Emberar holds up his hands placatingly.
Turning to Lark, he says quietly, "Bad news. She doesn't believe me--says we aren't 'holy' enough to enter Ghoral-Rey, and that the doors would only open for the...music of her people? Something like that." He pauses. "Did you find some sort of sea monster in the ancient temple? She made reference to a 'spawn of aboleth,' but I couldn't tell whether that was literal or just an insult to something that swam in and out of the caves."
Thren's eyes narrow. "You can enter that place by water or land. I have the horn to let us in the front door. And that 'sea monster' nearly killed us all. Its shell is going to be given to an ally of ours. Still smells too."
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Muffin rubs against Lee's legs (which is more forceful now that he's a little bigger and stronger).
Muffin also indicates the cyclops lady really wants them to go. Which standing around whispering to each other probably doesn't qualify as "leaving."
While the party is whispering, the old cyclops lady's ears perk, her clouded eye rolling toward Threnody. She once again demonstrates her ability to (crudely) speak Taldane. "Horn? What horn?"
She speaks to Arakh and he replies. She is beginning to look unhappy with the answer and snarls.
"Does the brimstone-smelling one carry a horn? What does it look like?"
"Uh. She has 2 horns on head. And 3 horns on waist."
"What do you mean on waist?"
"Threnody, can you give us a tune on the Reason to Live? Lark gestures the tiefling forward. "Do you recall the music from the door?"
As he waits for Thren to play Lark replies to Emberar, "Yeah, we fought some deep-born abomination called Orsilir. We'll tell you all about it sometime."
Thren walks a bit forward as she breaks out the One Reason to Live and plays the song that opens the door. She still keeps a wary eye on the two cyclopes.
At the sound of the horn, Aghra, who had already been growing increasingly agitated to anyone paying attention, widens her eyes and screams--well, even if you don't know the language, it's probably bloody murder.
She then repeats in Taldane. "UNHOLY THIEF! MINE! GIVE MINE!"
She readies a wand hanging from her belt and chants a spell and they both briefly glow with some protective spell. Arakh snarls and draws his spear and steps forward. You have talked long enough that the jaguars have returned to the plane from whence they were summoned, at least, but you are still facing two extraordinarily angry cyclopes. Their posture indicates very clearly the opportunity for conversation is likely gone, save perhaps by major sacrifices made by the party.
”Aw, seascum,” Emberar mutters. He yells to Lark, ”I assume that’s a hard no, cap’n?”
"Yeah, now we're back to the getting hit part of the day." Lark steps into Arakh's move and attacks with sword and dagger, trying for a surprise hit.
With a quick upward slash the young pirate scores a deep wound and splatters blood up into Arakh's eye.
Round #1
"Huh. It looks like someone thinks that our One Reason To Live is actually her One Reason To Live. Mistakes happen, I guess..."
Lee casts Haste.
"No dawdling. There's only so much Haste to be had. Chop chop."
Lark backpedals and drinks a potion from his belt.
Round #1
Muffin hovers behind Lee, peeking over Lee's shoulder. He'll translate as needed for Lee and will shamelessly use Lee as cover.
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Arakh growls, levels his spear, and charges the woman playing the horn, ignoring Lark as he passes ().
He aims too high, and as Threnody reflexively tries to dodge getting skewered in the eye, the spear tip bounces off one of her horns (the head kind), chipping it badly.
Aghra yells at her grandson.
"The horn in her HANDS, idiot!"
Lark slashes at the cyclops as he runs by, but he's unable to connect.
Thren looks up at the rather large monster, irritated. "I ought to make you file that nick out you stupid idiot!"
Having expressed her opinion on the matter, Thren begins singing an Andoran anthem as she steps up close to the hunter, dropping her bow and unsheathing her rapier as she goes. She makes a point of waving the One Reason to Live in the cyclopes faces (or at least stomachs) as she starts the song.
Aghra grumbles and, raising hands to the sky, incants a spell.
"Ancestors, help me keep this foul creature from profaning your song!"
