At Obadiah's chastising tone, Danu pulls out a long, slender piece of finely shaped jungle wood, roughly eight inches in length, that has been carved with a spiraling series of runes in Mwangi. It tells a story, but not one she shares with most people. She fiddles with it unconsciously, twirling it between her long, slender fingers. Obie's always grumpy at her about something. She whishes the old man would crack a smile once in a while. It's so rare she could probably count the times on one hand, but it lights up a room when it happens.
He has no sense of humor, that is the problem, she thinks sullenly. Wish he would just slow down and relax once in a while. He is too tense. Well--there is an undead uprising occurring. I guess he can be forgiven for being terse.
At Sebti's words of encouragement, Danu grins. "See, Obie? Exuberance. You should try it sometime."
She follows the High Priestess into the room, and waves cheerfully at the strangers. "Hi! I am Danu. Nice to meet you. This old coot is Obadiah. He is good at healing wounds. I am good at causing trouble. Oh, and I am also a wizard. What do you do?" While the question is aimed at both men, she is looking with particular curiosity at the gnome, who looks like he aught to be falling over with all the alchemical supplies he's carrying.
I'm only 65. And don't call me Obie.
He doesn't bother saying that out loud because he knows that she knows both of those things. And she wonders why he is grumpy.
He sighs to himself. He knows he shouldn't be so hard on her. And, truly, he hadn't really meant much by what he said. Maybe the "grumpy dwarf" stereotype is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He -- not for the first time -- reminds himself to try to work on his positive reinforcement. It's not the way he was raised, Bes knows, but what was so great about how he was raised?
When Sebti opens the door, he sees a room full of corpses and, suddenly, the High Priestess's haggard appearance makes a lot more sense. Among the corpses are two others: a large man that looks every bit as weary as Sebti, and a curious little gnome. He steps into the room. "Well met, Melech and Ulysses. My name is Obadiah Sunspire. I am a cleric in the service of Bes, the Guardian Fool. I hope that Danu and I are able to aid you in your task."
Ulysses approaches the newcomers, smiling, and shakes their hands. "Good morning. Pleased to meet you."
Melech should be relieved at the newcomers; they do look quite capable. But he can't help himself: "Do you understand what you are getting into?" He looks apologetically at Sebti. "Forgive me, High Priestess, for being unable to speak with you yesterday. We tracked down four of the five compasses. Three were utterly destroyed and the fourth was only partially so; we may be able to use some of its parts if the fifth one is at least somewhat intact. We will go back today, but it is difficult to be optimistic."
He looks at Danu and Obadiah. "I don't know you and I am sure that the High Priestess would not have asked you were you not capable, but before you agree, you must know the truth of the situation. The foes that we face are powerful and relentless. They do not feel fear. They do not tire. And they have a limitless source of new combatants. We lost our cleric yesterday. He died keeping me alive. It is likely to be worse today." He sighs heavily. "Forgive my bluntness, but it is better if you know."
Most of Obadiah's adult life has been spent providing healing, but he has been in enough combat situations to recognize a shellshocked soldier wracked by survivor's guilt. What he chooses to say next is critical; he hopes he doesn't screw it up.
"The High Priestess has apprised us of the situation. The very future of Wati, Osirion, and perhaps beyond hangs in the balance. I do not make a habit of rushing headlong into dangerous situations, but we returned to Wati to help. We could continue to patch up the wounded until they are too numerous to handle. Or we could understand that we are the one thing standing between the horde and the city, and do what we must." He grasps the holy symbol he has hanging on a cord around his neck. "I am very sorry for your loss. I did not know him, but I do know clerics, and we willingly accept our role as protectors. He knew what he was doing, and he would do it again. If I must die to protect my allies and protect this city, I swear on Bes's beard that I will do so as well."
Danu clears her throat, looking from the body of the cleric and back to the two men. You just bounced in here like a kid while they are grieving, you dolt.
