Haka flings three sling stones, targeting three different mirrors.
Talon grunts as Anti-Talon's weapon cuts deep into his shoulder. As the copy brings his weapon back to strike again, the real Talon throws out three quick strikes.
All of those attacks hit, and while Mirror Talon is bleeding, he's still alive.
Drovya summons his arcane mark and slashes out once at unTalon,
then takes a step to his right side and attacks each of the mirrors within reach.
Drovya's forward momentum combined with Talon's self-depreciation, the doppleganger is slain with a final "Whatever". The magus then gets to work destroying more mirrors, which begin shattering across the room. Hanethes gets showered with glass for these efforts, but Hakanator's irritation inside the mirror is still audible, and he presses his way out of the mirror just as his original joins the efforts and, on his second try, shatters the mirror from which the threat originates.
The mirrors contain some sort of alchemical silver powder in the glass. Gathering up the shards could net you another 750 gp.
As usual, the wayfinder urges you onward.
Hanethes stole forward, quiet as a mouse. He started to move through the next door and was gone for about thirty seconds.
"We have more stairs heading downwards. They go a very long way down from what I can tell."
True to his word, a narrow spiral staircase extends into an abyss, lit only by a narrow beam of light again identical to the one emitted by the pyramid save for its output.
The stairs shimmer like volcanic glass.
"They don't seem to be trapped, though."
"Well then let's get to it." Talon says walking down the shimmering stairs.
"Yes, Han, onward indeed, that's what the Wayfinder--oh, by the way, everyone, if we want to pick up some alchemical silver, it's in these shards of glass." Kanthuun waggles a hand vaguely at the mess on the floor.
"...could have used that against jackalweres...well, when we get back I'm sure I'll be engulfing them in black tentacles by the handful, or is that tentacleful..." he continues to mutter.
Tentacleful, definitely tentacleful. Drovya sweeps the glass into his bag of holding with a handy prestidigitation and then examines the stairs with detect magic before following Talon into the depths below.
Rohini will follow, also peering with detect magic and being careful not to slip on the glassy stairs.
Haka joins the parade down the stairs, hoping they're able to find a quicker way out when their work here is done.
The surroundings gained a fog-like quality the deeper the party descended. There was the smell of open air, as if they were outside somewhere other than the forest of arrest, and little motes began to appear on the pointed stair banister. They danced around the torsos of the adventurers like they were playing, despite the sinister circumstances.
To top it off, they really disturbed Kanthuun's wayfinder, making it rattle though the needle still pointed to the same place.
The descent took several minutes, and the ioun torches failed to illuminate too far into the distance away from where the walls must have fallen away.
At last, ground was visible. It was black sand.
The beam of light ducked under the ground cover and ceased to be visible, continuing like it was shucked from a tube. Instead of following the light, the adventurers felt the vibrations of the energy under their feet, and the wayfinder pulled them still forward until they reached the foot of a mountain of bleached bones.
Elven bones.
"These are all elf bones. This doesn't make any sense."
"Where are we?" Kanthuun shivers. He attempts to determine if they have to climb the mountain, walking around the base, and also seeing if the Wayfinder will register elevation.
Perhaps some kind of pocket dimension within the plane, or simply a portion of Abbadon that has been shaped by the will of a powerful enough being... Drovya looks around at the others, wary in the dim light. Climb or fly, the wayfinder led us here, so up we go, and all together I think...
"Just when I think this place can't possibly get any less pleasant," grumbles Haka, "it disgusts me in some new, grim way. But you're right, Drovya, the sooner we go up and get done with our business here, the better."
Rohini blinks several times, "says" a silent prayer, and traces a butterfly in the air. She remains for additional moments at the base of the stairs and scans the area with detect magic, and then shakes her head with bewilderment. "Is that 'mountain' something we can climb, or is there perhaps some other passage beyond it? I'm grateful we have the wayfinder to guide us."
Drovya picks up one of the bones and examines the mountain itself. How high is it? he wondered aloud. And how far around? His earlier thought of climbing seemed a bit premature, as he did not know whether the needle of the wayfinder indicated up, down, or somewhere in between. He stayed close to Kanthuun, hoping that the chaos mage's movement would help to guide them further.
The needle did indeed point forward. There would be little choice but to traverse up or around this mountain of bones of indeterminable height in one fashion or another.
Of course, skirting around this massive obstacle begins to show Kanthuun that one of the pieces must be at the top, thus taking away any confidence that the easy way exists as an option.
The footholds exist to climb, but Hanethes can take one look and inform the party that it is not entirely structurally stable.
"Too far to fly, I reckon," says Kanthuun, unhappy at the prospect of climbing this hill of ghoulish remains.
"Does anyone have anything that...helps us not fall?" Kanthuun looks at his feather token and scowls. "Wrong kind, Kanthya," he mutters to himself.
"Um. Nope." Talon shakes his head.
"Well, I've got some spells that would help, if we think we need them," replies Haka. "Though we might do well to save them for later."
"I have this rope of climbing. Would that help?"
