Princess Glittersparklehoof III decides that everyone should dance together and starts twirling around Zaiobe, scattering rainbows as she goes.
Flori meanwhile keeps trying to add her own small contribution to the corbie damage.
Shunsen continues her ineffective assault on the dire corbie...
Vigny makes the harpy pay for her choice of ranged weapon in melee with a vicious stab and the oracle stumbles but doesn't fall. Orchid dances around the corby between her and Shunsen, distracting the creature. Vigny heals some of her own wounds and waves her weapon around. Flori's spell burns another hole in another tapestry.
Shunsen takes advantage of Orchid's distraction by lopping off the corby's head.
----------------------------------
Round 5
Cailyn repeats her proficient use of the heavy crossbow by planting a bolt in Zaiobe's chest. The harpy collapses to the stone floor.
The last remaining dire corby slashes ineffectively against Orchid, seemingly knowing that its time on this plane is coming to an end.
With only one opponent remaining, the battle is a foregone conclusion and in only moments it's over.
Combat Ends!
Checking Zaiobe's remains, you find two more magical arrows , two potions of healing , a chain shirt, and a magical composite longbow .
Cailyn comes to collect her bolts. She stops and frowns at the corpse this time, maybe connecting the body with a real person this time. She shakes her head quickly, dispelling that slippery slope and yanks each out.
"Flori, was that a new pony?" she distracts herself as she works.
And then some more "That symbol, with the demon raising his hand, as if asking a question in class. That's Pazuzu, the king of the winged demons? Isn't it..." with a plop the last bolt is out and Cailyn looks around for something to clean them off.
Orchid shoves the bodies of the assorted bird creatures into a single bloody pile and has just enough time to rub the nose of Princess Glittersparklehoof III before the equine royal returns to her Palace of Friendship.
"Revenge done." She says with her usual bluntness. "Now find Vault. For Ameiko."
"Yes, nasty vile vicious feathered pretty-face bird woman was a worshipper of King of Wind Demons," Spivey says with a nod to Caiyn's query. "Killing her is a benefit for all flying things."
The tiny lyrakien flutters around the occultist as she collects her lethal ammunition. The small woman seems torn as to whether she wants to spit on the cooling corpse. "Revenge is done," she agrees. "Big people need to find a vault? Where would vault be?"
From here there are quite a few options. There are three normal sized doors leading out of the great hall at various points, as well as a large pair of double doors and a set of broad stairs leading to the second floor. There are also two doors back in the dining area that haven't been explored.
"Down." Orchid says, glancing at Spivey. "People like badgers. Hide things under earth. Odd. But do. Where is down?"
Spivey looks around and her tiny brow furrows. "Down? Don't know," she replies. "Must be stairs somewhere, right?"
Once the melee had ended, Shunsen looked from the fallen corbie to her blade and back again...wondering if she was ever going to get good at this sort of thing.
She helps pile up the bodies, then tilts her head at the tiny lyrakien, "Well , our friend helped a bit... she says then recites the phrases their dear friend was saying:
Beware the birds who wish to fly but cannot...
A key you seek lies in the grip of the ten-handed one — his fear is your greatest ally...
Beware the cuckolded cuckoo — it is in his shattered silent love you should seek aid...
Grandfather waits in the dark, but he knows not who he was
One treasure beyond two seals in the third vault...
"The first and third seem to have been born out...as well as perhaps the key we found, but this grandfather and the vault..." she says, hoping the tiny celestial might know more.
"Flori, was that a new pony?" she distracts herself as she works.
Flori sighs and shrugs her shoulders. "I really don't mean to conjure what I do, my magic never quite does what I expect it to. I always put it down to not having any proper schooling and self-studying. You learn to live with it I suppose."
Flori listens carefully to Shunsen's musings. "I really don't think we know enough to speculate. Spivey, have you seen any seals around? Maybe they just looked like some sort of decoration on a wall or floor?"
"Only way certain to find all we need is to explore." the noble is back in high spirits "The double doors are the most grand, so..."
"Riddles and puzzles are not things that Spivey is good at," the tiny woman replies with a shrug of her small shoulders. "When we came here before, we didn't get far before ..." Her words trail off at the memory. "We didn't get far," she finishes with a frown.
