Polli frown and shoots the berry an annoyed look at interrupting her through Thanking of their cleric for the healing. "It is still alive though right? I need to make sure I have spells ready to allow you to pop up into the sky, so you can to be useful next time." apparently she is grumpy.
"I'm pretty sure it's still alive right now," Val answers Polli, "but as wounded as it was, hopefully something will kill it before it has time to heal."
Her mind quickly returns to the bay though and she thinks aloud, "If we decide to sleep on the ship again maybe we could ask the fairy about it, she seems to know a lot about what's going on... but, uh... I can't be the one to kiss her this time."
"Not it!" Polli says simply, brushing her loves cheek one last time before pulling herself out of her arms. "I can create another cabin, but if there is something out there in the bay, we need to be there if it attacks our people."
"Deal with the heartstone first." Harmony says firmly. "Once the fortress is clear and the cyclops dealt with, then we can worry ourselves about monsters in the ocean."
She manages to mask the tremor in her voice very well...
"So does that mean we are resting here, or on the Siren?" Polli asks, oblivious to any tremored, masked or not.
"Ah agree, takin' care o' the heartstone needs ta be done afore all else, 'n' iffen it be okay Ah'd like ta stay here. Welp actual Ah wanna be spendin' the night at the beach. It been awhile, a long while since Ah been able ta really spend good quality time in worshippin' Gozreh 'n' Ah think that mebbe the source o' ma troubles o' ma spells. Ye kin have someone stay 'n' keep watch o'er me that be okay."
Donomsail starts strong in voicing her opinion but, as happens so often when she starts expressing a personal need her voice lowers in volume and by the time she's done speaking the others are straining to hear her, it doesn't help that she's looking down at the ground at the same time.
"We stay here and move out at first light." Harmony clarifies. "Take all the time you need Dony."
She and Tessa meanwhile go to investigate further the chamber where they were just before the animate dreams attacked.
"A good idea" Polli says softly, "We can find a place to put up the cottage close to the beach, so we have a place to fall back to if the island rears its ugly head again. We can start a fire... if that is okay. Unless you need time alone for worship."
Val watches as the captains disappear together and then stares off to the northeast while Polli talks about a quiet evening on the beach with Donomsail.
"I don't want to intrude on your worship, Donm, nor on you two's time together," Val interjects, "but I'd like to stand guard nearby while you're on the beach... the two of you wouldn't notice an army of gobtopusses marching out of the sea if the were ringing bells as they came."
She looks away and adds, "I need a little time alone first, though... I'll meet you back here in a little bit and we can head down to the beach whenever you're ready."
the slayer slips off on her own and returns a while later.
The next morning, rejuvinated and feeling ready to finally face the cyclopes in their lair, the Sirens head north to the Ghol-Gan ruins.
The one-eyed creatures put up a fierce resistance, but after facing down close to twenty of the crude beasts as well as their champion, you bear the marks of a hard-won victory. Along with the huge brutes, you've dealt with gargoyles and a creature that disguised itself as part of the floor. The final battle pitted you against their leader, a great cyclops, armed with a magical great club. The fight was close, but with the skills and resources available to you, the outcome was never in question.
- Day 204
After two days of skirmishes with the beasts, you return, rested, to locate the immortal dreamstone.
As you re-enter the small vale for hopefully the last time, the sound of flies buzzing around the cold bodies of the dead defenders is the only sound that disturbs the silence. Until ...
{"So you've defeated Ishtoreth and the cyclopes are no more,"} a woman's voice echoes in your mind.
In the center of the compound is a monument. Tall, alabaster columns - one of which lies toppled and shattered to the west — surround it. Four short stairways climb to the low, circular wall of decorative archways that wraps around the raised dais, where a triangular pool reflects the sky overhead. Partially risen out of the water is the oversized figure of a woman. Her hair is green and her skin is the blue of the open seas.
The marids are perhaps the most unpredictable and capricious of the genies, a quality that the others (particularly shaitans) find to be both aggravating and embarrassing to the entire genie culture. Many marids become dancers, storytellers, performers, or other types of artists, and often travel to the Material Plane in disguise to seek out new audiences.
