"I suspect that the imprisoning room would have also provided us access to the runestone if we had been able to figure out the puzzle. This path was much more straightforward."
Screaming Moon looks over at Maga Szuul and frowns. "With the Gauntlet complete, perhaps we should return to the forest and rest. And, afterwards... I do not want to leave the rest of you in danger, but I grow concerned about Maga Szuul and his cult's plot to unleash a plague.
My people are traders, and encountering a disease like this would be devastating. I need to return to them and warn them to take precautions and be wary of entering the cities until we can be certain that this threat is passed.
I shall take my leave of you, wishing you all future success."
You bid farewell to Screaming Moon and Ruby Meadow as the Shoanti depart to find their way back to their tribe. The rest of you make your way out of Hollow Mountain and return to Kelhuud's campsite to rest for the night. The ranger keeps a close eye on Maga Szuul as you drift off to sleep...
You wake from your slumber to find a visitor standing at the edge of your campsite. She steps closer, revealing a radiantly beautiful woman.
"I am Runelord Sorshen," the woman says, "but I am not your foe. Alaznist has risen, as you fear, and we will both benefit from her defeat. She has left Hollow Mountain to seek power elsewhere, and as she does, you must prepare. I have been watching. You seem heroes who might stand against her, but not without assistance. Seek out old Thybidos, Alaznist's murdered predecessor, in the Forlorn Sepulchers beyond the weeping dragons. With the Abyssal runestone you have claimed from the Gauntlet of Fury, his unquiet spirit can be compelled to aid you—yet perhaps not without some conflict. But exercise caution, for even humbled as he is today, the serpent still has teeth. When you are done with him, seek me in Korvosa. We have more to discuss! In the meantime, I hope the person I have sent your way can help you in your endeavors..."
You awaken again, but this time, it is not just a dream. As you are preparing for the day ahead, a flash of light heralds the arrival of somebody else. It is a woman who looks almost exactly like Runelord Sorshen, but based on her confused expression and the heavy armor she wears, it would seem that it is not the runelord herself...
The heavily armored and armed woman blinks several times, dragging her palms into her eyes to clear them from that light, stumbling back a step as she does so. Catching herself from falling on her rump and finally clearing the spots from her eyes,she turns her attention to the campers.
"Um... I put on the ring." she raises her hand wiggling her fingers to show a lovely silver ring. "... and agree to help my home..." added quickly "so do I get my answers?" her dark eyes jump eagerly to each of you.
Hope was more than glad when they retrieved what they had come for and made their way out of the ruins. She hurt so much that it wasn't funny and she really wanted to just go to sleep. She kept going long enough to eat some food but when Screaming Moon said he must leave them She began to panic.
It was all Hope could do to keep the emptiness within her from attacking Screaming Moon and making him stay but she knew that would be worse than wrong to do so. In the end she couldn't say anything to him and simply fled into the dubious comfort of her bedroll. She sealed it up and took out her dolly, clutching it tightly as she began to sob quietly at her loss of the closest thing to a father she had ever known.
When she finally did fall asleep Hope's dreams were not undisturbed. A woman appeared and spoke to her but Hope understood little of the importance in what was said. She was too entranced by the beauty before her to grasp more than they had to take the thing they found somewhere and do something with it and that someone was being sent to help them.
When she awoke the next morning Hope didn't remember the dream, only that Screaming Moon had left them. She didn't want to get up but the sudden feeling that someone unfamiliar was nearby made her open her bedroll to look out. She saw the person in armor and nearly threw an attack at her, it was all she could do to hold back the hungering dark within her but she pulled it off somehow. Hope pulled back inside of her bedroll so she could get ready to face her first day without Screaming Moon there.
Devie's eyes widen hopefully when the striking elf peaks out from her cocoon like bedroll. Hopes only to be crushed as the elf burrows back in. "well okay" she grumbles a little before turning her attention to the others.
