Tariq keeps swinging his blade at the elemental.
The elemental's life hangs on a thread, but it keeps attacking.
After this attack Aithaloessa finally manages to get her spell off and shoots the elemental out of existance. Only a little ash is left after the fire burns out.
Haleen rolls on the floor in the rain Aithaloessa summoned to put out the flames.
Aithaloessa has never been glared at by a toad before, that she can remember, but then again, this is the first time she’s turned anyone into one.
As it is, as the untransmuted elemental finally falls, the mage meets the eyes of the elemental/toad warily.
“Is everyone alright?” she asks, wondering to do with the critter that is, er, even more hopping mad right now. “And what do we do with this fellow? He looks quite displeased, so I’d guess I didn’t manage to change his mind along with his body. Should we, I don’t know, find a box and see if anyone in the city could use an irate polymorphed elemental? Just leave him here?”
“I think you could still talk to him, Tariq, if we’re inclined to be merciful and want to offer at least the chance that someone might be interested in changing him back.”
She really hopes that they’re not too far from the surface, and that the city proper is less hostile exciting.
"No." Haleen replies while looking like a burnt saussage in tatters.
Taking a peek into the secret room that the elementals came out from shows, that walls of this chamber are bare. A strangely shaped alcove
opens to the south.
Going further in and through the alcove to the next room you find the floors of this dimly lit chamber are marred by scorch marks and smears of smoke and ash. Light is provided by an ornate brazier that burns in a small side room, standing before a tall tripartite reredos of cast bronze. The wings of the reredos exhibit images of burning warriors engaged in battle with beings composed of whirlwinds or water. The large central portion, however, bears an engraving of an ornate fountain in exquisite detail.
"Beautiful!" Yasmeena marvels at the bronze artwork. "Is this some sort of guard room, perhaps? We could leave the toad in here-- though I suppose it would soon starve to death in here if it cannot find anything to eat. Sarenrae teaches us that mercy is paramount, so I would be willing to take the creature and care for it until we find our way out of this new prison." She looks around curiously. "What were the fire elementals guarding? Tariq, do you remember what they said to you when you tried to avoid bloodshed?"
"No." Haleen replies while looking like a burnt saussage in tatters.
“Would it help if Tariq took a look?” Aith volunteers the priest’s healing talents. “I mean, I could cast the same spell that’s doing this –” her gestures takes in her own rapidly fading bruises and burns “– but it would mean no more toad tricks if we need another.”
She nods her acceptance of Yasmeena’s suggestion of leniency, speaking of the toad to hand. Aith herself is probably vindictive enough that she wouldn’t worry about it too too much, but it is a nice thing to do, and if the transmuted elemental doesn’t make too much of a nuisance of itself throwing itself around a box in a bag, it’s hardly inconvenient.
As the group presses on through the deadly … vault? dungeon? tomb? all of the above? Aith takes a moment to consider what they’ve discovered so far as she takes in the screen in the next room.
“Right, so: having stumbled into a trap to replace an imprisoned genie, when we found a way to escape, we still seem to have been sent to his home plane, and perhaps someplace important to him? We landed among a fair bit of interesting furniture and loose coinage, and there was that wall painting with mortals on it, and we know Jhavhul had wicked designs on our world, and then there was that poor efreeti strung up to gloat over – or as a warning? So maybe some sort of vault and monument to past exploits?”
With that in mind the mage tries to decipher what’s being represented on the reredos, taking the opportunity to check her pistol as she does. The weird fungal growth that seems to come with the weapon is, despite how much she would prefer green plants, if it came to it, almost a comfort by now. At least, it's curiously cool even on this plane that Aith expects will only get warmer.
The panel is a magic device keyed to this place, showing what is going on like with a claivoyance spell, but as an engraved bronze image.
After looking at the reredos for a few moments, Aith has a flash of inspiration. It's subtle, but some of the engravings, that look decorative at first, look like they should mean something in Ignan. She has no idea what, but from glances she's caught at Tariq's books when he was teaching himself the language, the mage is pretty sure she could just about sound it out, badly.
"That's somewhere down here!" she says excitedly. "This is a scrying device, of sorts! I mean, it only lets you see things, but..."
She deflates a bit. "And, of course, we don't know how much of this place there is, really."
"Still," she says, brightening, "let's see what we can see!"