{"Please tell me that you plan to free me as well? My servitude has been harsh and unpleasant and I have no wish to spend the rest of my days trapped here with no chance of freedom. No one to talk to. To sing to. To tell stories to."}
"How exactly are you bound?" Harmony asks. "We can break magical or mundane bonds depending on their kind. And what will you do afterwards? Please understand we have no desire for further conflict."
Val sizes up the large green woman as the captain speaks with her. Reaching out with her mind she asks Harmony ++what is that, another fairy?++
"We're not slavers, of course we'll-" Polli starts but realizes Harmony is negotiating/diplomitating or whatever she does and doesn't need Polli stating the obvious. While she does so she'll search the marid and around her for magic.
Polli doesn't sense any other auras around the woman other than what she would expect from an extremely magical outsider.
{"Great magics bind me,"} the woman replies. {"I've been held here for centuries. In ages past I was tasked to transfer knowledgeable cylopes to other planes as well as granting crude wishes."} She looks around the decaying ruins. {"Ishtoreth was the last of the great ones and even he was so far below his ancestors mentally that it wasn't even a comparison. With him gone ..."} She frowns and shakes her head.
{"The only way that I can be freed is if someone willingly uses the wish I can grant to do so. Surprisingly, none of my captors has been willing to do that."} She raises a hand out of the water and watches it drip from her fingers and back into the fountain. {"If I were freed, I would return to my home and my family. It has been so long since I've seen them."}
Polli frowns rather deeply. She's never been one to know the inner thoughts and motivations of anyone, mortal or otherwise, other than the fact most of them are about sex. "You are powerful, very much so. None of us are slavers, every one of us value freedom near the top of our values, but we also do not want to fight you. Tell us you won't attack us." Polli asks with a firm tone. She might not be able to tell a lie from belly button lint but there were plenty of the Siren's that could.
{"I would gain nothing by attacking you. Those that deserve my vengeance have long since turned to dust. If you free me, I can tell you more about what you seek."} She turns to look at Polli and the others and smiles. {"Yes, I know what you seek. It is not difficult to surmise. What other reason do you have for coming here? You are not the first. A human mage came and stole it, but they retrieved it."} She looks around at the slain cyclopes. {"You, perhaps, shall be the last, though."}
++Polli... how many wishes can she grant?++ Val thinks to her friend. ++We should definitely set her free, but if it’s one wish each then maybe we should get five wishes first and release her with the final wish?++
Polli gives Val a look that is not so nice ++Imagine you are the one trapped, Valeria, being used by any person coming through, no hope, helpless. We should free her without using her.++ based on that thought conversation, she steps forward, saying firmly "How do I wish you free? Just say it?"
{"I am Vailea,"} the woman sends, with a tip of her head at Polli. {"The one who claims dominion over these domiciles may request a wish of me, although, but once per year."} Her lips curl up into a smile, revealing pearlescent teeth. {"Do you claim dominion, child of air?"}
"I am Polli" she gives her name back but pauses. "If the only benefit of doing so is to free you, yes... otherwise..." Polli turns her blue eyes to the strangely quiet red haired captain. "She's the one that you want."
Marisan is taken in by the watery genie. She looks at her with wide eyes as she offers a wish. "I know what I would wish for. But it is not my place," the brawler says, deferring to the captains.
"As a Captain of the Siren I claim dominion over this domicile." Harmony says firmly. "And from you, Vailea, I require a wish. I wish for you to be freed from your bonds that you might return to your home and family."
That should do the job, despite Harmony's extremely precise wording of both her claim and the wish associated with it.
Polli's brow furrowed and her frown deepened "I thought you wanted nothing to do with this island?" she asked.
++I'm sorry,++ Val thinks to Polli, ++I didn't think about it like that... I just thought, if it was as easy for her as casting a spell is for you there wouldn't be any harm in it... You're right though, nobody deserves to be used like that.++
Despite half her face currently being covered by a scarf, Val turns away for a moment so that nobody will see her surprise and amusement at Polli's protest. She quickly recovers and turns, stoically, back to the others, and to the genie who should be freeing herself now.
