It takes Briar two tries, but she successfully trips one of the vulture-demons, sending it crashing to the ground! Sanjana recognizes the demons as vrocks, or wrath demons! They are weak to cold iron and good.
The hawklike fiend hangs back, casting a fear spell on all of you!
The fallen vrock gets to its feet and surrounds itself with mirror images. The flying one lets out a loud, stunning screech, then swoops at Briar, pecking at the gnoll! Briar manages to dodge!
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Briar is shaken by the fearful affect of the hawklike demon and startled by the one that attacks her directly, though not enough to drop her guard as she cackles at the bird demon shaking away some of the fear as she flies into a frenzy of her own. Positive energy roils around her as the spirits of ancestors past embrace her visage giving her a ghostly appearance for just a few seconds before it fades.
"You'll not have me as a snack Bird, but we wouldn't mind a bite!"
Briar lunges out to bite at the brittle bird-like demon despite all the emotions in her head right now. The most important thing is keeping the others safe, and to do that it means to kill.
Success: The target is unaffected.
Failure: The target is dazed and can barely vocalize. It's stunned 1 and its speech is raspy and hard to understand. It must succeed at a DC 11 flat check to use linguistic actions or supply verbal spellcasting components until the end of its next turn.
Critical: Failure As failure, but the creature is stunned 3 instead of stunned 1.
The first roar sends a sliver of fear through Pen's heart, making her step just wrong to get hit by the second stunning screech. It takes several moments to recover her ability to think, leaving her just enough time to will a shield up around her.
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Sanjana hunches down, imagery flashing through their mind of a huge beak coming closer, pecking, pecking, destroying the burrow, spearing the helpless insect. The colours of their tattoo flare, then dim.
"Must... be... something."
Visna raises her axe in thanks to Briar as a swirling pile of vrocks is delivered right to her. Deftly she carves a baleful rune along the blade of her axe, cocks her head for a moment, and then unerringly picks out the true demon from amidst the swarm.
The vrock jerks away from her first swing, but she seizes the towering bird in one fist and buries her axe deep in its chest!
Visna demoralizes the vrock as she exploits its personal anathema. She moves in and attacks, her first strike destroying a mirror image. Her second attack is a critical hit, and she grabs the hulking demon as she drives her axe dep into its chest.
Pen raises a shield while Sanjana intensifies their vulnerability. Briar bites the flying vrock, but it resists being silenced.
The hawk fiend keeps its distance as it casts another spell, blasting Briar with a lightning bolt!
The grabbed vrock releases a burst of spores at Visna as it pecks and claws at her, but Sanjana's warding keeps her safe. The flying vrock beats its wings to hover in place as it attacks Briar.
Pen grasps her staff with both hands, calling the very lighting the hawk threw at her friend to slam into the vrock on the ground, then jump up to the one in the air, ending (hopefully) right back to who threw it in the first place.
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While struck by the lightning Briar can't help but to struggle against the bolt but snarls in defiance at the foes around her. She weaves against the peck slightly and goes in for the juicy bits sinking her teeth into the neck of the Vrock for it's attempt to take her eyes. Calling upon the harrows bound to her, Briar takes in an impossibly large breath before screaming into the sky.
Creatures that fail the save are deafened for 1 round (1 minute on a critical failure).
Meanwhile she grabs the shaft of her blade to steady it and plunge it into the flapping Vrock's chest, while keeping her clench on it's throat.
Success: The target is unaffected.
Failure: The target is dazed and can barely vocalize. It's stunned 1 and its speech is raspy and hard to understand. It must succeed at a DC 11 flat check to use linguistic actions or supply verbal spellcasting components until the end of its next turn.
Critical: Failure As failure, but the creature is stunned 3 instead of stunned 1.
