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Hazreem pauses again here, again overcome with memories of the past, before responding, "No, not prisoners. We are here to free you and return you home."
"Rombard!!!" Ohrmizd runs to hug the goat escapist "I thought you were lost! Hadrod and Hadrah, good to see you are safe too! I have been missing that stew of yours"
The Kheleshite nods to Garavel then "You see boss, your gold has well paid off, we found you, we stopped Jhavul and his ritual"
He even has an smile for the Father Zastoran "Long time no see. How is your back doing?"
"Rombard!!!" Ohrmizd runs to hug the goat escapist "I thought you were lost! Hadrod and Hadrah, good to see you are safe too! I have been missing that stew of yours"
...
Omari whispers to Heshan "There's something not right about that boy..."
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Omari whispers to Heshan "There's something not right about that boy...""Rombard!!!" Ohrmizd runs to hug the goat escapist "I thought you were lost! Hadrod and Hadrah, good to see you are safe too! I have been missing that stew of yours"
...
"But he's always entertaining to watch."
With that said he addressed the friends who came all this way to them. "Fear not. We arrived not under your prisoners wishes, but on our own accord. But dare I ask how you all ended up in this situation?"
"As you for sure know, Kelmarane was conquered and we were taken prisoners and brought to this place together with many more." Garavel explains.
"And this prison is a very malicious one. It provides every comfort inside, has no bars and no locked door but you still can't leave because of the deadly enviromment outside."
"You said you bested Jhavhul - I hope you have means to bring us out of here unsinged quickly. As this mansion is only temporary, and with the creator gone we might face a fiery fate soon."
"Fear not," Seriyle speaks up here, "I can plane shift all of you back to your home now. You just need to link your hands together..."
"Yeah, it seems we need to make you out of here. Hear Seriyle, she is a friend of us" Ohrmizd obeys himself, sheathing his scimitar and offering his left hand to Heshan while taking Rombard from the neck "Otherwise we will need to carry you flying in carpets and big friends, it is going to be cumbersome and dangerous and take some time"
"Ok, just take them, we will make our way back by foot" Ohrmizd points to the tongues of fire covering the caverns "Or carpet, that is"
He then waits to see if the magic transportation is successful.
Garavel organizes the preparations for the travel. Then everyone holds hands and Seriyle disappears with the prisoners. The rest of the party is left behind in the manor with all imaginable comfort, service and a feast on the table.
Seriyle and her new travel companions find themself in an unpleasantly hot desert with nothing but sand in sight in all directions.
Seriyle grumbles under her breath, "Lovely...more deserts..." She motions for the former prisoners to gather around, "I can provide water for you all but shelter may be an issue."
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The people are not new to the desert and Garavel can tell after questioning Seriyle and making some observations that they ended up in Osirion.
Waiting for dusk in the shadow of a permanent image that Seriyle created the group marches in South-East direction. Garavel double checks his assumption once the stars become visible. Before dusk they reach The Crook - one of the rivers that runs through Osirion - and two hours later they arrive in Ipeq, a large town.
It is still a mayor inconvenince to be that far from Kelmarane, but it is no longer a life threatening situation and Seriyle has some coin on her to smooth out most of that inconvenience from here on.
"Well, easy that was. Everyone saved" Ohrmizd states confident seeing his friends now free and going. He takes a bite at the food at the mansion "It would be a pity to see this spoiled..."
When the group is ready he points back "We still have to get out of this place and reach Kelmerane. Unless you want to travel magically again, I would say we take the first tunnel to the east and try to circle around"
"The obvious way out back along the route we came - after all, we cleared that path of enemies on our way in. Still, Javhul might have something like a treasury down here, and we could use the money to rebuild Kelmarane."
15 rank +4 wis+7 racial
"Not sure why that lava is flowing in the wrong direction but it looks like someone doesn't want anyone passing that way..."
"I don't get it... Could it be some sort of illusion?"
Omari knows that lava won't flow uphill without magic, so he casts Detect Magic and tries to figure out the phenomenon...
12 rank +3 trained
"That was a good call there Omari, though why would Jhavul bother with such magicks when he has the real thing to play with?"
A pool of bubbling lava fills this small chamber behind the fake lavafall from wall to wall. Hazreem sees through that too and finds that this is where Jhavhul stores some riches in the half that isn't filled with real lava. Still one should avoid stepping into the molten stone.
Jhavhul’s treasury sits upon the north bank of the lava pool. Filling a number of chests, coffers, and urns, or just scattered across the floor, it consists of 10,361 sp, 10,850 gp, 833 pp, a variety of gems and jewels worth a total of 13,500 gp, and an impressive collection of art objects worth a total of 10,700 gp. In addition, there is a 10-foot-by-10-foot carpet of flying, a complete set of four elemental gems (Air, Earth, Fire, and Water), an obsidian steed figurine of wondrous power, an iron golem manual, and a necklace of strangulation. Finally, there is a set of 3 identical brass flasks with lead stoppers. One is an eversmoking bottle, another is an efreeti bottle, and the third is an empty iron flask.
"That was a good call there Omari, though why would Jhavul bother with such magicks when he has the real thing to play with?"
"Genies, they all have a tremendous love of tricky...
"Yeah agreed," Hazreem lays out the carpet and gathers up the chests and art objects here, "This will go a long way towards rebuilding Kelmarane."
Once the party is ready to leave Hazreem wonders, "Maybe we should make sure no one else is hiding in this place. I don't want to see anyone else pick up where Jhavul left off."