Harmony doesnt respond to Polli, focusing instead on the (hopefully freed) marid.
Polli's look softens a bit at Val's explanation. She gives the archer a nod, then looks back at the marid.
Polli waits for either for the captain to answer or the genie to be free.
The genie looks between Polli and Harmony as if to descern the truth of the matter. A moment passes and then another. Finally she nods towards Harmony. "A claim has been made for rulership of these lands!" she calls out in a voice that echoes among the ruins. "Does anyone refute this claim?!" The genie's eyes never leave Harmony's as the reverberations of her announcement slowly fade into silence. The silence stretches out for minutes as the anticipation of an opposing voice builds.
But none comes.
"I declare you ruler over this island, Captain of the Siren," she announces. {"I am capable of granting but one wish per year. But my other abilities are at your disposal, My Mistress,"} she sends in a meek voice. {"What is your first command?"}
In spite of Harmony's stated intent to wish the genie free, the large woman makes no reference to it. However, Harmony can hear the anticipation in the woman's mental voice.
should I dispute the claim... she said she didn't want any part of the island... she meant it, at the time at least, or else she's a much better liar than I realized... even if I dispute it, she's still a captain of the Siren, so the best case scenario would be winning the island but getting kicked off the ship, and I know Meiying wants to stay at sea... no, she means more to me than the land... I guess this is just one more perk for the captain...
Val stands quietly off to the side, watching the drama with the genie play out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Donomsail stops just a few yards away from the water's edge, collecting the dried driftwood she starts a small fire and then uses the rocks she collected earlier to create a small table to be used as a shrine. After collecting a small amount of water in a small well-used wooden bowl Donomsail takes a leaf and floats it on top of the water. "Gozreh Ah weet dat dit lankal nie meer moontlik was om Ah met U te praat nie 'n' Ah'm sorry. Elke dag as Ah 'n bietjie deur Ah'm kyk, herinner dit u aan hoe kragtig, hoe majestueus, hoe waarlik u wonderlik is. Gozreh as dit nie in Yer se planne is dat Ah met hierdie wonderlike mense sal voortgaan nie, help my dan om te laat weet 'n 'Ah sal ek verlof neem."
After a few more minutes spent in quiet contemplation she beckons to Polli to come join her on the beach. Taking her hand and making sure that both of them are barefoot Donomsail walks Polli along the water's edge pointing out small things that get overlooked by so many so often. "Notice the way the foam stays back as the waves move away. See the pattern it be makin'? Those bubbles comin' up from the sand? That be livin' creatures! Look at all the driftwood she be makin' sure is here. All this tells me that Tourithia, the female side o' Gozreh be makin' sure we be provided fer. Feel the wind, smell the salt? That be Hyjarth, guidin' us 'n' the salt smell is their promise that they always be workin' tagether."
Eventually they settle down in front of the fire, cooking some small shellfish dug up from under the sand and flavored by the sea itself. Then Donomsail turns her attention to her lover, caressing and kissing her, using the sense of touch to bring them both closer to each other, to bring pleasure and excitement that neither have felt in quite awhile. When they are finished she lays stretched out and an arm wrapped around Polli, not for protection but just a reminder that they are there for each other, that apart neither of them are complete.
In the morning Donomsail wakes up smiling and wakes Polli with butterfly kisses starting on her eye lids and moving down, if she reaches Polli's breasts before waking her it will be some time before she stops and quite distracting to them both.
"I want you to tell us what you know of this island, what resources it possesses, what creatures live here and anything else that it would benefit us to know." Harmony says. "Once you have fulfilled this request you are free to depart as you will. I ask nothing more of you."