The flashing glint of Visna's Last Coin draws the eye (and the spores) of the vrock, leaving her unharmed and fiercely grinning despite quite a lot swirling about her. "Hwaet?! The precision of your sky flame boasts of your prowess, Pen!" As her Coin falls she slaps it back up into the air once more, and lays into the vrock, short-hafted axe biting deep despite the close quarters, continuing to completely ignore the illusory vrocks.
Seeing their companions rally so bravely against the huge fiendish birds, Sanjana shakes off the fear and paralysis, retaliating against the hawk demon.
The vrock Visna is grabbing takes the full blast of Pen’s chain lightning, while the other two fiends dodge some of it. Visna finishes off her opponent with two powerful strikes, then exploits the weakness of the hawklike foe. She recognizes it as a hurlilu, a fiend that serves the Demon Lord Pazuzu. They are weak to good damage.
Briar grabs the other vrock and unleashes a trumpet blast. While the vrock resists it, the hurlilu has the misfortune to critically fail to resist it! It shrieks in pain as its eardrums burst! Briar then dazes the vrock with a strike to the throat, and Sanjana whacks the hurlilu with their boomerang.
The vrock desperately pecks and claws at Briar. Meanwhile the hurlilu dive bombs the gnoll, attacking with beak and talons.
Visna leans back, squats down to stretch, and then leaps up into the sky! Grabbing for the hurlilu, she divebombs it from below, grabbing hold of a fistful of feathers before her jump brings them both gently drifting back to earth.
Pen actually laughs in surprise, pure joyous surprise, Visna leaps so far into the air. Impressed as she is, the elf rushes forward when the warrior lands and casts a flight spell on her.
"To the skys?" she tries a little of Visna's poetic speech, spoiling it with an unsure tone. "If it gets away" she adds avoiding a swipe of a wing
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Briar tightens her grip on the Vrock's neck and shoves down on the blade of her weapon hoping to gut the demon. If it went limp she'd drop the corpse and join Visna's deacent back to the ground.
"Let's hope there are no more daemons to assault us. Seems that one in Visna's iron hands had our prize."
Visna leaps high into the air, grabbing the surprised hurlilu! Her axes cleave deep into its body, as as the Ulfen woman lands again, the fiend falls, dead, at her feet!
Meanwhile, Briar finishes off the vrock, driving her blade deep into its body until its frantic struggles cease the demon dies.
Skawnak and his rebels emerge from their hiding spots to give you a cheer. "Well done! And thank you again, my friends. We can complete our mission on our own from here, but we wouldn't have gotten this far without your aid. Our destination is still quite far from here, so this is where we part ways. Good luck!" With a wave, the rebels depart.
You are able to claim The Big Sky from the bloodied body of the hurlilu, as well as a ruby religious symbol of Pazuzu worth 750 gp. With your prize in hand, you may open a portal to return to the Harrow Court at your leisure.
With victory at hand, Pen's natural anxiety diminishes to a tiny grumble. With no idea if she will ever come back to Arcadia, she quickly takes out one of the many notebooks she keeps on her person and starts to write notes. "Could we... stay for a few minutes?" she asks, looking to each of them in question. "Just a few."
Taking out their healing supplies to tend to their companions' wounds, Sanjana nods enthusiastically. "I am hoping to stay a little longer as well, and explore this place." They call over their shoulder to Pen as they try to staunch the bleeding rends in Briar's shoulder. "Let me know if you find any edible herbs!"
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Briar lands and sets her weapon down before a coarse hiss passes through her teeth. "Ah ow ow ow ow that stings so damn bad.." she whines as she places a hand over her still bleeding wounds and fishes through one of her pouches.
"Yeah gives me time to find something suitable for these wounds."
She quickly makes an attempt to patch the wound with some stinging smelling herbs she has in her pack.
Briar whines like a baby for a few moments as the stubborn wound bubbles slightly before the majority of the bleeding stops and clots over.