"Uh. Maybe I did not give the best first impression. I am... um..." She tries to think of a nice way to say an impetuous idiot and comes up short. "Let us go with 'rambunctious.' I am curious about the world around me and what knowledge I can glean from it. But I am no stranger to danger; I grew up in the jungles of the Mwangi, and have found no shortage of perils since moving to the desert. I fully understand the situation we find ourselves in. I will use every ounce of my magic to stop what is happening, if it is the last thing I do. And yes, I understand it may very well be the last thing. I am fine with that."
Well, she thinks wryly, maybe not fine, exactly. But the point still stands.
Then she frowns. "Wait. Compasses? What compasses?"
Sebti rubs her eyes. "Right, the elegiac compasses. Sorry. They were constructed and placed throughout the necropolis centuries ago to help pinpoint necromantic activity. We knew the location of five. If four are destroyed..." She sighs. "I hope you can fix the fifth. Your only other options are the Dark Folk and the lamia. Were you able to track down either of those leads?"
Melech clears his throat and a look of crushing guilt crosses his features. "I am ashamed to say I burned the bridge with the Dark Folk. They were reluctant to trust us and I lost my temper. I owe you and Ptemenib an apology, High Priestess. Please forgive me. As for the lamia, we will track them down today."
An inexplicable series of emotions crosses Sebti's face, but she wrestles them under control. "No use dwelling on it. Continue forward. But please bear in mind the severity of our situation in the future, Master Kusafisha. We cannot afford to lose any more potential allies when the city is at stake."
She turns toward the door. "I will leave you all to it. Good luck." She leaves the stone door open behind her as she leaves.
Danu clears her throat awkwardly. She has no idea what that was about, but it looks like the big guy just avoided having his head bitten off by a hairsbreadth. Then again, maybe she was misreading the woman. She's never been great at reading people, that's always been Obadiah's thing. Either way, best not to comment on it aloud.
"Okay, then!" she says. She stows the slender wand of wood she'd been fiddling with and rubs her hands together. "Obie, let us gather our things. Meet you two at the front door in five? Also, I hope you have a way into the necropolis that does not involve the front gates. I heard they have been busy since last night."
Melech looks at the ground. "I understand."
Once Sebti is gone, he finishes donning his armor and heads to the rendezvous point.
Before she leaves, Ulysses pulls Danu aside and shows her three items: Cassiopeia's ring, the weird mask thing, and Bheg's robe. "Wizard, eh? Can you tell what these things do?"
Danu brightens immediately. "Oh, magic stuff! Yes!"
She sits down with the items and begins channeling arcane energy, focusing with her mind to alter her vision. The strands of magic interwoven into the items becomes plain to her, and with a few more moments of concentration, tries to suss out their magical properties.
She points to the robes. "That is a robe of needles. Very useful, especially for sneaky, stabbing type people."
She points at the mask, making a face. "Eugh. Dark magic on this one. It is known as a stalker's mask. It is often used by serial killers and the like. It lets you take on the visage of someone you can see, and thereafter your blade will find their flesh much quicker. Also it is made of skin, so. You know. Gross."
She plucks up the iron ring last, frowning at it. "This one is weird. I sense strong magic upon it, but not in it. Why--? Oh!" She rolls her eyes. "Omugo omoge! I am dense. The reason it has so much magic around it but not in it is because it is what is known as a prisoner's ring. It is always paired with a jailer's ring. The wearer of the jailer's ring can instantly know the condition of anyone wearing a connected prisoner's ring. It is mostly useless by itself, I fear."
She stands up, dusting off the back of her skirt, and hands the items back to the gnome with a grin. "Hope that helped."
The quartet makes their way through the streets of the Veins in order to reach the hidden Silver Chain tunnel. After clambering back up the sloped cave-in, the party stands in the streets of the Dead City once more. They still appear abandoned and quiet, just as they did during the exploration. A lone hawk circles overhead, screeching once before banking west and out of sight across the nearby river.
Danu shudders at the sensation of death and emptiness that seems to permeate the place. Definitely time to raise her defenses. She sends waves of invisible force across her body in a protective barrier, then draws her slim, rune-carved wand and holds it close, eyes watchful for danger.
