Abby laughs again; this time the sound is haunting, like the wind racing down a long beach at night. "And the loyalty of elens is so legendary? It takes a small spell to charm you, and a big spell to control you like a puppet. How am I any different?"
"No, my meals and my Say-say will stay safe because we are the first ones to kill. That is the only way to stay safe. Good friends and kill first."
She swirls into Samen's staff. The magus, up until this point, has not been paying attention to the conversation. He looks at Gabriel. "Mmm? She say anything to upset you? Don't worry about it. She mostly just likes getting under elen's skin."
***
"Hmm. Ok."
Under Kallik's direction, some of the lesser shamans of the merc company scurry outside in between waves of storm. They gather clay and mud. With her hands, she slaps the clay together; the shape is vaguely elen. It doesn't have to be precise. She makes two of them, then smashes them together. She pours everything she has into it, every spell, every drop of magus power, until she is panting with the effort. Now there is only one clay figure.
One Krz.
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"Oh! I like stories and music now- Wonderful!"
You talk about what has happened with one another -
Kallik relates how his brother (twin) was sold to the Fey at birth,
was raised by them as a half Fey,
then returned to Kallik unexpectedly in the form of an axe
****
And now, the two pieces of Krz have been re-united. You had two separate pieces of Krz (kind of like a split-brain patient; the Fey did something screwy to him, which you have partially fixed)
You will be able to make a body for him in Great Forest, and bring this new Krz into the world so he is no longer trapped in the land of the Fey.
"Well that was... fascinating. And I do sincerely hope that your twin recovers the rest of his memories, as well as a physical body. I don't really know how much I helped, but it was my pleasure." Something tickles the back of Abnaki's mind, wasn't he also forgetting something Ohzna had mentioned something but... no. It wasn't important. "Help me keep an eye on Abby and Samen? I'd trust Samen with my life, but I think he's a little soft on her. It. Whatever."
Nodding while staring at the clay figure, "Of course I will." Can you still hear me?
Yes! This is very different! The clay figure fits in your hands. It is covered in small Oread writing -- pieces and phrases from all of Abnaki's tales are scrawled onto the arms, legs, and back of the figurine.
"Thank you Abnaki! I will still ask for a story at bed time, alright?"
***
As you travel north, the cracked, dusty exterior of the Steam Wastes is slowly consumed by ash and gritty black sand. You enter the Charcoal Desert, the vast region surrounding Volcano. The entire ecosystem has been buried by Volcano's pollution for millenia. Tiny skittering lizards and strange onyx plants are the only brief glimpses of life that you see.
The going is slow. Days go by across the treacherous grounds, monotonous and strenuous. The Happy Swords were given several flat-footed pogonas to help lead the way through the shifting terrain. The wagons were also fitted with runners that slide over the ash when the wheels get caught. You hear many mercs thank their gods (or their luck) that Sky's Tears didn't blow this way and turn everything into impassable muck. Most of the mercs, however, complain, their grousing just as repetitive as the landscape.
Several of the scouts return, speaking of similar sights - the pathways beyond the dunes are crossed with ridges and piles of bone, stretching as far as the eye can see.
Half-Blind shuffles over the latest dune and leers at the expanse of bone and sneers. "Phaugh. Looks like some of damned Volcano's homeplane is leaking through the borders."
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Kallik scoffs, a headache already storming in her temples. "It's that same damn thing from Igniscoeli. The Owlbone Road." When she sees Samen the warlock look interested, she snaps, "No, I don't know how the damn thing works. It's scary, and Inam helped us walk across it. All I remember is that it hates sylphs."
"Doesn't everyone?" Osna quips.
Taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of her nose, "No but too many do."
Looking up, Samen I'm sorry I snapped. The smarter ones are not here and I keep feeling my inadequacies."
"No problem. I, too, am used to people expecting me to know something when I have no clue. Without personal experience, it's hard to say, but I'm guessing if it's capable of hate, it's not just a pile of bones, but a living elemental, occupying a niche much like the undergrowth of a forest. Bones aren't too far off from Dust, so I'm guessing it's a rough analog. Perhaps a bit more structure and organization, but a similar gestalt. I will need to study it in person to be sure, but if all it takes to get around this obstacle is a paladin, we happen to be in ample supply."
"If we need to be closer for you to study it, let's get to it." Sequoya's tone is restive, reflecting Mishipeshu's tense movements.
She calls over her shoulder, "The area looks clear. Mishipeshu doesn't sense anything suspicious under the ashes, either." You notice she stays back from approaching the structure itself - she keeps her distance from the hills of bone and seeks Kallik instead. She clearly expects Samen or other magically-inclined elens to take over at this point.
