Jek tries desperately to dodge the deluge of acid and mane bile but ends up drenched.
As Xibalba touches him he shivers as his body goes all shadowy. He takes a moment to admire the changes and nods to Xibalba.
Jek spits out some acid. "Well... I'm already covered in this stuff..." He takes a deep breath and begins assaulting the manes with his shadowy knees, hooves, and horns.
Jek manages to kill 5 more of the least Tanar'ri, each exploding into an acid cloud.
The remaining two manes flail uselessly against Jek.
Rinika frowns and uses her Escape Route to move backward, fading from view as she goes. Once away from the action, she casts a spell.
Khikril steps back from the two remaining manes, drawing his crossbow and firing at one of the demonic creatures.
Nik pulls out one of the wands from Tcian Sumere and, seeing that Skee's bolt wasn't doing much, aims at the same one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nik pops another mane while Skee's bolt fails to harm the other.
Xibalba cringed as another spray of acid scattered across Jek.
“This one’s magics are finite on the stairs. Besideswise, tha is forbidden from harming a Wish Warden. Not even a wish coulden sunder this vow.
The djinn drifts around further onto the platform floating and smoking, while watching the group.
“A lone soldier is for thee.”
Jek headbutts the last demon.
"It must be weird to know you'll explode someday..."
"Better them than us?" Nik suggests.
Nik furtively gets close enough to see the rest of the plateform, double checking for more Manes before stepping onto the landing.
Jek explodes the last Tanar'ri, leaving you alone on the platform.
Nik knows that the manes will reappear here after one day.
From here you can head down a set of stairs or you can open a door to the unknown, the door is made from some sort of dark green stone. A warm breeze blow through the cracks.
"Hopefully we can finish the delivery and come back through here within a day. Those Manes were annoying. I suppose I can prepare for fighting them again if we take too long..." Nik explains, slowly stowing the wand.
He eventually looks around for magical items and notices the flute. He takes a few long moments to inspect it, including giving it a sniff.
"Hey, they weren't just awful at playing this thing, they're awful and the flute reflects that."
Nik pauses after the mostly complete explanation.
"Anyone ever use a flute before?"
"Nyoooo...but I can try? Or we can trade it. Anyone good at tracking, maybe we can figure out where this barmy fella went?"
"It's got to be the door, doesn't it?" Nik suggests while scratching his cheek and passing the flute to Rinika.
Jek inspects the dark green stone door. "I wonder if this is where the all the little fellas came from..." He looks to Rinika. "Care to take a little peek before we all barge in?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Khikril's overworked mind barely registers Nik's talk of the magic flute, consumed as his attention is by the strange green stone door. As Jek steps forward to examine it, Khikril shadows the bariaur's steps, his talons clicking on the floor of the platform as he walks back and forth, examining it from all possible angles - he even takes wing, flying over it to inspect its obverse. Landing in front of the door again, his wings flare open with excitement as he gives a manic grin. "Nik, do you know what this means? Because I have absolutely no idea, and there's no better reason to be excited than that! It's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, lightly coated with the scent of..." He sniffs the air experimentally, catching a whiff of the mane remnants that fill this area of the Staircase. "...the lingering smell of acid and bad decisions. Truly, we are spurred to action by that most sacred of all causes - the desire to see what happens when we open the sealed gateway in the fabric of reality begging to be opened."
He whirls to face the group, one finger pointing upwards theatrically as an outstretched wing accidentally smacks Jek in the back of the head. "The sweet sibilant song of curiosity is calling! Onwards and..." Realizing himself, he hurriedly corrects his statement, pointing at the strange doorway instead of empty space. "...well, onwards and forwards! The spirit of inquiry calls us to battle against the explosive, dissolving hordes of ignorance!"
You open the green door and you find yourself in a desert cave, strange green sand blows in from a hot wind through the mouth. Sunlight reflects off the sand casting everything in its hue. You step down off of what look like naturally formed steps. The scene is desolate and barren but peaceful without a soul nearby.
After exploring the area for a bit, nearby you find another cave filled with bizarre sand sculptures, strange creatures with exaggerated forms and too many limbs and eyes. It must have taken decades to create everything here. Unfortunately a number of the sculptures have been destroyed or otherwise befouled. A single body, or what’s left of one, lays slain amid the sculptures, eviscerated and abused, clearly the work of some fiend.
"Think that's what's-'er-face? Shava-something? Or think Oriam might've visited his ex?" Nik suggests as he gets closer to inspect the body.
