Gil will try to cast another spell.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The claw in the ceiling moves sinuously into action, reaching for Rolund.
Rolund struggles against the claw but is unable to escape. "Release." Rolund growls. "Me."
I don't think so.
Though it looks like little more than bone and sinew covered by slimy skin, the claw effortlessly lifts the weight of the fully-armoured bone knight and pushes him into the seat in the centre of the room. The chair changes shape to accommodate him, and it grips him tightly at the wrists, ankles and neck with leathery bindings that slither out and hold him firmly.
There, now you are no longer a menace to either your colleagues or yourself.
"Do your worst!" Rolund shouts as he continues his struggles against the bindings.
"Doctor Master,.....I have healing powers; if the surgery is too damaging."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm afraid crude waves of positive energy channeled from your deity will be like trying to mend a butterfly with a hammer. This will require more finess that I am afraid you could muster, Father Xativa.
This also makes clear that the compulsion is more dangerous than it initially appeared, particularly as it comes to culmination and also its interactions with this subject's particular personality quirks. I am afraid that Sir Rolund must remain here while you seek out the shards. Anything else would be as dangerous to you as to him. How could he cooperate with, or even allow, you to seek out these shards as part of his cure, when the complusion expressly forbids such a path of action. His unpredictable behaviour could spell disaster for you all.
On that basis, as I mentioned before all this distracting violence, Gelb will accompany you on your visit to Gath.
"Master, please, I don't need their help." Gelb pleads out loud. "I can find the shards without them."
More bindings creep around Rolund's face, gagging his furious challenge.
I doubt that, replies the Master to Gelb. In any case, it is always good to have the help of friends in one's endeavours. So, it continues to the others, I believe we have an arrangement?
Gil looks at the restrained bone knight, obviously troubled. "He will be untouched, other than your chair's bindings, while we are gone, correct?"
Of course.
"That includes mental contact. We want to find the same belligerent friend when we return."
His mind I will leave untouched and virginal.
"Probably the only thing virgin about him," Gelb snickers.
While the others absorb the news of their new member, Gelb announces, "Well, seeing as we're going to be working with each other, let me gather my things and we'll be on our merry little way."
"Might as well. Lead the way, willya?"
When Gelb returns, you finally take stock of the changeling causing so much grief. Standing a little over five and half feet tall, bald, and a merry expression upon face doesn’t seem much but a look of his equipment does. He wore a suit made for disguise and blending with the crowd along with a band of steel on his head. Twin bandoliers cross his chest; one of them holding numerous daggers and vials, the other various wands. Two scroll cases laid strap to the top of his backpack he was carrying for easy access and a short sword hung from his side.
“Reavers, onward!” he yells mockingly before leading the way out.
Gil looks back at the restrained bone knight as they depart.
"Not much we can - or, in reality, could - do now, I think", Janosz mutters go Gil. "With that in mind, let's head over to the Ghallandan Inn to talk strategy and have a coupla brews. Unless you have another place in mind, Gelb?"
"I know, but... Let's get this done." She leaves whatever it was unsaid with a shake of her head.
"I didn't take you for the high living, but whatever," Gelb smirks at Janosz.
"I need a brew after that."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"I need to bathe after that."
The group are led through the minflayer's palace to the exit by Saoonah. He watches them as they exit the gullet-gate and return to more familir rocky tunnels. Gelb then takes the lead, following pasages that exit near through a manhole at the back of the lightning rail station. They head for a bar. Hours have passed and it is now gone midnight. The night life might be in full swing in Menthis but Tavick's Landing is quiet except for a few folorn stragglers from the Cogs.
Janosz ignores Gelb for now. "Let's eat, drink, sleep, that sort of thing. Tomorrow morning we look up Gaia Sotharr and see what she has to offer. What we do after that depends on what she tells us, I guess."
"Aye; nighty night...."
Before leaving the mindflayer's domain...
Ezreal is silent for some time frowning while Round struggles in the chair before speaking, "Rolund, I do not not like this one bit, but I do not see any other solution that we might undertake quickly enough to break the curse. I have seen it. It has burrowed throughout your body and at this point it is impossible to say how much if any of your rational mind remains your own. I will look in on you daily to ensure that your host is not violating the terms of our agreement. I do not imagine that it would violate the terms of your curse for me to ensure your safety so do not shut me out when I focus on you. We will return as soon as we possibly can and you will explain how you managed to incur the wrath of a Devotee of the Flame powerful enough to do this and whether you have been under their thrall throughout your tenure in Karrnath's military."
On leaving with Saoonah...
"Gelb- you are a known criminal and thrall of the squid below. You will not walk alongside us in public with that face. Change it now. Do not use another one of your criminal aliases known here in Sharn either. I will know." On the street he casts a short spell and a cloud of golden glittering motes explodes high overhead and begins drifting down like twinkling snow. Then he shouts, "KADESH!!! TO ME!!!" trusting the sparkling beacon to draw him in.
The Mausoleum of Gath is not, despite the name, Gath's tomb. It is a temple to the Keeper, and home to undead and those than venerate them. As Gath and his disciples do not cause trouble in the city below, the authorities are largely content to leave them be - the possible loss of life that might ensue in trying the drive them out being not worth the meagre benefits. It would be expected than the warden, as a representative of the Chursh of the Silver Flame, would consider it a duty to destroy a nest of undead, but to date this has not been attempted.
