Day 125: Moonday the 21st, Abadius, 4708
I awoke to Faunra thrusting a book in my face. She told me that I needed to tell her what I had discovered. I felt like she was being kind of harsh, but I got up, figuring that I had gotten enough sleep anyway. I told her about how the Illusionist had written that you had to combine two different school essences to make a Runeforged weapon in the Runepool, and that if we wanted weapons that would work best against Karzoug, we should probably utilize a mixture of the shards of glass from the illusionist halls and some of the "toys" from the halls of lust. This combination would work best with those of a nature that either emphasized the good natures of Humility or Love, or the negative natures of Pride or Lust.
I added that the combinations of other natures worked well against other types of spellcasters or creatures. I noted that no matter what, the weapon would still function against the type it is keyed against, but those of different or opposing natures will not receive the best benefit. Faunra listened without stopping me. I added that we could gather as much of the Shards of Mirror from the halls of illusion as we needed without issue, but that we still needed to get the items from the halls of enchantment.
I continued to explain how I had gone to the Halls of Transmutation yesterday after everyone else had come back to deal with the rest of the day's issues, and attempted one of the rooms, where the piles of raw materials were, and that I created two wires and they had turned back to copper coins. I noted that if we had something similar in Sandpoint, it would really help the area. Faunra nodded and asked if that was all. I added the bit about setting the workers to start excavating the halls of abjuration again as a bunkroom and such, in case the Pathfinders want to explore this facility more.
Faunra got up and laughed for a second, and helped me to my feet. She said that she had realized that it wasn't because I was trying to be hurtful, I was just being blunt. I nodded and got up. Faunra shoved the pile of books into my arms and asked me if I could spend a few hours reading them. I told her that I would, and she set me into my room in the tower. Before she fully left, she asked me, in my opinion, which ones everyone should have. I gave her my list and she nodded. I quickly translated them to materials and she nodded again.
I spent some time further studying Athroxis' Spellbook, Xyoddin's Journal, Ordikon's books, Vraxeris' books, and Jordimandus' spellbook. Athroxis' spellbook was just an extensive spell book, with a LOT of evocation based spells, granted, but nothing especially revealing about her or her wing's Runelord Alaznist's way of escaping the apocalypse. I think we'll need to research further to figure out where she is to stop her from causing trouble in the future. The other books had a lot more detail.
Xyoddin's journal included some very troubling information about the way that Zutha, the Runelord of Gluttony/Necromancy, chose to ride out the apocalypse, as a phylactery that was broken into three pieces, which were to be reassembled to call him back. Well I imagine that it is an artifact, so that will make destruction difficult, but a solid foot of cement, with a layer of lead, then steel, then melded stone ought to make it difficult to access. These artifacts might be nigh on impossible to destroy, but nothing stops them from being damned difficult to access. Maybe launching it into space after that? We'll have to add tracking down "The Gluttonous Tome" to our list of activities after we deal with Special K.
Ordikon's books told me that all about the experiments of turning lead into gold, and about how Special K built a massive Runewell, like what we found beneath Sandpoint, and put himself into stasis in between realities. Between this one and a place called Leng. I know I've heard of that before. His plans were to have his apprentices release him after the apocalypse. Also, Ordikon's spellbooks are extremely inefficient in that they take up at least twice what they need to with repetition.
Vraxeris' spellbooks and journal spoke about his issues with a degenerative dementia issue that plagued him throughout his cloning. Each time he cloned, the event happened quicker. Until the last time, when he couldn't get it done in time. He had been hoping that when the pool awoke, it was the Runelord of Pride/Illusion, Xanderghul, who had re-awoken. Helpfully, he pointed out that Special K is in a city called Xin-Shalast, near the peak of Mhar-Massif, and that there is some kind of occlusion field, whatever that is. This field apparently has a flaw, in that Commanding Runeforged Weapons will help break through Special K's defenses.
Jordimandus' books spoke about the combination of voyeuristic visions about what everyone else was doing. A lot of gossip about who was boning who, and who was out to kill who. He was the one who put a lot of details to the names of the other people. He had a bit of information about Delvahine, in that she was a succubus who seemed to have better than standard abilities to confuse and bewilder others, but that she was more intent on exercising her lusts upon others. He also included all of the information about how to make different types of Runeforged weapons and what they required, which was expounded upon by the earlier information.
