Will pokes the rhinomen a couple times just in case they were playing dead. Well, he pokes one. The other is definitely dead seeing as its head had been cleaved in two. He didn't care much for the items and didn't bother to relieve them just yet. Might still be some enemies around so it was best to secure the area first. Will approaches the southern door and pushes his senses past the portal.
Will smells demon.
Dragash drinks an extract anticipating further battle in this place. Dragash relieves at least the potions from the corpses, enough for one potion each in case they need them.
Dragash says in a low whisper to Will. "Sense anything past the door? Should we get ready again?" Dragash asks, expecting the worst.
Will puts a finger to his lips for quiet and brings his Fauchard forward, indicating the others be ready. He waits for them to form up how they will before opening the door.
Zerisi finishes poking around the dead rhinomen, someone annoyed he can't study the strange mutants further, but also looking forward to whatever else may be further on in the ship. He'd seen an awful lot of weird things in his travels, but few things as exciting and novel as this.
Picking himself up, he drags himself over near Will, draws a handful of cards, and stares back at the General, nodding.
Slip her great blade off her back soundlessly and gets ready.
-: Align Weapon [Lawful] 9min
-: Bulls strength 9mins +4STR
-: Longstrider +10' 9 hours
-: Magic Vestment +2AC 9 hours
-: magic-circle-against-chaos 9 hours
-: Greater Magic Weapon 9 hours +2 weapon
Will opens the door.
This strange room consists of two disparate areas. To the east, the chamber is furnished as a comfortable-looking study, complete with a writing desk and a small case of books. Numerous star charts are painted on the walls, and a strange statue of what appears to be a huge moth with outstretched wings and a coiling tail of three long peacock feathers stands in the corner. The western portion of the room is a stark contrast-a partially smashed cube with polished walls and a strange circular design etched in the floor. The far side of this cube is a wall of dark purple glass or crystal, which pulses periodically with flashes faint light.
Sanding amid the glass of one of the walls stands a creature, half vulture, half terrifyingly twisted human. At the sight of Will, it raises its beak and lets loose a deep and croaking cry of hatred.
With the sound Rosa gets ready but seeing how the others can see more being at the door, she holds her action until they act.
"I doubt we have any questions that thing could answer!" Dragash says as he removes a few of his bombs and lobs them at the creature.
A flurry of bombs shoot out, and explode against the creature's hide. While it seems partially protected from the fire, it is unable to prevent itself from being blinded and entangled.
Letting out a terrifying screech, it tries to stun the party.
The screeching sound blast hits Rosa but has no effect at all, she had seen bigger things in the Hell's screech much louder.
"SHUT YOUR FILTHY DEMONIC MOUTH!"
She calls out to it.
The screech. It sounded and felt like sand paper across his mind. But it was so loud it drowned every other noise until his whole world was just that excruciating sound. He drops his weapon and covers his ears to shut it out but it doesn't help. "HAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He tries to drown out the noise with his own yell but he can't even hear his own voice.
Zerisi shrugs off the loud noise, and steps around Will into the room, his ears still ringing.
Moving forward, he flips a card into his hand, and looks down to see what's on the face.
'Ah, The Forge. That'll do nicely.'
With the strength of his whole body, he cocks back and snaps his arm forward, releasing the glowing card on a direct line towards the impeded target.
Round 2, top of the round.
Dragash clenches his eyes shut and clutches his ears as the shriek fills the room. After a brief moment, Dragash squints open his eyes realizing the moment has passed and begins to act once more. He is hoping that now it is blind for a minute and glued to the floor it'll make things easier for Will.
Dragash tries a few more bombs, ice bombs this time. On a target much easier to hit.
Dragash then steps around the corner out of any possible line of fire, added benefit, the demon shouldn't be able to see him anymore.
Rosa moves points her sword and hits it with a negative energy ray DMG. Save 21 I think for 1/2
Zerisi's card connects, but little of its impact seems to carry through.
Dragash's incoming barrage of ice bombs proves enough to rip off the creature's wing, dealing appalling damage. Will, Rosa and Zerisi provide the finishing blows.
Dragash leans back looking into the room.
"Is it over?" He asks cautiously. Seeing the others kill the demon he walks into the room. "What is a demon doing here anyway?"
Dragash tries to identify the corpse now that there isn't much of threat of combat.
Dragash recognizes a Vrock demon.
Studying the room, Dragash discovers that the Vrock served as the ship's engines, using its Telekinesis ability to push itself to great speeds.
"The demon, a Vrock, has large telekinesis abilities that it used to move the ships engine. Fascinating, I wonder if you could...no no, bad idea, but maybe copying the interior of this ship the Elves could make some new advances in water or air travel with the aid of Wizards." Dragash muses at the role the Vrock played on this ship, slowly forgetting where he actually is.
He shakes his head becoming aware again. "There's another door here, should we investigate what's beyond it?" The sounds of the fight likely alerted anything in there so Dragash throws caution away and approaches the door listening, signally to Will to approach as he had more honed sense than he did.
