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Garox takes the attack with a grunt and a laugh. This is what a hunt feels like.
"Oloch, move up byt hold your strike, I'll roll around and set up a flank."
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Oloch moves as directed by Garox and holds his strike until after Garox moves into his flank ...
"Can we move this along boys?" Shardra asks playfully as the brutes of the group finish off the remaining demons.
"Now I wonder if there is anything else in this place?"
Loading her crossbow, Shardra walks up to the unconcious drow woman, and aims the bolt at the space between her eyes.
"Unless someone thinks this one should live, I can just make this quick. Never had any use for the dark elves anyways..."
Oloch and Garox move to opposite sides of the creature. Not knowing who to defend from, the Demon takes hits from both Oloch's sword, and, even worse, Garox' sap. With a demonic hiss, the creature dissolves and returns to his home plane.
Aside from her combat gear, Inexora carried a satchel filled with ancient elven texts taken from the archive room, including the journals mentioned by the captive elf. She also has several maps of the cave systems that connect to the tower basement as well as a very rough map of northern Avistan marked with the location of the Worldwound and multiple possible routes to get there. In addition, she carries a heavy book of her own making filled with logs of hundreds of autopsies. Each page is covered in detailed anatomical drawings, many of humanoids, with copious notes on the subjects’ injuries including times and causes of death.
Returning to the surface, the group are free to explore the tower, and it's possible to search undisturbed.
Recovering the journals of the tower’s architect gives the Pathfinder Society greater insight into pre-Earthfall elven culture, magic, and architecture; however, not all of the group's discoveries are cause for celebration. In particular, Sheila Heidmarch finds the drow’s obsession with the Worldwound deeply concerning, and she remarks that the matter requires further attention from the society.
With Inexora’s band of drow defeated, the Velashu Uplands become slightly safer to travel, and the Pathfinder Society is able to study the ruin in relative peace and quiet.
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Another day in the river kingdoms. Birds sing, gladiators trains, bandits lurk in the forest. Fort Inevitable watches over the woods, ever vigilant, and a group of pathfinders once more makes its descent into the belly of the emerald spire dungeon.
As they venture into unknown territory, gradually the stairs melt and widen until they’re little more than a broken ramp. As the passage descends the temperature rises, carrying with it the clinging, rotten smell of sulfur.
That's igneous rock right here, the tell-tale sign of volcanic activity.
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Thistle walks in silence, as usual, as his band of friends, powerful pathfinder agents all, tromp back down into the dark depths of the emerald spire's underbelly.
He had been busy in the extended downtime, organizing his burgeoning business, directing contacts, and establishing safe passage routes for the caravans that fed into his profitable venture. But all that time, he had missed it. He had missed traveling with his friends. He had missed their remarkable efficiency in eradicating powerful, evil enemies. He had missed the opportunities to let the god's power flow through him, binding their wounds nearly as fast as they were inflicted.
This group felt unstoppable. It wouldn't be long before the Emerald Spire was clear. Perhaps he would claim it for his own, the capital of his river kingdoms empire.
Eventually the group stops as the ramp comes to a sharp bend.
"We are here..." He says, looking around. He holds up his hands, and his friends know enough to stop and wait while he murmurs a prayer to whatever god is listening to him.
Green translucent tendrils spill forth from his mouth as he opens it wide. The tendrils wriggle and weave out into the air, reaching for each of his companions chests, piercing through armor, cloth and flesh as if it wasn't there. It wraps around each of their hearts, then the green lines fade from view. Kirito stamps in approval after he stops trying to bite at the tendril that invaded his chest as well.
A few more blessings are cast, and then he indicates he is ready to move on.
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While he made use of his time getting his budding community going it was good to get out of the alchemical lab beneath is manor. Bruce double checked his gear and started taking his usual alchemical concoctions to increase his physical abilities. Even taking a swig from one of his potions before spitting it back into the bottle.
After Thistle is done with his blessing rituals Bruce uses his chalk to writes out a simple "Thanks" to his deaf companion. "Good to see you all again, looks like I'll take my usual spot on point." He says before proceeding down the tunnel.
As Bruce moves in, he finds heavily armored bodies, that lie strewn across the cavern, their black armor sundered. Brilliantly colored crystals jut out among the corpses.
The corpses are clearly identifiable as Hellknights.
