"Me too... if you've got some healing to spare."
"Hmm... If this sort of battle is draining our healing ability, I'll lower my threshhold for going nova. Are we low on healing?" Lyall asked, somewhat concerned.
"Thank you, my friend... I feel fine now... " Bleyz examines what were his wounds a moment ago with a smile. "Let's go hunt us some cultists."
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"We are not low on healing magic, exactly. We have some items charged with healing spells. I am somewhat limited in the healing power I can call on directly from Pharasma, as my vocation within her church is to slay undead abominations. She has granted me powers more in tune with that purpose. I have the wand the druid gave to me, as well as another wand we purchased some time ago. This staff was a prize bestowed upon us by the Keepers, and though it holds limited magic, that magic can be replenished."
"Ah, thank you. So we're good. Excellent." Lyall seems to be genuinely appreciative this time.
"Thank you Devyhn."
Dusan points the way and leads. You travels for several more hours and finally reach a sort of island in the swamp. "Best we stop here for a time we will reach the city if we travel another half day."
"I'm good to go on... but if you feel it necessary to rest, we can."
Dusan looks at Bleyz surprised. "Still a ways to go to reach the city and most of it is marsh. This is a good place to make camp because it is solid ground with plenty of room. We could continue on if you think you can go another half day without rest but we wont see another safe place to make camp till we reach the city."
"alright then, we rest here. Something tells me the city itself is not a safe place to rest in general, and especially so with the cultists there, assuming they made it that far."
"I wear no armor, so I'd be happy to take midwatch..."
"Well... If I must take a watch, may I also be on first watch with Arkon?"
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"Erik and I can take the dawn watch, then," Devyhn replies, giving the ranger a look that seeks confirmation of his statement.
"And since we will not be travelling, or presumedly fighting," Devyhn says, as he touches Erik's shoulder with a marked palm. "I will call on Pharasma to heal any cuts and bruises that remain."
"Is anyone else still injured?" he asks the group.
"I can watch as well. I don't sleep much anymore and when I do it's a very light sleep."
"Dawn it is."
You rest for the night and lucky enough it's uneventful.
You march on the next day after having completed your preparations.
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.
"The door stands open... the cultists have obviously been here and entered the city before us... their campfire still smolders, so they cannot have TOO large a lead. Let's go, following their path as closely as we might."
"Indeed. Their numbers won't help them once I get a clear shot."
"My archery may only be... sufficient.. But the aim of my magics are infallible. If I can see it, I can destroy it."
"We're stronger together. Our past attempts at subtlety have rarely gone well."
Once you enter the gates of Xin-Grafar, you must descend hundreds of feet into the earth through smooth, winding tunnels. After a thousand feet of underground switchbacks, you reach the city itself, situated inside a vast underground cavern. Formerly the great city of Kestrillon, a civilization of advanced magical knowledge and vast wealth, Xin-Grafar comprises three concentric, circular walls, known as the First Ring, Second Ring, and Third Ring, each smaller and higher than the last.
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.
The notes beneath the map are scrawled in Common, and seem at first to be gibberish, with several phrases referring to the “Jewel of Everlasting Gold” and multiple descriptions of fire, floods, and molten gold.
A DC 20 Intelligence check or DC 15 Knowledge (engineering)
check reveals the truth of the mathematical calculations.
Whatever it is, it obviously isn't worthy of my massive intellect.
Erik stares puzzled at the markings then shrugs.
It's clearly a very advance formula involving mass and time...you cant really make much sense of it but the final answer is 66 hours.
Also a glance at the floor reveals some footprints and it seems the cultist went straight trough this room without stopping.
"It seems they didn't pause here... so whatever 66 hours means, they didn't really try to figure it out, if they're even aware of it... However I'm guessing that's how much time we have since they came in for us to stop them from what they're doing... let's get on with it... " And to put action to words, Bleyz starts following the way the cultists went.
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. This stone bridges seems to be the only way into the city and it crosses over a river of what appears to be molten gold. In the center of the bridge stands a man-shaped statue covered in fine gold plating, its carved face eerily human-like. Two similar statues are broken into pieces in front of the bridge.
(The covered bridge is big enough for 1 large creature to fit. 10 feet high and 10 feet wide. The gold guardian a medium size creature.)