When I was done, Faunra dropped back by and asked if I had gotten a rather good idea of what awaited us in the Halls of Enchantment. I told her that it was a succubus who had a practiced ability with entrancing others. Possibly some spellcasting. Faunra nodded her head and said that we would need to get some specific spells up and ready if we were going to be able to deal with her and her minions. I nodded and asked what she needed of me. Faunra asked if I had deciphered anything that I could reproduce with what I had for my technology here. I shrugged, and noted that there was a lot of stuff that I could try to work with, if I had a lot of time and one of the creation forges, but that I didn't really have either.
I went to go see the others and Faunra started to brief everyone on what to expect. Apparently Succubi were immune to Lightning (shit), Poison (meh), and Fire (crap!), resistance to acid, and cold(crap), could summon others of their kind, are telepathic, can speak many languages, and can bypass some forms of protection with their weapons. In addition, Succubi are known to be able to drain one's life force with an act of passion, they can change their shape to look like others, have an innate resistance to the spells of mortals, can't be damaged by weapons that are not cold iron or holy, are masters of enchanting and commanding others, and have multiple methods of just escaping to come back later to harass you further.
I noted that this was a lot of things that were just tailor made to defeat the way that we fight. Jonathan agreed with me, but said that we have some advantages that they didn't know of. I shrugged and said that I didn't think that my rifle would do much against something that was immune to both my bullets and the fire that they put off, as my bullets were neither cold iron, nor blessed. Faunra nodded and said that we needed to be at the top of our game if we were going to be attempting to take out the last hall. She added that she did have a spell that could make my weapons work as though they were cold iron, and her arrows were already cold iron.
I asked what we needed to do further to get ready. Faunra noted that I had most of the spells that we would continue to utilize in my own abilities, that I just needed to focus up and get ready, that we would leave in an hour or so. I told her that I would and went back to my tower. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I didn't know what to think. A living breathing demon was well beyond what I was ever expecting to deal with, let alone need to deal with so that we could deal with a jumped up conjurer. A conjurer who found a way to live for millennia in stasis.
I started to load up my standard array of apps to facilitate me knowing where things were. The night-vision scope, the kirlian photography app that detected invisible creatures, I loaded up my playlist to psych me up. I set the white noise generator to start up like the last time we were dealing with something we thought was terribly dangerous. I don't know if it helped, but we made it through. I summoned up some mystical effects after that, to try to help me out as best it could, generating a minor field around me to dampen a bit of the damage that might come through, and focused on enhancing my rifle, since I needed to get every ounce of damage out of it that I could.
With the hour up, I walked over to where the rest of the group was lined up. Dame Rebekah invoked a prayer for a blessing of fervor over us. I felt the enhancement of speed upon us and I asked if my haste spells would still be needed. Faunra told me that the reason for this was the enhanced nature allowed for us to have better benefits, and that it would allow me to utilize or preparatory actions to effect other spells and benefits for us all. Faunra noted that this spell also allowed us to utilize the extend function that the rod would, without needing to use it past the number of times a day that it can be used. I used the opportunity to enchant my shield to interdict spells targeting me, while Faunra started to blur. Jonathan extended a life bubble around all of us.
Dame Rebekah cast her next spell, invoking a Hunter's clarity in all of us, imparting a knowledge of tactics to use against evil outsiders, and a better knowledge of the Runeforge itself. Faunra silenced our weapons, specifically my rifle and pistol. Jonathan whipped out a scroll and started reading before he pumped his force field, while I focused up on myself and prepared trick I had thought of, creating a silent illusionary copy of myself to walk forward.
Faunra looked at me coyly, and did the same, and gave herself some enhanced resistance to harm. Dame Rebekah prayed over all of us, while Jonathan cast another spell from a scroll, making him harder to track. I focused on ensuring that we were all placed correctly for any kind of battle that we might face.
Dame Rebekah enchanted all of us with a protection from evil effect, while Faunra and I generated a bevy of other images, totaling nine each, including our illusionary silent ones. Jonathan joined the fun and cast a set from a scroll, only getting three copies of himself. Faunra and I smiled as we knew what would come next.
