Day 123: Starday the 19th, Abadius, 4708

I woke up this morning to breakfast in bed. Savah was clearly returning the favor that I had done the day before. We had breakfast and Savah confided in me that she had woken up from her dreams with thoughts about gold making enterprises. I told her that there was definite chicanery about that was effecting people more indirectly than directly. Savah agreed and told me that she was barely keeping her ideas to herself. I told her that if she really needed to, she could write down her ideas and I'd look over them during the trip. Since we had the radios, we could easily talk about it on the way. Savah agreed and rushed off to go write down her ideas.

I took the opportunity to get up, get dressed, pick out my assault and break in gear and headed into the kitchen. Savah wasn't there, but I could see where she had put in a great amount of work to get food set up this morning. I went to the pantry and checked in on everything, to see that everything was good there. I felt okay that I'd be leaving the place in a good condition. I headed into the library and saw that Savah was there, writing down a detailed list. I snuck downstairs and went to the garage.

I felt really bad about getting the bike loaded onto the plane and loading up the rest of my gear while Savah was writing, but I made sure that I would have enough time to talk to her before we left. Just as I was done unloading all of the supplies into the hanger and loading my bike into its location, Dame Rebekah touched down. She nuzzled the face of her pseudo-pegasi and then shrunk him down to be a little figurine. She looked to me, nodded and took up her place in the passenger seats. I nodded back to her and headed into the house to check in on Savah. When I got in, she was at the foot of the stairs accusingly staring at me.

Savah told me that she felt that I didn't care about her plans or ideas, and that I had not even waited for her to show them to me before leaving. I calmly told her that I was coming back in right now, after I figured that she would be done, so that I got everything that I needed to do out of the way and had the most amount of time to be with her before I left. Savah looked at me with a little less vitriol and rushed over to hand me her list. I told her that I would definitely look at it while we were on our way, like we agreed. Savah tried to push and have me look at it now, and I told her that I'd rather spend my time with her while I can. Savah melted a bit more and we sat and hugged while the sunrise progressed to morning.

While we were sitting there, watching the day start, Jonathan had run up and tossed his stuff into the hanger before going to sit in his seat. When I heard Faunra's bike rolling up the road, I told Savah gently that I'd have to be going soon. Savah tried to get me to stay just a little bit longer with all manner of questions for ideas and offers of possible enterprises, but I stopped her and told her that we'd have when I got back to discuss these further, and that she could use the time to further hash out her plans. She didn't take it well and told me that if I couldn't spare the time for her, that she didn't know why she was with me. She huffed and headed back into the house.

I hated leaving on a note like this, but I knew that it was something that was effecting the entire town. I pulled out a note that I had prepared and telepathically summoned Niddler. He came quickly and asked what I had need of him, and if he was going to need to be away from his little farm. I told him that I had a simple request, but that I'd appreciate it if he could deliver it immediately after we left. Niddler saluted and said that he would. I thanked him. I gave him the written note that I had prepared, and I told him to tell Savah that I loved her, knowing that he could repeat my voice for a few minutes every day. I gave him a roster of things to tell her, and asked him if he could tell her those things every day that I was gone. Niddler said that he would to that as well.

I thanked him, ruffled the fur on the top of his head, and headed into the plane. The cargo ramp was already up and the three of them were already seated in the passenger seat. I told them all quickly that I would not be able to leave the pilot's seat for the entire duration of the flight, but that if they needed they could either message me or come up to talk to me. I told them that the co-pilot seat was open, but that I would prefer if everyone gave me a few minutes to get the plane up into the air before coming to talk to me. They all said that they would and I went to the cockpit.

Before long, I had the plane up in the air. It was taking off at a really good clip and we were travelling in the direction that Faunra had laid out on the chart. From the math that had been provided, I estimated that the flight would take about five hours if we went at cruising speed, and about three and a half if I went at maximum speed. I settled for cruising speed for now, and informed everyone that we were up to speed at an altitude of (what I guessed) was about three hundred feet, judging from the altimeter that was installed on my instrument console.