Dragash was speaking. He could tell as much but their was still a wringing in his ears and everything was muffled by it. Eventually it drops to a level where he can hear the others. He asks Dragash to repeat and nods in agreement. He opens the next door, hoping to do something productive this time.
"THE Elves? They're your people, Dragash. How about an 'us' once in a while? Show some pride my friend, you're part of a great, storied civilization!"
Zerisi ribs at Dragash as he enters the room before getting distracted by the contents, and the corpse of the Demon.
Kneeling down, he stares at the circle and its designs etched into the floor, committing it to memory, along with the crystalline components, and the flashes of light.
'This is surely to be one impressive story...'
After a few moments, and when Will joins them in the room, Zerisi stands and joins the others at the door.
"Very well then. Let's see what else we've got!" he offers enthusiastically.
Dragash opens the door.
Boxes and containers lie in a jumbled heap against the walls of this room-many have broken open, spilling their contents across the room.
Zerisi kicks through some of the boxes on the ground, examining their contents, before moving over to look closer at the air bottle on the wall.
"Say, what do you think this all is for?" he quips, gesturing.
"I'll admit, I was hoping for another Demon. Maybe one we could chat up before blowing him to pieces. Never met a space demon before," he laments, speaking incredibly causally, and almost sounding sad.
Will glances around the room to make sure it is clear, then looses interest. "Better clear the whole thing first." Without waiting for the others he leaves the room and crosses the giant crack in the structure to the other set of rooms. He figured they'd see the wisdom and follow eventually.
Will advances to a further door, and pauses.
"Heh, I guess I should but.. I don't feel all that accomplished. Maybe once I add something to the grand knowledge of the archives perhaps I'd feel I earned that." Dragash fumbles a little, he too noticed that he is referring to races in strange ways.
I need to remember not to do that, too in the .. habit.
"Let's clear the place first indeed, I don't want anything sneaking up on us... despite that last few things not being all that stealthy."
Dragash follows Will and waits for him to open the door.
Zerisi hears Dragash's explanation, but he's already moved onto the next thing.
After Will leaves, Zerisi mutters some arcane words under his breath, then moves to follow Dragash over to the next room. When he reaches the door, Zerisi touches the General on the shoulder, discharging his spell.
Will blinks out of sight, invisible. "After you, sir" he says with a smile towards Will's position.
This gracious bedroom is resplendently furnished. Paintings of a lush tropical realm adorn the walls, a comfortable leather chair sits at a magnificent mahogany desk, and a four-poster bed fills the northeast corner.
In each corner of the room stands a precisely carved wooden statue of an archer with elven ears and green leaf-armor.
Dragash looks somewhat stunned and speechless at the archer statues. What? If this is an alien ship why are there... elven statues? What in the world? Does this mean.. this ship originated from Golarion? Can't be..
"Er.. Well. Dragash says while baffled by the statues. "This appears to be a bedroom, cosy isn't it? Maybe whoever used it left something behind. Let's have a quick look before going on!
Dragash searches the room to distract himself.
As soon as Dragash enters the room, the two statues come to life and raise mighty wooden fists!
Rosa had been looking at the summoned beast and how it was being used. She went after will and the others. Standing at the door holding to see no others came at them.
With nary a thought, Will appears next to Dragash to protect his flank. With his reach advantage, he swings his weapon in two large arcs attempting to smash the statue to pieces.
Dragash takes a moment realising that the statues are more than just decoration. Quickly thinking he realises his blinding bombs are likely not going to work with something without actual eyes, he throws a couple of bombs to the north one trying to pin it down with entangle.
Dragash then steps back giving Will the room to sweep across if necessary. "Thanks big guy.
Dragash then tries to figure out if these are living objects or if someone animated them.
Two of Will's blows are blocked by a sturdy wooden frame. Not all of his blow is carried through.
With a silent crackling, the statue targeted by Dragash's bombs shivers, shakes and burns to ash.
The remaining statue is quickly battered into splinters.
Dragash identifies them as wood golems of ancient and well-made make
Searching the room, the party find several treasures. Three large paintings depicting landscapes that are identified as Lirgeni, an ancient country that failed to survive the fall of Aroden . In the desk a number of broken vials and two surviving ones
A small journal is also unearthed, written in common, that seemed to belong to the captain of this vessel, a man named Gelviel Zorriah. The entries are unusually sparse, mainly focused on the ship's pre-flight checks, the binding of the Vrock demon. Two seem worthy of note. An early entry made in a strong hand-
The stars call to me. I hear their song in my dreams and wakIng hours. I know there are distant worlds beyond our own, and now I know how to reach them. The voIce of the heavens has given me all I need to touch the sky, and the Lirgen's Glory wiII soon ascend. The discoveries we shall make as we pass Eox, Uavara, and Bretheda will only be overshadowed by the ImmensIty of what awaits us beyond. We shall bring glory to Lirgen and impart to the modern world a breadth of knowledge unseen since before Earthfall. Only a cataclysm of that magnitude could stand In the way of our Imminent greatness!
