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"Get the totems? Why I believe I can assist with that!" Dale pulls out one of his last premixed extracts and drinks it down. He moves over underneath the highest of totems and levitates up and gently grabs it before heading back down to ground level, passing it off to someone who doesn't climb so well.
As he does he notices Brady's ingenuity and smiles "NICE! Great thinking Brady!" Then heads up to grab another.
At Purpurrup's request, the Pathfinders immediately try their best to gather some of the intact grippli totems, spread high about the room, and bring them down to where she kneels before the straining wall.
But climbing walls is not a quick way to move... not without skills most people do not have. Despite his fancy tool, Brady makes slow progress, barely above the area already cleared by the halflings before the others have gone well past. And Dale, despite his fancy alchemical magics, doesn't fare much better. But between preparing and consuming it, the movement rate of his spell is only sufficient to reach the high ceiling of the room built for giants. The effigy he finds there is one vaguely humanoid in shape, but with too many limbs, crudely chipped from a piece of limestone and died with what looks like blood.
In the end, only Tad and Monty were built for clambering around on vertical surfaces, and both of them go to do just that. Unfortunately for the aging vanaran, he again underestimates his climbing skills, honed in trees with plenty of branches to swing from, he forgets that it is all natural instinct, and no actual training. Combined with the weakness still in his limbs from the tripurasura's necromantic magic, his hands give out on him on the first attempt before he gets more than his initial leap from the floor. It is only after he starts to take his time, and treat the wall more like a challenge than sport, that he is able to make his way up. He too only has time to get to one of the idols: a strange four legged creature constructed from dried grasses pressed in hardened mud.
Only Tad seems to make a good start. Perhaps motivated by his continued missteps in the eyes of Purpurrup, or guided by the divine light of Sarenrae even in this dark place... the little grippli cleric manages to to meet the obstacle with just the right amount of caution and inborn talent, as he quickly bounds up the wall, using the small niches and shelves, well-suited for his small hands, to clamber up. He manages to grab another clay idol, though what sort of creature it is supposed to represent is hard to say, almost more just a oblong blob, with dark indents that might be eyes. The best he can do to get it down again quickly, is drop it carefully into the waiting hands of Dru and Faliana below, who quickly ferry it over to Purpurrup.
Luckily, as they continue relocating the various totems... the boys clambering or floating about to reach them, before dropping them down to the girls waiting below... it turns out Purpurrup didn't need that many. Or you realize, more likely, whatever she is doing, she is too unskilled at it, to do so to more then two or three.
She only places three idols before her, directly in front of the wall, the one she was holding in her hand, the blobby formless one that Tad retrieved first, and the third one to reach her. Whatever she is doing, it starts to have an effect. By the time she's done, the hatred and rage you feel permeating the room seems to fade. A few moments later, the runes start to glow with less intensity, then less... until suddenly the entire wall seems to contract back in. No longer bulging out into the room, as if something were trying to push their way through. For the first time since you arrived, the far wall looks like a normal wall... except covered in runes, most of them scorched or chipped away, but still a few, way up by the ceiling still glowing with a dim light.
Purpurrup doesn't stop her chanting even then, continuing on for a few more minutes, until she can go no longer, and collapses to the floor, her breath coming in raspy croaks.
"The fiend retreats." She croaks quietly. "For now."
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Once the threat seems to be beaten back for now Dale quickly switches gears. He stows away his tools of battle and draws out his journal and pen. Utilizing his short term levitation he quickly floats up to the harder to reach corners to draw any interesting things and take notes. He does this for a few minutes before the magic fades and he's forced to work from ground level. "Well, it was good while it lasted anyhow."
Purpurrup doesn't immediately respond to Tad's words, though given how he was the cause of much of her stress, it is not entirely surprising. But, in all fairness, you hope it has more to do with her just being utterly spent.
"So many destroyed." She mutters sadly, looking up at the wall and the broken totems scattered about the room. "Without this one's master, it is too much."
