Tabog comes through the portal head first, rolls and pops up to a standing position. He's breathing hard and looks ready to continue running but relaxes when he sees his companions... Some of them, anyway.
"I thought you'd be a little more enthusiastic when you say me, Dramm. I suppose that's kinda asking a lot from you though!"
He smiles at Dramm. You can tell he was trying to lighten the mood but his heart isn't in it; understandably so.
"Uh... No, I haven't seen them since we were all together last. I was in a room with statue thing one portal before this one, sent him through one that led to the room through there."
Tabog motions to the portal behind him.
"Then I ran into here."
He shrugs and finally starts to look around the room they're in. As he begins to walk around he puts an affectionate hand on the three of them when passes by, as if to make sure they're really there.
Uruuna sighs with relief and squeezes Tabog's arm. The effects of the pink liquid have worn off, and the ferren is solid once again. "We just ran out of the room with the statue! I guess it's lucky we all wound up together again. But I'm worried for Anophth and--"
The halfling stops as a flash of blue light appears in the room. When it fades, a handsome man stands near the podium. Small curled horns poke out from his hair.
Uruuna's breath catches in her throat. "Sel?"
Joy exhales and speaks before fully catching her breath.
"There were two snakes, and a statue of an elf, and a statue that attacked, and...who's that?"
A faun appears into the room, arriving the same fashion as everyone else. He was short and thin; standing at best four and a half feet tall.
Despite the barely noticable horns peaking out from his hair, and his lack of shoes - in their place were hooves, making his legs look like they had two sets of knees, one going backwards - it's immediately apparent that he was finely dressed, yet we'll used to being in the wilderness.
His clothing was impeccable. Perfectly tailored to his form. Yet his skin was bronzed from the sun, his unkempt hair wild from the wind. His face had a hint of a pocked scar, which only seemed to make him more attractive.
He wore hardened leather armor, which was well decorated with etchings and dyed a color to match the rest of his outfit - a pascal green, which highlighted color of his green eyes.
A long bow wrapped around his back, and a quiver hung at his side. In one hand he held a short spear, which fell to the floor with a soft clang as soon as he entered.
Oh, thank the Twins, the faun whispered under his breath. Uruuna! You're ok! Of course you are! Are these the poor chaps you're rescuing from this place?
He rushed forward to embrace the halfling, who was only just barely a foot shorter than he. I've missed you. he said, as he reached in to kiss her.
"Aspect of the Elk Prince" He always appears in three. One is vengeful against those who kill the forest he protects, one is giving of the wood's bounty to those in need, and one is as indifferent as the wheel of nature and merely observes.
Uruuna returns Selgaer's hug but shies away when he tries to kiss her. "Sel, no! Imedren... My husband..."
She wriggles out of his grasp. "What are you even doing here? How did you find me?"
Sel gives a lopsided smile. I'm a tracker! It's what I do! Took a bit. After I returned with the children, I set off again to find you. Jorick says hi, by the way; he misses you, too.
I've been staying in that awful city for the past few weeks trying to find you. I didn't know why you took off so quickly, but I was determined to find out.
With a smile still on his face and a twinkle in his eye, Sel asks, Who's Imedren?
Uruuna gives Selgaer a little shove. "My husband! The man I married, the man I pledged my life to, before... Before everything." She looks around the room. "He's missing somewhere here. Another friend, too."
Ha! I knew you were here rescuing people! he said, his smile still aimed to kill.
But what's this about a husband? Sel asked, his smile faltering. You never.. I mean, you said you had a life, but I thought. I mean, you can't just throw away everything we had together!
"Sel..." Uruuna heaves a sigh. "There's... It's complicated, okay? Look, this place is dangerous. Help us get through this alive, and I promise we will talk about things later."
Yes. We can talk later.
Sel backs away, then turns around to grab his spear. For the first time, he looks around the room to assess what's here. So. How do we get out of this place?
Dramm is poking Tabog curiously and nodding at Joy's description of events when Selgaer appears. His hand goes quickly to his axe, but relaxes with Uruuna's recognition. He is silent and his eyes are sharp during the interaction between Sel and Uruuna. When Selgaer looks about the room, he finds Dramm still staring fixedly.
"... Something happened just now. Everyone's faces changed again." Confusion and frustration creep into Dramm's voice. He sheaths his weapons, but his gaze only leaves the newcomer reluctantly. "You know Uruuna? I've never heard of you. Horns are odd. Hooves too. Natural occurrences? Did you see anyone else on your way here? Or a ram?"