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It didn't take Hope very long to get her clothing and gear in place, the sight of her bedroll forming weird humps and lumps as she shifted was potentially humorous. She finished putting her things in order before she crawled out of her bedroll again, her hair was an absolute mess after all of her wallering around in the bedroll making her hair look not unlike hay stack of black hay. She rolled her bedroll up and stashed it into her pack before pulling out a hairbrush she'd obtained somewhere.
Not seeing anyone else up yet Hope looked back to the stranger and thought something about the pretty woman seemed familiar, even if she couldn't quite place what it was. If she'd remembered the dream she would have known why Devie looked familiar but as she couldn't she didn't. That hunger within her began to rise again but it wanted her to claim this newcomer as her's, like it did all things, and Hope decided it wasn't worth fighting with it this time.
Hope went up to Delvie silently and as she did it almost seemed like there was a slight pull towards her. It was barely noticeable, if it was there at all, and it got ever so slightly stronger as Hope approached Delvie. Without saying anything Hope pushed the brush into Delvie's hands, turned around and sat on a stump facing away from her and seemingly waiting for Delvie to do something.
Devie's hope returns as the elf moves toward her curiosity beaming out of her eyes like dark torches. But instead of answers, a brush is slammed into her hand, stunning the poor woman.
Looking from brush to hay stack head, back and forth, brush to head,so long Hope might wonder if the other woman simply walked off. "oh! You're mute. Sorry for making feel bad with the questions." her hands move easily to the woman's hair, slipping the brush through the tangles with practiced ease. "when I'm done maybe you could write in the dirt the answers to my situation?" the last word comes out flubbery and the mere mention makes her suddenly remember that she really doesn't know anything about brushing hair. Brushing instantly becomes painful tugging as a result.
Triel accepts Moon's departure with a nod, but doesn't say anything else.
--------------------
"...she's not mute." The masked woman says, standing up from her bedroll. "Just... odd."
"I take it you're the one our dream messenger said would be sent our way?"
Hope relaxed a little as her hair was brushed, it reminded her of what little she could remember of her mother Jessica doing it for her as a little girl. She was silent for the time being but after a few minutes of brushing said, "I don't know if I have your answers. We are trying to stop some old person from doing something bad." It was a suitably childlike answer tot eh question but it was as much as Hope readily understood of things.
Hope gestured towards where the ruins were and said, "We went into the ruins, found a stone, and came back out. Then,,," She choked up again as she missed Screaming Moon again but stayed but now the void seemed to absorb most of her emotional pain and insulated her from the worst of it. "I don't know what we will do next."
Devie startles a little when another elf is up and talking. She wonders briefly how odd one has to be that a masked person calls you odd. "dream mess-- oh did she look like me? The statue lady that killed us, or was there at least when we died, she told me in a dream to put on this ring and I'll get answers." briefly she looks back and forth again, her brain working with wasted effort. "maybe the stone has the answer... Is it magic? can you shake it and it tell you message?" Devie had no idea what she was talking about.
As long as she is distracting herself with speaking or trying to think, the action of brushing Hope's dark hair returns to smooth long strokes, with gentle tugs of any detangling.
"okay, just a thought" the lady brushing hair mumbled, feeling more than a little out of place and nervous.
'Maybe these folk were just not morning people? Plenty of folk who are not, Evie was harder to wake...' she forced that train of thought to stop, and did a long sigh as she brushed 'try again, Devie, slower.'
"I got a dream too. The lady with this face told me that if I'd help, I'd get to know why... things happened the way they did and why I am where I am now. So I'm here to help." stepping away from the completed brushing with a small smile of a job well done, she adds "With whatever you will do next."
Hope winced a bit as the brushing got rough but relaxed once more as it evened out and became gentle again. "Sorry your died," Hope said before shrugging, "I don't know how to use the stone. I don't have the stone...I'm not sure who does, you'll need to find that out."
Elanna and Fioralba are slow to wake this morning, and it soon becomes clear why. Both of the twins seem to have come down with some sort of sickness. Each has a bad fever are slow and lethargic. They must have caught something inside the dusty confines of Hollow Mountain.
