"No, the same as always. Make sure no one tries to rob you blind. Otherwise you should be fine. You don't look like an easy target."
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"I assume you know your way around the market?" Rayhan inquires.
"It's not like someone faced it and wrote details in his memoirs. But as with everything fire, cold would probably work. But not magic." Rayhan ponders a few moments the options that come to mind. "If you knew half a dozen really old silver dragons you might have a chance to bring it down. But you still wouldn't know how to keep it down."
"Yes, I've done my homework." Rayhan replies. "The firebleeder is like a lesser god from the plane of fire. It destroys everything in its way with fire and heat is almost invulnerable and for all practical purposes immortal - even in the unlikely case you manage to kill it, it won't stay dead. So I suggest you stop Jhavhul before he succeeds." "As for how Jhavhul will become this creature, I have no clue. He'd have to bend reality to the point where it might as well break. Not even a wish or miracle can do that."
After a short goodbye and some magic you stand in front of the premises of Rayhan. The old wizard is busy giving his helper instructions for the garden. The restoration to the state before the lot of fire genies erupted here is still a work in progress. As Rayhan notices you, he pauses the work and turns to you. "Hello my friends. What news do you bring?"
"I got some white bath robes that you can have." Rayhan offers, into the garden, where the voices of the invisible companions come from.
"Good luck!" Rayhan tells before the others disappear. He turns two of the companions invisible, before waving them goodbye.
"At the very least I suggest to add invisibility before turning up uninvited where it might be swarming with those fire creatures."
"I'd rather not. I could ask around and find someone who could help, but basically I brought that over Katapesh, and I don't want to give them any ideas." "But you were in their employ, through Princess Almah. If that isn't good enough to get you an audience, what else would? Though I wouldn't expect too much enthusiasm when you have to tell why you're after Jhavhul."
"Adventure you gave me? I'd say that was well earned, with my screw up that sucked us all into Kakishon, instead of only activating the scroll." "But all is well that ends well. I'm relieved that my home still stands. But there is more work to do, before all is well, with Jhavhul still out."
Rayhan turns Heshan around. "There it is."
"No, that probably wouldn't work. But I'd rather go to Katapesh anyway, to see what has become of my home. If you go directly to Kelmarane, then our ways will part here already."
"We could buy a scroll for teleportation to make sure we arrive together. I can cast it from the paper. Or Heshsan takes some roundtrips, if a delay is no issue. I would suggest to go to a place in Katapesh that is not directly my house. As that would be where Jhavhul should have emerged from the scroll of Kakishon."
"I'm interested in old tomes from ancient history. Or lore books about magical artifacts. If you could ask around about such?"
"We are definitely in a quarter we are not supposed to be in. I suggest climbing the top of the building again, identify the bazar and use magic to get there directly." Rayhan tells.
As this is somewhat in the area of expertiese of Rayhan he gets all scholary and lectures on the situation. "That will need some serious magic to counter this binding, as it is not simply a spell cast, but the fountain is an artifact binding her here. What would probably work, would be wishing for her release. But I don't think anyone has that kind of magic at hand right now." "Is there something you could ask Erastil for, that would help with this situation?" he inquires from Omari.
"I sugest I'll take Khedron, Omari, and Heshan with me. Ohrmizd and Hazreem have ways to fly that waste no spells. Let's meet there." Rayhan groups the named people and elks around him and casts the spell.
"We could use dimension door to get there and back. But we are still too many to travel all this way." Rayhan comments.
"That is a very welcome turn of events." Rayhan comments as travelling freely has become possible again.
"Helping that djinn is probably a good idea, but nothing of that is going to happen before a good night's sleep. How about we take that fancy bedroom for that?" Rayhan suggests pointing to the inside of the tower.
"Well, if you haven't lived under a rock, or were locked away for a century, you should know that Aroden is considered dead - since 4606 AR, which started what is known as the Age of Lost Omens." Rayhan comments.
Rayhan greets Hazreem. "I'm Rayhan Xobhadi. Researcher of many things related to magic and history. And a user of arcane magic myself." "As you are wielding powerful healing magic, I assume you are using divine magic, but I don't see any signs of the popular, or rather any faith on you. Which piques my scholarly interest." Rayhan also looks over the stuff and takes the wand. Good times when some magic missiles could turn a fight. Here you are lucky if it does something at all. But hopefully we're back soon where this will be a formidable weapon. "If you don't mind?" he asks into the round.
"If you think so..." Rayhan does as asked.
Rayhan puts a wall of force between the unfriendly guy and the party, sadly leaving Khedron on the other side.
"This is an advanced Nephilim. Resistant to brute force, fire, cold and magic." Rayhan tells. Being fresh out of ideas what to do to the giant, he casts bull's strength on Ohrmizd.