Belonging to the order of the Nail, fort Inevitable's order, even.
Those crystals are not natural formations, but crystals - animated crystals.
Jelani's questions is left unanswered, but what is clear is what killed the Hellknights, because not long after the pathfinder move in, a crystalline creature appears, which seem to bear deep scratches and severe wound. Over it, floating in the air, is an amor-covered fleshy eyeball, that seems to be pursuing the creature.
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Hellknights, down here? This seems odd, I remember the law in Fort Inevitable explicitly saying that adventuring is illegal, without proper papers. The Hellknights themselves think it as vigilantism. Why are they down here then?
Thistle keeps his thoughts to himself for now, more concerned with the eye ball and crystalline creature.
"That eyeball may be an ally of the hellknights, be careful of who can see and here what our actions are." he warns his companions.
While deciding which side of this fight they should be on, Thistle casts detect magic to see what pops up, looking particularly for divination auras, to see if anyone may be watching who isn't here.
Bruce and Caranthirs recognise the floating ball as an augur kyton, the crystalline creature as a crysmal. As soon as the floating ball spots the party, it backs off, and the crystalline creature manages to get away to the northeastern room.
The orb hover just at the entrance of the room, while the crystal creature moves into the next (northern) one. Neither makes a hostile move.
The hell knight bodies are cold, but haven't started decomposing yet.
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Thistle examines the bodies along with Bruce
"Cold? Did they come down while we waited for Jelani to finish his mission chasing the Drow away? We certainly cleared the path for them. What were they looking for? Klarkosh? Someone else?
...
"Us?"
Thistle walks up closer to the pair of former combatants.
"We come seeking answers. Who and what are you, are you guardians of this realm?"
He hopes his companions are ready to listen, since these creatures have no lips to read.
Genius Thistle. Genius... They probably don't even talk.
The crystalline creature has scurried off into the next cave, but the floating orb still hovers. As Thistle speaks, it bobs in the air, then slowly retreats, turning around every now and then to see if Thistle would follow.
Thistle and Bruce follow the floating orb.
Pale white and gray crystals cover the next room in tightly packed formations, clustering in corners and around a central pillar.
The stuff here is just the shiny waste of crysmals. Completely worthless.
The orb floats on, into a cavern. A rotten smell from deep within the earth fills the wide cavern, rumbling through fissures and bubbling up from a river of magma coursing through the cave. A stony formation at the cave’s center forms an arching bridge over the fiery current.
There are three creature in this room, looking like elementals, but made of a green substance - from the worn spots here and there, they may very well be made of acid. Two of them bob near the ceiling, one of them floats under the bridge. They are not making any hostile moves
The bridge itself looks cracked
The bridge is probably safe to cross. The middle is weakest, but should hold.
The adventurers still follow the orb, and move quickly enough over the bridge not to disturb the acidic creatures.
The floating creature moves into a side cavern Rivulets of magma course down this cavern’s northern wall, melting plates of spiked black armor before draining into the rock.
The black spiked amor contains a body, and two more lie on the floor. Before anything can be done, the floating orb thrusts a spear into one of the dead bodies, then uses the blood to write on the wall.
Help
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Thistle pulls out his simple wooden board, and a couple of pieces of his well worn chalk.
With what? What and who are you?
Thistle offers his board and the chalk to help facilitate the communication.
Turning to his companions, he asks, "Does anyone have another way of communicating with this thing? We might be here all day..."
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Caranthir follows along cautiously, not trusting this spiked floating ball.
"These outsiders are by their nature evil," he whispers to his companions. "They serve as spies for kytons, and delight in all manner of gore and bloodshed. We should not trust it," he adds.
"Even so, I suppose we should see what it wants."
He stands in front of the group. "You cannot speak. But what do you want help with?"
Knights Investigating power. Secret. Deep. theory writes, painstakingly slow.[/b]
Knight fought in fire. Burned away. the Kyton write, briefly pointing his spear at the body in the room that has been fused to the wall Take to fort.
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"Well I guess we could investigate the power the knights were after." Asuna says with a glint in her eyes.
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Knight dead. Take body to fort. Up
The hell knight's body - the one the kyton points at - is standing upright against the wall from which magma oozes forth. Splotches of the hot stone have firmly bolted the corpse to the wall through its amor spikes.