She clearly does not look hopeful.
In the present, not even those shelves remain of course.
"The fiend was not something from our time." He says finally, glancing back at you. "Whatever magics held it here, they came after we had gone from this place." He stops suddenly, before correcting himself. "Or at least after I had gone from this place."
"I suppose it is possible we were responsible for it being here." He adds, after a moment, a shamed look on his face. "The rejection of the Sun and the Moon, all the desecration and blasphemes that followed ... would have made for a fertile beacon to attract such creatures."
"Perhaps the cleansing of some of those will help keep it weakened?" He offers, reminding you that one task remains still unfinished.
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Dale looks up from his work and starts talking to someone that isn't there, you assume correctly that Akmon has shown up again, Dale and Faliana's hallucination Cyclopes. "Oh. Yes we should get that done, maybe it will help. I'll bring it up."
He then turns to the group and repeats what he saw and the image said, creepily word for word.
You haven't really had much of a problem with this room, compared to what it was lake all those years before. Other than the lack of runes, and totems, it doesn't actually too much different. Perhaps a library of some sort? But all the shelves are empty in the past, just dust covered shelves. Akmon is there, just looking at the shelves, sadly... remembering the bonfire you saw earlier, you can perhaps guess why.In the present, not even those shelves remain of course.
"The fiend was not something from our time." He says finally, glancing back at you. "Whatever magics held it here, they came after we had gone from this place." He stops suddenly, before correcting himself. "Or at least after I had gone from this place."
"I suppose it is possible we were responsible for it being here." He adds, after a moment, a shamed look on his face. "The rejection of the Sun and the Moon, all the desecration and blasphemes that followed ... would have made for a fertile beacon to attract such creatures."
"Perhaps the cleansing of some of those will help keep it weakened?" He offers, reminding you that one task remains still unfinished.
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Once Dale gets a decent drawing of the room he stands up and points back to the room with the piles and piles of destroyed relics "Ok, I know this is going to be tedious, but we gotta do what Akmon says needs doing. Besides, it should hopefully help with this bulging wall of demon hate we've got going on here, and I think Purpurrup would appreciate that right?"
He turns and gives her the thumbs up, regardless if she has any clue what that means. Once in the other room he being organizing and delegating the work to be done while he catalogs anything of interest. "Brady, hold up. Bring that one this way, it looks different.. oh, never mind. Bad lighting."
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Dale looks up from his work and starts talking to someone that isn't there, you assume correctly that Akmon has shown up again, Dale and Faliana's hallucination Cyclopes. "Oh. Yes we should get that done, maybe it will help. I'll bring it up."
He then turns to the group and repeats what he saw and the image said, creepily word for word.
You haven't really had much of a problem with this room, compared to what it was lake all those years before. Other than the lack of runes, and totems, it doesn't actually too much different. Perhaps a library of some sort? But all the shelves are empty in the past, just dust covered shelves. Akmon is there, just looking at the shelves, sadly... remembering the bonfire you saw earlier, you can perhaps guess why.In the present, not even those shelves remain of course.
"The fiend was not something from our time." He says finally, glancing back at you. "Whatever magics held it here, they came after we had gone from this place." He stops suddenly, before correcting himself. "Or at least after I had gone from this place."
"I suppose it is possible we were responsible for it being here." He adds, after a moment, a shamed look on his face. "The rejection of the Sun and the Moon, all the desecration and blasphemes that followed ... would have made for a fertile beacon to attract such creatures."
"Perhaps the cleansing of some of those will help keep it weakened?" He offers, reminding you that one task remains still unfinished.
As Dale repeats the conversation that Akmon had been having word for word, Faliana's face slowly draws up, the muscles in her jaw and cheeks drawing up and tightening into a rounder more plump version of her usual looks, with her expression being further distorted by a look of repulsive horror and terror watching Dale as he goes on.
