Yasmeena blinks, and then with a quick look at Haleen and Aithaloessa to make sure they are of the same mind, she follows.
The lava hail is hot, but not hard and with the resistance to fire it is merely unpleasant.
At the top of the stairs is an unlocked door. A roar fills this chamber. To the northwest, a ledge looks out over a sheer drop into a pit, which plunges a hundred feet to a lake of bubbling magma. To the north, a river of magma flows into the room, cascading over the edge and down into the pit.
Before proceeding from the stairwell, mindful of the fact that she’s spotted and disarmed traps before in this place, Yasmeena casts a pair of spells on herself and carefully examines the door.
"There is a metal disk of some sort inset into the wall here. Let me see if it is something dangerous?" She examines it more carefully, checking for dangerous mechanisms that she can disable.
Bylo hadn't noticed the disk until Yasmeena pointed it out. He steps back out of the way while she works to check it out.
No mechanism is visible there. No levers, no hidden buttons, nothing.
"I don’t think it’s a door or a trap, but that ledge is worrying. We do not want to fall over the edge! Am I correct that we are looking out over the impressive magma fall through which the barge carried us?"
The bronze disk jumps out of the wall and indeed, if someone was standing before it, shoving over the edge into the lavafall would be a serious risk.
A mighty juggernaut of living brass that looks something like a huge lion from the shoulders down, but its head is a short cone of brass, widening to a 20-foot-diameter head.
[spoiler=Knowledge(Arcana) DC22]This is an animated object. With hardness 15.[/ooc]
Bylo looks at the strange creature, not recognizing anything about it but figuring it must be dangerous. "What is that thing? It doesn't look natural!"
He activates his domain power to generate an aura of Heroism for everyone, and casts a spell to protect himself better, then steps up to the creature. He isn't sure what his weapon will do to the creature though....
After a breathless run up the stairs, Aith, never the most outdoorsy sort of researcher, is too busy getting her breath back to have much chance of noticing what Yasmeena and Bylo do. As the wall gives way, her hand drops to draw her pistol as the metal monster lunges forward.
“I don’t think it’s really alive!” Aith calls out. Well, not more than the weird walls of this whole place, she thinks, but that’s a whole other problem, and mentioning it now probably wouldn’t convince the others of her continuing sanity. “It’s not a proper golem or anything, even, more like someone animated a lump of brass!”
“It will be hard to beat our way through, but I’m not really a construct sort of mage!”
With her free hand, she quickly gestures to speed herself and all her friends up, hoping that if they rain down enough blows they can bring the juggernaut down.
Yasmeena leaps back from the disk and lands nimbly out of its way. She pulls out the flying carpet from her bag and lays it down in the air in front of her, stepping on it and frantically motioning for Neelah to join her. She draws her bow and fires off an arrow at the brass monstrosity with incredible speed. While standing on the carpet, she begins a complicated defensive dance.
Neelah looks at Yasmeena suspiciously, but crosses to the bard and steps onto the carpet. She mutters something, apparently to herself, as she climbs aboard-- and a tiny lizard-like head peeks out of her bag and gazes about anxiously. Then she begins to sing: a rich, warm tune that causes her skin to glow. The creature at her hip also makes noise, and it seems to make the music echo and reverberate with a surprisingly large sound. The glow coalesces into what looks like a flaming sphere, but made of light rather than fire, and with a gesture Neelah causes it to roll at the animated brass lion.
"I'm out." Haleen states and stays back on the stairs in hopes the thing with the big head won't fit through the door.
Yasmeena manages to stick an arrow into th ebrass, which looks interesting. The juggernaut comes trampling over the party.
As the strange brass lion rushes to trample the party Bylo understands the small fighting area and calls on Sarenrae to protect the party from falling into the lava falls. With Yazmeena and Neelah on the carpet he just reaches to touch Haleen and Aithaloessa.
Attempting not to look worried, Neelah steels herself for the carpet to begin moving and concentrates on the rolling ball of fiery sound, directing it to wheel and collide again with the brass lion. She continues singing, an inspiring tune in Ignan.
Yasmeena directs the carpet upward, anxious to get out of the way of further charges from the brass juggernaut. She begins her battle dance, swaying like a snake on the rippling piece of cloth, and fires another arrow as they ascend.
