"I don't do plants. But if you find a poisonous snake or other critters that I could add to my cauldrons, I'd be happy to take them. The only thing that I see growing here are those darned pesh fields." Undrella tells.
Haleen sits down in her room with Yasmeena to exchange stories. It's a fun time and life has been mostly good to both. Doing some fencing for show is also a fun pastime, especially without the danger of actually being killed.
Haleen is thrilled about turning the epic fight against Kardswann into a ballad to perform for the people who shall come to Kelmarane. But as she hears the supposed title of the work she protests. "Don't you dare giving the audience the idea I might have been a damsel in distress!"
Yasmeena laughs. "My dearest sister, in the story of the song, I'm not the one who found Haleen that day. You are!" With a sly look she adds, "And Kardswann found you, as well, to his ruin." Exuberantly, she pulls her friend back up to a standing position and prepares to spar again. "You were masterful, the true star of the dance. You saved us! Soon everyone will know that you are the champion of Kelmarane. The ultimate victor of the battle market!"
Happy to learn that she’s not likely to step on Undrella’s toes, alchemically speaking, Aithaloessa spends the rest of her morning and early afternoon trying to get a better sense of Kelmarane beyond immediate tactical requirements, tentatively feeling out the landscape in an embarrassingly airy-fairy sort of way with both her mundane and magical senses.
You’re joking, Aithaloessa thinks, squinting and shading her eyes against the sun. If I were in a position to be granted carte blanche with such a project, I wouldn’t be stuck walking out of the back end of Katapesh.
She shakes her head at her pretensions, the corner of her mouth twitching toward a wry half-grin. No, I suppose you would be peering out the window of a tower into the starry night of some green and pleasant land, princess, while your faithful knight called up, ‘Iri, sweet Iri, let down your hair!’ Get it together. It’s almost like you’ve indulged in that crone’s offerings in the battle market after all.
Redoubling her focus, she considers the limitations of the terrain, looking for natural weaknesses and chokepoints. There. South of the temple. That’s awkward. Could use another watchtower. And depending on what’s underneath…
She’s more than a comfortable bowshot away, so she can’t precisely feel any lingering traces of the thing they encountered outside the temple, let alone the signature of the sealed passage below, not magically, at least, but she stifles a shiver despite the blistering desert sun.
As she completes her circuit, she does feel something on a bluff just overlooking the road into town. It’s a largely dried out copse of scrubby trees between the river, the lower town, and the abandoned fields, and just for a second she thinks, but…
Checking that no one is watching her, Aithaloessa rushes down the road in excitement. And indeed, a pair of colorful toadstools grows in the shadows of a dead twisted shrub. One with yellow and one with blue dots.
Okay... rolls through Haleens mind like a lonely tumbleweed. It is very important to her not to be seen as the helpless victim that has to be saved but "Aren't you going a bit overboard with that? I mean it's not wrong... but isn't that an invitation for challengers?" she inquires anxiously.
Yasmeena tries to consider Haleen’s concerns seriously, but she is perhaps blinded by hope and enthusiasm. ”Well, let’s fight that battle when we get there. I have great confidence in your abilities, as well as those of our friends. Besides, it’s the very least I can do for you!”
Checking that no one is watching her, Aithaloessa rushes down the road in excitement. And indeed, a pair of colorful toadstools grows in the shadows of a dead twisted shrub. One with yellow and one with blue dots.
“<Praise be to Yuelral!>” Aithaloessa breathes, once she realizes what she’s seeing. Carefully observing the spot so she can find it again, and making sure that she doesn’t take too much for the fungus to regrow in a later season, she fills her hands ecstatically and rushes back to the battle market.
“No time, no time!” she announces giddily, waving her windfall in the air before adding, “Antarah’s going to love this! Maybe. Mage business, coming through! For the good of the company!”
If one could teleport by sheer buzz, Aithaloessa would already have vibrated her way to the room she’s claimed. As it is, it takes another few seconds before only a soft tinkle of glassware and a murmuring stream of excited Elven floats down the stairs on the edge of hearing.
