"Could always fly?"
The party walks on along the black stone road, through well-tended fields of wheat, barley, rice and corn. Orchards can be seen along the margins with various fruit trees. Occasionally groups of natives walk near them, but they cover their eyes and bow unless directly addressed.
Finally the town begins to appear. It is a group of adobe structures, with the flat roofs that speak of no harsh winter season. The natives here are dressed in finer fabrics and some carry ornaments of gold and silver. There also seem to be some sort of constructs marching about - jackal-headed golems armed with fearsome scimitars.
Near the center of town a tall ebon spire rises above the adobe buildings, about 200 feet into the air. There seem to be no windows or other entry points that the party can see from this vantage point, but they cannot see the base of the tower from where they stand.
"Can we fly now to the tower.
Those moving statues will likely seek to stop us else why have them".
As the group slows in their approach, pausing to discuss their options, Alessia continues to walk steadily and purposefully toward the tower.
"OR, we can just keep walking forward. Into the proverbial metal jaws. It does seem to be our usual SOP." Justin says sotto voice, gesturing at Alessia's slow but steady forward march.
Justin claps Hamar on his brawny shoulder.
"First rule of entering someplace you don't belong. Act like you DO belong. Most folks won't bother you if you look like you should be there. And the ones that do want to question you?,... We'll get to those rules later. For now, follow the Marching Plate Mail."
"First rule of Wizarding,..." Justin adds over his shoulder as he takes his own advice and follows Alessia,
",... Always make sure to stand behind the party member wearing the heaviest armor!"
"Guess that's a no to the flying then." Merle follows Alessia
Alessia walks unerringly towards the ebon tower, like some dark icon of fate. The wind off the wide river whips her dark robes around her armor as she heads into the town proper. There isn’t a wall around the town, but there is some sort of ceremonial archway, covered in brightly-painted hieroglyphics. A few merchant stalls are set up with farmers selling produce and livestock. The vendors fall quiet as the menacing figure stalks up towards them. The buzz of conversation stills until all that can be heard is the bleat of a sheep tied to a stake nearby.
As Alessia nears, she hears a rumbling noise. One of the jackal-headed constructs lumbers towards her, bright gem eyes glowing as it raises a stone scimitar
Justin takes a look at the Hieroglyphs on the arch, seeing if he can translate them.
At the grinding sound of the stone jackal-headed golem approaching, Justin sighs, dropping his head to his chest.
After a moment the wizard turns to the rest of the group, jabbing a finger at the golem.
"For the record. I would like to point out that I,... I mean WE, DON'T ALWAYS START IT!"
The wizard isn't being just a tad defensive at all. Nope.
The arch is done in a form of what is known in wizarding circles as ‘Archaic Hieroglyphic Osirian’, and is often used in ancient magics and rituals, especially when wizards want to craft spells that they don’t particularly want to make easy for casual crafters to unmake. Justin studied it extensively, having a paranoid streak as a young wizard, and used elements in his spell work even now.
From what he can see, the arch is basically a giant warding spell. It can ‘sense’ natives of the demiplane, and will send the guardian golems after those who are not natives. Justin thinks about blowing the arch up, but there looks as if there are some nasty counterspell blowback consequences woven into the hieroglyphics there as well. What he needs to do is figure out the proper series of hieroglyphics that act as a visitors badge …
"Mem? Are you seeing this?! If I take this glyph and that one, no!,... THAT one,..."
"Oh. Well on second glance, THAT'S obvious."
Justin glances at the oncoming golem.
"How's your penmanship under pressure Oh skull of knowledge?"
"Better than yours oh wise-cracking wizard! If I only had opposable thumbs!"
The mimir retorts, quickly fading his mage hand out of existence.
Justin hits his knees to the ground with an audible grunt. He reaches over his shoulders into the top of his magic pack.
"Accio parchment! Accio writing box!" and pulls out a roll of paper and a small wooden box.
