Daisy senses the trouble and steps up with her rapier, despite the previous warning about not getting close. Moving into flanking position with Kharina, she swipes it through the giant blob and seems to cut off an important piece of the creature. The creature starts to slam into her but she anticipates the attacks and parry's the blow, then with expert precision riposte's as her rapier slices into the creature once more.
When Kharina hits the ground, she is pleasantly surprised to see that the area she hits contained a portion of the blob. Her powerful strike is enough to finish off the creature, splattering it's gel-like substance in every direction.
Gad wipes some of the blob off his face and nods, "Interesting. Well done my friends. I am impressed by your combat skills as well as your intellect. I shall follow your lead and release my hold on the dome so that my ascension can commence. I shall favor your kindly in the future. Farewall mortals."
With that Gad turns and walks off the stage, the dome once more growing less powerful.
In the distance you hear the screams of someone saying, "That glowing green man robbed me!"
A glowing green man runs past you, shouting, "Nay, I didn't rob you, peasant! This bauble is part of MY rightful hoard. I was just reclaiming it! Do not argue with dragons, Madam, and be glad I let you LIVE!"
His arms are full of goods that look to have been stolen from market stalls around here. As he sprints past, Gad turns around and gives a hollow laugh. "That's Romnus. Thinks he's a dragon now. And you thought that I was messed up... Good luck with him."
"Yes, obviously I'm immune to such trivialities such as fire!"
When the bomb explodes on Romnus who begins to scream in pain and fury. When Sapper tries to ask what is wrong it is clear the "dragon" no longer wishes to talk. He waves his arms and calls to the sky as a bolt of lightning slams into the ground to his east. As the blast of light fades, a creature that looks like a dark storm cloud, with sparks suggesting eyes and long sweeping arms charged with bolts of lightning stands next to him. "No one attacks a dragon to steal his horde and lives! Kill them all!"
The storm cloud acts quickly and surges toward Tsadok'ul as it senses metal on his body. It flies upward at an angle and from above, a darkened shape blast into Tsadok'ul's midsection as sparks of electricity flicker over his body.
Sapper's blomb blows apart the "dragon", limbs severing from his body as he disintegrates before the party. At nearly the same time Muori and Tsadok'ul make quick work of what you learn later to be a small lightning elemental.
Gad wanders by again, an amused smirk on his face. "Well done, only one more anchor left before my ascension. You have done well, my people." He points to a woman with an arrogant expression on her face and burns all over her body. Then he looks back at you, anxiously and bites his lip. "Please be careful with Ormandi. She's had a rough path leading here. She lost both her parents in the kitchen fire that gave her those burns. Like all of us, she joined the Harbingers to find meaning and maybe a fresh start."
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Tsadok walks towards the lady indicated by Gad, a whispered prayer as he approaches; wondering at the path that had brought her to this position. Stopping a respectful distance away...
"Mi'Lady, you are the last anchor for the green shield above us. I know not what has brought you to this point but here shortly it will be for naught.We know that the comet above will destroy all that is here. I ask that you release the anchor you hold, there is no reason for those innocents here from our time to die.."
A hand motion sends Pea'nut to the side, should assistance become needed.
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"Thank you for your help, Gad. We will be kind to her, if we can. I too lost my parents long ago. It was a difficult thing, but regardless she will need to release her hold on the shield, for all our sakes." Katswiri gives him a slight bow, then hurries to catch up to Tsadok so she can view the conversation.
Omandi is confused at first. "But, we, we already succeeded." She motions around her to the town and continues, This is what Absalmon was always fated to look like." She continues to inform you that a high and mighty sorcerer such as herself couldn't possibly fail in her task, and she is assured of the Harbingers success.
Tsadok'ul persists however, and after a few minutes of polite and respectful conversation she seems to relent and realize that she was in fact wrong and they have yet not succeed. She is about to release her anchor when suddenly another amoebea is cast out from the time storm surrounding the town. It slams down to the ground, splitting the party and prepares to attack! Having already dealt with a few of these creature has enabled the party to get the jump on this one however. As soon as it plummets to the ground the party is already moving into action to dispatch it.
