Victrix sighs in exasperation. "Alright--first strangly beasts, now tentacled ones? What kinda cavern is this anyway?"
She strides up to a darkmantle and stabs at it!
Victrix moves in and stabs the darkmantle that struck Simon, badly wounding it. The half-orc assumes a defensive stance as he slashes the tentacled beast, cutting it and causing it to fall unmoving to the floor.
Kip scurried forward, but couldn't find a clear path to attack. Instead, he prepared to lash out with a blast of water if one of the creatures came close enough for him to reach.
Ema wanted to summon her eagle again but it had just been killed and returned home. She knew the creature needed some time before she could summon it again so she instead decided to try a new spell. Chanting the words she called forth energy from the plane of shadows and chose the least injured looking of the cloakers. The thing's shadow, all of a sudden, seemed to have a shadowy anchor attached to it as she released the spell.
The darkmantle succumbs to Ema's shadow finding itself entangled. It lashes out at Simon, but fails to hit. The other one, though, lands a solid blow and wraps its tentacles around the investigator's upper body, squeezing him tightly!
Victrix shoves her way into the room and swings her spear...
As soon as Victrix advanced, Kip sprinted forward with a wave of restorative water ready in his palm for Simon.
Moving a few feet closer to the fighting Ema cast her acid spell again and sent the glob at the un-entabgled choker.
Victrix shoves past Simon to get a clear shot at the darkmantle grappling him. She dodges a clumsy strike from the other creature before driving her spear into the first. As it thrashes in pain, Simon struggles in vain to escape its grasp.
Fortunately, Kip sprints forward to heal the half-orc's wounds. Ema fires an accurate glob of acid at the creature grabbing him, and it lets go and falls to the floor, a sizzling hole in its body.
The remaining darkmantle lashes out at Victrix again, but its tentacles scrape harmlessly against her armor.
Kip followed in Simon's wake, and his rapier moved with a flash, rendering the darkmantle off balance.
Victrix turns her spear on the last one and stabs at it!
Both Simon and Victrix land devastating hits on the remaining darkmantle. The creature falls and lies still.
When you get a chance to search the cave, you discover little more than the bones that litter teh floor. The bones are a minor curiosity, because most of them belong to bipedal creatures, but many are decidedly not humanoid, as evidenced by skull shape, finger bones, and other physiological differences. Proper identification is confounded because the skeletons are not intact; rather, their bones are separated and mixed together like a disassembled jigsaw puzzle. At least one skeleton is clearly human, though.
Some of the smaller skeletons seem to belong to chokers and monkey goblins. Others are ichthyic or avian in nature--Simon remembers reading a few rare tomes on anatomy that depicted the bones of such exotic humanoids. He thinks they might belong to creatures known as skum and strix, respectively.
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"You certainly can tell a lot about a place by the remains left by indiscriminate predators like these darkmantles.
The choker and monkey goblins are expected, as we have encountered these several times already.
Skum skeletons are an interesting find. They are an ancient mostly subterranean peoples who have often warred with surface creatures since Starfall. Apparently, at least a few have survived on this island.
Strix skeletons though, are extremely interesting. I am aware of no known connections between the strix and the Azlanti. It is even more surprising that we have seen no sign of them during our travels so far.
Either of these races could be a clue toward what happenned to the prior colonists.
We should remember to look for more evidence of these creatures."
"Hmm, it seems like we keep finding more and more leads, but nothing to trim down the list. How do you think the strix ended up down here though? I wouldn't think they'd be likely to be exploring underground caves. Do you think there's a way out nearby and the darkmantles dragged it back?"
There is a tunnel north of the entrance to the crysmals' cave. The cave tunnel gradually begins to slope upward here, with a faint glimpse of light to the northeast and a warming of the air temperature. Soon, you emerge from the side of a low hill not far from Talmandor's Bounty. The colony is only a short hike southwest over the hill.
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Simon strikes up a conversation with Kip on the way back to town.
"Another excellent question, Kip. You are right, from what little I know, Strix would not be likely to come into these caves.
Unless... maybe they came in search of the gems within?
I find it even less likely that the darkmantles would go outside. Their entire hunting methodology requires stealth and the ability to drop from above on unsuspecting fools like me.
By the way, thank you for the healing. I believe I was at death's door.
You know, I don't believe that I know what god gives you your powers."
"God? I don't know? The water has just always called to me, and then I met Gerald and we learned how to do magic together. Isn't that right buddy?" From up on Kip's hat the pufferfish inflated and waved his fins vigorously.
When you return to Talmandor's Bounty, you ask Ramona if any of the colonists can speak Terran. "I don't think so," she says, "but I'm able to cast a spell that can temporarily let somebody speak any language. If you need to break down a communication barrier, I'd be happy to accompany you back to the cave."
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"God? I don't know? The water has just always called to me, and then I met Gerald and we learned how to do magic together. Isn't that right buddy?" From up on Kip's hat the pufferfish inflated and waved his fins vigorously.
"Interesting. So, it is in some ways like a druidic version of what Ema can do?
Do you need to commune with the water or are your daily gardening tasks enough to restore your magic energies?"
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Simon is intrigued that Ramona herself has decided to come along. He wonders if the mention of the gemstones is the real reason why she doesn't immediately share the information with the rest of the colonists.