The radio had been silent for the first half an hour after we left. I imagined that Niddler had taken the opportunity to wait until I was clearly out of sight before going to Savah, and maybe waited until after his chores were done. I got a message from her on my radio, and I could tell that it was entirely through the magic that Faunra had enhanced the radios through that the message even made it to me. Savah apologized and told me that she loved me too. I told her that I would still look at her sheet, and she told me not to bother, because she had made a second copy for herself and she realized that everything was just too impractical to make work. I told her that I didn't want to stifle her dreams and she told me that she didn't think that the dreams were really hers. She added that she just wanted me to come back home when this was done. I told her that I would.

Faunra was the first to come up, after the first hour of flight. Faunra started off by telling me that she probably had it the easiest, as Shalelu wasn't even there to try to hold her back, but that she recognized how difficult that was. I thanked her and asked her if she knew what might have been able to do that to the entire town. Faunra said that she would research it, but it must have been fairly strong to get everyone in the town, but not get us. I looked at her oddly and she added that it must have been strong to get everyone, but not impossible to defend against if we could get away from it.

I nodded slowly and asked if we really did, since we were flying in a very expensive piece of magi-tech. Faunra noted that we were using this to get someplace faster, and that teleporting would not have been safe. Faunra noted that we could always teleport back home if we needed to anyway. I thanked her and told her that her insight was valuable. She went back to the passenger compartment to give the others a chance to talk to me.

I flew alone for another hour before Jonathan came up. Jonathan didn't mince words and asked me how I was doing. I told him that what Savah had said had hurt, and it took a lot to get on the plane after that. He told me that I had it easy, that at least Savah didn't say that she had a better life with Vin and Shasta. I spared him a glance and his look told me that he was about to laugh, so I joined him. After a bit of tension relieving laughter, he continued that we were really doing what was best for the town, and that he could see that I was trying to help out everyone.

I mulled that over for a few moments and then I told him that I had a suggestion for him for is restaurant if he was willing. Jonathan told me that he was all ears. I gave him the idea for chicken nuggets, including using chicken broth in the breading. He smiled and said that he'd be sure to have it worked out when we got home. I told him that this wasn't the big part about it, that the big part was all of the different dipping sauces that he could offer with it. Jonathan smiled again and said that we'd talk on the flight home and went back to his seat.

After another hour, when we were well past the halfway point, Dame Rebekah came up front to visit me. She sat down and took a look at the indicators and asked me what some of them were. I told her that these were very rudimentary indicators, mainly just a barometer, altimeter, compass – all on my phone, and then the separate ones that were mechanical on the dash of the plane. Dame Rebekah asked why it was set up like that and I told her that there is an old philosophy back where I was from, where two is one and one is none. Dame Rebekah said that she could see the wisdom in that. I added that I wasn't certain how this world would affect my phone, so I wanted something to compare it to. Dame Rebekah nodded to that as well.

After a little more shop talk, Dame Rebekah told me that she understood what I had gone through at the house, with Savah, before we left. She told me that she had had something similar happen with Chelger, but to a much lesser extent. I told her that I wondered if it was some kind of powerful spell that had been placed on the town, that we were less susceptible to. Dame Rebekah posited that it was because we were still effected by the power that we had taken from Black Magga. I nodded and told her that I had forgotten that completely, but it definitely, especially if it was something that wasn't keyed to affect something of that power.

After a few more minutes, Dame Rebekah asked me how much longer we had. I told her that we had about an hour left, if what I expected was correct from the landmarks on the maps and their spacing. I was going to have to get more accurate maps if I intended to do this more frequently. Dame Rebekah broke up my train of thought to tell me that the three of them would start working on planning for the circle and the Runeforge. I told them that they could keep me updated through the messaging system if the felt it was needed. Dame Rebekah said that she would pass that on and headed back to the passenger compartment.

