Her most crucial work done, Amadeen cackles with a glint in her eyes, stepping so she has the best view of the troll. She stares at it even as her laughter continues to echo through the tunnels.
Johund slips under the troll's jaws and rolls forward. He comes to rest on one knee, one blade jammed up into the troll's abdomen while the other seeks vital arteries in its leg.
"Let's see how this thing works." says Impasha as she draws out the dark wood morningstar. She lifts it before her, waving at the strange rock troll's eyes. "Recognize this? We pried it from the cold dead hands of your king. While you sat here glorying in this gore and depravity, lounging about in your evil, we ended his miserable life! And now by all that's good and holy, you're going down too! Iomedae guide my hand!"
She muscles up for a ferocious roundhouse swing.
Fresh off of a near death experience, Eluvias launched himself into battle without hesitation narrowly twisting out of the way of the trolls fangs and drives his blade into it's skull.
Amidst the grissly contents of the larder you find a hot branding iron that smoulders constantly, close examination shows that it is enchanted...
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"Interesting. It appears these trolls stumbled across a useful magic item and one of them became wrapped up in his delusions of grandeur. That's actually a better outcome than I'd expected -- I thought we were going to face a rogue wizard."
"We still haven't learned what the rusty key was used for. Amadeen, with your permission, I'd like to go back to the last room where we fought the troll king and search that wagon-hut of his. I'd be willing to be he was keeping a private stash of wealth for himself in there somewhere."
”A useful artifact, even for us...” Eluvias mused.
"Maybe, Impasha. Or maybe someone gave it to them. Either way, we keep it. One for the museum if nothing else! Oh, and of course! We can all go that way and look once again."
As Impasha checks the 'Throne Room' again she finds a lock box hidden beneath some furs.
Inside the chest are a small statue of a dragon carved from exotic wood worth 200 gp
Gold necklace with a jade pendant worth 500 gp
Several pieces of minor jewelry worth a total 750 gp
Five medium quality gemstones worth 100 gp each
Three bottles of fine wine worth 15 gp each
Engraved silver tankard worth 50 gp,
1,484 cp
3,550 sp
652 gp
"Impasha, nice work even *after* hacking up trolls! We may need more bags of holding at this rate. Or a portable hole...."
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"It only stood to reason." says Impasha with a shrug. "If the two-headed one was a lieutenant and had a small hoard of silver and copper coins, then his grandiose 'king' was certain to have a larger hoard of his own."
She turns to Johund. "We should see to the bodies of the victims. Give them some sort of decent burial. What do you think would be best?"
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Impasha takes charge of the burial duties. She retrieves a small pick and shovel from Orlando, and after stripping off her armor, she sets to work digging a waist-deep communal ditch at the base of the hill to inter the bodies into. As ever, she works intently and quietly, only stopping every half-hour or so to rest and drink. After a couple hours, the work is done to her satisfaction and she returns to the hold to begin retrieving corpses. She wraps all she can into a blanket, drags them down to her ditch, and lower them in, one at a time. She tries to leave no scrap of humanoid behind, and spends some time on her knees in the room with the bodies, crawling about looking for gruesome scraps of bone or sinew.
Finally she goes and retrieves the heads, carefully loading them onto the blanket, then hauling them down to her ditch. For a while she seems to want to try and match heads to bodies, but in the end she realizes this is fruitless. She makes a small pile of the heads in the center of the ditch. She ends by discarding the blanket into the ditch as well, judging it to be no longer fit for the living to use.
Sweating and dirty, she stands now over the ditch, looking down at the victims in silence, almost apologetically. Her hands are folded before herself. She seems not quite sure what to do.
"Normally I left this part for the priests." she says to the bodies, in a quiet, apologetic voice. "There's not much left that I can say or do for you. By now, you've learned the great mysteries and are safe in Pharasma's halls, and have left behind the pains and evils of this world. If you have any lingering hurts over how your lives were ended, and how your remains were defiled, then I hope I have given you some comfort and some dignity. I did my best for you. I'm sorry I could not do more."
"May Iomedae bring comfort to your families. Rest now and forget these troubles."
She thinks for a moment, then nods to herself, and begins to fill in the hole.
While not feeling the gravity of the moment, Eluvias still recognized the importance of it to Impasha. As such, he joined in the efforts, for she had saved his life at the cost of her own health, and as such he owed her what aid he could give.
"We'd usually just burn ter bodies..." Johund shrugs, not grasping Impasha's reverence.
