|
Penthesilea lurches backwards from the Allip, the stanzas of a long-forgotten epyllion spilling forth from her lips as she searched for something to counter the creature's dread babbling!
"And now give to us might and courage, that we may prove ourselves pre-eminent amid all the Avistani, and win glorious renown. Kindle from our helms and shields flame unwearying, like to the star of harvesttime that shineth bright above all others. "
Round 1
Dario's attack hits, but seems to partially pass through the incorporeal creature.
Kenji is briefly fascinated, but then Penthesilea snaps everyone out of it with her song.
Kenji hits critically with his second swing and destroys the golem in a single strike!
but the Sage dodges out of the way!
The sage tries again to touch Penthesilea
Round 2
The Sage turns to touch Dario
Turn Order:
1. Fiata
2. Sage of Plagues
3. Dario
4. Penthesilea
5. Kenji
6. Skai
7. Sage of Plagues again!?!
Sage of Plagues: -4
Dario:
Round 2
Dario misses.
Both Penthesliea's special arrows narrowly miss.
Keji hits!
this time, Skai's thundercloud collides with the allip, but even her spell does half damage vs. the bodyless creature.
Turn Order:
1. Fiata
2. Sage of Plagues
3. Dario
4. Penthesilea
5. Kenji
6. Skai
7. Sage of Plagues again!?!
Sage of Plagues: -19
Fiata misses!
She tries to touch Kenji:
Turn Order:
1. Fiata
2. Sage of Plagues
3. Dario
4. Penthesilea
5. Kenji
6. Skai
7. Sage of Plagues again!?!
Sage of Plagues: -19
Kenji: pending save vs. 2 wis damage
|
|
A moment after you concluded the discussion with Yjalk who felt like you’re stealing his treasures the room started to tremble!
Well, nthe brazier in the center of the table ignited with emerald fire, and the spectral form of the Sage of Plagues rose from the flames to attack.
Yjalk and his crew were present and they ran away!!
The sage looks like a malignant cloud of shadows sometimes and boils in the air, its skeletal maw eerily babbling as the creature’s claws manifest from the darkness.
The incorporeal sage’s power also animated one of the corpses to fight by his side but the group destroyed it easily.
The allip is not able to slay the group and the ghost salt arrows are eventually too much!! It’s incorporeal substance explodes and again … you only hear your own breathing!!
B12. Gathering Hall
This large columned chamber shows signs of past comforts, but an ancient battle scorched the walls and ceiling, and cracked and smashed the floor and columns. The remnants of furniture are scattered against the walls, and piles of bodies are stacked in the sleeping alcoves along the south and west walls.
A dais crowned with a great, round table rises from the floor in the south part of the room. Three corpses sit around the table as if in conference, each dressed in fine silk robes.
A slight breeze whistles through with a sound like a distant, murmuring voice, but there is no sense or meaning in it. An open hallway to the north leads to a natural cavern. Stairs lead downward in the northeast corner of the room, but were buried in stone when the wall collapsed.
~
You look around the room and believe that this meeting chamber provided sanctuary during the fiercest khamsin storms.
This area was probably sealed off during one of the sages’ battle.
The bodies of the sages are seated around a large table, placed there by someone you think.
The topaz and emerald jewels were once in front of the bodies you could imagine, but now only the shards of the broken ruby gem remain.
|
|
"Looks like we've got some kinda Poisoned Feast situation here... Or I guess maybe not if the bodies were moved."
She shrugged nonchalantly, but even Penthesilea's irrepressible mood darkened when she looked at the ruby shards.
"It's hard to even imagine how many stories were lost when that broke. We have to do better with the others."
Communication via the stone is crude when you use the sending stone to contact Amenopheus and let him know that you discovered the remnants of one of the jewels.
He tells you that he’ll immediately begin scrying on one of you to study the location for accurate teleportation.
He will arrive in 1 hour.
|
|
"All of this should be preserved and studied!" Dario begins scribbling notes in his journal about the room, the corpses, the table, and the shattered gem. "Yes, Dr. Gremci would love to study the bodies of the Sages! And Professor Rambooth would want to see these inscriptions! But they can't! They're not here, and I am! They would burn with envy!" He laughs.
When you are searching the sages sanctuary you really all feel the wisdom and power that was accumulated here so long ago.
As promised, Amenopheus arrives 1 hour after you contact him about the broken sage jewel via a teleportation right into the room you are.
He looks at you with a smile at first! But seeing the state of the sage jewel, Amenopheus moans.
"I had hoped for so much more. So much lost.." he says and looks aroun.
But then his eyes brighten. "Perhaps..." he murmurs as he cups the shards to his mouth and speaks fluid words of magic to them.
At the table, one of the dead bodies suddenly sits up, as if assuming its seat at a tea party. A swirl of light surrounds it and a woman, Osirian by the look of her, and clad in crimson robes sits where the corpse sat before.
"Hail, Bearer of the Sapphire. Hail heroes, who have my thanks for putting the tortured soul of my brother to rest."
Amenopheus immediately begins asking the woman questions, which she answers quickly as the image of her begins to fade to grey.
Through the gem, she has maintained a limited degree of awareness, and she also related that until only day before, the topaz and emerald jewels sat on this table alongside her.