"I don't like this," she mutters to her companion. "It feels like a bad omen."
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Other members of the Happy Swords are scouting farther areas of the Owlbone. Most are overly cautious, like Sequoya. One overeager recruit, however, is walking too closely to the wall when stumbles and lands on a low outcropping of the cursed, bleached rocks. The young merc struggles to remove his hand, but it is stuck fast. In less than three seconds, his skin and muscle flake away, leaving behind black ash and white bone. In the blink of an eye, he has been devoured by the wall.
Everyone nearby yells and move away, but nothing else happens. The huge avian skulls stare sightlessly out from the nearby ridges. The only sound is the faint moaning of wind through the gaps in the bones.
Samen shakes his head at the tragic and pointless death. He would shout at everyone to stay back, but everyone is clearly already scared out of their wits about it. He approaches within 30 feet and turns on his Sight, prowling around the edges, looking for weaknesses, centralized power, intelligence, or signs of internal activity.
"You know, Abby, this pile of bones is a pretty good physical metaphor for you, now. Blind hunger and consumption as motivation and growth and dominion as a goal. You both leave destruction in your wake. Funny how as different as you are, the aspects common to Fire drive you both."
"Kallik, do you happen to remember how Inam circumvented this threat? Was it within her power, or an appeal to her 'god'? If the latter, its presence here may very well be the cost of that transaction."
"I don't like that thing." Abby sounds small and annoyed from inside your staff.
Down the line, you see a hunter cast a low-level spell, summoning an eagle to fly above the Owlbone. As the eagle flies directly over it, the bird suddenly plummets from the air, as if losing all power of flight. Seconds later, another dry clatter of bones joins the wall.
As Kallik said, the Owlbone Road hates sylphs, which apparently means all things that fly.
"Umm, I know Inam prayed most of the walk and were much nearer to Volcano so I think that helped alot.." Drumming fingers on her hip, "There was this little creature who helped cause it was curious. But meeting them was dumb luck."
Looking up and watching the eagle fall, "I would rather just avoid going anywhere near that."
***
"Never heard of this before, even in stories." Abnaki says apologetically. "Perhaps we could summon an imp of our own?"
"We could probably do that, but I'm pretty sure I'd only trust a fey of rot with all our lives at this point, but they're currently unavailable.
Besides, getting past it now won't help us on the way back, and this cancer is only going to grow on this landscape. I feel like we'd be better served trying to find a way to scour it off our plane than accept its presence and try to work around it. Ice magic or life magic should be effective against it."
I would suggest everyone avoid flying... Gabriel continues observing, his comment stated bluntly.
A young oread runner (who everyone just calls Jogger) comes up to your group. "Captain wants a meeting of all the magic-types to come up with suggestions for this bone thing." He points to Samen and Abnaki. "You two for sure, and anyone else who wants to come. Center campfire, ten minutes."
He jogs away, continuing to pass messages throughout the camp.
Trudging a few steps behind the rest of you, Osna asks, "So our best idea is to blast the death mountain with some pieces of ice and what-have-ye? Brilliant."
Samen shrugs defensively. "I didn't say it's a good plan, but I don't have the tools at my disposal to kill something that big. Without Rot Fey, I don't know how to reproduce a safe traversal. Stof might be able to do it, but I don't trust him as far as I could throw him. Stars might be able to cleanse it, but they're not going to help us until we get that lens destroyed."
He slumps off toward the command tent. Clearly people were expecting more of a miracle from him, but this is a scale of destruction that's beyond him.
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Abnaki whispers to Samen on their trudge towards the command tent.
"I was telling the truth earlier. No idea what this is, or how to stop it. But if it's of Volcano, then Volcano demands sacrifice. Think about how the First and Second ages came to be shaped by Volcano. This is obviously an aspect of Take, not Give. What happens when something with no bones touches it? What happens when something that is only bone touches it? I suspect I could glean more from it, but I might have to touch it myself. I don't have the strength to cut my own finger off before the corruption takes my whole body. Are you willing to do that for me?"
Osna, sneakin' on his other side just for the hell of it, whispers in kind, "Ye just cooked yer brains with a Moon and Fey omelette, and now you want to sprinkle some Death on top? I have to ask ye boy, did that hole in yer memories take yer reasoning, too? Yer a daft pluck if yer serious."
***
Captain Fillipo calls the meeting to some semblance of order, bellowing over the various conversations still dying down. His black mustaches are unkempt, and the ifrit looks like he's been awake for at least two days. "So who's got some ideas for me?"