Ulysses takes the items back from Danu. The prionser's ring is troubling; it means that someone was controlling Cassiopeia. He will have to bring it up to Melech later; in fact, they hadn't had time to talk about that whole deal at all. Who was Cassiopeia? What did she say about a daughter?
As he places the items back in his haversack, a thought occurs to him. He catches Danu before she walks away. "Wait. Wizard, right? We have a ton of wizard stuff that we've picked up during all of this. We would have sold it, but there was no one to sell it to. Take a look through this stuff and see if anything looks useful to you. We even have like four spellbooks."
---
Once inside the Necropolis, Ulysses alchemically allocates his heroism potion; not knowing what the day will hold, he holds off on drinking his mutagen for now.
He pops one of his shield extracts out of his bandolier and hands it to Melech. "I figured out how to make these work for other people. This will make you much harder to hit. It's only good for today but it only lasts about seven minutes, so save it until you need it."
As they make their way to the smuggler's tunnels, Melech elaborates on what Sebti had said about the compasses, the Dark Folk (oops), and the lamia. He lets them know exactly what their goal is today and what sorts of horrors they encountered the day before.
Once they climb out of the tunnels, he draws his falchion and leads the way to The Shiny Bauble. He is reluctant to head that close to the gates, but they are out of options.
Obadiah listens intently to Melech's description of their mission and their foes. His jaw clenches and he girds himself against the trials to come. When they reach the breach leading up into the Necropolis, he grasps his holy symbol and whispers a quick prayer to Bes.
As Melech turns to head toward the next compass, Obadiah calls him back. "Wait, Melech. Let Bes's blessing protect you."
He casts barkskin on Melech .
"Okay. Lead the way." He readies his shield and follows Melech. He does not draw a weapon, preferring to keep a hand free for spell-casting.
Danu gets anime girl starry squee eyes at the mention of spellbooks. "Oh gods, YES! It has been forever since I added spells to my repertoire! And I just started a new book, too. This is amazing." She gets herself under control and clears her throat. "But... later. Of course. We have a busy day."
----
Shockingly, despite Obadiah choosing this day to wear his armor comprised entirely of crash cymbals, the party reaches their destination with relative ease and unmolested.
You find yourselves standing before a tall one-story shop. The stone above the door is etched with Middle Osiriani: The Shiny Bauble. This is definitely the place. One wall has partially collapsed, and the shop's windows, once boarded up, have been crushed in, its door long since disintegrated with either time, violence, or both. Something seems to be catching the light up on the roof.
Melech waves Obadiah over and whispers, "Before we go in, can you check for magical auras?"
Obadiah nods and steps up to within 5' of the door, the sweeps the entire façade with as many castings of detect magic as it takes to cover the entire shop (or at least the first 60' of it, if it turns out to be a Wal-Mart).
Though tall, the building isn't terribly large--maybe thirty feet by thirty feet. The crumbling mud bricks and whatever lies within give off no auras of magic, aside from an exceptionally faint aura from the roof.
"No magic inside. Something small on the roof, maybe? It's very faint. Doesn't look too stable up there, though."
Ulysses steps up. "I can fly now!" He grins as he pulls an extract out of his bandolier and downs it. He feels himself grow progressively lighter until his feet lift gently off the ground. He giggles a little bit, then takes off toward the roof. "Guide me," he says to Obidiah as he lifts toward the roof.
Up on the roof, Ulysses can see that part of the ceiling has collapsed on the southern end, but otherwise it appears untouched. He also notes a small wooden hatch near one corner, the wood so dusty and decayed that it looks as if it might evaporate into a puff of dust if he sneezes. Across from it sits a fairly familiar sight: another elegiac compass. This one looks shockingly intact compared to the others, but significantly larger and bulkier. Perhaps it was a prototype or earlier design. ULysses isn't an expert on crafting magic items, but perhaps one of his new friends could weigh in.
