Joli tumbles past and Silt takes advantage of the distraction to kill it!
fire damage
Reflex save DC 17 for half!
Somehow, once again Silt slips like a fish through the waves of fire.
Toby, too, manages to avoid the worst of the blast.
This time the blast is too forceful, catching Purpose Creche full in the chest before he can react. He crashes against a wall in a burst of smoking splinters, bounces off, and lands on the floor in a heap.
He slowly retrieves the scavenger's stone and passes it over his body. Pits and cracks in his body gradually fill back in.
With time to examine the dais, you think that it is some kind of communication device. Purpose can take 10 on Knowledge (arcana) to attempt to replay the last message.
The crystal pillars flare to life and the arcane sigils on the dais crackle with activity. A moment later, a spectral image of a robed figure in an ornate helmet that obscures its face flickers into view. He speaks in Azlanti. “The time we have been preparing for is now upon us. Our enemies move to bring about our end, but we will not allow them this victory. Hold fast, remain brave, and have faith that the final solution is at hand. Soon we will rid the world of this veiled menace. Glory to Azlant!” The spectral figure raises a clenched fist and then disappears like the blown-out flame of a candle.
Joli's bright, multihued flesh turns to pastels as he hears the words, "Final solution." "I know not why, but no two such dissonant words were ever said. I fear villainy on both sides."
He begins to hum a low song of blessing.
Nothing else magical in here. You spend some time searching, but there doesn't seem to be anything else of interest.
You do get the sense that destroying the blast shadows put the haunt to rest.
You have one lead left to follow up on: the ancient observatory at the northern tip of the island!
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After cleaning the cinders off his flesh and that of his companions, Joli finds a little brook and sings gently to his deific namesake. Soft mist enfolds him as he recounts efforts to befriend the Strix and cool the fires of long dead Azlanti.
Iggi the octopus descends from beneath Joli's tricorn and sings along with him, startling the grippli. They soon take up a melody and harmony and wind gathers around them. Iggi begins to crackle. Small gouts of lightning travel around the mist and settle into Joli's finger tips.
+7 HP
+1 druid spell (burst of radiance) [racial favored class option]
+1 Acrobatics
+2 Diplomacy
+1 Knowledge Local
+1 Perception
+1 Sense Motive
+2 third level spells/day
+1 third level spirit spell/day
I will include treasure the summary post this evening!
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That evening, Silt stands in the dark and gazes up at the night sky. He imagines the Azzlan tea farmers of old times, looking up from their fields at an even brighter tapestry of light. Silt's wide, toothy mouth smiles crookedly.
He comes back to the camp and rubs a potato in the dirt, admiring the way its brown wrinkles collect the black earth. A bright red hermit crab skitters across the pale blue pauldron on his shoulder. He squats near the Wyrwood.
Purpose, can you teach Silt? About Azzlan? The fake man who spoke of "end answers" did not seem nice. But we search for their knowledges. Dangerous knowledges.
He looks at his blackened scales. Do you think our invisible worms are hiding under menace's blanket, too? Will the fire that burned us burn again?
He takes a bite of the potato and listens.
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As he stirs a pot of steaming stew over the fire, Cedar smiles at Silt’s questions while Mitzi yips and barks and stands on her hind legs, waiting for a bite of something yummy.
”I doubt we’ll see that fire again, and I don’t know if I’d want to.” Cedar licks off the soup spoon and then holds it out for Mitzi to lick, which she does eagerly.
”My worry isn’t so much worms in our blankets, but hags on our island.” He gestures with the spoon as he speaks. ”I’m not sure what to expect if we face down Helkhterie, but I feel we must.” For a moment he gazes beyond the fire, into the darkness, then he licks off the spoon one final time before dropping it back into the pot.
”We’d better prepare ourselves is all I know.’
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Silt cringes when Cedar licks the spoon a final time. He sucks a chunk of dirt out from between his teeth and lets it dissolve on the front of his tongue before taking another bite of potato.
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Freshly washed and prayerful, Joli perches over the camp on a tree limb. He offers, "Do you hear that bird in the distance? The cricket in the bush? How about the drop of dew onto the grass?"