I continued on my flight pattern, with a bit of hoping that we were still heading the correct way. After a half an hour, Faunra came forward and asked me if I was familiar with the schools of magic. I told her what I knew and she nodded throughout all of what I told her. She added bits where I was lacking in knowledge and told me that we were going to be going to likely need to cast a spell of each school to get the part of the key from each one. I nodded and asked her what they needed of me, as I wasn't a spectacular spellcaster like her or Dame Rebekah were. Faunra told me that my mystical abilities should prove enough to get the job done, but she needed to know exactly what I could do.

I started to rattle off different abilities that I could do, and she was diligently listening. After I was done she told me that she was going to discuss it further with Dame Rebekah and Jonathan, but that it looked like there was a plan forming. Faunra told me that once we touched down, she'd tell me exactly what was needed of me, but it wasn't going to be too difficult. I thanked her for including me and she nodded before heading back to the passenger compartment.

When we were about twenty miles out, I saw the large lake off in the distance. I paged to the back of the plane that we were about fifteen minutes away from landing. I received a message from Faunra that they were ready, and that it would be good if we could do a lap around the lake first, and then land close to the circle. I replied back that it would take an additional hour to circumnavigate the lake at our current speed or about forty minutes if I ramped the speed up, or we could just do a loop around actual area we needed to stop at and then find a good landing point. Faunra said that we needed to be there at dusk for the effect to work, and I countered that we can get there and scope out the place. Especially with the deep snow.

That solidified everyone's opinion. It was only about three in the afternoon, but with dusk coming in about two hours, I guess they saw the benefits of a forward staging area. We got in closer and I did an inwardly spiraling radius from about ten miles in. There was a large mountain in the near radius with a carved skull. I figured that it was dollars to doughnuts that this would be where we had to go, or some vicious monster would come from it to attack. One or the other.

I saw the hill with a circle of seven ten-foot-tall stone heads at the top. We slowed down and set down just a few feet of the ring of monoliths. As we landed, the snow blew away from the craft. I powered down the craft's engines and stood up before heading into the passenger compartment. Went I went into there, the others were standing up and getting kitted out.

I joined them in getting dressed and equipped with my own gear. While we were doing so, Faunra was explaining everything that she could. Faunra told us that the Runeforge was apparently created after she had been frozen in time, so everything that she had discovered was only known from research. She added that from what she had researched, this was created for the study of magic, and that the place was specifically warded to prevent specific Runelords and their agents out to prevent sabotage, and that there were enchantments that stopped the need to eat, drink, or sleep.

Faunra paused for a bit and I asked if you were sated of these things or if you were just prevented from feeling the needs. Faunra thought for a minute, and cautiously said that she thought that we would be fully sustained. I nodded, thanking her for the clarification. She added that the statues were likely the Runelords and each one was for a different school. She added that we needed to cast specific spells close to them.

Faunra started out with declaring that I would be responsible for the Runelords of Transmutation and Abjuration, the second of which would be created by the wand that Faunra handed me. Dame Rebekah was handed a different wand and told that she would handle the Runelord of Conjuration and Necromancy. Faunra declared that she would deal with the Runelords of Enchantment and Illusion. Jonathan was to utilize his blast power by the Evocation Runelord to see if it would work for that. Faunra also declared that she would identify each of the statues for us when we got there.

Before we walked out into the cold(er) environment, we all received an appropriate enchantment from a wand from Dame Rebekah to help offset the bitter cold. We strode out of the plane to the circle and looked at the gigantic stone faces. Two of them I recognized, and brought them up before Faunra could offer them up. I asked her if the first one was Alaznist, and then told her that I remembered seeing the second one, but didn't remember his name. Faunra told me that this was Karzoug, master of Transmutation and then it came to me where I remembered the face from. It was from the dream that I had had of the massive army that was leading assorted foes against Sandpoint.