She points at what seems to be a spot on the ground, and vibrations begin to emanate from that point. As the effect spreads out in a 20' radius, all sound ceases. You can no longer hear birdsong or leaves in the wind--and you certainly can no longer hear Threnody's song, let alone be affected by its normally valorous inspirations. You can't even hear your own breath or heart beating.
Emberar doesn’t feel great about killing people who are so sure (and with some reason) that they’re in the right, but he certainly isn’t going to let Threnody get skewered. He uses the speed granted by Lee’s spell to sprint in a wide arc around the younger cyclops (disorientingly, first out of and then back into the silent zone) and swings his halberd!
for
Move: 30’ in a wide arc to avoid AoOs and get directly opposite Threnody
Standard: Attack!
Lark slips behind Threnody to take advantage of Emberar's new position, but he's unable to score a hit.
Round #2
It is possible to see Lee's mouth moving like an auctioneer.
Lee moves back down the trail.
Lee steps SE
"...alalala. Ah-ha! Better!"
Lee casts Scorching Ray at the Arakh.
Emberar and Lark thought they missed, and then wounds pop open and begin bleeding profusely.
However, as the fiery ray strikes Arakh the cyclops, his skin glows as a protective ward absorbs the damage entirely.
He steps backward 5 feet in order to get a good distance with his longspear, ignores everyone attacking him, and focuses on trying to impale Threnody. His focus appears to allow him to strike Threnody without fail.
Flash of Insight (Su) Once per day as an immediate action, a cyclops can peer into an occluded visual spectrum of possible futures, gaining insight that allows it to select the exact result of one die roll before the roll is made. This effect can alter an action taken by the cyclops only, and cannot be applied to the rolls of others.
He drives the spear in and up under Threnody's ribs, and lifts her bodily off the ground as the spear tip is driven entirely through to the other side of her body. Blood pours from her soundless mouth, her eyes roll back, and as she shudders and goes limp, the weapon and horn in her hand fall from her now apparently lifeless hands.
Arakh laughs, a soundless image of the monster shuddering with delight, holding up his spear with the tiefling dangling off of it like a grisly trophy.
Aghra casts a spell, pointing at Arakh, and he glows with more power.
"LEAVE HORN, YOU GO, OR YOU DIE!" She announces to Lee and Muffin, who are the only ones who can hear her.
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Using the stairs as a guide, Muffin flies full speed to get help from the crew.
+Emberar's mouth opens and he tries to roar Threnody's name, but no sound comes out. Definitely time to get out of here, if we can, he thinks grimly. He gestures at the captain, trying to indicate that they should make their way back toward the jungle. He takes another powerful swing at Arakh, then a blurred swing, empowered by the spell that's been cast on him.
for
for
Free: 5' step
Full-round action: Full attack with haste
Round #3
Lee 5' steps S.
Lee casts a targeted Dispel Magic at Arakh.
Lark steps back carefully and nudges the horn toward Arakh. If the cyclops stops fighting he will move to crouch by Threnody and signal Emberar to help him carry his unconscious friend.
At the offer, Arakh turns to look at Aghra. She nods. He swipes his spear, not to hit any of you, but to clearly indicate that he wants noone near the horn.
He bends over and retrieves it.
If no one does anything else, he backs toward Aghra and she waves for you to leave.
"No come back!"
With Emberar's help Lark will carry Thren out of sight of the giants. "If you think we're safe for now can you go ahead and heal Threnody?"
Presuming Thren gets back on her feet, Lark says,"Should we head for the beach to regroup, or do you want do some planning right here?"
”Of course!” Emberar looks worried, but he takes out his holy symbol and kneels by Threnody’s side, beckoning Lark close as well. ”Keltheald, Lord of the Sunset Spires, hear your servant. This woman traverses now the farthest shores of mortal knowledge; guide her safely back to us, and so guide us all.”
Waves of golden light emanate from Emberar as he prays, closing the party’s wounds. As Thren gasps and stirs, he ceases his prayer and puts a hand on her brow.
”Thank you for this deliverance, Lord. Blessed be the journey. Always, new horizons.” As he finishes his prayer, a final surge of healing energy closes some more of Threnody’s wounds.