Knowing that the specimens won’t keep long, Aithaloessa starts right away, processing the one mushroom with the knowledge that she’ll have to do the other first thing the following morning. It is her first time doing it, so she takes the time to be careful.
She tries to remember what the odd merchant she met in the Nightstalls had to say about it. Something about the spots changing colours.
Appallingly, the song she uses to keep track of bits of arcane lore bursts out in Sylvan doggerel which, in her enthusiasm, she infelicitously personalizes ex tempore:
"<...One kind makes you larger
And one kind makes you small
And the ones the Green Mother gives you
Don't do anything good at all
Go ask Aithaloess'
When she's ten feet tall...>"
In the centre of the battle market Aithaloessa's attempt of singing is heard as some strange noise. It is not clear why, but from the sound of it she might be trying to scare some animal, or be dying in great pain.
"Oh, please, bring me a whole pugwampi tribe, that couldn't be worse than this..."
Tariq kindly smiles at Aithaloessa, nodding. "Very nice, very nice, yes."
Yasmeena freezes and gestures to Haleen to pause. She tilts her head and asks incredulously, "By the blessed Dawnflower, is that Aithaloessa singing?" She gives Haleen a serious look and a wink. "We must find her immediately. It sounds like she has been possessed!"
“<Go ask Aithaloessa – I think she’ll knoooowww…>”
The warbling mage stops abruptly – at least the singing – when she spots Antarah and Tariq, though she still watches the specimen she’s simmering carefully, ready to dash off notes at a moment’s notice, as she gestures excitedly with the raw mushroom she’s going to have to process later.
Antarah hears singing as he is walking the battle market. He enters the room where Aithaloessa is working and asks "Are you ill?" He has never seen her singing and was genuinely worried.
Tariq kindly smiles at Aithaloessa, nodding. "Very nice, very nice, yes."
“Not at all, and isn’t it?” she answers both men in rapid sequence. Remembering that neither of them’s a naturalist, she explains, “I know you favour that enlarging transmutation, Antarah. What would you say if it lasted a whole ten minutes? I found some fairy cap!”
Her brow furrows briefly as she conscientiously points out the limitations. “Well, it will either do that, or it will shrink you down like the counter. I’ll only be able to tell for sure once it’s done cooking. Colour of the spots. Now, what did that odd little fellow in the city say? In the worst case, it will just give you a tummy ache, either way. Mostly. Probably. I’m sure, anyway.”
“It will take me a while to process all of what I was able to harvest – probably into tomorrow morning – and we don’t want to be too greedy, so it can grow back, but it means there’s a ley line somewhere around here!” She beams.
“And now I wonder, if we consider both the temple here and the old monastery…”
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Antarah hears Aithaloessa with suspicion. He knows spells duration is a representation of the caaster's power and herbs that promise to increase that power are dangerous to say the least. Still, he knows that the elf is very capable and doesn't want to doubt her. He says "Be careful." before turning and continuing reading his book on genies.
The next day Princess Almah invites the group to an audience in her new chambers.
With all the shabby furniture and blankets gone that the gnolls used the typical smell is gone too. With the furniture Garavel and the princess brought in the room looks very elegant. An escritoire made of mahogany with intricate boiserie - waxed and polished to the point where the surface shines. A matching dining table and chairs complete the furnishings. Carpets depicting Katapesh history adorn the walls. A large carpet with an elaborate pattern covers most of the floor.
Only the curtain that seperated the sleeping are seems to be the same - though it seems to be cleaned.
Garavel welcomes the group and after everyone is seated Princess Almah joins and takes the seat at the head of the Table. Hadrah serves strong hot coffee in fine china.
"It is a great success that you achieved here in Kelmarane. Without further support you took over the place and that without any casualities on our side. With all of us moved here, we have now a footing directly in Kelmarane."
"But as you already heard, there is one more thing to do, before the town is fully under our control again." She puts an intricate key on the table. "Under the temple of Sarenrae resides an evil that led to the abandonment of the city. It was sealed there, in the crypt with the seal you have seen. This key opens the seal. But once opened, the evil has to be destroyed, or it could roam free and start its destructive work again."