-20 Erastus, 4598 AR
As well as a final entry written in a shaking hand-
It was not Desna who contacted me through the orrery. It was something else. It changed us, and now it's using us. We are its path back home. I'm so sorry I brought this upon the world, and so sorry I lack the courage to fight the change
Rosa looks over the small journal when it's found.
"Well this explains a lot, some kind of expedition from our world out into the voice. It seems by looking at this Entry."
She points at the page with the final entry written in a shaking hand.
"That some outside force tricked them in some way. Poor fools, that would explain the odd form they have. Twisted by some outer voice chaotic abomination."
She looks up at the others.
"I know we are thought of as evil but we do what's needed to be done to stop horrors like this being unleashed onto our world."
Zerisi is genuinely surprised, and goes uncharacteristically quiet and still for an impressive 2 or 3 seconds before flitting around the room from item to item, taking it all in.
"An ancient country, how exciting!" he says smiling, but clearly lost in his thoughts.
...but the real question...could we get this flying again, or is it too damaged? I doubt Rosa would capture a demon for us- law and order and all that...
"Errr, uh yes. Horrors. Very sad. Truly. But do you think it'll fly again?"
"So does this insinuate that this group made it to the stars and back? They would go as far to bind a demon? That is quite a quest to blast off into space." Dragash looks around and has a think.
"I have a feeling we haven't met this Gelviel Zorriah or seen him yet. The two outside might have been villagers mutated or guards on board the ship, and we know that the Vrock demon was bound here now. Should we continue to look for Gelviel's body? The emissary might be inhabiting it."
"I have a feeling we haven't met this Gelviel Zorriah or seen him yet. The two outside might have been villagers mutated or guards on board the ship, and we know that the Vrock demon was bound here now. Should we continue to look for Gelviel's body? The emissary might be inhabiting it."
"Still a few more rooms. Could be in one of them," Will says while looking at one of the paintings. It looked like a nice place. Its a shame the fall of a god brought all that down with him. It just reinforced the notion that not even the gods were unchanging, immovable. He turns away from the picture and heads out the door they came in. Judging by the layout, the other door in the room lead to the hallway he saw from the crack in the ship. Down that hall were two more doors and possibly two more rooms they hadn't checked. "Let's go find the captain."
Rosa takes her time looking over the whole space, She had to admit she was impressed, they had made a craft that move in space and see out being there. It was no surprise to her know they had bound a demon they the makers of such a craft hand been tricked and been twisted and warped by the very thing they sort. Fools and dreamers of the highest level. At the comment of getting the craft working again. She said nothing but just gave a look. A look that said, Try and summon a Demon and see what happens if I'm around In other words NOT a good idea. She left it at that. But made some notes in her pad sketching out the space and craft for the records. Smaller items on interest went into the bag of holding for later investigation.
Once done she headed out hind Will and the others.
Will steps into the next room.
Three bunk beds sit near this room's western wall. The remains of a small shrine clutter one corner of the room, and numerous books rest on thin shelves lining the chamber.
Standing in the centre of the room is a dark form made of shadows in the shape of an elf, face turned away from the doorway. Its long, thin fingers end in talons and it slowly rocks itself left and right, left and right, partially transparant.
There was no way the thing in room didn't sense them. Will was sure of that. But it wasn't reacting. He looks at the others, hoping someone knows what it is because he had never seen it before. As a test, he places a hand through the doorway but nothing more. The other demon had been bound to the room it was in. Maybe this one was too.
Zerisi follows Will into the other room, and a great grin grows on his face when he sees the Elf-shadow.
"Finally, someone to talk to!" he cries.
"Hey, you there! DO TELL us about this LOVELY craft we seem to be standing in. Is it true you've been flying among the stars? How EXCITING?!...Hey are you listening...?"
As Zerisi talks excitedly AT the shadow, he walks closer, and picking up a small piece of rubble, gently tosses it towards the Shadow.
"Helloooo??" he calls, to the still-turned-away shadow.
Dragash peers in as well, trying to figure out what that strange creature is.
Dragash whispers I do wonder what can affect such a bizarre creature or if it is aggressive like the rest.
The figure doesn't respond to Zerisi's words. The piece of rubble scatters along the ground next to it. At Will's hand intrusion the creature shivers and its long-nailed fingers tighten into fists.
Dragash recognizes an Animate Dream; a creature formed by rare interactions between the material and ethereal plane, seeking to feed on emotions, driving its prey mad.
Will, watching the creature intently, almost doesn't catch Zerisi in time. He notices the creature's odd reaction and a shiver runs down his spine. He always trusted his instincts. He grabs Zerisi before he can step into the room. He puts a finger in the mans face to forestall any comments. He then waves his hand through the doorway to show Zerisi the creature's reaction to invasion. "Let's let this one be."