Val freezes and raises a hand to stop the others, then quietly reports, "three sentries on that platform, more cyclops, with crossbows... we could hide before they see us or Polli could teleport us up, but we shouldn't get caught out here. The tower will create natural choke points, so even if there are reinforcements inside we shouldn't get overwhelmed like we could have been before..."
"If everyone sticks together I could get us all in invisibly." Harmony offers. "How many can you take Polli? I can silence someone so that they can't raise the alarm..."
"I'm assuming you are talking about going straight to the top and working our way down?"
"Okay, I can take myself and three people." she admits "Then I could return here using another spell and cast fly on the remaining, and fly up with them. If the last one was you Harmony, we could be invisible using your spell as we fly. But that leaves one other left out here... unless you can fly in your alternate forms, Val?"
"Sadly, my hat doesn't let me fly, no..." Val answers quietly. "I do have a feather token that would, but I'd be a lot slower that way... umm, why couldn't you just cast fly on me and Cap'n Vi? Then she could make us invisible and we could fly over and the rest of you could just do the one teleport?"
"A single teleport with two flight spells on you both of you would work. There will be a change it goes badly... very badly."
Having surmised that the group is capable of handling three lone cyclopes watchtower guards, Harmony is made invisible and grasping a halfling sized, also-invisible, Valeria, she flys up to a pre-arranged spot on the tower parapet behind one of the hulking brutes.
A moment later and there's a shift in the air as Polli steps through a spectral doorway along with Tessa, Marisan, and Donomsail.
Fifteen feet away from them, looking out over the island to the east is a cyclops that keeps a steady hand on his over-sized crossbow as he scans the surrounding territory.
Harmony sets Val down and backs away from the halfling so that she can actually cast spells again!
Taking the gleam in Tessa's eyes as the signal to attack, Polli considers and discards plenty of choices to attack with. They are simply too far apart to hit with most of her spells, so she sighs, tossing a handful of force orbs out at the closest while grasping the rob at her belt.
The flying sylph then shoots to the view of the other two cyclops in hopes of drawing their fire.
Val slides her bow into her magical quiver and adjusts her hat to shrink down to the busty little halfling version of herself. She holds her swords carefully when Harmony picks her up and asks, ”drop me near the door as you fly by, please, I can fall ten or fifteen feet without any problem.”
Val falls silently to the platform and quickly moves to place herself between the middle cyclops and the door, studying it as she moves.
Combat Begins!
Surprise Round!
With most of the group near one of the thick creatures, Polli lobs some magical missiles at the nearest beast who goes crashing over onto the stone floor.
Round 1!
Mini-Val steps forward and stabs the totally unaware cyclops nearest the door.
The tiny slayer continues stabbing at the unprepared sentry.
With one cyclops down on the ground, and soon to be butchered by her friends, and another being cut into rather effectively by a busty halfling, Polli flies toward the remaining one.
Acting quickly before her group is spread out to much Donomsail casts a spell to help them all. "Gozreh! Seën mah-metgeselle, gee hulle die vermoë om te doen wat hulle nodig het in hierdie stryd."
Donomsail casts Blessing of Fervor.
Marisan charges the cyclops!
Then she dances around it while kicking it!
Unwilling to give the game away Harmony coats the stairs in silence and then lobs her harpoon at the nearest cyclops.
Surprise Round!
In addition to Polli's arcane missile ...
Valeria pops into view to stab the central guardian who howls in pain and turns to face her. Tessa moves up to the prone hulk and ponders the best place to apply her blades. Marisan charges the beast and pummels him almost unconscious. Harmony blankets the area near the door with silence and Donomsail covers everyone with a blessing from Gozreh.
Round 1!
The slayer earns her title by stabbing the cyclops in front of her over and over again until it falls to the flagstone floor. With a quick thrust of her own blade, Tessa finishes off the prone guard.
Polli sends another arcane missile into the cyclops to the south of their position. He totters from the blow, but doesn't fall.
With a cry of rage, the remaining visible cyclopes charges Marisan, dropping his crossbow and raising a huge axe over his head. She still manages to avoid the majority of a tremendous blow. An answering cry shouts out from the west and another cyclops comes around the corner and takes aim at Donomsail with his crossbow. The bolt sinks deep into her unprotected crimson flesh.
Yelling in pain, Marisan dances around her new foe!