"Two decades ago this evil led to murder and cruelty among the people. To make sure that such fate doesn't befall Kelmarane again this evil has to be dealt with."
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Antarah notes how the princess has changed the decor and thinks I love what you've done with the place. He sits at the table in silence and sips the coffee remembering the one he took in the Bronze Hook tavern.
The princess talks of the very thing that has been bothering him, the thing below the temple. There is much he wants to ask, but he contains himself. He wants to know how she knows of it when no one else does.
He asks "What evil is this? How do we defeat it? How do we know it will not turn us on each other?"
"We don't know for sure. The hopes are that the evil isn't as strong anymore as it was when locked away. But from what you told, we auapect that the now dead leader of the gnoll tribe fell under the spell of that evil. You'd have to prepare for that and take precautions against that."
"If you need advice or help with that, you can involve Father Zastoran into the preparations. But there is a risk that something bad happens. This is true."
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Although Antarah has many more questions, he stays silent. He sits back, allowing the others to talk if they wish. He keeps pondering what that means. How do they prepare for the evil. He wants to know anything about it. Perhaps he should ask Father Zastoran, but Antarah feels the princess is holding something back.
"We will certainly need our best effort, so I recommend resting and being full-strength tomorrow" Tariq says. He'd go right now, as every minute the vault is not purified is a minute Evil dwells in a place where it should not. But reality, sadly, has prevalence over Tariq's wishes. "We could adjust our prayers to the situation, as well."
"We could check what's left of Kardswann. If the skull is mostly intact, a speak with dead could reveal details about the evil."
"Let me see." Tariq goes and brings the corpse to Father Zastorian.
Tariq is gone for a while searching the cold ashes outside the battle market for a skull with one or two extra holes, created by Aithaloessa's Pepper Box. While doing so, he decides to bring it to Father Zastoran's quarter/lab and not to Princess Almah's coffee table, where the others and Father Zastoran still sit and stir their coffee.
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Antarah awkwardly excuses himself still wondering things about the princess. When already standing, he says "I hope we can have some time to come up with a reasonable plan to deal with that... evil." He avoids getting more coffee as he is somewhat frightened of the accelerating effect it has on him.
Coming to Father Zastoran's lab, Antarah waits for everyone to get there. He starts thinking what questions they should ask the corpse.
Father Zastoran is the type who is very confident in himself. So he starts off with the scroll out of his treassure chest and casts it on the skull that luckily still has a jaw.
"Mr. Kardswann, tell me what you met down there in the crypt, that changed you."
The skull in the cleric's hand starts chatting with the jaw, which makes funny noises, as the teeth that haven't fallen out while lying in the fire meet each other. And a creepy voice, with only a distant resemblance of Kardswann, emanates from the position of the skull like an echo. "It was a large insect like thing. An outsider, a demon. Evil, chaotic, searching destruction. It controlled my mind, planted its will into mine. Making me do its bidding in this world. Its longing for war and destruction."
"Two more questions. Anything specific, you want to know?" Zastoran asks.
"Insect like, uh?"
Tariq wonders what could he ask that helped them in their endeavour, though nothing really important comes to mind. Maybe the others can use their brains better than him.
Yasmeena wonders aloud, "Did Kardswann have any treasure hidden elsewhere? It seemed odd to me that all he had was what he carried on his person."
"I don't think Kardswann is the source to go to for advice on fighting that thing. He failed miserably at it." Zastoran objects.
"About the treassure, I guess that would be the chest that we found under the bed when the rooms were redecorated for Princess Almah. It contained gems and coins worth thousands of gold pieces."
The other part is, that Kardswann fell under a charm mosnter spell.
From that and the history of Kelmarane you conclude that the thing mostly work by manipulating people. So a good strategty would protect against such magical manipulation. You also remember having read something about such creatures being resistant to energy attacks.
Beyond that it's hard to tell, as Kardswann doesn't seem to have experiences of actually fighting the thing.
