Fancy lookin' sword, huh? Argust will collect the valuables if instructed but pauses in case Bert or Brelar wish to investigate first.
Bert will look around in case there are any inubrix constructs lurking in the vault, or if there are any traps, before giving Argust the OK to collect.
Bert doesn't think there are any guardians in this chamber .
Making your way around the Sihedron, you next head to the adamantine vault. Seven dark crystal statues of robed men and women in extravagant Thassilonian garb stand around the edges of this black metal-clad chamber. Each statue holds its hands forward in a sign of tribute, though the hands of all but two statues remain empty. The others each offer a jagged chunk of black metal ore the size of a kettle. A black metal halberd leans against the wall next to each statue.
The statues here must be of the original seven Runelords, though you only recognize the depictions of Xanderghul and Sorshen, as they were the only original Runelords to rule to the end of Thassilon. As you near one of the statues to examine it more closely, it animates and kneels with the sound of cracking crystal, offering a tribute of empty hands to the one standing before it. Unlike the Xinoozes who thought that they were Xin, clearly the Runelords in this chamber think that you are Xin....
Karn [ooc](since he's got the higher Diplomacy check) replies in Thassilonian, "Your gift is graciously accepted."
Argust decides not to speak to the statues since the last time he did he ended up fighting off arguing oozes. What'd they give ya, Karn?
Luckily Karn is quick to recognize that playing along is safer and the statue nods in acceptance and stands back up. Moving to each of the statues, they all perform the same ritual. Most of them have empty hands but the statues of Xanderghul and Sorshen hold adamantine meteors. The piece Sorshen holds is a chunk of adamantine worth 6,000 gp, and enough to forge a suit of light armor or two weapons. Xanderghul’s meteor looks identical to Sorshen’s, though it radiates strong transmutation magic. If handled, it immediately turns into a +3 defending transformative adamantine longsword.
"Nice! Let's keep moving."
Bah, mine's better. Argust swings his greatsword around subconsciously.
So, where are we goin' again? You keep sayin' all these different rooms that have different stuff in 'em.
You decide to tackle the horacalcum chamber next. The walls of this room are plated in sheets of coppery metal, and are carved with numerous depictions of First King Xin through the ages. Some depict him as a child, others as an old man, with most falling somewhere between these extremes. A single stone statue of Xin stands between two pillars to the northwest—in his hands he holds a coppery platter on which sits a strange contraption of glass and metal. Seven spidery limbs extend from the sides of the contraption to hold the glass in place, while within the glass whirls a cloud of pale blue smoke.
The guardian of this room is a creature whose very existence is a paradox of time—a bythos aeon. Appearing as a smoky humanoid with four arms and a swirling vortex in its chest, this 13-foot-tall outsider has waited patiently over the years to serve its master Xin in defending the vault from intruders. Now finally intruders have come and it is bent on defending this place!
(+2 underground)
Karn moves up and tries to strike with his hammer!
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"Watch out--use acid! That's the only element they have trouble with."
Karn is quick to hit the creature before it can react and although Brelar lets out a blast of acid that should have hurt it, his magic is just not strong enough.
The bythos winds up and swings his airy limbs at Karn!
The strength of the attacks is enough to steal a few years from Karn's life....
Argust moves forward and tries to strike the enemy!
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Karn continues to attack as well!
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Brelar will try Dragon Breath again!
Argust digs his sword into the humanoid mass and Karn lands one hit on the monster. Brelar's acid breath then burns away some of its massless form.
Bert calls on his luck and shoots the creature!
The bythos aeon, being the swirling cloud that it is, still takes damage, is not hard for Bert to hit and the bullets still damage it, although it is quickly repairing itself...
With a fearsome whoosh of its strong limbs, the aeon swings at Argust this time!
Argust continues his quest of defeating the swirling enemy!
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Karn takes a few hacks!
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Argust hits the beast with a few good swings and then Karn comes in for the kill-shot, sending a blast of aether through the chamber as the elemental is dispersed!
The platter held by the statue is worth 6,000 gp and made of enough horacalcum to melt down and forge into a single weapon. The true treasure in this chamber, however, is the strange glass-and-horacalcum contraption that sits atop the platter. This is a timeglass, which may have already aided your quest unbeknownst to your earlier selves....
Minor Artifact
Aura strong divination; CL 20th
Slot none; Weight 10 lbs.
A timeglass appears as a 1-foot-long elongated glass bulb set within a stand made of horacalcum. Within the bulb churns a mote of pale blue mist—vapors extracted from strange flowers that grow only in the Dimension of Time. A timeglass can be used as if it were a crystal ball with true seeing, but also has the ability to scry upon events in the past or future. When using a timeglass to look forward or backward in time, a user can’t specify what creatures are viewed, but does look upon someone with whom the user has interacted before or will interact in the future. It can be used in this manner only once per day.
If used to look into the past, the timeglass does one of two things—it can reveal to the viewer a memory that’s been forgotten or put an old piece of knowledge into a new context (granting a +20 bonus on any one Knowledge check), or it can grant a link to a specific person that character has met in the past, allowing for a brief one-way communication to that person. The recipient of this message generally interprets the message in the form of a vision, or a strange prophecy, or divine insight—the recipient does not know the message is in fact from the future (as the timeglass distorts messages to the past in order to preserve the flow of time and combat paradoxes).
When a timeglass is used to look into the future, the effects are simpler—the PC gains a brief vision of a possible important event that will occur in the PC’s immediate future. Memories of these events vanish as soon as they form, but the user retains vague fragments of the memory, effectively gaining the effects of a foresight spell for 24 hours.
