"Disgusting all this, they turned those who defended this place into their servants and used their bodies to power their dark ritual." Sario says moving to the scrying bowl and pulling the entrails out. "Should we cleanse this first?"
"Yes," Arloric replies bluntly, humming a bit as he uses his prestidigitation spell to clean the bowl after Sario removes its contents.
After some minutes of work, and some of Arloric's magic, the silver bowl is clean, and the bodies (with their entrails) set aside respectfully and covered under some banners and curtains.
As before, even the air seems to change after you cleanse the room.
As they look around the room, Darya goes over to Alexa, gently resting a hand on her shoulder and sending a warm flow of golden healing fire into her fellow angel born. "That looked like it hurt."
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Alexa's hair waves as Darya heals her. "It did. Otherwise, not important."
[Ooc] ok [ooc]
She dribks a potion of cure serious woinds
After some minutes of work, and some of Arloric's magic, the silver bowl is clean, and the bodies (with their entrails) set aside respectfully and covered under some banners and curtains.
As before, even the air seems to change after you cleanse the room.
Arloric fails to notice the change as he works to get the area cleansed.
"I'm fine."
Sario looks around the room as she feels the change.
The elf willartempt to aid 4h3 druid
and sees nothing...lol
Remembering the acid damage he'd taken earlier from the flies, Uriel takes a CLW potion.
Sario and Aberus, still working together, think they can hear something happening in the room upstairs... some kind of ritual, or chanting, or spell weaving.
But nothing seems to be coming down to attack you.
For now.
Aberus strains to listen, one hand held up for quiet. He turns to look at Sario, and sees her doing the same. "You hear something, too?"
"Well that bowl is clean, why do you think it was here in the first place? Do you think they scryed with it?" Sario asks her allies.
Arloric scratches his stubbly chin and thinks on what he knows about scrying.
Yes, this is a scrying chamber. And yes, a silver mirror like this, with water on it, would make a powerful scrying device. Better yet if Holy Water.
"Most likely, Sario...silver mirror, water, make a really powerful scrying focus...especially if that water is blessed, whether by a priest, or just salt water purified by the light of the sun..."
Perhaps we should purify and use it? Does anyone have holy water? the wizaedress asks.
"I can produce clean water, but I did not ask Sarenrae today for the spell to bless it."
"It may not be much, but it's a start."
"That sounds like a good idea, but I know nothing of scrying. I will leave you to it."
"Would any of us HAVE the power to scry right now? Most of us...no offense...are novices. While we can refill it with water, we wouldn't be able to take advantage of it."
Assuming one of the others don't, Arloric opens his own waterskin and pours its contents into the bowl.
"What you have done in the dark I undo in the light," he says as he does.
The elf will attempt to use the scry bowl when it looks ready.
"Have you used something like this before Telerin?" Sario asks
Alexa starts pacing back and forth, her hair still blazing and waving like flames.
This delay is pointless. We should get upstairs and finish this.
Telerin peers into the clear waters, trying to see something.
Ripples on the water.
And when she starts to think nothing will happen, she realizes she is no longer seeing ripples in the water.
She is climbing the stairs. Well, not her... the scrying is climbing the stairs...
At the top of the spiral stairs, a wide hall stretches for thirty feet before ending in a door. Two alcoves on both sides of the hall hold torches that burn with white light. Each torch illuminates a pedestal, on each of which rests a battered and broken steel helm. In the middle of them, a fearsome fiendish minotaur with blood-red fur and glowing yellow eyes is there, with a great axe, ready to attack you.
But the scrying moves past it, and into the next room, crossing the closed door as if it was not there.
This circular room's original purpose is unclear, but now it seems to be a trophy hall of some sort. A low stone pedestal sits on the floor in the middle of the chamber under a domed ceiling. Atop the pedestal is an iron, barbed cage-and within the cage sits a chunk of softly glowing white stone.
Somehow Telerin instantly knows what the stone is and where it is... the largest surviving fragment of the Kenabres wardstone. The cage that enshrines the wardstone fragment was created by the lilitu Minagho via a wish within hours of the artifact's destruction, so the abyss forces could use it to corrupt all of the wardstone's protection field.
Minagho elected to keep the fragment in town, leaving a glabrezu in charge of its defense. Soon after Minagho left, the glabrezu found himself unable to resist the urge to join in the fun of the coming attack on Nerosyan, and shifted the responsibility down to one of his underlings-and so it went a few more times until the safekeeping of the fragment fell to a priestess of Deskari named Jeslyn.
Jeslyn Image
Jeslyn is more than a simple cultist. Her oracular powers granted her a rare gift from Deskari. One was once an attractive half-elf, but exposure to various Abyssal energies have twisted her limbs and afflicted her with her wasting curse, manifesting as a twisted foot and a deformed, insectoid arm. This limb appears ferocious, but she can't make additional unarmed attacks with it or even make fine manipulations of objects-it does allow her, however, to wield two-handed weapons like her scythe.
And then the viewpoint of the scrying flies away! She is now flying quickly upwards and out of the fort, and Telerin finds herself seeing a wide swath of terrain, all along the border, at amassing army of demons.
They are so many!
And they are ready to swarm the defenses of the crusade as soon as the wardstone protection field falls!
The rest of the characters sees Telerin drop to her knees, her eyes crying tears of despair, as the end of Golarion is just some minutes away, as soon as the wardstone fragment is finally corrupted, and the abyss, without the wardstones interference, is finally able to destroy all good on the planet!
Hefting his cold iron mace, Aberus "I get this feeling we have gone from 'not much time' to 'none at all'" He gestures as he casts a spell, and his mace glows briefly.
"Let's go, then! No more delays!" Alexa turns and starts heading up the stairs.
"Indeed." Uriel unsheathes Radiance, but before leaving the room he bows and prays quietly over his blade. After a few seconds, he rises. Radiance appears somehow even sharper than it was before, as the aasimar strides from the room on Alexa's heels.
As they get closer to the end zone she will prepare to cast haste on the more melee characters.