Lisa flies around to flank the woman with Snow, slicing with her scimitar!
Snow ignores the blow that does little more than trim her fur and retaliates with fang and claw.
Thanara's wall of force only keeps the glabrezu at bay momentarily. It opens a dimensional doorway and steps through, appearing behind the sorceress, then it snaps at her with a pincer!
Meanwhile, Lisa and Snow each land good hits on the warrior. She sneers and continues attacking Snow! She lands some devastating hits, nearly taking the ranger down!
Lisa quickly moves back to Snow's side to heal her with magic and medicine.
Snow yowls in pain as she is nearly pierced through, but luckily Lisa fixes her up in moments and the wolf fights on!
Thanara cries out in pain as the pincer closes around her midsection! She twists her head around and says ”I…don’t want to fight you! I just…wanted to keep you safe…” as she wills some magic through her words…
The glabrezu laughs at Thanara, fighting off her charm spell. It snaps at her again, this time closing its pincer around her and pulling her closer so that its smaller claws can rake at her belly!
The warrior woman impales Snow with ranseur again and again, dropping the wolf!
"Hold on, Thanara!" Lisa cries as she heals Snow.
The wolf surges back to its feet and attacks again, fighting with desperation now.
Thanara reaches down in desperation, grasping the demon’s pincer in her hands before sending a powerful shock into the thing!
Snow's ferocious assault overwhelms the warrior woman, and she falls in a spray of blood! Meanwhile, Thanara reaches out to shock the demon, injuring it!
Snarling, the demon uses a claw to rip open Thanara's chest and belly, tossing the sorceress aside as she goes limp!
It then lunges at Lisa, but she avoids its attacks!
"Thanara!" Lisa cries. She flies around the demon to get to the sorceress, applying healing to her.
Snow howls and leaps on the demon with great ferocity. No-one gets to hurt her pack!
Snow rips the demon apart for daring to harm Thanara! As it falls, the glowing rune that had been floating in front of the woman warrior’s forehead disappears, only to reappear in front of Snow’s brow. She has been crowned the new champion of wrath!
Snow bats at the rune a couple of times and when it doesn't go away gives a very human shrug and proceeds to ignore it. There's a lot of rune on her body now, what's one more floating around?
"You ok Tee?" She asks a moment later, back in human form, before embracing Lisa. "Saved us again Lisa! Best angel ever!"
Thanara looks at her stomach, where the beast had ripped he asunder only moments before. Now there is only the trace remnants of blood where the wounds had been. ”I…I’ll be fine, thanks to Lisavet’s magic…” she says with a sigh of relief as she slumps back and lays on the stone floor.
Aside from the warriors' gear, you also discover the "master circle" Vraxeris wrote about in his journal. When you are ready, you can use this to exit Runeforge and return to Golarion. For now, though, you find a safe place to rest for the night before deciding your next course of action.
"Need to stay?" Snow asks the next 'morning' after the group wake up. "Why not make weapon, and go?"
Thanara was preparing herself for more battle when the others awoke. ”There are more wings of this place. More dangers. If we don’t deal with them now, before they can unite, then who knows what horrors they can unleash on Varisia if they choose to leave.”
”Thanara is right,” Lisa says. ”We should scour this place to ensure that any evil beings that lurk within cannot emerge to do harm to others. Let us—oh!”
The cleric stops abruptly, eyes wide. Her hands go to her rounded belly. She pauses, then gasps in surprise. ”The baby just kicked! I... I felt it!”
"Strong mother. Baby knows." Snow says. "May I?"
Lisa nods and lets Snow place her hands on her stomach. The ranger can feel slight movements coming from within.
"Strange." Snow says in soft wonderment. "Strong baby."
She pulls back and offers Lisa a hand. "We should go. Finish this place and go home."
She leads the way to the abjuration wing, reasoning that that should be a quick one to deal with.
Thanara also had darted across the room to rest a hand on her belly to feel the baby!
When Snow announces she was ready, however, she looked to Lisa with a questioning look, making sure that their priestess was also still ready and willing to continue.
Lisa smiles at the attention from the other women. She nods, indicating her readiness.
As you approach the Abjurant Halls, a voice booms out a resounding command: “Stop!” The source is a large disembodied human mouth stretched across the ceiling of this section of the tunnel. It continues, “These are the Abjurant Halls of Eager Striving. Know that your powers will be crushed and you shall die! You are not worthy!” The mouth then disappears.
Snow marches onward, utterly unperturbed by the grandiose announcement.
A wide staircase of stone descends into a large, partially caved-in chamber. The murals and decorative bas-reliefs on the walls have been blasted and fractured from what must have been a titanic war of magic. Sooty humanoid bones are scattered here and there, and flames sporadically flicker along the walls and floor as if the room still resonates with the power unleashed here. Electrical discharges spark from a silver rod protruding from the floor in the center of the room—it almost looks like the metal rod has fused with the stone of the floor.
To the south, thick sheets of ooze lie in pools along the floor, and the air carries on it an overwhelming stink of eye-watering mustard and vinegar. A vile ooze slithers forward to attack, but you destroy it fairly quickly.
to the north, a ring of steps descends to what appears to be a large pool filled with quicksilver. This is a rare and potent substance called ethillion.
Snow pulls out a large canteen and fills it with the shiny silver liquid before nodding in satisfaction and turning to her girls.
"Good. Now find Kar-zoog wing. Mess it up!"
She seems quite keen on the idea.
You head toward the Vault of Greed. A large iron door studded with dozens of colorful gemstones stands in the eastern wall at the end of this corridor. Although the door appears to have no latch, a depression in the center contains a keyhole.