He watches her work from a distance. "Ah, it's t'be that kinda funeral, then."
He considers, watching as Impasha begins to fill the grave. "Long ye walked, climbin' ter dry road. Mayhaps forgettin' ter pools from which ye come. But ter water, it remembers. 'n ter River runs. "n ter River Road always takes its toll in ter end. Always."
He grabs a shovel.
Not being particularly adept at - or inclined - towards digging mass graves, Amadeen acts as a silent warden. She does her level best to ensure that no one crazed enough to ignore the troll bodies would try their luck with their killers.
Even so, her mind is abuzz with notions of threats to Thorneholme, and all the stabbing and blasting that will be required to take care of them.
As the sombre ceremony conducted by the unlikely companions is completed it is found that nothing interrupts your activities. The sun begins to hangs low in the sky as you finish the task.
"Aye. It has to be a safer spot with our work!"
Sometime later you stand once more deep inside the Accursed Halls. You bypass the town itself to enter through the hidden entrance you uncovered on your last expedition. You return to the last location left unexplored. A ten-foot-wide hallway leads east from this point, but beyond the first fifteen feet, no details are visible through the glowing, swirling mass of pale mist that fills the entire hall.
After your deadly encounter with the strange creature on this level you had held off on further exploration. But you had uncovered great riches the deeper you delved. Given that the Emerald Spire lies a little more than three miles away you can't help but imagine what treasures and horrors await you. Now you are more seasoned, better equipped and have a paladin in tow perhaps you can wrest free more treasures and secrets from this place.
Mage armour upon her, Amadeen motions.
"Onwards and downwards!"
”Once more to glory or ruin.” Eluvias responded.
Johund prepares by placing his forearm against and leaning his head against it. After a few moments of soft prayers, he turns back toward the mist with a special gleam in his eyes.
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For all her valor, Impasha betrays some obvious reluctance to return to the Emerald Spire. She rides in the back of the group on Orlando, keeping mostly to herself, lost in her thoughts. She makes certain to pack a small saddlebag with horseshoes as 'Tribute' for the troglodyte god-machine, a small act of blasphemy that she is also clearly not thrilled with.
Arriving at the entrance to the Accursed Halls, she lights a torch and holds it aloft in one hand, her sword and shield tucked away for the moment.
"This place stinks of goblins." she mutters to herself, scanning about the wreckage and following the party in.
As you move through the barrier you find yourself in a corridor of billowing yellow mist and strange, shifting lights opens in the middle of a large entry hall. Across the room, three demonic stone faces as tall as humans leer at visitors like a scornful greeting party. Each has an open mouth, extended tongue, and slightly different features from the others. From north to south they are blue, yellow, and red. Between the huge faces, two staircases lead up 10 feet to a balcony that overlooks the entire chamber. A set of ornate stone double doors stands closed along the south wall.Two shadowy alcoves flank the corridor of lights and mists along the west wall.
"Wait a second, folks. I'm checking the auras on those."
Investigation of the stone demon faces reveals that the central yellow visage bears slightly feminine features, and that all three forked tongues contain an irregular depression that appears to be designed to fit a humanoid's hand.
Each glows with transmutation auras and Amadeen suspects that they might be meant to depict succubi.
"Looks like statues of succubi. A hand would fit in those tongues and trigger some sort of transmutation magic. Let's avoid those for now. Let's look to the right."
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Distaste curls from Impasha's mouth at the sight of the leering faces, and she nods balefully at the notion that they might depict succubi. She plants her torch in a nearby wall sconce and draws out her sword and shield, moving carefully into the room. She peers into the shadowy alcove the the right of the door.
Impasha finds the walls and floors are carved from sturdy bedrock, smoothed and embellished in the artistic style of architecture. The alcoves are lit with torches.
The style of architecture is Azlanti in origin.
It's not just following the style as has been common at points in Taldor and Chelliax but seems to be authentic!
"Look, torches."
Masonry there and nothing more...
Amadeen spends long moments peering at the construction then her face lights up with animation!
"Hold up a second! This is Azlanti work. Not just an imitation but it's the real thing! The loot should be spectacular!"
Dozens of life-sized statues of noble warriors garbed in fluted ceremonial armor line the walls of this enormous chamber. A pattern of nested rectangles marks the smooth stone floor. Stone walls stretch up forty feet to wide slabs in the ceiling that bathe the whole chamber in bright light. Huge double doors mark the north and south walls. Along the west wall, twenty feet above the floor, a massive panel of clear glass holds back three columns of roiling yellow smoke in an alcove overlooking the room.