Despite the collapsed section on the south side, the roof is still supported on all four corners and appears to be stable. All four of you could probably stand up here with no issue, so long as you avoided the hole.
Ulysses knows this compass is mostly intact, but it is missing a key component: a carved crystal wrapped in specially-treated copper wire that sits in the device's gyroscopic core and charges the beam the device is meant to emit to triangulate necromantic energies.
The good news is, he sees the core sitting on the ground next to the machine. Something must have jostled it loose at some point, but whatever it was wasn't quite strong enough to knock over the elegiac compass, which is nailed directly into the mud-brick of the rooftop and appears to weigh significantly more than the other compasses you've found.
The bad news is, Ulysses isn't one hundred percent sure how to fix it. Maybe one of his new companions can help?
Even from a disadvantageous angle, Danu gets a pretty good layout of the roof.
"I think the roof is stable. So long as we avoid that section there" she points at the five-by-ten section of the roof's edge that has collapsed "we should be safe to walk on it. Come on, Obie, let us find a way up, hm?"
She slips in through the open doorway of the Shiny Bauble and looks around for a way up to the roof.
Danu finds a ladder at the back of the shop's front room that is in surprisingly good shape, having been protected from the worst of the elements for some time. Climbing it, she reaches the dilapidated hatch and after a single push, it crumbles to dust around her, making her cough and spit old wood slivers but otherwise leaving her unharmed.
Up on the roof, she gets a better look at the elegiac compass.
Up top, Danu rushes over to the compass and coos with excitement. "Oh, this is so cool! Look at this thing! This is so amazingly inefficient! You could build this thing with, oh I dunno. Half the parts? But a really good first try! Whoever built this was either a certified genius or an authentic wacko."
After a few minutes, she grins at the gnome. "I think I can fix it, but it will take a little time. Couple hours, maybe. And I would not mind some help. What do you think?"
Ulysses lets himself float down to sit cross-legged next to the compass. He thinks he is going to like Danu.
He helps her go to work.
While the nerds work on the compass, Melech looks around the interior of the building.
Danu pulls out strange implements that only Obadiah has seen her use, when crafting magical items of wondrous power, and sets to work with the alchemist's capable assistance.
Melech loafs around the empty building looking for anything of note. He has plenty of time to search, because Danu spends two fruitless hours tinkering with the elegiac compass to no avail. Once, she's fairly certain she accidentally crossed opposing aetheric monowires inside the binomial wire-frame, but managed to stick a toothpick between them to jimmy them apart before they exploded and killed her and Ulysses.
During those two hours, Melech scours the building and finds nothing has survived of worth. He does find the back rooms have long since been converted to a tomb, likely for the owner and their family after perishing in the plague centuries ago. The sarcophagi are all open and empty--not a great sign.
Dazed but undaunted, Danu and Ulysses get back to work. Morning slowly begins creeping into afternoon, and the sun bakes high overhead, making everyone feel damp and sluggish, but Danu has learned from her mistakes. As the sun passes its zenith, the young wizard snaps a final cog back into place, sets the crystal in its niche, and flips a switch.
The device hums ominously low for a moment, before Danu adjusts the telescopic funnel tip and the hum rises in pitch to a higher, softer note, and a beam of bright green light shoots out of it. After about half a second, the beam swivels hard to the right and cuts a line across the rooftops of the buildings of the necropolis.
Danu stands up and dusts of her hands with a satisfactory grin. "A job well done! You have very nimble fingers, Master Cogkettle."
She scratches her nose thoughtfully, leaving a small smudge of some amber-colored fluid on it from the device. She only wipes it back off when it starts to make her skin tingle unpleasantly.
"Well, if this is the only compass we can get to work, then I guess we just need to check buildings along the path, hm? Anyone have a map?"
Ulysses uses alchemical allocation on his heroism potion again, then drinks the heightened awareness extract for good measure.
Before leaving to follow the beam, Obadiah pulls Melech aside. "Your barkskin has worn off and my other protection spells don't last long. If we get into trouble, stay near me."
