Zurnzal dashes up the stairs and down the aisle. This needed to end. Now.
ad Marnarius succumbs to his wounds after the fire snake attack...
322 curses in a dark, shifting tongue as she casts the spell on the scroll in her hand and lunges forward, blade in the other hand, before pressing her palm into Zey.
322, a manic look upon her face, plunges her dagger into Zey's chest.
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322 pulls out a mysterious looking lantern before plunging her dagger into Zey's heart. His soul visibly tears from his body and is sucked into the lantern, which begins glowing faintly. The lifeless body of the Pathfinder Society leader remains, his soul captured to prevent his return from the afterlife.
The Sky Key sits unattended on a pedestal in the center of the room. One or more of the elite Aspis agents have fallen in the foray to lay claim to it, but the mission has been successful. Zey is slain, the Hao Jin Tapestry is open, the Sky Key is your's for the taking.
Zurnzal returns to the ground floor and checks the leader for signs of life. It is soon clear that their leader has been slain, so he moves over to the artist and retrieves the potion of healing from her belt. He carefully rotates her small head and pours the magic liquid down her throat.
From there he moves on to Marnarius and uses his own potion of cure moderate wounds on him.
Add he works, he says to 322, Hey. Inspect the Key. I don't want to trigger any wards they may have set on the thing.
322 draws her scroll of heal, flies down to the lower floor, and casts it on Marnarius if he yet lives.
"You assume much if you think I know how to search for such," she says, replying to the green one. "At most I can tell you how many magical auras are on the thing, and maybe the school and power. But first..."
She flies back up, draws an ornate trumpet from her pack, and presses it to Zey's lips.
"If there are answers to be had in a spiritless form, then give them, Aram Zey. How have you warded the sky key? What treasures, whether magical or academic, have you secreted away in this room?"
With a sneer she asks her third. "When I drifted off to sleep last night, I dreamed that I would kill you. Did you dream that you would die?"
Regardless of how the corpse answers, she addresses the green dragon. "Gazwyr, go eat Zey. Tell me how the flesh tastes when the soul's been ripped out."
The more we know the better. I'd rather not come within inches of dying. Again. Zurnzal quips back.
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"How have you warded the sky key?"
The trumpet pressed to his lips forces sound from the lifeless body of Zey, "Myself."
"What treasures, whether magical or academic, have you secreted away in this room?"
"Myself."
"When I drifted off to sleep last night, I dreamed that I would kill you. Did you dream that you would die?"
"All men must die."
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The Sky Key rests in a simple glass enclosure. When glass is removed, you notice the clock in the room begin to tick erratically. It seems that time fluctuates strangely around the Sky Key, but this is of no further consequence to you.
322, Joliryn, Zurnzal, and maybe Gazwyr escape with their lives carrying their fallen comrades, the Sky Key, a lantern containing the soul of Aram Zey, and the loot you find on his body. As you begin making your way out of Skyreach, you are approached by a team of agents, the leader of whom flashes you a silver Aspis badge and says,"Nicely done, despite your losses. I figured we'd be late to the party, but it's still five fingers till Oathday." - the pass phrase to signal turning over the Sky Key.
With the handoff complete, you are able to slip out of Skyreach unnoticed in the chaos of wyvarans, yetis, extraplanar humans, magical beasts, and even an animated statue wreaking havoc on the oppressive Pathfinders and their Grand Lodge. As you slip back into Absalom, you look back to see that the northwest tower of Skyreach has begun floating in an orbit around the campus.
The Aspis Consortium is more than willing to raise dead the fallen members of its strike team that stole the soul of Aram Zey, for a small price of course. The Pathfinders are able to regain control of the Grand Lodge and the Sky Key eventually, but they've lost access to the Hao Jin Tapestry and are without a Master of Scrolls.
In the weeks following the mission, each of you receives a missive from your respective contact congratulating you on a job well done. You have played a key role in ending an era of Pathfinder Society aggression and heralded a new age of Aspis Consortium dominance. You will be compensated for your efforts and have more jobs in the coming months.
Death of a dragon!
