Ashley looks to Joren, a feeling of... well joy and proud are the only words that cover it. She takes out her waterskin, opens it and hands it to the boy. She doesn't ask him any questions, just waits to see if he has any more he wants to say. She's so glad they got here in time.
He starts chugging the water, little rivulets trickling down to his chin. Finally he stops with a gasp. "Thank you so much," He says. Then he thinks for a moment. "But wait, what are you down here for? This place has been abandoned as far as I'm aware."
Joren shifts awkwardly as Mikael tells his tale and Ashley gives him a nice look. He has always been uncomfortable with compliments, real or implied. In his mind, his speech at the Arena had mainly gotten Jean-Lou killed, which still haunts him. Well... perhaps it was doing some good as well...
And yet... and yet... Joren is sadly aware that the grinding, clandestine conflict with the cultists over the last few weeks has made him darkly suspicious of everyone and everything. Could they be leaving this seeming adolescent captive behind as a double agent or booby trap? Might this lad be one of Razmus' thralls? He was using magic to shoot that icy beam, so perhaps not, but it could have been magic stolen from other prisoners such asVilus...
He finds, he cannot make a good read on it from listening to Mikael and observing his mannerisms, though he certainly wants to believe the boy, and the chances of him being a plant seem low. Still, the echo knight subsides into brooding silence and steps back so his companions can respond.
Then he remembers. Whispering to his half-orc friend: "Samir, a quick check of the medallion, if you are not minding? Being paranoid, I know."
Joren breathes a sigh of relief at the blue on Samir's medallion, wondering if he will ever be free of dark suspicions after dealing with the cultists.
"Perhaps we are coming here to free people like you after all," he concedes to the youth with a genuine smile.
"I will let my companions fill you in on the rest if they wish as I go back to being a guard." (Which he does, along with his echo).
Suspicion averted Vilus fills the kid in on what they're actually doing in the tunnels and sees to it that the boy gets another ration if he needs it, "...so we're going to find a map, one that'll tell us if theres more of those cultist f*ckers out there, and when we find them, they're not gonna be out there for long... If this place really is deserted then you should come with us, we'll be going up to the surface straight after. Is there anywhere you need taking? Where is home for you?"
Samir glances at Joren before slipping his sleeve up to reveal a flicker of blue over the medallion. Letting his sleeve settle into place once more, he can't help but worry for his friend's growing paranoia. Certainly there was cause to be worried about the cultists infiltrating things, but the boy was near death and locked away in a cage. Not exactly a suspiscious figure in the artificer's eyes.
"Yes, the map. I do think we should be moving along in that direction. Lingering here can't be good for any of us."
The group starts walking through the hall once more, still watching out for traps or enemeies. Mikael says, "Home? Just the surface. Though... there is a soup kitchen in the Rows, so anywhere near that would be good."
After another turn, they find themselves in the hallway with the door leading to the map room. Opening the door, the smell of death meets them. The bodies of the cultists and whatever Andra had become having been only partially preserved by the subterranean chill. In the middle of the room sits the glass platform with Andra's incomplete and broken runes around it. No magic it anymore, a fact which Samir knows will require a little creative problem solving.
Malachi walks alongside Mikael and fills him in on a little of what they know about the cultists. “So you are touched by the Blue Lady, huh? How long have you known how to do that with the ice? That is why the cultists grabbed you, they were draining your magic, it’s why you felt so weak back there. Still not sure what they want to do with it, but it can't be good.”
As they enter the map room, Malachi takes in the damage, his thoughts going back briefly to the fight and the horror that Andra became. He turns to Samir. “Any idea how to get this back on? Do we infuse it with magic somehow?”
Vilis eyes the corpse of andra quietly, lots of thoughts, mostly anxious begin running through his head before the task at hand is brought rocketing to the forefront of his mind by Samir and Malachi's discussion, Vilus drags his eyes away from Andras corpse "speaking of the siphoned concentrated arcana, there was a room full of them little vials, I can go and see if there's any left?, it'll help us here if there is..."
Mikael wipes his nose and says, "You know about the Blue Lady? My mother used to tell me fairy tales about her when I was young" He brushes his hair back, revealing slender elfin ears. "She always told me I would be able to control magic, though she wasn't around to see it when it started..." He grows somber, but continues, "Normally I can do much more than little tricks like that, but I feel so weak right now." He coughs again.
Recalling the layout of the place, Vilus thinks he could get to the room and back in just a couple of minutes
Not waiting for much of a response Vilus fully turns his back on the remains of andra, "back in a mo, don't worry, and don't move from here" he asks of the group before breaking into a light jog leaving the room, as he moves his form turns from that of his usual Goliath self into the form of familiar cult leader, Marigold.
