Rohini nods and gives the yamah a small sympathetic smile. "I hope you'll soon be able to fully restore them. You know, I don't think you've told us how you two came to come here in the first place. Perhaps some idea of how to free you from this plane can be found in that story."
Illyata placed a starknife in the hands of a dozing Nyota.
"We were contacted by the sister of the queen of Venliin, a mystic theruge, when the young prince was stolen. Our true names were written in the journal of a well-known bard, and came into her possession when he died. In all honesty, we entered into Abaddon with a contract that has long-since expired... but we aren't ones to abide by a binding, anyway. We came because we pitied the mother, the father, and the poor young soul. Though, I suppose, in archonspect, it also had to do with the future of a nation which revered the Song of the Spheres, and Curchanus before her."
"We knew there was a cabal to take down, but... we had no idea we would be fighting a harbringer and his servants. We managed to infiltrate his fortress and slay many of his minions, but not all. His name has since been erased, but the memory of his servants remain. The single lieutenant brought down our entire force of fifty highly-trained hunters and the woman who summoned us, and he bound us with a powerful set of spells. We assume something similar to an astral anchor... but it has been permanent, in as much as our link to home has diminished. Perhaps, if we were restored we could fade as the bindings intended.,"
Illyata looks to her sister once again.
"Though one of us was more marred than the other; I can only hope Elysium still registers her as a daughter. The Starry Court hasn't deemed to risk its existence just to rescue us. That is well, but-,"
Nyota blinks some sleep away, and Illyata quickly silences herself.
"That would be terrible indeed, not to be recognized for mere cosmetic reasons...well, not cosmetic...you know what I mean. Forms are mutable; the soul endures." Unless you're a damned petitioner, and then that changes too, Kanthuun muses with a shudder that hangs over his spoken positive statement.
"We can always find restoration for you when we're through with this place, I'm sure."
Most of the lofty talk about religion goes right over Kanthuun's curly locks.
"Yea, that is really sad. If she can't go home, where can she go?"
"With us, and from there, wherever they choose."
"Yea, that is true. I for one certainly wouldn't mind that." Talon winks at the sleepy Nyota.
"You say this harbringer is long gone? So he isn't the one responsible for the trouble that has brought us to Abaddon? With your knowledge of this place, do you have any thoughts on who could have stolen the soul of Father Bahjat?" Rohini explains the party's mission, as she understands it.
Knowledge religion:
Rohini is lost in some thought, reflecting on what Illyata said. She then turns to Illyata: "When you say that you could fade if restored, does that mean you think the casting of a restoration spell on each of you might cause you to return to Elysium?"
Nyota looked up to the others in confusion, unaware that she was the subject of their conversation, quirking her brow especially at Talon's wink. She does, however, get a slight glow about the face as she realizes Rohini has returned, at least partially restored, her starknives.
"Ateitlua stavartyim." she breathed, smiling.
"Daemons are often vague, petty schemers." Illyata replied with a disdainful shake of her tresses. "But to steal a prominent, well-versed and well-loved soul of the goddess of redemption... that stinks of a larger plot than most. If it is anything like we have experienced, it could be a trap for someone, or something. I do not wish to alarm you by immediately placing blame on a harbringer, however, and I know little of Golarion. Our material plane of visitation was not yours..."
The celestial paced back and forth, bare feet barely touching the ground.
"But what would Father Bahjat's soul lure out? Who benefits, or suffers most for his loss? What are your connections to him, for that matter? Suffice to say that more knowledge here is like an armament."
"As for the spells, blessed one, I do not think the one you mention is strong enough, though... it is appreciated that you would think of us."
"I got no idea why they'd do it. I'm just a mercenary and he always gave me good work. He was a good man who deserves better than whatever they got planned for him."
"Well then, as the lady says, you've a chance at the comfort at knowing you are not the intended target. If this is a trap and not just a ploy to get a great deal of resources from another fiend in order to possess such a soul."
