Only somewhat convinced that there probably aren't any ghosts guarding the old communications station, you secure rooms within the city for yourselves and spend the next few hours napping and otherwise preparing for your nighttime reconnaissance mission.
When the hour reaches early afternoon you set out, following the directions Yue Xin had given you earlier. As it turns out, you have no difficulty in locating the old communications station. A number of crumbling buildings make up this compound. Lit only by the stars in the cloudless night sky above, the ruins take on an empty, haunted aspect. An eerie silence pervades the ancient buildings — even the wind has died away to nothing.
Just off the central courtyard, a curious stone structure resembling an exterior hearth with narrow, twinned chimneys rises into the sky. These chimneys are far better preserved than the surrounding buildings.
You know that this structure was designed to facilitate the launch of fireworks for communication purposes, allowing for two fireworks to be launched from the twinned chimney simultaneously.
______________
|
Maria nods at Heps excellent interpretation, keeping her voice down, "it makes sense. That would be a really good communication method. At night the light would be visible, at day the smoke would be visible. Sneaky!"
She adds with a whisper, "I can see fine now, but that looks dark inside, I'll need to get my little torch out when we go in. Shall we just blunder in together to investigate or send our sneaky scouts in first to check it out?"
Either way, Maria tries to keep herself quiet at least.
Only somewhat worried about being quiet you begin to fan out a bit as you investigate the area. Maria ducks into one of the nearby buildings, lighting up her torch as she does so. Much like the others that she could see from the outside, it appears to be in a very poor state and falling apart. Judging from what bits of furniture remain and the layout, it's likely that this building was used as a guard post when the communications station was in operation.
Meanwhile Zithembe decides to ascend the central structure and begins to examine it for magical auras. While nothing on the outside catches his attention, he picks up an aura of magic coming from below. Closer inspection reveals a series of cracks in the flagstones under his feet that form a square; it is from under this square that the aura seems to originating. As he maintains his focus on the aura Zithembe is able to determine that it's a faint aura of abjuration.
Zithembe suspects that this stone panel could be moved but that it'll likely take some effort to manage it.
While Zithembe and then Hepsubia attempt to pry the stone slab out of the ground - without much success - Maria continues to hang back, her eyes open for signs of trouble. Though content to let the others work on prying up the stone slab she does creep forward and around the corner of the large ziggurat to see what she can see. As it turns out, the hole that she thought she had seen from a distance actually turns out to be an empty section where the structure has crumbled away. Some of the original stonework lies scattered about on the ground, half-buried in the earth, but a majority of it is simply gone - perhaps carried off by scavengers or thrill-seekers over the years.
After finally catching up with the rest of the group Rumble opts to take the lead on hefting the stone slab, borrowing Hepsubia's crowbar and levering it underneath while Zithembe grasps the edge. Together they attempt to heave the slab up and back...and the stone does shudder and begin to lift...but it proves to be heavier than expected and drops back into place with a *THUNK*.
Still, the pair are sure that with just a little more effort they'll be able to lift the slab free. It might also be possible to chip through the slab, though that would take more time.
______________
After taking a moment to catch his breath Rumble grasps the crowbar once again and HEAVES. The stone slab shudders again and begins to lift; just a little bit more and it'll be free!
Meanwhile, down at the bottom of the ziggurat, Maria continues her stealthy lap around the structure in search for any hazards or other things of note. But nothing else seems to stand out as noteworthy among the ruined buildings and given all the talking and *aggressive grunting* coming from the top of the structure, she's pretty sure that if anything were lurking nearby it would have come for them by this point.
With one final tug from Zithembe the stone slab finally pops free, tumbling backward against the other flagstones with a mighty *CR-THUNK*. A large space beneath the lid contains a cache of a dozen skyrockets,the tubes of which are brightly colored despite their age. There are two each of red, blue, orange, yellow, white, and violet skyrockets. Zithembe once more confirms that all of the rockets emit a faint aura of abjuration when he examines them and the blue and yellow skyrockets also give off moderate auras of conjuration magic.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"HAHA! There ain't aa rock in tha world thah a Dwarf cannae handle!" Rumble proclaims proudly. "Tha next step was gonna be mah hammer!" he explains as he clasps Zithembe on the shoulder in thanks.
"Oh oh oh, aye want ah good view!" he says as he starts back down the stairs and stands in the courtyard with anticipation.
As Rumble begins back down the steps of the ziggurate, anticipating a pretty show, Zithembe reminds him (and everyone else) that they'll need to write in green fire using the fireworks. Only problem is that there don't seem to be any greens among the pile of colors that you've found...
