Okay, these things are probably vulnerable to cold, if any of you can do anything to freeze them, Terexaltherin 'says' to the rest of the group.
Then he focuses his mind on one of the snakes and slams his will down on it.
Rollo takes out his spellbook for a Quick Study.
Cold, you say.
A giant Lyra steps forward and slaps the second who spat out Arlo... connecting with 3 out of 4 attacking and seriously bending it out of shape... while the snake that's been hanging back a bit suddenly falls unconscious.
At this point, the leader shouts "This picking on people our own size never works out ..." and the conscious snakes slither under the unconscious snake and move a further 40' away up the canyon in full retreat...
Omdor retrieves The Arlosword, and begins his climb back up to the battle.
Lyra brings her Leg up and axe kicks the sakes body as it slivers away.
"THAT IS FOR YOUR LACK OF RESPECT!"
Terexaltherin just watches them go with a mental sigh. His home plane isn't the only place where big, dangerous things are used to getting their way...
Arlo brushes himself off, the furry snakes grumble as they scoot away and then into what appear to be their holes on a ridge above the canyon and the party continues their long hike circling the valley surveilled by the sinister, prying Tharex...
Finally, returning to your original path, and passing weird pulsing purple mosses, pools of mercury and the many pillars that give the area its name, you find your way to where you emerged - from this side, there's no obvious trace of the gate back to Regrewn but Terex is able to extend his planar and find the entrance. Moreover, he notices surreptitious runes that Jajuloon admits they used to return to the Giant's Playground.
Once inside the huge complex, you realize that Rollo's delay poison will wear-off soon and you will have to find another way to deal with their addiction.
And returning, you also realize the weird state that the inner complex of the "Giant's Playground" is in. Apparently built by some creator eons ago, the corridors, catwalks and platforms together represent the past, present and future of the world of Regrewn. It's usual for such a complex - usually gods, creator spirits and such have complexes with just a few rooms - one for the start of time, one for the end and a few more for other things. This is huge, connecting to the past and future of Regrewn...
Moreover, with all the temporal material removed from the complex, there's a chance of the past, present and future becoming disconnected... and you are not sure of the results though you are sure that it would be bad.
Still, the first task is to deal with Jajuloon and seal the complex....
Terexaltherin looks around. You've really made a mess of this place, he telepathically comments to the Jajuloon. It's already starting to cause issues on this plane. Any more and you might cause some kind of a temporal collapse. Cause following effect, adults being born old and growing young to die as babies, that sort of thing. If it didn't just tear a hole in the planes in general. Absolutely not the sort of attention you want.
So... where are all the gates into this area? We need to seal them off, make sure no one else comes in while we're making repairs.
Lyra shrinks down and goes to her husband using a device to clean off the snake spittle. And generally making a fuss of him.
Omdor grumbled slightly under his breath at Lyra's administrations; but inwardly, Arlo is greatly enjoying the attention.
Azzim gave Jajuloon a disapproving look, "I can see you're getting antsy, thinking about your next fix eh? You'll be no use to anyone like that. Lets try something, you don't have any adverse reactions to positive energy do you? I think this will cure any physical symptoms, alas it won't help psychological dependence. I do know of some spells that will, but they're not something I'd usually prepare..."
With that he attempts to heal Jajuloon with a tremendous wave of positive energy that burns away any wounds, poisons, diseases, cancers, or other physical afflictions.
Once that was done he asked, "How does that feel? Better yes? Now we should attend to the matter at hand. This complex is uncommonly large, that's probably the only reason it's still managing to function. You do realise that it's in a really dangerous state right? Think of it like a mine, if you're too greedy and chip away at the pillars holding up the ceiling then everything will come crashing down on top of you. Perhaps you should show us where you got some of the material from, maybe we can shore it up long enough to figure out a long term solution. Also you'd better show us where those portals are."
Rollo seem disappointed that the cold-hating snakes slithered away. Sighing, the dhampir continues along, occasionally kicking dirt.
At the Garden, he muses with Azzim.
Azzim's heal allow with careful encouragement seems to restore Jajuloon and he begins leading the party to the other gates he knows of as well as the areas where they (and apparently other Harthigs) removed materials.
Keeping close track of where you are now relative to where you entered, you find the first five of the eight doors without issue. .
As you begin traverse a long catwalk to the sixth gate, you notice a large shape on the opposite side in the semi-gloom; 30' and 20' high, between a dinosaur and flightless bird, it is sniffing carefully at the ground and will see you unless you duck quickly away.
Omdor offers his help in closing the gates.
Once the dinosaur is in view, the dwarf quickly draws The Arlosword.
Wait! This thing is definitely from an earlier time period. If we can we should try to return it to its time, to avoid making the temporal disturbances worse, Terexaltherin informs the others. Let's see if we can identify an exit back to its time... Arlo, maybe you could follow its tracks? I could make you hard to notice or stun it if it tries to attack.