"Ssshhhhhfffff.. Ah... okay.. let me, go find something to wrap these in properly then. I'll see what they've got Sanjana"
Briar leaves into the gully they had left only moments before their encounter and spends a bit of time harvesting strange herbs from the region. When she returns some of them look like fresh samples and others like they've had bits torn or chewed off to test them in some manner. She takes time to tend to Visna with the batch.
While Briar moves out to search, Pen puts up her notebook (almost reluctantly). Taking off her pack, she pulls out a wide cotton blanket, spreading it on the ground and then pulls out four delicious looking berry tarts. A picnic after a battle sounds insane, but what they are doing is just as insane, popping all over the world, hunting cards.
"Anyone want one?" she offers with an anxious smile.
Visna beams, still riding the adrenaline rush of battle. "Naturally, but first Pen, I am not unknowing of the gift you have bestowed upon me. If our quest calls us onward, and I may not yet swim these rivers and seas, at least I will experience a true vista ere we depart."
She floats lightly off the ground towards Pentella and extends her hand. "Will you join me? I would not have your generosity leave you earthbound and bereft."
"Oh!" Pen both brightens and startles at the outstretched hand.
Almost dropping a tart. Which would be a shame, since they are so tasty. "Yes, I, um..." she looks around, holding the tart, then kneels to reach into the second compartment of her bag, pulling out a pan, which she waves a bit until it switches to a plate. The tarts pile in a nice pyramid on that.
Brushing her hands off on her pants, she stands again, casts her last flight spell on herself, and with some nervousness, places her hand in Visna's.
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Visna chuckles and holds up a hand as Pentella begins to cast. "Pen, save your magic. You have already done more than enough to allow us both to see."
She takes Pen's hand, and then quite a bit more as Visna scoops the elf up into her arms before rising and rising, until at last they emerge from the towering old growth canopy to look out on the seas and skies before them.
The tattoos that shade Visna's eyes shimmer with effort as she strains to take it all in until she laughs with delight. "Pen! Look!" She lets go of Pentella with one arm to point, tucking her in closer to keep from dropping her. "Where the gulls circle. The spout!"
Her smile stays, but there's an almost predatory gleam in her eyes. "A mighty leviathan waits there. One worthy of calling thegn and fyrd if my kin traveled these waters. A beast as would serve to fill hwaet hungers any may have for food or glory..." Visna's smile turns rueful. "But it is not for today. My belly's hunger today at least is more of a size with your tarts than yon lurking beast."
As Pen is picked up with ease, she would have let out another 'Oh' or a more eloquent 'Eep' but the act takes her breath away. Her lungs only catch up once the sheer anxiety of being a hundred yards in the air without magical protection also catches up.
Both completely smother her under conflicting emotions until Visna points. Her sharp eyes look out to see a whale "It is excessive.... for a meal, even with Briar. Not that they overeat, Gnolls have a heightened metabolism."
She settles then, information always helping her, and simply looks. "The hill, seventeen degrees to the east of the spout, with the oak. It reminds me... well of someplace. The sheer number of parameters necessary to spark memory and right here, right now, there it is... the possibilities are staggering." Her voice grew more relaxed, her tone holding a soft array of emotions. Her own.
The present comes back and the elf smiles lightly "We should get back, before the tarts are gone."
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Briar returns after Visna and Pen have gone off, but spots the picnic area where Sanjana is and decides to bring her bounty over to her diminutive friend.
"Here... it's not much in the way of edible herbs, but often in wild fields like these the animals get to them rather quickly. So... blame the bunnies." She lets out a laugh before sitting down.
"I recall a few of these from the tomes I read, when we were at Magaambya." She gazes over the odd flatlands and gullies that lie in the earth, shoulders heaving with an deep inhale and follow up exhale.
"We've come a long way from home... do you feel any closer to your goal?"
Not one to ever turn down a snack, Santana savours one of the tarts while looking up at Visna and Pen soaring overhead. The herbs brought by Briar are carefully examined, touched, sniffed and tasted.
"Hmm, this one is a little bitter, would go well in a stir-fry... This one, earthy and a little spicy, I like it."
