If Athena wasn't terrified she'd likely sigh or protest in any way but for now she stood next to Mazatl trying to mentally prepare for her own death.
"Would you like my armor, Athena? Would that make you feel more safe? I am still able to give my armor to anyone who desires it, though it may be better to keep it on me as I am maintaining the ritual.
"Armor won't save us here."
"Well, I have some benefits as a shark underwater, I can hear, smell and see right down there but I'm afraid of the water pressure, if we are too deep my organs will pop like ballons" Svog answers Mazatl's question, he has swam in the ocean before but not in deep waters.
Mazatl nodded a response to both, then conjured her armor on herself. Strange, springy lichen grew up and covered her torso and arms, leaving her with a lopsided mushroom crown. "First time my element has gone that direction. Mazatl shrugs. "Let's be off? She asked as she started to make her way into the tunnels.
Aifric: All the water is driven back, leaving the stone you walk upon dry. You can put your fingers through the wind barrier and get it wet.
Guisarme is nodding at Aifric's voiced concern about light. "Of course. One moment."
The were-hawk walks off to a nearby tent and pushes the flap aside as he enters, emerging again shortly with two hooded lanterns that are fueled by animal oils. He also carries a small container. "Take these," he offers to any of you. "Each lantern, when fully filled, lasts 4 hours of light. The extra oil in this container contains enough oil for a further 10 hours. We should be able to resupply you by then, but if not, any oil you find should burn a little. Try to make it back here before the oil runs out."
The academics are gathered together to watch you go, paying close attention to the white whorl between Mazatl's antlers that is even now holding back the water. If you glance at them, a few of them wave and call out 'good luck's.
You descend into the watery tunnels after Mazatl when she sets off. When everyone is ready, let's get Perilous Journey rolls from three of you.
Guisarme glances over at the academic at Mazatl's request. "I presume you know something of what is afflicting you already, wizard?" he asks Chaney. Assuming Chaney responds in the affirmative, Guisarme nods. "I would have expected as much from you. Share with us the information of what you are afflicted with, and we will put our most valued sources on the case."
Chaney explains about the Spellscar, Antonin Brashnikov's research, death and subsequent possible sighting at the lost monastery. Chaney also, reluctantly reveals that he still has the foci.
The were-hawk walks off to a nearby tent and pushes the flap aside as he enters, emerging again shortly with two hooded lanterns that are fueled by animal oils. He also carries a small container. "Take these," he offers to any of you. "Each lantern, when fully filled, lasts 4 hours of light. The extra oil in this container contains enough oil for a further 10 hours. We should be able to resupply you by then, but if not, any oil you find should burn a little. Try to make it back here before the oil runs out."
"How...quaint." the carved head of the wizards walking staff begins to pour forth a clear blueish light.
Athena stays close to mazatl as she goes into the tunnels.
Keeping track of supplies while she's still trying to control her fear is a bit too difficult for her.
Guisarme hands the oil and lanterns to Athena, whose thievery experiences have taught her well when it comes to carrying large amounts of awkward gear. Chaney, with the head of his staff aglow with blue light, takes the lead, with Mazatl's ritual magic blazing a trail. The lot of you make your way into the tunnels below.
As you walk, you see evidence of plant and animal life all around you. Unlike the dead caves that one may find on the surface, these tunnels were filled with water only moments before, leaving behind strange reeflike structures that you walk through. At times, it's difficult for you to even walk forward, with the ground covered in marine flora.
All around you there are side-passages and tunnels, most too small to properly investigate. You can tell which ones are dead ends by the fact that they're still filled with water - the water inside the passages had nowhere to go when the ritual of air pushed. The water in these side-passages, held up only by the academics' spell, is dark and difficult to see through.
Aifric, Chaney, as you travel you think you can detect faint flashes of magic close to you. They're faint, and impossible to focus on, but they flicker like fireflies in your peripheral vision. Athena, you notice that every time they look around, your pocket gem feels warm.
Other than that, as the tunnels lead ever further down into the bedrock, your traveling is uneventful, until Chaney pulls you up short, detecting movement. Up ahead is a T-intersection that your tunnel is approaching. You're not close enough to the T-intersection yet for the ritual to have driven away the water in it, and Chaney detected another light source coming from the water-filled tunnel on the right.
The light source is revealed to be the phosphorescent skin of this, traveling down the tunnel. It doesn't notice you thankfully - Chaney's warning stopped you all from entering its path just in time.
Which path do you take? The direction the sea monster just came from, or do you follow behind it?
Chaney explains about the Spellscar, Antonin Brashnikov's research, death and subsequent possible sighting at the lost monastery. Chaney also, reluctantly reveals that he still has the foci.