He hops over to another branch."There's no single melody or verse for us to sing in our new home. Helkhterie, Onthooth, who knows what other atonal notes in our tune. Less important than our fight with each one is the chorus we raise to drown them all out."
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Off the northern coast, you find a jumble of massive whale bones, stretching up like columns from the rocky shore. Tattered remnants of tarps, tangled nets, and the collapsed domes of underwater structures are all that remains of what may have been a community of seadwelling creatures.
It's called Bonetown. Double entendres abound.
Somebody tries to make you fight each other. Oh no! You're all too mentally fortified for that. He is pretty freaky and has a grasshopper head. He teleports out.
You travel through a marsh that is actually smoking (thanks to the ancient laboratory buried by Earthfall) until you get to an island. A will'o'wisp tries to lure you into an ambush by a shambling mound and a bunch of stirges. You fight them off.
Shortly after, you get ambushed by a belker.
You eventually find a cave decorated with a bunch of bones. Some of the bones are rigged to fall on you! Inside the cave are gillmen cannibals. They attack! You fight them. Further in the cave is a shrine to the demon lord Zura. Oh no! You fight a gillman cannibal cleric (she has art), plus that annoying grasshopper guy, who is a wihsaak sahkil! And some gillmen cannibal minions. The cleric has potion of bear’s endurance, potion of bull’s strength, mithral chainmail, a +1 rapier, a spell component pouch, and a wooden holy symbol of Zura.
Good job, team!
By the way, you think the locathahs might be interested in Bonetown if they want a more permanent spot on the island.
Joli feels really bad about fighting the grasschoppers, pleading their case until the prove to just be pests. He tries not to think very hard about what Purpose does to them.
"You know, maybe we could present Bonetown to our friends with a humble request to forgive the Strix. It’d be great to have them talking again."
The wind sock fluttering in the air. Sad, a creature so pretty on the outside and evil inside.
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Toby floats, surrounded on all sides by his friends, each about 50 feet away from him. A bandana covers his eyes and a determined look is on his face.
"Ok, whenever you want, swim forward. I bet I can hit you with a stream before you can get within 20ft of me!"
One by one, at random intervals, each of his friends approach, only to be greeted by a quick stream of water as soon as they get within 30 ft.
"See! All you have to do is feel the currents!"
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Silt nods eagerly at the idea of giving Bonetown to the Locathahs. Dead whale, best. Roomy bones. Maybe they can think nice things about Strixies again.
He gazes fondly off into the distance. One day Silt would like a whale. Llyu-Llyu could play in its shade. A coral brain inside the skull, jellyfish eyes. Long happy eels squirming in the backbone tunnel… strong ribs to break the strong tide. A place inside to float in still water, to be safe in the big ocean. Would you visit Silt for cold kelp tea?
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Okoloro urchin ale. It might taste nice. Some urchin eat heavy ooze of dead things, some eat snail, mussel… salty algae. Some Locathah work urchin farms, planting urchin snacks, making new flavors. No urchin ale is like any other.
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Joli enthuses, "Really? Can we brew some together? I want to try all the flavors!"
Joli does a little thing with his new rapier, throwing it in the air and attempting to catch it.
He almost nicks himself, but manages to snatch the pommel just in time.
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"An urchin farm? That sounds neat! Do you have to herd them into corrals and stuff? Do they wander away like sheep?"
"Haha, I want to see that!"
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Do they wander away like sheep?
You guarded sheep at your old home, yes? Sea otter friends guard the urchin too. Locathah ride seahorses. Otters run with them in waves above. With braided kelp they wrangle urchin herds. Green whips looping through the tide, a seahorse rearing below the urchin stampede, the otters barking in the foam… you will see; we will visit one day.
Toby's eyes go wide at Silt's description. "Really? That sounds so cool!"
Silt nods. Distant clouds of urchin-herds might make tremble those mighty Azzlan Tea farmers of old.