Dame Rebekah enhanced our weapons to be able to effect evil creatures, while Jonathan turned invisible. Faunra and I both vanished. Now, there were one unique target (Dame Rebekah), three Jonathans, and nine each of Faunra and myself, one of each would be slightly different than the others, so it might draw fire first. We rushed forward into the Halls of Lust.
We rushed in to a grand cathedral of red and white tiles. The columns were carved into the likeness of the same human woman, leading to a mural that would look in place in the Kama Sutra. There were thirteen cages lining the edges of the area, most with corpses in them. There was a large pavilion made of silk in the center, where I expected the succubus to be residing. Then four winged "women" with ranseurs came flying to us. All four of them tried to cast suggestion spells to make Dame Rebekah disrobe, so they could get a better look at her.
Wrong thing to say to the wrong person. Faunra responded for Dame Rebekah, dropping one of them with a flurry or arrows. Jonathan shot out towards another, in extreme martial arts action, striking three times with his riverine dagger before it died, then throwing the dagger at a second one, which died instantly from the dagger flying through its head. He then took control of that same dagger before it touched the ground to whip back around at a third. I mean this guy was epic, mythical even.
The last one, who had gotten the riverine dagger stabbed into her tried to slash Jonathan twice with it, maybe thinking that it was heavily enchanted or something, but he dodged twice, almost effortlessly. Dame Rebekah rushed forward, growing and slashing at the same time, at the last one of these Alu-demons with her sword. The blade glowed hot with holy rage, and the last Alu-Demon's head was severed, rolling over the ground. Again, I struggled to think what I actually contributed to the group, so I cast my unseen crafter spell, to get more cataloguing going on. Surprisingly, I was still invisible. I guess this wasn't a hostile action. They should see accounting back home. That shit is definitely hostile action at times.
Jonathan rushed off toward the multihued silk pavilion and got to the entrance. We rushed after him. I realized that if we could, we should probably try to get this pavilion. After it has been suitably cleaned we can actually put it to some kind of use, or I'll try to get it enchanted to be my version of the tower that we have three of. When we caught up to Jonathan, we saw that there was an entrance area with thick rugs, cushions, tasseled pillows, smoldering braziers and censers letting out exotic scents. Oh yeah, and a group of five stone giants.
Jonathan, seeing his so far hated foe, immediately let loose with a gigantic Sith Lightning that decimated four out of the five and left the last one reeling, barely conscious. Before I could level my rifle at them, Dame Rebekah, in her giant form, slashed her sword into the thing's neck, severing it and cauterizing it at the same time. My unseen craftsmen started categorizing everything, and I took the opportunity to conjure up another group to collect all of the silver and gold off of the cages. Among the giant's meager possessions, the first batch had found another marble sized pellet that we had learned was a utilized dust of dryness pellet. We didn't know how much it had collected, but it might be useful to someone. There was a large wineskin filled with toilet hooch, which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, and definitely not the toothpick that was in another's possession. The final two had 5 polished pieces of stone from other areas in the facility, and a desiccated corpse, which looked like one of Vraxeris'. Maybe the Giants had been by there since we left?
We barged in through the palatial silk walls and made our way to the den of debauchery. We were confronted by seven identical copies of the woman who had been the inspiration for the carvings of the columns. I sighed, knowing that this was going to take a long time. She chuckled and told us that we would make excellent playthings for the next millennia, and that she would enjoy breaking us.
Jonathan seemed to take offense at that and leapt forward, striking at her with every attack he could. He only managed to actually hit with one attack out of all of his attempts. He did manage to pop all of the ones around her though. Dame Rebekah, still large and in charge, swung at her three times, opening up great rents in the demoness' skin, especially with the last one. It didn't take much for me to sneak up behind Delvahine, while she was distracted by the others, and pop off with two rounds to take her out. The cold efficiency that I had shown as I appeared from invisibility would have been a bit frightening to the lay person.