Donomsail looks down at the bolt that has suddenly grown from her stomach then looks at the group to determine where her help is needed most. Realizing that for the moment everyone is fine, Donomsail turns towards the creature on the stair. She raises a hand and spreads her fingers as the words to a spell are released from her bloody lips. "Gozreh, leen my miskien 'n mag. Gee my 'n teken van u guns. Gebruik 'n liggaam om die krieket te slaan met jou lig."
Donomsail casts
Val tumbles forward as fast as her little legs will carry her, moving around behind it to flank it with the brawler.
Polli frowns in fury seeing her love impaled on a rather unsanitary bolt the size of her leg. Using Dony's magic, she flies her ass off to get between her and the bastard who hurt her.
Then she decides she doesn't give a rat's ass about the most efficient use of spells and fires a fireball at it.
Tessa relentlessly pursues her guard with an amazing display of swordsmanship, her rapier flashing from one weak point to the next.
Harmony snaps her fingers and attempts to convince the Cyclops that she is his best friend!
Thanks to Dony's magic, Val arrives behind the cyclops faster than expected and stabs the giant in the calf with one of her shortswords.
The western cyclops manages to avoid most of Doni's lightning.
Round 2!
Valeria, Tessa, and Marisan quickly turn the southern cyclops guard into a bloody and bleeding corpse.
The hulk was nimble enough to avoid the tiefling's lightning, but not Polli's fireball, leaving it smoldering, but still coming.
Harmony snaps her finger and the smoldering hulk grins stupidly at the bard and slowly begins to approach.
About the same time a fifth guard comes trotting around the corner. It raises its crossbow and fires at Polli. The bolt slams into her, spraying those nearby with the sylph's blood.
Seeing her love get hit Donomsail's eyes turn dark with anger and she yells at the monster before turning her attention to fixing Polli's wound. "U mag haar nie slaan nie! Gozreh, neem die vermoë om jou hulp te vra om dit nie te genees nie."
Once the healing energy has passed through her Donomsail smiles at Polli. "Donna worry 'bout me. Ah have a trick up mah sleeve." Then she takes a moment to wipe the blood from her lips before she leans in and gives her a quick kiss.
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Polli stumbles back into Dony as the bolt slams through her. The pain is nothing to the fear that she won't be able to protect her love as the giants are running toward them.
She shouldn't have worried though, Dony's warm hands catch her, her angry shout at the fearsome giant uplifts her, and her amazing magic heals her to almost perfect.
After all that and a kiss in the heat of battle, Polli smiles "Okay, don't worry about the huge ax-wielding giant about to hack us to pieces. I'll try." the wizard straightens, chants and sends a blinding bolt of electricity from axe cyclops to crossbow cyclops.
When the newcomer arrives, Tessa leads the way with a triumphant charge! She gallops ahead and closes the distance, slamming her rapier home as she gets within striking distance.
"Oh good, Dony, the calvary has finally arrived." Polli says sarcastically, but the note of relief is there to be heard by anyone remotely good at reading people.
Still engulfed in silence, Val does her best to signal Marisan to follow Tessa. Then she moves back over by the door to the tower and hides herself there to deal with any creatures that try to come in or out.
"Turn and around and knock out the other cyclops!" Harmony commands loudly. Hopefully the cyclops understands common...
She pantomimes as well, just in case.
Marisan rushes around the massive tower towards the new foes, bolstered by Donomsail's spell.
Donomsail quickly applies a little 'Good Touch' to her lover to stem the flow of ozone-scented blood.
Round 3!
Valeria waits in silence by the large door to deal with any latecomers to the party. Tessa races back around to stab viciously at the uninjured cyclops. Marisan follows, ready to apply her method of negotiation as soon as she's able. Unwilling to remain passive even within her partner's hands, Polli sends an arc of lightning between the two hulking figures. The one with the stupid grin frowns in confusion before they both tumble, twitching to the flagstone.
Combat Ends!
You wait on the parapet for a few moments, catching your breath. A minute turns into three and then five before you realize that there are no more coming.
"If'n ya needs heelin' come by here." Donomsail calls out to the group. After waiting for everybody who is still injured to come close Donomsail raises her holy symbol and calls for spiritual first aid. "Gozreh, ek vra u versprei u genesende energie oor ons almal."
Tessa spins around in a circle before Val that she doesn't see any more threats inbound. "Nice work Sirens!"
Pointing to the fallen weapons of the large creatures, the captain instructs "Check those out and see if they'll be of use for later or not."
She claps the shoulders of all those that were injured "Bravery. Well done." she offers with a smile.
