"Yeah, let's keep moving. Spells are running..."
After checking the door for anything suspicious and finding nothing of concern, you advance into the next chamber. There, you notice that all the room's corners have been smoothed and rounded, leaving it devoid of any sharp angles. However, your attention is quickly drawn from the architecture to the battle playing out before you.
In short, you see who you believe to be the Varisian Rangers clashing with some bizarre, monstrous hounds. You settle on this conjecture because you recognize Setsuna Kailani and Rilee Stormborn, Earthmother Ryli's previous incarnation. However, the names of the half-orc archer and the halfling swashbuckler continue to elude you. After they defeat the hounds, each Varisian Ranger vanishes one by one until only Setsuna is remaining.
Setsuna stares at Galatea for a long moment before vanishing as well.
"More temporal echoes," Ninuron explains after squeezing through the door leading to the chamber without corners. All the doors in this complex are just barely large enough for a stone giant like Mokmurian to use. However, they prove to be a rather tight squeeze for someone the time dragon's size.
From there, you proceed into the next room, which is actually more of a long hallway. All the walls of this corridor are etched with sophisticated runes. However, the western end of the hallway still appears to be a work-in-progress; you can even see a hammer and chisel laying on the ground over there.
While Ninuron struggles to get through the northern door, Aurealia notices something... eerie about the southern door leading out of the corridor and brings it to your attention.
"Oh. I know precisely what that is, it's a-"
Jaya explains that the danger before you is called a temporal fissure. Put simply, it is the result of a bunch of temporal energy accumulating in one place. The second you open the southern door, the energy will explode, the blast radius likely covering the entire hallway. Anything living caught in the explosion will grow very old and feeble if they fail to resist the temporal energy. Powerful healing magic should be able to undo this abnormal aging, but unfortunately, Galatea cannot cast such spells yet...
"Okay, here me out. This sounds bad, but time dragons are immortal -- at least, that's what I've read in... in a respected and learned mage's treatise. And dragons get more powerful when they age as an added bonus."
She looks over to Ninuron. "Basically what I'm saying is that you're the best candidate for opening the door and tanking the explosion. I'm gonna be, like, way over here since centaurs have a depressingly short lifespan."
"I'll heal any damage you sustain," Galatea quickly promises.
After a moment of careful consideration, Ninuron nods his massive head and gestures for you all to stand clear of the calculated blast radius.
Seconds after you tell Ninuron to proceed, you hear a telltale explosion, followed by a growl of pain. Thankfully, when you hustle back into the corridor to check on Ninuron, you discover that he is essentially fine; only a small portion of his purple scales are even mildly singed. As promised, Galatea quickly heals the damage he just took, along with some of the injuries he got from the earlier battle as well.
From there, you proceed to the next room, which is filled with several small alcoves along the walls. You find this area to be essentially abandoned. However, the tables in the center of the room are covered with scrolls, and the ink on some of the quills still appears to be wet. Curiously, any attempts to interact with these items proves to be fruitless; they appear to be solid, but in reality, they're intangible.
Ninuron looks to the western door and studies it for a moment.
"I sense a great temporal disturbance beyond that door," the time dragon remarks. He turns to look at you. "I believe that we will encounter another temporal echo there, one much more dangerous than the others."
In other words, the temporal ghost of Mokmurian.
Kallie retreated to where she believed it would be safe, then retreated about double that distance just to be sure.
She finally crept back to inspect the area, being disappointed that she couldn't interact with the scrolls in the otherwise empty room. Ninuron's concern about the next temporal disturbance doesn't scare her as much.
"Well, the Varisian Rangers killed him well before they went and defeated Karzoug, so it can't be that hard to beat him again. Right?"
False bravado aside, she felt hopeful that with a time dragon on their side and the fact that Mokmurian wasn't likely to be an actual ghost meant that her spells were going to be useful. She unlimbers her sadist's lash in preparation.
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"A big fight, you think?" Croc's enormous, toothy grin is magnetic, as always. "Gimme a minute!"
After singing to ready herself and her closest allies , Croq shifts into a whole 'nuther gear
Jaya can't help but smile softly at her friends' excitement.
