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- Not so bad for such a weakling, kid! But I have seen real monsters... creatures from the depths of the Dark Tapestry and from the very Bottom of the Abyss, where even demons are afraid to poke their noses... You're no match for them.
She snaps her fingers and nothing seems to have changed, but Gillian gives the demon a sly look.
- Try again.
- Dear, would you mind?
And the invisible force is trying to grab the demon!
The Deva, finding that magic is unlikely to work, rushes forward with his flaming greatsword. He catches a claw across the face as he flies in, but then delivers a truly devastating blow to the demon in return, cleaving deep into the chest of the demon and very nearly cleaving the thing in two.
Wynn then loads and fires his Named Arrow. Pulling back the sting, the arrow pulls in eldritch power from nearby, the tip perceptively shifting to line up with the demon's heart. Takrilak seems to go a pale purple looking at the thing.
The arrow flies from the bow faster than anything Wynn had fired before. The thing slows as it hits that bubble of power that seemed to spring up against the deva's Holy Smite. The arrow presses against it and then seems to lose all magical power. The now normal arrow passes through the barrier and buries itself into the demon, but misses the more vital parts.
Wynn then fires one more arrow at the flagging demon, and this one strikes right into the heart, stopping it from beating. Takrilak holds up a hand and bunches it into a fist before tucking his thumb into his middle finger and shaking it at the party, clearly insulting you, as he fades from existence.
Molly fires off a few arrows at the demons, her first shot hits and then she misses twice, before she dares her self to hit properly and hits again.
Hendric lances out at the ghosts focusing on the same one as Molly, and hits twice before missing a few times. Green looks battered and nearly gone, but still floats outside the barrier, glaring at the living inside.
++++++++++++++++
Purs -23
------------------
Molly
Peter
Azata
Gillian -46
Dear
Sir Hendric -10
Wynn
Yellow Ethereal Pus -47
Purple Ribbons -50
Green Ectoplasm -162
Red Ghost Blood -18
Takrilak Killed and sent back to the abyss
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Current map
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The angel keeps up his holy smites with zeal until the scourge is ended. Fortunately, with such stalwart allies, this doesn't take long.
He turns to the pathfinders, Justice, a demon banished, and you victorious. Let me reverse any harm it caused, and he is able to soothe their wounds before returning to the celestial realm.
With the biggest threat in the room gone, the party turns on the undead and starts to pummel them with arrows, a lance and holy smites and maybe a cantrip or two. It takes slightly longer than a minute to finish all of them off, but it proves to be an easy fight.
Afterwards Mr. Deva casts a few healing spells on the few people harmed in the group and then vanishes back to his home plane, his duty done.
A few of the group fly up into the hidden chamber that Takrilak had been hiding in. Half of this chamber is an opening looking down into the room below. Upon the wide ledge that runs along the opening is an assorted collection of humanoid bones—gnawed clean, split open, and emptied of marrow. Peter and Gillian are able to quickly find that there's a small stash of gear under the bones of what were likely the jailers and ghosts down below. The stash contains a necklace of hollow gold beads likely worth about 2,000 gp, a decanter and six goblets carved from rose quartz (probably 5,500 gp for the set), a chalcedony seal depicting a pair of antlers over crossed arrows easily worth 1,165 gp, three fire opals well worth 1,000 gp each, and a number of pieces of finely crafted, antique Irrisen pottery worth a likely total of 4,500 gp. In addition to the smaller things are a pair of terribly hidden kettle drums that stand about 1 and a half feet (46 cm) wide and are nestled in a linked stand. Detect magic shows they are magical, and Gillian recognizes them as Drums of Panic.
There proves little else in any of the other rooms or areas, but some nearly frozen over furniture and the remains of some frozen blood patches here and there.
============
Moving back into the main room of the area, the party moves up the last remaining space to visit on this level. The door to the north lead into a short over hang where a natural fissure has formed in the ice of the waterfall where it meets the stone of the cliff face. It plunges over one hundred sixty feet to near the base of the frozen feature. The rock face itself is broken by a series of shallow, natural terraces covered by only a few feet of ice. The ice is transparent enough to see the blackened corpses of hundreds of human warriors manacled to the cliff face. Many of the manacles hang empty or hold only the dismembered remnants of limbs. In some places, the ice has actually been chipped away to expose the rock wall, and the exposed manacles hang empty—their previous occupants conspicuously absent.
Bubbles gives a small shudder on Molly's head warning her somethings evil are living here, but seems to stay conscious so it can't be that strong. He then shudders even more as he realizes that the whole fissure seems to bear a single evil will to it.