The wizard slaps open a roll of parchment, and hastily opens the small wooden box containing quills and a couple of small, stoppered dark bottles.
"Normally I'd just use charcoal. But we need to make sure that they can SEE these,..." Justin mutters to no one in particular.
Justin inks glyphs onto the page, with Memnon 'helping' with advice,...
After saying what are probably bad words in an ancient language and tossing the first page away, Justin manages to ink out the glyphs he desired. Leaving his writing supplies on the ground, the wizard stands up, carefully holding the page.
Justin walks forward to catch up to Alessia, Hissing at the warrior to stop. He turns and holds up the parchment towards the golem.
After a snickering comment from Memnon, Justin quickly turns the page right-side-up and presents it to the golem again,...
Alessia slows her pace, then very deliberately cranes her neck to stare directly at the jackal golem. She stops entirely as Justin approaches, then turns her gaze toward the wizard.
"What?" she hisses.
Justin recalls that Golems are notoriously tunnel visioned. He uses his flight power to present the glyphs right in front of the golems eyes. The golem's bright sapphire eyes flash and it swings 180 degrees and lumbers off in another direction.
Justin sighs in relief as the golem lumbers off.
"Heh. Who says we always pick fights?"
Alessia slows her pace, then very deliberately cranes her neck to stare directly at the jackal golem. She stops entirely as Justin approaches, then turns her gaze toward the wizard.
"What?" she hisses.
"Ah,... Nothing?" Justin squeaks.
He had no problem facing the oversized stone golem with nothing but a piece of parchment as a shield. But a possibly (Probably?) angry Alessia?
He may not be the smartest wizard EV-ar, but he's smarter than that!
"Um,... Here, hold this. If another of those golems approaches you, just show that to them. erm,... excuse me,..."
Justin hands Alessia the parchment, and hastily flies back to his writing supplies. After rescuing his wind-blown parchment, he carefully inks out another copy of the glyphs pass-code for everyone else.
The wizard packs away his remaining parchments and ink-box, and tucks his copy of the passport into an empty tube on his bandolier.
"Hey,... wait for me!"
Hamar doesn't love the prospect of fighting the giant moving stone thing-y but he draws his blades to get ready to do just that. Then the Wizard solves the problem and hands him a parchment.
He scratches his head, "Wizards..." and follows along just behind Alessia.
"Eh luck..." Merle mumbling as she takes one of the glyph papers from justin.
The party advances to the center of town. The townsfolk give them a wide berth- although better dressed, they seem to be of the same stock as the farmers they had passed coming into this place.
The Ebon tower sits in an empty plaza. What looks to be a large temple faces it on one side of the plaza, and various buildings surround it on the other sides. A small group of natives stand before the steps of the large temple, watching the party’s progress
"They're watching us, is that in hopes for our assistance or to oppose us?" He asks no one in particular.
"They probably don't get many tourists . . ." Karrin muses.
Alessia continues to walk steadily forward, heading straight for the temple steps.
"They're watching us, is that in hopes for our assistance or to oppose us?" He asks no one in particular.
"Um,... Yes?" Justin finally replies with a shrug.
"They probably don't get many tourists . . ." Karrin muses.
"That too." The wizard nods in agreement.
After a brief pause to consider, Justin continues to follow Alessia. He hums a spritely tune he overheard folks singing while passing through the false pyramid not too long ago,...
"Follow the yellow brick road, Follow the yellow brick road,..."
The ebon tower is constructed of some sort of featureless black stone. There is no sign of mortar or individual bricks- the whole thing smells of sorcery. No door presents itself, but there is a balcony about 15 meters above the plaza that sticks out a small bit from the side of the tower.
The wizard holds up the 'magic pass' parchment he drew out.
When no door magically appears 'It was worth a try' he mutters, Justin looks up at the balcony above.
"Hm. No way that's not a trap. Only one thing to do about it."
He smirks as he digs into his magic pack for a rope.
"Walk into it and see what happens."
[ooc]Activate detect magic,