Anklebiter squares himself, straightens his new tunic and goes forth.
After an appropriate amount of time passes, Bruendor attempts to cross the threshold again.
"What was the phrase, 'I am a friend to Iadara, and none shall enter this place without my permission'?" Kel whispers to her companions.
"I tried that already, with little success," Calla notes.
Anklebiter knows that the wasps are simple stone golems, given insectile form. Ostensibly there to protect guests from outside attackers, they would serve as jailers as well. Speed, stealth, or brute force is necessary to get past these guardians.
The pass phrase did nothing to open the door or to return the wasps to immobility. In fact, the longer you stood by the door, the more mobile the statues became. Anklebiter finally mentioned that the door was closed with an Arcane Lock, and it would be necessary to defeat the locking spell to escape the doors.
Anklebiter leads the group back inside and relates his findings.
"The good news; I have a spell that can suspend the lock on the door. The bad news; those golems have orders to keep us here, and they're very strong. The good news; golems can't see invisible creatures, and I have a spell to render us all invisible. The bad news; I don't have that second spell studied. Give me one more night, and I can get us out of here - if fate smiles on us."
"Well, waiting is...possible," A grumble, "Why are the elves doing this? I mean, this is a lot of trouble just to keep us out of the way. "
"Elves don't think like you and I, giant friend Lefrik Olegson," Anklebiter says. "Living for centuries warps their perspective."
"Yes, I'm sure they tell themselves the shorter lived races lack farsightedness , I think they must be a sad people to be so scared of the worst of what might be all the time. We might be a threat, so some of them attack us, we might be a nuisance or interfere so they try to trap us away. It's not good for them to be scared all the time. It poisons the soul, and will make prisoners of them as well. They have, in their paranoia, crafted a cage for themselves even more insidious than the one here." He shakes his head, "I've seen brave elves, but I'm starting to think they're all on the front line."
"Sounds good," Bruendor says, nodding in agreement with AB's plan. "I'm sure we could destroy these wasp golems, or whatever they are, but I'm all for avoiding a fight if we can help it."
He then turns to Quilindra with an inquisitive eye. "So, once we're past the doors, you want us to go where? Thorn's End? What's there?"
Calla nods, agreeing with Bruendor.
"One more night here to rest hopefully won't result in the destruction of the world."
She turns to Quilindra, her own questions spoken by her dwarven companion before she gets the chance.
"And how do we get there? These nodes you mentioned, we simply walk up to them or should we expect fights to simply get through?"
Kel is grateful for the plan of action.
"The elves don't guard most of the nodes. I think we can make our way to Thorn's End without any interference, if we can escape this place without notice. We will have to take a roundabout route to get there, but I remember the pathways...I think. As for what is at Thorn's End, all I know is that it is an ancient elven stronghold, and where the key members of the Winter Council live, spinning their deceits and manipulations. If we can confront and defeat them there, the hard-liner traditionalists' grasp on elven politics will be broken, and I can have my vengeance."
"Very well," Calla agrees. "I also have invisibility available, though a single spell from Greenie might be a better use of our resources."
"Invisibility sphere will not just render us invisible, but augment our stealth as well. If the golems have orders to listen as well as look, that may come in handy.
I will prepare the spell thrice; with the rod to double their duration, that covers us for fifty-four minutes; almost an hour.
Here is my plan: First, we all acclimatize to the pressure near the door. When we're all ready, I cast and extend Invisibility sphere, we approach the door, I cast Knock, Bruendor jimmies the door open, and we get out of here quick and quiet. Any objections?"
"The statues reacted the longer we stood by the door, and may not care for your spellcasting. We should use the sphere before we enter that area. Do we have any way to silence the area around the guardians without hampering your own spellcasting?"
Lefrik nods, ready to leave things to the Goblin's plan.
The new day dawns, and Anklebiter studies his spellbooks.
Once he is done, he eats a modest breakfast, straightens his clothes and dons his backpack.
He takes up his staff, twirls it once, and snaps his fingers. Minky comes running and clambers up onto his shoulders. The homunculi come flapping over.
The Goblin walks over to the edge of the hall and focuses his willpower, straining to weather the pressure. Once he is sure he has it down, the Goblin turns and looks at his comrades, his friends, and hefts his staff.
"Let's go," he says. "Form up and be ready for the spell. Everyone out on bad behaviour."
"That's the only type of behavior I have," Calla says. She's joking ... maybe. It's hard to tell.
[ooc]
Calla shakes her head in frustration as the spell works it's power on her. "You will not stop me," she growls, continuing to push forward.
Calla casts resistance on Bruendor, who struggled last time even with Quilindra's trick.
Once again, Bruendor steps forward into the room with the wasp guardians. This time, however, he's prepared himself for the mental onslaught, and has no difficulty entering the room.
"Let's be careful", Kel cautions, "we know we have enemies in the shadows here."
