Silvia sighs. "Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part."
Garret attempts to use his Detect Magic to identify the properties of the gauntlet…
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Mirhet nods, and with your wounds tended you take one last look at the ruined little keep--the place you died, or miraculously did not die--and move onwards. The slithering, shuddering plantlife choking the town doesn't get any less disturbing but you're becoming adept at navigating its dangers and make comparatively quick time towards Jonnar's little farmhouse. As you get closer, Mirhet begins speaking softly in a reminiscent tone.
"He left the Tamiir-Quah for love--Siara, a cavalry scout for Vigil, who loved him but wouldn't leave her duties for him. So he made his choice, while some in the tribe resented him for it...I thought it was rather sweet," This revelation might come as a surprise to Ketra, who has always known Mirhet as a steely woman devoted to her people. "We kept in touch, distantly. He would tell me how you were doing, how your family here was treating you. He used to--" She stops mid-sentence as the Windrider farm comes into view and takes a deep breath. "No one here deserved this horror...but I didn't know most of your fellows, and that creates an emotional distance. Jonnar...I knew Jonnar." She falls silent for a time.
As you approach closer, the still air begins to stir with unnatural suddenness--within seconds, the main farmhouse is engulfed in a fierce windstorm, whistling through the shattered stones of houses and barns like wailing ghosts.
Looking at the sudden windstorm, Garret tries to understand if this is a magical effect or perhaps an elemental?
"More ghosts..." Silvia says, readying her rifle even as she reaches out with her more esoteric senses.
"More ghosts? Or just something that sounds a little like ghosts?" Ketra looks to Garret to hear his evaluation as the "weird phenomena" expert. "In any case, lets stay back until we know what's happening."
Silvia casts forth her senses, but no evil reveals itself to her. Meanwhile Garret studies the windstorm which, while clearly not a natural phenomenon, does not appear to be a spell. Rather, he suspects the wind to be the work of an air spirit--and a powerful one at that. Perhaps an imprisoning item or magicl binding had shielded it from the blast that leveled Roslar's Coffer, but in any case it appears to be guarding the farmhouse.
”Did Jonnar have an air elemental companion or guardian,” asks Garret, ”For that is what seems to be guarding his house.”
Mirhet frowns slightly, and slowly shakes her head. "He was Tamiir-Quah, the Wind Tribe, but was not a shaman or spirit binder--at least not when he left. It is not impossible that he had a relic, or learned to make such bargains, but that's beyond my experience."
"Can it hear us? Can it talk?" Jando asks, eyes darting back and forth at the whirlwind whipping around the house. "I can't imagine your friend survived, so what's left for it to guard? We could just...I dunno, ask it to leave."
”I would speak to it if I could, but I have not the magic or skill to converse in Auran. Does anyone else have such a gift?” asks Garret, eyeing the windstorm warily…
"With the way the magical explosion worked, I wouldn't rule out Jonnar being transformed into this air spirit. I'm not sure if that's better or worse... I suppose we don't have much of a choice except to go in and see if we can learn more." Ketra eyes the windstorm skeptically with Garret. "I certainly can't talk uh, Auran, was it Garret? So I think we'd be looking for some kind of physical signs."
Seeing that the wind is gusting hard, but not so hard that it'll stop the group, Ketra suggests "Well, we're not going to learn anything out here. Let's get inside and out of this wind if we can." She tucks her head down against the wind and tries to head for the farmhouse to learn what's happening.
“Could it be protecting something inside? Or warning us away?”
Sanduro casts detect magic and looks around, more worried about the next threat than he is hopeful for treasure. He follows the group towards the farmhouse; with one hand, he holds his scarf over his mouth and nose to keep out anything the wind might blow in, and grips his sickle tightly in the other.
“Kid, if it’s trying to keep us out, that just means we want to go in. Get moving!”
Zsofia, unsurprisingly, is more concerned the group not miss any shinies that the explosion may have left behind.
Garret follows after the others towards the center of the winds. He keeps his detection spell going and scans the area as they enter, hoping that perhaps a magical item of some sort may be either creating this wind or anchoring the elemental to the material plane.