{"I know very little of the rest of the island, My Mistress. I am bound to this fountain and so my knowledge is limited to what I can see and hear from within this vale. You have slain all the living defenders of Sumitha. Further within you will find the Oracle's Hall where great cyclopes of the past would use the Lens of Revelation that rests within the Eye of Serenity to foretell the future. I know not what magics protect the Eye, but I do know that they have been defeated in the past."}
{"Not long ago a human mage and his cohorts snuck in to the vale using magical concealment and managed to bypass the defenses and make off with the Lens. The theft was eventually detected and the brutes recovered the stolen artifact. Having long since lost the understanding of the Lens, they were unable to tell that the wizard altered it somehow. I know not of such magics, but I can tell you that it has been irreversibly transformed into something ... different."}
{"There is nothing more I can tell you of it. And as much as I would like to depart, I am unable to do so unless someone uses a wish that I provide to make it so."}
She looks at Harmony expectantly and perhaps a little hopefully.
"I wish for your freedom." Harmony replies. "Thank you for your help."
The woman's eyes close and the few lines in her face smooth over as bliss fills her expression. Tears begin to flow as she smiles.
{"Your wish is my command, My Mistress,"}" she sends and the sensation of warmth and water follows the telepathic message. The low marble retaining wall of the fountain cracks in several places and water spills out and over the broken ground. As the fountain drains, the genie seems to fade away. Once the flood of water has slowed to a trickle and all that remains are small puddles in the broken fountain, the woman vanishes entirely.
{"I will not forget this, Captain of the Siren,"} is the last thing you feel from her.
~~~~~
With the genie freed, you move on to the real reason for coming here - retrieving the dreamstone - and the one area that you haven't yet explored. Moving through passages that you've previous cleared, you arrive at what the genie referred to as the Oracle's Hall.
The domed ceiling of this chamber rises eighty feet overhead. In the center of the hall, a thirty-foot-high egg-shaped structure stands on the floor. Stone stairs climb the side of this domed structure, ending before a stone wall chiseled to resemble an immense eye, circled with strange runes glowing with an eldritch light. The stairs and eye are mirrored on the opposite side of the dome. Tiny stars roil across the top of the structure, their light projecting strange constellations on the ceiling overhead. Much of the northeast corner of the chamber lies in ruin.
Two small nearby chambers consist of a small room filled with magical darkness that was probably used as a meditation chamber and a storeroom. The storeroom contains numerous small boxes of incense.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Polli obeys Dony's wishes and delights in the barefoot walk across the sand. The wizard knows quite a lot, but her knowledge is from books and logic. Seeing things she knows through Dony's eyes are pure magic. The sylph asks questions, never offering any info she might know, cause that would spoil the magic.
Then night comes, a deeply exploratory night, across territory both were very acquainted with, but tonight, here, it felt so new.
Polli is happily and madly in love with this woman, a feeling easy to sense with every touch. She laughed in the morning, not caring a bit if the others are waiting on them.
Polli's face turns to cold disdain when Harmony demanded something before freeing the genie, but it lights up, truly beaming, as the freedom is realized. Her frown returns a bit once that is over when she looks at the captain, mulling over the archer's words a bit, as she wonders.
In the chamber she speaks up, having learned rudimentary cyclops a few weeks prior to coming here. "'Only by blinding yourself to the world around you can you see the way forward to the Eye of Serenity.' is what that says." Polli then sniffs the incense "Irthaval. Nasty stuff, addictive, and causes temporary blindness, but it is supposed to open your mind, make you wiser." she sets the stuff down again "The wording suggests we might need to use it." she frowns clearly not liking that idea.
Harmony turns to the rest of the group. "I hereby renounce any claims I made to possession of this island in the sight of men or the gods." She says firmly. "I am Captain of the Siren and that is the only title I desire apart from being Tessa's wife. You have your seats on the Pirate Council and you are welcome to them."
"Oh, so this glyph means to see?" Harmony asks, joining Polli in front of the wall. "Interesting, there's definitely Azlanti influence there isn't there?"
Once Polli explains what's going on Harmony frowns. "Not a nice substance. I'm willing to take some though. You can all restrain me if I start doing anything silly." She hands her harpoon off to Marisan first as a precaution.