A few seconds after he ends the conversation, Faliana fights back control from Themp and gives Dale a sheepish look. "You might not want to be doing that around Themp too much. The idea that someone exactly what happened is terrifying for him. Something about every slight and misstep being ingraved in someone's memory is probably one of the most terrifying things for him. Also I have to admit that was creepy!"
As the work gets started on hauling out the destroyed idols, Faliana stops on a trip out the door, and catches Purpurrup's attention. "I don't know what kind of idols you need, or if it woul deven help, but could we possibly make a few of our own to add? I'd love to make one of my goddess, Ashava, but if a diety would enrage then maybe just idols of the spirits I am guiding right now would do?"
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Monty looks out into the room full of broken ideals and rolls up the sleeves of his robe, tying them back before taking a soft breath.
Most importantly, we must clean up this mess. All these disrespected spirits, gods, and others? It can't be healthy. If our giant friend thinks this might be part of it, then I say we get to cleaning.
With that, he walks out into the other room and starts methodically picking up pieces and moving them to a corner.
Hey Brady, can that tool of yours make a decent broom? Or Shovel? We got a lot to go through.
Purpurrup seems completely uninterested in Tad's offered sustenance... merely waving him away with a curt gesture.
When Faliana approaches, asking about the idols, the little grippli merely looks around her with tired, sad eyes.
"Those fiends hate all gods." She says, her voice hoarse from her recent ordeal. "And those ones that bow to them."
"Not good to draw anger again, so soon." She warns. "This one is not strong enough to hold it. Only this one's Master's work held it so long this time."
She picks up one of the still intact grippli totems in her hands, and turns it idly. "Too many runes destroyed. These will no longer be enough."
She gets lost in thought, and exhaustion, as the Pathfinders turn to finishing the last of the tasks asked by the ancient Cyclopes spirit communing with Faliana and Dale over the millennia. And no small task it is.
The shear volume of idols and religious artifacts and relics smashed in the previous room, the Hall of Broken Gods, is hard to fathom. The piles of debris, as you already noted, reach well overhead in some places, and fill the room from end to end, except for the narrow winding path cleared through to the asura, Parveen's, prison.
Still, it is just debris. Despite being older than some of the gods themselves. And a bit of physical labor is within all of your capabilities... in fact, a bit of a respite for some, from the usual dangerous tasks.
It takes a little time to rig up some sort of conveyance, to more easily haul the debris, but Dale is able to jury rig something before too long, and then its just a matter of hauling it out, bit by bit. Unfortunately for Dale, none of it proves of any value at all, the passage of time, and thoroughness of the destruction, making any attempt to catalog any of it, pointless. Of course, he continues to do so, as the alternative is to actually have to help haul it.
It is a little surreal, for Faliana and Dale... their past visions continue to show cyclopes entering the room with intact paraphernalia, and destroying it, as the piles get higher. While in the present, their actual vision shows their companions removing debris, and the piles getting ever smaller.
It takes well over an hour to clear it all out, hauling it up and out of the temple entirely. Even as Brady is hauling up the last load, there is a sudden shift in the room itself, and... for just the briefest of moments, all of you, see a giant, one-eyed cyclops man, with a trimmed beard, and a sad expression, kneeling in the middle of the room, before everything goes back to normal again.
But he is not kneeling of his own accord. You see him being restrained by two other cyclopes, who hold him down with cruel expressions.
"This is where my visions end, small ones." He says, earning some odd looks from two that hold him. "We have reached that part of my remembrances where my end comes."
"Though I suppose it is long past as well." He adds, with a tired sigh.
"I only hope that what happened here. To the Gol-Ghan, will not be remembered ever again." He look he gives Dale is almost pleading. "That the things they learned that brought them here. The knowledge that corrupted them, will remain lost for all time."
"I take heart in knowing at least some of those blasphemies might be forgiven now."