Silvia grumbles good-naturedly about her hair being whipped about by the gale force winds, but follows after the others with no real complaints.
As you step into the whirlwind, it picks up in volume and speed for a heartbead--then rapidly contracts, the spiral of air growing tighter and tighter until it coalesces into a vaguely humanoid figure of stirred up dust, cloudlike billows, and gusting whirlwinds. It flails and spins in a clear threat display, its voice rising in a strange howling rush that's difficult to understand. Startlingly, it is speaking Shoanti!
"Get back! Don't you dare touch her! I'll kill you!"
Swirling amidst the elemental's body are what appear to be splinters or shards of bone--and a human skill that seems to hover inside it's "torso". Unlike the other detritus in the elemental's form, the skull doesn't spin or tumble; it remains oriented towards you as though staring you all down.
pooc]Anyone succeeding at this check may make a Religion check form me :)[/ooc]
"Uh, there appears to be a skull and some bones in that swirl that are orienting at us as it speaks," says Garret as he looks at the entity.
Though Ketra doesn't spot the bones, she understands the words. "Get back, don't you dare touch her, I'll slay you..." she translates. "Jonnar too then. Considering everything we've seen here, well, it's more of the explosion's lingering effects, I'd guess. He was probably trying to protect Siara when it happened. And now-"
She raises her arms and calls back in Shoanti "Ha'e Ketra ha Mirhet, roime roipytyvõ haguã ndéve ha chupe. Por favor, pehejami roñemboty. Ñañe’ẽmi."
"Ketra?" Silvia's voice is full of concern and danger, but she doesn't raise her weapon yet.
"I want to see if he'll listen to reason. If not... well..." She looks over at Mirhet to see what her mentor thinks is the right course of action.
The elemental whirl pulls in even tighter on itself, the skull turning its hollow stair on the young duskwalker woman. "Ketra? Che aikuaa nde ndaha’eiha, eñongatu nde distancia térã rearriesga nde rekove."
"Ketra? I know you not, keep your distance or you risk your life."
"Yes you do, and you know me too," Mirhet asserts, her voice calm despite nearly shouting to be heard over the wind. "Calm yourself Jonnar, the man I knew would not threaten a friend."
"A shudder seems to go through the elemental, followed by a gale-force shriek of wrath. [b]"¿Peteĩ angirũ?! Chemosẽkuri pe delito ahayhúgui peteĩ okápe oikóvape, ha katu ndajuhúi hetave parentesco ko’ápe umi Cenicienta-gui! Koʼág̃a pe ahayhúva ko múndogui voi, ojejuka, ha moõ piko oĩ raʼe peteĩva pende apytégui? Ani reñe'ẽ chéve angirũ rehe."
"A friend?! I was cast out for the crime of loving an outsider, but I found no more kinship here than in the Cinderlands. Now the one I love more than the world itself lies murdered, and where were any of you? Do not speak to me of friendship."
”I can try to calm it down if it understands Common, but I need to know more of what is going on first,” says Garret, not understanding Shoanti but noticing the creature appears to have understood when Mirhet spoke in the Common tongue.
As soon as the group realizes that there may be something more than an elemental involved, Sanduro remanifests Zsofia as incorporeal.
Ketra translates the elemental's words to the rest of the team, shaking her head in dismay at the way the echo of Jonnar is behaving. She whispers "Jonnar in life knew common" "so Garret, you can give it a try. If not, I'll translate. Hopefully you're better with words than me. I distinctly remember getting a mug of coffee thrown at me at the inn for ruining one fella's day."
She nevertheless attempts to support Garret by speaking to Jonnar "Opavave rojejuka. Oĩramo omerecéva nde pochy ha'e pe monstruo oĩva'ekue pe explosión rapykuéri."
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”Jonnar, we have only spoken in passing, but you know me as well as a loyal citizen of Roslar’s Coffer. Ketra is right—the murderers who committed this atrocity are the ones who deserve your ire, not your fellow citizens! It is our mission to find them, bring them to justice, and ensure no more towns will have to suffer the same grim fate as ours,” says Garret.
Continuing, he says, ”I have seen family and friends pass through to the afterlife this past week, and I am greatly saddened at their passing, yet I rejoice that they are at peace now. We are your friends and fellow townspeople, only wanting to set things right here before hunting these murderers…How can we help you?”
