Kiri heals themself while Wisps sends an inspired arrow into a wall.
Chim's blast of plasma catches the brutes off-guard, leaving one with no eyebrows.
Akoril's arrow follows, slicing into the brute's neck. Blood flows onto the ground. The man is woozy, but still alive. And he fears long lingering torture from the warden more than death from arrow.
The warden darts out and stabs at Chim before ducking back out of sight.
His hiss of frustration trails back into the room.
The brutes step forward. Get that one boss? OK.
Chim blocks the first strike but the brutes prove brutishly effective, leaving the inventor badly battered.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Warden
Brute 1
Brute 2
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Akoril
Chimwwemwe staggers under the assault from the kayal brigands. He looks at the blood dripping off of the scales of his armor and then looks to Alrinkiri. "You've got this," he says and reaches out his hand to touch the automaton on their shoulder. Celestial power surges through his arm and into Alrinkiri.
He steps forward and throws his weight behind his shield as he slams into the brute injured by Akoril's empowered arrow.
+
Akoril takes a step forward and shoots electricity through both.
Battered by shield and blasted by lightning, the brute falls!
"
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Warden
Brute 1
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
Chimwemwe
Akoril
"
Kiri curses under their breath as the warden darts out of their line of sight again. They cast a defensive ward, then steps forward to slash at the remaining brute.
Wisps winces at the onslaught on Chim but she keeps her words positive.
"You can't hide for long, warden! We're coming!"
Wisps sends healing energy toward Chimwemwe.
Kiri slashes but once.
The warden darts out and strikes at Kiri:
Then, he moves back.
The brute does Brute things. He steps back, looking between Chim and Kiri… deciding to fodus on the guy who was just healed
He leaves the inventor reeling. Boss we got this! He doesn't see the Warden is rather near the exit to the cliffside…
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Warden
Brute 1
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Akoril
Akoril recharges his spellstrike and fires at 1, grabbing a spare goblet.
Bleeding again, Chimwemwe glances at Alrinkiri. He begins to speak the arcane arithmetic and finishes the equation on the outside of time. While the kayal and the amurrun are paused, he hustles past the kayal to get into position on the ledge. As the magic wears off, he tries to pound the warden into unconsciousness with his shield. "Don't hurt my friends!" The shield boss flares with orange light with each swing.
+
+
Frustrated as the warden hampers their movement once again, Kiri glares at the brute in the doorway, then steps up and slashes at them.
Wisps runs closer to the door at the sounds of Chimwemwe's injury.
The warden falls with a gasp.
The brute drops his weapons. You killed my boss… I give!
All is quiet…
You circle back through the rooms you've fought in, the nearest room by the bunk room, and the warden's room:
Bunk Room
In the room with the bunks you find four large burlap sacks filled with clothing and personal effects taken from kidnapped villagers.
Kitchen
You find some drunken brutes in a kitchen; there is foodstuff in there and messy pots and pans. There's a crate of fine booze they've gotten into. Luckily they were too drunk to come help their allies!
Warden's Room
This small, tidy room boasts a cot and a trunk. Carvings of astronomical phenomena cover the ceiling and walls. An elaborated sunburst annotated in strange, carved script adorns the otherwise-empty western wall.
The trunk contains a meticulous record of the Knights under Yonsuu’s command as well as the many prisoners kept here. It’s clear from the notes that the Knights are selecting specific prisoners and sending them to one Ajbal Kimon in Shadow Jula.
The prisoners they’re sending are of two types: those who demonstrate exceptional talents in magic, and those those who “meet Bashantu’s criteria.”
There are several volumes of rare poetry in here.
Ritual Room
There is a Kuthite preistess in here with a brute, they're up to no good. You dispatch them quickly for reasons of what you see in here, includiung implements of pain and a bloody altar.
This space is eerie: it's simultaneously the most cave-like and the most ornately decorated in the entire complex.
Immense stalactites—larger than in any of the other rooms—hang from the domed ceiling, and stubby stalagmites rise from the floor near the eastern and western walls. Every inch of these protrusions bear carvings upon carvings of celestial bodies in minute detail, accompanied by runic explanations and diagrams. But painted over and among these educational carvings are sigils and symbols in reds and yellow that remain bright despite the passage of millennia.
The painted symbols seem to enhance the carvings in some places but efface them in others.