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As the one-eyed beast bears down upon you, your senses seem to slow down. Though you try to dodge you look down, amid the eerie silence surrounding you, to see the blade piercing you just under your ribs. Bravado fades, replaced by sheer agony as the spear slides into you with brute force. But no, no, now is NOT the time. Somehow with concerted will, you manage to twist slightly, just enough that the shaft elides your heart and your spinal cord, though a mess enough it will make of your ribs and torso. You succumb to the silence surrounding you, and all goes dark. And cold, colder still. Eternal darkness spreads into an endless night of stars surrounding you.
Out of the corner of your eye you see fluttering. Dark butterfly wings? You turn to look at them.
And instead, you look straight into the sun. Night has given sudden way to twilight, and the horizon is split in twain, dark sea and night sky above, with the sun creating a line of blazing light as it promises a new dawn. You blink back the light.
Warmth floods you. You are sitting on a cliff, overlooking an archipelago to the south of you. You are chained and staked to the ground, with manacles like those you were sometimes bound with in Cheliax. To your right, are skeletal remains, a skull sitting atop a pile of bones crisscrossed with one another. The skeleton was once in shackles as well, of different make, but those shackles lie open, unlocked, the skull seems to be grinning at its state. Next to the skeletal remains you see two objects: a dagger with a red and black pommel stone, and a bottle of absinthe. The dagger swings itself of its own accord and knocks the bottle of absinthe over onto the skeleton. The green liquid hisses as it strikes the shackles, which disintegrate into rust. The skeleton collapses with a silent scream into a pile of dust. The air around you grows dank and acrid.
A Fair Wind, and these are the exact words with which you process the sensation, suddenly passes over you. You close your eyes and breathe in the fresh air offered. The manacles on your own wrists open. You look over, and the skull and crossed bones in their free shackles is intact once more--but so too, the dagger and bottle lie near it, the dagger ready to swing again. You are free to go--the Fair Winds may blow you toward a difficult time, but you are certain they are also your best opportunity for freedom.
The sun rises higher. You are engulfed in light and warmth. It is not yet your time. It is time to return, to rise again.
Your eyes open to the vision of Emberar leaning over you, looking worried, and Lee and Lark close by, looking the same. Your chest really, really, really hurts.
Emberar calls upon the healing rays of Keltheald and the first effort, while closing Threnody's wounds, still leaves her unresponsive. He tries again, and again... and after what seems to be an eternity (but was probably a minute at most) the tiefling's eyes flutter open.
"Thank you again, Emberar. You and your faith have been a real saving grace today. You've certainly earned the right to weigh in on what we do next. Or to be on your way. Maybe tangling with living, angry cyclopes isn't what you had in mind."
Once Threnody is fully back in the land of the living Lark will reiterate his request for ideas. "I can't remember the last time I had a plan that didn't get one of us killed, or nearly so. I need some help finding the right course here."
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It takes Thren a few moments to get herself reoriented. When she does, her arms go around her torso in remembered pain. She checks her body for a moment, almost as if she's expecting to find something else. Finally she looks around at the people around her.
The tiefling's tail is now angrily lashing back and forth as she rounds on her captain, her fist smacking him in the shoulder. She yells. Is there a glint of red fury in her catlike eyes? Yes, yes there is.
"Let me point out a few things in case you forgot. First, there are a bunch of statues all up and down the main hallways of our little home that look like them. Oh, and let's not forget that the first one of these we ran into was already dead--and it nearly made the same way! Then there was that altar. Remember that? Belonged to a demon lord? Maybe I'm not educated in their culture like Sunstruck, but doesn't it seem reasonable that a bunch of one-eyed giants used to live there and worship demon lords? So that if they're living in the wilderness, maybe something forced them out a long time ago? And that they're probably not now worshipping Gozreh and eating berries?"
Thren catches her breath. "So why did we then help them fight a wild animal? An animal that probably would have left us alone?" She shakes her head. "I'm not the most level-headed person on the ship, and that big one-eyed hag pissed me off with her 'there's no way you can have the key to the house' crap. But maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't try to talk our way through every single problem? At least those that involved things that would've sacrificed us to demons ten generations ago?"
