Haleen, sped up with dance magic charges the toad. But the toad is really evasive.
Iavesk drags himself out of the door again trying to not die.
Neelah maintains her performance and attempts to catch hold of the toad.
A group of heroes trying to pin down a toad - unsuccessfully. A strange sight.
Meanwhile the toad makes it rain rubble again.
Seeing the demon dodging some of Yasmeena's arrow attacks, Bylo casts a spell creating a scimitar of force to attack.
"Ouch."
With a muffled, choking curse, Aith goes down under the barrage of rubble like, well, a certain amount of bricks - her body unmoving.
Haleen tries another approach. She jumps the toad, trying to grab it.
Yasmeena again attempts to duck and weave away from the falling debris, and then resumes her battle dance to shoot at the toad.
Yasmeena only hits with one arrow again, the toad deflecting the other projectiles. Then it hops away trying to flee under the formerly thrown furniture.
"Ha! Got you."
Haleen grabs the toad with each hand at one end and holds it out for execution. "Can someone please kill that thing?"
Yasmeena steps adjacent to Haleen and notches an arrow next to the toad's head.
Bylo reaches out to touch Aith, calling on Sarenrae for powerful healing.
The toad "Croak"s it's last croak before it croaks.
Haleen shakes her hands to get the toad goo off and checks where else it splashed. "One magical cleaning please."
It’s a strange and extremely welcome feeling of revitalization as Aithaloessa’s body surges with the healing energy that Bylo channels through it, almost shorting her out as it spills beyond her capacity and stirs her from the pit of oblivion the defunct sepid’s bombardment forced her into.
Which is not to say that the elf mage doesn’t make an incongruous sight, wide-eyed and spread-eagled, coughing up a puff of dust from the conjured debris that flattened her, and a vehement stream of Elven curses, <“Bastard elemental devil! Resisting elven magic! Unfair, is what that is…">
Sitting up with enthusiasm buoyed by holy healing, Aith combs out what looks like an unpleasant mass of cobweb from her hair and blinks more dust from her brows and lashes as she continues to half-mumble, half-rant to herself about things to look into to avoid such a turn of events in future. She certainly looks like she’s been thrown through the better of the contents of an elaborately furnished room twice over. How does she keep getting caught in collapsing architecture?
“If anyone, I should be the one bringing houses down. I should learn that trick with the rubble, at least. Or find a way to carry my own cannon around…”
There’s a brief, excited squeak considering the metals that might respond best to magical manipulation of mass and dimension as she jumps to her feet, before she remembers herself and bows deeply to Bylo. “Oh, I’m ever so much obliged! That was much closer than I would have liked, and if it hadn’t been for you… Clearly, I’ll have to be more careful, although, too, it’s a terrible thing that can resist the, hmm, flow of my people’s magic. Stranger and more dangerous things, once one starts walking the worlds, I suppose…”
Haleen shakes her hands to get the toad goo off and checks where else it splashed. "One magical cleaning please."
Aith nods, casting a jaundiced eye around the wreckage of the room and, with a quick incantation and a few passes of her hand, she does her best to oblige Haleen.
Bylo looks around at the group, bloodied and dirty. "If someone can confirm that.... reptile is completely dead, please gather around and I'll try to heal us. That one was a bit closer to death than I like reaching. I felt totally useless in that battle!"
"Will we be securing ourselves here for a bit? I fear that most of my magical ability has been used. I could use some rest, meditation and prayer to recover."
"I'm not against calling it a day, but I'm sure we can find a nicer place, maybe with a view and less blood, gore and debris." Haleen comments.
"Mm-hm," Aith nods, biting her lip in thought, her mind still full of ideas about how to try to conjure up more robust walls more quickly, should the need arise, or to throw up force fields, or hone her magic so that it holds to its targets.
"If nothing else, there's always a corner of the great hall. We can keep an eye on comings and goings, if any, the columns and such will provide an interesting perspective, otherwise, and if his giant nibs asks, he can take a look at the wreckage to see that we're not merely taking our sweet time."
"The only real nice place here was the garden. Everything else is just too hot to be comfortable. Also it's full of new corpses, old corpses, ghosts, or those fire giants. There might be some nice places higher up but they probably have their own occupants that we don't want to deal with yet."
"Or the fountain with the marid princess. That was nice too, but the way there is rather long." And Haleen might have forgotten how to get there with all that labyrinth like floors.