"So long as he's only an echo, we should be able to swiftly dispense with him, but best not to be overconfident."
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Kallie casts shield as a precaution.
"Overconfident? Me? I just have faith in my and my companions' capabilities." She sticks her tongue out at Jaya.
Aurelia transforms into Aurealian and casts another round of haste on the group once they are ready to rock.
Before everyone heads into the next room (and turning invisible again), Galatea heals Cheshire back to full health and then casts another buff on herself.
If no one objects, Ninuron decides to lead the way into the next area. Thankfully, the hallway beyond the door is big enough for him to navigate, though it is still somewhat cramped for the huge time dragon. You follow him down the corridor and into the next room. Going by the worn training dummies occupying the space, you can tell that this is likely a training area of some kind, and it seems that you caught a certain someone in the middle of spell practice!
Mokmurian snarls upon seeing you barrel into his training room, and having likely been tipped off by the earlier explosion, he is prepared to act swiftly. With a wave of his hand, a thick cloud of fog quickly covers nearly all of the training room. An instant later, you hear several menacing and otherworldly howls coming from within the mist...
From within the fog, you hear Ninuron utter a mighty draconic roar before he unleashes his fury against the lowly creatures that dare challenge him. The howls of one of these mutts soon turn to howls of pain as the time dragon thrashes it. Alas, some of his mighty attacks are impaired by the magical mist, and as a result, Ninuron's target is ultimately still alive when everything is said and done.
Regardless, you are still quite happy that the time dragon is on your side!
A second later, a green beam of magic tears through the mist, one aimed right at...
Aurealian!
You hear Gali curse in Elven.
"I think I know what these hounds are!" She proceeds to tell her companions what to expect.
Kallie quickly and efficiently relays the facts she knows about the Hounds of Tindalos. They're the same otherworldly canines you saw the Varisian Rangers face earlier. They are resistant to non-magical physical damage, but that probably isn't an issue for anyone present, including Ninuron since dragons are inherently magical creatures. They can walk on air, teleport seemingly at will, and wield limited magic, including a gaze that can literally cut living creatures. Finally, they're immune to poison and... mind-affecting effects.
Even those in the mist can hear Kallie's groan of frustration.
Kallie grits her teeth as she feels the hounds circling, fighting her centaur instincts. She grips the whip in her hands and waits for one of the hounds to lunge out of the fog. The moment it tries to strike, her whip cracks!
Jaya hurls a bead of fire into the mist, briefly illuminating the fog in a flare of arcane light. Rather than assume safety, she re-veils herself in invisibility before floating to a new location - keeping out of the fog that might outline her and render her invisibility meaningless.
41 for 17 (29 to confirm for 22 more)
39 for 19
24 for 16 (miss chance fail)
31 for 22
27 for 19
27 for 17
21 for 16
Aurealian resists the worst of the beam and then begins flailing his limbs and striking with his maw using supernatural speed. A flurry of blows rains down on one of the hounds between him and Ninuron.
Croq focuses on the spot Mokrurian had been standing when he cast his spell and attempts to fly over the dogs, through the fog, to swing at his face.
Meanwhile, the spirits of the Rodericks wail at the massive giant, in harmony with Croq's rocking anthem.
Aurealian finds the hounds to be very resistant to his claws, teeth, and horns.
Mokmurian manages to dodge the worst of Jaya's Fireball. In fact, going by his very mild grunt of pain, he's barely even hurt by it. The hounds, though, are a different story; they're left dazed, disoriented, and scorched by the explosion.
Mokmurian takes a swing at Croq with his club as she approaches. However, he only destroys one of her Mirror Images. The giant wizard growls in pain as Drumstick makes contact with his shoulder, leaving it badly bruised. Alas, the Roderics find themselves unable to punch through Mokmurian's magical wards.
The hound that just took a beating from Ninuron whimpers and disappears into thin air! It appears a moment later next to Kallie and Jaya, only to be left dazed and bleeding by Kallie's enchanted whip. The ones that aren't dazed attack Aurealian and Ninuron, some of their attacks finding purchase.