Unfortunately for poor Tariq's suffering ears, he gets to hear the mage mangle Ignan for a good half minute before she exhales in frustration and realizes that she's not likely to charm the thing into giving its secrets up anytime soon.
For all who are not too captured by the attempts to speak proper ignan, the engraving switches with each attempt of Aithaloessa. First to the hallway with the dead efreeti and the piles of dead fire elementals. Then a bare chamber, save for a few sitting rugs on the floor and the slumped, mummified form of a long-dead humanoid wearing shreds of decayed leather armor and silk scarves. It clutches a thin wand in one hand. Next the room you walked through to get to this device. Next a nice portrait of the group staring at bronze engravings. Next a room with open passages, where the floor is cluttered with all kinds of items, as if laid out for some unknown reason. And finally back to the fountain.
"Oh, um, I suppose I ought to slow down a bit," Aith says, just that little bit abashed. "Unless anyone caught a hint of how things are laid out a bit, or we want to take our chances with figuring things out as we go."
She considers the background of the fountain scene for anything that could serve to locate the room in relation to the rest of the complex, like a stairwell in one corner or the like.
Yasmeena admires Aithaloessa's discovery. "Aha, that's why all the fire elementals came out at us so quickly! They were protecting this area!" She watches the rooms go by and puzzles out where they must be. "Let us start with the room with the skeleton in it. It looks to be relatively safe, and I am curious about that wand!" Her gaze also lingers on the room with the treasures strewn about, and her friends can almost see her thinking that these presumably valuable items must be what the fire elementals were guarding.
“That does look promising, doesn’t it?” Aith agrees. “As does, maybe, this screen. If you were guarding a vault, would you want to have guards posted in the very depths, or at the only entrance out?”
“Well, probably both, I guess, and I suppose that explains the metal men below and the elementals up here,” she says, pausing to check her pockets to make sure she has ready access to the material components for a spell to help Haleen and/or Tariq not be battered around so easily if the group gets charged by a wave of monsters.
“I hope that is a proper fountain and not, I don’t know, either a geyser or boiling oil or the like,” she adds, proceeding to the next room cheerfully nonetheless.
The room with the mummy has no obvious door, but as the shape gives away that it has to be somewhere like the room the fire elementals came out it is not too hard to find.
The mummified creature is a long-dead azer. The wand the azer bears is a wand of magic missile (CL 7th, 17 charges).
The next chamber is dark, save for a single flickering lamp on the north wall. All of the room’s other lamps have gone out. A scattering of debris covers the floor—it looks like pieces of equipment, weapons, and assorted odds and ends including a large, rolled-up carpet. The brass walls are decorated with imprints of humanoids wreathed in flame, sitting upon prayer mats and bowing toward the exit to the west. Most of the items scattered about the room are mundane pieces of equipment and furniture. But a few items are of worth like a gold urn encrusted with sapphires worth 2,500 gp that holds the ashes of a dead, a half-melted crown of adamantine worth 500 gp, a cloak of resistance +2, a minor ring of cold resistance, a large +1 cold iron dagger, a 5-foot-by-10-foot carpet of flying, a bag of holding (type II) that holds a spell component pouch, 240 platinum pieces, and an extra set of equipment for azer mamluks—a suit of scalemail, a masterwork heavy steel shield, a masterwork warhammer, and 3 shortspears.
Yasmeena lets out a happy sigh of relief. She is almost giddy with happiness as she helps collect and distribute all of the treasure. "Sarenrae be praised, finally the goddess has seen fit to reward our efforts on her behalf," she says with a twinkle in her eye. She hums under her breath and involuntarily dances with what seems like pure joy.
"That is a lot of bling, we can't make use of here. Who would put that all on the floor?"
“Somebody disgustingly, obscenely, wealthy, I guess,” Aith says, as she calls on her magic again in an attempt to pick out what might be most useful to walk off with, “if they can just leave it lying around someplace they don’t visit often.”
Her eye twitches for a moment as if she’s worried that by saying as much she’s tempted fate to inspire the vault builder with a sudden desire to check in. Nonetheless, she hums tunelessly to herself as she focuses for a few moments on the things that catch her eye.
"Hmm, that is interesting," the mage adds as she points things out. "This ring is certainly magical, but I've no idea what it does, honestly."