Visna's grin grows crooked as she flies Pen back down to the ground. "Aye. To leave such a bounty unguarded truly shows we are far from the lands of my ancestors. But if I may ask a boon. Tell me that oak's tale. Some day."
Sanjana muses as they label and store the herbs. "Closer? We seem to be making good progress in collecting these Harrow cards, but it is difficult to say if this path leads me to my goal. Why, have you tired of my company?" The last bit is spoken with a smile, and Briar knows that Sanjana would never begrudge her leaving, following her own path.
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Sharing her memories is sometimes had, but the wizard nods "Some day" she says simply. As an elf, she lives a LONG time, versus humans at least, but Pen knows she cannot put a promise like this off too long. Their quest is full of dragons, demons, and vast unknowns.
Having another person she recognizes as dear die while she lives on is bad, but having one do so with a promise held still between them is a regret that will dig into her heart just a little more.
Mentally Pen puts a line in her todo list, adds two stars by it, and sighs as she is placed on solid ground again.
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Briar ties up a small pouch with the herbs after they'd been sorted and stored away. "Of course not Sanjana, but it is good to know if you feel like progress is being made."
She places her hands in her lap, "Besides you know just as much as I that these new challenges and dangers are an excellent test of my own skills that I adore. And it'd be shameful of me to let you wander into such dangerous ordeals by yourself."
Letting out a cackling laugh at that, she felt a slight pang in her heart knowing that she'd been with Sanjana so long that she doubted she'd know what to do without the Kashrishi to follow around.
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"Oh yes, I would have been chewed up many times over by now if not for you. I owe you my life more times than I can count, and my gratitude for that is boundless. I hope one day to be worthy of your loyalty, dear Briar."
Sanjana gestures at the tarts piled on the plate. "Enjoy one of these, they are very good." The kashrishi looks up, shading their eyes. "Not sure what those two are doing up there, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. While it's just the two of us, what do you make of them?"
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Briar takes one of the tarts and gives it a sample, "What.. like their character or whatever's going on maybe maybe not between them?" She asks recalling some definitely not what she'd call educational readings she'd stumbled upon in those hallowed halls many months prior.
"Visna is a battle-hardened woman from the northern tribes of man, though I'm not sure if her goals are simply to raze the nearby world and create her own saga. Or if they are more to find her own way in the world and prove herself to, well herself."
Taking another half-bite of the by comparison tiny tarts, she makes a note on Pentella. "Pen's been a treat, she's like one of the little sisters in the tribe. Small and a bit meek, hasn't gotten her fangs cut on the first hunt. But there's something there behind the mask I wager. One doesn't simply learn spells of that caliber for knowledges sake."
Tossing the rest of the food-piece into her gullet she chomps on it a few times. "Ash-fer whazz -gulp- going on between em it's common for those who live and fight together to bond in many different ways. Sharing experiences or perhaps testing the waters of a relationship. You find ways of comfort in the arms of those that you'll spend much time with no matter who it might be. The direction it'll take em, myself, or you is for us to decide together." Weather through ignorance feigned or actual she avoids diving too deep into any potential meaning beyond Sanjana's ask.
"How do you see them?"
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"Visna is very... intense." Sanjana gives a half smile. "Fighting prowess to rival your own, but I think that you are right - she seeks to prove herself, and I'm not sure what she would consider enough proving. If anything. She has a good heart, though."
The kashrishi looks longingly at the remaining tarts, which in their mind are reserved for Visna and Pentella. "I think Pen's meekness is misleading - not on purpose!" they hasten to add. "She knows so many things, and a lot of that knowledge holds incredible power. And danger. But she seems in perfect control of her magic, so I am not worried." Sanjana glances upwards again. "I worry for her though. So anxious and eager to please, I don't want her to get hurt." A soft snort. "Like one of the little sisters, indeed. She has grown on me. They both have. I would not want anything bad to happen to them - or to you." They sigh deeply. "But it seems that danger confronts us wherever we go. I just hope that we all live through the trials ahead, and with as few scars as possible."
