"I have no idea, Kyarghhh"! Khazmia turns her head to release her inner torment, barely missing the priests shoes.
Know (Rel/Planes)
Kyson tries to answer Khaz's questions.
Sekathral, having emptied his guts too many times already on this adventure, retreats slowly, thinking about the pillar
Sekathral, surprisingly, realizes he remembers a legend about such a thing, and an Elder Evil called Y'chak, which takes an interest in the ruin of civilization.
You begin making your way south, where you can see the top of a ziggurat reaching toward the cavern's heights, when you encounter anotehr moving form.
It steps out from the shadows of a glistening red dome, revealing itself to be a dry, hovering 10-foot-tall corpse. Its chest is a prison of jagged ribs, within which is trapped a small tormented ghostly form.
Greetings and salutations, fellow travelers, you hear in a dusty, aristocratic voice in your mind.
You believe it's a devourer, the undead remnants of fiends and evil spellcasters who became lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse.
Sekathral passes the obscure tidbit of lore onto the rest of the group.
"Elder evils, mates. What a ****ing carry-on"
And stops short when confronted by the hovering cadaver.
"Greetings to you too, cully", he says.
Whatever the **** you are
Kyson stops short, looking at the thing while listening in his mind.
Know (Religion)
A devourer! But...but...it's not attacking!?
"Greetings to you too, cully."
Hearing Seka speak up, Kyson finds his strength to speak as well.
"Greetings, Fellow Traveler. Are you lost? If not, where are you now?" Kyson asks.
I am lost. There is much knowledge here and I wander amidst it, forced to admit that I am unable to put it all together. And you, traveler? Are you also so lost?
Khazmia takes an involuntary step backwards at the sight of the thing. "Greetings, uhh, that is... " she takes her cue from the priest and doesn't attack, though her mind bristles at the intrusion.
"Uhhh, I'm not sure we've been here long enough to be "lost" so to speak. But we may find ourselves that way without some uhh, direction. How long have you been here, lost?"
Kyson nods as if he understands what the thing is talking about.
"Where have you found knowledge? We are lost as to the purpose of this place, that's for sure."
Kyson wishes he know how Sarenrae would feel about him conversing with an undead......but maybe this one is different?
There is much knowledge to be found in this place, the voice responds arrogantly. It is a living shrine to the Elder Evils. These pillars of purple flame honor Y'Chak, and the aboleth created a great ziggurat to praise Holashner. Of course, the cursed koprus simply refuse to allow me to study them!
His mental voice drips with frustration by the end of his comment.
Sekathral's ears twitch. He moves over to Zstelian and mutters in his ear.
"Aboleth and koprus - we've come across them before, ain't we? What do you reckon about this cove - should we help 'im out or get the drop on him before he does the same to us?"
A chill runs through Linah when the undead abomination speaks. While her hands doesn’t show it the image of her scimitar is clear in her mind. ”Who do you mean by Korpus? Can you tells us what citizens dwell in this city?”
Sekathral's ears twitch. He moves over to Zstelian and mutters in his ear.
"Aboleth and koprus - we've come across them before, ain't we? What do you reckon about this cove - should we help 'im out or get the drop on him before he does the same to us?"
"We should keep our weapons sheathed for now", Linah whispers to Sekathral. "But be weary, this is not a benevolent creature."
"****ing right", mutters back Sekathral to Zstelian and Linah, then he speaks out loud to the unliving one.
"Well, maybe we can help each other, mate"
And we'll be keeping a bloody eye on you, you ****, 'cause we know full well you'll have us for flaming breakfast the minute we let our guard down. And you'd better watch out, too, bully-boy, seeing as we'll do right same to you with ****ing shiny bells on if we get the chance
Kyson nods along with the things words.
"Yeah...which way is it to the ziggaraut? How many koprus did you say there were? Maybe they need to be removed so we can study that stuff, huh?" Kyson asks for directions.
"Yes, maybe we could uhh distract them while you study the ziggurat." She shudders at the thought of going anywhere near it, or him, and probably the Koprus as well.
"What do you know of them, that we could use in that regard?"
Holashner's ziggurat lies to the south, where many of the koprus dwell. A distraction would be good, something to draw them away. It would need to be something massive, though, affecting all of Golismorga, to pull away enough of them, and I know not what could do such a thing.
"No...", replies Sekathral, slightly horrified of the thought of a 'distraction' of such magnitude.
"Anything else of interest hereabouts?"