Aith moves just a bit too slowly to avoid being overrun, and so it's a more than slightly squished elf that, upon being offered a hand by Bylo, scurries into the air as his spell takes hold, pivoting to take a look at the juggernaut.
Before she can level her pistol well enough to feel confident about her targeting, she feels a weird twitch in the fungus that grows along her arm when wielding the weapon, and an uncanny feeling that if she opens herself up to the chaos of wild magic right now, it might turn out surprisingly well.
Hitting the construct with the magic sound ball makes it resonate like a tuning fork, but has no other effects. Yasmeena's second arrow behaves like one would expect from an arrow, sliding off and leavign a scratch.
Only the creative - that's what you call it if it actually works - pulls some magic out of her sleeve that eats away at the brass construct. With three or four more of those attacks the animated object might be damaged enough to be incapacitated.
The flat headed lion takes another round of running over everyone in reach.
While Bylo had luckily avoided the previous attack he didn't this time. Facing off with the behemoth he wonders whether or not he should just run off of the ledge and see if the thing was stupid enough to follow? He tries attacking with his scimitar, unsure whether he could even scratch the thing....
Yasmeena, now from a position looking down on the juggernaut and the field of its influence, ponders whether or not they actually need to defeat it. She gives the area a once-over.
This plateau leads nowhere. On the other hand, the genies wouldn't walk in the first place.
Yasmeena sighs and draws one of her wands, using it to cast gravity bow on herself. Every little bit of damage will be necessary, she thinks. She keeps performing her battle dance, despite the odd looks that Neelah is giving her.
Neelah seems uncomfortable on the carpet, especially with the way that Yasmeena's dancing shakes it dangerously. She tries to keep her mind off of the peril of their situation by singing, but that is difficult to do while she is peering over the side.
She sees Bylo's foot stick as he attempts to leap out of the way of the oncoming juggernaut, and she swiftly ends her song with a flourish in an attempt to distract it.
She frowns. The sonic fireball did not seem to be having any effect on the enemy. She glares at herself, staring into space. Of course, dolt! she thinks angrily. The brass of this city is nigh-invulnerable. Why did you think your song's fire could harm it?
Thinking quickly, she begins to sing a different song, what sounds like an entreaty to powers beyond the confines of this world to send her aid.
The part of Aith’s brain that does stuff like calculating distances and angles not only to ordinary space but to where spells end and planar boundaries might be accessible notes the curious satisfaction Bylo’s spell affords, which means that one doesn’t need to swoop around constantly to avoid losing altitude.
Struck by inspiration, she cudgels her brains for the spell she’s thinking of, cursing the fact that her spellbook is currently stored away out of reach. Somehow, though, the requisite calculations and formulae – at least, enough to try it once – flash across her thoughts, and she hastens to enspell one of the bullets in her pistol.
Trying to think of other possibilities in case this doesn’t work, she calls out, “Does anyone have a curse that doesn’t rely on targeting a mind ready?”
Haleen tries out her newfound ability to walk on air. Once she has climbed up she felt above it all. A nice perspective.
With a lack of other targets the juggernaut tries to push Bylo over the edge, ignoring the flailing of the cleric with his scimitar.
Not very successful though.
Yasmeena, curious, waits for Neelah to complete her spell, and then begins shooting at the juggernaut in earnest.
Neelah finishes casting her summoning spell, and a fiery ball of light appears in the air beside her. She bows her head respectfully to it, points at the brass juggernaut, and begins another song, the lyrics saying something in a florid, harsh language.
"I obey, firemaster," it responds.
LG Small outsider (archon, extraplanar, fire, good, lawful)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +4
Aura aura of menace (DC 13)
Defense AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 15 (+4 natural, +1 size; +2 deflect vs. evil)
hp 13 (2d10+2)
Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +0; +4 vs. poison, +2 resistance vs. evil
DR 10/evil; Immune electricity, petrification; fire resistance 5
Offense Speed fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Ranged 2 light rays +3 ranged touch (1d6, +1 fire)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd)
At Will—aid, continual flame, detect evil, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only)
Statistics Str 1, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 6, Wis 11, Cha 10
Base Atk +2; CMB –4; CMD 6
Feats Improved Initiative
Skills Diplomacy +5, Fly +14, Knowledge (planes) +3, Perception +4, Sense Motive +5
Languages Celestial, Draconic, Infernal; truespeech
SQ gestalt
Light Ray (Ex) A lantern archon can fire beams of light to damage foes. These light rays have a maximum range of 30 feet. This attack overcomes damage reduction of any type.