His movement seems to scare a small owl out of its hiding spot. One of it's wings is hobbled and it quickly starts fall down the abyss. Four small wisps of light chase after it, the Will-o-wisps gleefully feeding on the dying bird, but before they can kill it, shadowy arms, much like those you'd see on a veteran warrior, covered in scars and nicks, slowly unfurl from the wall and quickly latch onto the bird, draining it of strength until it stops trying to fly and plummets to the bottom, dead. The wisps follow, seemingly excited to have a living spirit to feast on.
Peter looks over the spot where the aberrations were and locates a silver-chased bronze goblet of ancient Kellid design. The thing is probably worth near 2,000 gp. A quick magical examination also shows it has been designed to allow its owner to cast detect poison upon the contents of the cup once per day.
===================
Seeing little else in this room and the level in general, minus the petrified ogre and his fancy, but petrified, barbed falchion, the group heads back up to the froze village square, the freezing fountain the only sound still echoing in the chilling town.
There's only a few more places to explore on this level as well, a pathway that leads up to the top of the Veil or a pathway that leads further down into the Veil
Upstairs Sir Hnedric muses over which route to take, seemingly evenly split between the two options open. Closer to the first one leading up there is a little light streaming down through and there may be just the faintest hint of a large best snoring. The other route has a faint almost electrical charge to the air around it.
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- Thank you for healing! I should be more careful. Well. Please allow me to add another grain of security to the life of the entire squad and bless each of you with the name of my Redeemer Queen. - She quickly reads a short prayer, sprinkling each of you in turn with a pleasant perfume.
- I don't have such options for scouting, Sir Hendric, but I have my own personal scout. Dear, please look at what's in that aisle, but be careful!
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Molly looks surprised at Gillian but nods her head in affirmation.
“ A blessing from Nocticula? Wonderful! I’ve been a fan of her followers ever since her accession and deeply admire her desire to be more that she was. Many new places of her worship offer shelter to those most in need without judgement. At least that’s how I see it.”
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Jillian nods happily and graciously.
- That's exactly what it is! I serve at the court of Queen Sorschen and see how our home, the kingdom of Eurythnia, become a place where strange talents can be revealed without censure! However, any place where there are followers of the true Queen of Midnight gets such shelters. Did you know that we are fighting the tyranny of the Shadow Court in Nidal? This is exactly the case. Side by side with the followers of Desna. Only more active. A young religion brings with it the life-giving energy of renewal... - she says all this quickly, excitedly, and enthusiastically, and then stops - I'm sorry, you've touched on a very important topic for me, so I can talk for hours about my goddess, Nocticula, and what a blessing she brings to our world. I'm afraid that's not appropriate right now, but I'm ready and happy to tell you more at the next camp, when there is one.
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Hmm, I wonder if I could lift the horse, the paladin, and his armor? Should I ask? No, no. Maybe later.
“I understand the hesitation Hendric, but remember that Ragathiel was once the son of an arch-devil. Anger issues aside, he is a great beacon of righteousness. I must have faith that anyone can turn their back on a life of wickedness and embrace the light. The Strong Man demands it.”
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"I do not fault any for who their sire might be.
My answer remains the same.
I am very hard to fool, but I have no doubt that a demon lord could deceive me. I will not place my trust in this fiend's claims to have changed. But on the chance that I may be wrong, I will not oppose those who choose to serve her. I will abstain."
Gillian sends Dear off to the stairs that rail down into the bowels of the falls. He has easy going for the very first part and then has to partially reweave the strands of telekinetic energy that make his form to even squeeze down the tiny stair case. As he progresses further, the ambient light from the sun outside seems to dim, a gloom and depression characteristic of negative energy on the air becomes heavier and heavier. He arrives at set of double doors, the woe heavy in the air.
Opening the doors an eerie sight greets his eye as he looks over the large chamber. Row upon row of identical, life-size ice sculptures depicting a bent-backed old crone with a skull-like face stand in perfect ranks. Each one is angled facing the door, and seem to stare at the invisible elemental with a foreboding sense of languish and woe, despite their expressionless skeletal grins. Each row of five statues across the way forms and completes a wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling barrier of negative energy, that would likely drain anything living rather quickly.
The emotional storm from the negative energy quickly ramps into a crescendo as Dear stands at the doors, and then fires off around the room as actual arcs of negative energy reach from statue to statue, not unlike a wizard releasing a series of lightening bolts. The energy quickly grounds itself into the walls, floors and ceilings, but given how it arced almost right up to Dear's tendrils, this would be hard to avoid getting caught in. It seems like the magics that set up the statues and the barriers has started to malfunction over the years.
Dear does spot a few things. The pristinely clear ice statues have some sort of black solid object buried in the center. There seems to be some sort of packet dropped in the center of the room. Finally, one of the statues close to him has been destroyed, but only the mask and ice that made it up remains, what every that black thing in the center was is nowhere to be seen.