As he says those last words, the cyclops on his right raises a large mallet and brings it down on his head. The image of Akmon disappears then, though that of the long ago room, and the other cyclopes in it do not. You see a handful of other cyclopes pour into the room, quickly joining in, all of them smashing the spot where Akmon's body lay.
Even as you see it, your own sight starts to blur, then it slowly begins to fade into focus once more. But the far away visions seem to have faded considerably, just glimpses now, faint flashes of long ago buildings or shapes... whatever magic holding the past to the present fading quickly.
Before long, they too seem to fade, and you are left staring at the world as you know it now, no view of the past to color any of it.
A moment later, you see both Faliana, and Dale, stagger slightly, as if suddenly dizzy, and a moment later, both of their faces slowly start to return to normal... until finally, for the first time since they drank from the fountain, both their eyes are the same size.
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Dale looks up from his cataloging and points to Monty "Great idea!" He digs in his pack a moment and pulls out his own fancy multi-tool. He turns it into a pitch fork/shovel/spork item and hands it to Monty. "Make yours a wheelbarrow Brady and you guys are golden!" He chuckles before adding. "Have at. I'll fix up people's injuries here..."
From his belt he draws out a curious long handled fork and starts poking people with it until they look healthy, starting with himself.
"Oooo Juicy!" Drool!
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"Oh. Poor Akmon. They killed him." Dale pauses to take a moment in silent thought before stowing his journal and heading out with the others.
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Faliana helps haul the last of the idols out, but stops dead in her tracks as the vision of Akmon flitters into sight in the room. She stands watching the spot he'd been kneeling, worry and concern in her eyes. For a long pregnant stretch she watches with growing horror as the scene unfolds.
After a few seconds, the more pudgy seeming face of Themp bursts to the surface, crying out in cyclopean and clearly upset at something. From Faliana's large eye, Themp's tears blubber out, as he mourns something. As her face slowly returns to normal, a few tears slip out of Faliana's other eye, slide underneath her eyepatch and down her cheek. A hand bearing Fali's trademark grace reaches up and wipes them away, before moving over and clearing away Themp's much more prodigious tears, and slowly patting her shoulder in a very comforting way. After a minute or so, Themp lets go of control and with a sniffle subsides. Wiping the last of the tears away, Fali stands and blows her nose on a handkerchief. "Poor Akmon, indeed. He certainly wished that the atrocities and their causes be forgotten, as they should, but I will certainly try to not forget him."
She moves over to Monty and gives him a hug, clearly not over what she had just seen and felt. "Seems I've been leaning on you when things go bad just a little too much lately. Let's go do something fun. You know what, why don't we all go do something fun. Purpurrup, that includes you! You've had your own drama today."
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Might want to escort them back to their people before we talk about fun.
Monty admonishes softly.
She's lost her master, many of her friends, and while we did stop the thing from escaping, we nearly set it free and the poor thing is drained from patching up our mistake.
He kisses her softly and smiles.
Let's let poor Purpurrup get home to her people, and see what we can do to help her clean up this mess as well... and now that I can look at you without wanting to make jokes about what big eyes, well, eye you have, we can spend our own time relaxing a bit before heading back to the lodge. I can think of a few activities to pass the time.
He gives her a exaggerated eye brow wiggle as he grins.
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Happy to lend his back to manual labor, Brady lets the exhaustion settle in and drown his unquiet thoughts away. Our victories never feel like victory, somehow. By the time the work is done, and things seem to have returned to normal, he's happy to just find a place to sit as everyone processes in their own way.
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Purpurrup only shakes her head at Tad's words. "No. This one can not stay." She says in her pigeon common, waving one hand absently at the sigils and totems. "This one can not do this. Too large. This one too small." She shakes her head again, clearly worried, not sure what's going to happen now.
As Brady was hauling out the debris, he did notice a few grippli outside, most of them in small groups, standing away from the main temple ruins. They did not engage him, merely watched from a distance. But as he continue to clear stuff out, there were more of them each time.