"Well that was a waste..." Harmony says quietly to herself, before heading towards the stairwell to reinforce Val as needed.
"I got impaled because I was an idiot." Polli points out to Tessa. Then Polli spends a moment to cast the spell she meant to before, as well as using her pearls to return her used magic missiles.
"Are we headed down now?"
Val tugs her cap in salute to Tessa's signal. As the others heal up, she transforms once more into her four-armed form and redraws her bow. After changing, she hides herself again and--when the silence ends--she listens at the door for any sign of other creatures moving inside until her shipmates arrive to head in.
With Valeria leading the way, the Sirens move through the large door and into the tower interior. A large stone stairway wraps up and down the inside of the structure. Moving downstairs, you find a large common room with five large lice-infested bedrolls, a large table with sturdy stools, and a bag that looks like it held a very meager amount of provisions (for cyclopes).
The semi-warm embers of a cooking fire are piled in a large fireplace and the picked-clean carcass of whatever they last ate blackens over the cooling coals.
The only other exit from the common room is the large doors leading outside.
Heading back upstairs and past the parapet level, you reach a single platform below the base of the large quartz crystal that forms the peak of the tower. Polli examines it for any magical auras, but all she finds is a very faint trace of transmutation magic. Her best guess is that the crystal was at one time used for communication somehow, but the magic has long since faded.
You don't find anything else of note in the guard tower.
Val frowns at the filthy bedrolls. "It looks like they live here, at least for a while," she remarks, "I was hoping they'd rotate once or twice a day... we could have ambushed at least one group when they arrived. If they stay here for days or weeks in between rotations though, who knows when the next group might show up."
She thinks for a moment and then offers, "Polli you can speak their language, not just read it, right? If we took these crossbows and axes maybe we could go to where those guards were hiding and tell them we're here to trade? If we could convince them to come out and look at the stuff we might be able to kill them before they could notify anyone... and then we could set an ambush and maybe kill their relief when they show up, that's got to be something they're rotating more often. That would be six more dead? They'd probably come out in force after that, but we could move to explore the lower area until things calmed down some... or maybe get lucky and have them send out hunting parties that we could take out one at a time? They'd probably restaff the tower too, so we'd be able to take out another five or six here again?"
"Yes I can speak it, though I've never tried to talk to an actual Cyclops, so my diction might be off" Polli points out "But I am not particularly good at convincing people of things or hiding my intentions."
”Maybe you could just scare them into coming out to talk to us?”
"I am good at yelling." Polli admits.
Val chuckles. ”Yes, you are.”
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Donomsail wants to suggest a plan that doesn't put Polli so close to the Cyclopes but has no idea what that might be. Instead she wraps her arms tightly around Polli's arm, and whispers quietly. "Ye be careful, I donna want more holes in ye."
”Hear that, Polli?” the keen eared slayer calls out playfully, ”Dony is perfectly happy with your holes...” She chuckles at her own innuendo even as her thoughts drift to what she’ll be missing out on alone in her cot tonight.
Polli's eyes narrow and her frown deepens, but her ears twitch a bit and turn a slight pink. Mix reaction indeed. Turning toward the captains she'll suggest "Since we are not spent yet, we could investigate the abandoned fort to the south. Once cleared we could bed down there for the night, so we could be refreshed for an attack. The cyclops' had rations but not many. It might mean Val would get her wish and they will be changing out the guard tomorrow."
Tessa finishes her introspection and shakes her head, snapping out of her daze. "Right then. Seeing as the air genie has some more left in her, let's push on. I agree that we should check out the south, that's what I was thinking as well. Everyone get ready to head out in five minutes."
Choosing not to wait to see how long it takes until more sentries arrive, the Sirens travel back the way they came. About two miles back along the stone road is a branch of the road heading south. Following that for another mile leads you to the edge of the northern plateau. Huge stone steps descend five hundred feet back down to the lower level of the island. Descending the stairs clearly made for cyclopes is a tiring affair. Every hundred feet is marked with waymarkers carved with ancient glyphs.
The stone road ends at the base of the stairs and you're left to blaze your own trail to the south towards the stone fort which you can clearly see about a mile away. About half way there, you do notice, off to the west about the same distance a crude-looking wooden structure. It's a fence or palisade of some sort, but you'd have to get closer to make out any more details.
"Tha wooded buildin' looks like mebbe it bein' ah storage shed er somethin', mebbe we should check it out afore the fort." Donomsail offers her untrained opinion regarding the layout of the area.