Melech nods to the dwarf, checks that everyone is ready to go, then heads in the direction of the beam. Might as well go to the buildings in the order they reach them; first stop, the Observatory.
Danu strongly considers casting silence on her adoptive father just to make the racket stop.
It's a quick trip to the Observatory of Truth and Wisdom--in fact, it's a mere three streets over. The party is thankfully unmolested despite Obadiah continuing to sound like a forty-man oompah band.
The building is a simple affair, large but only a single story in size, though the middle of the roof bulges upward in a massive dome that has collapsed over the years, exposing the inside of the building to the elements. The observatory's brass double doors hang off their hinges, exposing the wide open inside to a sliver of afternoon light.
Melech pushes the doors open and looks inside.
Once he is convinced there is no danger, he steps in and aside, then asks Obadiah to check for magic.
Obadiah steps into the building and sweeps over it with detect magic.
The inside is massive, big enough that the light from outside only spills a little way into the room, maybe fifteen feet. Because of the height of the tower and the fact that it's past noon, the inside of the tower isn't fully lit; darkness pervades half the room and a gloomy dimness engulfs the other half. Obadiah can see just fine, but the rest of the party has difficulty with simple low-light vision or normal vision. Melech can see that there is something on the floor at the center, draped over by a large tattered piece of cloth, perhaps a banner or tarpaulin, but he can't see what, exactly. It's just too dim.
Obadiah moves into the great observatory and can see just fine, however. This massive tower is one large circular room some eighty feet in diameter and shooting up almost sixty feet, with an enormous glass dome high above. Time has not been kind to the dome, and it is mostly shattered and open to the sky. Glass debris litters the floor everywhere, as well as small sweeping dunes of sand that have piled up in corners. Two metal-frame staircases wind around the outside, up to two more floors above, both of which are open to the main chamber and fenced in only by a pitted metal railing that has broken in several places and fallen into the room below.
Where there is no staircase, the walls are covered nearly every inch in shelves of scrolls, some of which have survived the centuries but would likely need a very light touch to handle without destroying them. Between the shelves are lines of scripture etched into the walls in Middle Osiriani. The tops of the shelves are lined with iconography of Maat and Thoth, two gods with whom Obadiah is quite familiar, being a follower of one of the Ancient Osiriani gods himself. They are the gods of the moon and wisdom, respectively. They are unsurprising sights in an observatory.
At the center of the room, partly covered by dust, sand, and bits of old broken glass, is a tarpaulin. Where it came from is uncertain--perhaps it fell from one of the higher levels, or perhaps it was blown in by a sandstorm through the broken dome. Regardless, whatever may have been painted or imprinted on it has long ago worn away until it's simply a wide, irregular piece of threadbare cloth. Stepping further into the room, Obadiah can now see what Melech couldn't: it is partially obscuring a large, circular engraving on the floor. He immediately recognizes it as the spiral symbol of Pharasma.
This building was dedicated to Maat and Thoth. That much makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that these deities have little, if anything, to do with Pharasma. What is Her symbol doing here?
Obadiah sweeps his gaze across the first floor and finds no magical auras whatsoever.
Danu glances at the darkness of the building, considers the time of day, then shrugs and nods. "Might as well," she mumbles.
She moves over to Melech and Ulysses. "Gather close."
She moves her long, slender fingers in a series of complex gestures, then touches Melech and Ulysses on the arm. Suddenly the impenetrable dimness of the tower becomes a clear grayscale image.
"Should make exploring easier," she says with a grin, then follows Obadiah inside, staring curiously at the symbol on the floor. It's a bit ostentatious for her tastes, but that's ancient Osirion for you.
She glances curiously at the scripture and iconography on the walls, trying to remember everything her adoptive father has taught her.
When she can't make heads or tails, she shrugs and takes a look at the metal stairwells.
"Do not use these stairs," she says. "They are not stable, which means the floors above probably are not in much better shape. They could collapse with too much weight. Best not to go up there if we do not need to."
Obadiah isn't sure what this place has to do with Pharasma, so he takes a look around for secret doors.