Samir almost immediately begins thinking through the puzzle of making the map working once again as they enter the room, shutting out the rest of the unpleasantness and focusing on the problem at hand. Belatedly, he mutters an affirmative to Vilus, not realizing that the goliath has already stepped away. Adjusting his glasses, he begins examining the device, looking for an object or point where it would be the most beneficial to attempt to feed power into the contraption.
Joren and his echo continue to act as guard. He begins to shout after Vilus/Marigold as he lopes off, but sighs, knowing the goliath will do as he wishes. Joren does move 30' in the same direction, leaving his echo behind in the original room, listening in case Vilus encounters trouble.
"I am knowing little of the Blue Lady myself, Mikael. Yet having seen what Her magic can do in my companions' hands, if that frost beam you were sending out was just a small part of your capabilities, Talmouth may be needing you sooner than later. All the more reason to be getting you to safety."
How young was I when I was first training with the Khirian echo division? Not much older. Somehow, Joren feels both proud and sad.
Ashley gets up to follow Vilus, but as he changes into Marigold, she smiles. He'll be fine, she thinks and walks over to where Samir is trying to figure out the contraption. "Anything I can do help?"
She looks things over a bit as well, but isn't quite sure what she is looking at.
Perhaps a crude solution, but Samir suspects that if he got out his tools, he could tap into the copper tube that would have been delivering magic to the device. Then he could funnel some of the magic ether Vilus plans to retrieve and try to drip feed it to the map, and it occurs to him that if Ashley could use her flames to seal and pressurize the device he is about to rig up to the line, it would make things more efficient.
As he is getting everything set up, Vilus returns with 9 vials of swirling pink essence. Samir doesn't think he'll need all of that, but he might be wrong.
(Give me an intelligence check plus your proficiency for using tools. Make the roll with advantage for Ashley's assistance. For every point below 20, you will need to use one full vial, so you need at least an 11)
"they cleared the room but it seems they were in a rush, this is all I managed to find amongst the mess in there... What's the plan?" Vilus hands over the vials and stands over Samir lowering his goggles of object reading over his own eyes in preparation to Help Samir if needed.
Awkwardly, Vilus seems to have completely forgotten that he looks like Marigold, as he questions the situation unperturbed.
Samir takes one vial in his hand and inspects it closely. Then he brings it over to the mess of tubes and clamps he has set up, and carefully pierces the corked top, fitting it upside down into his contraption to allow it to drip out. Slowly the ether begins feeding into the tube leading toward the mapping device. It begins to glow, and an outline Cambria appears once more. But this time, the two glowing lights indicating a Hydaelym are missing.
"What is this?" Mikael asks, taken aback by the sight.
With his mind a-whirl with calculations and ideas, Samirs sets to tinkering. A leather roll of various tools to one side, and several pieces of scavenged material in front of him, the artificer puts together what he thinks would be a serviceable drip feed that could regulate the flow of the arcane liquid into the map. Quietly he directs Ashley to helping him seal a crucial bit of the contraption with her flames, and Vilus (ignoring the fact the Goliath is still in his Marigold disguise for some reason) to helping install it to the copper piping of the far more complex workings of the map itself.
Standing back as the lights begin to come to life, Samir cannot help but smile in satisfaction, eyes sparkling behind his glasses.
"This, my boy, is a map of Cambria. The glowing lights there indicate certain locations that are of interest to the people who held you captive."
Pulling pen and parchment from his satchel, Samir does his best to note the locations of the two glowing points.
"it's a map, but like magic" Vilus helpfully explains to Mikael, "last time it showed us where the cultists had set up bases. One in tensmith, one here, but they're gone. After us, maybe they can't trust the maps any more. Or wait. Maybe..."
Vilus adjusts the goggles over his (Marigold's) face and looks around the room, having some sort of eureka moment, "Samir can you show a wider area and hand me the medallion, I want to try something.."
Once Vilus has the medallion he follows a set of wires leading toward the right hand wall. And finds an indent there. "The one in the office in Tensmith had another piece right? Like a detector for what is to be shown on the map, this medallion is also a detector of sorts, so perhaps..." He slots the medallion into the indent and holds his hand over it.
Ashley looks to Joren, a feeling of... well joy and proud are the only words that cover it. She takes out her waterskin, opens it and hands it to the boy. She doesn't ask him any questions, just waits to see if he has any more he wants to say. She's so glad they got here in time.