It seems that reliving some of the events have turned the celestials mood somber.
"We're sorry. We're not much good for anything these days. We don't know about riddles or where vaults and seals and grandfathers and keys are hidden."
She flutters up to Vigny. "We're sorry." She pulls a tiny scroll from a bag and touches the war priestess's arm. Vigny feels the warmth of healing flow through her. "We probably shouldn't have come here."
Orchid doesn't hesitate. The moment Cailyn proposes the double doors the shifter is throwing them open. Clearly her (extremely limited) patience has run out.
Opening the large double doors reveals a ballroom. This large circular room features a ring of pillars that support a balcony just over fifteen feet above. A flight of stairs winds up to the balcony along the southern wall. Faded paintings of dancing elves decorate the walls, spattered here and there with ancient bloodstains.
Flori and Vigny note that at least one of the aggressors in the fight possessed prodigious strength, judging from the deep gouges in the walls near the largest bloodstains - possibly an enormous axe or something similar.
There are large double doors mirroring the ones you entered the room from on the eastern wall, as well as a small side door that's partially ajar. Through the partially open small door, you see stone steps leading down.
With the impatient shifter leading the way, the group descends the rough stone steps down into the depths beneath the castle into ... a kitchen.
Stone pillars support the ceiling over this large chamber — although the fire pits, tables, and pantries here look like they haven’t been used in decades. Thick layers of dust cover everything in the room. Quite a few doors lead off from here.
The eastern-most door is locked and you're unable to pick the lock or force it, so you move on. The northern door leads to a natural chamber and then to a narrow tunnel that extends out into the darkness as far as you can see. Orchid gets the scent of salt water wafting back down the tunnel. This is most likely a secret exit tunnel.
The next door leads to a foul-smelling chamber dripping with moisture that culminates in thick tangles of nasty-looking fungus. Three washing bins in the walls are clogged with heaps of even more repulsive molds and mushrooms, some of which have grown to prodigious size, like the large mound of green mold sprouting dozens of purple-capped mushrooms in the center of the room.
Moving on to the southwestern double doors you discover a section of the area that has been given over to more troglodytes. A mess hall, an armory, and what appears to be an arena are quickly cleared of the smelly-but-incompetent foes.
Spivey offers what healing she has and you move on to the last set of double doors that exit the kitchen area. Leading first to a large circular room that shares the same shape as the ballroom above, you continue out the doors on the other side.
Not quite a torture chamber, this dungeon features three cells made of iron bars - one to the north and two to the south. A filthy, nestlike bed lies in the middle of the room, heaped around a central stone pillar next to what can only be a half-eaten giant centipede the size of a small horse. Rising up from the bed clutching an uprooted sapling as a weapon, is an ogre.
Combat Begins!
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Round 1
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Caiyln pulls out her hankie, a cream silk, and brushes it on the wee one's frowning face "It is okay to be bad at things, Spivey, I am no good at the general exercise, Orchid is no good at conversation, Shunsen..." she stops, flashing a guilty look over at her friend "... singing about plants! Yes, there was that song about trees that time that... nevermind." she focuses on Spivey "You are a very useful party member. You find us a place to rest, you banter when we first, unlike our grunty stabby companions, and you HEAL everyone." she smiles "Lyrakien of the year, I'd say."
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Cailyn stares at the pile of big mushrooms "MOPS. Mushrooms of Prodigious Size? Do you think they are ediable?"
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Then there is an ogre "Oh, I do not like these things. CLEO!"
--------
With an eruption of ethereal feathers, Cleo is on the ogre's head, ripping and pecking with a rage filled flurry.
Orchid's headlong rush through the castle stutters at the sight of the ogre, but then Cailyn's good-bird-friend is attacking it so Orchid joins in the fun, rushing forward to swipe at his legs.
Flori can't help but smile when she hear's Cailyn's kind and gentle conversation with Spivey, its truly heartwarming.
"What about me Cailyn?" She asks, a twinkle in her eye, curious about what her friend may say.
--------
Flori, not sure how to help the whole situation, conjures a toxid substance and flings it at the Ogre.