Chim thinks about this for several minutes. This chamber was once a place of study and reflection but was later repurposed as an interrogation chamber; instead of imparting cosmic knowledge, the carvings were perverted into instructions about obtaining knowledge through pain and suffering.
Prison
Down the hall from the ritual room you find another cell, about a dozen prisoners cramped into a dingy cave: the rest of the villagers of Kiutu!
Esi and the rest are not here.
You learn a few things:
• A priestess pulls one of them out every few days. She asks them about their secrets, and what they’d do to the other prisoners if they had a knife or some poison. There was one prisoner who seemed to be getting along with her, but he was taken away a few days ago and hasn’t been back.
• Some of the Knights of the Gloaming heart are associated with a place called the Shadow-Maagambya.
• The Knights of the Gloaming heart talk about the town of Shadow-Jula, and how there's a secret portal connecting Jula and its shadowy counterpart. Getting to Jula somehow involves frogs.
• The knights are being stymied by one "Father Heveril."
• The rest of your friends were taken to Jula, and then likely to Shadow-Jula!
• shadow essence (2 doses)
• +2 striking shortsword
• +1 resilient studded leather (Warden, also noted above)
• +2 striking trident (Warden, also noted above)
• Books of rare poetry
• 48 GP
• blue-green elemental gem
• knapsack of halflingkind
Root, Esi, and Haibram come up the stairs.
Root looks around at the prisoners, and starts to cry. They she takes a breath. UMMM… We have to help our friends and be strong. I'm coming. I can do it. I want to be there for my friends.
Lucky Bones assents. BUK BUK BUK!
Haibram punches a wall, leaving the stone charred. These shadow-Magaambyans people deserve a clobberin' for what they did.
Mariama calls these so-called Knights something in a language from beyond the stars. Something that needs no translation.
Thiravo the Quick comes up the stairs. He is glancing nervously behind him. He's sprouting feathers off the top of his head and his eyes are rainbow-colored. His shirt seems to be off-gassing a weird stench.
Binji scuttles behind the halfling conman, giving him dirty looks and "sweeping" with her magical new Broom of Wonder.
Once the ruins are secured, Chimwemwe looks over the assembled assortment of Lore-Speakers, students, and villagers. He briefly touches Mariama's shoulder in a gesture of familiar relief. "The villagers need to be escorted home--and there's a dragon along the way--so they will need the best protection we can offer them," he says, "but we also need to hurry to Jula. What little I heard of Jula when I was a boy, it is no place for students."
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Akoril smiles at Binji "If you hadn't escaped, we wouldn't have known where to start and might have never made it this far. You've been great."
Wisps addresses her friends. "I think I have a way to get us to Jula very quickly, but we won't be able to bring much backup. It's a spell I think I finally cracked the code on. I can take the four of us, plus one more if we would like."
The other students agree to stay here in the temple, conducting research and keeping an eye on the villagers. Hugs are had. Binji runs off with her broom.
Wisps casts her spell, mystically pulling you through space!
You land in a miserable swamp just outside Jula.
Once a bustling trade city built among the steep river valleys in northwestern Garund, Jula is a town fallen on hard times. Its position along the region’s safest highland road made the city an ideal waypoint between northern Yamasa and the agrarian nation’s southern markets. Alas, at the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, an everlasting hurricane formed in the Gulf of Abendego and consumed everything in its path, including Jula’s lowlands—only those on the cliff tops survived.
The stalwart settlement endures, divided by water and elevation, but united against whatever the Eye of Abendego throws its way.
This is a small place… but welcoming.
Your first task should be to find thius "Father Heveril."
Wisps starts asking around about Father Heveril.
Kiri joins wisps, donning their cloak and walking upright so as not to distract from the effort to gather information.
Akoril takes a walk around town to see what he can learn.
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Once you explore more you notice the town is full of tension. People seem afraid. You hear villagers have been disappearing from the streets.
You find an old woman lingering near the market; she seems to trust you. Father Heveril resides in the Hall of the Watchful Ibex, a decrepit old temple to Erastil. Avoid them spooky knights if you see 'em. They comes and goes, and no one knows how. Like ghosts. An' you be gentle with old Father Heveril. He's old and sad ever since Erastil abandoned him. That must've been, oh, twenty years ago or longer, when I was a young one. Anyway he still keeps to the temple after all those years, to care for all us here in Jula as best he can. At least, when he has the energy. Gets lost in the doldrums he does. The sadness, it cripples him some days. In any case, he's all we got for a healer or spiritual leader in this place. We don't have much. not like we used to.