Under the Abbadonian Sun (which is a dimly-glowing red eyeball):
A productive span of time though it was, the reprieve at Gant's came to an end. Following the wayfinder, the motley party made its way back into the frigid and fetid forest of arrest, following the needle of the wayfinder entrusted to Kanthuun.
The dim eyeball in the sky seemed to follow the party's progress through the diseased canopy, and the ground was still marshy in most places, sometimes reaching up to Haka's waist.
Distant screams sometimes sounded through the air, but with the exceptions of the calls of a few red-eyed crows and the sound of sloshing water and the ever-persistent biting flies, the forest was silent.
The water itself began to take on a thicker consistency as the miles wore on.
BUT
Make a fortitude save vs. Disease, por favor.
Perhaps it was the vastness of the dark plain that finally did the group a favor, but the remaining twelve hours of travel that they could press on without anyone risking fatigue passed without running into any exceptionally large daemonic or fiendish specimens, though the party was riddled with bugbites. Even the yamah hadn't been able to avoid being festooned with mosquitos at times. Talon's swarmbane clasp might have helped him slash away at anything resembling a swarm, but the smaller groups of infinite insects were too numerous to slash at.
There was no dry ground on which to rest, but the telltale aches of the adventurers told them they'd have to set up camp nonetheless.
"I'm tired and I've got bug bites all over me. Let's call it a day and set up camp." Talon starts unloading his gear and starts unbuckling his armor.
"Let's call it a miserable, hellish, wet, insect-plagued, so-quiet-it's-alarming day, and set up camp, I agree." Haka finds the dryest spot he can, stands still, and waves his hands like fans at his soaking-wet pants, drying them off.
He breathes a sigh of relief and stands completely still, enjoying the feeling of being dry while it lasts.
Kanthuun heaves a rope into the air, metamagic rod in one hand, and utters a few words. "home sweet home, my friends. Climb the rope and we can hide out in relative peace.
He tosses a few sizzling globs of acid at the mosquitoes.
"Ilyata. So, the er, patroness of our...quarry...extends to other material planes? What are these other places like? And is anyone else concerned at the lack of stealth required to move around here? I expected to be ambushed by an army by now. Now that you mention it, Ilyata, it does seem somewhat like a trap."
"I'm guessing maybe we're not a threat to them so we've escaped their notice for the most part." Talon will wait until everyone else is up before making the climb.
"Each world is unique in some ways; histories, cultures, land-shaping catastrophies and gods born of those places too young to expand beyond them. Some have little or no magic used by their mortals at all. Ours, as it was, had a god embryo placed a shrine at the center of the largest continent in the central planet of their solar system. It was the feature for which the world was named, and a constant draw to outside attention."
Illyata herded Nyota towards the rope and swatted at a few insects Kanthuun had missed.
"As for the patroness, well, she helped seed the world with life, and is revered there, as well, though her following is much smaller; thought to be antiquated and out of touch with technologies beyond what you carry."
Rohini gives Kanthuun a hug: "I love your rope trick.". She scurries up the rope.
"Mostly, though, it is more of the fact the clergy doesn't adapt." Illyata admits, following the others up.
---
Watch during Perpetual Night
Talon kept his eyes open through the evening, glancing outside the porthole the spell allowed. A chill wind ripped through the marshy jungle of arrest, rattling sickened, sparse branches and tossed broken twigs and small bones into the muck. Sometimes it was hard to tell movement apart from possible creatures outside, but he was relatively sure that they were alone... until he began to notice darknening of an already dim scene.
They pulsated and danced in the swarm, the black flecks, making their way across the small pools of illumination below like flecks of ink. There could be no mistaking the fact they existed; no movement of the trees or clouds accounted for them. Soon, they became a veritable flood, shrouding the landscape below in a blackened stampede. The bog now appeared like a shadow sea, churning and hungry...
These creatures looked like shadows, or greedy spectres created by the lingering greed of dark souls that sucked life out all the mammalian organisms they touched.