After responding, the creature glows brightly and sends two crackling bursts of light at the juggernaut.
Neelah then casts another spell on the group.
Yasmeena puts the brass lion full of arrows, breaking off pieces here and there until it looks ready for the scrap yard. Then the funny firefly thingy Neelah summoned shoots two rays at it and it breaks down.
Bylo is surprised when the brass lions collapses, but glad considering the total lack of effect his blade had on it. He sheaths the weapon and glances around. "Well. That was a bit dangerous. Was anyone hurt?"
He glances around the platform, curious. "This doesn't make much sense. Where do we go from here? Fly across to another door? But fire elemental types don't all fly!"
Come on, see that ruddy great metal lion-beast over there? Why don’t we ruin its day? By the time Aith’s finished cajoling the bullet in the chamber, though, Yasmeena has already finished the job. That’s definitely a good thing, and she hopes there isn’t another of the monsters around: there will be ample opportunity for her to see what this spell can do later on, even if this casting is bound to fade in a few minutes.
She walks back over to solid footing, although with a smile for the novel experience of walking on air.
“You don’t think that thing was crouched in the way out of here?” the mage asks, trying not to think about what it would be like to be chased down a narrow passage with a metal horror squeezing after her. “It’s cruel, but it’s also the sort of trick that makes a horrible kind of sense.”
The list of things that are making her very cross with Jhavhul keeps getting longer, and when they catch up with him, it’s probably not going to be pretty. The first step for now is getting out of here – and freeing his prisoner(s), for good measure – and so Aith scoots over to the alcove the juggernaut emerged from to check for a cave or tunnel out the back.
The 'cave' is just big enough to fit the juggernaut in. There is no obvious way to move further into the wall from there.
"Well, that looks like another dead end." Haleen concludes when she sees no way to move further.
Yasmeena descends on the carpet to examine the vanquished juggernaut. "Do you think this lump of brass is worth anything?" she says with a skeptical expression, eyeing the size of the lion head. With a spring in her step from her Peacock dance, she circles it curiously.
She assists Bylo in bringing everyone up to full health before they continue onward.
At Aith's revelation that there is no exit (or rather entrance) in the juggernaut's hiding place, Yasmeena sighs. "We will have to methodically search for hidden doors, I suppose. Well, no time like the present!" She begins going over all of the walls and floor searching for hidden mechanisms or illusions.
Bylo looks over the short cave and nods, but then asks. "So you explored the area around the dock where you boarded the boat thoroughly? And only found dead ends? Maybe we do need to fly then? Perhaps there's a hidden door somewhere out there, along the wall or even up by the ceiling? Or maybe hidden by illusion? My airwalk spell doesn't last all day, but we've enough minutes to 'walk' along the wall and search."
...
...
While all stand there wondering where to go next or checking on the brass remains a secret door opens in the ceiling over the lava flow and a huge pile of garbage falls into the molten stone, burning to nothing in short time. The trapdoor closes again, hiding the chute behind.
Yasmeena wrinkles her nose as she looks at the enormous lump of brass and the lion's head. "Something about that thing is very unsettling. I think creating it involved binding a human soul, and while I hope that our efforts released it to wherever its ultimate destination should be, looking at it still makes my skin crawl."
She jumps and rolls into a crouch when the chute opens, and then looks at everyone else with a sheepish expression. "Well, there's one way out. Let's see if I can jam that door open." When everyone is ready, she flies over to it and tries to disable the hinge.
Once one knows where the hatch is, it opens easily. The chute is also made of polished brass, but with the current magic it is possible to 'climb' this chute until it opens up into a room. There a dim red glow emanates from a grate in the ceiling high overhead, while the floor slopes toward a ten-foot-wide chute built into the northeast corner and surrounded by odd bits of debris. The room has a single door.
"Do you think we should push the body over the ledge to the molten lake below? That might be hot enough to consume the body and release the soul. Of course the splash might cause damage...."
Seeing the waste dumped he stares at where the door was. He can barely see anything even though he knows it is there. "Well, that's a disturbing path up. I wonder if the nobles have a private entrance?" Once the "door" is opened Bylo pinches his nose and "walks" up. Once they enter the room he casts his detect magic and scans the room.