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Brair lets that hang in the air for a bit digesting what Sanjana had said before leaning over and planting her massive mit on her companion's shoulder gently. "The burdens we each bear are great. But our shoulders together are wide and sturdy. Mothers willing we shall all make it to the end of our paths and shed many of those weights as we go."
As she says this little proverb of hopefully calming advice her free hand gently touches the carved jaw dagger hanging from her neck. "My place in my own world is still untold, be it bone speaker or simply a warrior. But with you at my side it has always been an easier path to tread."
"Thank you, my friend, your wisdom eases my soul, as always." Touching Briar's hand with their own, Sanjana nods. "The path awaits us, as pleasant as it is lingering here in these lands that are new to our eyes and ears and minds."
With one last, longing look at the tarts, the kashrishi heaves themself to their feet, ready to depart.
Pen sees they spent much more time in the air then her brain had initially allotted for. Maybe time contracts the further you rise, or maybe it is just an illusion brought on by company. Pen might have to study this later, but for now, it was time to leave.
The wizardress brushes the tart free plate into the blanket, then folds it up neatly, to not drop any crumbs, then packs everything away. "Ready" she finally states.
Once you are ready to depart, you open a portal back to the Harrow Court. After taking the time to invest The Big Sky, the card epitomizes itself within the demiplane.
More astonishingly, this region has a supernatural ability to help a creature use their raw strength to break free from curses they’re suffering from. Once per day, a character can spend an hour meditating here, enduring either the extreme heat or cold, but at the end of that hour, the character can select one curse that they’re currently afflicted by, then attempt an Athletics check against the curse’s DC.
Critical Success The curse is counteracted.
Success The curse is counteracted as long as its level is
equal to or less than the character’s level.
Failure The curse is counteracted as long as its level is equal to or less than the character’s level – 4.
Critical Failure The curse is not removed, and the character overextends themselves in the attempt, becoming enfeebled 3.
Three arches remain to be explored: the Arch of Tomes (The Snakebite), the Arch of Stars (The Silent Hag), and the Arch of Crowns (The Theater).
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The Arch of Crowns depicts what appears to be a partially constructed balcony seating area with billowing red and black curtains, which obscure the view of the main theater beyond. When you step through the portal, the tumultuous swell of an orchestra in full swing along with the sound of opera sung in Infernal becomes unmistakable.
Opening the curtains, you find yourselves in an upper VIP box of a grand Chelaxian opera house. Nobody notices your arrival, as all eyes are on the group of magnificently clad adventurers onstage in a singing duel against an immense linnorm. The beast is crafted from a clever framework operated by several technicians, all obscured underneath the linnorm’s deep green cloth exterior. Illusion spells further give the mechanical linnorm the appearance of life. The linnorm, as well as much of the stage scenery and the curtains that hang throughout the opera house, shimmers with a faint blue glow that gives the entire affair an appropriately chilly look reinforced by the fake snow that floats down from above and adorns the stage in periodic drifts.
As a seasoned performer, Sanjana recognizes the opera as Linnorm’s Lost Legacy, a show that presents a revisionist history of how the first linnorm slain in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings was, in truth, slaughtered by an ancient ancestor of House Thrune (thus implying that the whole of this northern nation should belong to Cheliax). It is notorious outside of Cheliax for its blatant attempt to appropriate the heritage of the Linnorm Kingdoms. The “hero” facing the linnorm is a fictional character, Alangus Thrune, who is presented by the play as an actual historical figure from Cheliax who swept north to save the Ulfens from the notorious (also fictional) fire-breathing linnorm Bandraguzun. Regardless, the outrageous costuming of Alangus Thrune makes it difficult to look away.
Visna notices something startling—Alangus Thrune’s outfit incorporates among his unwieldy amount of “adventuring equipment” The Theater card, tucked into one of the many belt straps that adorn his leather armor.
