With a cursory examination of the altar, Alexander finds a latch that opens a hidden panel in the front of the altar. Inside the compartment, he finds an icon of the same humanoid figure which Wulessa's face appears to have replaced. This one possess avian features and a menacing expression, all crafted in expertly shaped glass.
As Alexander focuses in on the material of the icon, the room begins to shimmer and change. Wulessa’s memories fade into a different reality as the stone walls again become glass. The room’s dimensions remain the same, but the altar, catwalks, and vents all vanish. The statue remains, but its form distorts into that of a featureless humanoid, all signs of either demonic or Wulessa’s likeness melting away. Beneath the statue, a glass portcullis blocks off another passageway. Opposite the passage and statue the wall once again crumbles away into a fathomless void.
From the void, the crystalline figure once again drifts into view, but your attention is quickly drawn to the walls of the chamber. It is more forthcoming about the process of absorbing Wulessa Yuul’s mind (an image of Wulessa’s face being drawn onto a scroll, rolled up and placed reverently inside the Monadistic Archive chest), as well as why it chose her (a montage of images of her life beside piles of coins, jewels, and other valuables, growing alongside her life experiences). It also indicates the role it has decided you play in the process (a nest of rodents rummaging in the walls of a well-ordered house).
With this analogy established, it seeks to sweep you away. While not apologetic, it indicates as best it can through envisioning that it bears you no ill will, but you are in the way. At this point, you begin to her a tinkling sound like shifting glass. Turning toward the sound, you see the statue on the wall coming to life!
Alexander studies the construct for a moment before he recognizes it as a Glass Golem.
DR 5/adamantine
Reflect spells (Ex): As a free action once every 1d4 rounds, a glass golem can align its internal structure to enhance its resistance to magic for 1 round. During this time, the golem reflects spells (even spells that function differently against the golem as described in its immune to magic ability) as if under the effect of a spell turning spell.
Immune to magic (Ex) A glass golem is immune to any spell
or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition,
certain spells and effects function differently against a glass
golem, as noted below.
• A shatter spell damages a glass golem as if it were a
crystalline creature.
• A keen edge spell affects all of a glass golem’s slam attacks
as if they were slashing weapons.
• A magical attack that deals cold damage slows a glass golem
(as the slow spell) for 3 rounds (no saving throw).
• A magical attack that deals fire damage ends any slow
effect on the golem and heals 1 point of damage for each
3 points of damage the attack would otherwise deal. If
the amount of healing would cause the golem to exceed
its full normal hit points, it gains any excess as temporary
hit points. A glass golem gets no saving throw against
fire effects.
Construct traits
Attacks
Attacks by the golem cause bleed damage
Dazzling Brightness (Ex) A glass golem in an area of bright light dazzles any creature within 30 feet that sees it for 1 round (Fortitude DC 16 negates). Once a creature makes its save against this ability, it is immune to that golem’s brightness for 24 hours. The DC is Constitution-based.
Reflecting on what he knows of the golem's abilities, he carefully selects a spell to throw at it and summons a cloud of sparkling dust to descend upon the construct.
The spell covers the golem's face, and the glimmer of the shimmering particles seems to throw off its normal ability to refract light to see, clouding its vision entirely!
Crypt, finding no rocks on his person, decides to multiply his person instead, and calls upon his shadowy double to avoid the golem's offensive.
Eldeyr, on the other hand, charges in with some nimble movement until he stands beside the golem. He brings his blade around in a deadly arc and scores a hit across the golem's leg. A horrible screeching of metal on glass is followed by the tinkle of shattered glass hitting the floor as Eldeyr's significant attack penetrates the golem's hard exterior.
The golem still stands, however, and it turns its attention on the one who did it such harm. It shifts back a step, raises both of its arms above its head, and brings them down toward the elf, despite its blindness. Eldeyr easily avoids the attacks, though, as the golem's arms crash down upon the softly glowing floors, sending long cracks out from the tiles where it struck.
Fargrim pulls her star knife from its sheath and takes advantage of the golem's blindness to drive her blade into the fissure beginning to form in the golem's form. With a precise and deadly strike and twist, she widens the crack and completely disrupts the structure. With an eerie howl, the golem shatters and falls to to the ground, defeated.
