Haleen agrees in silence to not storm out and challange that many unknown/giant creatures without even knowing if additional support would come running.
Bylo quietly suggests that they continue searching the current level. Maybe there is another path up to the next level?
Smirking at the others, Yasmeena quietly creeps back down to the previous level. "I'm proud of us," she says. "It was not too long ago that we would have immediately charged those fires and sparked a great battle." She nods to Bylo and Neelah. "Perhaps our new companions are exerting a positive influence."
"Pain is a great techer."
Bylo rubs his left shoulder and smiles remembering an old wound. "We may yet have to dispatch the giants and such above. But maybe we can avoid them, not risk that death, and conserve resources. The future will show us."
Mostly hidden to the right and only a few steps away is a twenty foot wide and long corridor that ends in front of a really huge double door.
"Pain is a great techer."
“I suppose. So long as I don’t get tied up and tickled by blades. Let’s leave that to the kytons and other Kuthite weirdos, ” Aith says wryly.
“And I’m all for experimenting with magic, but I do try not to blow myself up on purpose. Though I guess a Nethysian might have something to say about that. Something to ask Zastoran about when we get back home,” she adds, as the group slinks back downstairs to continue their explorations of the lower level.
She does spare a moment at the huge doors trying to gauge what size of person they’re made for: efreet? The giants? Or is it just rank ostentation? Anyway, while avoiding an almost certain brouhaha if she and her friends are spotted by Jhavhul’s staff, if that’s what they are, is still on Aith’s mind, so she’s thoughtful enough to be careful opening doors, she’s certainly curious enough not to wait about too long to do so.
She reaches out, trying to get as much leverage as she can, in case the doors are as heavy as they look.
"Agreed," says Yasmeena. She looks over the door for mechanisms such as locks or traps.
This massive chamber is dominated by a huge statue of an efreeti seated in the lotus position upon a dais. The statue holds a six-foot-high basin filled with roaring flames in its lap. This pyre gives the statue’s snarling visage an eerie red glow and causes the flickering light to glint malignly off the jewels mounted in its eye sockets. Tall brass braziers flank the statue, and several crates and chests have been stacked in the western half of the room.
The room is occupied by five guards of the lizardfolk and an eight headed hydra.
“Hold up, we have no quarrel with you! Only Jhavhul!” Aith calls out in an effort to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, lifting her own arms up in a placatory gesture, or at least one that keeps her pistol not pointed at anyone, before repeating herself in Draconic.
Just in case, though, she calls an incantation to mind if the lizardfolk aren’t having it.
The lizards might not understand common. Or they don't care.
Seeing that combat is inevitable, Yasmeena draws her bow and fires at a lizard that is outside of Aithaloessa's smoke cloud.
Disappointed that the lizardfolk seem to have chosen to fight, Bylo tries repeating Aith's statement in Draconic, then casts Prayer on the group. He readies his scimitar assuming that he will have to fight, and steps forward to try and keep Yasmeena from being in melee.
Neelah, still perched next to Yasmeena on the hovering carpet, begins singing a strangely thoughtful melody.
Halleen walks up to stand besides Yasmeena and waits for what will come of this.
That lizard that shot the first arrow finds itself nailed to the wall and properly dead.
"<What do you want?>" Someone from inside the cloud asks back in draconic.
Bylo hears the words and calls out to the others. "Hold! We can talk." He continues, in Draconic, "<We want.... or rather, need information. We have no desire to harm anyone, other than Jhavhul. That one seems to have tricked these to come here and has somehow blocked the way out. Others here are also trapped. We only seek a way to break the trap, and depart in peace.>"
"<There is no way out. This trap is a curse the vizir put on the place. There is nothing here for you. Get lost. Or go to the palace heights. This is our place.>" some voice answers out of the smoke between coughs.
“Right,” Aith mutters as she flexes the arm sliced by the arrow that hit her to see how bad it is, though she supposes she can’t really complain given how thoroughly Yasmeena ventilated the poor idiot that tried something funny. Aith, on the other hand, will mainly have to worry about spending some time with a mending cantrip for her robes.
Anyway, the demand barked out from the trick she pulled with the room’s fire seems reasonable enough, so with a glance and a shrug at her friends, she raises her voice to be heard and calls back quickly in Draconic, <“Of course! So sorry for the terrible misunderstanding. Two last things: do you know how many floors below the vizier’s apartments in the heights we are, and please, for all our sakes, tell any friends you have here about us so that it doesn’t come to arrows next time.”>
She takes a hasty step back, and, switching back to Common, considers, “Well, that seems reasonably consistent with what, um, our architectural apparition told us. My smoke won’t last much longer, so shall we … quietly take our leave?”
Agreeing with Aith Bylo steps back from the room. "Yes. As they say, this is their place. Maybe if we can find the way to lift the curse it might help them as well?"
Seeing Aith flexing a wounded arm he offers healing from his wand.
Once outside the room Haleen inquires "We're going to knock on every door now and politely ask if we may come in?"