Shadows created spawn by converting their victims into creatures like themselves.
Shadows could also be born of foul spellcasting.
Shadows can spontaneousy be created from the palpable despair of Abaddon's wastes, and often roam, endlessly hungry, across portions of the plane until irritated daemons devour them much like they do souls. They are more numerous in areas where the hunted desperately terminate their own existences for want, fear, and hopelessness, spawning like motes into the dark air,crying out one last time in the voices of those self-destructive souls who were never devoured or turned.
If they stay in one place too long, these swarms cause something of a feeding frenzy amongst daemonic predators.
Such shadows would have the ability to 'blink' at will, and would be of a NE alignment, rather than CE.
Talon's eyes widen when he recognizes the creatures. He starts waking everyone and pointing to the scene. "We got shadows right outside, get up."
Haka stirs awake at Talon's prompting, wondering blearily what is going on. "Shadows? How can there be shadows when it's dark outside?"
Looking out the small, window-like opening, realization dawns on him, "Ah, that sort of shadow. Drat. Better get Rohini up here to take a look."
"There are too many of them. I suggest we stay quiet and hope they move on by."
Talon just nods silently.
Hanethes looks down carefully. Although he's heard of shadows before, he's not yet had the chance to encounter any. Perhaps these shadows were only partly evil and had not yet been completely corrupted by the plane.
He watches their movements carefully, if he can.
"the rope cannot be hidden...but can you hide us from undead, Rohini?" Kanthuun inquires of the cleric.
"Good idea, although I will need to pray on it." Rohini will use an empty spell slot to learn hide from undead, which I believe will take 15 minutes. But she will only cast it if the rope trick expires before the shadows are gone, or if they come to perceive us.
"I would not move a muscle from this place." Illyata cautioned, pulling out her starknives and readying herself for combat, should it occur.
Nyota stared off into the direction of the porthole with abject terror on her fae.
Hanethes actually managed to stick his head out to see the rope below danglings ominously into the sea of blackness below. Due to his naturally stealthy nature, however, it didn't respond overmuch... However, occasionally tendrils of blackness started to make their way up the braiding, only to lap back down, like the movement of a wave.
Fifteen minutes elapsed with two significant scares, but Rohini was eventually able to utilize the appropriate spell to avoid detection, even if a creature were to come in.
Seeing Nyota scared out of her wits, Talon moves over placing his hand on hers in a comforting gesture. "It'll be okay."
================
"Does that usually happen? Talon asks after it's over to anyone who could answer.
"Very creepy." Hanethes says after he pulls his head back in. "I imagine we'll just stay here til they're gone. I'm as curious as you are, Talon."
Nyota moved her horrified gaze to lock with Talon's, her own full of the void of exhaustion. The muscles of her hand were unnaturally tense and chilled to the bone. Still, after a time, she calmed down, believing the fight for better or for worse.
Illyata lurked on the other end of the spectrum, looking down after Hanethes with her knives still clenched like lifelines.
"Let us hope they do not lurk," she whispered.
Rohini's spell granted everyone the relief that the shadows would not actively seek them out, filling them with a comforting warmth. The fear that something else might follow, of course, would need to be cured by something else entirely.
"Our thanks," Illyata whispered to the cleric, bowing her head.
---
The black tide lasted for another hour and a half, constantly moving, and likely consisting of different creatures throughout, but it eventually left the jungle much as it had been before; filthy, soggy, and disease-ridden.
The danger past, Illyata relaxed her grip on her own weapons.
"Common? I am unsure. We did not run into them before, however... and if they are a mundane sight... well, we'd better pray for her own luck."
---
Another day of perpetual night!
The rest of the evening was as such that the weary seekers could recuperate their energy and spellcasting ability.
"We all ready to keep going?"