Aithaloessa is unusually subdued throughout the meeting, somewhat the worse for wear for her long vigil the evening before and since the crack of dawn cooking weird mushrooms, and then promptly absorbed by the question of whether there’s anything she can do to resist any sinister influences beneath the temple.
Seeing Zastoran’s necromancy jogs her memory. Oh, of course! It won’t be much, but it might help, or give a second chance in the worst case…
The talk of tactics and treasure calls something else to mind. Or maybe the coffee is finally hitting her bloodstream, and she perks up for the first time this morning. “Hmm. Or, now that we know a bit more about what he found down there, can we ask about what he was looking for? I doubt it was something to eat his brain.”
"Why not. I don't have any better questions and we're running out of time. Kardswann, who is the carrion King and what were you looking for in the crypt?" Zastoran inquires.
The skull answers in creepy, echoing voice again "I was just curious what is locked away there. And as I could simply bypass the lock in ethereal form, I checked."
"As for the Carrion King: That is a legendary gnoll that managed to get all gnoll tribes to serve him. He is the true ruler of these mountains."
With that the skull falls silent.
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Antarah nods feeling wiser. He says "This is interesting, a gnoll leader. I wonder how he feels about our taking Kelmanare. Now, should we try to establish contact for trading?"
He is trying to avoid the subject of the evil in the temple. "I should try and research protective magic. I wonder if any of the merchants here has anything."
Later, he walks through the market, trying to find anyone who might have magic scrolls with protective magic he can copy to his spell book.
Interesting, Aithaloessa muses as the skull falls silent, her eyes lighting up with the interest of a dangerously curious apprentice mage. She asks Zastoran, “Is this a one-and-only type of spell, or could we cast it again later? It’s good to have learned what we did, but I wonder if it would let us snatch a clue about what happened to the other Templars.”
Even so, she’s hardly looking forward to the idea of stashing away Kardswann’s skull for future reference. Antarah’s questions provide a welcome, if eyebrow-raising, distraction. Maybe the combination of elven longevity, Alkenstar’s unique position squeezed between two regional powers with an unhappy history, and its significant dwarven population have skewed her sense of politics, but she expects these neighbours will need especially good fences, if they’re anything like the Mana Waste mutants she’s used to.
Antarah nods feeling wiser. He says "This is interesting, a gnoll leader. I wonder how he feels about our taking Kelmanare. Now, should we try to establish contact for trading?"
“I imagine they would be even harder to negotiate with than the bloodsuckers in Geb. We might want to dig our heels in here quite firmly first,” she suggests, before some of the more frightening cautionary tales she learned at her mother’s knees about the wiles of demons inspire another alarming possibility. Addressing the whole group, she wonders, “Does anyone else worry that this insect demon could be pulling quite a few strings here? Just hypothetically, if I wanted to spread destruction deliberately –”
(She fully anticipates that Tariq will never let her live the old monastery down.)
“– I wouldn’t set a petty ruffian underneath the self-made king of all gnolls in the forgotten hills of the Mountains of Nowhere, unless I also had my claws in that king.”
"You can cast that spell on a dead person once a week. If you have the scrolls for it. I don't, that was the only one." Zastoran replies. And if I had one I would for sure not waste it on your curiosity.
About the grand scheme he comments "You might overestimate the power of that demon. It got hold of Kardswann, because he stepped into the crypt. The pactmasters did a proper job when sealing that thing away. How would it get its claws into the carrion king?"
But maybe it makes perfect sense:
G1: Take those prisoners away
G2: I have this seal that will make sure they won't get away, shall I ...
G1: Shut up. The prison will work fine
G3: All the kings horses have broken out of the stables
G1: Go send some men to catch them again
G2: Shall I place the seal on the stable once they are in again
G1: No you idiot, what's it with you and this seal?
After fighting almost all of Kelmarane and pushing back the demon into the crypt
G2: I still have this seal here, shall I
G1: Screw it. Put it on the door and be done with it. I don't want to hear of that f*!!ing seal or that cursed demon ever again.