She hands it over with a shrug to anyone who wants to take a look. And then she grabs a dusty carpet, unrolling it with a flourish of an energetic tug and tossing it up for it to land - in midair.
"Oh, I think we'll like this!" she says with a grin. "I'm sorry that I've never really prepared the sort of flight magic that can be shared easily, but this should redress the balance, I think."
"Leaving the ground behind is something else, you'll see," she coos, giving the tassel on the carpet's nearest corner an already affectionate tug.
"At least they put a bag there where everything can go in." Haleen states looking at all the - for her - useless stuff. The only item that would be interesting is made for giants.
And even sitting on a flying carpet dowsn't sound too apealing to her. For who wants to fight a flying genie in mid air when you're just one shove from plummeting to your death. But she keeps that to herself to not ruin Aithaloessa's mood. And why shouldn't she be happy. With all that magic, she's probably got a solution for that too.
Yasmeena oohs and aahs appropriately as Aithaloessa identifies the items. She takes the ring when the elf has difficulty with it and says, "Let us see if my bard magic gives us any insights?" With a little skip and a flick of her head, she activates her masterpiece and then looks over the item with distant, all-knowing eyes.
"I believe this ring was forged by efreets and other creatures of elemental fire, to protect them from the cold energy to which they are vulnerable," she intones in an otherworldly voice, as if reading a book no one else can see. "It is only a minor trinket, but I suspect it is quite valuable here, where everyone seems to be made of fire." She frowns, then, as if something has only just occurred to her. "Did we see a fountain in the next room? Why would there be a fountain here, where water is anathema?"
"That would be because of me." the next room calls back with an otherworldly beautiful female voice.
Once everything of interest has been scooped up, the response that Yasmeena’s question provokes startles Aith almost as much as if someone had pinched her pistol and set it off.
“Are you alright? Have you been trapped down here?” The questions spill out of the mage as she hurries around the corner to see who this fountain woman is. Some part of Aith is dimly aware that it could be a trap, but after enough of these rooms filled with people trying to kill her, a friendly voice is too welcome for her to resist.
Even the azers were sullen more than anything else, and whatever their undead leader was – well, whatever they were up to, it’s probably best not to think about it, as long as it’s not likely to spill over to the surface and the light of day.
The tinkling sound of falling water and a cool spray of refreshing mist are surprising features of this chamber. At its center stands a large fountain, its basin composed of fire-glazed porcelain inset with lapis lazuli and its central font constructed of marble of the purest white. A jet of cool water gushes into the air and falls back into the basin where it slowly drains away, causing the gas lamps to flicker in the moisture-laden air.
Risen from the water is a genie, and surprisingly none of the fire type.
"I am glad you have come, children of the Mortal Realms. Long have I languished in this place. I am a daughter of a line of rulers long gone from the Realm of Water. I am Shazathared. Many of your lifetimes ago was I tricked and abducted by the efreeti prince who would now be consort to Ymeri, Queen of the Inferno. Jhavhul was his name, and he called upon mighty magic of the ancients to imprison me within this fountain. He wanted me first to entertain him, but as his lust for Ymeri grew, his interest in me waned until, finally, he ceased his visits to me altogether. I know not what occurred, but Jhavhul has not returned in these many centuries, and I long for the companionship of my kin."
"While I know little of this palace of brass, I do know that somewhere within it lies a source of immeasurable power - a potent artifact hidden somewhere in the palace above our heads whose theft has brought down the curse that traps us all here. What it is I cannot say, other than that its presence feels like a malignant, choking algae on the surface of a spring pool. Find this source and either destroy it or have it taken from this place, and I feel that the curse upon this realm will be lifted. And with it, my prison shall be weakened. Free me, and you shall be richly rewarded and gain the eternal friendship of the Marid Court."
Aith’s jaw clenches at Shazathared’s explanation, and she murmurs, “What is it with tyrants and locking people up all the time?!? Don’t they realize the natural result is no one left to lord over?”
Before she gives in to her spleen absolutely, she takes a breath, lifts her head, and makes her introductions to the genie, “I beg your pardon for my distraction, Lady Shazathared. We too have been ensnared by the plots of Jhavhul, and work to undo his wrongs! If we can free anyone from his clutches, we will!”