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Kharina found that things seemed to be progressing faster than she could follow, first the one amoeba died, and then they found another person they needed to convince to help them only to be attacked by another of those strange blobs. She found that her frustration was turning into an irrational anger and she was glad her morningstar was still in hand as she quickly moved up on the thing and swung her weapon at it, a coating of sickly green-black energy wreathing it yet again. Her weapon came down and slammed into the blob hard, discharging the energy into the blob as it did.
Sapper's dead-eye aim places the bomb directly into the blob of jelly between everyone. When it explodes the large majority of the creature is splattered all over Pea'nut and Tsadok'ul. What little is left quickly meets Kharina's morningstar and is destroyed.
With the creature out of the way Omandi follows through on her discussion with the hunter and agrees to take down her anchor as well, weakening the dome once more. The green dome still holds even though all of the Harbginer's in your area have been destroyed. The time storm around the dome continues to deposit creatures every minute or so, similar to the amoeba's you have been fighting off. The creatures show no sign of landing and you easily spot flashes of light throughout the dome as the creature make land and look for prey.
The party hears shouts from nearby as the entrance to the vault is discovered by several Pathfinders. The party is now confronted with a difficult decision. Should they stay up above ground and continue to fight off the time storm primordial creatures, or should they venture down into the vault?
The decision is made to enter the vault and the group sees another contingent of Pathfinders off into the distance heading into the vault and choose to follow them. Arriving at the entrance, the party takes a stairs that goes down several stories before opening up. Veins of strange metal line the walls of this massive chamber. Enormous bronze devices connected to the walls by massive cables spark and spew steam, almost obscuring the large vault door at the far end of the room. The door is labeled with a single word in a plethora of languages: danger. Stagnant water collects at the bottom of a ten-foot wide pool in the middle of the room. A gasping, bleeding elf who looks like an aged version of Kreighton Shane lies across the room.
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Katswiri responds slowly to the Amoeba flashing down from the sky, and by the time she draws her weapon Tsadok, Kharina and Sapper have destroyed it, although not without burning Tsadok. She steps forward with Tsadok's wand and taps him twice to heal his burns.
Katswiri studies the sky after her companions discuss their next move, the nods in agreement and silently follows the group down into the discovered sky key vault.
Once inside, she looks around the room in curiosity. She considers trying to follow Tsadok as he slips forward to scout, but she doesn't want to give away his position with her noisy bumbling, so she stays in the back and examines her surroundings, trying to make sense of the purpose of the machines.
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The green dome overhead ripples and flexes, visibly weakened but still present. The same woman’s voice from earlier booms from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“This… this isn’t what I wanted. I wanted a world with purpose again—with certainty. But I suppose there is no greater way to die than in the same fiery cataclysm that marked Aroden’s first step toward divinity. Join me in martyrdom, Pathfinders, and try to die with some dignity.”
Tsadok'ul moves though the room and finds no recent footprints on the hard floor, though he isn't sure if that is because no one has been hrough here or the surface of the floor doesn't seem to present itself to retaining them very well.
Katswiri isn't able to remember or determine very much about the machines. She's certain it looks like it has something to do with electricity, but not much more than that unfortunately.
As the two make their way into the the room, Kreighton speaks. “Good show, Pathfinders,” the injured form of Kreighton Shaine manages between blood-soaked coughs. “But Lady Arodeth is a true savant and driven to fanatical extremes. The same energies that infected her casters above have also seized her soul, and I fear she has already killed several of your fellow chroniclers. Or will have killed them. Blast, but this is confusing.”
Shaine props himself up to continue speaking. “However noble her goals may have been, if Lady Arodeth forces us to remain in this time, we will all die. If the Sky Key is still functional, you must reactivate it before the Starstone arrives.”
The machines in this chamber begin to spark and smoke, and female bodies take shape from the green miasma.