You make your way to a lonely old temple on a hillside. The old doors creak on their hinges.
Inside, you hear a man speaking.
Little one. It does not matter. How many times must I tell you? Sweeping away a few cowebs is pointless when all of Jula is doomed. The shadows here grow too long.
BINJI HELP!
Hmm. Are you a messenger from the gods? Erastil himself? You appeared in a puff of green smoke. A sign?
BINJI HELP!
Is Old Deadeye telling me to start somewhere, even if it's such a small thing as a coweb even in a corner?
BINJI HELP!
No matter. I did what I could, little one. All for naught. It wasn't enough. It never was. It never is. Please, stop sweeping. Let the cowebs cover this place.
BINJI HELP!
I beg you. Go back to the Summerlands. Tell Erastil he has forsaken us too long. We are beyond saving.
BINJI HELP!
The man sighs. You know, this place hasn't been swept in years. I don't even have a broom.
"I am beyond asking how Binji got here," Chimwemwe comments to Akoril. He holds the door of the others to enter.
Akoil shrugs "I have reached the same wisdom some time ago now."
Akoril tries his best to keep a straight/disappointed face as they head in.
You open the door and see a dour-looking man siting in a rickety old chair that's leaning on the wall. He's watching Binji sweep cowebs under Erastil's grand community table. Her Broom of Wonder sparkles.
Binji looks at you and defiantly and continues sweeping. She punctuates each word with a forceful push of the bristles.
BINJI HELP. HELP. HELP. HELP.
The old fallen priest shudders at the words "help" like he's being punched in the gut. He doesn't even look at you. Temple's closed today. I can't help you or anyone. I can't. Not even messengers from the gods can change that.
"Perhaps you can help us, and perhaps we can help you. We are from the Magaambya and we are looking for some missing people."
Akoril ignores the priest for the moment and calls out "Binji! How did you get here?"
"Perhaps you can help us, and perhaps we can help you. We are from the Magaambya and we are looking for some missing people."
The old man sighs. Yes. They're taking them away. Using Jula as a base. Soon all of us will be gone. All because I opened the door to shadow so long ago.
Akoril ignores the priest for the moment and calls out "Binji! How did you get here?"
Binji looks at Akoril defiantly. Binji hear Akoril and big ones talking "Jula" "Jula" "Jula", and talking about helping friends. Binji help too. So she think about magic lines Akoril show her, how they squiggle on big map. Bingi squeeze broom real tight and say "Bingi wish to go to dirtiest place in Jula, and help Binji friends." So Binji here. Looking around at the old temple, it might indeed the the dirtiest place in all of Jula. It looks like Father Heveril hasn't done chores for years.
She points the Broom of Wonder sternly at Father Heveril. Need help sweeping! Help! Clearly Binji has been having this "conversation" with the depressive priest for several hours. She begins sweeping away more debris.
The old fallen priest shakes his head and sighs. How many times must I tell you? There's no point. It's all meaningless. Let Jula fall to the shadow.
Wisps gives Binji a thoughtful look. "You have some very impressive abilities, Binji. Father Heverin, I think it would be wise to let her clean."
She pauses, then adds, "I know this is very painful, but can you tell us what you mean by opening the door to shadow?"
Akoril nods to Wisps, not quite sure how Binjii got here, but not wanting to look stupid.
"Please be careful with your magic, Binji. Many places that need cleaning are not nice places to be."
Binji nods back at akoril She sweeps and sweeps, pretending to ignore all of you.
[dice=NAture]1d20+19
Wisps gives Binji a thoughtful look. "You have some very impressive abilities, Binji. Father Heveril, I think it would be wise to let her clean."
She pauses, then adds, "I know this is very painful, but can you tell us what you mean by opening the door to shadow?"
It's too painful! I can't! Father Heveril turns away.
BINJI HELP! Binji runs up to the cleric and smacks him in the shin with her Broom of Wonder. He turns green.
The old priest looks at his hands. He falls to his knees and begins to weep. A sign… from Erastil? Is forgiveness at hand!? I have turned green… green to grow and brighten the shadow of my heart! Yes… that must be it. How foolish I have been this whole time.
