"Don't let her get away!" Gideon says to the others, moving up to Rayland and kicking his weapon as far across the room as he can before casting a healing spell on him, hoping he isn't too late to save the man's life.
Weyve comes over to the door of the tank and looks down before releasing his spell.
He then begins casting another spell. Once again his eyes go black with mist. A faint voice can be heard behind him as he casts.
"ለምን ትዋጉታላችሁ? እንደ አንቺ መሆን አለብሽ."
Weyve passes his hand beside his ears. "Shut up," he mumbles.
He launches a bolt of darkness at Eliza.
The celestial dolphin rams Eliza with its snout.
Tobar thrusts his crossbow into the water to fire down at Eliza. His bolt tears through a mirror image, destroying it. While Gideon moves to heal the bleeding bowman, Weyve finishes his spell, and a shimmering dolphin appears behind Eliza. The dolphin tries to ram her, but only succeeds in destroying another mirror image. The gillman tries to trap Eliza's shadow again, but she barely manages to resist the spell!
Suddenly, the water elemental surges into action. It swims up to the dolphin and delivers a powerful slam that leaves the creature barely conscious!
Calvin dives in to try to get to Eliza, slashing with his sword, but only hitting another mirror image. The woman has one image left.
Focusing on retreat, Eliza withdraws, leaping out of the water tank and running out the open door to the north towards the ramp leading down!
Weyve jumps in the water tank and swims down to the lower entrance. He jumps out and continues running after Eliza, drawing his crossbow as he goes.
"Maybe we can shoot the woman before she gets out of sight," Weyve says.
Swearing under his breath as the chase is taken up, despite the new presence of the elemental, Gideon jumps into the water, swimming down as quickly as he is able to.
Weyve dives in to the water and swims down to pursue Eliza, provoking the elemental as he passes. The creature delivers a powerful slam, cracking his skull and making him see stars! Despite the pain, he emerges from the tank and staggers into the next room. His dolphin takes vengeance on the elemental, battering it with its snout!
Gideon and Tobar swim down as well, though they are slower than the gillman in water, they make up for it when they get out of the tank.
The elemental swings on the dolphin again, smashing it back to oblivion. It continues the swing as it cleaves into Calvin, leaving him disabled and barely conscious!
Calvin is able to carefully hop out of the tank, but can't go further without exposing himself to another potentially deadly strike!
Tobar and Gideon catch a glimpse of Eliza's robe as she runs down the ramp!
"Dang it!" says Tobar as he comes out the far side. "We're getting in too deep. Literally and figuratively." He glances back at Calvin, badly wounded, and says, "Fight here or chase?"
...Calvin is able to carefully hop out of the tank, but can't go further without exposing himself to another potentially deadly strike!
"Leave her! She's gone! None of us can take her alone! We need to see to Rayland!" Gideon calls after his companions, running to catch up with them as quickly as he can.
RETCON:
The dolphin tries to strike Eliza as she leaps out of the tank, but it is too slow to score a hit. The elemental slams the dolphin and sends it back to whence it came before moving in on Calvin. Before it can attack him, though, the fighter withdraws, giving chase to Eliza. He is on her heels as she starts to run down the ramp to the lower level.
"Let's go!" Tobar says, moving as he reloads.
Weyve touches his wound as he runs after Eliza, getting his crossbow ready.
You rush after Eliza, heading towards the ramp to the lower level. The water elemental leaps out of the tank and awkwardly starts stomping towards you, but it doesn't seem to be able to move very fast on land. Calvin rushes down past Gideon and Tobar to threaten Eliza again, making it difficult for her to withdraw further.
Hoping to aid in her escape, Eliza tries to cast a spell defensively. She succeeds and vanishes from sight again!
Tobar rolls his head to crack his neck. "Figures." He keeps his crossbow ready for her inevitable reappearance.
"Dammit, I didn't think that thing would leave the tank," Weyve says as he hears the elemental coming out. He continues racing down the ramp towards the exit.
And he looks around for Eliza. "And now where's she gone? Keep your ears open, and watch for wet footprints on the floor. Or if a door opens we know she must be there. Maybe."