He also examines the area to see if he can make any guesses about how to send it back to its time.
The dwarf looks back at the pseudodragon, and nods solemnly.
"I'll see if I can get around", Omdor whispered.
Terexaltherin focuses his mind on distracting from Arlo's presence as he goes.
Rollo reaches for the Arcane energy supporting this plane.
The Sage then considers the appearance of the dino.
Sneaking behind the arporax, Arlo finds a trail leading back the way the creature came. The challenge is to entice the creature to follow it...
Rollo is able to intuit several things:
* There are three areas of the complex that if they are strengthened sufficiently can prevent further decomposition (top, bottom and median).
* Somewhere in the complex there normally is some sort of guardian - where is it, what is it doing? Why hasn't it responded to the damage or found you?
* And the size of this complex implies it could effect "nearby" planes - it may have been crafted for that purpose, which means it also be dangerous in a different way if the damage to it is repaired...
Azzim wondered how they could strengthen the areas Rollo had identified. Perhaps replacing the stolen planar materials stolen along with a mending or a make whole, or a make whole greater spell would help.
Hmmm... could anyone make an illusion of the creature's prey? We could use that to lure it back out, and then hopefully close the gate behind it.
The little dragon considers the size fo the complex. I almost wonder if whoever created this world was up to something. This all seems like too much for a single plane, and there's no reason to do that unless you were trying to meddle with other planes...
Terexaltherin looks for signs to support or disprove his hypothesis.
Liyra thought a moment.
Then places one of her devices on the ground. Pressing something on her lower arm a large holographic projection comes into being of a cow.
"Tell me what you want and ill dial it in"
Rollo indeed shares the information with the group. He turns to the criminal.
Where's the Guardian?
Liyra thought a moment.
Then places one of her devices on the ground. Pressing something on her lower arm a large holographic projection comes into being of a cow."Tell me what you want and ill dial it in"
Terexaltherin tries to name off a couple likely prey species that would get the arporax's attention.
The dwarf inquisitor tries to use his knowledge to track which gate the dinosaur came from.
Lyra creates illusions with some help from Terex that are sufficient to send the creature bad to the general area it entered through. You have narrowed down the possibilities to a small area, maybe an acre, but somehow the exact gate is eluding you...
Meanwhile, Jajuloon says "I saw no guardian - my source did tell me of certain areas to avoid but these were deeper than anything I ever came near to...
Terexaltherin tries to identify all the gates in the area they've narrowed it down to, hoping he can check when each leads to if he can find them.
And so, after herding the dino back to it's suspected entry point - a large stone room with 100's of game - and chasing it around and around the general area for twenty minutes, Terex, on pure intuition, discovers it's likely entry gate, opens it and gets it into the area. Everything seems fine here...
The party finishes closing the gates Jajuloon knows of, heads to central top area Rollo has guessed at, finds a means to strengthen it ...
Then the party heads to toward the mid-point that Rollo has intuited... Heading down and down, through cat-walk traced dark stone chamber to deeper cat-walk traced quartz chamber, again and again. You notice some chambers have a remnants of ancient explorers - another strange thing. But moving forward, as you mount one further catwalk, you notice on floor 70' below, a black and silver, thing about 30' long, like ten or so vast silver-winged moths melted together...
A time demon... a thing you've only read occasional references to, a creature said to feed on temporal contradictions. It's said to not be intelligent as such but be dangerous based on projecting itself forward and backwards in time during combat...
At the same time, these creatures tend to be rather torpid, staying inactive for year once the situate themselves to feed on a damage timestream...
Azzim marvelled at the complex as they explored. The remains of ancient explorers were a source of concern, why had they died here? Suddenly he went rigid as he saw motion below. Quietly he hissed, "A time demon! I should have known the damage would have attracted one. Tread lightly, we wouldn't want to fight such a thing..."
Lyra is at a bit of a loss when it comes to time demons.
Not really her thing.
The simple fact the threat was a demon urged the paladin to fight it, but knew the mission was more important. Should the time demon engage the party, Omdor would end it's existence.
Rollo nudges the dwarf.
Psst...it's a demon. Just saying.
Rollo nudges the dwarf.
Psst...it's a demon. Just saying.
Terexaltherin eyes the demon warily. While on the one claw I don't want to fight it... on the other I'd really rather not be surprised by it attacking us in the middle of working on fixing things here. I feel like repairing the infrastructure here will probably rouse it since we'll interrupt its feeding.
That said, we have an opportunity while it's quiescent here. We could set up a trap or something of the sort for it. Maybe we could all fire at it from a range from behind some traps? Or does anyone have another idea?
Reluctantly, the party sneaks past the sinister time demon (Olothrus gornelia technically) and finds the middle critical point three large rooms below and two to the East. This key point is a 15' white obelisk in a recessed area in the center of one these great room. The (temporary) fix is try to route temporal force to it from the breaks of the fabric...
