After an hour of walking through the tangled woods, you emerge from the far side. Agreat, rocky hill rises to the northeast of the forest, its peak looming above the rest of the island. You can see eight evenly spaced vents along its top, from which thick plumes of fog erupt and drift toward Crossings, carried on an eldritch wind. The slopes of the hill are littered with bones, and its south face has the appearance of an enormous horned skull. The jaw of the skull opens onto a cavern leading down into the heart of the hill.
As you draw near the cave, there comes a mighty roar, and a creature emerges to challenge you. One look at the monster is enough to know it does not belong in this world. It has the powerful body of a red lion, with great black wings and a scorpion’s tail that drips venom. Instead of a lion’s head it has a monstrous human visage, twisted into a bestial grimace. "Run!" it snarls as it prepares to pounce!
The creature was menacing, but it was not a demon. This was a monster they could kill. Dramm was careful to move back and prepare his defenses with enough room in case of an outburst.
His control finally gives way and an explosion of wild energies ravage the forest around Dramm with a burning howl!
The monster had given it's warning, that was enough for Imedren to see it not as a true monster but more of a dangerous predator. Something that alone could be put down.
"Steady, it's just one monster. We can bring it down."
Joy sees the creature...
The face...the eyes!!!
...and starts screaming, as she hurriedly crafts a ball of witch fire and lobs it at the beast!
Sel follows the advice of the monstrous creature and runs, looking for a place to hide.
Once the group begins to move deeper into the forest Tabog stalks among the trees and silently rolls his eyes at Dramm's incessant droning.
Seeing the creature, Tabog goes cold; not at the sight but at the danger his son is in if it got hold of him.
In an effort to distract the beast Tabog begins calls upon his new magic and fabricates four additional actors for the coming theatrical event.
"This play is titled Killing the Frankenstein Monster!... No offense Dramm."
With 4 active a 16 or less hits a duplicate.
With 3 active a 15 or less hits a duplicate.
With 2 active a 14 or less hits a duplicate.
With 1 active a 10 or less hits a duplicate.
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Nutmeg cowers behind Tabog, eyes wide. As his father and Dramm cast defensive spells, Imedren strides forward and curses the monster with pain. Joy and Uruuna miss, but Selgaer lands a good hit. Wracked with pain, all the beast can do is retreat 12 yards into the cave.
Tabog dashes after the monster and hides around the corner of the cave entrance.
He knocks an arrow and begins running from one side of the entrance to the other, firing arrows at the cornered animal.
Dramm approaches only to regain his lost ground. He has no desire to rush at another unfamiliar monster, instead choosing to fire an empowered dart
Sel joins Dramm and lines up another shot.
Arrows, darts, and witch fire bombard the monster. Imedren's hex ensures the beast cannot fight back, only roar and whimper as you inevitably slaughter it.
Joy keeps driving the witch fire wildly towards the beast until she eventually calms down. Roughly the time around when the beast is slain.
Still shaking slightly, she turns to the others and says:
"Let's...let's keep going."
Tabog steps to Joy and puts a hand on her shoulder, comfortingly.
"Maybe you should... Sit down for a moment Joy. I just need a moment before we move on alright?"
He looks over his should at Nutmeg and inconspicuously tells him to come help Joy, with a series of mouthed words and head movements.
Striding towards the cave, he calls to Dramm and Selgaer with some lighthearted banter.
"Heeey, weird guys! Yeah that's you two... Honestly who else would it be?... I had a thought and I think you should check it out!"
Tabog is able to harvest a dose of manticore venom before it loses its potency. After a quick perimeter search turns up nothing, you proced down the stairs.
The stairs descend into a large cave. Pools of oily liquid cover the floor, leaving only narrow walkways between them. Three thick stone columns hold up the ceiling. A narrow passage heads off to the west and a winding staircase burrows through the floor.
The thick, moist air reeks of decay, and the walls are slick with noisome ooze. Pools of slippery slime collect along the floor, dripping from puckered growths sprouting on walls and ceilings. Intermittent shrieks echo from the depths of the lair, followed by low chortles and soft weeping. Candles made from human fat burn, leaving the cave obscured by shadows.
Joy thinks hard about anything that might aid the group navigate this awful place.
Sel will lead the way in, stepping careful while wielding his obsidian tipped spear.
Knowing there was likely to be more dangers inside, Imedren focused his mind and cast a set of preparatory spells.
Imedren walked into the cave, magic was brimming around him. The distant echoing noises were unsettling but the shadows held no secrets for him.
