nklebiter tried to cast his spell once again, and once more he felt his counter slide off the hard shell of the insanity curse. Kelendra was unable to control her thoughts, one moment in the present, and the next in some world of her own imagining.
Calla grunts in frustration.
"We can't sit and wait here forever. We're just going to have to hope she can control herself in a fight," she says. "Let's go after the next rune ... unless we want to see if the shaitan can help us."
"She's a genie, right?" Bruendor said, not so much a question as it was a statement of fact. "Couldn't she just wish this away?"
"Not all genies grant wishes... Let me call up the movanic deva again before we go anywhere. She was helpful."
Provided no one objects, Anklebiter draws a diagram on the ground and starts conjuring...
...to no effect.
"Resisted. This is not my day," the Goblin sighs, ears drooping.
Kel makes a lovely bouquet of mushrooms while the party chatters in the background.
And Lefrik is careful to stay gently away. "Well, I feel bad manhandling a friend. Maybe the genie KNOWs of an item or something"
Anklebiter casts his travel spell, and away you go back to the shaitan's temple. As you arrive, this time you are greeted not by drow, but by the shaitan herself.
"Hello, heroes. How fared you in your endeavors? I felt the earth cry out in joy at the dispersal of the glpyhs, and the fall of the neolithid. Why have you returned? A re you in need of a safe place to rest and recover?"
"That would be welcome, Daughter and Guardian of Earth, but we also have a problem that we hope you might be able to help us with," Anklebiter explains. "Sister Kel caught the final goodbye of the second glyph and appears to be permanently confused. I have tried and failed to break the effect twice already, and we will definitely need her help to break the remaining glyphs."
"Her head's all wibbly-wobbly," Magpie 'explains'.
Calla scowls and waits to see if the shaitan can help.
"Despite the contortions that one's face is going through, I do believe I can help. You see, I have a very limited ability to grant a single wish per day. It is possible that could help your friend, unless the curse of insanity is far stronger than my magics. Normally, this wish would come at a great price, but since you are aiding this land that I love, I will happily bestow it for no cost whatsoever."
Looking deep into Kelendra's eyes, the shaitan said, "Stay, child of the heavens. This will not hurt you a bit."
There was no chanting, or flash of light. The shaitan's eyes simply blinked once and Kelendra felt the confusion and chaos in her mind shatter like thin glass, replaced by the clarity and logic that she was accustomed to.
Bruendor awaits some sort of thunderclap, or perhaps a rumble in the earth as the genie bends reality to her whim. He's astonished when nothing happens, but clarity returns to Kel's eyes nonetheless. "Kelendra," he ventures. "Are you alright?"
Calla smiles as Kelendra appears to be restored, but then her gaze shifts to the shaitan.
"If it's this easy, why can't we just wish Allevrah and the drow away?"
Anklebiter bows deep before the geniekin and lightly - politely - brushes her knuckles with his lips.
"Thank you," he says with sincerity.
Then he turns to Calla.
"Wish magic is full of rules. Do you know how many Drow there are? Where they are? What their true names are? Do you know they haven't contracted demons or other creatures to continue the plan in their name? And our good friend here has already said there are limits to her power."
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Kel blinks a few times as the fog in her mind clears. A long sigh leaks out as her shoulders slump. "Gods, that was terrible. Thank you!" She smiles weakly and finds a boulder to sit upon. "Why are my hands all dirty and smell like mushrooms?"
"They were real pretty 'shrooms," Magpie proudly says as she lands on Kelendra's head, "but I toldya not ta eat any an' you din't!"
"Alas, angry one, my powers do not work like that. I can cure conditions, break curses, create magical items, transport to anywhere in the planes...but I don't have the power to simply remove a sentient creature from existence. Not unless they are in my presence and would be susceptible to something like a disintegrate spell. We say we have the ability to grant 'wishes', but those requests still have limits. If it was in my power to rid Allevrah and her ilk of this place, do you not think I would have done it already, rather than allow myself to be imprisoned?"
"Fair enough," Calla grumps. "It'll be more fun to do it ourselves, anyway. Let her see what her actions have brought down on her head."
Once the others are ready, she casts her usual spells on her weaponry and herself and prepares to fly to the next sigil.
With Kelendra cleansed of her insanity, you all decided to head back out, hoping to hasten the removal of the next of the glyphs. With Anklebiter's spell active, you zoomed over the terrain and the dark lake, avoiding most of the dangers of this place entirely. The eeriness of a completely black world seen only in a bubble of darkvision 120 feet across was mind-bending. Anklebiter had to keep you low enough to see the terrain, and high enough not to splatter you all over it.