Faunra led me to a statue of Karzoug and told me that I would be using my Message cantrip within five feet of his statue before moving over to the statue of a heavy set woman that she called Belimarius, Runelord of Abjuration. Faunra handed me a wand and told me the command word. I recognized it as the one that we had frequently used to enchant Jonathan with a field of force armor around him. Faunra told me that I would activate it within five feet of her statue and then my part would be done. I asked if there was anything else that needed to be done, she shook her head, saying that Jonathan would be gathering up the keys, hopefully anyway.

I stood in front of Karzoug's obelisk and waited for Dame Rebekah (who was dealing with Zutha (Necromancy) first, with a different wand that looked familiar, and then moving to her next statue, Runelord Krune of Conjuration, who was between my two. Faunra, who had two statues right next to each other, one of Sorshen, Runelord of Enchantment, that she was standing by with a scroll of some kind, and next to her was the Statue to Xanderghul of the School of Illusion. Jonathan stood next to the statue of Alaznist, as his blast was closest to Evocation, her domain. While we were waiting I decided to get up to date on my log.

When we first cast, there were resounding sounds that reverberated throughout the countryside. We immediately sprinted to our secondary target and used our various items. We were then cautious and each reached for our own keys while Jonathan and Cytheria kept watch for anything that might be summoned but the loud noise. After about a minute, Jonathan spoke loudly enough for all of us to hear that there was a very large white dragon up there, pointing high up on the mountain, looking down at us. Faunra asked how large, as she whipped out a spyglass and looked where he told us. Jonathan replied back that it was huge, even bigger than the last one. Faunra replied back a very out of character phrase, oh fuck, and then said that we needed to prepare, and that magic would be wasted used directly against it.

We spared a few seconds to try to buff up with everything we could think of, with Dame Rebekah immediately hitting us all with a communal protection from cold effect while Cytheria yeeted herself into a hiding spot somewhere. After a combined total of thirty seconds, the dragon looked to be ready to pounce, so we jumped the gun and poured what we could into it. After our opening volley, which was hindered by an enchantment that I later learned was once of displacement (although how something that was the size of an elephant be missed at all, I'll never know). The end result was that a few of our hits that looked to be dead on missed, and a lot of the damage that comes from add on effects was lost due to it having an exceptional resistance to fire for something that was decidedly focused on the cold.

It swooped down off of the ledge that it had been observing us from and unleashed a torrent of frost ridden air at all of us in the circle. I managed to duck behind a statue for the most part, and Dame Rebekah's enchantment covered the rest of the damage for me. I was certainly glad that she had cast that. I could see the dragon do a wingover to come back towards us with vicious intent. I saw Jonathan's Sith Lightning launch out from where I guessed he was and strike the dragon square in the chest, singeing it greatly. I was worried that it might have failed with Faunra's advice, but it worked out. I saw a flurry of arrows strike towards the dragon, but nothing bit into the skin, all bouncing off the scaled hide. I thought I noticed Dame Rebekah, who had not been as fortunate to get a hiding spot from the blast as I was, but still managed to come out of it without too much danger, cast a spell at the dragon, which she later claimed was an attempt to blind it. It did not work. I took aim with my rifle.

I missed with the first shot, due to that blasted displacement enchantment. I could feel the cold coming back towards us. The creeping death. I shot my second bullet. It struck the meat of the dragon's right shoulder and the thing still came. I let out my last shot, and something clicked. Dame Rebekah's spell activated, and I could feel just a little bit braver. My aim was true. I put a bullet through its eye and into its brain cavity. I could almost hear the ricocheting from where I was. The dragon's other eye lost its malicious light and its flight towards us took an uncontrolled turn. It landed a few feet shy, in a dead crunch as even its hardened bones failed against the frost hardened ground.

Jonathan immediately ran over to me and slapped me on the back, with Faunra and Dame Rebekah coming over once they were certain that the dragon wouldn't be getting back up. Jonathan asked if there was any way I could summon up my crew of workers to start parting out the dragon, and with some focus, I did so. Dame Rebekah offered up that we probably did some decent deed for those of the region by ending the threat of a dragon of this size and age, and that my excellent aim had prevented it from unleashing even more terror and damage upon us. Faunra said that this was a mighty foe to have been felled by us without warning and a lot of our best weapons unable to be utilized due to the bevy of defensive spells that had been placed on it. I told them that we were all in this together. I asked them what we should do next and the three of them told me as one that we should check for its hoard.

