Victrix's knees nearly buckle, but she swings her glaive again anyway!
Ema was aggravated she didn't manage to keep the elementals attacking but there was little to do for it now. Instead she yelled at the one flanking with Simon and said in Terran, "Hey Aela! Wake up and attack her already."
The elemental shook itself free of the hypnotic lights and lashed out at the the hag in anger.
With his friends attacking from the front, Kip scurried up the side and attacked from atop the railing with a powerful blast from his tongue.
,
"You will not attack the colonists! Other people are not your tools or playthings."
Helekhterie shrieks when Simon mentions the aboleth. "I fear no creature, aboleth or otherwise! I am so close to achieving my destiny! Nothing will stand in my way!"
She dodges Simon's and Victrix's attacks, but the invisible elemental pummels her, and Kip's wave strike knocks her back a few paces into the base of the orrery. Still, she stays on her feet, and she focuses her evil eye on Victrix again, attempting to overwhelm her with fright!
Perhaps it's because Victrix has already been pushed to the breaking point, but when the hag tries to hit her with another dose of fright, Victrix pushes back.
And then hacks at her violently with her glaive.
Ema thought that the hag was on the verge of defeat from her words and reather than waste the time waking an elemental, since they should wake up now anyway, she cast a spell one more time. Again an arrow of acid appeared and lanced out at the hag. But again the press of melee was too much and the arrow slammed into the base of the pedestal.
The third elemental that was providing a flank for Simon lashed out again.
It failed to connect but it at least distracted her.
Meanwhile the other two elementals came out of their fascination as the lights faded and attacked the hag as well.
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Simon, looking up from the battle, notices that Victrix is hesitant.
He quickly replays the battle through his head, and realizes that some spell is hampering her movements.
"Here, Victrix, inhale. This might give you a boost."
Simon retreves some Smelling Salts from his haversack and opens them under Victrix's nose.
Smelling salts grant you
a new saving throw to resist any spell or effect that has
already rendered you unconscious or staggered.
Kip tries to hit Helekhterie with another wave strike, but his aim is off. Victrix strikes true, though, badly wounding the hag! She dodges Ema's acid arrow as she ducks around the other side of the orrery to take cover from Victrix's attacks. The hypnotic pattern she created dissapears. She grabs a potion from her dress and drinks its contents, her feet rising off of the floor as she starts to float!
"Hands off!" Helekhterie screeches as Simon tries to grab her. She rakes a claw across his face, distracting him enough that she is able to avoid his grasp.
The elemental lashed out at the stupid hag that thought she could enter it's space.
But it missed badly.All three of the elementals shifted around to better attack the hag. The one she pushed in on shifted to flank the hideous thing again with Simon and lashed out once more.
But again it failed to connect. The third one flew around and up to flank the hag with Kip and lashed out from above.
Apparently it caught the hag completely off guard as it smashed it her hard with a blow of invisible force.
The last elemental had flown backwards to get some distance and looked for a loose object it could hurl Finding one the makeshift projectile floated up and then flew hard at the hag.
Ema began to cast a spell, one that she would place on someone once she was done, that she hoped would help to end this fight.
Victrix inches closer , still angry and scared, and swings her glaive!
Two of Ema's elementals miss the hag, but the third smashes her on the back of the head! She grunts and staggers forward as blood pours from the wound, and Victrix staggers up to meet her as well. Her glaive connects, tearing open the monstrous woman's belly. Blood and guts drip from the fatal injury. "N-no! This wasn't meant to be..." Helekhterie manages to gasp before her eyes roll up into her head and she falls to the floor!
Once the hag goes down, Victrix starts stomping on the hag's corpse and doesn't stop for a good twelve seconds.
She lets out a stream of expletives that aren't fit for people's ears.
Victrix quickly reduces the hag's corpse to a bloody pulp.
Eventually, an exhausted Victrix wanders over to where she dropped her axe and retrieves it.
She then leans against the wall and slumps down, trembling the whole time.
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Retrieving his smelling salts, Simon looks at the fallen hag contemplating how she could have become so deluded about how to access prophecy.
"Torturing people. Stealing Cyclops and removing their eyes. Perhaps she tried to read the future in sheep entrails as well?
Foolish woman."
Leaning back against the railing, Simon looks up at the orrery, allowing the regular motions soothe his nerves.
"Ema, Kip, Victrix. Thank you. I fear that I was nearly useless in that encounter.
Everything I planned failed and I wonder if I was anything more than a simple distraction during the fight.
I am glad to have such stalwart companions to cover for my ineffectiveness."
Shrugging and chuckling nervously, he stands up, gathering the hag's possessions, then retrieves the Orrery Schematics the group found in the underground lab.
Studying them, he tries to compare them to the working device to determine if there are any differences.
