Baloo shows its might as it makes fighting the raiders look like child's play. First it bites the blue's arm, and claws its chest, enough to make the raider go in shock from all the blood and fall to the ground. Repeating the same maneuvers to the purple raider clears the path to the fiery sorcerer!
Irizati, in his leopard form, dashes past the bloodshed over to Alarka, biting her throat! And the sorcerer now has to do everything it can to break free from the sharp teeth!
Link to combat map is here
Bold may act
Tere
Alarka
Doodle
Khellek
Raider, green
Raider, purple
Raider, blue
Irizati
Baloo
Grappling with the leopard, Alarka knows only one way out of her predicament, especially since her lackeys have all fallen. "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" she yells, as fire erupts all around her! It fills nearly the entire entry hall, part of the chamber! The firestorm rains embers and hellfire on everyone inside it!
Link to combat map is here
Bold may act
Tere
Alarka
Doodle
Khellek
Raider, green
Raider, purple
Raider, blue
Irizati
Baloo
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Khellek back-peddles as fast as his old legs can handle...
"My books!" he cries as he tries to pat out his robes.
"That was most impolite." he says
"And in many countries, impoliteness has a penalty. Did you know that in Taldane the penalty for burning a noble is..." he continues his history lesson. A lesson that reminds the pathfinders about who they are, and why they are here, redoubling their efforts to put the foul sorcerer to a final end.
Irizati falls, laying on the ground as the firestorm keeps raging.
Link to combat map is here
Bold may act
Tere
Alarka
Doodle
Khellek
Raider, green
Raider, purple
Raider, blue
Irizati
Baloo
Baloo easily bites the sorcerer's shoulder, but she doesn't stop there, unfortunately. But she is now grappling a bigger cat, one she has little hopes of beating in fair combat.
Link to combat map is here
Bold may act
Tere
Alarka
Doodle
Khellek
Raider, green
Raider, purple
Raider, blue
Irizati
Baloo
Tere dashes with his unnatural speed to grab the unconscious leopard amidst the scorching blaze out to the open in the nick of time!
The firestorm keeps raging, with only Baloo in the midst of it! The raider corpses keep getting crispier by the second.
Enraged, the sorcerer doesn't give up. Mustering her concentration, she attempts to touch Baloo's forehead with a dreadful spell.
And in the chaos she is unable to deliver her death dealing blow!
That was a slay living.
Link to combat map is here
Bold may act
Tere
Alarka
Doodle
Khellek
Irizati
Baloo
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Khellek sighs, and reaches into a pouch for a bandage. Then, looking at Irizati's burns, decides that a bandage won't be enough.
"What is it with the younger generation of students?" he muses.
He drags the druid a little further out of line of sight, not wanting to leave the battered "student" within sight of the vengeful sorcerer.
Then remembering that music soothes the savage beast, or in this case, may keep it active, calls out "Балоо, уланта бер."
As Baloo screams in the tormenting fires, collapsing on the floor, Doodle launches a volley of magic energy at the sorcerer. Alarka, seeing the purple energy missiles closing in, knows this is the end of her saga.
Even though no live target is threatening the lives of the Pathfinders, the firestorm keeps on raging, beginning to burn Baloo into a crisp tiger nugget.
Once the firestorm subsides, all that's seen are completely charred corpses of the raiders, and a very badly burned, dead Baloo. Since the storm raged around its caster, Alarka is completely unharmed by the fire.
Alarka has a masterwork chain shirt, a masterwork scimitar, and a heavy steel shield. Nothing else.
All three raiders had identical equipment, each sporting broken masterwork breastplates, melted scimitars, brittle daggers, and destroyed heavy steel shields. And, for some peculiar reason, a s$%+load of goal on each raider! They must have been on a very successful raid not too long ago.
The unconscious female pathfinder is leaning against the wall safe from the battle and blazes. She is in very bad shape, close to death, malnourished and all. Nothing a little magic wand couldn't fix.
At the end of the chamber stands another scepter made of pure silver, with a large emerald at its tip.
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Khellek brings Irizati around with some special student "healing tonic" and then goes to try the same on our newly recovered fellow.
"Alas poor Baloo." he mourns. "Gave it life that we might live."
Looking around the battered group, the scholar starts to expend his resources on healing people.
"I think we might be needing a rest day on this field trip. Luckily here we have shade and shelter.
Khellek's entry level healing isn't enough to bring her back into consciousness just yet.
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[ooc]I think we're going to be healing up for a while, so happy to burn through all my spells. Priority, bring wounded pathfinder to consciousness, then getting Irizati and Tere back to good health.
4xCLW at 4+5=9 each
one CMW at 9+7=16
and the CSW at 13+7=20
The scholar works is way around the wounded team, trying to get folk back up to as good a state as he can.
Another use of the wand awakens the unconscious Pathfinder from her slumber, and she immediately begins to hold her head. She seems groggy for being out for a long time.
"What... happened," she mutters as she struggles to get her eyes open, making no effort to get up even if she is healed more, "who... are you? I'm Jilarni Golgarna, Pathfinder." She holds her hand over her eyes, avoiding the bright lights.
"Where's Jojack and Gilleon?"
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"And I am Khellek, scholar, historian and child minder." adds the scholar, historian, and (in his mind) child minder.
