Unhurt yet again, Ashlei moves over and cuts the cyclops’ horn and eye from it body. Once complete she wraps them in an old cloak and proceeds to kick the dead body’s face until it is mush.
She looks up, splashed with the thing’s blood and sees the others watching.
”What?!”
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He moved his arm slowly lfting it up and rotating it, giving his lover a quick kiss on the forehead as her scowled at the pain still radiating in his body.
"Thanks love."
He said lowly before turning to face the fiery mate making a mess.
"Leave it be Ash... that one didnt even hit you."
He wasnt sure how much punishment he could manage even with the healing magics.... It was definitely time to take it slower. think a bit more before they got in more fights.
"Esmeralda... Ash, take the front, quieter. if there are more they know we are here.. but perhaps not exactly where. Let's keep moving and keep things tighter. Any mess ups and you have to entertain Rhialla and I tonight..."
He chuckled at the end of the statement adding a belated.
"Im kidding... maybe. but lets keep moving. Esmerelda give the body a search sorry its a mess."
It wasnt much more but he took out a potion of cure light wounds and drained it quickly.
Cassiopeia ends the Great Cyclops with her spell, he slumps to the floor almost as if he cannot believe he has been beaten.
Loot:
Hide armor +1,
Great club +1,
Potion of Cure serious wounds (2).
You hear nothing else drawing closer. It has become quiet and still again as you have killed the Cyclops on this side of Sunitha.
What are you doing now?
Cassiopeia makes a circle with her left hand (like holding a bow) and then flicks her fingers apart with her right (as if loosing an arrow), letting out a low "psssh" as she does so.
"Shall we see what else this fortress holds? I feel slightly bad for destroying the last remnants of a fallen cyclopean empire, but only a little. After all, they probably would've eaten us."
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Esmarelda rolled her eyes as she moved to the fallen Cyclops to look the creature. "Everything here is going to be for their size. Might be a bit harder to sell." Esmarelda warned. "Market isn't so great for it." She said but she did bring over the two bottles of cure potions. "Here Captain."
"Ash, ready to get moving? You willing to follow behind me? I mean at least you'd have a nice view."
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"I doubt this is the last Cyclops on the planet Cassie! And they should have known better than to try and live on OUR island. We earned this place fair and square! They were just squatting on it!"
She then waves Esmarelda toward the exit, her boots leaving bloody prints behind her.
"Distractions m'lady...Distractions!"
Cassiopeia ends the Great Cyclops with her spell, he slumps to the floor almost as if he cannot believe he has been beaten.
[
Rhialla grins, chuckling at Percy's statement, though she very much agrees with his assessment of the danger and their tactics. "Y'know, punishment is supposed to be a deterrent...not an incentive." she says with a wink.
Seeing Percy still a bit worse for the wear after the blow from the giant, Rhialla reaches up to plant a healing kiss on him.
The dire lion roars triumphantly at the cyclops' corpse before turning and giving Rhialla a nod as it fades from the material plane.
Complaining about the sun being too bright this late in the day (at noon), Ashlei grumbles but is more than ready to continue forward.
"How is it Ash that you can deal with the glare from the ocean when the sun is high but just a simple sun is hard on your eyes?" Esmarelda asked with a small smirk.
Ashlei shrugs and imitates drinking a flagon.
"Grog! You drink enough grog it can fix almost anything temporarily, especially a hangover! I mean, look...we are not adventurers chasing monster's up a damsel's skirts nor are we wandering ruins trying to save the world... So yeah! Bright afternoon sun sucks ass without regular access to grog. Am I making any sense yet? I haven't had any grog in...what is it now?...a few hours maybe? I'm not at my absolute best really right now."
Chuckling at the conversation, Rhialla takes out her waterskin. With a brief utterance, she taps the waterskin before passing it to Ashlei with a smirk.
[
G18. CROSSROADS
Several statues and two ornate runic circles stretch along this rubble-strewn hall. Several exits have been blocked by a caveins, but a single open passage, its dusty floor marked with giant-sized footprints, leads eastward.
The two statues by the Northern Teleportation circle are actually Caryatid Columns.
What are you doing now?