With the defeat of the hag Ema felt a wash of relief as she dismissed her spell. That the thing was dead was excellent news as a threat to the town's survival had been dealt with. She kept the elementals around for now, the invisible creature's flitting around the room, and she began to look around in interest. In particular she kept an eye out for the cyclops's missing eye in hopes they might be able to put it back.
She heard Simon's complaints about feeling useless and said, "No, you were a big help, we couldn't have taken her down if we didn't all work together. If nothing else you were able to provide a distraction for my elementals." She looked around curiously and then said, "Aelan, where'd you and the other two go?"
About that time Ema's hair in the back flew up over her head and covered her eyes for a moment. She frantically started trying to brush it back out of her face and glared at thin air as she said, "Very funny, now knock it off," in aquan. A small piece of stone fell from near the ceiling and she said, "Ha, ha, ha..." As she looked in the direction the debris came from she saidsternly, once more in aquan, "Behave or I'll send you back right now." There were no further outbursts.
"We... did it? I mean, we did it! Yes!" Kip climbed the rest of the way up the railing and raised his rapier dramatically. After a few quick slashes through the air he seemed to remember what had just happened. "Did she get any of you?" Kip started darting around, inspecting his companions for wounds, serious or slight.
"Simon, can you tell what this big thing is?" Kip asked, motioning at the massive device in the middle of the room. "Maybe she wrote some of her plans down? She said she didn't have any captive colonists, but she could have been lying, and we should make sure to do a thorough search."
The orrery looks very similar to the schematics you discovered earlier. It is a marvel of Azlanti engineering. The metal spheres and crystal orbs of this orrery float freely through the air, some serving as intricate mounts for lenses that focus concentrated starlight on a series of illusory glyphs orbiting the perimeter.
A thorough search of the room doesn't reveal anything else of interest.
As Ema looked around she didn't find a cyclops eye but she did notice that there was something off about the orrery. She hadn't really kept up on current astronomy so it took her a minute to notice what was off, there were two extra planets depicted there. She felt a stab of pain in her head as she started to remember something, something about those two planets, but the pain drove the memory away from her.
Ema turned to her friends and said, "Something si strange about that," she pointed towards the two planets, "Those shouldn't be there. I can't recall what should be but I know it isn't them." She looked at Simon in particular and asked, "Do you have any idea what is supposed t be there?"
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Simon takes his extract of Heightened Awareness to focus his thoughts.
"Yes, I see what you mean. I have no idea what that could mean, other than perhaps the planets were different during Azlanti times.
I wonder if removing them from the display would help the structure to create prophecies again? Even so, nobody alive knows how to read those prophecies."
Sighing at not being able to decipher the mystery, Simon rolls up the schematics again and stows them in his haversack.
"Maybe there will be a clue in those books downstairs."
Victrix hasn't moved from her spot or said a word while the others were conversing.
"...what's the bloody point, anyway?"
Even Simon's discerning eye cannot find anything else of value in this chamber. You head back down to the library and explore the texts contained within. Searching this room uncovers tantalizing fragments of ancient lore surrounding this observatory, the name of which is given as Nal-Shakar. Taking an hour to sift through the surviving scraps reveals historical information pertaining to the philosopher-priests' unconventional religious beliefs and some fleeting mentions of the "veiled masters" who they believed secretly ruled the empire of Azlant. Unfortunately, the fragmentary texts offer no context for these references.
Victrix eventually rises, the fire in her dulled to embers.
"...are the missing colonists even still here? That's what we came here for."
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Victrix eventually rises, the fire in her dulled to embers.
"...are the missing colonists even still here? That's what we came here for."
"It doesn't appear so. The only sign we have see is that single cuff link.
I can't imagine that the trolls ate all of the colonists, but there has been no sign of them here."
Simon looks over at Victrix, remembering the sight of her glaive rushing by his head and the sound of the wind as he just dodged out of the way.
"I don't blame you, by the way. For attacking me. I know it was the hag's powerful magic that made you do it.
I think it would be a really good idea if you commissioned a ring like mine to protect you from those spells in the future. The aboleth is bound to be more adept at mind control that the hag, and I don't know if I could bring myself to attack you back if you were to turn against us."
Simon quickly clasps Victrix's arm, then moves back toward the books. "Well, there are no answers here. Let's gather up these books and the treasures downstairs and take them back to town.
We also need to figure out how to get a blind cyclops across that lake."
Simon starts putting the books into his haversack.
"...yeah. Might as well."
Victrix forces herself to move forward when the others get ready to leave.
"...and there's the giant crab."
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"Oh, yes, the crab...
If Ema can't summon another water elemental, maybe I can use that new wand to keep it occupied."
As they walk toward the Cyclops, Simon finally takes notice of Victrix's persistent bad mood.
"Are you feeling ok? Maybe one of the hag's spells hasn't worn off yet?
Kip, is there anything you can do or do we need to wait till we get back to town?"
"Are you feeling ok? Maybe one of the hag's spells hasn't worn off yet?"
"No, I'm not bloody alright."