While he doesn't detect any signs of subterfuge (or maybe he sees some where none exist), he still has some suspicions. However, guarding the knowledge is probably a good idea and Ramona is likely wise to keep the information close.
"Certainly, Ramona, that would be very helpful. Plus, it would undoubtedly be a good idea to make sure the situation in these caves is resolved before proceeding further.
Perhaps we should get someone to start patching the hole in the well since we now know another route in?"
Turning to the others, he asks "Does anyone need further preparations before we go back to talk to the scorpions?"
Ema considered Simon's findings and nodded in agreement with what they discussed. It was possible they were onto something with that line of thought and it would need some looking into. With their explorations completed, for now, she headed back to town with them.
When they reached town and spoke with Ramona Ema was intrigued with the spell the woman mentioned. "Where did you learn such a spell? For that matter I didn't know you were a practitioner?" She became thoughtful as she considered what the spell might be useful for and asked, "Does the spell make it so you can speak the language or simply understand it? Is it limited in the languages it works for?"
"It's just something I picked up during my training as a bard," Ramona says. "I have a modicum of magic at my disposal, though I tend not to use it beyond what is necessary. It allows you to speak and understand any language, though only one at a time. I can cast it on three people before my daily reserves are spent, and it will last about an hour.."
"I don't know about that. I've never been able to summon animals or anything like that, though I guess I've never really tried either. And after I've used up my magic, I just spend some time in the morning talking to Gerald about my dreams of exploring all the oceans in Golarion. Maybe someday even beyond that! Just thinking abou those adventures makes the magic bubble back up!" Kip explained, excitedly.
Ramona instructs Perrell to keep an eye on things at the government house before accompanying you back to the cave entrance. Before you go in, she pulls out a small clay model of a ziggurat from a pouch. She sings a short refrain, her voice strong and lovely. She then crushes the model and smears the clay on your foreheads.
"There you are. You should be able to speak to these crystal scorpions now."
When you go down the tunnel and look into the next cave, you can see the two crysmals still working to excavate the gems from the walls.
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Stepping forward, lightly, Simon keeps his hands away from his weapons.
"Greetings, crysmals. My, what a beautiful home you have here! You certainly have done wonders with the decor.
Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Simon. These are my friends Kip, Ema, Victrix, and Ramona. We are new to the island and would love to get to know our neighbors.
Can you tell us a bit about yourselves and the island? How long have you lived here?"
The crysmals wave their jagged tails menacingly when Simon steps forward, but pause while he speaks to them in Terran.
"We are only here for gems," one replies in a high-pitched voice. "Leave us be."
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Simon will attempt to subtly look around to see if there is anything interesting in the room.
And will attempt to figure out if any of the gems are valuable (general imoression)
Meanwhile, he will keep talking, hoping that he can keep them placated long enough to learn something useful.
"Oh, I see. We are sorry to intrude, we will leave you to your work in a moment.
We did notice that you had some rather unruly neighbors in these tunnels... the chokers who were in the next room. Did they ever bother you and your gems?
Speaking of neighbors, maybe you know something about other people on the island? Maybe we could help you out by finding additional gemstones that we could trade for information?"
There doesn't seem to be much else here besides the crysmals' excavation. The gems scattered about the cave floor do appear valuable, though--the half-orc roughly estimates there's close to 1,000 gold pieces worth of treasure here.
"We chased away chokers that came too close," the elemental chimes. "Our gems."
"You give more gems?" the other asks eagerly. "We do not smell any on you. Bring gems!"
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"Well, the chokers won't bother you anymore. We took care of them for you.
See, we are very helpful. We can help more if we can be friends. Friends help each other.
We can go look for more gems, but we need information first. Have you seen any other people like us recently? How about other types of humanoids?"
The crysmals click their claws in irritation. "Don't care about people. Only here for gems."
Ema cast a spell before entering the cavern so she could look for magical auras and listened to Simon's conversation with the krysmals. Their obvious fixation on gems was interesting and when she finished her examination she asked, "What do you use the gems for and is there anything else we can do for you besides bring more gems and leave you be?"
There are no magic auras in the area.
"Gather gems to build shardlings. Create new life. Just bring gems and leave us be. We leave when we get all the gems."
"You make little shardlings from the gems? That sounds adorable! Where will you go when you leave? Where is home for you?"
"Plane of Earth is home. We will find a way back."
"All of these gems. We will make a shardling, then go home."
Kip shrugged, "That seems like a good goal. Do you need some help?"
Ema found the concept interesting, reproduction through eating gems. She was curious to study this concept and asked, "Are there some gems that are better than others?"
"We do not need help. We know what we are doing," one crystal says to Kip.
"Some gems are better," the other tells Ema. "Without cracks or flaws. Only the best gems can make a shardling."
"Oh, ok," the grippli said, slightly dejected. "Well, do you mind if we have a look around while you're working? Our people are working to build a new town up above the ground and we came down here to investigate the disappearance of some people. We've determined that the ropers and darkmantles that lived down here were to blame, but we want to finish exploring these caves to make sure nothing else is lurking down here. We saw you collecting the gems earlier but didn't know how to speak your language and didn't want to startle you, so we went back up topside to bring our friend." Kip pointed at Ramona before continuing, "She knows magic that taught us how to talk with you, at least for a little while. Now we can be friends!"
Ema considered the response of the creatures a moment before responding, "If I come across any suitable gems then I will bring them to you and if you are gone I will keep them for you."