With the near miss of a social flub fresh on her lips, Cailyn should consider her responses more but instead smiles brightly at her friend, letting out a snort of a laugh and answers with complete honesty "You, dear Flori, are easily the worst person I've ever seen at sitting still. I remember one visit when you were put into 'corner time' where you just had to SIT still for a sliver or two. Oh the misery on your cute little face like someone had eaten your favorite doll."
"It's only gotten worse with magic, waitressing, studying, mothering Orchid..." she rattles on a few more with a grin.
Cailyn's spectral owl rends ogre-flesh, showing Orchid how claws are meant to be used. Flori sends a blob of acid to sizzle against beast's skin. Shunsen shows that her blade is not one to be ignored, slashing through the ogre's thigh and Vigny's sword finishes off the hulking creature. It falls to the floor with a resounding thud that echoes through the chamber.
Combat Ends!
As you're catching your breath, a voice calls out from one of the southern cells.
"Systir! Guði sé lof! Vinsamlegast skildu mig ekki eftir hér!"
The speaker is a heavily-muscled woman wearing the ragged remains of rough clothes. Her hair is braided but dirty and her hands grip the bars in desperation. Her blue eyes are locked on Vigny.
"Oh, it's the yellow-haired woman that braved the castle a week ago," Spivey pipes up. "Her companions all died fighting the beast in the bay, but she still went inside all by herself." She shakes her head. "Not very wise."
The ogre is surprisingly easy to handle. Vigny is wiping her sword blade clean when she hears the woman call out. She understands what she says easily enough, but mustering a reply is not. She's very rusty, having only very occasionally uttered a word of the language over many years now.
Vigny starts walking toward the cell while she's forming a coupleof sentences.
"Um.. halló. Þú komst í... bilaða skipinu í höfninni ekki satt? Spivey sagði okkur frá þér. Ég var ekki viss um að við myndum finna þig á lífi. Ó, ég heiti Vigny, hvað er þitt?"
When she gets to the cell, Vigny begins to look around for a way to open it.
"Hmm, veistu hvar lykillinn er?"
"Um.. hello. You came in the... broken ship in the harbor right? Spivey told us about you. I wasn't sure we would be finding you alive. Oh, my name is Vigny, what is yours?"
"Hmm, do you know where the key is?"
Vigny thinks what she said came out pretty well. It wasn't that hard once she got started.
"Err.. Vigny?" Flori says, cautiously.
"Could you perhaps elaborate what is going on for the rest of us before we rush into releasing prisoners?"
She flashes a wary smile at the cell hoping to appease the woman yet hoping even more that the woman doesn't understand her.
The woman gives Flori a cold glare before gesturing towards the ogres body.
"Hann er með lykilinn. Búnaðurinn minn er í hinu búrinu. Ég get hjálpað þér," she says and then points towards the northern cell.
Searching the ogre's cooling corpse, you find in a ratty pouch that looks to have been made out of some creature's stomach some shiny rocks, a few dead turtles, a bronze key, 77 gold coins, an absolutely filthy masterwork dagger, and the ogre's lucky rock.
The rocks presents a magical aura.
Using the bronze key, you open the northern cell. In it is a collection of equipment gathered from prisoners.
Flori pulls Vigny's attention away from the woman in the cell for a moment. She looks at Flori with a somewhat perplexed expression.
"Well, she's the survivor from the sunken ship in the harbor. You know, the one Spivey mentioned, who came inside. Why would we want to leave her in the cell?"
Orchid folds her arms and leans against the wall by the entrance to the cells - she doesn't seem to be entirely trusting.
Vigny doesn't wait around to debate the subject. She turns back to the woman and tells her she'll go find the key.
"Allt í lagi, bara augnablik. Ég mun finna það."
Then she goes looking for another key, or in the absence of multiple keys assumes the one key unlocks everything.
"Okay, just a minute. I will find it."
Vigny tries the large brass key in the prisoner's cell and the lock opens with a squeal and a grind. The woman strides out and faces Vigny.
"Ég er þér í skuld, systir. Það er ljóst að þú ræður hér og ég legg mig fram við þig. Ég heiti Kelda Oxgutter," she pronounces and then bows to the warpriestess.