Purpurrup only nods tiredly at the news, finally pulling herself to her feet, saying something quietly in her own tongue, before making her way outside with an aura of defeat about her.
By the time you finally exit the remains of the ancient Temple of the Sun and the Moon, and surface once more into the light of the Kaava Jungle, there are probably about thirty or more grippli gathered outside. Although some bear the same tribal markings as Purpurrup, most of them do not. There are probably four or five different tribes represented, at best guess.
Purpurrup motions you to stay, and goes out to talk with them.
The conversation looks quite animated, and odd to watch from a distance... though you know enough about the grippli people now to realize that their body language is almost as important as their words, when they communicate. Whatever it is, it is clearly got them all excited, and worried. When Purpurrup finally returns, a couple of others in tow, she still looks worried... though not in the same way as when she left. She immediately starts talking in her own tongue, not sure she can quickly express what she is saying in your own.
"Word spread quickly, and even more will come. A much larger force shall occupy Kaddodi now. The Hazh'a will not get a second chance. Other Keepers come, to help secure my Master's fiend, and to help train me to do so as well." She almost smiles then, for the first time since you've met her.
Her smiles fades quickly though, and her tone gets serious, as her head starts to bob. "But those Hazh'a who fled spread their words as well." She says ominously. "Already, the demon worshipers amass out in the jungle to the east."
"I thought they were going to try to attack here again... but the scouts say no. They are gathering to enact a blood debt on those who denied their child-god her due." She looks at you worriedly.
"They want you!" She explains, in case it was not already obvious. "Word is still spreading. We do not have enough here yet, to protect you if they come directly. If they come to Kaddodi now, we are all doomed."
She hangs her head slightly. "You must leave, quickly... head west. Try to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible. They will not follow to the Ocean."
"I am sorry, but it is not safe for any of us if you stay here." She exclaims finally.
The gathered grippli start to fade into the jungle, until only Purpurrup and the two scouts with her remain.
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No Monty agrees. It is not.
He turns to Purpurrup. We'll leave... immediately. We'll report this to our superiors. I know you probably won't want it, but if the Hazh'a become to much, if that thing tries to escape again, if you need help, the pathfinders will send it....
He gives a sad grin.
And I promise, they'll send more competent folks than us.
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Dale stays relatively quiet for the meeting with the grippli and the waiting. He holds his head in his hands, his cognatogen worn off and the resulting headache really annoying. "Sounds like we should go. As much as I'd like to stay here for more research and the like, I'd rather not have to fight off a whole swarm of those cannibals."
He works to translate what the little demon binder says to the group but thanks to his headache he focuses on the key words. "Did we find anything to fix headaches and weakness?" He paws through the found loot for a scroll or vial.
Although most of the hazh'a you defeated did indeed have a potion or two, from experience, most of those were either minor healing potions, or elixirs to boost their strength... though by and large, they had enough warning of your coming to imbibe most of the later.
You did find some things on the small asura, including a couple of potions and a wand... though Dale's brain is already doing mental calculations on dosage sizes when he sees the tiny little vials... never mind the wand no bigger than a pen.
This all outside the tiny sized glaive it was carrying, which is too small for anyone.
Now, the small crystal you found earlier, with the ngoga skeletons, might have been able to fix some of it, if it were properly primed first... but you fear doing so might be worse than the cure, at this point.
Purpurrup nods thankfully, as you agree to move quickly to keep the hazh'a focused away from Kaddodi.
She indicates the two grippli with her. "This one, Chroak. This one, Freetik. Show fast ways. Help stay ahead of hazh'a." She says, the two grippli acknowledging their part as they are named, though you suspect only because their recognize their names, not because they understand Purpurrup's stilted common.
"Hazh'a come from there, and there." She says, pointing to the east, and northeast. "Not safe to go back that way."
"So these ones will lead you there." She explains, pointing to the west, then handing over some small packages, which at a quick look, prove to contain food.
"What could be found." She says, ruefully. "But now must go. Much jungle from this place, to that one."