Gideon continues to chase after the others; if he has time to do so when he emerges from the water, he casts Grease on the ground by the exit from the facility to try and check her attempt to escape.
Gideon conjures a patch of grease by the door exiting the facility as you move further across the room. Calvin stands with his sword at the ready.
The leftmost door swings open, revealing Eliza's location. Calvin slashes through empty air as he tries to hit her. You see footprints appear in the grease as she manages to keep her footing and starts towards the facility's exit. But Tobar raises his crossbow and fires a bolt towards where the footprints are. The bolt disappears as it strikes something solid. Eliza lets out a gurgling cry, then the grease splashes as she falls and lies still.
Weyve can see the water elemental trundling down the ramp behind him!
"Guys... our watery friend is still coming. It doesn't move too fast though, so spread out and hit it from a distance."
Weyve falls back into the room.
Following Weyve's advice, Gideon moves to get away from the range of the elemental, getting his bow ready to fire as he moves.
Tobar backpedals away from the elemental's direction as he reloads and waits for its arrival.
Weyve reconsiders and readies his wand.
You position yourselves to be ready when the elemental makes it down the ramp. As it makes its presence known, Gideon grazes it with an arrow, but Tobar's shot goes wide. Weyve conjures a flaming sphere, but it nimbly avoids the fiery ball. Calvin is able to plunge his sword deep into its body, though, badly wounding it. The elemental tries to slam him in retaliation, but it misses.
"I only got one trick, so I might as well use it until it works," mumbles Tobar as he fires again.
Weyve waves the wand and the sphere rolls towards the elemental again.
Weyve then points the wand, conjuring another sphere!
With Calvin in melee range with the elemental, Gideon drops his shortbow and rushes forward with his machete to try hacking at the enemy.
The elemental dodges Weyve's flaming sphere again, but Tobar and Gideon pick up the slack. The crossbowman fires a bolt into the watery mass, and Gideon slices the creature with his machete, and it collapses into a miniature flood that pools about your feet.
After twenty seconds or so, Eliza's prone form becomes visible on the puddle of grease. She's unconscious, but her wounds are not fatal--she seems to be stable for now.
Without any further ado, Gideon immediately searches his backpack for his length of rope, cutting off sufficient lengths of the 50-foot coil to bind Rayland and Eliza at their wrists, elbows, shoulders, ankles, and knees, and also using a torn strip of cloth to blindfold them, clearly taking no chances with the pair; knowing Eliza to be a spellcaster of some description, he goes even further, using a piece of the rope to wrap around her mouth to keep her from casting any spells verbally.
"There. Maybe now we'll get some answers from somebody. Never saw anything saying he could cast spells, so we don't have to worry about that from him, at least. I'm not about to bring either of them back to the colony until we get some answers. If we have to use the soul soap on them forcibly, I say we do it, and start with Rayland. He was taking her orders, and as the first expedition's leader, I think we should question him first."
"Sounds good," says Tobar as he takes in the new surroundings. "Do we wanna leave 'em bound here while we explore further, or head back now?"
"I'm not sure there's much more to explore here, but if you guys wanna look around, I'll stand guard over these two. Either way, I don't think we should go anywhere until they're conscious and we can do all we can to ensure they won't be a threat to Talmandor's Bounty. Lead them back bound, blindfolded, even if it makes it take longer."
"I think we've explored the whole tower," "though we can do a search for hidden chambers."
"But let's tie these two up and then use the soul soap on them. We'll see what happens from there."
Meanwhile Weyve examines the unidentified items.
Both Eliza and Rayland radiate strong auras of enchantment magic. Weyve is able to identify both of their cloaks and Eliza's wand.
You use the soul soap to scrub Eliza and Rayland down, trying to dispel the enchantments affecting them. Unfortunately, Weyve can still see the auras on them.
"Well, that didn't work."
"If the prisoners are secure then let's camp here for the night and then we can head back tomorrow."
