The brigand is glued to the floor and entangled!
Red tries to break free! while Purple murmurs the words to a spell and fans his hands out! fire damage!
The giant hand and arm fly about, blindly groping as it pulls itself free of the cobbled street!
The Purple wizard drops like a stone. To the ground. And bleeds.
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Again, Igor is gobsmacked, and then nearly actually smacked. Why would anyone in there right mind bother with one lone little mage when a mountain was erupting under their feet? Yeth, Igor thought (he sometimes lisps when he thinks; it's that traditional), of all the other people in the world who could have been his master the White Ape had to be his Master, it wath dethtined.
"Perhapth Mathter could concentrate upon the colothal thtone monthter?" Igor says calmly, having gotten used to this sort of thing by now.
The man grunts in pain as the spear pierces his side!
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Jyrrar gives the man a calm look as he advances upon him, thrusting his spear into the man's side!
*Thigh* More work for me then. I mean stabbing a man in the side with your spear when he is already nailed down like that, it just makes a martyr out of him. Yep, he's even weeping now. The only thing that could make this any worse would be if his mom showed up... or if someone kicked him in the fork.
Wymarc's arrow hits the man in the pectoral muscle and he cries out before holding up a hand and lowering his sword. "Mercy, please. We are mercenaries and I have no desire to die or see my friends die."
Behind you, the Gulgamodh tears itself free of the street, rising 60 feet into the air as it stands, destroying a few nearby buildings in the process. It looks almost like a gigantic suit of plate armor, and its left arm terminates in a cannon-like weapon. In a metallic voice, it declares “Gulgamodh stands ready,” but thereafter only stands, stares at the world, and reacts to no commands.
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Wymarc's arrow hits the man in the pectoral muscle and he cries out before holding up a hand and lowering his sword. "Mercy, please. We are mercenaries and I have no desire to die or see my friends die."
With bad grace, Igor tends to the most seriously wounded first.
More work for Igor.
"Thrapth! Put your pseudo-pod here while I tie off the knot."
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Behind you, the Gulgamodh tears itself free of the street, rising 60 feet into the air as it stands, destroying a few nearby buildings in the process. It looks almost like a gigantic suit of plate armor, and its left arm terminates in a cannon-like weapon. In a metallic voice, it declares “Gulgamodh stands ready,” but thereafter only stands, stares at the world, and reacts to no commands.
"Tho, um er, doeth it do anything?" Igor asks inspecting Gulgamodh from a safe distance.
You return to the Grand Lodge, searching for Ollysta Zadrian, head of the Silver Crusade. When you can't find her there, you ask for help, and are directed to an area of the city in active battle. As you approach, you see her slice into a skeletal creature, who falls over, returned to death. She turns to you.
"“I’m pleased to see you have come to Absalom’s aid in its darkest
hour. As you may have heard, undead creatures have attacked
various locations within the city, and scouts have reported that
an army of demon-flesh abominations is assembling in the
Cairnlands. The holy warriors of the Ascendant Court would be
instrumental in a war against such holy creatures, and I have
begun coordinating the faithful. I know Absalom is home to
more of the faithful than I have seen. Most notably absent are
Sarenrae’s blades, and my close ally Scion Lady Xerashir of House
Shamyyid at the Temple of the Shining Star has not answered the
call to arms. I can only assume that something has waylaid her
and her comrades. My presence is required here, but I am trusting
you to investigate the matter and lend any aid necessary."
You travel to the temple of Sarenrae. The smell of incense is heavy in the air at the Temple of the Shining Star, but it is ominously quiet in the vast Sarenite prayer room. Statues and other religious objects have been placed in concentric circles atop a massive sundial. Opposite the sundial is a portable lens-like device that seems to focus light like a magnifying glass.
Wymarc noticed that footprints and small objects littering the floor suggest a powerful and sudden force dragged people within the temple
toward the sundial, but the tracks suddenly end 10 feet short of the sundial.
The lens appears it can be adjusted, focusing the sunlight into a stronger beam of light.
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"What lovely bell towerth they have here." Igor says reverently looking around--a disconcerting thing considering his mismatched, independently operating eyes. "My couthin Igor liveth in one of the bell towerth in the Cryptgate Cathedral in Kavapethta. He'th a real thwinger that one."
"Oh thay! What'th thith?" Igor says spying the lens with one free-wheeling eye. The other eye stops what it was doing and rotates over to what the other eye is looking at hoping not to miss out on anything exciting.
"Doeth this town have problemth with giant antth?"
The lens is intended to empower spells and the beam of light should be aimed at a magical focus.
A passing Pathfinder points out to you that the sundial was used as a central focus for a powerful spell, and the objects around the sundial were intended to function as foci for a conjuration spell, determining the parameters of the spell.
The lens is aimed at the sundial and suddenly a swirling vortex of light and heat erupts! It solidifies into a gateway, through which you can see a dry desert land where a strange labryinth awaits!
You gather yourselves and step through the gateway! Hot air hits you like a slap and you feel like many eyes watch your every step, while a foul rank smell of carrion fills your nostrils. Ahead, from the twists of the maze comes the sounds of battle! But before you can step inside, two rams with fiery eyes and burning fur step out, heads lowered and pawing the ground with wrath!
Round 1:
Jynath, Sidi, Igor
Fiendish Sheep!
Wymarc, Nyshka, Jyrrar
The White Ape's club smashes into the Yellow Ram, breaking its fiendish back!
Jynath delays!
The ram lowers its fiendish head and tries to smash into the White Ape!
for damage! The horns pierce the White Ape's thigh, causing blood to spill!
Between Jyrrar and Wymarc, the fiendish ram falls with a bleat of evil!
From deeper in the labyrinth comes the fading sounds of battle. You follow them to find a group of Sarenites finishing off a band of minotaurs. You greet them and guide them back to the portal. Once through, the leader, Scion Lady Xerashir of House Shamyyid turns to you.
“Someone must have tampered with the magical foci we used, causing the spell to fail. When we completed the ritual, a gateway formed that drew us into that Abyssal realm. As the portal closed behind us, I could see a woman’s silhouette as she tossed something through the portal and grimly intoned, ‘My sister’s memory earns you mercy.’ It was this,” she reports, holding up a silver holy symbol of Sarenrae, stamped with the word ‘Oppara,’ and notched as if by a blade.
“This style only saw use in Taldor by hidden congregations, including one that reactionary Opparan officials tried to stamp out about six years ago. Was there not a prominent leader in the Society who lost a sister in that incident? A pasha who went rogue? This alone may not be evidence of her involvement, but whoever sent us to the Abyss seemed to want us trapped, not killed.”