The woman digs through the piled gear, pulling out various pieces that look reasonably fresh - a scale mail hauberk, a steel shield, a longsword, some javelins. As she's moving items aside, a metal medallion tumbles out of the pile and clinks against the stained stones.
"Aiiieee!"
The cry comes from Spivey, who flutters forward to grasp the item. Looking closer, you can see that it's a heavily stained butterfly on a simple chain - a Desnan holy symbol. Spying something else, the celestial reaches out and pulls from the pile a tattered, torn, and blood-marred tabard bearing the same symbol. She buries her face in it as tears begin to flow.
The warrior woman shrugs her shoulders at Spivey's display and begins donning the hauberk.
Kelda's display makes Vigny a little uncomfortable.
"Jæja... við gerum í raun ekki hlutina þannig. Við erum meira, um, jöfn hópur... Ó! collective held ég að sé orðið. Ég er ekki beint leiðtoginn, hinir hafa bara tilhneigingu til að hlusta mikið á mig."
"Allavega, vertu velkominn. Hvernig væri að við segjum bara að ég hafi gert þér greiða og einhvern tíma muntu gera það sama fyrir mig?"
"Við gætum samt notað einhvern með góðan sverðarm til að hjálpa okkur. Við erum að skoða þennan stað."
Too busy trying the deflect the implications of servitude Kelda's oath might imply to notice much else, Vigny starts at Spivey's cry.
"What's going on? What happened?"
[b"Well... we don't really do things that way. We're more of a, um, an equal group... Oh! collective I think is the word. I'm not exactly the leader, the rest of them just tend to listen to me a lot."[/b]
"Anyway, you're welcome. How about we just say I did you a favor, and sometime you'll do the same for me?"
"We could use someone with a good sword arm to help us though. We're exploring this place."
Cailyn had been alternating between watching and marveling at the stains on the dagger, wondering what in the abyss it was doing with this thing (Cailyn is a bit strange when it comes to items), when the crying starts.
Quickly she hurried over, sees the bits, and gets it. She shoos the former prisoner "Get dressed somewhere else" and kneels down next to Spivey "These are your friends, aren't they?" she wraps an arm around her "I could attempt to see... I can see the history of item, I could see what happened. If you want?" her voice gentle.
Spivey nods wordlessly to Cailyn's first question as she attempts to pull the remainder of the tabard from the soiled pile. The garment is clearly too big for the tiny celestial to carry, but she seems determined to try, gathering it into a huge bundle for her small arms. At the occultist's offer, the woman pales and wipes at her tears. "N-no," she stammers out. "I'm ... I'm not strong enough."
In short order, Kelda has finished gearing up and turns to Vigny.
Where to, Sister?" she asks in heavily accented Taldane as she tests the edge of her longsword against her arm.
Orchid glides over and, with unusual delicacy, gently folds the tabard into a neat square - even managing to fold it so that the soiled sections are tucked away and a small square of undamaged material is uppermost.
"Carry for you Little Cousin." She offers gently. "Until camp."
Cailyn is a good person, she is, truly, or at least tries to be. Yes, her heart aches for the celestial's wrenching loss, she does, who wouldn't.
But she WANTS to know the story. "I..." she was going to say carry the tabard for you, but ORCHID gets there first. So Cailyn swallowed the rest of her sentence. "If you change your mind, the offer will always be available." she squeezes Spivey's shoulder and helps wipe the rest of the tears, holds the hanky for a good nose blowing.
She does a quick appraise of the rest of the piled gear to see if there is anything they should bring with them now.
Flori stays out of it, hanging back and keeping an eye on both Vigny and the woman's unexpected exchange as well as poor little Spivey.
She offers up a murmured prayer to The Great Dreamer whilst giving everyone some time to sort their things.
"I don't mean to hasten anybody here, but I really am concerned about Ameiko still. We still have not found the vault yet. Vigny, by any chance can you ask...this woman? Perhaps she knows something about it?"
Vigny is too busy suddenly needing to manage her new ally to pay very much attention to Spivey. But she's aware they need to take pause on her behalf.