As soon as everyone has weathered the pressure effect, Anklebiter calls the group into a huddle.
"Be within ten feet of me," he warns. "Attack nothing and no one unless there is no choice, or the spell will collapse. Once the spell is cast, stay within ten feet of me, and we head for the door. Once we're at the door, I'll cast the other spell. If it's still locked, Bruendor, you'll have to get it open. Everyone move as stealthily as you can. Here - we - go."
The Goblin takes a deep breath, then takes up the rod he was given as a present by the Shin'Rakorath and chants a spell he gleaned from the spellbook of a dead Drow.
Silently, Anklebiter gives the group the nod to get moving...
Finally, after what seemed like a week's worth of time, but was really only a few hours, all of you were able to break the compulsion that kept you from wanting to leave the chambers. Anklebiter cast his invisibility spell, and you bundled yourselves to the locked front door. It didn't take but a few moments to cat the charm to remove the arcane lock, and then you all squirted out the door, with the stone wasps just starting to come to life behind you. As agreed, you all turned to the side, waiting until Anklebiter released the invisibility spell so that you could see each other. It was late in the night, and the palace grounds were quiet.
Quilindra motioned for you to follow her, then took off at a fast pace, navigating the corridors and open glades of the palace grounds with the ease of one familiar with the territory. She led you to a large grove of elms and oak with an auidara at the center. Around the gate were ever-widening rings of lotus beds, with blooms of white, red, peach, and even black. There were no guards.
Quilindra looked around nervously at the lack of guards and said, "We need to be out of Iadara quickly. If we can keep moving along the auidara paths, I think we can stay ahead of our pursuers and should be able to reach Thorn’s End before the Winter Council realizes it."
“While there’s not an auidara that leads directly to Thorn’s End, several of them did lead into southern Kyonin at a time. Most of these have been deactivated or destroyed — the elves don’t want Treerazer’s demons using them to invade Golarion. But some of them still exist, and I know of one that’s only a few hours away from our goal."
“There are two types of auidara. Some are simply two-way portals that link distant locations, but many are hubs that connect to two or more sites. For the simple portals, you just activate them and step through. The hubs are a bit more complex; you need a portal key to indicate which of the multiple destinations you wish to travel to. I’ve got all of the portal keys we’ll need to navigate our route—from Iadara to a site in Galt, and thence to a site in northern Irrisen, and from there to an abandoned elven fortress in Ustalav. I was holding them for safekeeping when Killias was murdered."
"Quickly now. We must hurry!"
She moved forward to touch the activation stone at the side of the elfgate.
Kel curses in a very Calla like fashion. "Holy f&%$#*g stars, how did you forget to mention that we needed to travel through a land of continually s*%$#y war, the frozen wastes of the far g%$$$#@&d north and a realm of d*&$%$#d vampires on our way!" Kel looks to her companions before proceeding through the gate.
"I can cast the sphere twice again today, sister Kel," Anklebiter says, soothingly. "We should be alright."
Calla looks taken aback as Kel starts cursing, but then a slow smile creeps across her face. She nods at her friend, appreciating that the woman is finally seeing the way of things.
She pads forward silently.
"Today just keeps getting better and better," Bruendor grumbles to himself. As he's preparing to follow, he has a thought. "Wait!", he whispered to Quilindra. "Let me make sure that nobody has set up anything to alter the magics - send us into the fires of Hell, or drown in the Plane of Water, or whatever." He begins to take a look at the elf-gate to make certain that activating it won't cause problems.
,
"Also, what if something happens to you along the way? If we lose the elf-stones, we can't make the elf-gates activate, and then we're screwed. Can you tell us how to activate the gates?"
Quilandra looked over her shoulder to grin at Bruendor. "Don't worry shortry. You and your muscled friend here are too good looking for me to want to leave your side. I'm sure you'll protect me, won't you?" She flashed a devilish grin and activated the gate.
A rippling blue-white membrane burst into being in the center of the arch that made up the gate, expanding to fill the entire area. The light lit up the glade, acting as a beacon to any that might glance in this direction. As soon as the gate was fully engaged, Quilindra motioned for everyone to go through, then stepped through the gate herself.
"Keep within ten feet of me," Anklebiter repeats. "I'll cast the spell again if we need it."
Then the Goblin follows through.
Calla makes her way through the gate, with bow in hand, though her plan is to try to avoid needing to use it. She peers around once through to the other side.
Anklebiter will cast Detect magic and maintain it.
With no other option but to trust the mysterious woman, Bruendor stepped through the portal as well, staying close to Anklebiter.
"I don't like it," he whispers to the goblin. "It's damned convenient we met her. Too convenient, almost. I don't know what game is being played here, but I don't like it."
Kel pushes aside her trepidation and goes through the gate.
Anklebiter quietly nods to Bruendor and grips his staff...
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