While waiting on his familiar Ezreal lectures the others, "You may know that the residents of Sharn typically cremate the remains of the dead. This means that the two necropolises overlooking the city are more or less abandoned. One known as the Dragon Crypts is home to Warden Tower, occupied by mystics of the Silver Flame. This is where we will find Gaia Sotharr who recently took on the title of Warden. I understand that she was still quite young to take on a position traditionally occupied by... lets say eccentric hermits."
"The other is Halden's Tomb, up above Tavick's landing. It contains a temple to the Keeper known as the Mausoleum of Gath and is home to the undead and cultists that serve him- including the lich, Gath. For whatever reason, they keep mostly to themselves up there so the city has been willing to ignore them. And despite the typical zeal common to followers of the Silver Flame, Gaia as far as I know has never attempted to drive out the nest."
"I can... sorta see why the city prefers to leave the lich alone. But why haven't they demolished the other cemetary? Why waste space on disused, empty tombs when the city desperately needs more room for those that live?"
"Both are outside the manifest zone of Sharn. Without that planar overlap those relying on magical flight so common in the city would plummet from the sky and buildings in either area would only be able to support mundane architecture rather than the towers of Sharn."
"Tourism?
So, lich or Gaia first?"
"Gaia. Information will be key. But I do not intend to go knocking on a liches door unprepared with half my arsenal spent in the middle of the night to a graveyard filled with the dead. We will rest first and go in under daylight."
"Mundane architecture ain't so bad. If the bluebloods don't like it, f%+~ 'em. Houses are for the living, not the dead."
"Anyway. Gaia first. She might know something useful about the dead guy."
"Somehow, it doesn't seem to me the lich will be that confrontational.
I've learned,......Rolund aside that....the necromantically inclined aren't necessarily that vicious.
Um,......representative of the Flame though.....that one could go either way.
We could see her first though."
"I concur."
Gil nods in agreement.
"Yeah, those friendly necromancers.... Like the crowd at the Grey House? Or the lot in the giant cemetery?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Exactly. Even if Gath does turn out to be non confrontational I imagine we'll have to make an impression with the rabble before we manage to see him. Considering a fair portion of my trade lies in sapping strength and will from a living body I will need to adjust accordingly."
Before parting for the night Ezreal pulls Gil to the side momentarily and whispers, "I need you to get a message to Commander Malakar. He must know that Rolund has been under the thrall of an incredibly powerful Thranish compulsion for an unknown period of time. Any sensitive information he had access to has potentially been leaked back to Thrane during that time."
"Agreed, but how do you know it's Thranish in origin? Did he have this before joining your merry band?"
After spending the evening drinking and gambling with other patrons at the inn, Gelb shows up in his natural form. He takes a look at Ezreal's frown, sighs and rolls his eyes before changing his form.
In a few seconds, Gelb transforms in to the spitting image of Farlowe. "How's this? Better?"
He smiles for a moment at his humor before changing his form again into a nondescript human male with brown hair and brown eyes. "Shall we?"
Along the way to their destination, Gelb brushes and bumps strangers passing by. After some time passing a fat dwarven merchant, Gelb says with some satisfaction, "By the way, lunch is on me." He hefts a fat purse laden with coins in his hand.
There are a few paths from Lower Dura and Northedge up the cliffs to Dragon Crypts, and the group heads for those. Descending by lift and stairs, the bases of the towers are wreathed in shadows by the morning sun. At the city limits, where the worked stone of the foundations merges with the rock of the mesas on which the city is built, a small shanty town of a few mean huts stretches on the slope. A few of the inhabitants - mostly goblinoids - look on mutely as the adventurers pass through on the path up the crags.
It becomes clear quite quickly why the burial grounds were abandoned - it's quite a difficult hike up the steeply rising switch-back trail. The rising sun soon makes it uncomfortably hot, but it nevertheless ofers an impressive vista across the city normally only enjoyed by a few hardy goats. The towers leap up like a forest of stalagmites, with the separate Methis and Central plateaux clearly visible and views of the Dagger River to the west and south of the city. Tiny dots - skycoaches - buzz about like flies in the distance. But here it is oddly removed, with the sounds and smells of the city replaced by birdsong and the scent of the white and pink button-like flowers growing amid the tough grassy tufts jammed between the rocks of the cliffs.
After perhaps an hour's slog, the cliffs become less sheer. Dusty rock tombs - either free-standing or doorways cut into the rock - begin to appear beside the path. Eventually the gradient flattens out so that it is merely a steep slope rather than a drop of perhaps a thousand feet and the first full view of Dragon Crypts opens before the climbers. In the sunshine the tombs and statuary do not seem sinister. Butterflies flit between the weeds growing around the abandoned sepulchres, which range from simple box tombs with inscriptions worn away by the elements to once-imposing but now lichen-splotched monuments. The paths between are choked with tall-growing wild flowers and a small bird tends a nest built in the crook of a stone angel's neck. Scrubby bushes sprout here and there.
In the centre of the graveyard rises a slim tower of white stone. Near it wafts a blue haze of wood smoke.
As the party climbs the goat track, Janosz keeps poking around the trailside brush. He disappears between the monuments as they reach the graveyard proper. "See you at the tower!"
"That must be her domain. Shall we?" Rod heads for the tower.
The party make their way through the brambles and nettles between the monuments, heading in the direction of the tower.
"Be ready - something or someone is crashing through the bushes over there," as she points toward the east, "like they are running. Not sure where - I can't see them."