks, uncertain. "If so, I have upheld my end of the bargain. You'll need to find his phylactery, before he returns."
Jiator clutches his warped Crown of Telepathy, and rides off towards the Shoggoth.
He is going nowhere. I have him now." Anaxian says from within the mayor's body, it's eyes glowing with Anaxian's telltale purple flames.
His phylactory will be easy enough to find once he is suitably imprisoned. I will need a day to prepare.
Perhaps the Architect's Well could be repurposed.
Meridian will telekinetically catch and collect the Diamonds as they fall as she swims over to the group.
"We should probably find his phylactery and destroy it. Wouldn't want such a creature to hold a grudge and continually come after us. The inconvenience of it all would be too much to bear. "
"You guys have fun with that. I'm going exploring" Dris will drop his second Cure Serious Wounds for
He then shifts into cloud form, and speeds off, investigating the city, look for treasure, unique items, and anything out of the ordinary.
Anaxian experiences the unpleasant feeling of Meredian rummaging around in his mummified innards, pulling out diamonds, while Drisquar swims off as the rest of the party keeps talking.
Anaxian experiences the unpleasant feeling of Meredian rummaging around in his mummified innards, pulling out diamonds, while Drisquar swims off as the rest of the party keeps talking.
Illia- will finish what she started on the ring around the rosy for good measure, then start helping out the searching via teleporting true sight perception +24.
As I said, one day. I will find it. He will tell me. I simply need a place to put him.
Illia-, in the aftermath of the fight, regains her ability to teleport and finds a ring of zombie bards, mindlessly strumming lutes in a circle high above the city.
Meredian catches the falling diamonds, but notices they've spilled out of a large hollow cavity filled with gems, and collects the rest as well.
Drisquar spends... quite a while searching what is an entire city of mages for treasure. Once again, he finds a large quantity of what may be cheap magical trinkets, but finds nothing specific of obvious and exceptional worth.
The last remaining variant aboleth glares at Anaxian. "He is too dangerous to let live, both for his magic and his influence in what remains of this city. Tomorrow it is, or we might have trouble."
After a few minutes, Jiator appears to have calmed the shoggoth, which undulates peacefully around the battlefield, idly consuming bodies alongside its tail of gibbering mouthers.
"I think the plan is to imprison him, read his mind till we find his phylactery, destroy that, then kill him." Illia- comments cheerfully, finished destroying zombie bards.
"He has lost, the price of such is death."
"I think the plan is to imprison him, read his mind till we find his phylactery, destroy that, then kill him." Illia- comments cheerfully, finished destroying zombie bards.
"Essentially, yes. The process is a bit complex, but I will break him."
Anaxian slowly regenerated the mayor's body.
Then he began to eat himself.
Over and over, for hours, the body would regenerate and autocannibalize, punctuated by strange waves of telepathic sensation that could only be described as intrigue or fascination.
Under Anaxian's command, the mayor bites himself over and over—but fails to steal any of his own memories, as, him being an undead being, they appear to not be stored neurologically.
"Plan B, I suppose." the larger anaxian said to his counterpart. "'ill prep the well."
Anaxian's smaller body, animated by some unknown entity, went to work on the Master of Souls' body, creating a treasure map from it's corpse.
When the map was finished he wordlessly passed it off to Drisquar and Illia.
The Mayor began "resting" to regain magical focus. When it was done the smallerr anaxian body sperad it's wings and arcane writing appeared as intricate tattoos. Every once in a while the tattoos would shift and change to a new spell.
True to his word, the city's new leader, with his deadly jaws, proceeds to promptly shred everything that attempts to attack the party—but very few of the local aboleths or undead do, as your new ally uses his effective psychic powers to temporarily dominate pretty much everything you've left alive.
Anaxian locates the Mayor's phylactery, buried under fifteen feet of hardened lava beneath a cave twenty miles away. Illia- scouts out the location, and Big Anaxian swims to the site, easily digging through the stone. Peeling back layers of enchanted aboleth slime reveals a small golden flute at its center; with a few words spoken, this is returned to its former power as Jiator's phylactery, which he insists on hiding himself at a later date.
With their hours of searching, Drisquar and Illia- manage to gather approximately 97,000 gp worth of exotic trinkets, solid gold knobs, and ivory squid statues before the newly-declared "Overseer" catches up with them and delivers some stern looks. Meredian catches about 40,000 gp of small diamonds, plus five more that look large enough to be used to cast wish spells.
When Jiator returns to the party, he has reasserted control of his zombie bards, who swim meekly behind him in a neat line. He also seems to want to keep the Shoggoth as a pet.