"Hmm.. not sure what to make of this, though I'm sure it was the site of some pretty powerful Arcane magic at one point. Any insight Cass?" Rhialla asks, taking in the dusty hall.
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Ashlei is too busy drinking ‘water’ to notice anything right now…
"Yeah, those columns? With the vague outlines of some kind of indeterminate shape? Those are guardians. Probably animate if we get too much closer. Bad news, completely immune to magic and will shatter your weapons, so don't hit 'em with your favorite sword or pike."
Ashlei looks where Cassie points, her eyebrows arched in sudden heavy thought.
"So can they come after us if we approach and then run away? Or do they just stay here once we leave?"
She takes another swig from her new 'water' source...
"Probably. But you might be able to stay out of their reach and keep plugging arrows at them, as long as you don't mind the arrows breaking."
Ashlei looks at Cassiopeia over her shoulder.
"We have arrows? I don't have arrows. I have bolts though. I have that crossbow that is built to be used underwater. I could get the statues attention. Probably. Assuming the bolts will hurt them."
She then takes another swig of 'water' and hands it back to Rhialla.
"Fortified and fit now. What are your orders Captain? We could go back to the ship and have the crew haul a ballista up here. Heck, didn't some of those one-eyed bastards have some big crossbows too? They are almost as big as a ship's weapon."
Ashlei shrugs.
"Let's just move past, but give them a wide area. Plenty of other things to explore and check out right now. We can always come back later with a bunch of crossbow-carrying crewmen and deal with those things from range later. No reason to be hasty yet...or stupid. They won't animate unless we approach or go between them. Right?"
As you move into the room the Caryatids do not activate.
What are you doing?
"No way to know, really..." murmurs Cassiopeia.
"If they're not animating, though, then yeah, let's just keep going."
"If we prepare before we decide to deal with them, I may have a spell or two that might actually affect them, or summon up something that can." Rhialla says as they bypass the statues.
"We may as well continue around the tunnels, and come back here when we're ready. Whatever those things are guarding is likely of some kind of value or importance...or was at least."m Rhialla says, indicating the other side of the tunnel structure.
Ashlei smirks, salutes, and follows orders, letting the trap expert go first of course!
You move around and come to:
Oracles Hall
The domed ceiling of this chamber rises eighty feet overhead. In the center of the hall, a thirty-foot- high egg-shaped structure stands on the floor.
Stone stairs climb the side of this domed structure, ending before a stone wall chiseled to resemble an immense eye, circled with strange runes glowing with an eldritch light. The stairs and eye are mirrored on the opposite side of the
dome. Tiny stars roil across the top of the structure, their light projecting strange constellations on the ceiling overhead.
Much of the northeast corner of the chamber lies in ruin, collapsed by obvious cave-ins, but three other exits remain-doors to the east and west, and a corridor leading south east.
The runes around the eyes on the walls of the vault are in Cyclops.
"Only by blinding yourself to the world around you can you see the way forward to the Eye of Serenity."
What are you doing now?
"Huh. Another mystic puzzle. Only by blinding yourself to the world around you can you see the way forward to the Eye of Serenity. Not clear if it means wearing a blindfold, actually plucking out your eye, or just using a blindness spell."
A thought…an actual intelligent thought…goes through Ashlei’s head and she blurts it out too quickly to stop herself!
“Maybe we can pass the statues without incident if our eyes are closed or covered in some way?”
She then rubs her temples as if her head hurt suddenly.
“Ouch…I think I need more ‘water’…”
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"I was going to suggest that.. we are pirates after all surely we can scrounge up an eyepatch and see what we can see.... we will try the plucking out the eyeball option if everything else fails."
He finished dryly joking about he removal of an eye.... at least it seemed like he was joking about it.
.
"Blinding yourself to the world around you can you see the way forward?" Esmarelda asked thinking to herself. "Do you have the blindness spell?" She asked Cassiopeia.
"It might have something to do with entering whatever viewing space there is and triggering it with a darkness spell." Rhialla suggests.
Ashlei frowns and heads for the next area.
"Boss...you're starting to repeat yourself! Or I'm drinking too much 'water'..."
With a chuckle, Rhialla follows, to investigate the mysterious rooms.
"Lets see if we all die." Esmarelda said with a half hearted chuckle. "Don't recommend it by the way."