This is Aifric's chance to tell Chaney about the singing medallion. He pulls out a little wooden box he's carved, opens it, and shows the medallion to Chaney and whomever else Chaney might be talking to about their death sentence.
Aifric readies his shield and spear. He decides he should be more alert going forward. "I'm glad that thing didn't spot us," he says. "I'd hate to be in its sights even if it did swim into the air -- that sounds weird...." He thinks for a few seconds about how to say it better, but can't think of a way. "Even if it did swim into the air to get us." He shivers a bit. "Even worse would be having that thing coming after us but we're stuck in a dead end tunnel. I'm sure glad that didn't happen."
"I say we go the way it came from. It either leads somewhere, or guarantees it has the space to turn around once it gets wherever it's going that way. We don't know what lies down the path it's taking, and if push comes to shove, and it decides to turn around while we're following it... well... the other way means less likely to fight."
Athena stayed quiet and close, the new monster not helping her handle her current fear she draws her weapon, evening knowing it won't help makes her feel slightly better.
"Maybe he is heading to his nest and if we take the right path, we likely won't meet with that thing.." Svog tries to use his shark senses on the right path to feel anything.
The gathered party presses on to the right tunnel after the huge fish-beast has gone past, after Svog Kos peers into the dark water to see no threats. The tunnel widens and slopes upward in the warren of dark tunnels below the harbor's sea floor.
You stride up the sloping tunnel till you reach a cave. Before you, illuminated by the light from Chaney's staff, all along the floor, are a vast array of bones, piled haphazardly everywhere. Many of the bones are of animals, but you recognize a skull here or there that looks humanoid. Aifric, Chaney, your palms feel tingly here near the bones - there's definitely magic present throughout this cave. Off beyond the air barrier, in the seawater beyond, you can see fish of varying sizes swimming low across the bony landscape. When the fish pass over certain bones, they shimmer with a faint greenish glow.
You peer out over the macabre sight of the cave, and see movement off at the very edge of what you're capable of seeing - a waving banner attached to a pole stuck in the ground at a skew angle.
Mazatl looked at the bones with a bit of distaste. "They need to do something about the decorators. I approve of the green glow... but..." she shrugs as begins to try to plot a course to navigate towards the banner while keeping the bones distant. She moves steadily closer to one set of bones, to see how it interacts with her proximity... and how it interacts with air, if it doesn't react too negatively to her getting slowly closer.
"Perhaps we chose the wrong path....."
As Chaney finishes speaking, there's a glow that appears far off in the cave, which is apparently massive in scale. The glow is the same greenish color that the bones are glowing, and triggers Chaney and Aifric's sense of magic in the same way that walking past a bakery triggers one's sense of smell.
Indeed, it seems to have the same effect on you all, as well. All of you feel a sudden calmness fall over you that corresponds with the greenish light of the glow.
Looking at it through the water, you can see that it's coming from a spherical, pointed-top structure further inside the cave, with an open "chimney" at the tip of the point that is emitting the green light.
Chaney, your experience with magic helps you to understand that the serenity you are all feeling is the by-product of a magic ritual. It would require multiple contributors to blanket a cave this big, but you feel certain that a ritual is behind it.
Glancing down at your hand, wizard, you see that your spellscar has taken on a faint glow. Knowledge springs unbidden to your mind; you have learned a new spell that you may later transcribe into your spellbook - Calm.
Calm: Level 1 Enchantment Pacifying spell that reduces or removes the urge for violence within an area. It can affect up to 3 targets within Near range, or 2 targets at Far range.
Mazatl, as you move deeper into the cave, the water is pushed away from the bones on the floor. Many of them roll along the floor as the water is washed away from them, but the omnipresent greenish glow doesn't fade or intensify.
"Hm. Strange." Mazatl comments as the green doesn't really react to her. "What makes you say that?" she looks to Chaney as she continues to mess with the green glow, trying to see if she can get something to happen without having to be all the way in the room for it.
Aifric calmly goes all the way into the room.
Mazatl is careful to keep Aifric inside of the bubble.
The calm spell allows Athena to relax slightly and try to take in her surroundings from a less paniked point of view.
Svog Kos' keen underwater sight helps him to see further in the watery gloom than everyone else can. Svog, despite the magical calmness that you feel, you should be on the lookout at the top of the cave - there, swimming some 50 feet overhead, are several of the gigantic eel-like creatures that you saw swimming down the side tunnel earlier. They're currently doing complacent swimming motions, but if that ever changes...they're big.