The mage deflates a bit as she has to admit, “I’m afraid our world’s memory has not been any kinder to resisting him than this one’s: a mortal mage was able to trap him in a demiplane long ago, but in the ages that followed, Jhavhul’s influence somehow managed to ooze out and corrupt the binding. When the key to his prison resurfaced, he was able to escape by taking us in his place – we’ve only just managed to cut our way through, and as far as we know, we’re the only ones from our home that know he’s loose.”
“I think – from the stories I’ve read – that we must be in the City of Brass? I know you must have seen little of it, but could you tell us anything of where we are in the city? We appeared in the depths of the vaults below, and have been busy putting out fires working our way up the long stairs-”
She shudders at the memory of the monstrous worm. “-so we do need to get our bearings a bit, and find a way to make it less likely that we’ll be reduced to cinders in finding the artifact you mention. But we will find it, and free you along with ourselves.”
With that, Aith takes a moment to consider how they might get deeper into the – palace? above, and what it might take to steal or destroy whatever’s holding Shazathared here. She rather hopes it won’t come to the latter, given what she imagines must have happened to Kakishon, but if that’s what it takes…
"And perhaps," Yasmeena adds sweetly, "you wouldn't mind if we rested here with you for several hours before we continue? Defeating the guards who sought to keep us from you has nearly exhausted our strength, which was already lagging after the other creatures we have had to fight to reach this place."
"Resting you can, and it should be safe. And the climate in this room should be much more to your liking than the heat in the rest of this palace." Shazathared answers the easier question.
"Bayt al-Bazan is the name of this efreeti citadel in the City of Brass. Home to the family which Jhavhul is the latest spawn of. But as you found out yourself, he hasn't been here for a while."
"While you rest you could ponder what would help you in freeing us all from this place. What support you might wish for."
Having been invited to make themselves comfortable for a bit, Aith busies herself with helping to get the group’s tent set up. If nothing else, she imagines their hostess would also appreciate a change in scenery after however many centuries trapped in a tiny prison.
At Shazathared’s mention of strategizing and wished-for resources, Aith can’t help but let slip a rueful laugh. “I’m afraid we got a bit of a look at what was left of the person who managed to trap Jhavhul for at least as long as he did. Maybe if we had an army like when my people first returned to our homeland, or – although this is just my own inclinations talking – a truly ridiculously comprehensive spellbook, or…”
She stops short and pauses in her tent-setting-up as she realizes the possible implications of talking to an ancient genie of a powerful family.
“I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to be trivial,” Aith says, exchanging a meaningful look with the other Knights of Kelmarane. “We’ll have to think about it a bit, I’m sure, and share suggestions beyond those that come most easily to a mage. And not necessarily the most imaginative, I must add – I grew up in a place without magic, so when I came to it later, it was through rather particular study…”
Surely Shazathared can’t actually mean a wish in the sense of that pinnacle of magic, calling something into being more or less out of sheer will, without the very precise delimitations and materials of lesser spells?
She curtseys as she holds the tent-flap for everyone. “Please, let’s get everyone as comfortable as can be. I’m afraid it might have to be Goodberry Surprise for dinner tonight again, unless Tariq’s got other ideas up his sleeve.”
Yasmeena feels confident she knows what the marid meant, and she gives Aithaloessa a significant look as she enters the tent. "Yes, a change of scenery seems like just the thing right now. Allow us to host you for the time being, and to see to your wishes as you will see to ours."
"Mind if I use your pool for a bath? It has been too long that I could enjoy that. I feel like a roasted chicken in this place." Haleen inquires from the genie.
Once inside the tent, Aith whips out her go-to “roughing it” spell that at least means a few berries will do the trick rather than having to search her pack for a desiccated biscuit.
There’s not much she can do for presentation, since she’s not one for the precious displays of the most decadent sort of eatery. Fussing with magic, of course, is another matter.
“Did I miss another door?” the mage asks distractedly, as she searches various sleeves and pockets of her bag for the items she’s looking for.
“I have to admit, I am rather easily distracted,” she confides to their guest, as she tracks down the oils and wand Lahapraset offered to them in Kakishon, extracting them with a flourish. “Aha! In the worst case, if we can figure out the right direction, we might be able to just go through the walls!”