Amadeen waves for a stop then looks.
Eluvias was far too distracted by his thoughts on the nature of this place to pay attention to any potential threats. He was especially interested in the smoke, as he wracked his brain to decipher what may have caused it.
"It's entirely possible, Impasha. Azlanti made top-notch magic. I'm not too sure about their gods, truth be told."
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"I remember a rhyme from when I was a girl:
And did they build their towers high
And did they delve their caverns deep
And on the seas their will was law
And all the lands where wolf doth creep
As giants strode Azlanti lords
And did the world its tribute call
But the heavens counted hard the days
And with but a stone, they ended all.
"I used to dream of the Starstone striking the world, and a gigantic wall of water surging over everything, and all those poor people in their beautiful clothes and in their wonderful homes, all just washed away. As if they'd never been there."
"It's strange to actually see something real from that time. It makes it more real somehow."
She looks back and smiles a little self-consciously at Eluvias. "You'll probably laugh at my being impressed by this."
Eluvias shook his head, his face as blank as ever. ”You are wrong. I haven’t laughed in decades. Why would I laugh at something worth being impressed over? The Azlanti deserve respect for what they accomplished, and the power which obliterated them deserved respect for being strong enough to do so. And relics of a bygone age are often worth respecting as well, both for what power they might hold, and for what they represent.” He spoke as if though they were discussing something as mundane as the weather.
Amadeen can detect a moderate divination aura but little else from this distance.
Johund ascends the slabs, daggers drawn. "Well?" he challenges the room.
Johund moves into the room alone, challenging the unknown to do it's worst. Whether the ancient halls were truly empty or merely showing disdain for him is hard to be certain of.
"Mild divination. Can't tell beyond that. Let's see what happens."
Amadeen also moves forward.
Eluvias moves in with Amadeen, the door behind them slams shut. The yellow smoke roils and seethes as it slowly begins to take on the image of a giant face. The smoky image seems to look forth from its vantage point behind the glass inset into the wall, scowling hatefully. It speaks in a raspy, disgusted voice. "Foolish apprentices," it spits, "how I should have predicted your betrayal at my most critical moment. Seek to escape into some unwritten time, eh? By now you must have realized your ioun stone array has failed. You now stand marooned in time, living a day, an hour, a single moment stretched into an infinity over countless centuries yet to dawn-one final lesson in obedience from your very, very disappointed master. It does my heart proud to know that your last, eternal moments will see you hunted like animals. Farewell, my faithless friends. Test all I have taught you against the blades of Azlant!"
You each hear the voice in the language in which you were raised. Each of the floor's rectangles shifts to a slightly different angle, making movement from one rectangle to another count as traversing difficult terrain.
Around you three statues begin to move- no not move the original statue is there but copies of them move forward.
Amadeen
Johund
Statues
Eluvias
Impasha
"I don't know, Impasha, but focus on one a time if you can!", replies Amadeen, trying not to get overly worried by Azlanti killer constructs.
Think! Assess! Get your hits in quick!
The elf's gaze lands on Johund.
Her worries ebb away with cathartic, full-throated laughter that signifies that once again, the witch queen is weaving her hexes!
Effect: The witch can grant a creature within 30 feet a bit of good luck for 1 round. The target can call upon this good luck once per round, allowing him to reroll any ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, taking the better result. He must decide to use this ability before the first roll is made. At 8th level and 16th level, the duration of this hex is extended by 1 round. Once a creature has benefited from the fortune hex, it cannot benefit from it again for 24 hours.
Johund grins, leaps forward, and attacks!
"Who is that supposed to be?" shouts Impasha as a statue begins clumping toward her. "And why does the Smoke Monster think we're its apprentices?"
"I don't know, Impasha, but focus on one a time if you can!", replies Amadeen, trying not to get overly worried by Azlanti killer constructs.
Think! Assess! Get your hits in quick!
The elf's gaze lands on Johund.
Her worries ebb away with cathartic, full-throated laughter that signifies that once again, the witch queen is weaving her hexes!
Johund grins, leaps forward, and attacks! In seconds the living statue is turned to rubble.
The two remaining statues descend on Eluvias and Impasha.
Eluvias
Impasha
Amadeen
Johund
Statues
Seeing Impasha's attacks slowed by the distraction of the looming face, Johund takes the steps two at a time, arriving at the base to slam his dagger hilt into her opponent's head.