With the golem destroyed, you find yourselves once again in the quiet of the room, a thick glass portcullis barring your way into the corridor beyond, and a vast and endless void behind you.
After the last two rooms, the silence that greets Eldeyr's question is somewhat disconcerting. Wulessa had been in her childhood bedroom and in the strange temple structure, but she hadn't been around either time the Pathfinders had found themselves in the corridors build of the strangely glowing glassy tiles.
With his keen elven eyes, Eldeyr sees that there are no exits from this chamber aside from the portcullis. The glass looks thick and solid, but it is still glass. He thinks it might be possible to break the bars with a sufficient strike.
The bars do not move for the mighty inquisitor's command, nor for her attempt to lift it by normal means. There appear to be no hinges or other mechanisms that would suggest the bars are meant to move in any way.
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The smuggler begins rummaging through his backpack, "That hateful halfling took my crowbar! Oh well... As I said before, you gotta keep your weapons sharp not blunt" As soon as the words leave his lips, he makes a running start for the portcullis and jumps as high as he can to add his weight to the edge of his blade along the glass... With a small shadow of doubt he asks himself The golem did break like this, right?
*kkkkKKKKRRRAAAASSSSHHhhhh!!!*
As Eldeyr brings his full weight down through his blade, the glass portcullis bars shatter, leaving an opening wide enough for you all to exit through. The remnants of the bars still hang dangerously above you, but you are able to pass through with care. After stepping through the opening, you find yourself in a corridor like the one you were walking down before being transported to the temple scene. The corridor stretches off to your left and to your right, bending around a corner in both cases.
You agree to make your way left and begin moving in that direction. In no time at all, though, the tiled tunnels give way to dusty streets flanked by the hazy forms of buildings. You step forward along the street and find yourself facing a door that feels familiar somehow. Without even having to push the door, it slowly opens before you.
As the door opens, a familiar bell tinkles overhead, letting Palhuna Murqual know that his shop has visitors once more. The setting has changed subtly since earlier; while the shop’s layout remains the same, the wares previously displayed in cases and on the walls are missing. In their places are keys of all shapes, sizes, and construction.
A moment or two after you enter the room, the back curtains stir and Palhuna Murqual comes forth, smiling unctuously. As you watch the shopkeeper, you see that he is not quite right. His form flickers, almost imperceptibly, and he tends to “jump” from one location to another when not observed directly. In truth, you perceive, this isn’t even a shadow version of Murqual like the mihstus and glass golem before, but instead another instance of the Archivist's envisioning--like the rudimentary pictures made of the lights on the walls. As such, he doesn’t speak, making his intentions clear through pantomime.
The Murqual-vision produces a golden key and gestures to a door that wasn’t there a moment ago to inform you that he has the ability to let you peacefully exit the mindscape. As the vision is communicating this, Alexander feels a tickle in his hand for a moment, and looks down to find a scroll with Wulessa Yuul's face upon it. Murqual stretches out the key toward Alexander and motions toward the scroll. In return, it would seem, he simply wants you to give up on rescuing Wulessa Yuul.
He continues to hold the key out, making a haughty “give me” gesture with his other hand.
What will you do?
Fargrim steps forward and attempts to seize the key from Murqual, but her hand phases right through the key--and Murqual's hand! Murqual exasperatedly throws his hands up, and both he and the door disappear. A few seconds pass by in stunned silence, until the room begins to change once again.
The facsimile of Murqual’s shop shimmers like a heat mirage, transforming into the familiar meeting room in Farseer Tower. Familiar, at least, in shape. The furnishings are different, more resembling a grandmother’s cozy tea room than the stark, studious place where this journey began. Intricately brocaded settees and poufs clutter the room, while elaborate tapestries cover almost every inch of the walls. One of these, a floor length cerulean silk curtain, is embroidered with a portrait of Wulessa Yuul. Her arms are folded across her chest, and a look of distaste resides upon her face. As you've almost come to expect from the various layers of the Monadistic Archive, the image of Wulessa is not just an image, and she sighs heavily as she begins to speak, apparently just rhapsodizing to herself.