And with that, Chroak and Freetik move off towards the west, moving swiftly through the overgrown ruins, pausing only long enough to make sure you have started to follow.
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Chroak... fitting name for a grippli I think. Woah they move fast! Dale looks up with a start and lurches ahead to follow the two guides. "Thanks for leading us Chroak and Freetik, just remember, most of us can't climb like you can." He hollers ahead in Grippli at the scouts.
With on hand holding his hat on his head and the other grabbing random leaves and flowers as they pass them, Dale makes his way through the jungle at a speed he is less than comfortable with.
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"May all the forces of light and goodness protect you and aid you in your important task..." Tad almost whispers in Purpurrup's direction as he prepares to leave.
He then follows Chroak and Freetik, asking them about their home villages in Grippli if they seem friendly and disposed to talk. He also offers to translate any messages between the gripplis and his friends.
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The pace is quick... perhaps a little faster than some would like, especially when weakened by over-consumption of unsanctioned chemical substances. Still, there is a certain sense of urgency to your pace, and though neither of your grippli guides says anything outright, it slowly starts to seep into the group subconscious.
You're not even sure how long the journey is going to be. Based on a rough remembrance of maps back in Bellaugh's office in Eleder, if you are heading due west, towards the ocean, it could be a week before you get out of the jungle. A week racing ahead of some unseen threat from demon-worshiping cannibal halflings intent on your demise.
It might seem a little funny, if it weren't so true... and immediate.
The first few days go by in a blur, as you seem to be constantly moving, along forest trails almost impossible to discern without knowing they were there. Chroak and Freetik had a little consternation early on, when they realized most of their routes were meant for smaller grippli to navigate, not their larger human charges. Still, they adjust quickly, and every since, you have seemed to make good progress. Never once seeing any evidence of pursuit, beyond the grippli's insistence that it is there.
You've been going for six days when you hear the first drum from behind you, soon joined by others. High toned, percussive beats, echoing back and forth through the jungle canopy. The grim look from your guides confirms the worst, as they pick up the pace even more. By the next day, the drums seem even closer, and you start to hear them from the south, as well, as if your pursuit has managed to pass you up, in an effort to get in front and cut you off.
You get no rest after that, Chroak and Freetik continue to travel into the night, a sense of desperation in their efforts... You catch the occasional glimpse of lights moving through the trees as you move, pursuit clearly not far off. All the while, the drums continuing to signal all around.
It is near dawn, eight days later, that you finally break out of the tall, overgrown trees of the jungle onto a vast coastal plain. The grippli yell at you to keep going, and before long you find yourselves double timing across open scraggly grass, gentling sloping downwards, away from the jungle behind you.
You can't help but take an occasional glance backwards, and already you see small figures assembling along the edge of the jungle, more of them joining every time you look. They seem unwilling to run out into the open ground... though a few eventually overcome whatever trepidation they have, and smaller groups foray out after you.
But out of the jungle, your longer legs finally prove advantageous, allowing you slowly outdistance even that pursuit, and by the end of the day, the scouts finally call a halt, apparently feeling you've finally made it clear.
You sleep like the dead that evening.
The next morning, Freetik informs Tad that you are perhaps two days from a human settlement to the southwest, and warns you not to go any further west.... though does not elaborate on that.
The two grippli then head back towards Kaava lands, moving southeast, clearly not intending to go back the same way they came out, and you are left to your own devices!
A few more, far less intense, days later, you find yourselves on the outskirts of the port of Senghor. A surprisingly large city, thriving on the edge of the Bay of the same name.
What happens next? Well, that is a story for another day...
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"Follow me guys, judging by the sun and prevalent wind for this season we should be going this way. Luckily we can go at a reasonable pace... time to collect these strange fruits hrmm..." Dale pulls up next to a swaying tree, draped over with non distinct, round green fruits.
"Interesting. A few moments please." He says for the 47th time so far today.