"She looked at me... did... did you see the way she... looked at me? It's like she knew I was doomed. That WE'RE doomed." Victrix's face pales and her legs start to shake.
As they rummaged through the library and stowed the books they intended to keep Ema found herself in heaven. The old books were fascinating and she wished she had the time to read them. Unfortunately it wasn't to be just then and she helped find the ones worth taking on the first trip and resolved that she would return for more of them at a later time.
When they began to plan how to get past the giant crab and Simon asked if she could summon the elementals again Ema nodded as she replied, "Yes, I have enough stored power to do so once more."
As Simon confronted Victrix and she saw the woman's reaction to the question Ema approached and said, "Vic, look at me." She reached out to cup Victrix's face with her palms so she could try to make her friend looked her in the eyes and continued, "We are not doomed, say it with me..." She waited a moment and began to repeat the words, though she stopped if Victrix refused to try it again.
"...we're not doomed."
Victrix sighs. "Ema, I don't think it's working... whatever that hag did to me, it did something really wrong."
Ema sighed and said, "Keep repeating it until you do.' She shifted her hands, moving to put one along Victrix's upper arm and said, "Come with me, let's talk about it before we leave." She looked to the guys and said, "Some privacy please." Once they were alone Ema began to speak some more to Victrix to try and find out what the problem was.
"...she looked at me. And when she looked at me, I felt... I felt afraid. More afraid than I've ever been. It hasn't stopped, even when I killed her. I thought stomping her to a pulp would help, but... but it hasn't."
"I know what she did isn't natural. Scaring someone with a look? Sure. I can do that--but not in the way she did. And when she looked at me again, I don't know how I managed to keep the fear from overwhelming me..."
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Calling after the girls as they walk away, Simon tries to help. "For what it's worth, she seemed to be more than a little insane. I wouldn't take anything she said to heart."
Falling in with Kip, he turns and shrugs. "We'll just have to look out for her for the time being. Hopefully the priests have some way to help her out of her melancholy."
Kip replied as he helped Simon with his search and inspection, "Hmm... I think you might be right. Think a barbecue would help? Once we get back home we could get the whole town together, and there could be dancing and I've got some new fruits that should just be about ready to eat. That might help get her back on her feet? Oh, and we should get you back in fighting shape too, and we can do that right now."
"That hag was really nasty, and I've heard they can get into your head with their creepy stare. Not that this one is staring at much of anything now that we're done here. Do you think it will be hard to get magic to fix our new friend's eye?"
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While taking one of his CLW extracts to heal up, now that his body feels a little healthier, Simon frowns with worry.
"I don't know if the barbecue will be enough this time, Kip. I think there might be some residual effect from the hag's magic that might require something more powerful. Something like when you healed the aboleth's damage, perhaps.
As for the Cyclops' eye, I have heard stories of magic powerful enough to regenerate lost appendages, but I have never seen anything like that. Your access to the spirits of nature would probably be a better guide than my studies."
Arriving at the Cyclops' chamber, Simon will explain that the tower has been cleansed.
"We will be glad to help you get back to our village. I am not sure how we will get you off of the island, though. Our boat is not large, and I wonder how well you fit in it.
Do you know if there is another way out of this lake?"
"I don't believe there is another way off of this island. I am not an accomplished swimmer, but perhaps if some of you could swim beside your boat, there might be room enough for me," Aeroclyse says.
Following the plan, you are able to cross the lake without incident. Ema's summoned elementals distract the crab so that you can get by it without a fight, then you begin your descent down the side of the volcano as you head back to Talmandor's Bounty. It is slow-going with Aeroclyse, who must walk carefully to navigate the difficult terrain without a mishap. You set up camp to rest of the night after a couple of hours, then continue on to the colony the next day, reaching it by the early afternoon.
The colonists react to the appearance of Aeroclyse with a combination of awe and fear. The blind cyclops does his best to remain stoic as he hears their whispers, but you can tell that the giant is on edge.
Ramona Avandth and Carver Hastings quickly arrive to debrief you on the situation. "Welcome back," Ramona says. "I see you've made a new...friend?"
"How did it go? Is the sea hag dead?" Carver asks eagerly.
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"She is. Victrix and Ema were able to strike her down, but not before Victrix suffered some type of persistent spell effect.
I think we should have the priests take a look at her."
Motioning to Aeroclyse, Simon raises his voice a bit, allowing some of the villagers to hear, if they are listening.
"As for our friend, this is Aeroclyse. He was abducted from his home in The Shackles by the hag, tortured, and disfigured as you see. We have promised to help him get home to his people and hope that the community will be welcoming in the meantime.
Aeroclyse provided us with invaluable information that was instrumental in allowing us to defeat the Hag and to make the island a bit safer."
Lowering his voice to a more comfortable level, he asks, "Is Oorka still around town? Perhaps she can give Aeroclyse some pointers on adjusting to his blindness."