Experimentally, you brush your hand through the air barrier into the water beyond. You definitely feel a greater amount of water pressure down here than you're used to, but at the same time, you feel certain you could navigate the water with ease in your shark or wereshark form. You also notice an opening in the large teardrop-shaped structure you saw before, leading inside.
You follow Aifric as he confidently leads you all deeper into the cave, taking Mazatl and the whorl-sphere of air with him. You try to make out what happened here in this cave, and you notice something about the ground around the base of the teardrop-shaped structure you're approaching. There are pulverized bones all around the very base of the structure - as if the strange rocky "building" landed there.
Athena, as you walk along the cave floor, paying attention to your surroundings, you begin to hear a faint sound. It's at the very edge of your very sharp hearing, so it doesn't surprise you that nobody else can hear it at first - but it slowly increases in volume until you're certain that you're not imagining things. Glancing all around you, you can't find the source of the sound, until you realize...
It's coming from your right pocket.
"We are being ensorcelled. It is a minor spell that will keep us calm, likely those things as well. The rite is strong. I can break it but we do not have the time. It seems to be emanating from the building."
"Be careful, there are fish up there and they are big." Svog warns the others as he looks up and sees the giant eels,
"There is an entrance right there, we could try going inside" Svog points to the small entrance he found.
Mazatl frowned as she moved forward. "I... don't feel ensorcelled. Maybe that's part of it." She shrugs a little. "If it will make the fish angry, it might be better not to break it, even with time." Mazatl did a slow sweep looking around. Did there seem to be anywhere else to go within this particular cave?
"Do you hear that?"
Athena reaches into her pocket to remove the source of the noise and examine it.
Mazatl shakes her head at first, because she didn't really hear anything. Then she looked at the thing Athena was holding, antlers going askance as her head tilted. "Is that an egg..?" Then she takes a closer look, "or is it a rock?
Mazatl: The only other feature you can make out in this cave is that there's a banner of some sort sticking out of the ground not far from the entrance to the structure in the center of the cave. From this distance, you can see the emblem emblazoned on the banner as it waves in the waters - it looks like a trident with a star-burst symbol at the tips of the prongs. You know you've seen it before, associated with merpeople.
You're distracted by your study of the banner when Athena mentions hearing something. It was faint enough not to be noticed before, but outside of Athena's pocket, it registers as giving off a magical energy.
Athena, anyone else looking at the rock or asking you about it makes you very uncomfortable and like you want to change the subject. You feel an almost overwhelming compulsion to lie, to say that you must have imagined whatever it was you were holding. Roll Defy Danger: Wisdom to overcome the compulsion!
It's nothing special just a trinket I found." She pockets it quickly.
"Um... alright then. Maybe we should at least get close enough to investigate what the banner is doing? Or check out the bones more closely? I've got a nasty feeling that this is what happened to the merfolk.." You'd think with the calming spell in place, Athena would be less... fidgety. But she's actually acting more fidgety...
"Seems like everybody's finding magic stuff," says Aifric as he strides toward the entrance.
"Let's hurry, I'm not comfortable with these things swimming above us, check the banner and then the entrance?" Svog is feeling a little insecure about this place, a lot of bones and giant eels...bad combination.
Mazatl would subtly move Aifric towards a set of bones using her bubble's outer range. If he didn't take the hint, or the bait, rather, she'd move to examine a set personally, while moving towards the banner and house.
"Of course you don't feel ensorcelled you just feel calm, we all do. Which is exactly how the ritualists want us to feel."
The banner drifts in the slow-moving currents in the water as you approach the entrance to the strange rock structure. When the air ritual touches it, the water is blown off, and it looks tattered and dry as it hangs from the wooden staff in the ground. Aifric, Chaney, you can detect powerful magic within the structure; it makes your scars throb. You feel no apprehension of any kind, and can see the green glow clearly shining through cracks and holes in the rock, making the whole structure faintly resemble some sort of ornament.
Your air ritual's outer radius begins to breach the outer wall of the structure, pushing water away from you. Suddenly, from within the structure, a merman's face breaks through into the air around you. "STOP!" he pleads, keeping his body below the shoulders swimming in the water behind him. [b]"YOU'LL DISRUPT IT! STAY BACK!"[b/]
Mazatl, predicatbly, stops... tilting her head in bemusement at the panic. "The calming spell?"
Aifric stops as Mazatl does so. Content to let her and the others talk to the merfolk, he notices a pile of bones within the bubble's radius. He will take this time to investigate.
He wonders, "What happened here recently?"
Athena is startled by the merman to say the least as quickly moves behind the others and readies her weapon.
Mazatl takes a step back, both to give the ritual more space, and to give Athena more bubble between her and the water.