Faunra, taking a chance since she had not done anything, ripped open the curtain to the next section and saw two glowing entities. She unloaded her arrows and a snowball into one and caused it to stop glowing. Its compatriot lunged forward and tried to touch Faunra. The first pass missed, but the second one hit, and she started glowing and burning from inside. Dame Rebekah reacted quicker than Jonathan or I and slashed three times, doing vicious damage to it, to the point that all it took was one hit from Jonathan's telekinetically enhanced cestus to finish the job. Faunra was yelling about how the light was burning her and I remembered something from long ago that I had in my magical backpack. I called forth an oil of darkness that we had recovered long, long ago and splashed it on her.
The burning feeling decreased to a manageable level and she thanked me for helping her. I noted that Jonathan and Dame Rebekah were the ones who were the most help. Still she hugged me in the darkness and I received it for just long enough that it felt awkward, and told her that she was welcome. My unseen craftsmen were starting to disassemble the pavilion for storage in one of the magical bags that would hold all of it. We left them to it, because it was going to take forever. I asked everyone what they thought that we should do, and immediately Faunra said that we should create the Runeforged Weapons.
I balked for a second and asked her if she thought that we should do that immediately. Faunra indicated that she did, but that we needed to check how many it might be available to make. I nodded and we headed back towards the entrance when we heard whimpering in the corner. We stopped to check it out and it was a weak man in a cage. He had been tortured for millennia and asked for release. I looked to the others and asked why. He said that he can't live with the thoughts of the torture that he has had afflicted upon him for this whole time. Faunra seemed a bit upset by this, but I realized that a few years of torture would be horrendous, but thousands or tens of thousands of years of torture? I don't know if I would want to exist.
I offered him up his salvation and he accepted it. He knelt down, facing away, and I asked him if there was anything that he would like to see before he died. He said that his name was Nelevetu, and that he would like to see the sunset, something that he had not seen in so long that he could barely remember it. I decided to create the image of the sunset from Eagles Keep on the Devil's Path. He sighed as he watched it and told me that he was ready. I lined the rifle up with the back of his head and pulled the trigger. He didn't suffer. I didn't like it too much, but it was something that I might have asked for.
Dame Rebekah seemed to look a little more askance to me after that, but I honestly felt that I was giving him mercy. Jonathan came up to me and noted that he would have likely done the same, as none of us know what ten thousand years of constant torture would do to someone. I stopped him and said that it couldn't have been ten thousand years straight, as the human mind breaks down long before that. I added that it was definitely a long period throughout that period, but that constant torture just becomes the new normal and the human mind can adapt to a lot.
We walked out to the Runeforge Pool, and it looks like Faunra had changed her mind, saying that we should head back to the Halls of Wrath to recuperate and reevaluate what all we need to do before starting the process. I noted that I would volunteer to have mine done last, no matter what, as I could see that I was the least useful in the attack regard as others were. There were not any arguments as we trudged back to the Halls, we were walking silently. The warriors of wrath let us in and we took the teleporters to where our campsite was located.
We got together and decided who wanted what kind of Runeforged weapon. Jonathan wanted a weapon that would work best against those who defend themselves with magic, specifically those who utilize abjurations, as even mages of other kinds frequently utilize spells of that school, even those who are not wizards. Dame Rebekah explained that she needed to look at the long term, and that even though we should be fighting Special K (she actually used the term I suggested!), her future plans would continue on to the Worldwound, and that this means that she needs to have weapons that specially effect conjurations and extraplanar entities.
Faunra said that she was planning on getting one that worked best against transmuters, as this was what we were intending, and her vengeance would be sealed with the death of Special K. (She used the term too!). They all looked at me. I noted that I was going to choose something against transmuters as well, since this was what I was brought to this realm to accomplish, and I really didn't like the concept of being changed against my will. Everyone nodded and accepted that.
Faunra asked for us to provide to her all of the weapons that we were going to want to be enchanted, so that she could pre-treat them to be ready to accept the enchantments that we would be receiving. I asked how long that might take, and she shrugged, saying that she needed to check each versus what needed to be done before it would be enhanced. I did a prestidigitation over my rifle, cleaning out any debris, ejected the last bullet, and dropped the magazine, before checking it again, and handing it over to her carefully.