Binji nods solemnly. HELP!
He turns to Wisps.
I will confess to you Magaambyans my sins. Why Erastil has forsaken me, and what I did to deserve it.
Long ago, when I was a young cleric here, and in Old Deadeye's good graces, I fell I fell in love with a Kuthite. Together, we opened a portal to the plane of shadow, to make sojourns there to this place's sister-city on the other side, Shadow Jula. I thought I could separate my own feelings from those of my flock, but as Jula here declined, shadow-Jula saw more and more prosperity. I grew lax; I grew envious. The shadows in my heart grew. I became corrupted. I let envy poison my teachings to the community here.
The rest of the details matter little. It was long ago. Erastil abandoned me. My lover did as well. The ultimate lesson in pain? Perhaps.
He shrugs. Over the decades I've lingered here, a shadow in the sun, a shadow of my former self, tending to the flock of a dying town… trying to atone. A silhouette of the man I once was.
At times, when the colors of the sky are too painful for me to bear, I still go to Shadow-Jula and visit dour old friends. A place without color is more to my liking, but I won;t abandon my duties here.
But now Shadow-Jula is overrun by these "Knights of the Gloaming Heart" — students and allies of the Shadow-Magaambya, your university's counterpart. And they found the doorway I made between there and here… and worst of all, they are taking artifacts and innocent people to the other side. I am afraid to even think of what their sinister purpose may be.
It's terrible. There is nothing I can do to stop them. The people of Shadow-Jula are too cowed and afraid of these knights, though I've tried to rally my friends. And when these knights get bored, or run out of people to take from this region, they will take what little there is from Jula too. This will be a dead town. Consumed by the beating of the gloaming heart.
Long go, I planted a seed of evil here. Its roots touch the plane of shadow. It is now blossoming. This is all my fault!
He looks at his green hands. Perhaps we can try one last time to rally the people of Shadow-Jula. But whatever we do must be decisive. We must strike down their leadership once and for all.
Will you do this? He looks his green hands, and at Binji. Or is this avatar of the gods a false messenger?
Wisps smiles at Binji's impact. "We can and we will. We will save Jula and our friends."
Once the Father Heveril sets his mind to helping others, he brightens up and focuses.
Alright. One last chance for redemption. Abjal, the leader of the Knights, is a Lore-Taker of the Shadow-Magaambya, but he is from this plane… Bloodcove, I believe. Heand his leadership have taken over the alehouse. That's heir base, and it's where we can end this once and for all. But the town is overrun with brutes, and it will be impossible to get in there without getting help — lots of it. We need an uprising to keep Abjal's main forces occupied while you perform a precision strike.
We can rally support… if key players can be convinced. Ajbal has been working Zihara Shadowsteele to the bone. If she canbe convinced to help arm the citizenry — a few shields, even a blade or two — then this plan might not be dead in the water after all.
“Then there’s the Dust River, the local thieves’ guild. They have their own reasons to hate the Knights. They’re quick, and they’re smart; if nothing else, they’ll make a good distraction.
“Our front line, hopefully, will be made up of the former town guard. The knights of the Gloaming Heart 'releived them of their dutues' and I doubt they’ll listen to you or me. But if you can get their old captain, Eight Thorny Moons, to step up, they may listen to him. Unfortunately, he’s acquired a severe fear of open spaces. If I wasn’t still bringing him food, he’d probably starve before stepping outside.
“Imara Coal-Hearth owns the alehouse; in fact, she grew up in it. No one knows the Knights or their movements in the alehouse better. She’s been avoiding a confrontation for fear of her beloved alehouse becoming a focus of the Knights’ wrath, but she needs convincing that the time is now. This might be the best time, in fact, as the Knights recently turned her out, and I’m certain she’s not happy about that.”
You ready to go over there?
"Should we begin with Imara Coal-Hearth? The information she has may help us to convince the others."
Akoril nods, lost in thought about exactly what to tell Binji.
"How similar is the city there to here?" Chimwemwe asks. "It might help to study the routes we will need to walk while we are here, if they are similar enough."
Jula here is a decaying place. Shadow-Jula is larger. I can guide you. It was thriving once, but not so much under the iron heel of the Knights.