Alert for trickery, Snow realizes that the door is actually false, a trap designed to punish the unwary. The actual entrance is a secret door hidden at the end of the corridor.
Beyond this door, a beautiful tunnel of polished wood inlaid with silver and gold runes stretches for at least a hundred feet before ending at a wall of greenish mist sparkling with silver motes of light.
"Trap?" Snow asks, suspicious as ever. "Tee? Check for magic?"
”The mist is definitely magic…” Thanara says as she reaches out to try and undo it. She lets out a frustrated grunt and adds ”I…have no idea how to undo it though.”
”Allow me,” Lisa says. With a prayer and a gesture, the mist disappears.
This chamber is paved with ivory tiles, each one engraved with a silver rune depicting what appears to be a claw gripping a gemstone. The walls and ceiling are of polished marble. A large silver basin in the center of the room contains an icy sculpture of a whale spraying crystal-clear water from its blowhole. The water cascades around it to keep the basin full, but never quite overflowing.
Four water mephits splash and cavort in the pool. They glower in your direction. ”Oh look! Another group of fleshies come to slobber in our pool,” one mutters.
Snow gives the creatures a hard look and ignores them, stalking around the outside of the room and ignoring the mephits while she looks for something, anything else of importance.
The mephits jeer and insult you, but Snow ignores them and keeps exploring. Passages to the north and south pass through chambers featuring fountains and smaller rooms that serve as sleeping chambers. Both passages meet up in another room. Rows of thick wooden worktables occupy the center of this long chamber. Bookcases lining the walls hold hundreds of books and scrolls. Crates next to or pushed under the worktables appear to be filled with an odd variety of mundane items, such as rope, sticks, sacks, tools, and cookware. A dog on one of the tables looks dead, though its hind end appears to be made of some kind of metal. A few other animals pace back and forth in small metal cages—a house cat, a few rats, a snake, and a small white-faced monkey.
A bald man with skin appparently made of mithral is here, studying several books. He looks up with a grim scowl. "What is this? Who are you? Why do you intrude upon my studies?"
Snow doesn't bother to exchange pleasantries. She takes a moment to size the figure up and then shifts into her battle form!
Thanara says ”We are powerful magi from the world beyond Runeforge, and we have come to bring a swift end to Karzoug’s return!” imperiously.
"Then you will fall before the might of Ordikon, the Mithral Mage!" the metallic man shouts.
Snow leaps on the 'mithral mage' and proceeds to chew on him!
Snow manages to get one good hit in, but Ordikon’s metallic body is resistant to physical damage.
Ordikon casts a spell, but Snow clamps down hard, scoring a critical hit! The mithral mage maintains his concentration, though, firing a green ray of disintegration at Lisa! The cleric cries out and doubles over in pain, but she fights off some of the spell’s effects.
The wolfs mouth is full of metal but she barks something muffled before clamping down even harder!
Ordikon reels as Snow tears into him again, then Thanara fires off a powerful necromantic spell, stopping the mage's heart and striking him dead!
The research books scattered around this room detail various experiments and partial notes on the conundrum of transmuting lead into gold. Anyone who spends several hours reading through these books discovers notes and descriptions of the solution the Lords of Greed hit upon to protect Karzoug from the fall of Thassilon. By building a runewell larger than any before, Karzoug could place himself in stasis between realities, suspended between Golarion and a hostile plane called Leng. Once the dust settled, the plan was for one of Karzoug’s apprentices to release him. The details of this process are not recorded in the books—the wizards of runeforge were focused only on aiding in the runewell’s construction, not what came after it was completed.
Another door leads deeper into this wing.
Snow spits out her mouthful of mildly mangled mithril mage and ignores the books - Thanara and Lisa can read those later. Her main concern is Lisa! The wolf bounds over and stands next to the priestess, unable to help but obviously concerned none-the-less.
Once reassured that Lisa is alright, Snow's huge wolf form pads off towards the next room. Hopefully the door doesn't require a handle to open, or it might not survive the experience.
Lisa uses her magic hands to heal the wounds left behind by the disintegration spell. ”I am okay, by Sarenrae’s grace. Let’s press on.”
This wide hall is floored in polished wooden planks, its walls covered in colorful jade tiles. The ceiling is made of lustrous stone that reflects the light of three decorative lanterns that brightly illuminate ten gleaming golden statues of men and women in various poses of combat readiness that stand along the walls. A close examination of the statues reveals looks of surprise, anger, and fear on their faces.
A corpulent, boar-headed demon lurks here. It rises up to its full height and looks down at you. ”Mortals! I, Zuvuzeg, have been bound to this place as a guardian. I have languished here for millennia! I urge you, release me from the magic binding me here, and I will grant you a great reward!”
The wolf only knows one way to release bindings like that, but she waits for the go from her packmates.
"We do not negotiate with vile fiends!" Lisa declares, presenting her holy symbol. "You are a foul stain to be burned away!"
"So be it!" the demon snarls.
And the go is given!
Thanara also sends a blast of lightning at the hideous thing!
Snow tears into the demon as Thanara blasts it with electricity and Lisa burns it with fire! The fiend is already badly wounded, but has no choice but to try to fight back, tearing at Snow with its teeth and claws.
Thanara sends another blast of lightning at the demon, hoping to free Snow from its clutches!
Snow never minds getting up close and personal with monsters like this, it means that her girls don't have to.
Snow only lands one hit this time. The demon dodges some of Thanara’s lightning, but Lisa burns it once more. Badly wounded, the fiend continues to assault Snow. Only its teeth score her hide.
Another peel of thunder and lightning booms through the chamber as another bolt sears into the demon.