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Lancyn calls out to the group
"We need to dismount the man on the horse. I doubt many of us will be able to shake off his devastating blows much longer!!"
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Ako takes a step back pushed by the arrow hit. As she tries to gather her wits, and realizing the entanglement didn't work as planned.
I am really not liking these Aspis guys.
Lancyn brings the mounted opponent to Ako's attention, on it she says in acknowledgement.
pointing her tails toward him, two lighted bolts of force strike the horse.
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Hunter brains the leader with a well-aimed sling bullet, and the combined efforts of Ako and Whendel bring down his horse, causing him to fall off and twist something. "Can't trust my horse, my men to do this right," he snarls to no one in particular. "You're just another mess for Captain Caldegrine to clean up." Meanwhile, Lancyn heals himself up from Caldegrine's devastating charge, and the Maiden picks off another horse, although its rider lands much more skillfully than his commanding officer.
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Essa whips out her bow and shoots one of the mercenaries square in the shoulder, sending him to the ground. Caldegrine's remaining four men continue to lay down cover fire, one shot of which strikes Essa, while the man himself drops his lance in favor of a small sword. He then rushes Lancyn again, to much less effectiveness due to his lack of favored weapon and steed. The blade bounces off of the paladin's shield.
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Drawing his Cold Iron Morningstar from the loop at his belt Lancyn calls out a prayer to Iomedae, asking "Iomedae strike down thise who oppose your will!"
Lancyn swings driving the spiked head of his weapon straight towards the man clad in black leathers.
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Most of the group focuses on the enemy archers, not to much effect. Hunter once again brains Caldegrine, and Lancyn follows up with a mighty swing that knocks the Aspis captain to the ground. Before even the paladin begins to voice his terms of surrender, the mercenaries streak off on their horses, leaving their commander and dismounted companion behind. The former groans and bleeds on the forest floor, while the latter promptly drops his bow and surrenders. Raimondo and his crew cheer raggedly as they emerge from under the wagons. "We should leave. If you'd like to talk to them, tie 'em up and take 'em along, it won't slow us down much," the caravan master remarks.
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Taking the offered end from Essa Lancyn says "I can help you with that Essa." tapping her with gently glowing tip
Handing the wand back to Essa "That should do."
Lancyn Retrives his longsword and resets his wand in his spring Loaded Wrist Sheath winding the gears prepering for another barage of damage.
"We should question them but I might suggest we do so on the road as Raimondo has said. No telling if this group was the only one to be coming after us this day."
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The live mercenary, trying his best to keep himself in said state, complies and gets on the cart without question. As the caravan roars to life once more, he relates that his unit, led by Caldegrine, was sent to ambush the Pathfinders. The other group is much larger and moving to cut off the excavation's camp, not to mention the one still behind. Upon hearing this, Raimondo panics and urges his people to move faster.
You climb ever higher out of the jungle, the series of thin switchback trails just large enough for Raimondo’s caravan wagons. Suddenly, from the canopy below comes an unearthly bellowing roar. Thousands of colorful birds take flight and wing off away from the noise, and a cacophony of screeching, chittering, and screaming follows it.
As you approach the top of the ridge, a dilapidated camp comes into view. The camp is surrounded by a hastily constructed palisade wall forming a semi-circle that both starts and ends at an imposing cliff face stretching hundreds feet up from the palisade. The bodies of hundreds of ape-like creatures lie outside the walls in various states of decay. The stench is overpowering, and a cloud of flies is thick above the carnage. A cry goes up from the tower built over the palisade’s gate as the lookouts spot you, and the gate itself rumbles aside on rickety wooden wheels. A tall but emaciated woman with black hair pulled back against her head and a shortsword on her hip strides out from the camp to meet you.
At that moment, a horn sounds from down in the valley, closely followed by the screams of men and horses. Looking below, you see another group of Aspis Mercenaries, riding fast up the switchback trails, with hundreds—maybe even thousands—of ape-men hurling stones at them and running hard on their heels. The woman is surprisingly unfazed by this, instead giving you a thin smile and saying, "Welcome to Azlant Ridge. I see you've met the locals. Come in, ask your questions, you don't want to be outside when they get here, trust me."
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"No generosity here, you're fellow Pathfinders and you've probably saved us all with these supplies. You do have them, don't you?" The woman, who introduces herself as Juliet Dias and leader of the dig site, hovers anxiously around the carts to see if they contain the requested food, water, medicine, and ammunition. "No worries with the gate, honey, I'll call once you've amassed the collective strength of a score of gorillas."
The gate slowly cranks shut behind the team, and almost instantly many haggard men and women fall upon the cart and begin to profusely thank the newcomers. Juliet does her best to form a line and asks Raimondo and his crew to dole out equal portions before turning back to the Pathfinders. "Might as well get you acquainted with the place," she says, leading you away from the line.