"Bíddu aðeins, ertu viss um að allt sé í lagi?"
The ogre captor is particularly disturbing to Vigny.
"Hafa þeir verið að fæða þig hérna niðri? Það er erfitt að ímynda sér að töframaður gefi þér mat í stað þess að borða hann sjálfur."
Vigny takes some of the food she's carrying and gives it to Kelda.
She also announces the new alliance to the others.
"This is Kelda. She's going to be coming along with us to help out."
"Wait a minute, are you sure you're alright?"
"Have they been feeding you down here? It's hard to imagine an ogre giving you food instead of eating it himself."
Spivey nods at Orchid's offer and passes the garment over to the shifter. Cailyn looks through the piled gear, but doesn't find anything more of value. It seems that Kelda is now wearing everything that could be useful.
"Can you not ask me yourself? Or am I beneath you so that you will not deign to speak to me?" Kelda snaps at Flori. "Are you not ...?"
Before she can finish, there's a flash of wings and Spivey is fluttering before the woman's eyes, her wings buzzing angrily.
"Hlustaðu nú, stór og sterk! Þetta ótrúlega fólk hefði bara getað látið þig sitja og svelta í þínu eigin auði! Þau börðust við tröllið! Þú skuldar þeim líf þitt og frelsi! Þú munt sýna þeim virðingu eða þú munt þola þá kvöl sem aðeins einn eins og ég getur veitt. Er það ljóst?!" she rattles off in the woman's language, shaking her tiny finger in Kelda's face. "Biðstu nú afsökunar!" she adds, pointing at Flori.
Kelda stares back and for a moment the two disparate wills lock. The woman finally blinks and her proud stance relaxes just a bit. She turns and nods her head at Flori.
"Fyrirgefðu," she says. "I'm sorry. Imprisonment has taken my manners. I owe you all for my freedom. " She glances at Spivey, who glares at her, arms crossed. "I know nothing of any 'vault'," she continues. "I entered the castle and fought against feathered beasts and was overcome. I awoke here."
She turns to Vigny. "They fed me, but it was food I could not bring myself to eat. Thank you for this." She looks back at the celestial.
Spivey nods, apparently satisfied. She flutters back to hover near Orchid and Cailyn, muttering under her breath about rude big folk and wiping at her eyes.
----
With no new information, you continue on through the only door still available that isn't heavily secured. Heading north from the prison, you enter a tunnel that's been roughly carved from the natural stone. One branch leads to the other side of the secured door, the other branch leads to a crypt.
An intricate iron screen blocks further progress into this large chamber, although a wooden door painted with the image of a tall, beautiful blue-skinned woman sitting on a throne stands in the middle of the screen. Beyond, the room stretches dozens of feet to the east, supported by stone pillars and with deep funerary alcoves to the north and south.
The far end of the room seems to have partially collapsed into a large cavern in which faintly glowing motes of light swirl and dance in the air.
The gate is locked, you try the large key that the ogre carried and find that it's too large. The key from the lighthouse, though, fits perfectly and the lock releases. Beyond the gate you discover the niches now only contain despoiled sarcophagi. Not even bones remain.
Farther in to the crypt, you can see more of the cavern that opens up to the east. The floor of this vast cavern descends in two twenty-foot drops into a large, eerie grotto. The walls drip with moisture and bear strange and disturbing cave paintings of towering four-winged humanoid shapes. Tiny motes of glowing light drift and bob in the air, giving the place an almost nauseating feeling, as if the cavern is viewed through a dreamlike haze.
"Is this the 'vault' that you seek?" Kelda questions with a frown.
Orchid's head shifts smoothly into her wolf's muzzle and she sniffs the air quizzically, before advancing slowly and on soft feet.
Vigny isn't sure, but she thinks maybe they've missed their target by pushing relentlessly forward along one path.
"I don't think so." She replies to Kelda. "I tend to think of a vault as something that's built to hold valuable things. This is a crypt with a gate, but otherwise it seems like it's just caves."
"The painting shows Pharasma. Just about exactly what you'd expect here" she adds to nobody in particular.
Flori is totally taken aback by Kelda's outburst, eyes wide and not managing to hide the shock on her face.