The timeglass must be carried back in time to the point it was created, and must then be used to smash apart the glass containing the mist before its creation is completed.
The walls here gleam with sheets of semitransparent green metal plates. Arms and armor forged from the same green metal are displayed on short pedestals throughout the room.
Two black crystal outsiders from the Plane of Earth known as crystallises stand sentinel here, looking to be particularly powerful specimens of their kind. You know that these creatures typically resist all weapon damage , are immune to disintegration effects, and can put out a cloud of gas that petrifies victims.
(+2 underground)
Both crystalline entities move in to surround the party and breath out their horrifying gas...
Oh nooo! You'll pay for that! Argust resists the petrification and attacks, clicking his heels to add Haste!
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Also three DC 26 saves for being staggered for 3, 4 and 3 rounds (1 round if they make the saves, additional hits do not stack but add to the duration).
Bert feels the transformation begin to solidify his body, but his natural good fortune narrowly saves him. "Uh-oh! This isn't going to be good." The halfling calls on his luck and waits to see the results of Argust's flurry of attacks before choosing a target.
In a hurtling rage at the petrification of his friends, Argust shatters the first crystal creature in four heavy swings and then steps over to put a large crack in the other!
Bert skips back a step and shoots at the crystalline creature three times in rapid succession!
Bert chips off some pieces of crystal with his gun!
Still staggered from Argust's hit, the crystalline entity only swings once at the dwarf:
In a rage Argust then easily finishes off the crystal creature!
In all, there are 100 pounds of raw noqual in the form of metal plates on the walls here, worth 5,000 gp in total. The room also contains a suit of +1 noqual full plate, three masterwork noqual breastplates, and a dozen masterwork noqual weapons of various designs.
"Pick them up, and let's use the wayfinder to get us back to Magnimar. We can probably get someone to cast a stone to flesh spell there easily enough."
OK Bert! Can we use some of this here stuff to pay for it?
"Sure! I don't see that any of us need the noqual for anything. I might want some bullets made from it, though, in case we fight something with heavy magical defenses."
After a quick trip back to Magnimar to unload your precious metals and turn Karn and Brelar back into their normal fleshy selves, you make your way to the last Skymetal chamber, the Abysium Vault.
Jagged metal shards of a blue-green metal tumble through the space of this room as if in slow motion, each sliver pulsing with a sickly green light. Clouds of the powdered metal drift around the edges of the room in a lazy churning current that stirs into a vertical spiral to the north around a door set into a protruding section of wall.
A bluish-colored woman with six arms and the lower body of a snake stands in this room, each arm holding a differently-colored thin blade. You instantly recognize her as a marilith demon, although she does not attack when you appear in the chamber. "Greetings," she says in a surprisingly pleasant voice. "It has been many ages that I have a willing visitor; that is, someone not summoned by me merely for companionship and conversation. I am Belmedra. What is your purpose here and who are you?"
"Hi, Belmedra!" Bert looks pained for a moment, then presses on. "We're Pathfinders, here trying to figure out what's going on with the clockworks that invaded Magnimar, and we've been exploring the island. This is the last of Xin's vaults that we've found."
"And the last vault Xin constructed too, how interesting." the demon responds. "Well only the power of the Sihedron could have awoken the island and the clockwork army Xin had prepared to take over Thassilon and bring down the runelords, so clearly it has been unearthed and reforged, yes? It's just a hunch, but I predict you had something to do with it too. Now please, tell me what has gone on in the last 11,174 years during my imprisonment."
Well, lots o' stuff! Umm, we ain't got a town crier or nothin' so I dunno what to tell ya.
Bert glances over at where the Sihedron is floating behind Argust's head, then back at the demon. "Quite a lot, actually! The aboleths dropped a moon on Azlant, ruined Thassilon as collateral damage and ushered in the Age of Darkness, the dwarves pushed the orcs up from the Darklands on the Quest for Sky...." Bert will continue his lecture, doubtless to the boredom of Argust. "...and then Aroden died, prophecy failed (though I saw a really neat prophecy of that in an old temple to Groetus), and now we're in the Age of Lost Omens. Oh, and the nation that used to be under Aroden's aegis is now controlled by devil worshipers. And there's some reason to believe that at least one of the Runelords is still around."
"Ah yes! Quite unexpected, much of that, and yet quite interesting all the same." Belmedra responds. "And I assume you have come here to confront Xin on his attempt to conquer a nation that no longer exists, in a world that has doubtless forgotten or chooses to ignore much of his reign? If you are looking for more information about Xin's plans, I'm afraid I can't help you; Xin was too smart to tell me anything, knowing I would only use it against him in my attempt to escape. But he's really gone quite mad since he has awoken, I can tell you that. Bent on taking over the world and rebuilding his empire."
Belmedra sighs as she considers her fate as the world might crumble around her. "So I could let you pass but I don't plan on doing that without some sort of exchange. For my freedom, perhaps. Really anything less is not acceptable."
"Oh, so he's awake? We weren't sure if this wasn't just some kind of automatic response. Good to know, thanks! So, how are you bound here?"
You sure its ok to let this here fella go, Bert? Maybe he'll try to jump us!
"So, how are you bound here?"
"It was a very powerful binding done by Xin himself so it will take very strong magic to undo the bonds. Do you have that kind of magic available? Because, as pleasant as this chat has been, if you do not have that kind of power, then I'm afraid I can do no more for you."
Brelar! Do you have a way to help this guy out? I mean, assumin' we're gonna help this guy out. Right, Bert?
Brelar thinks about what needs to be done.