Silvia tenses in anticipation of the coming attack, but something tells her Garret's words have worked their magic yet again. She shakes her head in disbelief, wondering why on earth his talents were left to waste here in Roslar's Coffer.
The howling wind stutters and slowly fades, a bare stirring of dust now the only sign of the air spirit--other than the floating and fractured skull, now clearly visible.
"I...apologize. You were...are...my neighbors, my new people," Jonnar's tone is softer now, but without conviction, as though he were trying to persuade himself. "But I cannot leave my Siara."
”Thank you for your kind words, Jonnar. Would you like to show her to us? Perhaps we can help her as well. We have spent much of the day yesterday taking care of the cemetery—if she needs to be properly interred, we can give her an honor guard for her final journey.”
Ketra nods, relieved that another desperate fight against a neighbor won't be necessary. "Garret's right. We'll help both of you if we can. Can we go inside?"
Silvia slings her rifle, relieved, and gives Ketra a nod of approval.
It appears that Jonnar's sentience has somehow overridden the wind elemental--as though human and elemental spirits have partially fused, or like a possessing ghost. You've heard of such hauntings before, though never an elemental as the host; it might be possible to separate them again but you're not certain how that would work.
There is a long, taut silence before the floating skull slowly nods. "I couldn't protect her..." he whispers miserably as you carefully step past him into the ruined farmhouse. Within you the skeletonized remains of an adult human, curled up on the floor and heavily weathered. It shouldn't be possible for a body to already by brittle bones...but then again, that's not even the strangest thing in the room right now.
While keeping a wary lookout, you spot a thin plume of smoke rising...from the copse where Jando's blind is located...
”We couldn’t protect them either,” says Garret, thinking about all those lost—people he has known his whole life. ”I am sorry for your loss, and for all the losses we have borne since the explosion. We share your grief,” he adds, falling silent and contemplative afterwards.
Ketra sighs at Garret's first comment "We never had a chance. Even if we'd been warned, this was just way beyond us. Any of us." She heads on into the farmhouse, careful not to disturb anything, and takes a look around.
Looking back to Jonnar, she asks as gently as she can manage "If it would help, we can take her to the graveyard and allow her to rest with her family. You can join us as well. Or, we could follow the Shoanti custom instead. I didn't know her that well. What do you think would be best for you both?"
"Our friend seems to have, somehow...become part of the elemental," Silvia says, her mind clearer now without the threat of imminent violence. "I've heard of such things, but never quite like this. Separating the two might be possible, but I have no idea how to perform such a thing."
She turns to scan the horizon, chewing her lip in consternation, but freezes. "The copse," she says, her voice flat at first, but then urgent again. "Smoke! They must have found our blind."
Sanduro looks sadly at the corpse until a flicker of movement against the sky catches his attention. He stares out at the smoke for a moment, making sure he has his bearings.
“That must be them, all right. They must have a tracker with them. I wonder how good they are, and if we can we avoid them for another day? I don’t know about Garret, but I’ve already used half my spells and Zsofia still looks drained to me. This time, I’d like to fight them when we’re at full strength.”
”We didn’t leave anything critical back there, did we?” asks Garret, concerned. During the discussion of spells, he says, ”I may not have a wide selection of spells, but I can cast those I know relatively often—I am fine. If a pyre is desired instead of a burial, I could help with that as well.”
"The copse?" Ketra looks back in the direction Silvia is indicating. "It's good you came with us today Mirhet. I'd guess friends of those thieves and thugs came for revenge." She thinks for a moment "Probably best to avoid them right now, but if we can talk to another group, we might be able to learn a bit more about their master."
"Still, that's for later." She turns her attention back to the elemental ghost.
"We didn't leave anything critical back there, did we?"
"Just the bedrolls. And my favorite skillet." Jando's tone is light but his expression grim as he shades his eyes to study the smoke plume. He shrugs at Sanduro's question about avoiding them. "Don't know who they are, or how many, but I could follow our trail easily so we should assume they can too. If they follow us straight away we might have half an hour before they're here."