Bylo grins at Haleen's attempt at humor. "I suppose we might want to try.... Less killing that way. I could use the Touch of Glory power that I get from Sarenrae to make the request a little more likely to work. ??"
"Instead you could try knocking and then asking them, if they have some time to talk about the faith of Sarenrae."
After an artistic pause she continues "Experience tells, they probably slam the door in your face. This way you know who is behind every door, without fighting anyone. You'd probably get away with that bluff, given your appearance. Do you have some handouts on you?"
Yasmeena looks doubtful, but shrugs. "If I play hymns for you on my oud while you're talking, it should add to the verisimilitude." She winks at Haleen, referencing an old joke between them about long words.
Bylo considers Haleen's words, taps his holy symbol and nods. "I've never considered the idea of having a scribe print information about Sarenrae for handout. So many people can't read.... But as an Evangelist of the Dawnflower the idea does have merit. I can offer any assistance that I am capable of providing, if they need any. Good idea!"
"But if they slam the door.... That could indicate that they are evil! Sarenrae does want us to at least offer redemption to evil-doers."
"I'll have to think on this a bit more."
Aith nods her agreement with Bylo’s reasoning: there’s no need to be particularly ruthless about getting out of here, if, like the latest batch of lizardfolk, the residents don’t try to restrain them or worse. Even on the most amoral calculus, it saves time and other resources.
Then, too, the locals don’t seem to be too fond of the memory of Jhavhul, and she recalls the splinter group of his former followers in Kakishon… Did he burn through a lot of good-will among his allies in his eventually frozen assault on Golarion? Would it be helpful to encourage his erstwhile servants to revolt and spread the word through the City of Brass, even if they can’t accompany less fiery adventurers to the Material Plane to finish the job? While she half muses on that set of questions, she catches up with the banter about bringing Sarenrae’s mercy as they go.
“If we had whatever passes for parchment here that is less likely to crumble into ash at the next especially hot storm, I do tend to keep a cantrip ready for quick transcriptions,” she offers. “It would have been nice to have been able to use it for filling reports when I was in the guard in Alkenstar, but that’s one more tragedy of growing up in a place of dead magic.”
“Anyway, more than knocking, I think we just want to avoid messier entanglements than we absolutely can't get around. What is it they say, about looking like you’re meant to be somewhere? If we can just brazen it out – I mean, I have no objections to returning the favour and causing as much trouble to Jhavhul in his own home as possible, but wherever he is, he doesn’t seem to have been as keen to jump back here as I might, in his place, if I were trapped far from home for so long. Unless that’s not how his magic works? I’ve never really looked into how much variance there might be within the ranks of genies, as to how they move among the planes.”
Remarkably, she stops there (more or less) as she and the others retrace their steps, rather than ruminating over what she knows and what she speculates out loud.
Going along the other corridor you come along a door shortly before the corner. Around the corner you see the corridor lead past another door and end at a large (for genies) double door.
Checking the rooms behind the doors you pass, you find both of them empty except for some garbage.
Once a large bifurcated guardroom with arrow slits to the west and south, these chambers are now largely devoid of furnishings. A broad stair descends to the west, looking out onto the citadel’s entry, and arrow slits and a door open onto the entry where it turns to the east. Dual stairs climb to the floor above from the center of the room.
But looking out of those arrow slits is no option for now as a fire giant and two hounds on fire 'guard' this room. The giant sits on the stairs close to your entrance, dozing. One hound looks out the arrow slots on the opposite side of the room, one is uncomfortably close and growls at you showing teeth.
Yasmeena quickly casts communal tongues on the group and speaks, with a little bow from the floating carpet on which she stands beside Neelah. "Greetings. My friends and I do not wish to interrupt your vigil, but we have accidentally landed in your realm and we would like to speak to the person in charge. Would you possibly be able to direct us?"
The Hell Hound doesn't care for Yasmeena's polite request and pounces at her.
"Are you good with animals? Can you make it sit?" Haleen asks Bylo while watching this impertinent dog. She doesn't want to ruin this new polite approach immediately by killing someone's pet. Beause people get really angry if one does that.
Bylo considers Haleen question. "Probably not. But they may be willing to talk? Now what language would a hell hound speak? I'd try Ignan but I think they're from hell, so...."
Bylo tries speaking Infernal to the dogs, "We don't want to fight. We're trapped here because of Jhavhul and just need information about breaking his cursed trap. If you attack we will have to kill you."
The other hound comes barking, charging across the room. Which is a very long way and it will take more time to get here, while the giant is startled by all the ruckus. At first he unwillingly wakes from his sleep, cursing the dogs. Then realizing what's going on he is suddenly wide awake and jumps up.
While Aithaloessa searches for the right words, the dog makes it clear, that it doesn't like Yasmeena, no matter what Bylo says.
The giant draws his greatsword an charges halfway, then slowing down wondering who those people are who ignore the hell hound and just stand there.