Lighting one of the small boxes of incense, the others step away as Harmony steeps herself in the fragrant smoke the burning substance produces. As the light in the room slowly fades to blackness for her, Harmony feels her mind opening up to new thoughts and even ways of thinking.
An otherworldly light begins to glow in Harmony's darkness - an outlined doorway where she remembers the carved eye in the stone to be.
"Wow... I feel like I can see... everything!" Harmony says, spinning in a slow circle. "It still tastes like pigs urine though."
She heads for the glowing door. "It's shiny!" She says, sounding slightly spaced out. "How did we not see this before? It's so preeety!"
Val stays back far enough to avoid interfering with Harmony and Polli as they work out the meaning of the runes and how to proceed, but she pays attention to their discussion in case there’s anything she can learn from it.
When the captain volunteers to use the addictive substance she asks, ”but if it’s incense, isn’t it going spread out and fill an area like the smell and smoke normally would?” When she successfully limits its impact to herself, the slayer shrugs and watches to see what will happen.
”Are you going to walk through it? I don’t know if we’ll be able come with you if you do...”
Harmony stumbles up the stone steps, clearly not seeing them, she passes right through the iris carved in the stone as if it wasn't there. At that moment, the entire stone dome vanishes from sight revealing what's beneath.
A flare of light sweeps through the chamber, blazing from a large, singular crystal resting atop a six-foot-high silver pedestal in the center of a raised dais. Two large statues face the pedestal, holding up large, curved swords that nearly touch the chamber’s ceiling.
Two other figures rise up from prone positions on the platform. Cyclopes, but wrapped in ancient linen that's covered with written magical runes. Their eyes are milky and clouded, but it's clear that their intentions are not peaceful.
Combat Begins!
Round 1
Donomsail looks at the strange creatures certain that she should know what they are, unfortunately she is distracted by memories of the night before and cannot quite recall what she knows about them. She is aware enough to know that she needs to do something. "Gozreh, Ah, vra dat U hierdie wrede wesens u toorn en mag sal wys. Blaas hulle met die bliksem." With that she watches as two bolts of Lightning come down and strike the monsters.
Polli manages to pull her eyes from the chamber, to the "Cyclope Mummies?? That doesn't seem like a fun time at all."
She chants out arcane mutters along with her fingers curling and twisting. Feelings of Energy and Speed envelope all of her friends.
Val steps forward, studying the creature to her left and begins firing arrows at it.
"Decidedly not groovy!" Harmony declares, wiggling her fingers and coating the creatures in glitterdust before scooting well back.
Marisan dodges about as she charges into battle!
"Say hello to the SIRENS!" Tessa shouts, charging alongside Marisan.
Everyone gives Polli a chance to magically hasten the group before acting.
Tessa races up the steps to face off against one of the creatures and immediately notices that it feels like she's moving through thick air. She forges forward to get closer to her foe .
Valeria sinks all four of her arrows into her target . The shafts seem to have a lessened effect, however. At the sounds, Harmony turns and covers the same one with magical glittering dust.
Marisan joins Tessa in challenging one of the creatures while Donomsail brings down a bolt of lightning on Val's target.
The creature that Tessa and Marisan face opens its mouth wide and a cloud of noxious fumes jets forth attempting to blind them. The other one stumbles blindly towards Val and breathes as well.
Round 2
Polli holds her breath as the gas comes for her, but she should have closed her eyes. "F!$$ Shit HELLS" she rubs her eyes and curses.
Pulling up a mental picture of the room, where everyone is and where the enemies are she decides her best option is fire. Yelling out the words in a mash of obscure languages she pulls her hand back to collect fire from the elemental plane and then slams it toward where the breather of gunk was.
As much as Donomsail wants to run and protect Polli she has more important things to do at the moment, like [larger]being blind![/larger], so instead she brings another bolt of lightning down where the monster was standing.
Without being able to actually see the enemy, and with no weapon to throw Harmony simply keeps backpeddling away from where she thinks the enemy is.
"We are the Sirens!" She proclaims, "A little problem like this is not going to stop us!"
Marisan snarls as her sight is impaired, but she adjusts her senses as she dances around the enemies.