"The signs of death reveal we are not still in the first world," Onye Dinta says as he stops short of the winding path of mushrooms. "These mushrooms are dangerous to the tribe. The spores overwhelm the mind with illusions. Caution must be taken to cross."
"Step carefully, my friends," Daehalya says, though she's so busy watching her companions that she (critically?) fails to heed her own advice.
Ezgara prances along on hoof and foot, backwards, forwards, left, right, and in circles.
I can outsmart these fungi! Ware the Mycorrhiza. Watching, they are always watching! Hee hee.
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Ezgara manages to navigate a safe path through the strange mushrooms where the stream forms into a river.
A rushing river cuts across the jungle, its wide waters red as blood against the jungle’s green. Just upstream, red rock outcroppings squeeze the river into narrow rapids, providing a line of jutting boulders close enough to hop across.
The catfolk kneels down next to the river bank and sniffs underneath his mask. He places two fingers into the red water, which emerge clean and sniffs the wetness. "The red is only iron. The water is no more dangerous than a river is."
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Well, if Onye gives a blessing- I'm good with crossing. Let's move on out. Hey-= who is tired? Do we camp around here? I'm thinking we move back up stream a half hour and find a defendable spot. I mean we already had a long day at the Kaneepoo Treetop resort and spa. Doing the 5 mile Jungle hike is pushing our vacation a bit too far.
"Onye Dinta will defend the tribe from the great beast that eats dragons while you rest!" the catfolk offers.
Ezgara listens to Onye's words about the red water and calls back to his definition of "advanced civilization":
Contamination. The contamination of "advanced" civilizations chokes life out, drowns fish in water. Efficient resource extraction, a warped definition of "progress." Mining. Oh no, it is not mine."
"The minerals in the water are natural, Ezgara," Onye Dinta explains confidently.
"I think it is safer to head to civilization," Daehalya says. She knows well the dangers that lurk in the wilds of the Crown of the World, and if there's something here that can kill a dragon, being caught in the wild seems no less dangerous.
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It does indeed seem to be a natural occurrence due to the amount of iron in the sediment.
Leaping from rock to rock you are able to cross the river. According to the tracks several animals as well as humanoids have crossed here before.
Just ahead looms a short hill covered in grass and low vines. The mound is punctured here and there by mossy boulders and ambitious trees. At the hill’s crest, the largest of the boulders has been carved into the unmistakable likeness of an elven head.
the wear patterns on the stone are several centuries old. Furthermore, this extant piece is likely just one part of a larger structure buried beneath the hill. Beyond it being an elf, the statue reveals no further clues about its sculptors.
At the crest of the hill, the trees thin and a broad stone quarry comes into view. The steep sides of the quarry are sheared fifteen feet deep, the walls and floor a mix of naturally broken stone and expertly precise excavation. In the center of the quarry, a shallow pool of water encircles the base of a thirty-foot-tall stone tower. The tower’s flat top is accessible by a ramp on its south side. Atop the tower, two curving, rune-carved pillars crackle with purple lightning and generate the two narrow light beams that lead straight to the pyramid city in the distant mountains.
[b]"I don't like the look of those pillars, but let's take a closer look."[/ooc]
Ezgara slips in the bud, rolling around on his back.
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Odioki tries to climb too and falls onto Ezgara.
"Did you grease it or something?"
The catfolk hefts himself onto the wall while trying to remain hidden.
Daehalya remains where she is for the moment, studying the strange tower. But like so much in her life right now, it's a mystery. Despite the statue of an elf, she wonders if it might in fact be something of dwarven make.
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Nicholo also tries to go up the wall, gingerly stepping over the bodies of Odioki and Ezgara.
He seems to find the right path.
Just in case either of you wants to try again, just follow my footprints and grab the corresponding jutted rocks.
Nicky moves up also attempting to identify the big elf's head.
Now that I have Elf ears too, do mine look like these on the statue?
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Climbing over the wal you watch as two stone constructs tirelessly hew stone and load it onto the gondolas for transport up to the city.
One of several dozen gondolas arrive at the quarry every 30 minutes. Each gondola is a wooden platform suspended from the purple light-line by enchanted steel cables. The platform pauses next to the loading tower for several minutes, like a ship docking at port, then loops around the pillars so it can reverse direction and voyage back toward the city to be unloaded.
There does not seem to be anyone else around except for the two constructs and they don't immiediately react to your presence as they continue to work.
A gondola nears the platform at the loading tower and will stop within the next couple of minutes.
Menial laborers. None the wiser! Finally, I can rest my weary bones.
Ezgara hops onto the next loaded platform up.
Odioki hops in one too.
"Let's find out where they go."
Onye Dinta follows the others cautiously through the quarry to the platform Ezgara has leapt upon. "Some days, Onye Dinta has difficulty following the path of Ezgara from one idea to the next."
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The jungle drops away as the twenty-foot-square gondola climbs quickly into the sky, its platform rocking gently beneath the line of sizzling, heatless lightning above. Thick tree canopies fill the region for miles all around.