"With haste," says Kanthuun while unconsciously checking the wayfinder. "No need to memorize any spells on my part. Although it would be nice to find a hot bath in this horrible place. I dare say, those shadows confused me. I suppose petitioners are not the undead but 'dead' spirits, and then they get twisted up with negative energy to become shadows. Quite confusing."
He straps on his gear and is ready to go.
"Yea." Talon straps his armor on to his frame and picks his pack up.
"yes, let's move on."
Hanethes nods, congenially.
"Definitely. Anyone with the you-know-what tell us what way we're going now?"
Thankfully, the wayfinder's needle hadn't budged an inch/millimeter/millihectare, etc. The traveling would continue on with the party once again making their way through the sickly jungle of arrest, sloshing through knee-high ick that one would be ill-advised to ingest. In fact, if anyone could tell someone that, it would be Hanethes. The water in this section of the forest had the same consistency as the poison Adrig had used on her dagger only a few days before.
This is a weak injury-transferred poison that does 1d4 points of constitution damage once on a failed save.
The halfling stepped on something beneath the murk that felt remarkably like a cold, clammy hand. It didn't react to the bard's feet, but all the same... it was a notable experience.
"If you hadn't figured it out. This sludge is poison, of the literal variety. Don't drink it. And if you're injured get out of it immediately."
After a few hours of travel, Haka abruptly pulls his foot out of the clammy sludge, letting out a small yelp as he does so. "Aaaahh! Just what I needed! This stuff is nasty enough to walk in - and I don't doubt you that it's poisonous, Han - but I swear I just felt a hand down there. It didn't grab me or anything, so maybe just a dead hand, but that doesn't make me like it any more. I could feel the fingers, stiff and cold, the rough palm - from the position and the way it felt, it was a left hand..."
After pausing to ponder a moment, Haka wonders aloud, "I just don't understand how a place like this comes to be. I guess some say there's a need for a cosmic balance, for any good, bright, decent place to be counterweighted by a horrible, dank, nasty spot like this one. But I can't help thinking we'd all get on just fine without this place."
"While I am not an expert on Cosmology, I had heard that this multiverse began in chaos, then corrupted into evil, and finally was overcome by goodness in some locations. But it seems that this type of horribleness is more natural than goodness." Hanethes shrugs before he gives himself a headache and abandons the subject.
Haka considers Hanethes' point as they muck along, then responds, "Normally I just couldn't bring myself to accept that this - what's around us, what we're trudging through, the constant evil menace waiting around every corner - is more natural than goodness. I just don't want to believe that the universe could work that way. But this place may be changing my mind."
Looking at their other companions, he asks "What do our experts on cosmology have to say on the matter? Drovya, Kanthuun, Rohini? Talon?"
Kanthuun shrugs. "Chaos will reclaim it all eventually. Change, decay, rebirth, those are inevitable. This place will not last. And to be honest, I think there is more than our known planes. A greater pattern will emerge. Ah, that sounded lawful. Well, I'm not so stupid to recognize the power of organization, but it is chaos that provides dynamism."
Drovya shrugs at Haka's question. As near I can tell, existence is neither good nor bad, neither caring nor indifferent. It simply is. We may accept reality, and change ourselves for the better, but struggling against what is, well, that's a fools gambit. More interesting to me is the hand you trod upon. Where did you say it was?
Drovya pokes Black Ivan about in the sludge, trying to find the hidden limb, muttering to himself ...don't complain to me. I've tried to clean you before, and it never makes a difference...
If he is successful, he tries to raise the hand out of the muck with prestidigitation.
"I'm no expert on cosmology or the planes. I was a humble wandering servant of my Lady before being brought here against my will. But on the material plane I have seen many times how evil can be overcome if sentient beings are able to harness the powers of their best natures. I have no doubt that one day the influence of evil on our and other planes may be diminished. But being in this place I'm not optimistic we'll see that day soon."
"Wouldn't call myself an expert, but I know a little bit. Kanth is right, everything changes. All we can do is deal with it. The universe is neither good or bad, it just is. Same with people like Drovya mentioned."