"I'm sure there are several comfortable places. But I'm really thinking more about security. Antone here that had any ideas about this room knew the demon in it wasn't friendly. Close the door and I think we'll not be disturbed. But mine is only one comment."
Yasmeena cocks her head. "I am sure wherever we set it up, our pavilion will be very comfortable. Whenever I am inside, I feel as spoiled as a pahsha! If we barricade the door to this room again, I think it's unlikely anyone else would burst in like we did." She laughs.
“No harm in stretching our legs a bit more,” Aith shrugs, “and the garden is lovely. Maybe it could even tempt out the immured vizier to look in on us?”
She directs a quizzical brow at the haunted walls of the palace for a moment, not that she really expects a response. Although, as Yasmeena says, Aith is pretty sure their partially insulated magical tent will be comfortable enough – not like roughing it in the desert on an outrider rotation with the town guard, or just generally, under the grim fumes of the dark, satanic mills of Smokeside – she doesn’t mind humouring their resident swinger of swords and squisher of frogs.
“Ice wall,” the mage murmurs to herself as she saunters off to find a place to set up camp that will make everyone as comfortable as possible. “Conjuring a wall of ice might help keep things comfortable while trapped on a fiery plane, and with containing escaping villains, polymorphed or otherwise. To keep an eye out, once a suitable library presents itself.”
For safety reasons the magical tent is put up next to the pile of garbage and the unhospitable surroundings are forgotten, or at least ignored for an evening and a 'night' of sleep.
No one comes knocking at the door.
Well rested Haleen crawls out of their section of the tent. "What's for breakfast?"
Bylo looks around. He needs some time for prayer to be ready, but some food would be nice. "I'm not at all good at cooking. But I could ready magic for that. Clerics can create food and water? Unless someone has better?"
Yasmeena laughs. "Isn't there a cleric spell that makes trash edible? Maybe we can eat our way out of this place. Or we could try and find those kobolds and ask if they would prepare us something? If we have nothing better, bread and water will serve, but perhaps Aithaloessa would be willing to improve the flavor with a little magical spice?"
"I hope someone has. Because my desire to eat cardboard porridge is rather limited." Haleen replies to Bylo. "I wonder why the gods, when their faithful ask for one of the bare necessities of life don't get something better than that. Or is it the priests being stingy with magic input and the bland porridge the result?" she inquires.
"Well, in that case.... Give me a little time."
Bylo prays/communes, then prays again and summons refreshments for everyone for the day.
"Aith can spice it up!"
Haleen takes a serving after Aithaloessa gave the cardboard pudding a magical work over. "Thank you."
She still thinks it is lame of the gods not to provide better, but what she has left in her backpack isn't prime anymore either.
“Thank you, Bylo,” Aith nods, as the conjured breakfast gets dished out. “Goodberry Surprise, while a life-saver, does eventually outlive its welcome, I have to admit.”
She does her best with a bit of prestidigitation to enliven everyone’s meal, casting her cantrip over again to try to suit everyone’s tastes. There’s only so much so tiny a spell can do, though, and for all her elven airs, Aith’s Smokeside childhood shows in the unsubtle indulgence of her flavours.
With an optimistic hum as she sets to her bowl that’s now in the vague neighbourhood of cinnamon and sugar, Aith casts her eye over the room once more, and her mind over what they’ve seen of the palace so far, in an attempt to recall any doors they might have overlooked.
Whatever it is that serves as a focus for the force that's keeping them here, she seems to have missed it, and she makes a mental note to add more planar magic to her research agenda. Is there something like the opposite of a dimensional anchor?
The highest tower is the obvious thing that comes to mind, as well as the pyramid on the terrace upstairs. For everything below it is hard to tell as the labyrinth like layout with connections only over different floors doesn't offer itself for proper tracking of clompleteness of inspection.
“Hmm. Well, we’ve found one princess already, but shall we check that tower next? Take that flying carpet for another spin, for those of us not flying by other means? And then, depending on how that goes, we can work our way down from there, and see about getting into that pyramid we saw from the walls,” Aith muses.
Her brow furrows as she considers some of the other bits and bobs she’s accumulated recently, not least in Kakishon. Unfortunately, the weird metal walls of the palace laugh in the face of the handiest tools available for getting past earth and stone. There’s always more dimensional shenanigans to try if her friends are happy to try short-range blind teleports, but that might be a hard sell after how running into the sepid worked out.