"I'll watch over them while they rest and convalesce," the ranger Kelhuud says. "You three should continue with your exploration of Hollow Mountain. I will send the sisters along when they are feeling better."
"Oh they don't look good." Devie comments at the greenish cast to their skin, strange sticky odor, and general unsettling noises from their bellies. She gives a quick nervous wave to the sisters while standing as far away as possible.
"Hollow mountain?" she asks, briefly since she doesn't know enough to ask anything more specific, though she hopes someone will think the questioning tone is enough to fill in the rest of the question, whatever it might be.
"...it's a dungeon where a Pathfinder expedition went missing. We were sent here to find some sign of them and to investigate further." The masked woman says after looking at the incapacitated twins.
Good thing I was wearing my mask.
"Incidentally, people usually call me Madame Hawk. This is Hope--" She points at the kineticist. "--and those two are Elanna and Fioralba." She finishes by pointing at the two sickly sisters.
"Oh! I'm Devie Gray." she jams out her hand to the masked woman ready to shake a greeting "It Is A Pleasure To Meet You."
The masked woman shakes Devie's hand.
...wow. Pretty goddamn strong.
I know, right?
She then clears her throat. "Right."
"Have you been informed as to who we are, exactly?" She asks Devie.
Hope realized that they were exchanging names when Madame Hawk introduced herself and then the rest of them saving Hope the need to do so herself. Instead she decided that her brushing was complete and moved to stand. She turned around and reached out to pluck her brush back and said, "Thank you."
The thought that Ela was sick worried Hope and she didn't want to leave the sisters, then again, they needed to continue their explorations. She decided it was best to do as they were recommended and leave them behind for now. Still, a warning was in order for the sister's keeper.
Hope turned to Kelhuud and let up on her control over the manifestation of her power. It grew darker around her and loose bits of dirt and plant matter and ashes pulled in to swirl in a disk around her gently as she gave Kelhuud a firm look with her pitch black eyes and said in her usual flat inflection, "Ela will be safe, if not I will punish whoever was responsible." She didn't threaten him but she didn't not threaten him either.
Hope went over to where Ela lay and knelt down as she said, "Bye Ela, we'll be back soon." She almost reached into her pack to grab her little rag doll to let Ela borrow but thought better of it. Instead she rose and went back to Triel and Devie and said, "I am ready if you are." Her tone as she spoke was just as flat as the one she used when speaking to Kelhuud, no emotion at all. Only her words spoken to Ela had any kind of emotion to them and it sounded much like a child saying goodbye to a friend they might never see again.
To Madam Hawk's question, Devie started to nod but then said "No. Not a thing." a slight hesitation before she simply gave a broad smile, as if she realized maybe jumping into a teleportation with so little information might say something about her judgement, but then decided Oh Well.
Her smile turned to a slight open-mouthed gaping at the display of power by Hope. Softly she asks Hawk, "is she a wizard?"
Madame Hawk hesitates. "...not exactly. She has powers over gravity, but the exact source of her power is something I'm not sure about."
Once you are ready to depart, you follow a vision that Sorshen included at the end of her dream message to find the entrance to where Runelord Thybidos was entombed. The vision leads you to a hidden entrance to one of Hollow Mountain's lower levels on Rivenrake Island's lower slopes, marked by an overgrown archway depicting two weeping dragons.
A long hallway ends in a room cluttered with drifts of dust and heaps of rubble. To the east, a second hallway ends at a circular pillar that blocks entrance to a large room beyond save for narrow gaps to either side. A blue marble statue of a thin man with a cruel face and long hair fringing a bald pate, his arms outstretched, stands in the middle of the room, still upright despite one-inch-wide gaps that separate the statue into six components—a head, two arms, two legs, and a torso. A plaque at the statue’s base bears a single word in Thassilonian: "Thybidos."
Whoever among you is carrying the Abyssal runestone you claimed from the gauntlet yesterday feels a strange presence in their mind just before hearing a raspy telepathic whipser: "Speak my name and enter..."
Madame Hawk kneels and looks down at the statue's plaque.