Strengthening this point also seems straightforward but it will take considerably longer than the top point - three hours. Still, the magic users get to work...
Then, about an hour later, a figure steps in the chamber. It is fifteen feet tall and has the body of a beautiful, awe inspiring and nearly perfect humanoid holding a solid gold rod but it's head and shoulders seem to be covered by a hood-like thing, a cocoon of some gray-black material that different kinds of vermin are crawling on. A muffled voice cries "who are you, who seem to disturb this keep which is understand my protection. If this confounded darkness did not infect this place, I could easily see you but still tell me before a smite you..."
Jajuloon gasps audibly and Jocinth assumes a defensive posture...
Azzim had suspicions but wasn't quite sure what this creature was, although it seemed powerful, so he nervously glanced at his companions...
The Sage ponders....
....the Arcanists takes out his spellbook, flipping through pages.
The Sage relates to Terex.
Keep him passive for 1 minute and 6 seconds.
EDIT!
Omdor whispers, "If he really is a demon, he likely knows I'm here thanks to my Aura . Should I go up and say hello?"
"Rollo what have you figgered out, this is more your line than mine"
He is a celestial. Most likely the Guardian. He seems to be suffering from an enchantment of some kind. I plan to break it.
I think Rollo's right. I think the enchantment is probably being created by the time demon--we should be ready for it to attack as soon as we break it.
Turning his thoughts to the Guardian, Terexaltherin 'says', [i]Guardian, we are not your foes. There is a Time Demon here that is blinding you. We are trying to break this enchantment so that we can destroy it together.[/b]
Terex tries to mollify the enchanted guardian with only mixed success and the party dodges the blind, staggering figure as Rollo works to find the right spell...
Looking at the web as this is happening, you're thinking physically removing the thing is an alternative but it would be difficult...
Rollo shrugs.
Probably a 50/50 proposition.
When Rollo starts to cast his spell, Azzim tries to calm the celestial by saying earnestly, "Please don't be alarmed, we are trying to remove the enchantment that is afflicting you."
Right, and we'd better be ready for that time demon to come down on us as soon as we do, Terexaltherin comments. He wishes he had some good materials for traps right about now...
With super-human magical effort and a bit of tugging at the end, Rollo removes the sinister web-hood from the celestial figure. The hood thing unravels and resulting string is pulled back along the corridor like a fishing line while apparent-Guardian immediately shouts and glows with creator magic, illuminating the entire complex, "Thank you unknown travelers, I feel I am returned to my powers. And I sense this sacred chamber has suffered mightly in my absence and I must clean it of all intruders. Unfortunately, that means I most ask you to leave as well, though if you will give me an account of what has transpired I would be ..." at which point the figure suddenly simply winks out... Leaving the chamber in the darkness in which you found it.
Jacinth comments, "These paradoxes are becoming excess, even for someone of my somewhat extreme tastes. Surely there's some force that can put a stop to them, order must assert itself sooner or later"
We're going to have to do something about that time demon. Either that or we need to repair the temporal infrastructure enough it can't muddle with things and then unleash the Guardian on it. Honestly, though, I'd be surprised if it didn't start attacking us at some point soon. Should we work on repairing things here but keep some guards up? If it attacks we can try to kill it, if it doesn't we can try to free the Guardian again.
Terexaltherin examines the center point to see how easy putting in enough repairs to hopefully stabalize it enough to keep the time demon from interfering would be.
Azzim, Terex and Rollo make the temporary fixes to the middle-point while the rest of the party keeping watch or exploring (with Jocinth providing an extend inspire competence).
A minute or so after the process begins, everyone in the party has a momentary, illogical thought flit through their minds "Where's Gift? Wasn't Gift just here..." but there's nothing you notice that could have provoked it.
As the party does this fixing, Terex ponders the situation and even pops down momentarily to his library, surprisingly and coincidentally finding a short book, Hostile Time Magic and Means to Counter It by Hthalo Dunaro among his uncategorized books shelf - something he could swear wasn't there before. One thing Dunaro notes is that often when someone or something gets unwillingly targeted by a time effect, often a small totem is left behind (within a mile or so), something trivial and utterly unremarkable, not detecting as magical but still serving as a way to undo the spell if someone wishes and uses the proper rituals (some of which Dunaro goes into). The explanation is murky - perhaps the gods felt called to impose balance, perhaps it has to do with the "time tokens" gambled at the Pillars Of Time (Dunaro says quite a bit about The Pillars also...). And it's only distinguishing characteristic is there being no other explanation for it's presence...
The middle point is fixed in about six hours...
We should probably take care of that Time demon, before our work is undone.
The dhampir frowns.
Anyone seen Gift?
The dwarf kept looking around. "Dammit, GIFT! Where the blue blazes are you?"