Dame Rebekah handed her the blackened Adamantine Longsword that was more a part of her than anything else, and Jonathan handed her his gloves. Faunra indicated that it looked like she was going to need at least three solid days of work to get these all ready. I asked what we should do with the time, and Faunra shrugged, saying that we could do whatever we wanted, but that we needed to leave her alone for that time. Jonathan noted that he was going to drill with his new staff, and Dame Rebekah said that she could try her hand at enchantment. I noted that I would spend some time working in the fabrication rooms to try to get some science work done.
With everything agreed, we all split up. I went to the Halls of Greed with two of the Warriors of Wrath assigned to go with me while I was out of the hall. After a few hours, I had attempted a couple of different processes and come up with a successful rig for what would be needed for the armor to have some further power armor aspects with it. Everything that I made was undone when he crossed the edge of the hall, but using this place as a proving ground was just as good in some ways.
I left after eight hours of this and the two Warriors of Wrath followed along with me. I noted that we should dispose of the corpses in all of the rooms, but tried to figure out how. All of the bodies could be taken to the fabrication rooms and taken down into base components, but they would come back when we left the hall. The only thing I could think of was to dispose of everything in the halls of wrath, creating ash. When I got back, I learned that Jonathan had been doing just that. The slow disposal of all of the bodies and things in this plane that could cause problems to the Pathfinders. It was obvious that things from other dimensions knew about this plane, so we needed to make sure that this place was as safe as possible, for them and us.
We spent a few hours together, discussing things before Faunra said that she needed some time to look over the Runeforge pool, to try to put some of the items into it to see how it reacts individually to each type of item. Jonathan said that he'd go with her, and they both left. We sat for a minute and Dame Rebekah spoke up and told me what the issues was. Dame Rebekah told me that Faunra and her were worried about how I had just killed that man in cold blood.
I looked at her, and asked her if they really thought that it was cold blood and not mercy. Dame Rebekah asked me what I meant. I told her that it was plain to see that the guy was just barely holding on. He spoke in Thassilonian, a language that nobody today really spoke. It was obvious that he had been here for a while, and if they were torturing him for ten thousand years, then there was no therapy that could help him, mundane or magical, and unless we could wipe the last ten thousand years from his mind, then it wouldn't do much to save him.
Dame Rebekah sat there listening until I stopped. She spoke up after I was finished, saying that she would be reaffirmed if she could detect my alignment, but she couldn't right now, as I was a blank spot for a lot of the divinations that any of them were trying against me. I tried to concentrate on not being difficult to detect and Dame Rebekah tried her detect evil spell. She told me that it didn't detect me. I asked if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She shrugged and said that it didn't mean much, as it could either mean that I was not evil (okay) but not good, or evil but non-detectable. I nodded saying that this could be difficult. I asked her if there was any way to detect good or neutral morality. Dame Rebekah told me that there was, but that she wasn't prepared to utilize such a spell at this moment.
I nodded and asked if she would feel better praying for one tomorrow morning, and then trying. Dame Rebekah suggested that she'd try one other thing as well tomorrow morning, just to see if the detecting doesn't work. I thanked her for the multiple opportunities to prove that I wasn't against them. Dame Rebekah told me that she didn't think that I was against them, only that I was possibly not seeking the same end goals. I nodded and told her that I was going to get back to reading more of the spellbooks to find more insights for this place.
After spending the rest of my day pouring over the arcane stylings of five vastly different spellcasters who were very hateful of each other. I decided to start copying texts over into my tablet when I found things that I could twist to my own ends or insights that I had found that would somehow work with what I now knew to be extra rules of physics. After the scanning and reformatting, which completely drained four of the batteries that I had stored in my armor, I found a way to modify my armor in two important ways. I could now set up a temporary cloaking system on my armor that would automatically adjust for me shooting, and a reinforcement to my armor that I could use to swiftly get out of situations that might prevent me from moving.
I also managed to figure out up a schematic for another defensive screening component that could further decrease others ability to detect me and developed some routing for the batteries to act as an over-amped joy buzzer for the palms of my gloves in the event that I can't use my gloves but it will take a few seconds to get up and running. With all of these new tricks, I thought that I'd be more of a benefit to my friends after all. Without feeling any hunger or anything, I gathered up my stuff and headed to bed.