Jonathan pointed to the cave that the dragon had come out of, the giant head's mouth and started to move towards the stairs. I yelled at him that we had a better way. He turned around and I pointed to the plane. He helped get it lifted off the ground and pointed in the correct direction, and we all filed into the vehicle. I swiftly flew it up in a much shorter amount of time than it would have taken if some of us slower people tried to walk up them. We touched down and Faunra was about to set up the Lover's Baton to surround the plane, but Jonathan yelled out that there was something coming underfoot.

I had not yet disembarked, and the group told me to fly off to protect the plane. I lifted up slowly and zipped a quick turn to see the platform I had just touched off from. Jonathan had pulverized a (formerly) walking pile of earth and stone. It was just bits of rock and dust. Another had pulled up closer to Faunra and she had peppered arrows into it. The thing looked wounded but it really didn't seem like they effected it that much, even with the small fires and arcs of lighting playing out from the embedded arrows' fletchings. I saw the opportunity before Dame Rebekah could rush through and open herself up to an attack. I fired the railgun into thing's center mass, well above everyone's height.

It exploded into dust. Jonathan and Dame Rebekah looked astoundedly at the railgun as I pulled up my radio and asked them if it was clear for a landing. Jonathan nodded and I flew back to the location where I had taken off from and landed again. I put the engines into standby and left the plane ready to be started back up if the need arose. I walked off the ramp and Jonathan ran over to congratulate me again. Dame Rebekah smiled and asked if she could get one of them. I told them that it had a slow recovery time, but that I might looked to see what I can make. Faunra looked to Jonathan before invoking the "Lover's Baton" screen around the plane.

This filled up the entirety of the entranceway, so we didn't feel too worried about someone coming behind us. We walked down the hallway until we made it to the cliffs of Gondor. No seriously, there were two twelve-foot-tall statues with palms out and swords raised. Jonathan pointed out that the one on the west side was an illusion and that it blocked off a slope that heads down. We all took that path down and carefully made our way to the bottom of a large cavern with another seven, twenty-foot-tall pillars, with a forty-foot-tall pillar in the center. Jonathan helpfully pointed out the large pile of coins and goods.

We quickly collected everything and scouted out the rest of the area. It was fairly secure and we checked out the seven pillars. Each had a keyhole and enough glyphs and runes to indicate a specific school of magic each. I asked everyone if we should contact back home before we headed into this area. Everyone agreed and we all used our radios to send back to our loved ones. Savah came back with apologies and I told her that there was no need, that we could sort it all out later. Faunra quickly grabbed my radio from me and told Savah that I had just killed a dragon. Savah same back surprised and asked if this was true. I told her that everyone helped but I landed the killing blow. Savah said that we would have to celebrate when I got home. I thanked her.

With everyone done with updating their significant others, and all of the ill-gotten gains moved to the ship, including a wealth of dragon charcuterie, (which was locked up), we went to the circle and got out our appropriate keys. Sequentially, we each turned the keys that were appropriate to each pillar twice. They each glowed, the pillars not the keys, in a different color. I guess appropriately, each pillar's glow was what was associated with that school's magic when detected via a detect magic cantrip. The keys then all disappeared.

When the last key was turned the central pillar turned to a vortex of light that combined the colors of the glowing pillars. It was a seven-foot-wide portal that we all had to step into to move on. I radioed to Savah that we were moving into the Runeforge and that I might lose signal. She told me that she loves me and I repeated back to her. The last thing I heard from her was "Goodluckda". I didn't know what it meant at first, as I was falling through space and time from someone (Jonathan) pushing me.