Khikril takes in the vast expanse of desert with a look of awe. "Krevaar, the sun is so bright here! This land is truly beautiful, in a peaceful sort of way." Taking wing, he flies through the empty skies as the group explores, basking in the sun on his wings and breathing deep of the open air. When the group finds the strange cave and its malformed sand sculptures, he flips open his journal, ready to make a sketch of the strange forms, but as he sees the dead body, he hesitates, glancing back and forth between the aberrant sculptures and the dead body. After a moment, he comes to a decision, rushing forward to check the corpse first.
The body is eviscerated beyond recognition, and definitely dead and not undead. It is not more than a few days decayed.
"Well, here's hoping that isn't Oriam's ex, or we don't have a lead. Think we just try the other stairs?" Nik wonders aloud.
"Well, here's hoping that isn't Oriam's ex, or we don't have a lead.
"I'm not sure how to tell... where are we now anyway?"
Jek looks though any belongings near the body for clues.
Xibalba finishes marveling at the flute over Rinika's shoulder, grateful to witness a curious magic oddity in the wild so soon after her release from the bottle.
She claps vigorously at Khikril's door introduction, eager to visit yet another world. She gasps at the sight of dunes, wind whipping her long fabrics wildly. Taking a deep breath, she burys her feet in the sand.
"Green. This one has seen purple and black sand, but never green."
The Djinn follows them lazily towards the cave, watching the sculptures curiously as the group picks at the lone body for hints.
"Master-Jek, perhaps us return hencewise to a Guild to obtain such answers? Surely thum knows of a green door so near. "
Rininka blinks lazily into the sandy wind. "Mmm. Makes me sleepy. It's nice. I suppose we could head back, it's just time and of that we have plenty."
She'll try flying up a bit above the cave mouths to see if there's anything visible around them other than more caves and desert.
Rinika spies in the distance smoke plumes rising from the horizon. A city or encampment miles away.
Planewalker's Guild
The myconid puffs out another cloud of spores, which has a slight hallucinogenic effect, objects begin to blur and trail as they move. You take this to mean they're excited, Yes! Teach us to conjure fire. They take out a piece of parchment and draw a single vertical line. In Gladsheim, inscribe this symbol, this rune, on piece of stone, and toss it into the shadow.
We also possess this key for Arcadia, trade for necromantic key?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As Nik and Rinika bargain for spell keys, Skeessannak'khikril seeks out whether the missing planeswalker might in fact be the eviscerated corpse they found in what he insists on referring to as 'the Gatescape,' checking when exactly he left and what sort of clothes he was wearing in an attempt to match it up with as much of what is left of the corpse as possible.
Unfortunately, he spends not quite enough time asking about the circumstances behind Trascalia's disappearance and far too much time asking about the color, texture, and general size of his internal organs in an attempt to compare them with those found. He goes into intricate scientific detail about the unfortunate corpse, and several listeners lose their appetites quite quickly - as few of them are insane and fewer still are trained surgeons, the request comes off as odd if not downright sociopathic.
Nik's eyebrows shoot up at the myconid's hastiness to share.
I guess I should be stacking spell keys myself... He thinks to himself.
"It's a deal." He says, deciding that he'll go first for the second exchange.
"Here's the chant: Arborea doesn't like elemental magic for the most part, but if you dump a lot of water, you can conjure a lot of fire. About 20 gallons for a Fireball should do it. The Outlands, as you probably know, are about balance.
For Enervation you just need to channel the stolen life-force into something dead. It's easy to get dead wasps for your component pouch, but a few dead maggots or a small dead bird would definitely work."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The fungus “speaks” to Nik instructing him on the way of Shadow magic on Arcadia. ”Take water from a stream on Arcadia and bound it in a bowl shaped like a regular quadrilateral with each angle measuring ninety degrees, then muddy the water. It will work for all illusion magics.”
Skee doesn’t get far before he encounters a physician originally from Sigil, she is tall and thin, has open sores on her skin that don’t seem to bother her and wild unkempt hair. While the woman doesn’t know anything about Trascalia she does speak with him at length about humanoid physiology and asks relentless questions about his golem, Skee’s own internal organs, and advises him on how best to flay a manes alive so as to observe their internal structure without getting a face full of acidic gas.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
--At the Encampment--
Rinika leans against the counter, uncharacteristically quiet and tapping her foot with nervous energy. Her Spot has taken its customary spot in her tail and rubs her shoulder with what might almost be a comforting gesture? Once Nik seems to be concluding his business, she jumps in, suddenly engaged. "Got keys for shadow magic on the negative plane? How about the vacuum plane? What about healing magic in the same? Or portal keys, you know anything about them? Tuning forks for this camp, even. This seems like a good place to be able to find again, and you a good fellow to know."
She'll hand off the shirt fragment if anyone else wants to go asking around to see if it's from Trascalia or Shavanistra.
Nik doesn't seem to mind being nudged aside by Rinika.
He scratches his cheek and pretends not to be listening to her questions.