She continues, "When the thief handled one of the shards of my jewel, I was able to read his thoughts before he discarded the fragment and fled. I can identify the thief as a man named Kafar, who had intentions of delivering the jewels to the Diamond Sage in a region known as the Pillars of the Sun. It is there that the Jeweled Sages’ built their sanctum, but it strikes me as odd that the Diamond Sage would collect the gems there instead of finding new candidates to become sages elsewhere in Osirion!"
Amenopheus gasps and looks at you.
"This is most distressing. I begin to fear that the Diamond sage jewel may be in the hands of an enemy of the Society."
The Ruby Sage is fading, but she turns to you all.
"I can sense your loyalty ... Amenopheus, Dario, Skai, Penthesilea, Fiata ... " you hear in your mind and your heart, "... my power is lessened, but I would gladly spend it to grant you a chance to find out what the Diamond Sage plans and to retrieve the jewels. Will you take this charge?"
The ruby sage looks at the professor and Fiata and smiles.
"You know the answer. I will do everything in my power to regain the jewels!" the saphire sage says.
The Ruby Sage nods and peacefully fades back into the dessicated corpse she was before, but not before a rush of power flows into you, making you feel heady with the mythic power of the Sage.
It is a strange feeling ... almost as if you feel connected to the past ... to the past of so many sages that called themselves the ruby sage!
Amenopheus smiles at you.
"This is ... exceptional! I will teleport us to Eto to supply for the next leg of your journey. Is anybody here curesed? I feel evil auras!"
The Saphire Sage looks at all of you after Penthesilea’s comment but shakes his head.
“I was mistaken Penthesilea! Are you all ready to leave? Will you accompany me?!“
As you talk about curses the connection to the ruby sage suddenly connects you to the past!!
The ruins that you are in are those of a desert fortress built during Osirion’s Second Age—not to keep out invading creatures, but rather to protect travelers from the khamsin storms that wrack the desert. By the time Qadira began its purge of the Jeweled Sages, the fortress had been abandoned due to changing trade routes and a lack of resources, so it made an ideal place for the Emerald, Ruby, and Topaz Sages to go to ground. The three hid there, sustained indefinitely by their magic.
Gradually, isolation with no end in sight wore at their minds and drove them to internecine conflict, and an outburst of violence left the Topaz Sage dead, the Ruby Sage slain with her jewel shattered, and the Emerald Sage crippled.
As despair and madness set in, the surviving sage—the Sage of Plagues— elected to take his own life before his thoughts could corrupt the gem’s memories. Despite his selfless intentions in that moment of lucidity, his spirit lingered afterward as an allip that tapped the emerald’s power to sow the ruins with curses that changed over time and at the spirit’s whims.
When a group of covert agents known as the Scarab Seekers reached this fortress after nearly dying from thirst in the desert, they stumbled into the ruins and fell afoul of the curses. All but one agent perished from a combination of the animated remains of those buried about the citadel, supernatural misfortune, and traps. The survivor, that you now recognize as Grandmaster Torch, sustained the injury that heavily scarred him from the emerald’s magic!!
You continue to explore.
B9. Storeroom
This storage space housed food and supplies for the fortress. The walls, floor, and ceiling are charred, and the burnt remnants of a few splintered boxes and barrels and a handful of corpses are scattered to the edges of the room.
You can identify that at least part of the damage is the result of a fireball spell.
B7. The Fountain Room
The relaxing splash of water echoes throughout this tiled room. A large, pristine pool occupies much of the chamber, and a statue of a warrior-maiden serves as the centerpiece, endlessly pouring water from an ornate jar. A large carving on the east wall depicts a frightening man who stares at the viewer, with half his body burnt and ruined and the other half young and healthy.
You can identify the man depicted on the wall as the god of magic Nethys. His split form shows the creative and destructive potential of magic, and a series of three cartouches on either side of the figure proclaim several of the god’s powers in Ancient Osiriani.
Each hand-sized cartouche can be removed from the wall, and the PCs can rearrange the stone panels easily.
~
A withered corpse lies in the northwest corner. An open doorway to the south leads to the fortress’ entry hall.
The wall next to the corpse bears a multitude of scratches as if indicating the passage of time, and a chewed piece of leather next to him bears a nearly illegible note that curses the writer’s companions for leaving him to drown in a desert.
~
You can imagine that this large fountain was originally filled from the courtyard well and was used for bathing, relaxation, and clothes washing by visitors.
The fountain refills itself from this infinite source and can provide thousands of gallons of pure water each day.
The pool is 6 feet deep.
~
To open the door, the “destruction” and “preservation” cartouches must be switched so that “destruction” is on the figure’s burnt side, and “preservation” is on Nethys’s healthy side.
|
|
When examining the storeroom, Skai is pretty confident. "A fireball exploded in here. Quick to erupt, quick to disappear, but the damage is everlasting."
"This is quite a find! The designers must have expected to be trapped in here for a long time. This fountain is fresh water direct from the elemental plane of water, which is an interesting place to visit if ever you get the chance. We would never run out of fresh water here." She begins filling any empty water containers, and splashes some in her face to clean off the dust and grime from the desert sands.
When Skai examines the cartouches she notices something.
Additionally, her examination of the pool shows that a water elemental could be bound here.
But when she touches the water nothing happens.
|
|
The Professor examines the carvings and the corpse. "This is Nethys, the god of magic. Look at these cartouches! They can be taken out!" He removes one of them to look closer.
He glances over to the corpse. "That man looks like he starved to death. And it appears he blames his companions for leaving him to die in the desert."
Dario looks at the hieroglyphics and can really translate them!