When I exited the other side of the portal, I noticed that Faunra and Dame Rebekah were already in there and Jonathan appeared alongside me. The swirling colors were still behind us and a ten-foot-wide hall expanded in front of us. I looked at the others and we started walking forward. We found ourselves in an eight spoked room of massive diameter. With seven statues of what I expected to be the Runelords, seeing as how I recognized Alaznist and Karzoug from other statues or dreams. They all seemed to be wielding some manner of polearm, but there wasn't much rhyme or reason as to why a wizard might utilize a Lucerne Hammer or a double ended Guisarme.

There was little that I could offer to techniques, as clearing this size room would take more than our small amount of people, what with the distractions of the statuary, the churning pool in the center and at least seven different venues for attack. I asked the others and Faunra said that it would be good to go to our right and clear out each wing in turn. The one to the left of us felt off for some reason. Not enough to cause me problems, but enough that I felt I'd dislike some aspect of it, so I didn't see an issue with going to the right first. Dame Rebekah and Jonathan didn't look to awfully opposed to the idea either, so we all formed up in a four man stack and made our way to the next hallway over.

Jonathan was the point man for us, as he was the most durable, the most observant and the most damaging. As we walked down the brightly lit corridor, we were confronted with floor to ceiling mirrors. At the end of the short corridor, we saw a "T" intersection. Jonathan stepped forward and was immediately assaulted by launched projectiles from either side. He managed to matrix that shit somehow, and he yelled out that two copies of him had leapt out of the mirrors and were attacking him. Thinking quickly, Faunra stepped into the intersection beside Jonathan. She was rewarded with a pair of her own doubles. She was prepared and fired off two arrows. One at each mirror doubles. As the arrows flew, the doubles dodged out of the way, but the true intent was that mirrors themselves. With a dual crash, the mirrors shattered and the doubles shattered with them.

We quickly entered into the rest of the chamber, with its mirrored walls that rose to what looked to be one hundred feet tall. There were four immense chandeliers hanging from golden chains. In the center of the room, there was a three step dais of with a giant peacock in the center. Oh yeah, and six identical blond haired men who said as one that their master shouldn't be disturbed and that we should please keep our screaming to a minimum. Jonathan "Sith-lightninged" them right and good. He even hit the peacock causing it to disappear. I absentmindedly popped off two rounds at the only one that was left standing. The first missed but the second dropped it. The bullet that missed caused a mirror to break behind him, causing a secret room to be partially discovered. Faunra dropped a few arrows causing the rest to shatter.

We rushed through to keep our advantage of surprise and came across a place with bookcases full of tomes and scrolls. There was a dead body in a chair in the corner. He was well preserved and had an exquisite mirror in his hand. There was a book in the other hand and I grabbed that to look at later. I summoned up a group of unseen craftsmen with the goal of creating a distinct storage system of everything that we encounter in the second largest bag of holding for the group. It was sneaky, but it looked to work. They were grabbing everything that they could.

While the unseen craftsmen were busy, we rushed into the next room and found it was a former library that had been burnt. Jonathan pointed out that there was one book that was left in good condition and we grabbed that too. We rushed into the next room since there wasn't any danger, and we saw a room stacked with hundreds of identical bodies. I blanched and we skipped this room as there was another chamber that we had missed.

In this next room we ran into a little trouble. There were six sultry simulacrum succubae scornfully waiting for us. Jonathan smiled and jumped into the middle of them, focusing his power into his cesti. Before he could even get at the first one, there was a flurry of arrows from Faunra that peppered five of them. Three of them got hit in the… torso, and the last two got hurt much worse than the first two. The problem was that none of the energy damage that would normally cause so much harm, especially the fire, did anything. Jonathan's pounce was just vicious. He punched one so hard it turned to snow. He was like a vicious badger or a wolverine in his assault. That settles that, we've found which Avenger he is. Maybe we'll watch one of Wolvie's movies when we get back.