She pauses again, some of her fury spent. "I have nearly died to a mummy, a pile of glass, a snail, and now to a spear the size of a tree since I came to this island. That's just in the past month! It's all fine well and good when we're out on the open sea to relax and take things as they come. But my luck, Desna be blessed, is going to run out sooner or later. So if you want to go back and fight those things Lark, we better have a damn good plan. Because when you get down to it, I came to the Shackles to live free...not to die."
Emberar opens his mouth to respond to Lark, when Threnody erupts into her tirade. He simply rocks back on his heels, letting her get it all out. Definitely got some history there I don’t need to get involved in...
Once she’s done, Emberar chimes in, ”I have to own some of the blame for this, I’m afraid. The captain’s right: I DIDN’T ever dream of meeting live Cyclopes, and the strangeness of it made me forget the stories I’ve heard of their cruelty and barbarity. The shamaness back there seemed wiser than the stories suggested, as well...but that was before she tried to kill us for that horn.” He glances back that way ruefully. ”If you choose to pursue them, Captain, I’ll follow you. I’ve no wish to assume ill of any creature, but I don’t think they’ll leave us be. I can pray to Keltheald for strength before we attack, and that should give us a bit more edge.”
At the end of Threnody's speech Lark cries out in distress, "A good plan is exactly what I don't have! You're right, I screwed up. I took us into that fight the wrong way, just like with Osilir, and just like with Hyrix."
His voice breaks on the name Hyrix, but Lark goes on, "We've come this far not because of my leadership, but in spite of it! The question is how we fix that. Whatever we do next I'm with you, but there's no way I trust myself to pick the right course."
Thren seems somewhat mollified at Lark's admission.
"Seeing as how I was stuck on a spear, how did things go after I dropped? Are both of them still alive? Injured? I can guess the old giantess used some spells but not all." She turns to Lee. "What magic do you have left? I'm thinking once we're all healed-" Thren looks pointedly at her chest, "-between us we can throw some magic to boost ourselves up and make us invisible. Then we sneak back there and finish this. Starting with the tall dark gruesome one-eyed jack with a spear. Make sense? Now, did anyone happen to grab my bow in all this?"
The bard waits for the input of others.
Emberar bites his lip. "Keltheald's gifts are not infinite...but I can certainly ask Him for strength and endurance, and to strike fear into the hearts of our foes. I can ask him to help me heal you as well, Threnody--that will take time to accomplish, but should not be too difficult. If we're going after them today, though, and plan to pull out all the stops, we've got to be prepared to rest afterwards."
Here are my remaining spells:
3rd Level: Prayer (keep, cast in 1st round of fight), Fly (can't swap out, can cast it on someone but doesn't have to be me--Thren, for ranged attacks?)
2nd Level: Bear's Endurance and Bull's Strength (keep, pre-buff me or maybe Lark), Communal Endure Elements (swap for CMW Thren), Weapon of Awe (pre-buff a weapon-user), Align Weapon (probably useless, but I can't swap it out as it's a domain spell)
1st Level: Shield of Faith (pre-buff), Sun Metal (drop for CLW), Divine Favor (drop for CLW), Ant Haul (drop for CLW)
That should hopefully get Thren around 40ish hit points, enough to get her back to full (5d8+21).
Thren grabs the wand and proceeds to start healing herself. In between bursts of healing energy, she thinks aloud. "I'm thinking if Lark can get close enough, he can shoot that big one with the spear that's way too big, get a good shot in. If we do that, it'll want to come running at him. Sunstruck, you're the one with the longest reach. It tries to get in close, you'll back up Lark. I'll provide support with Lee, and we try to take him down first since he's the muscle between us and the spellcaster. Sound reasonable?"
"I'm not sporting my full compliment of spells, but if things go so long that I run out of spells we'll be in bad shape again, anyway. My concern is the one really solid hit the big fella got in with that oversized spear of his. Are we ready for a similar thing to happen again? Who takes that hit without expiring entirely and permanently?"