A minute after you enter the cave, a shadowy, humanoid shape materializes before you. It speaks in the scratchy voice of an old woman. "Ye come here seeking naught but your doom. Turn back now, and I will let ye keep what is left of your pathetic lives."
Joy stares at the apparition, her fear under control.
"Toothsome Maera? If you think destroying Crossings will save the world, you're wrong! I wouldn't trust a soul out of Hell to set you straight!"
"Ye have heard, then. Ye know the darkness coming for us all. That town is the epicenter of destruction. The only way to save everybody is to wipe it off the map!"
Imedren's mouth twitched at the near absurdity of what the hag was saying. Not because she was necessarily wrong, but because she was so dead set on this path.
"I think... I think that I wouldn't have gone about meddling in my own past if the version of events you see coming true worked out the way you think it will. I have succeeded in altering the fate of one future already, and I believe we boast the strength to change it further." he took a deep breath, events playing out before him in a strangely entwining gap, and he took a gamble.
"We can decide our own futures here and now. We aren't mere playthings subject to a pre-written fate. You clearly believe that or you wouldn't be trying to destroy this city to avoid a terrible fate.
Stop this, Toothsome Maera. Work with us to alter the path you see before you."
"Have you considered that someone is trying to fool you? Speed up the destruction of the world?"
"Nay, I have verified the prophecy with many sources. And even if ye mere mortals wield as much power as he claim, there isn't time to change course now," says Toothsome Maera. "In a few more hours, Crossings will be destroyed, and the world will be saved. If ye mean to stop me, then ye will die!"
The shadow dissipates, and then with a groan, a hulking construct emerges from one of the pools of slime! Fashioned out of body parts harvested from dead creatures, the stitched abomination lumbers towards you, howling in rage!
Joy is about to retort to Maera's image, then the construct begins to rise.
The young witch tries to slow it down!
Threatening to kill us if we don't let you kill us and our families isn't a good way to negotiate, Sel says. She clearly can be reasoned out of this.
When she escaped, he moved quick to try and see where she went, but was stopped short by the strange patchworked creature dripping slime and fluid.
Sel darts forward, slashing at it with his spear as he runs past!
"Debating with a Fey." Dramm grumbles with distaste. "Should have known it was pointless. The Crossings will stand come nightfall."
The lumbering gait makes the water ripple next to Dramm's feet. He lets Selgaer charge forward into the fray, assisting the Faun's charge with an experimental blast of ruinous energy.
Dramm extends one hand over the pool next to him and unleashes the excess power.
As the hag spoke to the others, Tabog began to creep away towards the wall in an attempt to continue on while she was distracted. Before he got very far, the monstrosity began to rise from the slime, ruining his plans of subterfuge.
"Wha-? Son of a...!"
He draws an arrow at the abomination and lets loose.
and then looses again!
Then he dives into the shadows with his son in tow, becoming one with the cave.
Tabog fires quickly, scoring a grazing hit before missing with his follow up. Selgaer rushes in, stabbing the construct with his spear before springing to its other side. The thing groans and moves in pursuit, pummeling the faun with its fists!
Joy conjures brambles that the construct avoids. Dramm and Imedren blast it with magic, though it doesn't seem too effective. Still, Imedren's hex weakens the creature so Uruuna's two shots impact with more force than normal.
The construct swings on Selgaer again, landing one more crushing blow, but the faun manages to dodge the second fist that would have finished him off!
Sel goes flying backwards as the construct pummels him, but somehow managed to stay on his feet. The brambles must have caught him.
He quickly moves through the brambles and back away towards Joy.
Tabog moves towards the monster's flank and continues his with his volley of arrows!
He loses escapes the thing's line of sight, giving him the chance to find some cover.
Then loose another precision shot!
Joy draws her sling and launches a bullet at the construct!
The creature was a patchwork of twisted flesh, but it moved with surprising alacrity. Dramm's brave words seem a lot less impressive with the knowledge that the same blows would left him a broken mess on the cave floor. He backs away and reaches out to Selgaer with healing magic, forcing the magical energy to maintain integrity until it reaches the faun.
"Look out!" Dramm calls out as the magic tears free again. He does his best to direct the blast away from the others and onto the construct if it approaches.
"Damn stupid Hag!" Imedren said, losing his temper and focus at the wrong moment. The Chaotic energies of the spell rushed off him in a wave. He moved, warping away from the spot where he was, to a closer area near the creature
Selgaer darts away from the construct as Joy and Uruuna each hit it with projectiles. Imedren fails to hex it, then he teleports closer to draw its ire. The thing stumbles through the brambles and punches the sorcerer once.