"Thybidos..." She reads. "...that's the name from the dream, is it not?"
Either due to the fact she is encased in layers of metal and desires to protect the others OR that she is holding a sword that looks better suited to chopping wood than elegant swordplay and just wants to get into the thick of it quicker, Devie does her best to be in front of the small group.
Until they get to the statue. With a little quiver in her voice, she says "I hate statues. The last one exploded... be careful." she advises a little further back than she was a moment ago.
When Triel says "Thybidos" aloud, the stone pillar rumbles as it retracts into the ground, granting access to the next chamber.
The marble floor of this grand chamber is set with a striking design in jade and golden glass. The ceiling rises to a height of sixty feet above the pillar-lined central portion of the room, while a twenty-foot-high raised balcony surrounds this on three sides. A broad set of steps ascends to this overlooking balcony at the east end of the hall.
The steps arrive at a domed fane with the rune of wrath emblazoned on the marble floor. Twelve ivory statues of the same fierce woman wielding a ranseur line the curving walls, flanking a pool of water and a single, thirteenth statue made of gray stone. This thirteenth statue is of a man cowering on his knees, at half the scale of the women. Fresco scenes of unspeakable violence decorate the walls and ceiling, illustrating this place’s dedication to the concept of wrath. Further west, six slabs of stone seem to be set into indentations in the walls, while a wider alcove opens in the center of the vast room’s northern wall.
A ten-foot-wide obelisk of blue-gray stone stands in this alcove, its face carved with the image of a six-headed and six-times-decapitated serpent. A short Thassilonian inscription has been carved below the image, the runes glowing softly with pale blue light that flickers and pulsates.
"Within these walls lies a failed patron, betrayed by a student, now just a broken beast, faithful only to his own failures, beloved by none who survived his fall."
"...well." Madame Hawk looks up as the door opens.
"Apparently someone never heard of anger management therapy." The masked woman remarks as she looks at the frescoes.
Think Qilué would like it?
Dunno. She was always more interested in killing 'cleanly' than 'exuberantly'.
"Within these walls..." Devie says reading aloud, before stopping, and rubbing her forehead. A headache blooms as the incomprehensible words make sense. Just another THING inside her that she doesn't understand.
To distract herself, she looks at the walls. Mumbling pained ouches as each fresco gets worse and worse. "Is this what you normally find while exploring?"
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"...so far, not really. It's worse." The masked woman sighs.
"Can't say I feel entirely comfortable with just the three of us here. I'm going to summon some assistance." She says as she stops and bows her head.
Right. Going to call you forth now, Vindir.
One thing before you do, though--you think we should tell the newbie who you really are?
Tell the girl dropped in on us from nowhere because the 'pretty dream lady' said she's here to help? Don't be stupid.
Well, if Moon was any indication, she's not going to have any idea what you are--
What WE are.
I didn't misspeak, Triel.
You felt how strong she is. And that falchion--she--
--she's not Qilué. She's not Talice. Stop worrying so much and let her help.
A strange blue mist begins to coalesce around the masked woman...
Hope followed along, keeping to herself and trying to ignore the whispering voice of the void telling her she had another to claim now, to make her's for all time. The voice had gotten louder when Screaming Moon left them and Hope was finding it harder to resist the voice's lure. She wasn't watching her surroundings all that well as she tried to push the darkness back down inside of her once more. When they stopped and then moved on again because the riddle had been figured out she kept her thoughts to herself.
Once they sopped so Triel could summon her brother's phantom to aide them Hope paid more attention and waved at Vindir when he finally appeared. "Hi Vindi," she said in a rather childish sounding voice."[/b]
When the ghostly elf finally takes form, he waves back at Hope. "Hey there, Hope!"
He then turns on his heel and waves at Devie. "Pleasure to meet ya."
"Now, Triel--" He turns and says to his summoner, causing her to suddenly stiffen. "--how about you actually introduce yourself to this nice lady?"
"VINDIR--!"
Madame Hawk's fists clench tight and tremble.