A hint of pain manages to force it's way into the questions. He hides it by approaching the pedestal with the glowing signs to inspect them.
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As Dramm reads the inscription, the words start to twist in his vision, but seeing him struggle, Joy offers some advice to help him concentrate and interpret their meaning. As he finishes, a portal appears a few yards away. One side is white and the other is black.
Uruuna waves off the sorcerer's questions. "No time for all that now. Let's see where this leads." She steps into the white portal without hesitation.
The rest of you follow, appearing in a room full of cluttered furniture with a ladder climbing to the ceiling. Skilled at tracking, Selgaer sees somebody was here very recently, as the junk has been pushed aside in a path to a particular wardrobe full of fur coats. The signs indicate somebody climbed inside, and after some experimentation, you realize a portal opens up on the back wall when the door is closed.
The portal leads to a dark room with another portal on the opposite side. Stairs seemingly made of starlight lead up, and you arrive just in time to see Imedren ascend the last step and disappear.
"There he is! Im!" Uruuna shouts, again rushing forward.
***
At last, it seems the Oracular is in sight! Imedren cautiously approaches the massive crytsal sphere, wondering exactly how to activate it.
"Im!" he hears a shout. Turning, he sees Uruuna appear in the room, followed quickly by Dramm, Joy, Tabog, and an unfamiliar horned man. The halfling's relief turns to horror as her eyes widen and she points past her husband. "Look out!"
Turning back, Imedren sees what the rest of the group has now noticed--a spectral figure has stepped out from each of the five statues around the room. They resemble armored elves glowing faintly with eerie green light, but the true shape of their bodies is indistinct, with blurred edges. They brandish their spears and prepare to attack!
The spectral soldiers cause Dramm to shake. Anophth was missing in this place, and Dramm is unable to banish the feeling that something terrible had happened to his friend. When the ghosts approach, Dramm's nerves give way to the unnatural presence. He carves out some hasty protection, renewing his force field.
"Uruuna?!" Imedren said, looking back to look back as she and most of the rest of their friends, even Dramm, came into view. He spared a glance at the newcomer but then Uruuna's warning shout came and he spun to look back.
He'd gotten distracted as the spectral elves came out.
He held himself together. But as he saw the spirits, the memory of what had nearly happened to him and Dramm and... what had likely happened to Hobb drove Imedren to unleash his full power in a mix of anger and fear.
Even as the shades closed in he moved stood his ground, calling upon the power of his sorcery and combining it with pure entropy, he launched 3 streaking sphere of destruction to crush at least one of them.
His rush of power overwhelmed his control and he was blasted by the over burn of his own magic.
The elves... Sel says, They've come back from the dead. They've come for revenge! They've come to take us away!
Sel moves away, as far away as he can from these things. He puts his spear away and takes out his bow. With shaking hands, he knocks it and fires.
"Sel! Get it together! We need your head in the fight!" Uruuna shouts, trying to rally the skittish faun. She slices at the phantom that appeared next to her, a flawlessly executed strike. The nimble halfling is poetry in motion as she leaps into battle!
Imedren's missiles tear the northern phantom apart, ripping its spectral form to shreds!
Joy raises her hand in a hesitant wave to the newcomer, when he and Uruuna start trading words.
Oh. Oh dear!, she thinks, not having the experience to know what to do or say.
****************************
And then the dead elves appear.
"AAAAHHHHH!!!", she wails, desperate to not have the elves assailing the group.
She calls witch fire into existence, and it flies towards the elf near Tabog!
The flame ends up behind the ghost, ready to strike again.
The phantom Uruuna struck retaliates, piercing her side with its ghostly spear. The other three converge on Imedren, one managing a good hit!
Getting a hold of her fears, Joy focuses. Knowing her witch can only travel so fast, she strikes again at the phantom near Tabog, so freed he can help Imedren!
Quicker to draw then his friend, Tabog had an arrow knocked and drawn at the Faun as quickly as Uruuna was able to recognize him. Ever skeptical of this forsaken tower he didn't disengage his draw until Uruuna gave him the dirtiest look he'd ever seen. Not one to miss the social cues of their conversation was sure to return the glare as she hushed the goat man. He could agree that none of that mattered right now, getting out was their main priority.
He remained silent as they continued on, following up the rear guard. He was relieved and then horrified when they spotted Imedren and the subsequent elven ghosts behind him.
As everyone jumps into action, Tabog begins to sing Uruuna's battle hymn. She's empowered by the nostalgia of past battles won; it's been some time since anyone's heard the tune.