"Yes, let's use that, and mundane rope as well. My Rope Trick will only allow one person to climb at a time, unfortunately...but we can use it for shelter if we are stuck on this hill before...well, there isn't night here, but I suppose we'll get hungry for supper at some point. Although I have very little appetite at the moment." Kanthuun shudders a bit.
"Someone should go to Kyonin after we are done here," he mutters quietly.
Drovya pulls out two 50' lengths of silken rope and begins looping them to attach the party together. I know a spell that will enable one of us to climb any surface, and I could prepare it, but it would certainly be faster to fly. I have that incantation ready, as it were, which would allow all of us to take to the skies if Rohini lends us her luck as well.
Drovya shakes his head though, I don't like the thought of it though. Better to keep our feet planted, despite what we must trod upon. You're right, someone should tell the elves...
Drovya loops the rope around his belt in a secure knot and begins to climb the mountain of bones.
"Droyva, do you mind if my magical rope fastens itself around you? If I then command it to make knots, hopefully the climb will be much less challenging for me."
Of course Rohini, Drovya smiles over his shoulder to the priestess. Wrap a bit around yourself as well, and hopefully we can all climb this grisly mount quickly.
Kanthuun reluctantly stows the Wayfinder, mutters under his breath, and waits his turn to climb up the rope.
Muttering right alongside Kanthuun, Haka waits his turn to climb the grisly mountain of bones, wondering just what's going to swoop down and attack them when they're just short of the top.
Keep that staffsling of yours handy, Haka. We're more than likely to have need of it before we reach the top.
Haka looks at the sling-staff sticking over his shoulder, at the rope in his hands, and the steep slope of bones rising above them. "I'll do what I can, but might need another set of hands. Maybe Talon can grab hold of me and I'll be our artillery."
"Sure thing Haka. I can give you a piggy-back ride."
So began another epic trek that consisted a gruelling climb up a mountain of bones. The party didn't have to climb for more than ten minutes, however, before Kanthuun's wayfinder registered that the second soul fragment was close because when he ascended just a couple of steps the dial began to point backwards.
The elven remains were also starting to shift... well, at least a couple of them. The clack of bone against bone did not correspond with the party's movements.
A voice that sounded like a young human boy began to bounce within the bard's mind, an slight accent similar to Rohini's obvious in the inflection.
"Little one, I hear you. I hear you and the others, but your feet are a resounding thrill.
Even in this walking pace, the rhythm moves beyond a trill!
Walking on my carapace, I'd dearly love to see your face and wear it while you're still.
Now, now, the song's half-done, and I'd ask you to hold still, but I know the panicked cowards go towards the grinding-mill,"
The bones are moving independent of us... Drovya warned as he unsheathed Black Ivan. Rohini, can you get this rope off of me?
"Whatwasthat?!" Haka asks, as he startles and looks around. He sees that the others have not heard the voice, and says, "Guys, there's someone reciting grim poetry in my head, he wants to wear my face when I'm dead. Whoah, he's got me doing it too now!"
He recollects for a moment, then recites the poem he's just heard:
"Little one, I hear you. I hear you and the others, but your feet are a resounding thrill.
Even at this walking pace, the rhythm moves beyond a trill!
Walking on my carapace, I'd dearly love to see your face and wear it while you're still.
Now, now, the song's half-done, and I'd ask you to hold still, but I know the panicked cowards go towards the grinding-mill,"
Finished, he pauses a moment, then says, "If these bones are his carapace, we're in trouble...and what is the grinding-mill?"
"I normally enjoy your performances, Haka, but this one not so much."
Rohini recalls the rope from around Drovya, pulls out a tanglefoot bag, and tries to locate the sound of the clacking bones.
"Yea, that one is a little too angsty teenager for me."
"Is the fragment down...or in?" Kanthuun peers at the Wayfinder, then Haka.
"I know," says the sorcerer. "Let's kill this telepathic face-wearer and check his midden."
He slips out of the rope and braces himself against the bones, waiting for a sign of movement.
Drovya is keenly aware of the movement coming out of the side of the mountain, and even as the mound shifts, he can tell where the movement is coming from.
Directly beneath Haka.
"Now, now, you should know better than to recite the words of this blessed acolyte to uninitiated foes.
Is it that I'm hounding you with inefficient prose?"
You forced my hand to alter the cadence of this verse.
Now hold yourself together, to get better this must get worse."
Haka gets his leg yanked by animated bones into the mountain beneath, the weight of the mostly-stationary skeletons crushing against him like millstones.
As they climb the massive mountain of bones, a smaller pile of bones surges into motion under Haka's feet, opening like a giant maw toothed with the rotting bones of untold beings.
Haka scrambles for the edge of the newly-appeared hole, but can find no purchase in the shifting, tumbling pile of remains. He falls, at least three times his own height, into the opening, which slams closed above him like a wave of bones crashing on a dead shore. As the rumbling bones go quiet, no sound can be heard from the normally noisy halfling.
"Haka!" Talon yells at the halfling is engulfed before frantically trying to dig his pal out.
"What new horror is this?! Is this an undead abomination I can attack with my Lady's righteous energies?"