Shaine continues, “She has learned to create temporal copies of, as I have. She can produce an army, left unchecked. Some teams will need to hold the line here, in this chamber, so that anyone confronting the true Lady Arodeth in the room beyond isn’t overwhelmed by these simulacra. You know your team’s capabilities better than I, but I promise you Lady Arodeth will be not yield easily. Without taking her simulacra out first, I'm afraid you are no match for Lady Arodeth who is definitely beyond your skill. Do not brazenly charge headlong into battle with her straight out or you will never defeat her. Find the temporal copies and destroy them!”
With that, the chorus of murky green figures announce, “I would have brought destiny back to this world.” With that, the images prepare to attack.
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As they descended into the vault Kharina felt herself greatly on edge, she didn't like where this was going and was more than ready to be done with it and back to her own time. When they found Shaine and heard what he had to say Kharina knew the time was at hand. If they were going to survive this they needed to get to work and take out these copies. With her morningstar already in hand she was already prepared and drew down the power of the abyss, her aspect becoming infused with the furry of the abyss as she charged at the nearest image.
Muroi really recall or determine much about the machinery here, it's quite advanced. While Sapper has never seen the machinery before, he quickly makes several deductions based upon the surroundings. These two items in the center of the room are acting as a storage chamber from lighting which is likely being collected above and funneled here temporarily before being passed on to what looks like the next room. He also determines that the pools of water here appear to be electrified.
These clones look and act the party of a human magus. Each is equipped with a fancy quarterstaff made out of some darkly colored wood.
Muroi's ray of frost soars right past it's intended target, missing.
Kharina's charge stops short when the magus seems to anticipate her coming. When she swings her morningstar towards her target she knows it will be close. The weapon ends up being a few inches short and whooshes past her face unaffected.
Sapper's bomb misses it's target, splashing in to the pool behind the simulacra and exploding in a fountain of water. Some of the bomb fragments still catch the image of Arodeth however, damaging her slightly.
The three Lady Arodeth's all perform the same exact maneuver before acting. Touch their staffs they mutter a few words before their staff begins to emit a faint white glow. Once all of their staves are glowing, they move in and attack. The one first one steps west of Kharina and swipes at her with the glowing staff, but it swings high over her head. The southern one that Sapper splashed moves opposite of the one north of Kharina into a flanking position. With solid footing she cracks the quaterstaff hard into Kharina's ribs, a satisfying crack sounding from inside of Kharina's body as ribs break. The final image circles to the west of Tsadok'ul and buries his staff into Tsadok'ul's right thigh .
Seeing Kharina is in trouble, Daisy moves northeast towards her and slashes at the northern simulacara with her rapier, but misses.[/ooc]
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Kharina felt the shattering of her ribs accutely. Her pain was intense but she channeled it into anger and hatred as she stepped to put one of the images between herself and Katswiri. She hoped that she could take this one out and free the oracle up to heal her. If her gambit failed she was going to be in deep trouble. She pulled on the power of her patron and caused her weapon to glow that sickly green-black once again as she swung at the image.
Both Tsadok'ul and Peanut collapse on the simulacra with obvious experience. Pean'nut grabs a hold and drags the copied Arodeth down to the ground, prone. The hunter buries his flail into the woman, but she still fights through the pain and looks ready to lash back out at them.
Kharina focuses and ignores her pain enough to land a solid hit on the enemy closest to her, the creature clearly evil as the cleric's smite seems to hit home with resounding success.
The Lady Arodeth near Pea'nut moves northwest and buries it's quarterstaff into the spine of the large cat with a resounding crack .
The other two move into position around Kharina, once again flanking her. They both strike, but only one hits her with it's staff. The staff cracks her on the back of the head and nearly ends her to the ground, but somehow she says on her feet .
Daisy moves to Kharina and quickly pierces the rearmost Arodeth with her rapier, blasting in and out of her chest.
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Kharina stepped away from the clones once again and prayed that she'd actually make it a bit longer. Knowing that she couldn't take another hit she began to send a prayer to her patron, the abyssal words she cast called for healing so that she could continue her patron's works while trying to keep the clone from getting an opening to attack her. It was with great relief that she managed to cast her prayer and get a response without being struck down and she felt the healing energy wash over her making the pain she felt into pleasure as her wounds healed slightly.