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Soran hefts his bow and speaks.
He's right on that one. Lizardfolk tend to communicate by body odor just as much as speech. Good news is sometimes you can negotiate with them, if they can speak a language in common with someone. If not.... Well, they're giant lizards. Poke enough holes in them and they stop moving after a while.
Dusan leads you onward, until around midday you come across a campsite on the shores of what Dusan calls 'The Whispering Lake'. The campsite is ravaged and nine bodies in Razmiran robes lie dead and scattered around, the bodies looking chewed on... Scattered among the dead humans are the bodies of three dozen dead black-scaled lizardfolk.
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Soran kneels by one of the lizards, and inspects it.
These are definitely Lizardfolk, but they display signs of mutations, and black eyes and black oily scales that seem unique to this island.
He stands, gesturing to the layout of the bodies and the tracks all around.
The surviving Razmiri cultists fled quickly to the east at the conclusion of the battle while the lizardfolk survivors turned west.
He then spins, drawing his bow and nocking two arrows at once!
The lizardfolk circled back. They're back and they sound like they're expecting a battle!
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At Soran's warning of the lizardfolk's approach, Fera holds his sword low, doing his best to make his fearsome face appear non-threatening. "Remember what you advised, Soran - we may be able to talk to them," he says in a low voice.
He cannot see or hear the lizardfolk in the bushes, but he calls out loudly in the direction Soran has pointed his bow, "There is no need for us to fight! We have the same enemy, these masked men! Please, let us talk instead of killing each other!"
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Mikail circles the fight, then bends down to examine the bodies. "I think these are only a couple days old.." he calls out, before hearing the rustling at the same time Soran and Ferabras call out. He pulls his rapier, but keeps the tip down, until hostilities a tally engage.
-Posted with Wayfinder
The shaking in the undergrowth stops abruptly. A hissing voice calls forth and is answered by another from a nearby bush.
"No matter, they pause to lure us in. Make ready your weapons to avenge the clan!"
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Zolarus quickly translates two conversations and responds.
"These do not wear the masks."
"No matter, they pause to lure us in. Make ready your weapons to avenge the clan!"
I'm going to attempt to reason with them. He shouts out in draconic.
There's a silence for a moment, then the deeper of the voices responds.
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In an effort to show they mean no harm, Fera drops his blade to the ground, thinking to himself, I sure hope this works.
He raises his empty hands before him and looks to Zolarus to translate his words, "I say again, we mean no harm. We come hunting the masked ones! And as ugly as my face is, I do not hide it behind a mask. Let us work together against their falsehoods and lies!"
Zolarus translates. There is a moment of pause.
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Turning to his nagaji friend, Ferabras listens to the translation, then breathes a sigh of relief that they may have avoided a fight. "Hey Z, tell them we'll leave them to honor their dead, will you?" he says to Zolarus. "And maybe ask them about this forbidden city? Can we go in there? Or will that make them mad too?"
He waits until the situation is resolved to collect his sword, glad not to have been forced to use it without cause.
The voice responds shortly in Draconic. "Golden city. Place of death. No one who goes in, comes out. We smell the fire from the city. We do not approach. When the gates close, death comes."
Dusan nods at this, clearing understanding the lizard-tongue. "Bad place, but that's where the masks went! Not tryin' to kill you, but you wannna go where they go, and they go there! Xin-Grafar! City of Gold!"
Dusan seems to go very, very quiet. Looking unusually serious and put together, he shakes his head slowly. "Lizard's not lying. Two of my party went inside, to check it out. Safety, you know, always send a pair first. Heard them screaming an hour in. Then the screaming stopped. Decided to stay away. Prudent, said the Pathfinder in charge. Coward, I said. I was overruled. Now they're all dead. Dead..." his eyes unfocus and he stares at the ground.
Leaving the still nervous lizardfolk to their funerary rites, you follow Dusan away. It's nearly full dark before you emerge from the swamps to see a strange sight. The entrance to Xin-Grafar stands ahead—two enormous stone doors, each thirty feet high and fifteen feet wide, covered in carved, vertical wavy lines. The left-hand door stands open, a complex internal mechanism of worked stone and metal clockwork gears visible along the door’s side about halfway up. The doors are recessed about ten feet into the side of a large, grass-covered hill and tilt slightly inward. A firepit smolders beside the right-hand door, tiny tendrils of smoke still curling skyward from its coals.
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As the encounter turns more towards conversation then fighting, Mikail puts away his sword, relieved, and allows the others to handle the talk. He shudders at the thought of more death and the horrible fate the previous pathfinders must have suffered, but he steels his heart for the coming journey.
As the party approaches the doors, Mikail takes the lead. He scouts a bit a head, keeping his eyes peeled on his surroundings and his hand on his sword.
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Soran slowly un-nocks his arrows and places them back in his quiver as the lizard folk prove to be non-violent, and nods at Fera.
Indeed. We've overcome many challenges together. This "City of Death" will just be another one for the chronicles. Let's go then, we don't want to be in these woods in the dark.