"Unfortunately you and your group were attacked by some bandits..." he points out the remains of the unfortunate bandits.
"Luckily we managed to rescue you. But we still have a mission of exploration, discovery and scholarship to complete. However after our recent battle, I think we may want to rest up a little to recover our strength before trying out mettle against the wits of Alkhet Utmari's architects."
That does not stop the scholar from examining the latest scepter to fall into his possession. "Such workmanship." - he almost drools.
Jilarni turns to see the pit of embers. "Let it be their cairn, I suppose," she says with slight sorrow in her voice, "I'm glad Venture-Captain Balentiir was able to send help, and I can't blame him for the latency. Nor can I blame you, don't worry."
She struggles to get up, sitting against the wall, catching her breath and holding her stomach. "I'm famished, if you have food to spare I'd be most grateful."
Once given at least something to nibble on, she feels a bit more alive. "We didn't get far in the dungeon. The first puzzle in the hall, it was rather straightforward. The ends of each scepter fit only in certain holes. We just got the chamber opened when Alarka and her henchmen arrived..."
"We were outnumbered three to six, and Alarka's fire magic was just something we couldn't fight against. We fought in the chamber, and when it looked sure we would die in this remote place to be forgotten, Gilleon did one last thing. Revenge. Using his magic, he pulled one scepter out of its socket from afar, closing the chamber door."
"Hearing him laugh so loud the chamber echoed as the angry mage burned him to the crisp with flaming eyes... at least I know he died feeling content."
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"A brave move. " agrees the historian.
"We noticed the linkage between scepters and holes in the first room. There seems to be another puzzle in the side chamber, which I postulate has to do with the order of Alkhet Utmari's wives"
Here he outlines the clues received.
"And then in the other side passage there is another puzzle. In either case, we needed additional scepters to solve it, and it looks like we now have two more."
"Jojack briefly checked the altar there before the robbers came," Jilarni recalls, "he couldn't say what it was about—I was the only one who could read and speak ancient Osiriani. Something about five trays, if I remember correctly. And now with five scepters available, I'm sure the late merchant prince had some weird interest towards using them in all instances."
"The final five combined did not weigh upon me as heavily as the first."
Khellek cannot remember anything worthwhile regarding the wives of the merchant prince. It appears he kept them out of the history books, mainly concentrating on his own achievements and letting the wives play the role of trophies... or scepters.
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Tere reviews the translations, deep in thought. "Let's assume that we haven't found the scepter for his first wife, since if the altar inscription isn't figurative her scepter would weigh more than all the others--something that would be possible if it's made of gold. Further, let's assume that he only had six wives. In that case, Osomi is sixth. We know Kiranna is fifth, Elea is fourth, and Shasha is third--I respect Khellek's scholarship too much to think he's made a mistake in translation. That would make Iltorian his second, and the order in the trays would be Iltorian-Shasha-Elea-Kiranna-Osomi. If he had seven wives, though, Iltorian would be his sixth, and the order would be Shasha-Elea-Kiranna-Iltorian-Osomi. I don't like that option, though. Let me try the first order. Stand back, though. Just in case." He gives a quick halfhearted grin and once the rest of the party is clear loads the trays from left to right, Iltorian-Shasha-Elea-Kiranna-Osomi.
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"The thing is... he has Six wives. So going with your superstition that the missing scepter belongs to the first wife..." muses Khellek.
"I think we have a viable plan. But I also think we should wait until tomorrow when we are all in a healthier state before trying it. Who knows what deadly traps may be invoked if we get this wrong. And we are in no state to face them at the moment."
It should be noted that the scholar's formerly burned robe seems to have miraculously recovered and even the scent of burned cotton is gone from it. If not the scent of burned scholar.
Khellek seems far from unhappy at the thought of "resting" up in the tomb for an extra day or two, spending time making sketches of wall paintings and rubbings of fixtures. He happily directs the rest of the team into similar archeological activities - at least as much as they look to be capable of given their injuries.
Particular interest is given to any and all words he finds, as he both illustrates them and provides his own on-the-fly translation both to his "students" and to his notes for posterity.
"Finally at last, surely this will get me onto the front of the Chronicle!" he smiles, oddly happy.
“For Iltorian, the blessed second who taught me faith in
the gods, but reliance only in oneself.”
"Wasn't this tomb called the hall of [u]seven[/u] scepters? It makes me think Alkhet had seven wives, too," Jilarni weights her own opinion to the mix.
Jilarni looks surprised but nods in approval. "That makes more sense, actually," she replies to Khellek, "but let's see here. We have five scepters, and they belong to the second, third, fourth, fifth, and last wife, so the sixth. Final five would mean everyone expect the first wife. Have you found the sixth scepter? Or is beneath the next chamber?"
Jilarni is still feeling very weak from days of malnourishment, beaten from the fight nearly a week ago, and struggles to get up even after magical healing. She feels her equipment, and from her backpack she takes out a scroll tube. "Hmm, I should be informing Balentiir about the situation," Jilarni says and takes out a scroll, "scrolls of sending, these. Or are you capable to casting them without scrolls? Got to cut the expenses somewhere."
The camels' saddlebags contain only blankets and empty waterskins. The camels themselves are weak, not having been fed for a long, long time.