Deciding that Rumble has a very sensible idea Zithembe takes one each of the blue and yellow rockets, locks them in place, and lights the fuse. Smoke billows out from the stone tubes and the two rockets roar into the sky, trailing sparks of blue and yellow. At a surprisingly low altitude they simultaneously explode, blue and yellow flashes combining into sizzling green. The green sparks coalesce and twist in the dark, forming enormous words written in Tien that seem to hang and linger in the air longer than usual.
You recognize that the words reference the Dragon Empires Zodiacal symbol of the Dog.
While the four of you puzzle over the significance of this new bit of information, the fiery words finally break apart and begin to settle back to the ground. Well, most of them do. A couple of the letters continue to retain their shape all the way back down to the ground. As they come to rest on the flagstones, these letters suddenly begin to move! They writhe and shift until they look more like two small green bonfires, tongues of flame licking out in search of fuel to burn.
"እሺ, ነፃ ነን!" one of them exclaims, pulsing brightly. "የተወሰደው, ጥቂት መቶ አመታትና ከዚያ በላይ ነው? ለማንኛውም እንደዚያ ሆኖ ተሰማኝ."
The second flame almost seems to stretch as it replies, "ቀ ል ድ አ ይ ደ ለ ም! እነርሱ መጥተው ሲረሱ ብቻ እጠላለሁ. አንድ ነገር አሁን ለመግደል መቆም እችላለሁ. የበለጠ ጥሩ ስሜት እንዲሰማኝ ያደርጋል."
At this point the two flames finally seem to notice that they've got company and turn to face you. "ሄይ ስለእነሱ? መጀመሪያ ላይ በእነዚህ የቧንቧ ክፍሎች ውስጥ የተጣለቁ ሊሆኑ ይችላሉ! እና እነሱ ባይሆኑም እንኳ እዚህ አሉ ማለት ነው, ስለዚህ..." the second flame remarks.
"ለእኔ ይሠራል. ክፍያ!" the first responds as they both roar and move to engage!
"Alright, we're free!"
"It only took, what, a few hundred years or more? Felt like it, anyway."
"No kidding! I hate it when they just summon and forget. I could really stand to kill something right about now; it'd make me feel a lot better."
"Hey, what about them? They're probably the ones that stuck us in those tubes in the first place! And even if they aren't, they're already here, so..."
"That works for me. Charge!"
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are small fire elementals.
The two elementals crackle and snap as they close in on Rumble, him being the closest foe they can see. Both of them move up and swing fiery pseudopods at the dwarven warrior...
...and while Red misses, Blue manages to singe Rumble's beard!
______________
Round 1
Red
Blue
==============
Zithembe
Rumble
Hepsubia
Maria
Active Conditions:
Everyone is UP!
|
|
Quite surprised by the outcome, Maria is simple stunned when the two fireworks turn into fiery attacking jerks. "I did NOT see that coming!"
Without even a good guess as to any details about the fire-ish creatures she moves up to help Rumble. Stepping forward and drawing her bow, she fires a single arrow towards the closest beast.
for
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rumble's eyes go wide as the world slows to a crawl and the sentient flame moves to scorch his perfectly groomed beard. Despite his best efforts, Rumble simply isn't quick enough to move his precious facial hair out of the way before it ignites. "NOOOOOO!" he cries as he puts out the flame, now a little too close to his skin. "Alrigh' if it's a fight ya want, it's a fight y'all'll get!" he challenges, swinging Sledge at the fire as a lone tear gently caresses his cheek.
________
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Upon the arrival of the hostile elementals--whose ability to burn things he has apparently forgotten since immigrating from the outter planes to the prime material plsne--he lets the warrior spirits of Lung Wa. His eyes change to rubies. Those allies near the shabti feel sweat sting their eyes, smell blood, and hear the faint roar of a battle.
He draws the naginata from over his shoulder as he advances down the steps and takes a swing at the elemental below him with the poled blade. "Stand fast, Rumble. These spirits seeker murder and destruction so let us return them to their home," he says.
Though startled by the arrival of the two fiery elementals the group nevertheless leaps into action to defend themselves. Zithembe channels the warrior spirits of ancient Lung Wa, bolstering himself and everyone around him with their power. He then steps down and swings his naginata at Blue, slicing cleanly through the creature of flame! It looks down at itself stupidly for a moment and remarks, "ስለዚያ ሀሳብ በጣም ብዙ," before dissipating into the ether!
"Well, so much for that idea."
Rumble, determined to avenge his beautiful facial shrubbery, hauls off and delivers a powerful blow across the 'face' of Blue with his hammer and then Maria follows it up with an arrow to what might be an arm! Hepsubia then comes charging down the steps of the ziggurat and takes a flying leap, landing just in front of Rumble and then rolling right between Blue's legs!
Blue, seemingly shell-shocked by what happened to his friend, is too slow to swing at Hepsubia as she rolls through his space but it does gather enough of its' wits to swing at Rumble...