With his path to Mokmurian suddenly open, Ninuron quickly barrels out of the fog. One of the nearby hounds tries to bite the time dragon as he passes, but its teeth fail to penetrate Ninuron's thick purple scales. Upon seeing Mokmurian, Ninuron embraces the power of Croq and Roll and makes a more calculated attack against the giant wizard. His teeth find purchase, but Mokmurian's magical defenses absorb quite a bit of the damage.
Despite staring down a seasoned warrior and a mighty time dragon, Mokmurian holds his ground and begins to defensively cast a spell.
Mokmurian pauses as his spell fizzles. After some careful consideration, he decides to fall back. In the process, Ninuron manages to land another bite, but once again, his teeth once again meet unexpected resistance.
Galatea decides not to waste any further time trying to dispel the fog. Instead, she whistles for Cheshire to take Ninuron's place on the frontline and then moves forward to check on Aurealian. After seeing some of the damage her friend has taken, Galatea quickly moves to heal him. Meanwhile, Cheshire tries to bite the most wounded hound, but it dodges her attack.
Croq laughs as the giant falls back so quickly, and tries to bash him as he does.
"I heard you were tough–that you gave the Varisian Rangers a run for their money–but then you died years ago. Maybe you're just a faint shadow of what you once were, eh? More of a whimper than a roar."
With that, she surfs after him in pursuit, and again whacks him with all of her might.
"I suppose Ninuron is from the future where I didn't scour him from the plane for blocking my evocations," Jaya grouses invisibly.
Making the most of her protection, and unable to offensively impact the battle as much as she'd wish, she works on undoing Mokmurian's spellwork.
Croq once again lands a solid hit on Mokmurian, bruising his other shoulder quite badly. Still, the stone giant wizard appears to have plenty of fight left in him. Meanwhile, Jaya successfully dispels the troublesome fog, revealing a pack of otherworldly hounds that's now surrounded on all sides.
As the thick clouds disappear, Kallie finally locks eyes with Mokmurian. She quirks an smile as she casts a spell making sure it's extremely hard to resist.
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As Kallie casts her spell, the rest of you can't help but quietly fear that some sort of temporal nonsense will suddenly apply here that makes Mokmurian inexplicably immune to enchantment magic. And even if that isn't true, there's also the reality that Mokmurian was a powerful wizard whose iron will and force of personality briefly united the stone giant clans of Varisia under his rule. In other words, someone who would be naturally resistant to enchantment magic.
However, despite all that, Kallie's spell takes hold, causing Mokmurian to completely freeze in place right as he is about to retort to Croq's taunts.
"Woah! Nice one, Kallie.
"OK then...It's Drumming Time!"
Croq winds up, hovering in the air in front of the giant, and swings for his stony head with everything she's got.
Aurealian nods his thanks for the healing, and continues to attack the hounds, unsure of what else to do.
Once again, Aurealian finds the hounds' resistance to his attacks very difficult to bypass. Despite Aurealian landing some very vicious blows, his foe ultimately still stands. Thankfully, the creature is too dazed from Jaya's Fireball to do much more but stand there and act as a punching bag.
The hounds that can still act quickly tear into the closest available target. Aurealian and Cheshire's defenses allow them to withstand the strikes quite well. However, Kallie soon finds herself quite wounded from the attacks of the hound nearest her...
Ninuron frowns upon seeing Kallie's situation. For a second, he considers flying over to her side to intervene. However, Galatea's disembodied voice convinces him otherwise.
"I'll help Kallie! Focus on killing the mutts!"
Ninuron proceeds to rip one of the hounds to shreds with his claws and teeth. After throwing its remains to the ground, he slams another with his massive tail and wings. While the creature is still somehow alive when its all said and done, it is badly wounded by these attacks.
Mokmurian continues to remain perfectly still.
While Cheshire continues following Galatea's last standing orders, Gali herself hustles over to her wounded relative and casts...
"Greater Invisibility!" she shouts, letting Kallie know what cover she's just been granted.