“When I first became Venture-Captain and took charge of Farseer Tower, this was how the place looked. The whole tower. My predecessor was more concerned with frippery and luxuries than with hard-won knowledge and diligence. If this becomes my final view of the tower, it might be the greatest indignity of all.” She shakes her head and addresses you directly, “I think you are close to the end. I can feel the archivist pausing its work with me to face you directly. The shadows you fought before now were a reflexive response, like sweeping cobwebs from one’s face. Now I think you have its full attention. I don’t think it can appear directly. Its essence is split across all the archive’s scrolls, but whatever form it takes will have considerably more power than the things you’ve fought before now.”
She waves a hand toward a marquetry-adorned teak credenza across from her wall hanging, and a small thumping sound gives you an indication that another vial has dropped inside it. "Here, please take this last bit of help from me. It's all I can do, unfortunately, but I have to do something to repay all you've already done. Good luck."
Wulessa nods at your decision, and you find the vial with a small paper label with a picture of a humanoid figure with multiple shadowy copies of itself attached to the side. She turns and raises a hand toward the edge of her tapestry, then pauses to say, "One last time, I want to thank you all for your good work tonight. Even if I don't make it out of here, you've shown yourselves to be Pathfinders of the highest quality. It has been an honor to serve as your Venture Captain. Now good luck to you all."
Extending her arms and seemingly grasping at the border of her tapestry, she grabs hold of either side of the wall hanging she inhabits and pulls. The hanging opens like a door, opening back to the primal layer corridor you've come to know so well.
The passage opens upon a tunnel to oblivion. The smooth glass walls stretch fifty or sixty feet, ending abruptly in a maw open to the void. The crystalline structure floating in the void’s heart somehow hovers mere feet away from the tunnel’s end. From this close, it resembles a torus of jagged crystals, slowly revolving around a core of flashing light and mist.
As you make your way down the tunnel, a creature which you can only assume is the Archivist appears from the core of the crystalline ring and strides across the void, positioning itself at the end of the hallway. The creature is strange, but familiar, as each of you sees a copy of yourselves with two differences: the copy possesses four arms, with two limbs splitting from each elbow, and the copy’s head is a crystalline torus hovering above the shoulders.
On the walls around you, images of your friends and families looking disappointed and frustrated play non-stop, changing constantly from one of your mother's sighing sadly, to a friend throwing up their hands in exasperation.
Having given you ample opportunities to escape with your lives, the Archivist no longer sees the point in further conversation, and materializes a longspear and two short spears to fill its many hands.
|
As they walk down the tunnel, Crypt splits himself into two, creating a shadow double of himself.
As they enter, Crypt sees a bizarre form of himself enter, and stride towards the group confidently. Crypt, not one to back down from a challenge, smiles and draws his own weapon in response to the form. With the other hand, he drinks down the potion Wulessa kindly offered, and watches as his form distorts further.
He beckons the creature forward.
Crypt hangs back and makes sure to populate the room with as many copies of himself as possible, first summoning his shadowy double, then distorting his natural form so that it's almost impossible to tell where he actually is!
Meanwhile, Fargrim moves in and strikes the Archivist with a telling blow empowered by her patron deity.
With Fargrim in position, Eldeyr nimbly maneuvers around the Archivist and takes advantage of its slow reaction to carve a deep slash across its back. Somehow, it seems to resist the precise nature of his attack, but he is still able to badly wound the creature.
Wanting to escape the onslaught, the Archivist risks suffering the attacks of the invaders in his realm and moves away from Fargrim and Eldeyr. He turns his attention toward Eldeyr, and the elf's face seems to replace the torus for a moment as the Archivist tumbles away in almost exactly the same way Eldeyr had a moment before. The only difference is that the Archivist then springs into the air and remains hovering above the ground. He then hurls one of the spears at Eldeyr in retribution for his attack.
|
Alexander attempts to recollect anything useful about beings like the Archivist.
Alexander calls upon the spirits of his noble forefathers to bolster Crypt's body and spirit.
Alexander's vast knowledge of planar theory tells him that this representation of the Archivist is a being known as an unfettered eidolon, a summoned being that has been separated from its master by some unusual or magical means. Focusing on how the Archivist is defending itself, he finds the following:
Evasion
Resist cold 5
Spell Resistance 14
DR 2/- against precision damage
The Archivist resists the effect of Alexander's withering gaze with hardly any effort!