If not for Bruendor's sense of direction underground, and the map provided for you, it would likely have taken weeks, if not months to find your goal. As it was, you arrived in a few days to the area on the map marked as the Rotstone Hollows.
When the glyph at the Fetid Palace exploded, several of you saw a flight of ethereal bats flap off to a southerly direction. Looking at the map back at the shatian's temple, you discussed matters, and all agreed that the area marked as the Rotstone Hollows seemed the most likely spot for the next glyph to reside at.
When you arrived in the area, you could immediately tell you were in the right place on the map. Whereas the Fetid Palace had been buried deep in a fungi jungle, the land revealed by your darkvision looked to be full of mud. All around, you can see sucking ooze that looked exactly as if the stones in this place had mouldered away, leaving nothing behind but slime-filled pools of the same color and texture.
You spent most of another day in a search pattern, flying over seemingly-endless mud flats, looking for signs of the next glyph. Occasionally, you caught a glimpse of a ruined wall, or even an entire building, protruding slightly through the mud. Investigation of these yielded no clues about the civilization that constructed them, other than they seemed to be humanoids. Finally, you came across an island protruding out of the muck, not more than a hundred feet across. On the island are three towers, sunken into the soft ground left behind. The towers look as if they might have been upwards of 30-50 feet tall originally, but only about 10 feet still remained above the mud now, except for the largest, which was double that. In between the towers, a deep cone depression sank into the mud.
"What was the guardian for this place, again…?" Anklebiter asks, nose wrinkling at the look - and smell! - of the place.
"You're asking me? " Lefrik says. He has been relieved since someone's mind was restored.
"Chardas," Calla replies, "whatever they are."
She points to the largest of the three towers.
"Might as well start there, once we're ready."
"If they choose to live here, then they're probably muddy and disgusting," Bruendor replies, his eyes scanning the mud for signs of life.
"It's clear why they left this place, what a disgusting environment. Let's try the illusion tactic again before setting foot in that mucky place ourselves." Kel weaves an illusion of the party around the tower and perched on the roof and creates a ghostly mock investigation of the place.
You all alight on the largest of the towers, and Kel immediately cast an illusion of the party around the base of the tower. There was no response to the illusion, and after a few moments it was clear that there was not going to be more than that.
You saw the tops of each of the towers had a trapdoor leading into the interior when you first flew in, and the one you landed on was no exception.
"You want us to go fly around?" Duchess offers. "Up high-like, but so's to be sure nothing's oozing up to attack us from behind? Or the kid can fly ahead inside, if you like."
"Nuh-uh, the grandma can fly ahead inside!" Magpie counters, glaring at Duchess.
"Sure, quickly," Calla agrees to the squabbling Ankle nippers.
Once they're done, she nods to Bruendor.
"Make sure it's safe, and then let's go in."
She keeps an eye out for any trouble as they wait.
Kel waits for her brave companions to lead the way, then follows close enough to keep them in sight as they move into the tower.
Down in the trapdoor, you can see that the wooden interior of the tower has completely rotted away. The homunclus chosen for indoor scouting duty reported back that there was nothing but dust and cobwebs inside.
"Another tower then?" Calla suggests.
She points at the northern one.
Bruendor nods to Calla's suggestion. "Let's try to avoid getting mucked on as long as we can."
"You know, getting dirty is hardly the worst fae we've encountered, but then knowing this place the mud is possessed with demons or something so.. mmh you know what, Brue's right"
"Also, things are probably living in it. Like oozes. Let's start scanning for magic. Maybe we can find the glyph faster that way."
Despite slipping into the arcane vision necessary to see magic, Anklebiter learned nothing new that his eyes, and scouts, didn't already tell him.
As a group you slipped over to the eastern tower, opening its trapdoor and looking in to see a layer of mud. Countless footprints of oddly-shaped feet crossed through the mud here, circling around a stone trapdoor in the center of the floor.
"Should we at least look in the other tower before we go through that door?"
Lefrik and Calla spotted two lumps in the mud that didn't look quite as smooth as the rest of the floor covering. More than likely it was a pair of creatures remaining very, very still.
"There's something there," Calla points out, "but who knows what. It might be worth trying your illusions again, Stars..."
"I just want to know whether it's hiding to jump us, or hiding scared," Anklebiter says.
"Reminds me of crocodile in a swamp...acting like a log."