...Somehow, Mokmurian survives Drumstick colliding directly with his head. Oh, Croq's attack certainly deals some heavy damage; it leaves a very nasty welt behind. However, in the end, Mokmurian's skull ultimately withstands the attack.
Kallie's stunned face is nowhere to be seen when she sees Mokmurian withstand the clobbering he received from Drumstick.
She moves closer to him and flicks her whip at the paralyzed giant, hoping to further reduce his ability to throw off her spell.
Croq's eyes go wide as Mokmurian survives a direct swing to the noggin.
"Geez, I guess having rocks-for-brains can have an advantage, eh? Let's see how many licks it takes to get to the center of this toostie pop!"
She winds up and hits him again, aiming for the same exact spot as last time.
Suspecting that with Mokmurian's failure to escape Kallie's clutches that the fight was mostly in-hand, Jaya zips around behind the dragon restricting her to more tightly controlled fire, and begins mopping up the wounded, trying to allow Aurelian to focus his attentions on more worthy foes.
<--- Furious Focus
Aurealian growls in frustration with the hounds, but continues to keep them occupied while the others handle Mokmurian.
Jaya and Aurealian's combined efforts successfully cull two of the weakened hounds and heavily injure another.
The two hounds still capable of acting attempt to attack Aurealian. One of them manages to cut his shin with its claws. The other bumps into Galatea as it rushes at Aurealian. Despite Gali’s invisibility, it manages to land a bit on her arm, causing Gali to scream in pain.
Ninuron takes a step to the north and then unleashes his full fury against the hound that has yet to be injured. With his razor-sharp claws and teeth, the mighty time dragon tears into the otherworldly creature before slamming its body to the ground. Upon seeing that his foe is still somehow alive, Ninuron quickly crushes its skull with a heavy slap of his tail.
As for the last surviving hound, Ninuron breaks its neck with a swift swing of his wing.
Mokmurian continues to remain as still as a statue, though his eyes are now filled with hatred for Croq.
Galatea quickly shuffles away from the sole surviving hound and then casts a spell on it. Whatever she casted, it causes her invisibility to break. The hound itself is left confused and frantically looking at its surroundings. However, it seems unable to actually focus its attention on anything.
Croq's eyes go wide as Mokmurian survives a direct swing to the noggin.
"Geez, I guess having rocks-for-brains can have an advantage, eh? Let's see how many licks it takes to get to the center of this toostie pop!"
She winds up and hits him again, aiming for the same exact spot as last time.
This time, Mokmurian's head explodes into a mess of red, pink, and dark gray. His lifeless body hits the ground in a heap before suddenly vanishing into thin air. Aurealian then lunges at the sole surviving hound and tears it to pieces.
Kallie lets a satisfied smile grace her lips, but forces herself not to strut too much after her spell managed to contain Mokmurian for most of the fight. Still, her tail is high as she coils her whip slowly.
"Not sure I know what a 'tootsie pop' is, Croq, but I don't care to try one," she comments after viewing the remains of the stone giant wizard.
She casts detect magic to see if there were any lootable items before he's folded back into the correct timestream.
Aurealian remarks, whipping his hands to sling the blood off his talons on to the floor.
"Not sure I know what a 'tootsie pop' is, Croq, but I don't care to try one," she comments after viewing the remains of the stone giant wizard.
"Oh you have GOT to get to Belkzen some time! Or at least check out an orcish restaurant. Some might say they're an acquired taste, but that's part of the charm."
Croc wipes off Drumstick and joins her fellows in looking around for anything interesting.
"Interesting that there was a blending of eldritch creatures with Mokmurian's memory. I certainly don't recall their presence in any of the existing accounts, though the hounds of Tindalos are typically associated with chronal anomalies..."
Kallie lets a satisfied smile grace her lips, but forces herself not to strut too much after her spell managed to contain Mokmurian for most of the fight. Still, her tail is high as she coils her whip slowly.
"Not sure I know what a 'tootsie pop' is, Croq, but I don't care to try one," she comments after viewing the remains of the stone giant wizard.
She casts detect magic to see if there were any lootable items before he's folded back into the correct timestream.