Estimating the weight of the brass lion, distance to stream below, and the viscosity of lava, Aith declares, blithely, “I’m sure it will be fine! And you’re right, I think: if there’s any doubt, that should release any spirit still bound to the metal.”
The heat, the metal, the trash chute: it all brings back some of the mage’s least favourite memories of growing up Smokeside in Alkenstar. The longer she’s trapped in places like this, or Kakishon with its creator’s weird games, the more it weighs heavily on her architectural imagination.
When the group emerges into the char-room, Aith quickly looks around before peering up at the grate far above. It looks like they’re still below ground, but someone must have just gone by to dispose of the rubbish, unless it was another construct. She draws her pistol again, just in case, and walks quietly over to the door, ready to open it a crack to see if there’s activity beyond, if possible.
“Or maybe they have some sort of servant that can move metal and stone easily?” she stage-whispers from her peeking at the door. “Before we landed here, we discovered that at one point, at least, Jhavhul had earth genie allies, though he alienated the ones we met before too long.”
Yasmeena looks dubious about moving the lump of brass to the edge. "Maybe... I suppose we could try using that magic ring we found? But stand back, I don't want to risk catching any of us in the blast."
"Someone other than me should wear this," she says, removing it as soon as the task is finished and holding it up.
When they regroup above, Yasmeena quickly checks the door for traps before they open it, her natural paranoia beginning to rise back to the surface. After all, someone put that juggernaut there to protect the way to the treasure boat!
Brass is heavier than the lava and so the lion sinks. But only half way, then it hits the ground. But there are no signs of melting, which shouldn't be a surprise, as the whole place is made of this metal and the foundation isn't melting away either.
There is no magical garbage found in the room, nor anything else that one would take with.
Outside the door is a short flight of stairs that lead up to a corridor. Everything still made for large creatures.
Bylo sighs when he sees the too-big steps. "Now I know how a halfling feels in a city designed for humans. Everything is the wrong size!"
He carefully moves up the stairs, looking for any danger and/or magic ahead. "So this Jhavhul that you've mentioned.... Seems like he's quite the jerk! Are you seeking an exit from here to get away from him? Or tracking him? Or do you need to find something to stop his nefarious plans!?!" The last is said with a grin that carries over to his voice, apparently thinking that might be funny....
"We went from one golden cage to the next and need to get out. We know where Jhavhul landed when we ended up here. And we need to check that he didn't wreck havoc there."
"But he might have moved on already."
“We’re from the re-settlement of Kelmarane, if you know it,” Aith chimes in. “It turns out, after we cleared out some gnoll raiders, that they were being manipulated by other genies whose strings Jhavhul was pulling in turn.”
She frowns. “Or something like that. It’s not entirely clear to me yet how he managed it. He had been trapped in a demiplane whose key we managed to snatch from under his minion’s noses, but somehow he was able to twist the magic of the place so that when we investigated, we were trapped in his stead. We were only able to exchange bows and curtseys – rather gloating on his part, I must say – in the dimensional exchange, but I doubt he truly appreciated it, much less that he will once we emerge again. Back home, that is. We seem to be having to take the long way around.”
Yasmeena and Haleen, of course, could fill in some of the details that the mage is omitting. It’s only for the sake of brevity, not out of shame or embarrassment, though arguably at least one of those would be appropriate, if the entire series were told of inadvertently demolishing one half-ruined temple, nearly doing the same with another while liberating the Scroll of Kakishon (for “snatch from under noses” reading “cause an unholy fuss by cutting a bloody swath to it and provoking pursuit by deranged Rovagug cultists”), having the Scroll stolen and stealing it back (or maybe, "stolen back" and "back again"? Anyway, more bloody swathes), setting the dissolution of Kakishon in motion by escaping it…
As the group proceeds up the stairs and down the corridor, Aith adds, “For now, we need to get rid of that artifact that would interfere with our regular means of getting back in ways that we probably don’t want to think about, if we don’t disable it first. We’ve also acquired some promising odds and ends, though we might have to see if we could reforge or otherwise reshape some of them to best suit followers of the Dawnflower.”
Haleen is impressed how it is possible to make the giant f@&@ up they are stuck in sound good by omitting details and throwing around fancy words.
"So there's some artifact blocking the way back home? What would happen if I cast Plane Shift? Nothing? Or would it hurt us?"