Reason's divine light washes over his friends and wounds heal. The trembling of the ground ceases as on the fringes of vision, the watching dead cry out in a silent shout of acknowledgment of your accomplishment.
Victory leaves a melancholy taste. There has been too much lost here for jubilation.
Vel stirs, returning to consciousness. "It should have been me," she mutters bitterly. She then looks to Whiteclaw. "What happened inside it?"
"There was a feast, and dancing warlocks, and a bear." the gnoll says, before snorting. "It tried to digest me, what did you think would happen inside something's stomach?
"After our adventures, your first statement sounds all too plausible."
Vel grunts and falls silent, turning away from the others.
Kia will still heal Vel since she in is still very low on HP.
Kia starts picking up about 10 suitable stones.
"Aren't we supposed to go back to Pashira now, and see what trick these people want us to perform next?" the gnoll asks.
Pashira's shadowy form fills the entrance to the tomb and you pass through the portal he has formed and out of the halfworld. It is now full dark. Time within the shadow realm has had no meaning for you, but returned to your own plane, the pangs of hunger and fatigue bite hard.
The Iron Warrior surveys you, not unsympathetically.
"Rebirth is not without a price. The chains now binding the One Who Devours are well forged. They will hold long years. Say to the People that you have walked my path. That Pashira, Iron Warrior of the People, the Unmade Reborn One speaks it so. Tell them the Path of Dawn and Dusk has opened to you.
My name in rebirth is known to you. To speak it is to call me. Three times you may do so and I may aid you. Do not do so lightly, for my help is not to be squandered."
"Rest now and eat if you wish. Leave when you will. Before you do so, look to my grave."
Pashira gestures and a warming fire springs up and then he vanishes, leaving you alone in his tomb with only the firelight and the images on the walls for company.
"I don't know about you, but I could do with some rest."
After the primordial oddity of the Halfworld, Pashira's tomb seems almost commonplace and comforting as the party rest in their respective ways. No dreams torment or tantalise you, nor is there any other interruption. As the first light of dawn breaks, you rouse and contemplate the day ahead.
As amusing as a diplomatic Whiteclaw might be!
"Pashira said to look to his grave didn't he? We had better do that before we do anything else. I don't want to anger him."
Pashira's grave lies at the back of the tomb and consists of nothing more than a pile of seemingly randomly placed rocks. There are many of them, heaped carefully on top of each other for form a protective shell. You notice that each rock glitters slightly. These are ore-bearing stones.
At the edges of the cairn lie fragments of ancient, dessicated flowers and on the very top, a horse's skull. It may be just a trick of the dampening firelight, but deep within you see something glinting.
Kia goes to take a closer look at the grave and the glinting skull.
"Perhaps we could add some fresh flowers..."
"Flowers would be welcome."
Pashira's voice speaks again.
"I offer you my grave goods. The treasure of the Kargzant followed me into the fires and is returned with your rebirth. Take them. Use them. Save my land."
Arianwyn says to Kia, "Never look a gift horse-skull in the mouth."
Careful removal of the stone cairn reveals a veritable treasure trove. Pashira must indeed have been the legend the Kargzant claim to have been honoured with such gifts to take on his journey to the next world.
Two suits of armour, one made of leather etched with runes and one made of hide in the likeness of dark leaves lie beneath a battleaxe edged in chill rime. Adjacent, is a Kargzant longbow, lovingly crafted with gold runes entwined up the arch and ending in a figure of a charging horse's head. A slender diadem sits atop the armour and within it, guarding the whole array, stands a carved wooden hound, with a softly glowing opal in its mouth. At the very head of the mound, lies a thin sheet of onyx, engraved with pictures that seem to move and change in the dying firelight. All the items exude arcane power.
Ironwood Hound
Power (Daily • Conjuration): Standard Action. Use this figurine to conjure a yellow-furred hunting hound (see below for statistics). As a free action, you can spend a healing surge when activating this item to give the creature temporary hit points equal to your healing surge value.