“Do you mind?” Aith snaps, unimpressed, starting to think about the right spell already, just in case. “Get your dog under control, and we can talk!”
She repeats herself in Draconic a moment later , and then, when the hound continues to snap at Yasmeena, tries to make sure it – or its master – does as little harm as possible.
The giant doesn't like the tone of the elf. "What do you want here? You belong to the Flickering Candle?" He doesn't make any attempt to calm down the dog.
Yasmeena tries to continue her diplomatic overtures. "Greetings. My friends and I did not wish to interrupt your vigil, but we have accidentally landed in your realm and we would like to speak to the person in charge. Would you possibly be able to direct us?" She looks at the hell hound. "We don't know what the Flickering Candle is. Could you call off your hounds before they cause us harm?"
Aith keeps a cautious eye on the hell hound with a cat-like disdain for anything canine. If she has to, she’ll bark – or bite – back with her pistol, but she hopes it won’t come to that.
For a brief moment, she indulges in a blink as she pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to find her charm to help Yasmeena. “Look, my good man, er, giant. As a clever fellow like yourself can probably tell by the looks of us, we’re only visiting, and we seem to have got ourselves turned around. Are the Flickering Candle in charge? I wouldn’t think there’s much chance of one going out around here, but what do I know?”
"Why don't you tell us all about it? I'm sure sentry duty isn't any more exciting here than when I did my time back home, and no one will grudge you a chat while you watch," she says, relaxing into surprising affability.
Bylo waits to hear the response for Yasmeena's query, keeping a close watch on the hounds.
The giant shouts at the dogs, which both sit down. "You wait outside, I ask the boss if he wants to talk to you."
Bylo nods and backs out of the door.
Once Yasmeena is close enough he says a quiet prayer making his hand glow and touches her. "Just a little Divine help in case you need to negotiate any more."
The door keeps closed and nothing happens for quite a while.
After half an hour the door finally opens again and a huge bronze giant looks down at you. A spectacular physical specimen who stands 25 feet tall, with hardened skin bearing a sheen of bronze like some pagan god. His hair is long, dark, and wiry, and his face a wrinkled mass of barely recognizable features, like an eroded statue standing outside for too long.
He adresses you in Ignan, his tone demanding and hostile. "<Who are you and what do you want.>"
Yasmeena casts communal tongues again, then bows floridly. "Greetings. We are travelers from another plane, who have arrived in this place due to a magical accident. We have been given to understand that we are trapped here, and we would like to marshal our considerable skills to discover a way out for those who, like us, wish to leave. Are you the overlord of this realm?"
"Yes I am. I am Argbadh Karambagya, the leader of the And as such you are under my command. If you join my crew and help getting rid of the assassins from the flickering candle and the annoying guardians of the palace, I'll allow you to walk freely in the whole premises. Otherwise..."
Yasmeena looks sideways at the others to check that this is acceptable to them. (Neelah is frowning, but Neelah seems to always be frowning so Yasmeena ignores her apparent displeasure without a clearer signal.)
To buy time, Yasmeena gives Argbadh a jaunty salute, a gesture she has perfected by ironically giving the same signal to Aithaloessa in the past. "That may be an acceptable arrangement for us," she says encouragingly. "What wages do you typically pay the members of your crew? We have some rather specialized skills that you might find valuable. We have experience in getting rid of assassins, and though we have never been to the palace, we have dealt with annoying guardians before." She almost launches into an account of their adventure in an extraplanar temple guarded by animated sphinxes, but she decides that the giant is probably not interested in the details.
"Wages? Haha, you can keep what you take from the assassins. Follow me."
The giant leads through the guardhouse and out the door on the other side. A tall gate composed of brass bars to the right blocks the entry to the huge stairway on the left from outside. A herculean iron spike has been driven into the steps, and a massive chain attached to it runs to a shackle on the leg of a nine-headed reptile of horrific proportions. The giant slaps it to get out of the way and walks up. Two foot high steps of the stairs are at least an inconvenience for humans.
The stairs lead up to the same yard you already peaked into, but its a mor eprominent entry. The frightful screams and bellows of what sounds like an enraged bull echo through this vast courtyard. In the center of the court stands a fifty-foot-tall ziggurat, atop which looms a statue of a bull. Smoke issues from the statue’s open mouth, as does the eerie bellowing. Beyond the ziggurat stands the huge domed palace that surmounts the citadel, its double domes glinting beneath a roiling molten sky.
The giant stops there and points to a large entrance across the bull. "There are the palave heights. There you go to get rid o fthe annoying palace guards that are left."
"And here" he points to the right to some less representative part of the complex "is the place the assisins of the Flickering Candle have occupied."
Bylo shrugs and follows. When the giant points out the locations he asks one question. "I have no issue with killing assassins. But who are the Palace guards that you are adding to be slain? I'd prefer to not get in a bad place with the rulers of this place. That would kind of mean 'never come back'! And I'd really prefer to have the option to return if we ever figure out how to be released from the curse that is blocking us."