There is a general murmuring, with some half-hearted suggestions of bridges and tunnels. These are shot down, citing the eagle -- it does not seem that going over or under is a safe option.
Samen whispers back, "You can't keep solving problems by giving up parts of yourself. You're going to eventually run out, and then what use will you be? If it were to prevent Moon from enslaving elenity, it would be worth your finger, but just because it's the problem most immediately in front of us doesn't it make it the most dire."
When the captain asks for ideas, Samen offers three. "One, we could contact and bargain with a decay-powered elemental to get us across. However, I fear the price of an elemental powerful enough to secure passage for a group our size, and it doesn't really solve the problem long term.
Two, we could contract with an elemental to destroy it, on the basis of removing an additional foothold of Volcano in the land. Basically, a similar deal we made with the Fey. I don't like this because it would probably require giving up another chunk of our territory to reclaim a rather inhospitable one.
Three, we kill it ourselves. It's crystalized death, to be sure, but it's inert and unintelligent. It's not at home here and is separated from its natural planar power source. If we're safe about how we do it, and we take our time, we can remove this blight from our plane ourselves before it gets any bigger. Nearly every mage learns to channel a small ranged bolt of ice magic that is simple enough to not drain one's energy like larger spells. If you get all of us out there, for hours on end, picking away at the edges, we can safely carve it away like rain carves rivers in sand. Have the paladins sanctify the land we reclaim, and we can contain and kill this travesty."
***
Kallik, as far as you and Sequoya can tell with your keen senses, the perimeter of the Swords' camp is secure.
"Mishipeshu is restless. I don't know if it's the big wall of death that's making him paw the ground, but he's acting like there's something out there. Something moving." She shakes her head, frustrated. "It will be good to finally be away from all this fire and ash. I can hardly remember what a single normal tree looks like, let alone a Forest."
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Abnaki casts silent image as he begins to speak, making a tiny scale replica of the Owlbone Road. It shows tiny versions of the Happy Swords cutting through it, and slowly making progress. As he does that, he lins it to his inspire competence: perform performance, so that he can concentrate on talking.
"We all have a part to play in these times. Our part is to march to Light, and destroy Moon once and for all! Anything that stands in our way shall be crushed beneath our boots. Gem stands against us, and so we will crush it! This wasteland of bones stands against us, and just like Gem, we will grind it beneath the heel of history. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, not Chosen of Hearth, but normal El, will bring down this wall, and cast it into obscurity! What say you men, are you with me?"
At this the little men have finished carving a path through the Owlbone Road, and begin celebrations, before fading away
Occasionally looking over at the meeting but her natural inclinations keep the oread from joining. Nodding along, "Feel restless too."
Watching the large feline pace then looking over towards the irritatingly familiar path, "Of course Mishipeshu is worried." Waving an arm towards the Road, "Death is a bigger predator. And that Road wants dust and bones."
Kicking at the dirt, "Why is it always Volcano. Fire has its purpose Can do wonders for a forest but only when its needed. It's always the Damn Volcano or some face of it." They both changed cause pf it and now they aren't here.
"I don't know what to do."
Musing to herself, Sequoya says, "Volcano is always hungry. That's the problem. It never grows and nurtures like Forest or River...it just consumes, like that creature that Samen has at his disposal." She shakes her head. Mishipeshu mirrors the movement. "I'm ready to head back to camp."
You share a companionable silence of the walk back.
***
Samen, at first the Captain frowns at your plan. "That sounds like a large-scale operation." He raises his voice to pose the question to the gathered representatives of the Swords -- veteran els and eles, warriors and spellcasters all. "What say the rest of you? Can we lay siege to this slumbering monster?"
You hear one nay a few half-hearted yeas and some clanging of shields, but nothing much. Abnaki steps into the opening and gives his speech. The bard cannot help but inspire the troops, who are now more than eager to follow Samen's plan. In the absence of a stronger proposal, the majority shout their yea! into the deepening night.
Time to rally the troops and chisel away at a mountain of death.
--
Gabriel will use his bow, if he can find eyes or something, he'll use his darkness gloom magic spell to block it's sight. Shadow illusion from shadow dancer to make some kind of fake distraction army to prevent damage, ect. He'll also keep an eye out to try finding any weakspots, being part rogue finding vulnerabilities seems up thay alley
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Samen can:
1) Cast ray of frost continuously. Average of 2 dmg per round means 1200 dmg per hour, not taking into account if it might be weak to cold.
2) Use Elemental Sight periodically to detect any differences in structure or signs of changes.
3) Throw in a couple shatters to break up bigger chunks (targeted far enough away so shrapnel wouldn't hit anyone).