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Antarah says "Yes, maybe it's better to find ways to get an upper hand on this gnoll. So, according to Father Zastoran, the demon may be stronger in the crypt. Maybe we protect our minds and it is not as strong physically. Maybe Kardswann was weaker mentally than we're willing to admit?"
Meanwhile, he opens his book on genies searching for anything about the demon.
"So you're suggesting we lure him out of the crypt, right?" Tariq comments, scratching his beard. "How could we do that? Just opening the door?"
About the grand scheme he comments "You might overestimate the power of that demon. It got hold of Kardswann, because he stepped into the crypt. The pactmasters did a proper job when sealing that thing away. How would it get its claws into the carrion king?"
“True,” Aithaloessa concedes, thinking it over. “Small mercies, then, that Kardswann wasn’t all that ambitious, but then again, he seems to have attracted this Carrion King’s attention to the area.”
To Antarah and Tariq’s speculation she offers, “It would take almost all of my spells for the day, but I think I could ward our minds from intrusion by evil intelligences for a few minutes. Or give someone a second chance if we risk keeping that magic in reserve.”
To Tariq’s question in particular she adds, “Or drawing him out by a quick strike? Provided we don’t risk letting something loose over the whole countryside, I suppose.”
Good thing we still have those arrows, she thinks. She also cudgels her brains for general attributes of demons, like elemental resistances and, especially, the odds that a bug-shaped demon in particular would be able to just teleport away if it got through a magical binding.
She shakes her head in resignation, knowing her own mental fortitude is less than that of most mages. “Also, just in case, in advance, if I start going on about how a witch queen needs minions for her triumphal march to the north, please knock me out gently?”
Oxvard and Felliped who didn't come to Kelmarane with the princess finally arrive too and find their way to the bar.
Haleen casually walks in on the conversation putting her arms around Yasmeena and Tariq. "Shall I come along to make sure you don't end up dead, or are you good this time?"
"I don't want to be invited to any of your funerals anytime soon. You have to promise me to be careful!"
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Antarah sits with the two former prisoners and orders them a mild drink. He says "Hey, did you expect to come back here so soon? The town looks different when you're here to have a drink and not in shackles, right?"
After a while he says "Say, Oxvard, I'm sure you have power that can help us with a problem. Did you manage to find yourself a holy symbol?"
[b]"No, I'm not the crafter type and shopping options are scarce around here. I checked the stall over there by they didn't offer any holy symbols. But as we were stripped of all equipment when imprisoned here they might have kept all of that somewhere.
"Oh, wow, that's great. Thank you, you saved me again!" Oxvard tells. "Sure, it's the least I can do. What is It you need?"
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Antarah smiles and says "Well, we will need to fight a dangerous demon in the next few days, maybe tomorrow. If you could bless us with protection from mental domination when the time comes, it will be very helpful, and we will be even. After all, that would save us!"
The large Garundi man hopes he is not being too ominous to the priest, but he seemed eager enough to help.
Mulling over what she knows about demons and the snippets gleaned about what happened to Kardswann, Aithaloessa murmurs her strange magely musings mainly to herself as she drifts about in the others’ wake. “So no energy spells, not that I’ve studied much more than cantrips, really… But it doesn’t sound like anything nastier than a long-lasting charm, which shouldn’t mean much more than an awkward conversation or two, unless some of us are hiding more ruthless streaks than I thought, and –”
She refocuses on Antarah’s request from Oxvard, and does her best to be reassuring, not wanting to deputize people who would be in over their heads, “Thank you. And don’t worry, you can just leave us at the door, and then get clear.”
Turning to her fellow warrior-mage, she adds, “The most obvious spell doesn’t last long , so we’d have to move quickly, maybe clear one section at a time, depending on what’s under the temple exactly. Fortunately, after a bit more thinking about it, I don’t think whatever this demon pulled over Kardswann just overrode his instincts. So long as we trust one another, I don’t think he could force us into lethal confusion.”
"I'll be sure to ask for good protection spells, though sadly I'm too much of a novice still." Tariq wonders which of those spells will really make a difference, given the more than possible disparity on power level between the demon and him.