He leads the group, following the tracks of the Razmirans, and smiles at Mikael. He offers the kitsune advice on tracking, and wilderness survival.
Here, let me show you a few tricks. See, how the leaves bend here? That means someone has passed by. The tracks are fresh, you can tell that by how the moisture has gathered around them in the earth, but hasn't filled the depressions with water yet.
Peering into the open door, you can see that tunnels descend into the earth as far as you can see. There's very little air movement and no sound coming from in there. It's as quiet as a tomb.
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Mikail turns to their guide. "You said you did not pass these gates, but do you know of anywhere safe to rest for the night that is nearby?"
2) Is it customary to return the remains of Pathfinders, or is this just me superimposing my own thoughts onto the game?
Dusan shakes his head. "Here's good as any place. Animals don't come here. They avoid the place, must smell funny."
The night passes quietly and at first light, you head down into the tunnels. They're dimly lit with some sort of glowing fungus growing on the ceiling. The tunnels are smooth and steadily head down, switching back and forth as you go. After about fifteen minutes of walking downward, the tunnel suddenly flattens out.
The long, sloped tunnel leading down to the city suddenly opens into a large rectangular room. The floor here is sand and shows signs of recent foot traffic. The walls are all painted in enormous murals that depict a city in its prime. The south wall shows hundreds of men and women in a marketplace, trading everything from fruit and livestock to construction materials such as brick and wood. The north wall depicts row upon row of unarmed, uniformed men standing large in the foreground and growing smaller as their ranks disappear over the horizon toward the far right of the painting—a horizon over which an enormous golden sun rises. The east wall is a huge map that portrays a city constructed of three concentric circles and divided by canals of pure, crystal-clear water that flows from the city’s innermost ring. Below this map someone has scrawled numerous notes and mathematical calculations in charcoal. Finally, the west wall depicts a leader of some sort, crowned by a golden sun and speaking before a huge crowd of people wearing white shawls and golden togas.
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Hoshiko suffers through the night quietly since the hard old ground is not like her soft tien silk-lined bed back home.
As the group progresses throughout the day Hoshiko remains quiet and watches the newcomer Dusan. When the artwork is found she does spend some time to admire the artwork and pictures.
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The next morning, Mikail wakes up patting a very much empty stomach.. and promptly begins cooking breakfast for those awake early enough to beat him to the cookpot for his seconds. He helps pack away the camp, shoulders his pack, and moves into the tunnels. As the dark closes around the party, he summons a couple motes of light to help guide the way. They flicker in multicolored hues and dance around the party at Mikails amusement.
Mikail giggles as Ferabras points out the fox, and swishes his own two tails through the air "I wonder if some seer knew we would be coming through??" he laughs. His amusement caught, he too studies the pictures, thoroughly engrossed in the detailed artwork. He gingerly runs his fingers across the ancient murals, admiring the artistry and effort such a work would take to create. As the others call his attentions to the calculations, though, he gets caught up in that conversation as well, and quickly forgets the artistry as horror sinks through his body.
"Molten gold??!!" he squeaks.
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Soran takes a step back from the mural in horror.
The mathematical calculations are adding up three things: the volume of gold it would take to flood the entire city, the amount of time it takes for the event to occur, and how often it occurs! 72 hours after the gates are opened, the jewel of everlasting gold will flood the city with molten gold to a height of 40 feet throughout the entire first two rings of the city. It also reveals that the molten flood takes a full 24 hours to drain, and notes scrawled beneath the calculations mention the jewel’s inability to stop the flood once it has commenced! This is awful! Who would build such a city?!
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Ferabras listens in horror and confusion to the notion that this underground city will fill with molten gold, then asks a question, "I'm no alchemist, but doesn't the gold need to stay hot, or it gets solid again? How do they keep it hot for a full day and night?"
He scratches a reddish horn with a clawed finger, then shrugs and says, "I don't expect to understand that, but I do understand we'd better get moving. Glad we rested before we came down here."
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"So the ones we hunt are 48 hours ahead of us and there is something that will drown the place in about 24 hours where we most likely will be running through in 40 feet of molten gold, which if you do not know will hurt you for a brief second and then you will be dead. So speed is of the essence here correct...? OK folks let us continue then and with some haste." Hoshiko sums up for the others.
A large doorway passes from the room of murals into the city proper. A lightly glowing green fluorescence emanates from the cavern roof above, illuminating a once-great city now reduced to ash and rubble—but whose ruins are coated entirely in gold. A large, covered bridge across a canal glows white-hot and emits a searing, golden light. In the center of the bridge stands a man-shaped statue covered in fine gold plating, its carved face eerily human-like.
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Fera studies the scene before them in awe, commenting, "Well, I guess that answers my question about keeping it hot. And I've a feeling that statue on the bridge is no statue, but some poor soul trapped by the molten gold. I wonder who he was."
Seeing Hoshiko studying the figure, Ferabras does the same, studying it for the presence of evil - though the man would have to somehow be still alive inside the gold plating for his nature to be discernible.