Adara suspects the creature may be more resistant to the primal element she typically wields (probably because of its color), but she still tries to contribute to saving Mum by releasing a burst of flame onto the monster.
Estietre attempts one last time to extricate herself from the monster's grip, but fails. She clenches her eyes shut and mouths words silently like a desperate prayer.
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(haste)
(haste)
(haste)
(haste)
(haste)
(haste)
Struggle as she might, Estietre is unable to escape the Devil's grasp. Just when all hope for the wizardess seems lost the creature lets go and turns its attention on Lawdrak, biting and clawing at the Kellid druid's flesh with blinding speed. Following the flurry of strikes, the Kellid lays motionless on the ground, blood still pouring from his wounds. Beginning to plot its escape, the Red Mountain Devil steps onto Lawdrak's unconscious form.
In a surprising twist, Hana manages a swing that connects!
At the fall of her human, Sharpmaw lets out a piercing, hissing roar and, running around the rocks to get a good angle, tries to tear at the beast.
Adara curses when Lawdrak falls with grievous wounds. She considers how to get to the druid with the beast standing over him.
"You know what they say about the best defense," she hisses as she curls her hands into fists which become engulfed in flames. If possible, she maneuvers to flank and attempts a strike to the creature's abdomen aiming for the spot that should be the liver on a humanoid.
Adara only hesitates for a brief moment after determining the monster will not be returning to life to wreak further havoc on the fellow survivors who share her dream of leaving this forsaken island. She drops to her knees and chants a prayer to the Dawnflower as the fire surrounding her hands changes from combustive consumption to metabolic warmth. The oracle touches this fire to the worst of Lawdrak's wounds.
She then reaches for Mum, again with fire that knits rather than ignites.
Standing, Adara sways a bit after transferring so much power so quickly.
Hana pauses, then whips her katana in a circle and finally sheathes it. She reaches out to help steady Adara.
"Hm. A well-executed strike. This will make the nights safer, surely."
With a loud groan, Lawdrak heaves himself into a sitting position. HE blinks around in confusion, then, recognizing the soothing heat of Adara's healing, nods gratefully in her direction.
"Who else is injured?" he croaks.
"Thank you Adara... Thank you all. I will be fine Lawdrak. I'm a little rattled, but... I will be fine." Estietre's care-free joie de vivre is absent. There is a grimness on her face you'd not seen before this.
Lawdrak turns hit attention to his own wounds.
Lawdrak takes a few long minutes, silently looking at their surroundings, then shrugs.
"I don't know if we can do much more with the monoliths. Should we see where that ladder is going?"
Estietre takes a deep breath and nods, then slaps her knees and pushes herself to her feet. She nods again more resolutely “Yes, Lawdrak.. lets.”
Hana helps Estietre to her feet.
"Very well. Light, please?"
The samurai-ko glances down into the pit.
"I can see a bit, but if I need help then of course you will need light too."
She tentatively puts a foot on the edge of the ladder.
"There's a series of ravines here," says Hana. "With these... rope-strands over them."
Adara squats unceremoniously while scrutinizing the artifact built into the earth. Wearily, she looks from the tidal stone to the place where the tracks disappear into the water in which Hana is currently swimming.
"It would seem our quarry must have made use of this cursed thing in order to proceed or is just as adept in the water as our undine friend," the oracle muses.
Shaking her head, Adara turns to her comrades with a worried expression.
"I am at a loss. Without knowledge of how to activate this magic, I do not see how we can follow any further. We cannot certainly expect Hana to shoulder this burden alone."
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See This post.
Smaller carvings nearby depict serpentfolk splashing blood on curved runes carved on upright stones before a red mountain, and then holding venomous snakes against the blood that they might lick the stones, pouring water onto a pyramid-shaped block of red stone from a bowl, and standing before the pyramid of stone with arms upraised and mouths agape as if shouting to the heavens as a bolt of lightning arcs up from the stones into the sky.
As Estietre stares into the water under which Hana is scouting about, her mind drifts back to the shrine and its carvings within. Suddenly the images in her memory become crystal clear.
She snaps her fingers. "I think I've got it! Why didn't I take better notes... I should've known."
"Alright... the serpent men doused the runes on the stones with blood, and held snakes up against them to lick the stones. They poured water on the tide stone, and stood around it... arms and open mouths up toward the sky."
"Of course, the tide stone," he says, shaking his head as though it were obvious all along. "The purpose of the ritual must be to lower the water level. Why else would they need bridges down there, if all they had to do was swim? And here I thought something far more sinister was at work."
"So do we try to finish the rite so that we can explore down here?" says Hana, bobbing in the water easily. "I can swim and look around but that doesn't help the rest of you."
Adara huffs irritably. "It seems we have no choice," she replies while shaking her head. "I certainly would prefer to avoid blood magic rituals invoking the name of unknown and possibly evil gods, but if Dereje can stomach it, I'm certain the Dawnflower will gird my loins against the darkness as well."
She eyes the bowl-shaped basins thoughtfully. "Just how much blood do you think we'll need, Mum? My knowledge of arcane rituals is not much, I'm afraid."
The others detect a slight reddening of the pretty suli's face despite the nice tan her time on the island and the grime of their adventures coating her skin.
"I, uh, may not have been very studious about divine rituals related to blood magic either..."
Adara averts her eyes. "Outside of battle, the thought of blood letting is...icky." Her voices trails off at the end.