“I suppose finding the right direction might be one of the tricky bits of finding a way out of here. You mentioned you could sense something of the artifact that binds you here? Is there some way we could track it? Or a guardian that you know of?”
Once again, a magical conundrum is all but irresistible to Aith, and she promptly considers what divinations she might be able to muster.
Bayt al-Bazan (the place where you are) is a massive efreeti citadel in the Noble District of the fabled City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire. The palace is constructed entirely of living brass and abuts the great brass wall that encircles the city, overlooking the surrounding Sea of Fire. Its highest dome rises 250 feet above the surrounding streets, and it includes a sublevel that lies below its foundations. Each level is 50 feet high with 40-foot ceilings and 10 feet of living brass separating one floor from the next, providing an extremely open and airy atmosphere for the Large-sized efreet who called it home. The living brass walls vary in thickness from a foot to many tens of feet. Doors are of living brass 6 inches thick, and have a handle on each side. All doors have locks, though most of the keys have long since been lost.
Disgust sneaks on Shazathared's face. "I would prefer if you'd not do that." she replies to Haleen's request.
Turning her attention to the elf she comments "No, you're on your own with that one. I haven't seen anything of the insides of this place but this room."
Haleen has to go without a bath, but otherwise it is a peaceful rest in the magical tent for a night - if it is a night, hard to tell from that place.
No new inhabitants of the fire plane show up and the azers with their undead leader also stay away.
And the marid princess is still there in the 'morning' and happy to see you.
“What little I’ve got for scrying isn’t the most powerful or efficient,” Aith says, looking up from the notes in her spellbook as she considers what it will take to cast such spells. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be very good company for the next little while, and I apologize in advance for my singing voice.”
The next little while sees the elf mage close her eyes and rock back and forth a bit in concentration as she quietly sings, a few times over, a long, long incantation to cast her sight beyond the walls of their hostess’ prison, trying to get a sense of what’s outside, and keeping an eye for any passersby that she can see.
“Hmm,” she says thoughtfully after all that, before reporting what she’s been able to glean to her friends. “I should also be able to jump us through the wall with a bit of short-range teleportation. In the morning, once we’ve had a chance to get some rest?”
The lulling singing ends rather quick and is replaced by a grumpy mumbling when the magic doesn't provide the expected results. Either the sensor is stuck in solid material, or something else is wrong with the magic around here.
Once awake again Haleen inqures "What can you wish from a genie? More wishes? I guess that magic has limits, or we could wish us and the princess out of this place. But what are those limits? And what would be most useful for us to wish for?"
Yasmeena thinks. "If more wishes are not allowed, perhaps instead we could wish for more genies?" She laughs to indicate she isn't serious. "Couldn't we wish for her to be freed from her prison? Something tells me that would be too easy, but maybe no one has disturbed her here in a very long time, or perhaps she thinks no one would 'waste' a wish on her? In the stories, wishes used for the benefit of the genie tend to work out better for everyone involved. Greedy or selfish wishes usually lead to bad outcomes and unintended consequences."
When Aithaloessa's scrying magic fails, Yasmeena tilts her head. "Maybe we can gain the information we seek via our wish? I have heard tales of an arcane spell that conjures several tiny eyes, eyes that follow commands to explore an area and return to report what they have seen. Knowing what we are up against might be our greatest weapon for defeating the creatures who are holding the princess captive here."
When her spells fail to produce any results, Aith blushes and – though she tries to rein in the worst of it – shows the others what a sulky mage looks like for the rest of their break to recover from their ascent to … wherever they are, exactly. There’s a fair bit of surly muttering about possible countermeasures built into the architecture, or the possibility that it was built before Jhavhul had alienated a bunch of other shaitan friends like those trapped in Kakishon, and so could be carved out of the base of the city with arbitrarily thick walls. It’s a bit unhinged even by Aith’s standards.
Fortunately, after a bit of rest, she manages to wrangle her mood into something less truculent. As discussion turns back to wishes, Aith wonders if there’s something she’s missing. A passage that she overlooked leading somewhere else? While the idea of a mobile scrying focus is appealing, the wildly, recklessly experimental part of the elf, willing to play around with raw magic, wonders…
“It’s an idea. It would be brilliant if we could just know where we need to be and what we need to do to get us all out of here. Ideally, with anything necessary in our hands.”