...but misses! Hepsubia then pops up behind Blue and swiftly shanks him in the back! Though her attack doesn't seem to be quite as effective as she expected, it's still enough to send Red to rejoin his friend Blue.
|
|
"Thah was a good warm up, now tah find a real fight, ha ha!" Rumble chuckles as he puts away his hammer. "What were ya yummerin' on 'bout earlier? Somethin' 'bout a dog, right?" he asks Zithembe while healing himself with the wand. Anything to take my mind off of my beard... It'll take days for this to grow back!
________
Regardless of whether or not you decide to take the remaining fireworks with you it eventually becomes apparent that there's little else to be gained or learned at the ruined communications station. The significance of 'Dog' is lost on you at the moment but Zithembe seems confident that Mai Chun will be able to divine more.
After one last, quick sweep of the area you begin to make your way back towards Changdo. You've not gotten very far when you top a small rise and, to your surprise, you spot a familiar figure seated alongside the road. It's Yue Xin, seated on a folding camp stool as he peers at the night sky through a mounted tripod.
Gesturing upward, Yue Xin says, "So the letters of green fire invoke the sign of the Dog, eh? Dogs may be vicious gluttons or friendly allies, and the wise know to be cautious until a cur’s true nature is revealed. But tell me, what does the Dog have to do with the lost palace?"
"Ignorance and choke-vines strangle the unwary," Yue Xin remarks with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. "But I suppose expecting the messengers to understand the messages they carry is folly. Very well; I ruminate more on what we do know and perhaps the puzzle pieces will fall into place."
Yue Xin quickly packs up his telescope and his chair before turning to Zithembe and holding out his hand. "I am pleased that my wand turned out to be a worthwhile investment but I'll be taking it back now that you are finished with it. Good day; it's really been, as they say."
And with that, and his wand returned, Yue Xin sets off down the road back towards Changdo. Which is rather silly considering that it's dark and the rest of you will certainly be heading there as well, at least to finish out the rest of the night. Then again, scholars and oracles and the like are often a strange bunch.
But all that aside, you've now completed the three tasks that Mai Chun set out for you. There's little to do now but return to your inn in Changdo for the night and then set out in the morning on the return trip to Ashima. It's been a rather strange exercise but on the whole not unpleasant; still, you're all eager to return with your findings and see what Mai Chun has in store for you next....
After what seems like months but is really only a few days, you all find yourselves back in Ashima, seated upon Mai Chun's many cushions. She stands before all of you, beaming as a proud teacher might at a student who has performed well on an exam.
"It's wonderful to see you all back and looking none the worse for the wear," Mai Chun says warmly. "So you were able to investigate each location I had marked for you, then. Tell me, what did you learn?"
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Maria shares the information they found at their last stop including the details about the Dog Constellation and their strange contact who spoke in riddles. Then she rambles on about Rumble's ability to eat, obviously impressed with the dwarf's ability to inhale meals outside the tea shop but not quite getting to the point of what they discovered at that stop.
Mai Chun listens intently as Zithembe and Maria lay out the party's adventures since leaving Ashima, occasionally scribbling on one of the many pieces of paper that clutter the large table in front of her. Once she's heard everything that you have to share, she grins.
"Seems like you've had quite the productive time, haven't you? Even picked up a few extra bits along the way! And really, learning to trust your allies and to work with them is the foundation that everything else is built on when it's all said and done, isn't it?"
As she speaks, Mai Chun begins making notations on the large map that you recovered from General Zhen's estate. It isn't long at all before she sets her quill down and nods with satisfaction, beckoning you all to come closer and have a look - she appears to have plotted a location on the map that falls at the southern end of the Gossamer Mountains. Mai Chun then utters,
~Spring melts into a
Summer’s dark night sky where
Cynosure abides~
"Or to but it in plainer terms, the path into the valley where the Summer Palace sits can be identified by the position of Golarion's 'north star' - Cynosure - between two specific mountains," she explains.
Mai Chun pulls a heavily annotated book from one of her shelves. "This is a chronicle of the Empire’s final days. I’ll be putting out a second edition when we’re through! Anyway, see here." She points to a page featuring a gold-and-gemstone statue of a sovereign dragon coiled around a jade scroll case. "This scroll case is believed to contain the 29 final prophecies of the last emperor of Lung Wa. Only a true heir of Lung Wa can interpret them; if this interpretation can be made here in Shokuro, it ensures our nation a high political position among the Successor States. It was last owned by a princess of Lung Wa named Song Rui, but it has never been found. I believe it may be in the princess’s quarters at the Summer Palace. When you find the lost palace, seek out the princess’s chambers and find this scroll case. Even if we can’t interpret the prophecies, it still provides an excellent symbol of the lost empire. Having worked in politics, let me tell you: symbolism is everything."