You camp in the tower for the night, watching over the prisoners and dousing their transparent skin in water every so often to keep them from drying out. In the morning, you march them bound, blindfolded, and gagged across the island back towards Talmandor's Bounty. Eliza and Rayland are unruly wards, but they are unable to pose much threat to you. After a hard day's march, you make it back to the colony.
The other colonists murmur in shock in concern when you return, goggling at the bizarre appearance of your prisoners. Ramona Avandth emerges to try to calm them down, helping you usher Eliza and Rayland into one of the offices in the government building to keep them out of the public eye.
"Is that Rayland?" she asks once you have some privacy. "I hardly recognize him! What happened? What did you find at the tower?"
Unsure of how much information their masters would be able to glean, Gideon moves the prisoners off to one corner of the room, keeping an eye on them, but also making sure they aren't able to hear what he and the others tell Ramona about their adventure.
"Yes, it's Rayland. And Eliza, another of the first colonists to arrive. They've been touched by aboleths; that's why their skin looks the way it does. It can be removed with a Remove Disease spell. They've both been ensorcelled, though. Aboleths are known for their ability to dominate the mind of others. We found them in an old Azlanti prison facility but, under suspicion that their minds were being controlled, we attempted to use some soul soap we found on them. When we insisted on it, they attacked us. We tried using the soap after we knocked them out, but they both still radiate strong enchantment magic, so we don't think it was enough to work on them. We bound and blindfolded them so that they wouldn't be able to see where we were going, on the off-chance that they escape and try to tell whoever is controlling them where the colony is."
"Can you send for Eamon and Kurvis? We didn't have any spell that would remove or suppress whatever is affecting them, but I suspect that they would."
Ramona listens to your story with concern, then sends for Fathers Eamon and Kurvis. When the priests arrive, Eamon looks at your prisoners with wide eyes.
"Ah! More ghosts? We have our hands full with our incorporeal inconvenience in the chapel!"
"Don't be daft!" Kurvis grumbles. "Just their skin's see-through! What manner of curse is this?"
After Ramona explains the situation, the Abadarran grunts. "I don't think we have magic powerful enough to reverse their affliction, but we can try to suppress the domination temporarily."
Both clerics intone similar-sounding prayers and lay their hands on Eliza and Rayland. Unfortunately, there's no change in their demeanor.
"Whoever did this to them is powerful, indeed!" Eamon says with concern.
"Most domination effects don't last forever," Kurvis muses. "The best we can probably do is wait a few days and hope it wears off."
"If that's what we have to do, that's what we have to do, but we'll have to leave them under lock and key until that happens, and one of us check them frequently to make sure they aren't trying to escape. Normally you can try again after a day though, right? We can keep trying to at least get a few answers from them until the effect wears off naturally."
Eamon nods. "We can both pray tomorrow for several spells of protection from evil. One of them has to work, right?"
"Hopefully," Kurvis mutters.
"Yes, by all means prepare more. Also, can you cast dispel magic? That may have an effect."
"We will have to be careful. Rayland here is a warrior and a powerful one. However he is secured, it has to be strong."
"Eliza here..." Weyve shakes his head. "She'll be a tricky one. She has powerful mental abilities, and keeping her from speaking and gesturing won't stop them. She needs to be blindfolded at all times. Gagging will be good too in case she has any abilities that allow her to issue commands to people." When someone goes in to see her, there ought to be several of them at once, in case she charms someone."[/b]
"I know it sounds cruel, but it is for their own good. Their minds are not their own."
"And Eliza and Rayland should be kept separated from each other, of course. Don't need them talking to each other to plan and scheme."
His mind suddenly on that thought, Gideon immediately goes to check on them both to make sure that they aren't talking already, and to tell Ramona that individual rooms should be prepared for them so they can be kept isolated.
Ramona nods. "I'll assign two soldiers to watch over each of them. We'll keep them in separate rooms as you suggest."
Once Eliza and Rayland are under lock and key, Ramona gives you a weary look. "I hope they can provide us with more answers as to the fate of the other missing colonists. If these--aboleths, was it?--are involved, it does not bode well. In the mean time, you've definitely earned a little break. Go rest and recover. We'll try to break the domination again tomorrow."