"If it is blood we require, then I will offer it myself," Dereje volunteers, evidently too noble to allow anyone else to do so. Not that he was without his misgivings. "I agree that this is not ideal, but we appear to have no other choice."
"Shall I climb back up?" Hana calls from below.
Adara gives Mizu a playful wink.
"Only if you don't want to get swept out with the tide when we activate this ocean controlling magic."
The oracle offers the undine a hand to assist her exit from the water.
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Dereje smears some of his own blood across each of the serpentine runes carved into each of the four monoliths. Afterward, Lawdrak summons a small viper to hold before each rune, allowing the snake to lick at the fresh blood on the stone.
The ritual nearly complete, Hana brings a boot full of water to pour over the Tide Stone. Finally, Estietre having regained some of her composure calls out the name “Ydersius!”
All is quiet for a few moments until tremendous bolts of lightning arc up into the sky from the stone monoliths. As dramatic as the bolts of lightning are, the rumbling thunder from Crab Lagoon as the waters roil and recede out to sea is even more impressive, lowering the level of water in the entire lagoon by at least 20 feet, exposing rocks, flopping fish, and several sunken ships to the air. Perhaps most interesting of all, though, is the large stone doors to the southwest that grind slowly and noisily open as the waters recede.
The receding water also seems to have exposed the lair of the Red Mountain Devil. A small alcove is littered with the bones of previous sacrifices the Thrunefangs must have made to the creature. A few items glint in the sunlight, indicating there might be something of value in the creature's nest.
The now rocky path between you and the open doors to the southwest consists of seaweed, sea urchins of all colors, bright green anemones, scuttling kelp crabs, and bare rock glistens here, laid bare to the sky by the unnaturally low tide.
Among the other features catch your eye are a fifteen-foot-wide waterfall cascading from the cliff a hundred feet above into the water and the front two-thirds of a wrecked ship lies upon the rocks to the west, its bow mostly submerged but its ruined midsection propped up on a ridge of slimy rock. The sides of the wreck are thick with seaweed and barnacles, and dozens of crabs clatter around on deck.
Estietre claps her hands together in excitement "Ha! It worked! So fascinating... look at it all....", then exhales in relief. She points to the chupacabra lair.
"May we check the devil's cave first?" She flashes a childlike hopeful grin "Would that be alright?"
"Seems like a good start"
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The party moves toward the former lair of the Red Mountain Devil, upon arrival among the debris and bones you find a small hoard of incidental treasure in its nest, consisting of 246 sp, 234 gp, 13 pp, a mithral hook designed to be worn on an arm stump, a fine brass sextant, a fine buckler decorated with a skull and crossbones, and an efficient quiver containing 20 normal arrows, nine cold iron arrows, ten magical arrows, a magical javelin, and a masterwork composite longbow (+3 Strength)
"Oof... smells about as bad as I would've imagined. Well worth the stench I'd say. I'll just take a moment with these things." Estietre gets to work.. her eyes faintly glow as she handles and inspects each of the items.
This is an arrow of aberration slaying
Despite being more or less aware of what it would do, Dereje is taken off guard by the sudden and dramatic effect of the ritual. For a few moments he stands completely still with his hand hovering over his pistol, just in case they inadvertently summoned a more genuine devil. When no such hellish fiend manifests, he visibly relaxes.
"This equipment must have belonged to a rather skilled archer," the paladin surmises, admiring the quality of the bow. "Not nearly skilled enough, unfortunately."
After Mum invokes the name of a dead god of a broken race to complete the ritual, Adara raises an eyebrow when nothing happens immediately. She turns to face her companions with a dissatisfied expression and opens her mouth, but whatever she had planned to say is swallowed by the crackle of electricity as bolts of lightning arc into the sky. The power of the Tide Stone's magic catches her off guard after she had clearly assumed it had failed.
Stunned she watches the sea roiling below and then recede exposing wreckage and the unfortunate sea life not quick enough to react to the change perpetrated by the ritual magic. It is a few moments before Adara is able to breathe normally again. She looks around at each of her companions, an instinct to confirm both their own continued good health and also gauge if her own reaction was somehow outside of the average.
"Well..." is all the oracle manages before needlessly dusting herself off more a nervous response than anything. Cautiously, she approaches the edge to survey the newly exposed land below.
She continues to study while the others investigate the nest of their former adversary.
Adara cocks her head at the newly uncovered waterfall.
"Why would the ocean still be coming out of the rock?" she inquires of no one in particular.
Something about the cascade strikes the suli as strange.
Hana tosses aside the now-empty boot, probably one that she swiped from a dead pirate.
"Hmm. I don't know. I can go look around behind the waterfall if you think it's a good idea. This whole area seems to reek with water-controlling magic. I wonder if this changed how the island is situated relative to the rest of the waterline around here? Is this place now more or less dangerous for ships to approach?"
"Only if you can do so safely," the oracle says regarding investigating the waterfall. "I would join you if we can find a way."
Gesturing towards the sunken ship, Adara sighs, "I feel we are obligated to investigate. We have had good fortune so far either finding the means to defeat evil and dangerous creatures plaguing this island or locating things to help others on these wrecks."
SHWING! The katana comes out and Hana moves toward the waterfall, moving cautiously, stepping through with sure feet.
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Dereje draws his pistol and follows after Hana, staying just a few paces behind her.