Her glance grazes the pistol at her side. Whatever it grows on her, while she could feel its enthusiasm for hurling freezing lead at Jhavhul’s fiery underlings, a wayfinder it is not, unless in all the running and shouting and shooting its contribution to her inner voice was drowned out.
As Aithaloessa walks up and down spouting ideas she is startled as her reflection on the polished brass walls suddenly changes. "This palace is accursed - an inescapable trap devised by the grand vizier of the sultan’s court. I have not the time to tell my tale, though a tale worth telling it is, but I too am a victim of this eternal prison and grow weary of its confines. We will speak again. If you would be free, then heed my words well, for we may each hold the key to the other’s escape."
After this message Aithaloessa's reflection turns back to normal.
"Oooh, mysterious guy being mysterious." Haleen comments sarcastically.
As Aithaloessa walks up and down spouting ideas she is startled as her reflection on the polished brass walls suddenly changes. "This palace is accursed - an inescapable trap devised by the grand vizier of the sultan’s court. I have not the time to tell my tale, though a tale worth telling it is, but I too am a victim of this eternal prison and grow weary of its confines. We will speak again. If you would be free, then heed my words well, for we may each hold the key to the other’s escape."
After this message Aithaloessa's reflection turns back to normal.
“What?! No! Come back!” Aith squeaks in alarmed protest as her reflection shifts and speaks, and she wonders if maybe, just maybe, she’s finally snapped after being hurled from one further-dimensional prison to another. Remembering her manners, she adds, belatedly, “Please?”
She tries to think if this could actually be a real person blending into? conversing through? trapped in? the walls. Is that an efreet thing, or some other fire element sort of person? As far as she knows, it’s more of an earth creature and simple elemental trick, but then she hasn’t really pushed her studies in the direction of the inner planes recently.
She’s rather inclined to agree with Haleen, and she turns her wide eyes to the others. “Please tell me I don’t normally sound so smugly cryptic.”
"Rarely so smug," Yasmeena smirks. "Never cryptic."
Haleen gets overwhelmed by negative emotions and starts ranting. "Why can't this be some clear instruction. I really wonder, if that guy will help us or if we're set up for another epic failure. So far we almost burned down an old monastery, released Jhavhul onto Katapesh which might as well burn that down. And last but not least we destroyed the fabled artifact - and world of its own - the Scroll of Kakishon. All while imprisoning ourself first in Kakishon and now here."
"I'm seriously considering to change my name and start over somewhere else if we make it back. Somewhere noone knows me and the deeds I were involved in. I've heard Varisia is a nice place."
"I wish, we could be heroes like those from the big legends, who change the world for the better, instead of this successon of failures."
"Wish granted." Sharzadthared comments as a wave of powerful magic washes over the room and beyond surrounding all in sparkles for a short moment.
Yasmeena has been idly watching the brass walls since Aithaloessa saw a talking reflection, curious if the rest of the party also has them. She is briefly excited when she sees her own reflection move out of the corner of her eye, fancifully imagining that they have secret allies hidden in the walls, but then she realizes it is just Haleen moving behind her. How lovely it would be to animate our mirror selves! she thinks, as Sharzadthared's magic fills the area.
"What was that?" Haleen calls out startled.
While Yasmeena watches her reflection her face turns into someone else's. "The secret of the brass ship is in the divine fire that guides its way. Light the prow or the waiting post with the flame that cannot be quenched."
Yasmeena only barely registers the reflection's new cryptic words. She nods, as if listening to someone far away, and turns to look at Haleen. As she does so, her image begins to shift. She fades slightly, looking a bit like a reflection herself. Likewise Haleen shimmers and appears ghostly for a brief moment. Slowly, the two figures blur and refract, each splitting into another figure. These two reflections twist and begin to overlap, and finally form into one figure, a woman who looks a bit like Haleen and a bit like Yasmeena.
Yasmeena gasps and collapses into herself, as if she had just done something extremely exhausting. "That-- that was-- I don't know what that was," she admits, panting. She looks at the woman standing there between her and her old friend. "Who are you?" she asks, warily. Her hand goes to her bow, but she seems too tired to draw it. "Where did you come from?" She looks back at the brass wall where the reflections had been, but everything there looks ordinary again. Yasmeena's reflection is still sparkling a bit, but she realizes that is because she is sparkling a little too.