"Look at that" Ohrmizd observes impressed at the treasury "It seems we are rich at the end of all this"
"I tell you this, if I do not get a private audience with the Princess after all this, I am going to be very pissed off for using this to help rebuild the town just for the next genie who decides to come visit us"
Omari looks around and makes the obvious observation: "This is a dead end, we will have to turn back. I never did get to complete my spellbinding to prevent Javhul from being ressurected - we got interrupted by that suicidal sorceress. Let's go back there, I cast my binding, and then we can destroy Javhul's body. That is as much as we can do to prevent him being brought back... "
Omari rides Khedron back to D14 and resumes his praying.
This time no one interrupts Omari.
"Weird... I thought we had finished the ritual already." Either way, it seems like the threat from the genie will come to an end now.
Ohrmizd sits patiently for the magics to take its curse "The divine path requires so much patience of sacrifice. I am glad you were here to bring that into the party Omari" the Kheleshite observes, only standing up when the ritual is finished "What about Jhavul's own ritual? Anyway we can destroy that skull too?"
"I can cause an earthquake here," Hazreem replies, "which should be enough to destroy the skull and anything else inside this cavern."
"I would like to make as sure as I can that Javhul will not return. My ritual will bind his soul to rest eternal, but such magics can be overcome. Do we have any means of destroying his body?"
"I can cause an earthquake here," Hazreem replies, "which should be enough to destroy the skull and anything else inside this cavern."
"Let's leave that for later, I don't want to be underground if you are throwing around earthquakes.
"I would like to make as sure as I can that Javhul will not return. My ritual will bind his soul to rest eternal, but such magics can be overcome. Do we have any means of destroying his body?"
"I could summon a purple worm or a tyrannosaurus rex to devour the body."
"I would like to make as sure as I can that Javhul will not return. My ritual will bind his soul to rest eternal, but such magics can be overcome. Do we have any means of destroying his body?""I could summon a purple worm or a tyrannosaurus rex to devour the body."
"That works..."
Ohrmizd sits patiently for the magics to take its curse "The divine path requires so much patience of sacrifice. I am glad you were here to bring that into the party Omari" the Kheleshite observes, only standing up when the ritual is finished "What about Jhavul's own ritual? Anyway we can destroy that skull too?"
Omari moves on to Ohrmizd's question, "I agree that if we can disperse the energies built up so far, we should do so. I'm not sure if some other maniac could pick up Javhul's leftovers and continue his plan, but I'm sure that I don't want them to be able to."
He turn to Heshan "You're our expert at magic, how do we undo what Javhul wrought?"
Heshan shook his head as he raised his shoulders up. "I am not sure what can be done at the moment. And I do not have any magic that would reduce the genie to dust. I could if we retrieved a scroll of a spell that can do such a thing."
"It should be possible to revert what Jhavhul did here. But destroying the heart of the Firebleeder is a different topic. The gods themselves would need to intervene for that." Ohrmizd explains as he examines the topic.
"Why don't we just pick up Jhavul's body with us for now? We might find the way to disintegrate it or just find a wish that help us prevent his return" the Kheleshite observes.
"As about what to do with the place... we can try to create that earthquake once we are out... or we can talk with the remaining genies to maybe build a temple here to protect the place against further attempts to raise the Firebleeder" Ohrmizd sighs at that point "If no one else offers to, I could devote the rest of my life at building a monastery and an order here for such goal. If nothing else, I think I would find Sarenrae's favor to commit to seal this place from evilness for the time being"
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"Well Seriyle can help us out with the wish magicks, and I am sure the other genies would help as well," Hazreem nods in agreement, "I do like to idea of joining such an order as I the people I have known are no longer alive." He wipes a tear from his eye.
"I say we take the corpse with us and then collapse the cavern entrance with an earthquake, just before we leave this accursed place."
...
"Why don't we just pick up Jhavul's body with us for now? We might find the way to disintegrate it or just find a wish that help us prevent his return" the Kheleshite observes.
"Look at him Ohrmizd, all of us working together couldn't lift that corpse..."
"Call your worm Hazreem, it's what we've got..."
He continues "If we don't know how to undo this ritual ourselves, well, we do know an expert on genie magics - Rayhan. We could consult with him..."
"Very well Omari..."
After some preparation Hazreem works his magic, a gargantuan purple worm appears and on command swallows the corpse of Jhavhul.
"Well, that's as done as we can make it right now...", Omari gestures to the south passage , "That passage was a dead end, shall we try this other one?"
Ohrmizd contemplates the worm in awe "Well, that was huge indeed"
Then nods agreeing with Omari "Let's move there and get out of here"
"On that we can all agree on." He followed the others over to the next room.
Glittering crystals of all sizes adorn this cavern, littering the floor, protruding from the walls, and stretching across the room like bridges in every direction. The crystals range in size from a few inches to dozens of feet long, from the thickness of a finger to the width of a tree trunk.
In the southern portion of the cave, a small cottage made of crystal stands among the sparkling crystal forest. It is lavishly furnished inside, containing a huge canopied bed draped with silks and piled with cushions, a small dressing table, wardrobe, and a tall mirror against the wall.
Filth and the rotted remains of a variety of humanoid bodies cover the floor of this cavern, filling the room with the noxious smell of decay. Fire gutters from vents in the ground, above which shrieking men and women have been lashed spread-eagle between stalagmites with red-hot chains. A silken pavilion sits incongruously in the center of the chamber, filled with deep cushions, plush divans, and small tables covered with a veritable feast of fine foods and wines.
A huge creature relaxes on a couch in the pavilion. Metallic green scalish, spiky skin, horns on the head, sharp teeth in the muzzle and crab claws for arms/hands. Despite the appearance bids you welcome and offers them food and drink and is generally disarmingly charming. "I'm Nathan. And you are? What brings you here?" he inquires curiously as if waken from stupefying boredom.