"Has anyone taken a flight around the tower or pyramid? See if there's any way inside other than dangerous magic?"
The huge dome of the tower is cut open on two sides creating an huge open balcony. One could fly there. It has no other obvious entrances and you haven't found stairs leading up there yet.
The pyramid has a large ramp with a set of double doors at the top - so this entrance is obvious.
"I agree flying up to the tower is a good plan," Yasmeena says with a light tone. "As long as we somehow go together-- I don't think Neelah and I can deal with whatever is in there all by our lonesomes. But perhaps we should scout it out and see what we can see before we decide?" She shrugs with a smile. "Or, we could always go to the pyramid first and see what is in the tower afterward."
“My favourite spell for flying about is not one that can be bestowed with a touch,” Aith frowns, “but I do have another, which is better in some ways, but doesn’t last anywhere near as long.”
Going over what is now becoming almost second nature in realms far from those she’s used to Aith, quickly casts a warding over herself for protection from evil intent, not least in case anything tries to get into her head, and then softly intones the incantation that will lift her off her feet.
“Tower first, at least just to take a peek?” she asks, her magic already pulling her up on her toes. “What do we think the chances are that the pyramid isn’t just a folly, but also a tomb stuffed with ghosts and other ghouls, like for the northern pharaohs back home?”
As she looks up to the tower balcony with its convenient space to land, she draws her pistol, just in case she'll need it when she and her friends arrive.
Part of the cupola’s brass dome is cut away to form grand balconies. The southwest balcony provides a breathtaking vista of the City of Brass spreading out below, almost like a detailed map in miniature. The northeast balcony looks out over the Sea of Fire, an endless burning ocean that leads out into the wilds of the Plane of Fire. There are archways leading inside at the center with curtains of gold, platinum, and copper thread woven with patterns that ripple like waterfalls of liquid metal blocking the view.
"It beats climbing." Haleen encourages herself on her climb of invisible stairs up to the tower height looking with envy on Aithaloessa.
Upon arriving at the balcony, Aith takes a moment to take in the view – rather wistfully, given that she seems to have exchanged one planar trap for another. The view’s more extensive here (and she keeps an eye out for any landmarks she might recognize ), but in hindsight, she liked (RIP) the weirdness of Kakishon rather more, especially with the proteans. Still, maybe they’ll be able to do some exploring if they can figure out how to get out of the cursed castle?
After a minute, she turns to the nearest archway, and takes another second to admire the curtains – maybe silk would allow some of the colour effect, without the weight? – before trying to peek through to see what’s beyond.
...Only to promptly underestimate just how heavy the curtains are, get yanked off-balance, and roll herself into a flap of the metal fabric before she gets a good look. Hopefully there's no bored monster lurking within whose curiosity might be piqued by a sudden motion in the windows.
This chamber is centered between a set of elegantly etched brass doors and shimmering curtains of gold, platinum, and copper thread woven with patterns that ripple like waterfalls of liquid metal. The walls, floor, and ceiling are of brilliantly polished brass. A single ornate chair sits in each corner of the room, while at the room’s center a patch of air shimmers and wavers as if radiating intense heat.
Yasmeena warily approaches with Aithaloessa, ready to draw her bow and fire at a moment's notice. "Hello there?" she calls out in a friendly-sounding voice, though the look she gives the others is full of trepidation.
There is no answer.
“That looks uncomfortable, if it is a hot spot,” Aith says, pointing out the all but invisible waves stirring the air in the very middle of the room. “Better safe than not? Does anyone else want a ward against fire? And if all Hell breaks loose – especially with swords or maces or what have you – I can try to protect whoever's in front with a counter-charm to toughen the skin, but that spell calls for diamond dust, and I only have enough to cast it two or three times. Oh, to get to the city’s bazaar!”
She casts a wistful look over the view of the rest of the City of Brass, before casting her spell to resist energy on herself, and anyone else who wants one, before stepping through the curtains to see what’s what. A council chamber? If it’s a throne room, she wonders about the symbolism of the corners focused on the center. A shared goal?
As she enters, Aith keeps one eye on Haleen and Bylo to know where to run to if it looks like they’ll need a stoneskin in short order: to hold back another infernal giant, say.
Bylo walks over to the patch of shimmering air, careful not to get close enough to be burned if it is too hot. He casts detect magic to study it.