After a few minutes to cast his spell, Wynn creates a small eye of force that bobs in front of him with little effort, sending it upstairs takes little time and it quickly finds the upper room of the Veil. Sunlight sparkles down from the last thick wall of ice that marks the top of the falls. This vast, many-columned chamber has icicles forming a maze of stalactites on the ceiling and frozen curtains and ice pillars throughout. The floor itself is crowded with broken shards from dozens of ice columns that have shattered, creating razor-sharp stalagmites of ice. For the eye it's easy to float past all of the objects, but anyone on foot would have a have to move slowly or risk cutting themselves on the razor sharp ice and having it freeze the blood in their wounds solid.
The eye bobs along and finds an area where the sunlight is streaming in with no ice barrier what so ever, a small sound of a sleeping beast slumbers beyond it, but before the eye flies up that way the glinting of something golden catches Wynn's attention. To the north is a giant 30 foot tall and 17 foot wide stalagmite, inside some large indistinguishable form can be seen. Around the stalagmite is a veritable hoard of objects and things, thousands of gold pieces, and tens of thousands of silver and bronze as well. In addition are some statuettes, some rolls of what must be scrolls and even a bladed scarf. Seems there is treasure up there.
Heading back to the hole into the outside of the Veil, the eye comes upon a frozen landscape atop the waterfall. That is until it comes in a little closer and the subtle movements of an Ice Linnorm napping in the little warmth the sun provides becomes clear. The beast likely left as a guardian, is clearly sleeping on the job.
Dear reaches out with his telekinetic tendrils, but they quickly fray and disintegrate as they pass through the barriers. Taking out some of the statues or some kind of anti-magic effect might help, but for right now there is no grabbing that packet without hurting Dear.
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- I don't see the point in killing a dragon yet. I don't think the artifact we're looking for will be in his treasure pile. About flows of negative energy... I can try to withstand them. I got one thing out of the infamous Bonekeep. It will help me take negative energy damage much easier. I can try to break through for the packet and come back.
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Molly grows anxious over the choice between going to meet the dragon or to focusing on the mission. Bubbles senses her feelings and whispering a quiet prayer, he helps her worries fade. She takes a deep breath of the cold air to center herself.
“OK OK, before we go diving into negative energy let’s try a few things first. Can we have a Mage Hand put a looped rope over whatever it is in the middle of the room then pull it out? Poke it with a ten foot pole? Can I shatter the statues with my fist or something fist-adjacent?”
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"I do have a scroll of Antimagic Field and the ability to use it fairly reliably. It would not be my first choice of a solution, but it is an option if we absolutely need it. Wouldn't Death Ward allow us to ignore the negative energy?
We could try to shatter the statues, but I am concerned there could be some consequences to doing so."
Gillian tries to recall what she can about these types of statues. From the description they sound like they might be directly tied to the negative energy plane by what ever is inside of them, and only exist because of it. Likely they would just repair or resist anything but the exact opposite, positive energy. Holy smite or basic channels would be powerful here. Dear has mentioned that there is one shattered statue, so it seems destroying them doesn't seem to cause any longterm problems but anything short term would have to be discovered first.
The barriers are very much that, barriers. The energy in them is strong enough to cancel out most spells but perhaps those that cancel magic entirely or disrupt magics. Something completely immune might also work, thus a death ward or something adjacent to it might help here too. But a the energies powering a mage hand would quickly degrade and fail.
Teleportation spells inside the Veil might work, though anything coming into or out of here would likely face some massive problems.
Peter prepares another summon spell, but as he starts to ask his deity for a casting of death ward Purs reaches over and tells the tiefling to not worry about preparing that spell.
The party heads down the stairs, hoping to get the most benefit of the summon spell. Peter summons the same deva as before, and Purs then tosses a death ward on it. As soon as he finishes casting the spell though, a grandfatherly voice that many would recognize as belonging to Old Deadeye himself echoes through the chamber. An arrow of light descends from nowhere, striking the wall next to the gnome and a portal to what looks like an idealized meadow appears. Purs, with a wave good bye, steps through and the portal quickly seals up behind him.
Innured to the negative energy, the deva able to fly up to the first level of statues and releases a holy smite. The clear negative affinity of the statues is clear by how horribly they take the positive energy of the smite, reacting as if they were evil outsiders and even then with no will of their own, melting rapidly.
It takes all the time the deva has on this plane, but it is able to fly in and among the statues of ice, decimating them all with holy power. As each statue melts and then ultimately shatters, a small white porcelin doll of a crouching crone tumbles from each. The sharp eyed notice that the one statue that had already been destroyed doesn't have one any more, if there was one in it to begin with. The figurines radiate negative feelings and magic auras as if each was a tiny pinprick into the negative plane.