Tabog aims at the specter south of Imedren and,
his arrow goes straight past the ghost, into the obelisk.
Uruuna scores another hit, but this time it's not quite as effective, especially since the inusbstantial phantoms are resistant to damage from weapons. The spirit still looms over the halfling...
As the wave of fear washes over him, Selgaer finds his inner courage. Stay behind me! he says to the young girl behind him.
He thrusts his spear forward, into the ghost thing, attempting to shove it back.
Dramm steps up to fill the space that Tabog left.
"Behind me, Joy." His voice wavers more than he would like. "Imedren! To me! Healing!"
Dramm is already carving strands of golden energy in the air. When Imedren approaches, he pushes the spell to the fellow sorcerer. The threads wrap themselves into Imedren's flesh, invigorating the muscles and healing wounds.
Imedren barely manages to hang on as he is stabbed by the spirits. He retreats back as Dramm called to him.
"Dramm!" he says, staggering over to the other sorcerer. "Glad you made it. Did Hobb get out?"
The arrow Tabog previously thought went past the specter actually went through it! It's so obvious now that he is almost worried his eyes are playing tricks on him!
As Imedren falls back, Selgaer, Tabog and Uruuna all land good hits. Two phantoms strike back, one stabbing Uruuna yet again.
Dramm moves up to bolster Imedren, then the other phantoms drift forward. Thebsorcerer's armor protects him from a ghostly spear, but Tabog is too slow to dodge his opponent!
Imedren nodded to Dramm as his vision cleared and a great deal of the pain receded. He saw the majority of the spirits surround them. "Makes things trickier but I can compensate for it."
Joy does as Dramm says, then sees another phantom closing in. The ball of witch fire flies towards it!
Dramm just shakes his head. He shields himself against the wave of energy that erupts from Imedren. When he turns back again, a spear is being wrenched from Uruuna's side. Dramm carves a sigil in retaliation, but slows his draw of power to keep his magic in check.
"Blood loss. I'll stop it next."
The phantoms manage to dodge the worst of Imedren's spell and subsequent outburst, though the most damaged of the group dissipates as the magical energy disrupt its connection to this world. Dramm rips apart the other phantom that was caught in Imedren's outburst with destructive magic.
Uruuna turns and slices her blade through the phantom that Selgear struck, then Joy scorches it with her witch fire. It's just enough to burn its spectral form away to nothingness!
Sel swings his spear in an arc, driving the tip of the blade crosswise through the phantom elf.
After taking a hit from the ghostly spear Tabog ceases his singing and rolls away from the specter. He moves toward the obalisk but takes care not to touch it. There is something about it that his cat senses don't like but her couldn't begin to understand why. Still, he notches an arrow and fires again.
Both Selgaer and Tabog hit the phantom, but it survives their attacks. With the ferren out of reach, it turns and stabs the faun!
Uruuna charges in to try to finish off the last foe, but it dodges her hasty strike.
Sel continues to drive the attack.
What, you afraid of a little faun? Come on! Fight me, you pathetic whisper of an elf!
Sel drives his spear into the phantom, but it passes through without harm.
Joy directs her witch fire to the last phantom, incinerating it! It fades away into nothingness, and the danger has finally passed.
Uruuna nurses her wounds but runs over to hug her husband. "I'm so glad you're okay," she says.
Imedren returns the hug, holding onto her tightly.
"I was worried I might never see you again either." he says just taking a moment to embrace her without anything else mattering. Finally he relaxed.
"This place is... well I can't even rightly call it a maze exactly. Most of us are here together now..." he gives a puzzled glance at the Faun. "and someone else as well."
"Dramm, Hobb, and I were warped into a cold shadowed room together initially but we were almost immediately attacked by 3 shades. There was another black portal we ran through to escape but after I went through, I was alone. Sort of stumbled my way around afterwards and through blind luck and some experimenting, I ended up here. It's impressive that you found me with the chaos imposed on most of the portals here."
"It was luck, partially, then we picked up your trail." Uruuna blushes as Imedren looks at the faun. "Uh, this is Selgaer. He's... a friend."
Joy feels pride at finishing off a phantom, and remembers the tension. Plus...
"Has anyone seen Anophth?", she asks.
Friend? Someone from the watch maybe? Imedren thought to himself as he looked over the newcomer. I didn't realize anyone else had gotten involved in this.
