Still pondering the actions of the dwarven lord you pass by his burning citadel with the fabled axe of Hzarakul in your possession. The road eventually takes you out of the ruins of Hrazhad-Kul which causes you to breathe a silent sight of relief.
With the walls behind you you travel along the stony path until you reach a 30-foot wide, completely seamless stone bridge partially shrouded by swirling mists. The bridge seems to stretch for an unknown distance high above the waters of the great subterranean lake. Running along both sides of the bridge is a 5-foot high stone railing, covered with a long series of carved skull motifs.
With the tower of flame behind Innis organizes team to wider formation and presses the group forward after making sure her preparations are in place.
Seeing no other way around you set foot on the bridge your bodies weary from the lengthy travel and wasting away from the foul disease. The mists from the the water below shroud many parts of the bridge obscuring your sight still the bridge even with an unskilled eye is a piece of workmanship.
Merelda sends ahead Cinder to scout the bridge ahead to make sure the area is safe. Using the empathic connection with the familiar you sense no danger. You travel for a couple more minutes along the bridge when you hear feral roar followed by the bridge briefly shaking. Immediately Merelda feels the panic from Cinder.
All Cinder can explain to you in the limited communication is that there is danger ahead. A large two legged man-thing. You estimate it to be about a hundred feet ahead of you.
Innis organizes her warriors to take point and continues any last minute magical prep before they engage this new threat. The team is wrapped in a mantle of Calistria's power brought forth by her priestess.
Summoning Cinder back, Merelda raises her new flaming axe and tries to identify the man-thing...
"I'd say 'Now what?', but I fear it would be a bit cliché at this point." Lililinda sighs.
Amigail keeps marching toward the danger, falcata (as always) at the ready...although she does look back over her shoulder once to look at Innis to make sure the plan isn't to wait for the threat to come to them.
Innis gives the nod for Abigail and the other warriors to advance and the casters to approach at a more measured pace. Amigail's sword smolders with chaotic power.
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The mists from the lake continue to obscure the distance you can see on the bridge. Knowing that something is ahead you slowly advance until the mists seem to slightly part letting your eyes fall upon a wretched creature in front of you some 40 feet away.
The creature's dull grayish-brown skin blends in well with the bridge. It roars again casting aside the tattered hair that just a moment before covered its face. What you see is a female face savage and bestial, its pronounced brow and a huge yellow tusk jutting from her lower jaw. Beyond her waist-long hair is a red tangle of wiry locks and her eyes are small, red, and glimmer with malice. She wears the stitched together pelts of a several animals over her body. Around her neck you see a heavy iron collar attached to a chain that disappears into the mist.
Merelda recognizes the creature to be a subterranean offshoot known as a cave giant. All around the giant you can see rocks of various sizes.
Innis' dominating presence weakens the resolve of the Giantess lashing it with threats and insults in it's own language. She commands her Furies to slay the creature.
"Follow me in!" Amigail growls to Cassandra and Merelda and then she charges the giant, hoping to catch it still flat-footed.
for
Innis is pleased to watch Amigail charge in with such fervour. If the blade strikes home the creature will have to resist agonies it could only begin to comprehend.
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Cassandra wasn't ha[[y about the way this fight started. She figured there was little chance they could talk their way past the giantess but seeing how wretched she seemed it hurt Cass to be the aggressor. Even worse was Innis barking orders like they were her minions or property. In any other situation she would have considered long and hard about who the real villain was here but with all that had happened that wasn't an option. Cass was a protector, not an attacker, and she badly wanted to return to that but now was not the time.
Sighing in frustration she readied her glaive and moved out and to the left so she could work on getting behind the giant if needed and was in position to threaten her already.
Merelda charges straight at the beastly-woman, but she aims at the chain attached to the collar of her neck if she can! (Otherwise she will just simply strike the giant.)
Using my last Determination ability for the Day for an attack re-roll!
"I guess the time for talking is past!" Lililinda says, drawing her wand of Admonishing Ray. "Let's just put the poor brute down as quickly as possible."