After a while of quiet contemplation, Flori finally perks up with her own thoughts again.
"Honestly, its hard to know as we aren't exactly clear on what will be inside this vault. Treasure is not simply wealth and riches, but could be knowledge too. Depends on what is valued at the time. I am worried that doubling back at this stage will not help as it may slow us down considerably but if we're on the wrong track then this is also pointless." Flori shrugs her shoulders and sighs.
"We've clearly found some minor vault here with the sarcophagi which is certainly not what we were expecting, maybe there is more deeper in this cave system."
She looks up and realises that Orchid is advancing onwards, not paying the group much attention. Not wanting to leave her sister alone, she cautiously follows after her sister.
Cailyn's eyes dart from the mean rude insolent person to her friend. And then practically smothers "our hero" in her arms once mean rude insolent person is distracted.
In the cavern, Cailyn nods to Flori's suggestion of continuing "It is a path, a path somewhat used, and might lead us to a place hidden so deep that it holds what we need to help... or it doesn't and we learn more as we go." she says as she studies the paintings.
Orchid moves forward to the edge of the drop-off. Beyond the sense of moisture and mildew, she detects ... something else. Not something she can identify, though. Vigny doesn't notice anything in the dimly illuminated space, but has a sense of being watched.
The group easily traverses down the rough slope to the mid-level of the cavern. They can see that the wall paintings continue on down into the lower portions of the cave. As they move closer to the second drop-off, a nightmarish figure descends from the shadows of the ceiling. An octopus-like creature with spread wings and a hideously monstrous face with pale, milky eyes.
"Înclină-te în fața alesului din Pazuzu și ți se va arăta milă," it intones in a voice thick and gravelly.
"Bow before the chosen one of Pazuzu and you shall be shown mercy."
Cailyn looks up in wonder (after a moment of near heart stopping terror of course) "Ce ești tu?" she asks with overwhelming curiosity.
"What are you?"
Quickly she also relates to any of her companions that does not speak Varisian "it says 'bow before the chosen one of Pazuzu, then it won't kill us.'"
"Do. Not. Bow." Flori replies, almost silently, through gritted teeth. "We will be its next meal if we are not careful. "
"It will deceive us with illusion. Resists magic, poison, elements." She adds, as quickly as she can, hoping to give everyone the information they need as this is certainly going to go downhill quickly.
"Be. Careful."
She raises her voice so she can be heard again whilst taking a tentative step sideways away from her compatriots.
Orchid doesn't entirely understand the words but she trusts Flori implicitly so when her sister starts moving away from the pack Orchid immediately goes in the opposite direction - splitting up to attack the thing from its blind spot if required. Luckily the magic stick is still protecting her for a little while longer.
Vigny rolls her eyes over toward Kelda and says "jæja við vitum hvert þetta er að fara. Það þýðir ekkert að dansa í kringum það."
She lights up her sword.
Turning to look back at the floating creature again, Vigny RSVP's.
"No bowing over here. We remain unbowed."
Taking Flori's warning about illusions to heart, Vigny remains alert to the possibility the creature before them isn't the only or the the true threat in the room.
"Apoi mori și devii hrană pentru cei drepți!" the creature shouts out and its tentacles begin gesticulating - it's casting a spell!
Combat Begins!
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Round 1
Orchid lacks fear (and some would say common sense) but she does appreciate that a foe in the air needs special methods - so she pulls her oft-unused spear from her back and leaps forward to make a kebab!
Vigny moves up on the beast, casting as she goes right to the edge of the precipice and extending her sword swing to her maximum.
Orchid flings her spear. Vigny stabs with her longsword. Shunsen slashes with her falchion. All hit the abomination. Although its tough hide absorbs some of the damage.
The flying tentacle monster slides back and up in the air, away from those wielding implements of destruction and weaves its tentacles in a magical display. At the conclusion of its gesturing, a cold, cloying miasma of greasy darkness settles upon the stone shelf, inflicting pain and sickness to all those there.
Spivey cries out in plain and sinks almost to the ground, clutching her chest. Her wings continue to flutter, though.
Kelda steps forward and sends a javelin flying through the air that falls short of the creature.