I pulled out my rifle, and pulled the trigger three times, focusing on the last three in the group. I dropped the two that had been hit before, but the impact was clearly less than what it should have been. I grumbled about it as Dame Rebekah went to slice down the one that I had not dropped. She slashed a quick slash that got dodged, but the follow-up severed the thing's neck, dropping it. That left two that were dangerously close to Jonathan. They quickly flanked him and tried to get slashes in. One of them almost managed to land a hit, but Faunra quick notched and let loose an arrow and caused the snow succubus to flinch at just the wrong time to land the hit.

I'd never seen her react that fast before. Jonathan finished off the last two with some more enhanced fists. With the tension gone and all of the rooms of this hall cleared I couldn't help but laugh at what had just happened. Everyone looked at me and I told Jonathan that he had just fisted a pair of succubus to death. It dawned on the others and we all started laughing. The haste effect and other short term effects faded off as we secured our surroundings. Faunra noted that these it would be good to get an idea for what we need to do here quickly, and I grabbed the journal that we had captured and utilized my capabilities to read through it quicker.

The journal said that the this Karzoug asshole had been working on coming back for years now. And that some of these other people might not want Karzoug to succeed, but were completely untrustworthy. The others backstabbed the previous writer fairly rapidly after everyone teamed up to defeat the Abjuration hall's occupants. There were also notes about powerful way to create a clone spell that could be set at any age. I told all of this to the group, and we sat down as the succubae rapidly disintegrated to snow and then melted into nothing.

It had taken me twelve minutes to power through the book, and due to that some of the shorter duration enhancements that we had performed before dealing with the dragon had expired. I asked what we should do next. Jonathan and Dame Rebekah both agreed that we should check out the Halls of Wrath first, so we could secure the exit. Faunra added that we could then and make sure that we can collect all of the ingredients from all of the different halls, and then make whichever weapons we needed in the Runeforge. I said that this makes sense, and asked what we should do for protective magic.

Within thirty seconds, we were done getting whatever new enhancements we could. We'll have to plan better next time, but after we secure the Halls of the Wrath, we can be ready for the next batch of rooms. Especially since we have been using very quiet weapons, thanks to Faunra. Before entering in to the hallway, Jonathan glanced around the corner, and suggested that we could use a smokescreen. I handed him my remaining smoke grenade from the attack on Jorgenfist and he launched it down to the iron golem that he said that he saw. I went along with it and he rushed forward. I followed and made my way to follow him. He stopped the group and peered through.

He snuck forward into the smoke bomb's cloud and then came back to us. He told us where we needed to go to keep out of the thing's views and that we needed to get it quick. We followed his advice and pounced on the solid iron statue. Jonathan beat into the statue with the enhanced cesti, and Dame Rebekah slashed into it with her adamantine longsword. I stepped out of the smoke to see that it was destroyed already. Faunra came out and shrugged, before looking at the statue's head. She indicated that the eyes were valuable and I set the unseen craftsmen to get them and the iron.

We rushed forward into the further room before seeing a pair of teleportation circles. Faunra indicated that one was return only, and the other was likely to the same place. I looked at the others and jumped on the exit. Instants behind me, the rest of the group jumped in. We were in a training room, with armor on dummies and side chambers for other practices. There was a group of six of the sinspawn that we had encountered back in the temple below Sandpoint and a group of six warriors.

Scratch that. Jonathan launched another impressive Sith lightning at all of the humans and three of the sinspawn, dropping all of them, with the lightning having the most effect on the Sinspawn for some reason. Faunra launched off her volley of arrows at two of the three remaining sinspawn. Dame Rebekah, who had been completely visible before entering this room, unlike Jonathan or Faunra or myself, rushed forward on the last Sinspawn, probably looking to finish this off quick, which she did with two vicious slashes. I looked around, still invisible because I had not made any offensive actions. I quietly ordered the unseen crafters to get to cataloging this treasure in its proper storage facility and asked the others what we should do next.