She steps forward and takes aim.
Merelda you know that the giant does not have any inherent weaknesses and from the way it is acting you doubt it can be reasoned with. Kirzon even though you have spent the last decades as a lumberjack you are aware that giants of all sorts are known to throw rocks.
Seizing the opportunity to strike at the giant the entire moves en masse with Amigail leading the way. She strikes with her falcatta cutting the giant against its shin releasing Innis' magic. The giant roars shutting out whatever Innis had hoped it would see.
Merelda caught up in the battle fervor brings down the axe causing a small gash across its wrist. As it reaches to lift its axe Lililinda blasts the giantess with a force that only agitates the creature even more.
Lifting her axe she swings with a wide berth and misses Amigail. She clumsily sweeps the axe again but Amigail is ready for this and hops over the large blade.
Amigail takes a careful step to (hopefully) set up future flanking opportunities before again hacking away at the giant.
for
Innis continues her antagonizing tirade in the elder tongue of giants. Her words are a curse that not only instill fear but fluster the enraged creature as they strike at the core of its primal being. That her teammates do not understand her words is a blessing in of itself.
Sidestepping to try and start flanking the great big monster, Merelda tightens her grip on the axe and swings again!
"It's just a stupid giant! Lilli! Don't you have a spell to charm or confuse it?"
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Cassandra took a chance and quickly began to move as she tried to get around behind the giant. She knew that it might strike her but it was a risk worth taking since it would put her in a good flanking position with no one to foul her strike like Merelda had. In position she prepared to lash out with a a downward slash of her glaive when the giantess next attacked and hoped she had enough strength to hit her target.
Lililinda waves to the giant, getting it's attention. "Yoo hoo! Right here!"
Easily capturing the giantess' attention the creature roars something guttural at the gnome frothing at its mouth as the spell takes effect.
Even Boros sinking its teeth into the giantess and the smell of its own burning flesh does not avert its glaring anger from Lililinda.
Cassandra drives her glaive into the side of the giantess as Boros wraps its massive body around the creature. Unfortunately both Merelda and Amigail fail to injure the giantess.
The creature strikes back looking to rip Boros apart with tooth and nail, but fails as its eyes cannot tear away from Lililinda.
Amigail swings her magic falcata at the giantess's leg, hoping to cut the big ugly down to size.
for
With the battle clearly in hand Innis will wait out the Giantess' demise. Keeping a watchful eye in case in it's death throes her team needs defence.
Merelda takes another step to swing again, feeling more and more like a bad lumberjack!
"Gotcha!" Lililinda smiles. She sends a bit of disruptive mental energy along the connection.
The popping of several vertebrae sounds off like the end of a crescendo as the giantress tumbles down as the last breath escapes it lungs. It's death leaves the passage along the bridge open.
"Well done. Now off to the temple."
Innis will congratulate her team and check the giant for anything noteworthy before moving the group onward towards the temple.
Leaning down to cut a long lock of the giant's hair off with a dagger, Merelda wraps it around itself and puts it away. Then she points ahead.
"That fight wasn't quiet Innis. Cinder, check ahead quickly and quietly and see what you can see. Then hurry back. Give him a minute."
Cinder returns and indicates to Merelda that there is no other danger ahead. But from his communication it seems to Merelda that the mist is still ahead.
Innia nods accepting Cinder's report through Merelda. The team will continue ahead.
Leaving the slain giant behind you it is only a matter of minutes before the mist starts to clear marking not only the end of the bridge but hopefully the salvation to your affliction.
There ahead of you atop a high rock shelf the walls and towers of what can only be the sinister temple of Maramaga looms before you. The road snakes upwards towards the temple getting lost in the cavernous ascent. While you could continue your travel there the temple is still over a mile away and you are tired from your journey since the mage tower.
~The team will break for camp~
Innis will look up towards the temple. "Truly no turning back now. Had I am home, I might long for it. Wish that if I shut my eyes, click my heels, say some wondrous words this would all be a dream. But it's not. I am here. I am ready." she says perhaps a one-sided conversation with her goddess or to no one in particular.