"I suppose if we flooded this place, it might prove a suitably distracting." She says with a shudder. Water?! Why does it have to be Water?and what sort of foul and twisted thing would make me think of that?
Kyson is ready to move on from this thing, ready to explore more and see if they can learn more about what and where to do things.
"Why would we flood this city? What do we have to gain from allowing this access to the ziggurat? We do not even know what its significance is.", Linah whispers while keeping a weary eye on the undead. "I think we need to gather more information before we make any choices. We need to know what creatures dwell in this city and the origins of the shadow pearls. "
"What do hope to learn from the ziggurat?", she asks the devourer keeping her voice as low as possible for it still to reach the undead.
"I didn't say it was a good idea, Linah," Khazmia grits out through her teeth. "Just that *IF* we were going to distract them, that would be one way to do it."
"and I'm pretty sure it's a plan that would need some time for us to figure out. *By our selves*, " she stresses. "But uhh, we can get back to you. Where can we find you later, once we have everything worked out and have had a chance to look around the city on our own knowledge gathering?
I do not know. But there is power there and the creatures that dwell there take of that power and bring it out of this city. I would learn what that power is and what they do with it.
If you wish to meet me later, we can arrange a time and place, it responds.
"Maybe," Kyson responds, looking to see if anyone else has an idea of what to do next. "We'll find you if we need you."
Kyson is ready to move on from this thing, ready to explore more and see if they can learn more about what and where to do things.
"Yeah. See you later"
Sekathral moves away from the 'being', making sure he keeps a discreet eye on what it's doing as he goes.
"Uhh, can we figure out someway to not drown before that happens? Then if the place floods it won't be so bad.Maybe. Just... soggy."
"If this place begins to flood, you can get us away, right, Khaz?" Kyson asks Khaz seriously. "I'd hate to drown down here. But you can bling us someplace safer?"
Kyson follows along to K and O.
"Didn't we pick up a boat that folded up into a box a long time ago?", asks Sekathral, trotting behind the rest and occasionally casting nervous glances behind him.
Deciding to head the other way, you instead turn to the northwest, going to the far side of the column of purple flame. Making your way through the strange city, you arrive at a vast chasm that seems to descend several hundred feet down below the cavern floor.
Khaz's eyes light up as Kyson reminds her; she is no longer at water's mercy. "I... Yes, I can. As long as I can have the moment to do it."
As you move south, a monstrous tongue, split in a triple fork, rolls from a structure's fleshy abscess, licks the red domes upon its surface, then recoils, another sign of the strange life in the cavern.
Eventually you find yourself at the lip of a wide crater in the shattered cavern floor, which seems to have become an abscess for all the pungent fluids that seep and bleed from the alien city. Rent as if by some great impact, the cracked depression blossoms with sickly molds and tumid blue and white mushrooms several heads taller than a full-grown man. Languid veins of musuc trickle down the sides of the crater to pool at the basin's floor, leaving only a small patch of fractured earth undespoiled. At the crater's bottom sits the 10-foot-wide stone head of a reptilian creature with bulging eyes, a forked tongue, and a headdress of feathers and spikes. The stone head is cracked and damaged, and as the black sludge pools around the stump of its neck, it sizzles and evaporates into swirling blue-green wisps of vapor.
You believe the stone head is Tlaloc, the Olman god of rain.
Kyson gazes at the tongue, wishing he could find a maiden...before waking up from his walking daydream and focusing at the tasks at hand. He looks over the edge of the crater, not daring to get too close despite the fact that he walks on air.
This is weird.
Know (Religion)
"This is weird...but I'm pretty sure that's Tlaloc, the Olman god of rain."
Perception
"Well, if it won't come up, we may have to go in after it. I suppose." Khaz offers, though she is none too thrilled with the idea." Does every one have a way down?"
"I've got a grapple, mates, and if we all pull together we might do it. 'Specially if one of you sparking coves've got something to make us stronger. If not, we'll have to clamber down, won't we?"
Kyson's face scrunches up at Zstelian's question.
"Well...I *could*," Kyson begins, thinking. "But I think that would be bad if we got into trouble. It would be best if Linah could move under her own power. You've seen her. She loves to run allover the battlefield as if the sun were touching her body. Maybe Khaz's fancy glitterslippers would be better?"
Kyson looks at Khaz and Linah.
"Lina can climb with the slippers, all on her own." Khaz agrees. "Though, the more I think of it, the more I think they should belong to her. You keep them, Linah. I will be happy knowing they are doing the Lady's Work on your feet." Khaz smiles, her tusks jutting forward in pleasure at the thought.