While Anaxian busies himself with gathering bodies, another concern is raised. Under the Mayor's guidance, the reconstruction of Voshgurvaghol was carried out primarily through undead labor; but with every Necromancer in the city slain, the skeletal workforce has become more of a liability than help. The new Overseer is not especially concerned; he is happy to see the ancient othagu capital returned to the rightful order of things, with proper slave labor guided by aboleths, under the tutelage of whatever veiled masters might wander by, but ultimately controlled by a single omnipath. Nevertheless, when he suggests shredding the city's skeletons where they stand, Master Jiator instead offers in tones of generosity to take the skeletons with him as the party leaves. "No simple, weak skeleton could survive for long the magical auras of Escarra," he explains, "But we had quarries once, in the surrounding caves—Sir John's idea—where we left them to mine stone and ore, transported by song and canal. This may be enough of a workforce to reopen one of those old quarries, if the ruins still stand."
Hungry Doom presents another problem. The Shoggoth, Jiator explains, was captured in the depths of the Sightless Sea by the Master of Souls, and dragged up to Voshgurvaghol from the Darklands through a wandering sunken waterspout called the Braid. But Hungry Doom has devoured several aboleths today, and their smell will cling to him for months—and while it does, both the Shoggoths of his home and the Deep Aboleths who hunt in the seas above it will mark him as an enemy, fit to be destroyed. Instead, Jiator has offered to feed the Shoggoth and its Mouther companions as many of today's corpses as they wish, in order to enlist the ancient ooze's aid as a guide; following Hungry Doom, Jiator and his horde should be able to safely swim up into the Braid, riding upwards to Lake Nithran, whose shores lie a mere five hundred mile trek from Escarra.
In fact, Jiator explains, one of the tributary rivers of Nithran flows less than two hundred miles of Escarra; and if Hungry Doom is amenable, the Shoggoth's aid could be helpful in re-dredging the great canal that once fed the city's trade and gardens. But that will be a discussion for later.
And so Jiator's shambling horde sets off. Over the first week, the Architect crafts a simple magic headband for Hungry Doom, which the Shoggoth promptly swallows—and the enchantment now lodged in its innards grants it a small burst of intelligence, aiding its directional sense and allowing it to bark short sentences (or long phrases) in Undercommon. Behind the Shoggoth trail twenty gibbering mouthers, filling the echoing caverns with a maddening cacophony ignored by the dozens of marching skeletons and zombies behind them. Day and night, they march forward unceasingly; from atop his giant undead crab, Jiator barks order to his dozen zombie bards, who keep the others in line. Somewhere in this procession marches the party, except for those who wish to fly or teleport far ahead.
With the bellowing Shoggoth audible for miles in each direction, nothing appears to threaten this strange group; no grimlocks, morlocks, or vegepygmies appear, though Jiator insists that all are native to this region. At one point, on the shores of Lake Nithran, a Faceless Whale lunges out of the water in a hunter's ambush; for the next two days Hungry Doom drags a fifty-ton whale carcass behind him, its length ever-so-slowly receding into the mouths on his back as the hard cave floors tear up its rubbery skin, leaving streaks of blood and gristle in the party's wake.
Back in Escarra, the Crimson Stranger is nowhere to be seen, though the Gug skeletons Anaxian has left behind are quickly found buried up to their necks in solid stone, surrounded by signs reading "I need some rest, and I thought they could watch themselves."
And then, during Week 2, Malfeasance Effescence suddenly shows up, riding into the city at a slow walk on the back of his skeletal steed. Behind him rides a short wagon train, pulled by similar phantom horses, and driven and staffed by a team of four Barbazu (bearded devils). In the passenger seat of the first wagon sits a Phistophilus (contract) devil, clad in unusually fine silks.
Finally, the wagons arrive at the edge of the city's ruins, and the Barbazu begin unceremoniously unloading a cargo of bricks and lumber, though Mal stands perfectly still nearby, and the Phistophilus appears as to somewhat of a loss over what to do.
At some point during the March;
Meredian glances bored into the cast ocean floor. Occasionally she gets excited and pulls some oddity toward herself telekinetically to examine. Sometimes they're alive sometimes not. After her curiosity is satiated she generally launches it nonchantly into the expanse, not waiting to see where it lands.
Randomly she says to the group,
"Well, that was fun, but what's the next thing we're doing?"