All that remains of Mokmurian or his equipment is the stone giant wizard's magical club, which he dropped right after Croq killed him.
"Interesting that there was a blending of eldritch creatures with Mokmurian's memory. I certainly don't recall their presence in any of the existing accounts, though the hounds of Tindalos are typically associated with chronal anomalies..."
Interestingly, unlike Mokmurian, the corpses of the hounds remain.
"It might just be me, but I swear I saw a temporal echo of the Varisian Rangers fighting some of those hounds earlier," Galatea remarks. "Well, I presume they were the Varisian Rangers. I can't think of anyone else who'd be fighting alongside both Setsuna Kailani and Rilee Stormborn."
Gali pauses before turning to Ninuron.
"Speaking of temporal echoes, do you have any ideas why everything hasn't reverted back to normal? We killed Mokmurian, and it sounded like he was the root cause of all this," she asks the time dragon.
Ninuron takes a moment to scan the atmosphere.
"I sense another temporal anomaly. Mokmurian's presence was masking it earlier. It is somewhere north of us," Ninuron concludes. "Do not worry, though. I do not believe this one to be quite so dangerous. An object rather than an entity. In fact, I believe that we are the only living entities remaining here."
Galatea pokes her head in the room due west of your current position.
"There's a passageway going north in the next room, but that cauldron in the middle of the chamber... I think it's a trap," Galatea reports. She appears to be experiencing déjà vu. "Croq, Aurealian, could one of you toss one of the hounds' bodies at it? Their remains are still warm, so that might set off the trap."
"I'm sure I could manage that!"
Croc tosses one of the bodies into the air, and bats it into the cauldron with a hearty swing of Drumstick.
"...And maybe that device will help us get mom–and all the heroes–back!"
As Galatea suspected, the cauldron was indeed a trap. Since you keep your distance, it's a bit difficult to determine the exact specifics, though. You do see some Magic Missile-like bolts fire off from the cauldron and strike the hound's remains, but beside leaving some minor damage, they don't seem to do much else.
With the trap disabled, you head into the room with the cauldron and then advance north without issue. There, you discover an empty room where the walls seem to... breath. That is, they contract and expand, which is a bit disorienting to watch. Finding this chamber to be empty, you advance east into the library proper.
The Therassic Library is a large circular chamber with a domed ceiling that rises sixty feet into the air. The area is lit by a number of crystal lanterns. In the center of the room is a "well" filled with shelves of books, scrolls, and tablets. There are five mahogany desks placed around the room, each one surrounded by armchairs that look quite comfortable.
And on one of the northern tables, you quickly spot a large book that shimmers and flickers in and out of existence, which distorts the very air around it...
There are five mahogany desks placed around the room, each one surrounded by armchairs that look quite comfortable.
Kallie couldn't be bothered with how comfortable the furniture looked. She concentrates on her detect magic as she sweeps each area for magical auras.
Before she approaches the shimmering, flickering book, Kallie concentrates on it and applies her knowledge to whatever she can detect.
The Therassic Library is a large circular chamber with a domed ceiling that rises sixty feet into the air. The area is lit by a number of crystal lanterns. In the center of the room is a "well" filled with shelves of books, scrolls, and tablets. There are five mahogany desks placed around the room, each one surrounded by armchairs that look quite comfortable for most of your group. For Kallie and other quadrupedal individuals, alternative accommodations would need to be made, though.
And on one of the northern tables, you quickly spot a large book that shimmers and flickers in and out of existence, which distorts the very air around it. Kallie takes a moment to study the strange book, which is titled Book of Serpents, Ash, and Acorns.
She quickly identifies it as the final temporal anomaly that Ninuron sensed. Kallie also determines that dealing with it is actually very straightforward; you just need to physically remove the Book of Serpents, Ash, and Acorns from the dungeon, and everything finally should return to normal.
Aurealian looks around, a paranoid squint on his face. Despite no evidence of anything being wrong, he remains on high alert.
"Yeah, this could get complicated or dangerous if we're not careful," Kallie agrees. "I've got telekinesis prepped, and I'm one of the fastest here. I could grab it and haul hoof out of this place."