To the northwest is the forbidding mountain range and its pyramid city to which you’re headed.
An hour into your journey, two passing cliffhunter pteranodons spot you, shrieking with joy at this suspended snack. The animals—who normally prey on ram-crickets and other cliff-dwelling creatures, thugh these ones seem very, very hungry.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Daehalya
➤ Nicholo
➤ Odioki
Pteranodon 1
Pteranodon 2
Onye
Ezgara
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Nicholo jumps into the gondola. Excited to be experiencing something so new and fantastic.
Does this get any easier than sitting as you are conveyed to your destination?! This went off without a hitch!
*******
Dang it! I spoke too soon. Those things are headed to us!
Nicky looks to eyebeam blast whatever one that Odioki looks to shoot.
DAS
Deciding that Daehalya will make wiser choices on targets, Nicky changes his tactics.
Daehalya, gazing about as she takes in the new, unexpected sites from the gondola, spots the creatures coming before they can get too close. As she sizes them up, she prepares to dissuade whichever one comes too close first.
"Watch the skies!" she calls out in warning. "We have rocs incoming!"
Odioki looks for a weakness in Pteranodon 1.
But the gondoloa hits an airpocket and his shot goes wide!
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Daehalya belives these to be Quetzalcoatlus. The largest flying members of the pterosaur family and are often mistaken for dragons. They like to snatch prey and carry them off.
Odioki can't seem to find a weakness and instead aims for the wings. As the creatures close in on the Gondola Daehalya and Odioki miss, though Nicky's eye beams burn a hole through one wing.
The Pteranodon's swoop in, one landing on either side of the gondola as it tetters precariously. The Pteranodon's bite long, sharp beaks at Odioki and Nicky.
Nicky is grab and flung 15' into the air as the creature tries to fling him out of the Gondola. Nicky hits the edge of the Gondola and falls prone back into the basket.
EDIT:
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Daehalya
➤ Nicholo
➤ Odioki
Pteranodon 1
Pteranodon 2
➤ Onye
⠀⠀Uhu
➤ Ezgara
HP 36/36
AC 20 (+1 vs. traps), deny advantage
Fort +6, Ref +10, Will +7 (+1 vs. traps)
Effects: Mild Backlash (enfeebled 1 and clumsy 1 until you take a bite of food, which usually requires 2 Interact actions: one to retrieve the food and another to consume it)
"Evil snakes!" Daehalya warns, realizing they're not rocs at all. The warm lands have such strange beasts.
She lines up her staff and swings again, for just the second time her flesh seems to turn to ice as all the colors bleach out of it for a moment. As before, the violent thrust seems to throw her off balance, and she comes nowhere near the faux dragon. Trying to avoid falling, she ducks down behind the wall of the gondola as she feels her stomach suddenly knot with hunger.
”Ghairm mi fuachd stùc na beinne!” the amurrun speaks as he directs a ray of swirling snow at the injured flying lizard. He raises his shield.
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Reaction: Gnawing leaves.
Success The creature is unaffected.
Failure The creature takes 1d4 piercing damage.
Critical Failure The creature takes 2d4 piercing damage and 1 bleed damage.
As the flying creature grabs Nicky, his cloak comes to his defense! It tries to keep the creature from doing it's worst and gives itself credit as Nicky is not fully thrown from the gondola.
↺ Cloak.
Reaching into Nicky's mind, the cloak communicates.
You owe me one Ram-head. I'd better get sugar water for dinner tonight.
All the while, Nicky is sprawled on the floor of the gondola. Thankful that he's not free falling to his death.
We are outmatched people, but boxed into a corner- if anyone has bombastic magics, now may be the time to use it. Those things can fling us to our deaths and eat our corpses like carrion.
In his mind. Nicky is startled at the cloak talking with him. I'm creeped out that you are just now talking with me, and I'm creeped out that I'm inches fom death. I'll get you that sugar water, if I survive. Now I need to focus.
Nicholo stands up, and decides that hitting one wing with cold and one wing with heat might disrupt the flying creature, and that strategy sounds solid. He aims at Onye's target.
Das
Second guessing himself, possibly thinking heat and cold will counteract themselves, he changes targets.
◆ Stand/move
◆◆ Das
◆◆◆ Strike
Ezgara arcs the two birds and raises his shield.
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Several of you find cover and raise shields as quickly as you can. Onye sends a freezing ray into the wounded Pteranodon's wing. Lightning streaks out both sides of the Gondola as Ezgara shocks the pair simultaneously.
Daehalya puts enough strength behind her staff to drop a titan and misses as the gondola makes for uneven footing. Nicky continues to send streams of fire from his eyes into the dinosaur. The more he uses this strange ability the more he is able to resist the backlash.
Odioki shoots one of the Pterandon's from the sky as the second shakes the basket, leaving to lick its wounds.