He starts chugging the water, little rivulets trickling down to his chin. Finally he stops with a gasp. "Thank you so much," He says. Then he thinks for a moment. "But wait, what are you down here for? This place has been abandoned as far as I'm aware."
Joren shifts awkwardly as Mikael tells his tale and Ashley gives him a nice look. He has always been uncomfortable with compliments, real or implied. In his mind, his speech at the Arena had mainly gotten Jean-Lou killed, which still haunts him. Well... perhaps it was doing some good as well...
And yet... and yet... Joren is sadly aware that the grinding, clandestine conflict with the cultists over the last few weeks has made him darkly suspicious of everyone and everything. Could they be leaving this seeming adolescent captive behind as a double agent or booby trap? Might this lad be one of Razmus' thralls? He was using magic to shoot that icy beam, so perhaps not, but it could have been magic stolen from other prisoners such as Vilus...
Joren's Insight: 9
He finds, he cannot make a good read on it from listening to Mikael and observing his mannerisms, though he certainly wants to believe the boy, and the chances of him being a plant seem low. Still, the echo knight subsides into brooding silence and steps back so his companions can respond.
Then he remembers. Whispering to his half-orc friend: "Samir, a quick check of the medallion, if you are not minding? Being paranoid, I know."
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
A quick look at the medallion reveals a splash of vibrant blue from the direction of the boy.
Joren breathes a sigh of relief at the blue on Samir's medallion, wondering if he will ever be free of dark suspicions after dealing with the cultists.
"Perhaps we are coming here to free people like you after all," he concedes to the youth with a genuine smile.
"I will let my companions fill you in on the rest if they wish as I go back to being a guard." (Which he does, along with his echo).
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
Suspicion averted Vilus fills the kid in on what they're actually doing in the tunnels and sees to it that the boy gets another ration if he needs it, "...so we're going to find a map, one that'll tell us if theres more of those cultist f*ckers out there, and when we find them, they're not gonna be out there for long... If this place really is deserted then you should come with us, we'll be going up to the surface straight after. Is there anywhere you need taking? Where is home for you?"
Samir glances at Joren before slipping his sleeve up to reveal a flicker of blue over the medallion. Letting his sleeve settle into place once more, he can't help but worry for his friend's growing paranoia. Certainly there was cause to be worried about the cultists infiltrating things, but the boy was near death and locked away in a cage. Not exactly a suspiscious figure in the artificer's eyes.
"Yes, the map. I do think we should be moving along in that direction. Lingering here can't be good for any of us."
The group starts walking through the hall once more, still watching out for traps or enemeies. Mikael says, "Home? Just the surface. Though... there is a soup kitchen in the Rows, so anywhere near that would be good."
After another turn, they find themselves in the hallway with the door leading to the map room. Opening the door, the smell of death meets them. The bodies of the cultists and whatever Andra had become having been only partially preserved by the subterranean chill. In the middle of the room sits the glass platform with Andra's incomplete and broken runes around it. No magic it anymore, a fact which Samir knows will require a little creative problem solving.
Malachi walks alongside Mikael and fills him in on a little of what they know about the cultists. “So you are touched by the Blue Lady, huh? How long have you known how to do that with the ice? That is why the cultists grabbed you, they were draining your magic, it’s why you felt so weak back there. Still not sure what they want to do with it, but it can't be good.”
As they enter the map room, Malachi takes in the damage, his thoughts going back briefly to the fight and the horror that Andra became. He turns to Samir. “Any idea how to get this back on? Do we infuse it with magic somehow?”
Vilis eyes the corpse of andra quietly, lots of thoughts, mostly anxious begin running through his head before the task at hand is brought rocketing to the forefront of his mind by Samir and Malachi's discussion, Vilus drags his eyes away from Andras corpse "speaking of the siphoned concentrated arcana, there was a room full of them little vials, I can go and see if there's any left?, it'll help us here if there is..."
Mikael wipes his nose and says, "You know about the Blue Lady? My mother used to tell me fairy tales about her when I was young" He brushes his hair back, revealing slender elfin ears. "She always told me I would be able to control magic, though she wasn't around to see it when it started..." He grows somber, but continues, "Normally I can do much more than little tricks like that, but I feel so weak right now." He coughs again.
Recalling the layout of the place, Vilus thinks he could get to the room and back in just a couple of minutes
Not waiting for much of a response Vilus fully turns his back on the remains of andra, "back in a mo, don't worry, and don't move from here" he asks of the group before breaking into a light jog leaving the room, as he moves his form turns from that of his usual Goliath self into the form of familiar cult leader, Marigold.