As always Innis let's the others (Kizron in particular) do most of the heavy lifting in terms of camp set up.
Innis finds a comfortable place to sit and takes out her harp and begins to sing. Perhaps fitting of the milestone they have reached her performance is nothing less than extraordinary. Whatever their feelings about the mercurial changeling the team is left in awe. As Innis plays she is momentarily as stunning as any deceiving-succubus or playful-nymph. Even those less attuned to the ways of magic can feel that there is real power in her voice perhaps an extra layer to it that their ears are only now awakened to.
She sings two songs...
One of Darkness it invokes images of a rotting hut, bathed in crimson moonlight. The twisted woods open up to a small clearing as if not even its malignant presences dares encroach upon the One living there. The song itself seems more like a foreboding warning of things lingering at the edge of one’s vision. It is a song better left un-repeated and talked about only in the hushed tones of fools willing to risk misfortune.
The Song of the Briarpatch Orphans
Looming over a hateful cradle
Fed a spoonful, a poisoned ladle!
Seven Daughters, Oh what a sight!
Oh, how gown men would die of fright.
Ill and wasting she’ll die, but not too soon
Seven Daughters to carrying her tune.
Born in a Briarpatch, but it wasn’t no home
Seven Daughters couldn’t be more alone.
Seven souls she gladly sold
Seven devils hungry and bold.
The Briarpatch Witch hates the world, turn by turn.
She’d gladly watch, to see it burn.
Hateful Witch! She’ll die, but not tonight!
Poisoned seeds to set the world alight!
Seven Daughters, beautiful but full of malice,
Supped on a poison chalice.
Seven Daughters, Shadow was their home
Only One will sit on Shadow’s Throne.
The Briarpatch Witch is dead, but her curse does linger.
Filcher, Finder, Baker, Brewer, Weaver, Whisperer…and Singer.
-----
The other of Light it is an improvised melody with no real words. It sounds an accompaniment a battle hymn for some legendary warrior princess bolstering her troop against impossible odds.
Looking up at the temple, she spits at it.
"The future and revenge is ours, if we can but take it."
After that Merelda spend most of her free time in meditation, wrapped in her Elven Cloak with Cinder perched on her shoulder and head. Strangely she looks more like a Stalagmite with a giant wasp on it!
"...after all this business is settled you might consider joining on with me. I could always use someone with such...dedication." she steps close offering her last words intimately for Amigail's ears only.
Taking the first guard rotation Innis will glide over towards Amigail while the others are resting or otherwise occupied.
She delicately combs through some of Amigail's hair, brushes some aside and starts a small braid as she speaks.
"We're nearing the end of this and you've grown so much over these last few days. You are bold with your sword. But there is still a part of you that is meek, lost, seeking purpose or to regain something that was taken from you. Remember my offer there is a life once we are done with all of this. One where you can take whatever you want of the world."
She pauses having finishes the braid and searches the other woman's eyes.
"Be bold Amigail. Tell me, what is it you truly desire?"
Amigail doesn't look bold; in fact, she seems uncomfortable with Innis's attention. When the Calistrian asks what she truly desires, however, Amigail tells her the tale of her brief stint in the Taldan Imperial Navy and of the tragic events that led to her dismissal.
"Just before the plague broke out in the city, I heard that my father was soon to be hanged for his alleged crime," Amigail whispers softly. It's only then that a fire sparks in her eyes.
"I want to have his sentence commuted. If he's executed...then I'll want my vengeance. If you help me, I'll pledge myself to your service forever."
Despite Amigail's initial hesitation towards Innis, the changeling senses a strong resolve in the other woman. Superstitious or not few would have the courage to make such an accord with one of her kind without the light of day to give them comfort.
When the flames of passion in Amigail are stoked Innis flashes a great big smile almost perfect were it not for some unusually sharp teeth. "So it shall be..."