Devie did what any sensible person would do as a strange blue smoke started billowing up. She held her breath, which exploded out on a gush when the ghostly guy took form. "You can make people???!!!" she grabs his hand in both of hers and shakes away, obviously impressed the Hawk. About introductions "She did already, no worries, polite as a parsnip she was." obviously having no idea.
"Yeah, she tends to do that when giving out a fake name. Politeness makes it impossible to notice." Vindir says with a smirk. "Her real name is--"
"--Triel." The masked one cuts Vindir off.
"Triel, formerly of House Siadon, of the Darklands."
"Oh." Devie says not sure what is going on. "It's nice to meet you, Triel." she says the name slowly, trying it out on the tongue a bit, looking at the woman's reaction to make sure she pronounced it well. "Where's the dark lands? Is it way north where the sun doesn't rise much?" Devie's knowledge of Golarion's geography is next to nil.
Triel nods in response to Devie's pronunciation of her name.
"Where's the dark lands? Is it way north where the sun doesn't rise much?"
"Rather, the Darklands are deep beneath the earth, where the sun doesn't shine at all."
She lowers her hood, revealing well-groomed and bobbed silvery-white hair and a pair of onyx-coloured, pointed elven ears. Her hawk mask is the next to come off, revealing her deep eyes with orange pupils.
"You're an Elf!" Devie exclaims. Even she knows there is something more to it than that. Skin that dark isn't exactly the norm, and orange eyes! "Were you hiding yourself cause you're pretty?" she can't ask about the eyes, she Can't ask about the eyes, there has to be something there...
... but What is a mystery that is beyond poor Devie Grey.
Triel can't help but smirk as Devie compliments her and states the obvious. "It's kind of you to say, but..."
The smirk is replaced by a frown. "...that's not entirely true. I'm worried that the wrong people will recognize me if they see my face."
"Let's just say that my parting from the Darklands was not on good terms."
"Family problems" Devie nods sagely, though she doesn't know if they are family problems at all. Plus there is the ever present mix of 'like their family' and 'brooding indifference about them' in her head so she doesn't even know if she does know if she knew. "I'm not from the dark lands, promise, so you don't have to worry about me." a slight pause as an inclination pops up to say "Thank ya for trusting me. Even if it took some prodding." her smile flashes quickly to her brother.
"See?" Vindir grins smugly at Triel. "Told ya."
"Yes, yes, not everyone is out to get me. I get it. Shall we move on?" Triel snarks back before looking at the room once more.
"What do you suppose that obelisk is supposed to do?" She points to the obelisk of the decapitated serpent.
Hope was confused by all that was happening between Triel and Vindi and Devie but decided it was important enough to matter right then. She looked around the room instead and particularly at teh sculpture, and the voice said they should crush it down into an infinitely small ball after making it a long, super thin noodle. Hope didn't think she could do that yet and shook her head at the thought. "So what do we do?"
Examining the obelisk reveals no further clues. Looking closer at the stone slabs, you can see each is decorated with different carvings. Starting from the northwest and going clockwise, the slabs bear carvings of flowers, skulls, weapons, coiled worms, and a six-headed and six-times decapitated serpent. The serpent’s coils wrap around itself in a diamond shape, surrounding four circular impressions bearing a facet-like pattern. It looks like objects might fit inside the impressions.
The final slab to the southwest is marred with a great gouge chiseled out of the center in the same location the other slabs bear carvings of images.
Triel winces and takes a closer look at the gouged slab.
"Ouch. What do you suppose happened to this one?"
"Maybe it didn't turn out how the artist wanted?" she wonders "Artists can have odd rages." she's heard. She'll look around for bits of the slab to maybe piece together what it might have been.
The slab is gouged far too much to be able to tell what symbol might once have been there.
Finally noticing the circular impressions in the serpent-carving, Triel compares the runestone the party is carrying with the impressions in the rock.
The runestone does not fit in the impressions. You’ll have to find something else that fits in there.
"Looks like we'll need to find something else to fit these. Four somethings."