Gillian is able to look over the bag and it is indeed magical but her examination shows that it's only a bag filled with dust of dryness. Given how it lies in the middle of the floor, it almost looks like it was dropped by someone passing through the barriers.
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"We could keep going further in. The linnorm is not actually in the way of our primary goal.
I am fine with either option."
Sir Hendric looks at the porcelain dolls. "One has been taken, by whoever passed through here before.
Remember the line from the poem?
'Supplicants kneel, of porcelain fine,
The banished queen to meet.'
Maybe you need to bring one of these dolls with you?
Perhaps we should each take one.
Peter, are they safe to touch?"
The are safe to the touch. It seems that these figurines of a kneeling old crone were the power source of whatever spells had been woven into the statues. Peter does note that any of the figurines that haven't been pulled from their previous statues are starting to build a layer of frost. At the rate they are going it would only be another 10 minutes or so before the room would be back to the way it was.
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“Hendric’s memory is correct, the poem mentioned ‘supplicants’. That word seems to indicate we need multiple statues. Hmm, maybe I’ll take another for Bubbles.”
Molly pops two statues out of the ice and places them in her pack while her hat recites the benefits of a high fiber diet for the glory of Kurgess.
“I bet that the frozen yogurt has softened a bit. A drip of honey and dried fruit would be perfect for a light snack. We have been here a while, haven’t we?
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- I think we're missing something. I can't figure out what it is. Not exactly in this place, but in the complex as a whole. Of course, we'll go and kill the dragon now. Anyway, I won't be surprised. But where to go next? There is still some passage for sure. But where and where...
She also takes two dolls (for herself and for the elemental) and then begins to remember what she knows about such linnorms.
The party gathers a couple of the figurines, one for everyone in the group, except for Wynn Leaving the room before the other figurines reform in the negative energy barriers and statues of earlier, the party heads up stairs.
A few voices point to going further up stairs and meeting with the linnorm. Along the way Gillian tries to recall what she can about the linnorm. She figures it's likely an Ice Linnorm from what Wynn was able to describe to her. The large snake like dragons are famous for their freezing ooze like breathes that tend to freeze their victims in place leaving them unable to move for a while. Additionally the creatures, like all linnorms, curse anyone who might be able to slay them. The ice linnorm tends to leave a person extremely vulnerable to the cold if it fails to bear out the cursing. Finally, given it's long sinuous body, the linnorm can readily grab and constrict someone in its tail. The creature is under the constant effects of Freedom of Movement and is completely immune to the cold, curses, things that affect its mind, paralysis, and the Sleep and Poison spells.
The group reaches the floor Wynn scouted out earlier. Large stalagmites and stalagtites of ice litter the space, a by product of the magics keeping the place frozen solid, fighting with the bright sun shining in from above. Occasional drips of water splash down, breaking the rhythmic sounds of the snoring linnorm burrowed into the ice above.
Ahead of the party is a hole leading up to the top of the falls, you could readily climb up onto the top from here and face the creature there. However, across from the hole is a massive pile of treasure surrounding a large mound of ice, a dark object frozen into it.
Sunlight streams in through the giant hole leading to the top of the falls, and glints softly off of the golden coins and other various treasures to the north.
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- Beautiful thought. I suggest everyone to spread out and prepare for battle.. I think the dragon will come out as soon as we start raking this pile.
After saying this, Gillian casts a simple invisibility spell.
- Dear, please bring us some gold from there. Just don't go there yourself, it might be dangerous even for you.- a beautiful voice is heard from a slightly different place.
Dear moves in a little closer ahead of the party and reaches out telekinetically, pulling a few choice items from the pile. A golden statuette with emeralds for eyes that might be a representation of Desna, a small ring and a few blue spinels likely worth a pretty copper or more. As he pulls the objects away the linnorm above rolls slightly, stretches its arms and then snuggles up in a new sun ray, completely oblivious. The giant icicle that the treasure surrounds though, gives a shake, cracks forming along the surface of it as the dark mass inside it shifts and wakes up.
It takes about 6 seconds for the thing to burst free of its frozen bed. Black liquid oozes from the cracks, widen them as they go, a series of mouths and eyes and human shaped limbs start to form on the surface as the thing rapidly shifts itself from the ice. A cacphony of words, garbled sounds and radom calls issue out from the living mass as it moves to ram after Dear.
Gillian and Peter both recognize this as a shoggoth, an ooze typically of the deeps, but here for some odd reason, perhaps it got frozen here when the falls were created? But anyways not an easy opponent and not one to be taken lightly, especially with its maddening cacophony of sounds that confuse and mentally obscure those who can't resist the sounds that mortals have no right hearing.
++++++++++++++++
Wynn
Molly
Peter
Gillian
Dear
Sir Hendric
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Round 2
Wynn
Molly
Peter
Shoggoth!
Gillian
Dear
Sir Hendric
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Current map