She shows you the gate and its accompanying mechanisms and two rows of tents flanked by two larger ones Many of the smaller tents sport claw marks and contain tired, hungry, or sick Pathfinders. "The small ones are for sleeping and medical attention, the bigs ones we use as a kitchen and mess hall, respectively." To their west is a large, empty hole , which Juliet says to be a test dig, to the east lies a similar hole , but inside lies a half-sphere of a smooth, almost mirror-like white material. It is warm to the touch and glows with a soft white light. "We're not entirely sure what it does, to be honest, but we dug part of it up and it doesn't seem harmful." The final attraction lies at the south of the camp, a door built into the solid stone of a cliff overlooking the back of the site.
At fifteen feet high and ten feet wide, this door is an impressive structure. Carved from a dull yet shimmering metal, every inch of its surface is covered in runes, glyphs, pictographs, and intricate patterns. A single rift, about an inch deep, splits the door in half from top to bottom, giving you the impression that it might open were it only to have handles. The door sits recessed several feet into the jagged rock of the ridge’s impressive cliff face, which stretches a hundred feet or more above the camp. Upon reaching it, Juliet suddenly becomes businesslike. "We haven't had any success opening this thing, no matter what we tried. Did Zey send you with anything that might work?"
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"Don't we have a key or some such Zey gave us?" He said you had a door with a specific symbol on it that matched the key he gave us." "Maiden, I think you have it."
Whendel gestures wildly with his hands as he talks, miming a key and pointing a Maiden's backpack.
"Where is the key hole?" "I am so curious I could burst." "Did we come all this way only to find it doesn't work?"
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Lancyn listens intently as the captain of this post gives the grand tour speaking to himself memorizing locations.
Upon approaching the door Lancyn forgets everything around him and immediately steps closer taking out a note book from the satchel at his side takeing notes of the runes seeing if any make the patterns similar to sentences.
Lancyn runs his fingers along the doors face tracing a few of the runes.
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"Matching symbols...That seems like it could work. May I?" Without waiting for a response, Juliet takes the key from the Maiden and steps up to the door. The thin woman begins to trace her hands along the various pictographs and symbols, eyes constantly roving from the door to the key, and shushing any attempts to ask what she is up to. After several minutes, she slaps the key into a space it would not have fit scant moments before, and the door slowly but surely creaks open. She smiles triumphantly and is about to say something when another Pathfinder rushes up.
"A few Aspis are at the gate, plus some of their horses with empty saddles," he bursts forth. "They're screaming about letting 'em in or the charau-ka'll tear them to shreds." Juliet ponders on the matter, looking rather conflicted before turning to the team. "It’s your call. We could use extra swords against those things, but they’ve been chasing you and trying to kill you. I’ll back your decision. But if they're here, the apes aren't far behind. Explore the complex, find out what might be in there, and hope to the gods it’s something that will help us. I have to organize our defense. Go! GO!” She and the herald sprint off as the familiar roar sounds, leaving you with the key and the open door, stairs descending beyond into an inky darkness.
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Just before Juliet makes haste to the defenses Lancyn looks at the group. He stands up straight and speaks "I know i cannot speak for everyone in my group but I for one believe that many a person does not do bad things because they are bad. Many can do bad things because they may have had no other choice, or maybe even they have been forced to. It would be unjust to let them die by the "locals" a you put it. I say let them in and give them another task uf we cannot trust them with a sword."
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The team swiftly descends into the darkness which clears before them as the door shuts behind. For whatever reason, the back side has a keyhole, unlike the front. A wide set of stairs descends into an enormous room, measuring thirty-five feet wide by forty feet long, and more than thirty feet tall. The entire room smells sickly sweet, but the floors, wall, and ceiling are all smooth and clean—rather similar to the sphere in the ground outside. Four enormous monoliths, fifteen-foot-tall human-shaped metal statues, rest in the four corners of the room. They’re made of white metal, almost like a suit of full plate sized quite large, but without anything discernible as a face.
The party files into the room, but before they can make any thorough inspections, a cacophony of rattling can be heard from further down the corridor. Out of alcoves lining the hall, half a dozen armored skeletons appear. Wordlessly but by no means quietly, they begin to shuffle towards the intruders!
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The foremost skeleton crumbles under Whendel's magical assault, but the others mindlessly shamble forward. Hunter and the Maiden are prepared for the first one, the former kicking a fair few of its old ribs in and the latter missing as it shambles past. It slowly lashes out with a bony claw at its attacker, while the one behind it looks for other prey. Fortunately, neither are quick enough to find their mark.
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As we pass the threshold Lancyn reaches up the hilt of his Longsword sheathed on his back. Muttering a prayer, the hilt lights up shedding light
Lancyn mirrors Essa's movement coming up to the right drawing his Cold Iron Morningstar as he steps. Seeing the shambling animated dead Lancyn let's out a battle cry swinging at the one with the blue tattered cloth hanging from its shoulders.
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The Maiden rams her mace into the skeleton as it passes by, shattering it utterly. Lancyn steps forward and smashes the next one, and Essa moves even further into the corridor and destroys another. Whendel then shoots a ray of fire at the undead, which continue to plod resolutely forward to no gain, charring its dry bones and causing it to crumble. Only one remains, and, oblivious to its plight, it shambles forth and claws away at Lancyn.