The next morning, the quiet moments before dawn are shattered with the sound of a tree groaning and then splitting, and a crash. Loud footsteps thud into the camp.
A brightly-colored troll wearing coral armor approaches, dragging an entire mullberry tree in his long arms.
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The rass berries. Growing taller, growing stronger. The troll snaps a branch and throws it in the fire; sparks dance up into the air and are reflected in his dark eyes. So too does good grow stronger, to fight back.
Past where the forest tapers off into sparse, dead trees, the mountain slope becomes steep and rugged, leading to a circular ridge enclosing the sunken peak of the mountain. Once crested, the high caldera rim gives way to a rugged, rocky slope bristling with scrubby vegetation, leading down into a large, steaming lake. At the center of the crater lake is a small, rocky island upon which an octagonal tower rises one hundred twenty feet, its peak lying just below the caldera wall. The top of the tower consists of a dome of plated copper, long ago turned green with verdigris. The crumbling stone columns of a long-collapsed bridge are all that remains of a land route to the tower.
The caldera lake itself is a mildly sulfuric hot spring with an average temperature of 98 degrees (comfortably warm for most humanoids). The lake exudes a faintly eggy smell but is otherwise safe to bathe in or drink (though it tastes bad). The former land route to the island, an ancient stone bridge, collapsed into the lake during Earthfall, leaving crooked stone columns as markers of where it once stood.
Several of you spot a crude raft hidden in the bushes.
How would you like to cross the lake? Also, did everyone update Slide 1 with new modifiers?
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Joli doesn't skip a beat as the troll approaches the cooking fire. "Oh, hi Silt. This is great! The Rillsong loves a nice deep bass." His tongue whips out into the fire and grabs a bit or roasting, reconstituted salt cod.
As the party reaches the caldera, Joli peers into the water, gauging his ability to see an approaching predator. A spark dances between the shiny buttons of his tricorn.
Silt dips a webbed foot into the water, then bends down and submerges his head.
Silt shakes the water off his head before turning to Cedar. No swim? Smells nice!
The tower is on a small island just over 400 feet wide in the middle of a caldera lake roughly 1,000 feet across and 120 feet deep at its lowest point.
Silt doesn't see anything unusual, but he cannot see the whole lake.
"Yeah, let's go for a swim!" With that, Toby dives in surfacing quickly and making a face. "Blech, this stuff tastes terrible. Here, you try!" He splashes some water onto Cedar, then swims a little ways away, laughing.
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Joli takes a high jump in, aiming a splash in Toby’s face.
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Silt transforms into a scrag and then clutches his chunk of coral, muttering a spell in Aquan , before cannonballing into the lake.
ROCK BALL.
The splash is tremendous.
"We can all swim. Less disruptive to we move under our own power than be thrown from a raft in an attack."
Purpose Creche slips quietly into the water, where his form blurs and extends into that of a manta ray. The leftmost portion of its wing incorporates the ioun gauntlet, and is mottled brown and gold. Flakes of illusory ash float on the lake's surface before they're dispersed by Silt's monstrous splash.
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Cedar recoils from Toby’s splash, not only because of the smell, but the temperature as well.
”How can you swim in that, it’s so hot!” He wipes the smelly water out of his beard.
”Let’s see what Hakkuho thinks about this.” Cedar scoops up some of the steaming water, tosses it into the air, and begins the ritual to call forth Hakkuho!
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A cringing Cedar visible in his translucent belly, Hakkuho slithers into the lake.
”How delightfully warm.” Hakkuho slips and loops through the water.
”I’m a planetary marshmallow floating in a volcanic cup of cocoa. Simply marvelous.”
In Hakkuho’s belly Cedar frowns.
Soft eddies of hazy water carry Purpose Creche's voice from the slit of his manta ray mouth to Hakkuho's ears. "Let Cedar know there's nothing to worry about. Heated by magma. Only some volcanic action beneath. No threat."
, possible heightened awareness
Suddenly, Purpose and Cedar spot something moving in from the depths! An enormous crab! Knowledge (nature) to know more.
Cedar
Purpose
Toby
Joli
Silt
Crab