Rayhan plays twister, grabbing Ohrmizd with his right hand, Omari with his left and Heshan with his right foot. Then he calls a short incantation.
"Less talking, more flying." Rayhan suggests. He casts fly on himself and moves out of the yard upwards.
"I didn't practice binding of powers like the lady here, but from the books I know that such a thing doesn't work. You need something more powerful like supressing magic itself to undo a binding. Rayhan elaborates.
"The main question is: will we have to flee after performing the ritual. If not, the order of events is of no consequence." Rayhan comments.
"You're asking the wrong one. A heal spell would be Omari's area of expertise. But you might be on to something there." Rayhan replies to Heshan.
"Sometimes all your knowledge provides little more than the obvious. Of course it's resistant to magic, most elements and immune to fire."
Rayhan casts displacement on Ohrmizd, before he jouns the fray.
"Oh no, a barbed devil. Don't let that one hug you - it's spikey. Can someone send it back to hell?"
"Free them from their misery? Or in another sense?" Rayhan inquires, with little empathy for those evil wannabe dragon suckups.
"Wait, wait, not so fast." Rayhan calls after them as he tries to catch up.
"I'm good." Rayhan replies after looking through the items.
Rayhan Doesn't like getting stabbed and walks away from the salamanders, following the others into the next room. "We got more company." he tells the others.
Rayhan stands back from the crowded entrance.
"As we are going for breaking and entering, I assume diplomacy is out of the window already?" Rayhan asks rhetorical. He throws a fireball at the wall besides the bed assuming that the person can't have moved that far away.
Rayhan finds it a bit crowded at the window for his taste.
Rayhan relays what information he can read from the magical sight about the artifact's properties. Impossible Eye: The Impossible Eye grants a number of potent powers of
divination. In order to activate any of these powers, the user must look into the mirror and make a DC 20 Will save; failure indicates that the user becomes fascinated by his reflection until an outside force breaks his gaze. Left alone, a fascinated viewer doesn’t eat, drink, move, or sleep, and eventually dies of thirst. If the Will save is successful, the viewer can activate any of the mirror’s powers as a standard action. 5/day: vision 3/day: greater prying eyes, greater scrying 1/day: contact other plane, discern location, foresight The Impossible Eye can also be used to read any nonmagical language—any written message reflected in the mirror appears in unmirrored text written in the holder’s native tongue. The mirror can be used to safely peruse the text of the Codex of Infinite Planes in this manner.
"I'd say, leave it here. We have the only means of opening that space. And I assume it is safer here than taking it along."
"I'm sure we have collected a load of silver coins, not sure if it would be enough. But it's probably faster to search for some with that flickering candle group than make it ourselves." Rayhan admits, when pondering the group filing 3250 silver coins to dust while waiting for Omari's spell slots to replenish. "And I'd say we have to douse the guy's prison and he will show on the mirror we have to do that. Hopefully it is the guy himself talking to us and not just some programmed image spitting hints. Then it might be possible to get a real interaction if we're stuck."
"Omari? Blessed water is blessed water, no matter the deity, right?"
"No. The impossible eye, an eye of brass, is the artifact. This is the fiery orb to reveal it." Rayhan replies, pointing to the glass orb.
"I'm without my books here, so I can't do a proper research. But what I can conclude - or make an educated guess about - is that there is a powerful artifact next room. Some mysterious guy who shows up in reflections is bound and can be freed with, or from, the artifact." "This whole place is cursed, which might be related with that artifact. But we have found that someone powerful - was it the vizier? - wants no one to leave. And even Jhavhul didn't return here." "From my adventuring experience, I'd say hell will break loose one way or the other, once we hold the artifact in hand. What kind I don't know. Too many powerful entities are bound, kept away or generally involved in a way we don't understand, for this to go smooth. The dragon alone could become a pain in the arse." "But what else do you want to do?"
Rayhan is glad that he went directly with Ohrmizd and Heshan driven by his curiosity and doesn't have to meet the Giant.
"So, resting in this nice room with that many pillows, or moving onwards in search for this fire?"
Rayhan walks back into the other room and looks behind the wall carpet. Not producing anything he states "I don't know how big a fiery orb is supposed to be, but I don't see anything." "I wouldn't pick a single line from the riddle and ignore the rest. 'In ancient adoration' and 'only a true believer', bla bla bla..." Rayhan recites from memory. "Has anyone seen a temple or shrine on the way?"
"You have some mansion without furniture?" Rayhan inquires. "Also it might be fitting for this palace where the walls and the floor are more or less golden, but outside of this it would look out of overly pompous."
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