Heveril takes you to the basement if the church; Binju stays up top sweeping. There, in the dirt wall of the basement, is a floor-to ceiling painting of a shadowy place — in the distance is a town not of lowlands but atop a plateau, a town not surrounded by a lush green lowland but a petrified forest choked in pale dust. In the foreground is a trailhead, leading to the switchbacks that climb the plateau.
The cleric steps through.
Shadow-Jula is a more populous place than its counterpart. A dim light suffuses everything. Shadow-Jula is a lot less friendly than its counterpart. The windows are shut. It's dead quiet; Fetchlings move about quickly and on their daily business. Brutes walk the streets, getting a wide berth from citizenry _ many of them ducking into alleyways whenever they see them approach. It looks like there are dozens and dozens of them Heveril whispers: Knights of the Gloaming Heart are everywhere here, friends. Just keep your heads down for now! To the markets, or Coal-Hearth?
"Perhaps the markets first, in case things don't go well with Coal-Hearth?"
Akoril nods "We need to get our gear sorted."
"Yes. It may be best to provision ourselves," Chimwemwe says. "Hopefully, a new group of strangers shopping through the more expensive vendors will not draw too much attention."
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Akoril comes back from the market with a fat sack of gold and popsicles.
"Look what I found!" he gestures at the popsicles.
Shadow Jula's market still does a brisk business, although the market is quiet.
Farther Heveril points out a crumbling old tower that rises above the slums past the market. Coiling from the ground level to the roof, suspended by a network of thick black chains, is a gargantuan skeleton similar to a snake's. Atop the roof sits its eyeless skull. A circular maw full of teeth that expel wisps of blacker-than-black shadow hangs open. In the center of the forehead is a jagged hole. Let me tell you some history of this place. Perhaps knowing more about the people here will be relevant to your efforts.
That is the "Shadow-Coil." Generations ago, an Urveth, a kind of Nightcrawler, rampaged through Shadow-Jula. The people here banded together to fight the horrific beast. Many of them were powerful warriors in their own right. However, the killing blow was delivered by one of the normal citizens through ingenuity and teamwork. Coal-Hearth's ancestor, who owned the alehouse even back then, banded together her patrons and built a giant spear from a cracked beam from the roof of alehouse. They rigged up this makeshift harpoon on the roof of a repair gantry and drove it into the creature’s skull. He points at the hole in the skull. Do you see the jets of blacker-than-black darkness steaming off its teeth? This creature of entropy was so powerful that even hundreds of years later its teeth exude Oblivion. No one goes there for fear of touching it. It's said if you climb that nameless tower and gaze through the gash in its forehead, you can see the eternally silent threshold of Xovaikain, Zon-Kithon's lightless, steel labyrinth of hopelessness and suffering.
Anyway, off to Coal Hearth?
You head to a house in the slums. Imara's staying at a friend's house… she was asked to vacate her own inn, and when Ajbal Kimon has no more use fr you, you tend to disappear.
The cleric approaches a nondescript door and knocks in a certain rhythm. The door cracks open to appraise your group, then widens. Standing there is a stocky woman with a colorful full-arm tattoo of the Shadow-Julan forest with the tower in the Shadow-Coil tower in the background.
I told you Heveril, I ain't helping. Keep your head down if you know what's good for you. She moves to close the door.
"Wait." Kiri says, a hard look in their eye as they put a mechanical paw on the door to hold it open.
Seeing Kiri take the assertive approach, Wisps speaks more gently.
"You have to know that you can't keep going like this forever. There has to be a point where you take a stand, or else it's just this until it wears you down. Do you really want to keep your head down for the rest of your life?
She starts at Wisps' words. Hmmph. I've seen too many who've crossed Ajbal disappear. She pauses. Tell you what. You can do me a favor, and along the way we'll test your mettle to see if you;re worth sticking my neck out for. Deal?
Without waiting she produces a basket; bottles inside clink. I got a friend who crossed Ajbal. Gully. Old patron of the alehouse. Got a little tipsy as is his wont, and spilled a hoppy drink across Ajbal's shirt. Gully barely escaped by his whiskers and has been in hiding since. He's a good fighter though. Just not good anouth to stand against dozens of those Brutes. She rattles the basket. Since then I bring these "care packages" to his hiding place, else he'd lose his mind and go picking a fight and get "disappeared." Go make this delivery for me. If you can convince him to show his ears at my door and join the fight, I'll rally more troops. And believe me, in a place like this ain't no one know more rabble-rousers than the barkeep.