He was interrupted in his thoughts as Joy spoke and he looked around at their group again, noting that the Goblin was in fact not hiding somewhere.
"Not since the first room we were in together. The obelisk moved us all around the tower... but this artifact is supposed to let us find people, right? I'm not sure how it works yet but maybe we can find where Anophth is using it."
Imedren approaches the Oracular. This glowing sphere of crystal is 1 yard in diameter, with wisps of blue smoke swirling inside it. The sphere sits in a bronze cradle with five legs. Peering into the mist, the sorcerer hears voices whispering in his mind, offering him the chance to see distant places for a cost...
Imedren looked at the Orb which was much larger than he'd anticipated.
The last one worked by picking it up, so I should be able to use it by doing the same.
He hefted the orb, which he was not expecting to weigh so much but it was not too difficult as long as he didn't do so for too long.
The voices continued, asking him what he desired to be shown. His mind was torn as he thought back and forth between finding Nutmeg or finding where Aophth was.
"This thing does have a cost to use..."
After a moment, he decided to find Anophth. Focusing his mind, he cleared away all other thoughts and imagined the talkative, funny, charming, although occasionally vicious or even obnoxious little goblin with his single eye and furry countenance.
"TaBog, I'm going to use this to find Anophth. You'll find Nutmeg, your connection is much stronger with him."
Dramm offers healing to those in need as others discuss. Uruuna is his first priority, offering a light heal and two minor heals to keep her in fighting condition.
"Everything has a cost. The Fey seem to like games." He glowers at the glowing sphere. "It better have been worth it. If nothing else, it is an object of power. Power is something we can use."
Hi! Sel says, waving his hand in a gesture of greeting. He looked Imedren up and down. A frown appears on his face as he does so. So this is him, huh?. A bit big, isn't he? And a little too red, if you ask me.
Sel sighs. His whole body physically relaxes, as if he had kept a strong emotion pent up and he just let it go. Yeah. A friend. Uruuna helped me once, in another lifetime. I'm.. I'm here to return the favor.
Sel turns his back, hoping no one sees the tear well up in his eye. He sniffs. So. Who's this Anophth? And Nutmeg? Why ya looking for them, and how is that thing going to help?
"Imedren!"
Tabog smiles and takes his turn hugging Imedren. He traded 'I have no idea' looks with him but otherwise showed no interest in the faun or the situation as a whole. He was too busy concentrating on the orb in front of him and awaiting Imedren's recount of what he saw in the swirling mists.
Imedren feels the stain on his soul spreading as the mists inside the orb clear to reveal another level of the tower. This one sports an enormous red-capped mushroom in the center, along with a hulking fungal creature prostate before it. Across the room, six smaller mushrooms grow on a mound of dirt.
Another mound of dirt partially covers the corpse of Anophth. The furry goblin's body is battered and broken, as if bludgeoned to death by powerful blows. His single eye stares unseeing at the ceiling, and a variety of fungus has already started to grow out of his body. It seems your friend has met a grisly end...
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Imedren was taken by surprise from TaBog as he was hugged by the man.
"It's good to see you alive too."
Imedren nodded at Sel.
Another lifetime? Must have been before Uruuna and I met.
"Well your timing is well placed then, Sel. Although what we're doing is very dangerous. You seem like you can handle yourself in a fight though.
Anophth is a friend of ours, a goblin who went missing after we got separated in the tower. Nutmeg is TaBog's son, he was taken forcibly by a band of cultists known as the Dark Brotherhood.
We came here to try and find this artifact, known as the Oracular. Now we've found it. We'll find our friend first then we'll find his son."
"Anophth?" Imedren said, a moment of shock passing through him. Some part of his mind had feared this might happen, especially given how close he and Dramm had come to dying.
"Is everything in this damn tower designed to kill someone and make more of itself?!" He lout out a growl of frustration and kicked a wall.
He stepped back, looking over at TaBog. There was a hardness to his eyes now. "Your turn, TaBog. Let's find where Nutmeg is and then we'll try to get out of here with this."
Tabog stares in horror and the images on the globe. His eyes become glossy, causing them to shine bright yellow. He's still until Imdren addresses him. Shocked back to reality, he looks between his friend and the misty orb.
"Wha...? M-me? I don't know how to use this kind of stuff. I'm don't know magic like you guys do..."
He looks solemnly at Dramm, fear and trepidation covering his face. It is unnerving that the silver tongued feline may be lost for words and action.
"I don't trust myself to use this and find Nutmeg. What if I don't have the will to control the magic inside of it?"