When Garret mentions the subject of burial the elemental flares with a gust of wind not unlike a horrified shudder. "No! No burial, I...I don't like the dirt. She deservers better. Please."
Scanning the little farmhouse, Garret's arcane-attuned senses pick out a glow of divination tucked into the shattered tableware and other debris in the farmhouse. Investigation reveals a small necklace framing a round ellipsoidal agate. The stone is chipped, a hairline fracture marring its smooth surface, but it still holds enchantment.
This is a cracked ioun stone that possesses modest divinatory powers; the damage it has suffered has weakened the strength of its magic.
”Do we have time to build a pyre for her—if that is your desire, Jonnar?” asks Garret, looking at the the elemental, then back at Jando. ”I can set it on fire with magic if we can put it together quickly,” he adds.
Sanduro casts detect magic as well, to assist with identification.
"Oh, this is interesting - it's an ioun stone, a creation of the ancient Azlanti. It's a bit cracked, but it should still have most of its magic. From the shape and color, I'm pretty sure that once someone is attuned to it, they would be able to ask about a particular course of action - or inaction - over a short period of time, and get a hint about the outcome. Or not - sometimes it doesn't work, but it usually does."
"I'd rather we not rush something important like that Garret. We can bring her remains somewhere for the appropriate rites, and complete them when we aren't under attack."
"Speaking of under attack, if this group can track us, we probably won't be able to run away for long. The warning means we can at least pick where we want to fight them."
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”If it is a ceremony that can be done quickly and respectfully, let us do it now,” responds Garret, ”For I don’t foresee a time in the near future when we won’t be in a rush.”
”Of course, if the ritual takes more time, we may very well have to delay it, though putting her to rest as soon as possible would be helpful for us all,” he adds with a bit of duality to his intention…
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Shoanti have no unifying set of customs when it comes to the disposition of the dead; in recent generations this variation extends to individuals who have a preference, and their loved ones attempt to carry out these last requests. Shoanti quaahs have build cairns & barrows, carried out sky burials, cremations--there are even stories of ritual cannibalism, though every quaah's stories name another tribe than their own. Only mummification and complex tombs or mausoleums are not seen.
"...fire?" Jonnar's voice is skeptical, though at least it has lost the horrified edge it had towards the concept of burial.
"More akin to a transition," Mirhet cuts in, speaking quickly. "A transformation, too...free her to rise into the sky. Not fire but smoke, air." She turns an intense stare on Ketra, silent and urgent.
Silvia, eyes locked on where she expects the group hunting them to approach from, glances back at the others. She doesn't say anything, but her expression clearly conveys a sense of "hurry up."
Ketra nods "I think a pyre will do just fine. Garret, if you'll do the honors? We'll bring the body outside to make sure the ashes can disperse into the, uh, winds." She gives a sidelong glance at the air elemental that was Jonnar.
With Jonnar's permission, she carefully carries the remains outside so that Garret can work his magic without burning the whole house down. She looks to Mirhet for the right words to say in Shoanti.
She does her best not to show any of the anxiousness the rest of her party is showing. The group had fended off the thugs in the graveyard. Surely they could do so again, if it came to it, right?
Standing well back from the body once it is in place, Garret says, ”Jonnar, please approach and say your final words to her. Then I will summon a ball of fire to begin the process. Use your new powers to swirl around her and drive the flame up into the sky. At the end, I will transform the flame into a beautiful celebration of her life.”
[b]“Zsofia, why don’t you go out and keep watch? I’ll assist here with a prayer to Pharasma on Siara’s behalf.” he turns the phantom incorporeal, still worried about her looking weak after the last combat. Come back if you see anything or anyone approaching.”[/b]
Sanduro does his best to improvise a prayer while putting the thugs hunting them out of his mind for a few minutes, to the extent that he can. He tries to leave room for Ketra or Mirhet to add anything they might care to say about the dead woman or her ghostly lover.
“Don’t mind if I do! You people and your morbid fascination with death and your constant funerals and refunerals and re-re-funerals, it’s like none of you know how to stay dead!”
Irony is lost on phantoms. Zsofia stomps out, her footsteps eerily silent, and begins a resentful patrol.