Dramm heals Selgaer and Tabog shoots the construct with two arrows. Still it stands, and even Imedren's watcher abilities can't protect him as it smashes him into the ground with both fists.
Unconscious, the sorcerer's strain still overloads him and blasts the construct. It falls to pieces, dead body parts hanging from the thorny vines.
Dramm rushes to revive Imedren with a potent burst of healing magic, allowing the excess to burn off behind him. There is a rush of relief upon seeing the color return to Imedren's face.
"Wake up, Imedren!" He shakes his friend impatiently. "Sooner or later I won't be fast enough, you know."
That was close, Sel says. Make sure everyone is ok; I'll scout ahead to see where our path takes us.
Thick mist heavily obscures this room, venting from the mouths of eight children chained to wooden chairs in the smaller round chambers adjoining the main chamber. The fog rises up through vents in the ceiling that open up across the top of the hill. A magical gateway glimmers in the center of the chamber.
There do not seem to be any tracks in here.
"Does anyone have magic or fire that can clear this mist?", Joy asks hopefully, even as she tries to think of ways to do so.
Imedren's eyes snapped open as Dramm's healing magics reduced the blackout explosion of pain from the Promethean's assault into a mere aching pain in several places. He nodded to his fellow Sorcerer.
"Thank you Dramm, I was just so angry at the situation... I don't know what came over me to get so foolishly close to that thing."
As the group recovered and began checking the scene, Imedren drained two healing potions to fully recover.
When they came to the room filled with mist pouring out from the mouths of the restrained children, Imedren immediately recognized them as the children that had gone missing, and he recognized this effect for what it was.
"Stop! Don't get any closer to the children. This isn't just any sort of mist, Joy. This is a curse miasma and it is powerful enough to be permanent. It's also dangerous for us to breathe in such a concentrated form." Imedren's fury was already on the rise again as he saw how the Hag was using the kids.
"Toothsome Maera kidnapped and cursed them, and she is using them as conduits for her scheme. Likely, they're being used as a power source for the island and is maintaining the fog. There are magics that can remove such things, that or with the casters will breaking it. She's already declared she has no intention of stopping what she's doing, and I don't believe any of us have a way to end this effect, we have but one option left... and that is to slay her and end her magics!"
Sel was about to rush in when Imedren yelled for everyone to stop. The gain froze in his tracks. As he listened, his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. It hurt so bad to see those kids like that. And he wanted more than anything to rip them out of those chairs and to take them away from this hell-spawned island.
But Imedren was right. The only way was to kill the hag. Stop the curse first, and then come back.
We'll be back for you! I promise! We'll be back! he called to them. He didn't know of they could hear him or not, but he had to say it anyways.
Dramm glowers in rage at the bound and tortured forms.
"This goes beyond a simple act of war. Only filth would use children. I'm going to butcher that Hag." He almost marches directly through the mist and into the portal, but a thought stops him.
"Bait. This looks like bait. No guard, no locks, just a portal."
Uruuna bristles with rage at the sight of the children. "We will make that hag pay," she promises.
Selgaer slips into the next room, and then quietly backs out.
Finding the others, he whispers, I have found her. She cowers in the back room of an apothecary. I.. he pauses, unsure of whether he wants to speak the next few words. I have a jar of unfaltering fire that warns we should not open it. This may be a good time to throw it into the room and see what happens.
Dramm eyes the jar curiously.
"We don't know what's in the jars, it may backfire. If it consumes the wrong materials, it may become noxious and dangerous to us all. Still, the confusion it causes could be devastating for the b!~#~." He looks back down the stairs. "I trust your judgment. Saving children is something of a specialty for you."
Sel digs out his jar and a potion of fire protection. Holding the potion up, he asks, Does everyone have one of these? If so, take out now.
Sel moves into position, quaffs the potion, and launches the jar of otherworldly fire with the label "do not open" at the hag.
As Joy realises where the mist is originating from, she is taken aback. Then, angered.
When Sel reveals his plan, she gives him a thumbs up, then backs away from the likely blast.
As the jar shatters, the flames erupt from within, consuming the entire laboratory in a massive fireball!
The hag shrieks in pain! "Argh! You'll pay for that, whelp!" she shouts. Alchemical substances gutter and burn, filling the lab with acrid smoke. There is no sign of the hag amidst the wreckage.
Sel coughs at the acrid smoke. Come on! She's getting away!
He rushes in to see if he can find her.
Joy waits for the others to move in before she does.
The roaring fire followed by vile smoke has her worried.