With a disappointed sigh, Sanjana whispers to the others. "Not worth watching this one, the story is utter fabrication and the writing is not very good." They pause, considering that perhaps not all of their companions have the same tastes or standards in entertainment. "The production is pretty impressive through."
They begin to look around the theater building itself, searching for any clues as to what they were supposed to do here.
Normally the mechanical linnorm would draw Pen's analytical mind like a moth to fire, but here, now, she simply frowns. Her eyes instead roam around the hall, seeing the smaller forms in the dark, standing at attention behind their 'masters'.
The wizard's hands curl into fists.
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Briar brings up the rear hoping that her late entrance into the scene would at least cushion the looks from any of the potential theater goers. She finds herself pleasantly surprised when there aren't gasps of sudden intruders at their arrival. So she simply watches on at the play thinking it's quite impressive for a single man to fight such a beast real or fake.
She is about to comment on the whole scenario when she notices that Pen balls up her hands into tight fists, which causes her short ears to swivel back in disappointment. Looking around the room she notices the various peoples and their attendants which allows the whole situation to settle on her mind a bit more. She places a reassuring hand on Pen's shoulder, hoping it'd offer her some comfort.
Leaning down she whispers to the group, "Seems our main event has our prize, how do we wish to go about this?"
The elf startles briefly at the touch, then settles when she sees it is Briar. Her own relax and reach up to grasp the gnoll's. "We take it." she says simply, but with much more iron and heat in her voice than normal.
Visna's expression begins as bemusement, but quickly darkens as the full insult becomes clear to her. "Come then, let us show them what it truly takes to rule over warriors born. I will make of this Thrune the Gift of Halgrim."
She braces one leg against the rail of the opera box and prepares to leap.
Sanjana had envisioned a covert expedition behind the stage, perhaps after the show was over and the props and such were stowed away. Of course Visna had other plans, and while the idea of leaping onto the stage in full view of everyone is daunting, to say the least... perhaps best to get it over with as quickly as possible?
Visna feels the air around her swirl around her and then settle, like a invisible but comforting arm wrapping around her to carry her into the heavens (or at least keep her from falling violently to the ground).
Pen then gives her a nod.
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Briar stoops down to pick Sanjana up in a bride carry, "Sorry if things get a bit bumpy, but we've got to be dashing in our entrance yes?"
She nods to Visna, "On your lead." The large not-quite lupine woman then steps back in their view box to get as good a lead up as she can. Once Visna takes off and makes her heroic entrance Briar would be ready to do the same taking a few moments to steady herself and correctly judge the distance of the leap.
Once she took off she lept what seemed like too early to Sanjana only for her clawed feet to hook on the railing and with a groaned strain from the heavy wood kicked off and sent the pair sailing over the crowd onto the stage, hoping to land next to where Visna planted herself.
With a very indecorous squeak, Sanjana finds themselves falling. While they trusted Briar unconditionally, there is an impulse to make things easier for the gnoll, or perhaps some atavistic instinct that kicks in as the gliding rune embroidered in Sanjana's robes gets activated.
Once Visna leaps...
The sharp-eared elf floats down from the balcony to hover in the air before the stage, lighting lancing from her hands and fire blazing from her eyes (in her mind only).
Pen is not prone to hate, having accepted all sorts of people should be able to live all sorts of lives no matter what others wish, but this 'land' (and anywhere in truth that accepts slavery into its very core) deserves her hate.
Or so she thinks, feels, and ultimately gets lost in. Pictures of friends from her time here, friends of the relatively diminutive side, and their treatment by the less diminutive side are a tad more prominent than sense should allow. Sometimes she thinks forgetting would be better for her sanity, but it has never really been an option.
Since it isn't, reliving and anger is her only recourse.
Visna leaps.
Pentella's spell narrowly slows the arc of her flight, giving the fools she descends upon a lingering moment to appreciate their doom.