Samir almost immediately begins thinking through the puzzle of making the map working once again as they enter the room, shutting out the rest of the unpleasantness and focusing on the problem at hand. Belatedly, he mutters an affirmative to Vilus, not realizing that the goliath has already stepped away. Adjusting his glasses, he begins examining the device, looking for an object or point where it would be the most beneficial to attempt to feed power into the contraption.
13 Investigate if needed
Joren and his echo continue to act as guard. He begins to shout after Vilus/Marigold as he lopes off, but sighs, knowing the goliath will do as he wishes. Joren does move 30' in the same direction, leaving his echo behind in the original room, listening in case Vilus encounters trouble.
Passive Perception: 15
"I am knowing little of the Blue Lady myself, Mikael. Yet having seen what Her magic can do in my companions' hands, if that frost beam you were sending out was just a small part of your capabilities, Talmouth may be needing you sooner than later. All the more reason to be getting you to safety."
How young was I when I was first training with the Khirian echo division? Not much older. Somehow, Joren feels both proud and sad.
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Xarian(Fighter2): NioNSwiper's Tyranny of Dragons
Dyson/Eleo(TwilightCleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(ShepherdDruid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(WildMagicSorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(EchoKnightFighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(MercyMonk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(NatureCleric3/DivineSoulSorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
Ashley gets up to follow Vilus, but as he changes into Marigold, she smiles. He'll be fine, she thinks and walks over to where Samir is trying to figure out the contraption. "Anything I can do help?"
She looks things over a bit as well, but isn't quite sure what she is looking at.
Investigation 7 (passive 12)
Perhaps a crude solution, but Samir suspects that if he got out his tools, he could tap into the copper tube that would have been delivering magic to the device. Then he could funnel some of the magic ether Vilus plans to retrieve and try to drip feed it to the map, and it occurs to him that if Ashley could use her flames to seal and pressurize the device he is about to rig up to the line, it would make things more efficient.
As he is getting everything set up, Vilus returns with 9 vials of swirling pink essence. Samir doesn't think he'll need all of that, but he might be wrong.
(Give me an intelligence check plus your proficiency for using tools. Make the roll with advantage for Ashley's assistance. For every point below 20, you will need to use one full vial, so you need at least an 11)
"they cleared the room but it seems they were in a rush, this is all I managed to find amongst the mess in there... What's the plan?" Vilus hands over the vials and stands over Samir lowering his goggles of object reading over his own eyes in preparation to Help Samir if needed.
Awkwardly, Vilus seems to have completely forgotten that he looks like Marigold, as he questions the situation unperturbed.
Samir takes one vial in his hand and inspects it closely. Then he brings it over to the mess of tubes and clamps he has set up, and carefully pierces the corked top, fitting it upside down into his contraption to allow it to drip out. Slowly the ether begins feeding into the tube leading toward the mapping device. It begins to glow, and an outline Cambria appears once more. But this time, the two glowing lights indicating a Hydaelym are missing.
"What is this?" Mikael asks, taken aback by the sight.
With his mind a-whirl with calculations and ideas, Samirs sets to tinkering. A leather roll of various tools to one side, and several pieces of scavenged material in front of him, the artificer puts together what he thinks would be a serviceable drip feed that could regulate the flow of the arcane liquid into the map. Quietly he directs Ashley to helping him seal a crucial bit of the contraption with her flames, and Vilus (ignoring the fact the Goliath is still in his Marigold disguise for some reason) to helping install it to the copper piping of the far more complex workings of the map itself.
Standing back as the lights begin to come to life, Samir cannot help but smile in satisfaction, eyes sparkling behind his glasses.
"This, my boy, is a map of Cambria. The glowing lights there indicate certain locations that are of interest to the people who held you captive."
Pulling pen and parchment from his satchel, Samir does his best to note the locations of the two glowing points.
"it's a map, but like magic" Vilus helpfully explains to Mikael, "last time it showed us where the cultists had set up bases. One in tensmith, one here, but they're gone. After us, maybe they can't trust the maps any more. Or wait. Maybe..."
Vilus adjusts the goggles over his (Marigold's) face and looks around the room, having some sort of eureka moment, "Samir can you show a wider area and hand me the medallion, I want to try something.."
Once Vilus has the medallion he follows a set of wires leading toward the right hand wall. And finds an indent there. "The one in the office in Tensmith had another piece right? Like a detector for what is to be shown on the map, this medallion is also a detector of sorts, so perhaps..." He slots the medallion into the indent and holds his hand over it.