Jonathan indicated that we had been going to our right so far, so we should continue to do so. I shrugged and we quickly went behind him to an area where it looked like there were two more circles. We appeared in an area where there were polished granite walls and murals depicting Alaznist in her glory. There were six enchanted weapon in the walls that seem to be providing the light for the room, and an obviously fake wall of black smoke. I quietly pointed that out and Jonathan asked me how I knew. I told him that I had experienced black smoke when I had to learn how to firefight, and it didn't look like that without magic. Faunra nodded and we rushed forward towards it.

When we got through the smoke, we entered a large chamber with a tall ceiling. The top of the ceiling was made of flame, that behaved fairly real. A Glabrezu demon, whom I recognized from the temple below Sandpoint, was standing alongside a very angry looking woman. She yelled out that she had seen the three of us fight and that she had no fear against us. Three of us, I thought to myself, that's an advantage right there. Faunra yelled out to the others that we needed to worry that the Glabrezu might try to summon others. I could see that it noticed me immediately. So much for that surprise.

Jonathan yelled that he'd take the woman out, and that the rest of us should focus on the demon. Dame Rebekah was off like a rocket, the fastest that I had ever seen her move, to slish/slash the demon. She didn't finish it off, but she definitely did enough damage to hurt it. Jonathan rushed forward at the same time and pounded the mage into mist. Literal mist. I mean the mage was there one minute and then the body was telekinetically exploded. Faunra launched off a barrage of arrows at the top of the demon's body, totally unobstructed by the crusader in front of it. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to do anything much until the last arrow, which looked to strike true. It was down to me.

I leveled my rifle at the thing's head and dropped a single round into it. The demon's head exploded. It slumped down to the ground. I slowly faded into visual existence as all of the danger ended in the room. Jonathan suddenly bent over with a scream. A burning brand similar to the one that had been on the woman's forehead was now on his. Jonathan straightened up and declared that he was apparently the high commander for the Warriors of Wrath. I asked what that meant. He told me that he could command the warriors now, and that they should obey him, until he is slain in combat. I nodded and told him that he could keep the other warriors from fighting us, as they could be useful. He told me that he'd consider that.

Faunra looked over at the master circle that had been referenced and said that she could get us back out of the Runeforge right now if we needed. I asked if it would be better to do that or to stay with this until we were done. Jonathan said that it would be better to keep here and assign the other Warriors of Wrath to patrol the front part of this section of the hall, that we could use them to keep this place secure until we were ready to leave. I agreed and Dame Rebekah and Jonathan went out to go ensure that we would not be bothered while we rested and got ready for another day of breaching. When they came back, Jonathan had a floating pool of snow around him, likely from the succubae snow-cones from earlier. I didn't ask.

Faunra set up the towers in such a way that it would prevent anyone from amassing a force against us while we were resting. I set about pulling out the catalogue that the unseen craftsmen were generating. There was a section for indicating magical properties, but it was blank, because the crafters couldn't determine that. Faunra and I got to work on identifying everything that we had found. There was a bevy of enchanted items that were superior to our own. Faunra indicated that she could work to swap enchantments before we went to rest. I thought that it would be a good idea and told her such. Faunra took stock of the group's current gear and figured what would work best for each of us.

As we set up for the night, Jonathan prepared all of us a fantastic meal with the heart of the dragon we had just killed. I didn't want to take it at first, but everyone told me that it was tradition, and since I had made the kill shot, it would only be honoring the creature I had killed. After we all partook of it, Faunra got to work tinkering with our stuff. Dame Rebekah spent time walking around wearing armor and a shield that was not the one that I had made her. She claimed that it felt really uncomfortable. I laughed a little.

I started looking over the spellbooks of our captured foes. To my surprise, not only could I understand them after I focused a bit, but some of them bore effects that were similar to what I could do with some of my technology, albeit in ways that this world's magical physics system ran. I poured over what I could to try to figure out things that could adapt my technological knowhow to do, to help either myself or my friends. We got ourselves set up for resting and getting ready to jump through the place tomorrow. It sucks to not be able to get a message to Savah, but it will only make things more difficult to get done if we try to leave and come back, if we even can do that.