**On the first full day after the defeat of the Mayor**
Dris will speak with the new Overseer and ask if he would like any of the juju zombies armed with Lyres of Building to stay behind and assist with the reconstruction of the city. If he says yes, Dris will ask half of the zombies to stay behind, otherwise, he will as all of them to please jump in the portable hole so that they may be quickly transported to their other city and begin working there.
Regardless of how many agree to enter the Hole, Dris will the approach Illia "Special delivery. Would you be so kind as to teleport these juju zombies to Escarra so that they might begin working right away on rebuilding the city?"
"Hey ho, Malfy...o? Uh, yeah, how's the man downstairs doin'?" There was a measure of rather unnatural and stilted "jive" to Illia-'s greeting.
Truly, the dangers of an Erinyes attempting smalltalk were to be feared.
Mal turns at the sound of Illia-'s telepathy, then recovers and bows. "Flawless and inscrutable, as always," he replies. "And views your exploits with curiosity. But allow me to present," and here he gestures to the Phistophilus devil, His Elegance, Pleistocrates, Hell's official ambassador to Escarra. While I serve the Church of Asmodeus, he is here to represent the netherworld's diplomatic interests, and he brings with him the labor and supplies necessary to build a proper embassy."[/b]
Ambassador Pleistocrates, for now, says nothing.
"But I'm getting off track. I don't actually RUN the city, so I can't give you so say on where to set up. Our architect is due in about four weeks. And I haven't seen Crimsy in a week, so uhm... Yeah. I'll totally put in a good word for ya though!"
"They have strength, and obedience, and that will be sufficient," the Ambassador replies, speaking for the first time. "Did you never wonder who built the spires of Dis, the vaults of Erebus, or the libraries of Stygia? Did you assume that your brethren-in-arms lacked artistry and planning simply because you did?"
And then, noticing a slight tinge of mockery in his voice, the Ambassador calms himself. "It is no matter. To oppose Hell's interests would be foolish; we have had good dealings with the Crimson Queen over the past few months, and wish to see those continue. We merely require a small parcel of land, and someone to sign in acknowledgement and receipt."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anaxian took the long way back. He had a shark boat, a skeletal kraken and a captured aboleth lich to escort, as well as all the plunder that was too large for Illia to easily carry. He let his larger counterpart do the steering, following Hungry Doom. The smaller Anaxian disappeared into his portable hole workshop and didn't come out for the entire trip.
After a week of marching along the shores of Lake Nithran, Jiator asks to consult with John and the others on the party's course. "The quickest route to Escarra would take us upriver," he explains, "But that would take us through heavy ghoul lands, past the city of Nemret Noktoria. When last I passed through, Noktoria was nothing but a small camp for ghoul raiders to congregate; scrying ahead, it seems to now be a city of impressive size, and oddly civilized. I do not know what sort of reception we would receive there; we could try to pass through, or take the longer land route and avoid them entirely."
"The ghouls of Nemret Noktoria may be a powerful future ally, standing in the path of all trade from both Nithran and Osirion, but we may deliver a bad first impression if we approach with our current band. I suppose one of you may have some suggestions on what we should do next?"
"A better band than one entirely made of sentient undead, one of whom is a peerless diplomat?" Anaxian rumbled. "The shoggoth might unnerve them, but that would only make it clear that they are not in a position of power when treating with us. I see little reason not to approach now."
"a bad impression? How do you mean? We've myself and the dread Wyrm. And your charismatic self. "
"And Hungry Doom."
"Oh, yeah." Illia- refocused on the task, "As to the 'sign in', I'm really not sure I have any more authority than hired muscle to do that. Do you already have a pre-existing agreement for it?"
Jiator shakes his head. "Ghouls can be... unpredictable. And arrogant. In my travels to Nex, millennia ago, I met a fair share who resented the intellectualism of liches and the high society of vampires. Our horde of skeletons and zombies might be seen as a tribute, or a food source. I do not know much about their culture or politics, and would prefer to not simply march into their city. You can scry it as well, if you like, but Nemret Noktoria appears to have grown into something of a fortified metropolis."
The Ambassador shakes his head. "Are you thinking of Glabrezu? Because they have hands, too. But I recommend never using the term 'construction devil' again. My Attachés are here as part of their training and evaluation before being granted their own command in Hell's armies."
"But I already have a pre-existing agreement with Asmodeus, whose authority, I'm sure you recognize, is the only one in the multiverse that matters. You can read it if you like. I am tasked with constructing or purchasing a suitable embassy on one lot of precisely seven thousand square feet; but for courtesy's sake, I'd prefer a signature of acknowledgement from a local resident of importance."
"very well, i've no problem addressing the ghoul necropolis at another time."