Initiative: as conjuror
Senses Perception +8; low-light vision
HP 15 ; Bloodied 7
AC 24; Fortitude 22, Reflex 19, Will 21
Speed 6
Bite (standard, at-will)
+15 vs AC; 2d6+3 damage
Drive Back (standard, at-will)
+13 vs Fortitude; 2d6+3 damage, and the target is pushed 2 squares and the ironwood hound can shift 2 squares. The ironwood hound must end its shift adjacent to the target's new position.
Alignment Unaligned Languages -
Skills Intimidate +7
Str 13 (+6) Dex 12 (+6) Wis 16 (+8)
Con 18 (+9) Int 2 (+1) Cha 8 (+4)
Diadem of Acuity
Level: 8
Price: 3,400 gp
Item Slot: Head
Property: Gain a +2 item bonus to Insight checks and Perception checks.
+3 Darkleaf Hide Armor (level 14)
Level: 14
Enhancement: +3 AC
Property: Gain a +2 item bonus to AC against the first attack made against you in each encounter.
+3 Runic leather Armor
Level: 13
Enhancement: +3 AC
Property: You gain an item bonus to Arcana checks equal to the armor’s enhancement bonus.
Property: When you use your second wind, you also gain a bonus to damage rolls with arcane attack powers equal to the armor’s enhancement bonus until the end of your next turn.
+3 Duelist’s Bow
(Level 12)
Enhancement: Attack and Damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 per plus
Property: When you hit an enemy with this weapon, that enemy takes a -2 penalty to ranged and area attack rolls until the end of your next turn.
Frost Fury Battleaxe (Level 13)
Weapon: Axe
Enhancement: +3 attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 cold damage per plus, or +1d10 cold damage per plus while you’re bloodied
Property: While you’re bloodied, this axe deals extra cold damage equal to your Constitution modifier.
Medallion of Death Deferred
Level: 9
Price: 4,200 gp
Item Slot: Neck
Enhancement: +2 Fortitude, Reflex, and Will
Power (Daily): No Action. Use this power when you are reduced to 0 hit points or fewer. You regain hit points equal to 3 per plus of this item.
Gem of Colloquy (Kargzant)
Property: Gain a +1 item bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Understand and speak 1 additional language, chosen at the time of the gem’s creation.
And a thin onyx tablet etched with pictograms of as-yet-unknown purpose.
Kia notices the obscure tablet... "What could this be?"
Kia's encyclopedic knowledge of history informs her that the onyx tablet is an ancient device used as a memory aid. It seems to yearn to absorb rituals and knowledge.
When attuned to its owner, the Onyx Tablet holds rituals as a Holy Book (1000 pages), but weighs almost nothing.
In addition, the Onyx Tablet can restore lost rituals at the cost of one per day. The restoration is random and requires the owner to spend an hour in silent contemplation. The lost ritual will appear in the form of pictograms and will not be intelligible to anyone other than the owner unless the owner so chooses.
In order to attune itself, the Onyx Tablet must be held for the duration of an extended rest. Due to the necessary contemplative strain of the undertaking, at the end of the attuning rest, the owner regains his surges -3 for that rest only. Powers and hp restore as normal.
The owner may detach him or herself from the book by offering it to another owner freely.
Arianwyn ponders.
Whiteclaw makes no comments about the hoard, though she does take the axe to have a weapon once more.
Kia turns to Reason, holding out the onyx tablet. "I think you will make good use of this."
"Arianwyn, don't you want the little dog? To make up for your gifting of Urho?"
Arianwyn winces at Kia's description of the statuette as a 'little dog'. He regards the treasures.
"Mayhap friend Reason wouldst need a bodyguard?" he says in reference to the magical hound.
The best that Kia can find is a patch of scrubby heather, but at least it is a living bloom.
Kia finds the most bloomful of the scrubby heather and arranges in on Pashira's grave.
"Sorry it's not any more, but it's all I can find."
Reason happily takes the Hide Armour, the diadem, and the tablet, leaving the hound for Arianwyn.