As the platform nears the mountains, what appeared to be a vast pyramid city reveals itself to be only the beginnings of one. While many completed buildings stand atop several-story-tall pyramidal terraces, many more lie in various states of construction, piles of stones and wooden cranes dotting the work sites. The setting sun glints off the glass of telescopes protruding from many of the completed buildings’ roofs, including a huge one in a central domed structure.
Perhaps thanks to these telescopes, your approach has not gone unnoticed. At
the gondola’s dock, a crowd of elves has gathered, watching expectantly as your gondola draws near.
While the assembled elves seem wary, they look far more curious than threatening. Their clothing appears practical but of no immediately recognizable fashion—loose robes and leather adventuring attire, essentially. Far more distinctive and arresting is their prolific jewelry: a mixture of silver and gold bangles, rings, necklaces, earrings, circlets, and more, all bearing esoteric astrological and astronomical symbols.
As the gondola docks, the elves all begin talking at once, excitedly greeting you. Though Ezgara and daehalya recognize they speak Elven this is a strange and unfamiliar accent that neither are able to place.
"Who are you?"
"What are you?" One younger elf looks at Onye's fur and Nicholo's horns.
"Where are you from?"
The catfolk looks over the assembled crowd and the foreign chatter. He tries to communicate in slyvan, "Do you speak any other languages?" He also tries in druidic if sylvan yields no response.
Ezgara hearing elven mutters to himself in elven…
Who? Do they not see who we are? Furze-pig, cat, horned elf, promise-breaker who owes me a bottle if Sauerton red, snow elves… should we tell them we came from the thinlands, slayed an ancient evil? Not until we know more; for example, where we are, what constellations they bear upon their garb, and why they build ziggurats on the mountainside. No, we are only needy travelers lost in the forest running from dragon bones… yes, thats what to tell them.
"You get any of that?" Odioki asks Nicky.
He waits patiently for someone, other than Ezgara, to tell him what's going on.
"I am Daehalya," the elf replies in elven, trying to place the strange accent. "These are my friends," she adds, introducing each of them.
"We are from Golarion, though no one place. Even Ezgara and I, both from the Crown of the World, met only recently. But, please, where are we?"
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Onye finds that Sylvan also yields a similar response from the elves. Ezgara tries to identify any known constellations and finds none he recognizes.
A middle-aged elven woman, rushes forward excitedly saying, “I know you! I know where you’re from!” She pulls Daehalya over to a nearby telescope, pointing it at bright star low in the darkening sky. Looking through you see a small, bluish dot. “Golarion!” she says proudly. “The Blue Planet. That’s your world!”
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Nicky nods at Odioki and explains the situation in Common, then switches to elven and Sylvan to help get the most people in the party on common communication. Hoping Daehalya also speaks Sylvan.
to Odioki:
They are elves from a distant world than ours. Yeah, I'm freaked out by that too. But that'll have to wait. They appear to be nice and friendly. Let me try and get more info.
to the Elves:
Do you mind if we switch to Sylvan , so my friend Onye can also participate? I'll also translate at intervals to this gentleman we call Odioki. If that won't work, I can always translate for Onye too.
Now, were you aware there's arches that let people move from one blue planet to a green planet? Or are we the first travelers like this?
And..... how do we get back home?
Occultism (the +8) or what skill would work to remember Elven history or know about other planets?
"Interesting. So the gates move between planets, not just planes. How do they know of Golarion? Do they have another word for it in their language?"
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The middle-Aged elven woman switches to Golarion Common. "Is this better?" She places a small hand to her chest and then traces a constellation on her forhead as she bows. "I am called Alleli. You are on Castrovel."
Alleli answers Nicky's questions. "You are not the first travelers from Golarion here. Just last week, while working in the observatory, I received a message from a young human oracle named Sakuachi who claimed to be sending a message from a city on Golarion called Skywatch. Is this Skywatch on Golarion?"
“A marvelous mind,” Alleli sighs. “Apparently, the young stargazer stumbled onto a magical telescope in Skywatch’s observatory, through which she somehow managed to transmit a message to our own observatory in Loskialua.”
Though the connection was quickly lost, Alleli frowns. "I want to study the transmission in the hopes of reverse engineering it. Whatever magic was involved, it could well be the key to getting you home again."
"So you are the first to physically travel here. What allowed you to travel this Arch?"
"It's complicated," Odioki says as he begins to explain. "But we found a key."
The wooden mask hides any expression he has in response to learning that he has traveled across the sky to another planet.
"Castrovel!" Daehalya exclaims in surprise, never having expected her Guiding Hand to lead her to the ancestral home of the elves. She looks around with new eyes.
She otherwise remains quiet as Odioki explains their situation.
Ezgara scuttles over and gazes through the telescope and peers around. Where is my beautiful hovel in the screaming crags? Where is Donkey? The things that matter, so small, so small.
"Of course. Perhaps you can tell us something about it."
The amurrun holds the shadow key out for the elven woman. "The key created a doorway without any effort from the tribe," he explains, poorly.