Rise of The Runelords - David Drake's Saga

by Raulfur

This is the Rise of the Runelords series as told by of David Drake, an American pagan who got tricked into the adventure. This series shows how he comes to understand the world and his journeys through it. The first three posts detail his companions, Faunra: a time displaced elven Magus, Dame Rebekah: a child of crusaders, and Jonathan: a skinwalker monk/kineticist. Still ongoing.

152. Day 148 or Wack-a-hologram

Day 148: Wealday the 13th, Calistril, 4708

I woke to my phone playing a song for an alarm that I didn't remember even setting. The mysterious alarm song was the Sandpoint battle's version of Eye of the Tiger. I don't recall ever ripping the audio that from the video that Niddler had taken. It did cheer me up a little, but I didn't get the same feelings that I did from bard's performance. It did serve the purpose of getting me up and ready to go, however, so it was successful in that regard.

When I got out of bed, I looked over at the armor racks. Everything looked to be repaired and functional, so I got ready to go out of the Pilot's cabin and check on everyone. Faunra, Dame Rebekah, and Jonathan were all out in the passenger compartment when I went to check on them. I glanced at them all, and then went back and got all of the armor that had been put to racks for repair and recharging by everyone the previous night. With everything ready, I brought all of the suits out of the pilot's cabin and used my spell to get everyone equipped up. This spell would be definitely useful for someone as an enchanted item, maybe as an addition to the manakin, likely something that was enchanted to put the armor on and off, and maybe also repair it. Maybe it is something I can check in with Faunra to see if we can make when we get back.

We were all set up and Jonathan also ensured that we were all set up with the bubble of air around us, making sure that not only we could all breath, and be pretty much immune to toxic gases. Faunra then thankfully informed us that the ioun stones that the three spider things had were to keep someone from needing to breath. I shrugged and asked if the others could use it, as I had an air tank included in the armor itself, that would keep me from needing an emergency air supply for when Jonathan takes down his field. Faunra shrugged and offered up the ioun stones to each of the others. They all set up the stones into rotating around their heads, with the other ones that were already there. I had taken the stones that I had been provided and set them into placements on the inside of my helmet.

We all crowded into the cockpit after we were all ready and equipped and I started the plane's steam prop turbines up. We were all ready, so I started up the forward movement and we headed towards the angry face carved into the mountain. As we reached the higher elevations, we got to the height of a landing area where I guess dragons used to dwell. All of a sudden, I got a blinding pain and Faunra took over the controls. I wasn't injured and didn't feel any less competent after it passed, like Faunra had warned about the Occlusion Field's effects. I hoped that this would be the end of it for the field and we got to the landing where there were five alabaster towers.

We touched down and each picked a different tower. We all went to our individual towers and started to investigate them. After a quick tour through the five alabaster towers, all were revealed to be former dragon's lairs, but had been long empty. While we were each doing our inspection, I felt the blinding pain overcome me again. Yet again, I weathered it without any major residual issues. When we all got back together, I informed every one of the facts that the field was still attacking me.

We opted to rush on to the next set of three towers that we had seen, to see if there were any inhabitants. Jonathan ran up to and investigated while we followed along after him. By the time we had reached the first tower, Jonathan was leaving from it, saying that it was empty. We continued to the next tower, and he rushed out, saying the same thing about it as her did the first one. The same thing happened when we checked out the third tower, where he stopped us and informed us that all three were empty, but former clerical buildings.

By then, the field had attempted to purge me again. Again, I suffered through the exquisite pain with no lasting effects. We stopped in our tracks, and I asked everyone if we could just head to the more than two-thousand-foot-tall architectural monstrosity, as I was getting this blinding headache every five minutes from the field. Faunra looked at me oddly and I told her that it was extremely obvious that the stupid tower only existing due to magic. There was a bit of silence before Faunra, Dame Rebekah, and Jonathan all agreed that we should just head over to the massive tower and get this all done with.

When we had gotten there, we opted to send Jonathan into the building to scout, as if we needed to get prepared, we could do so very quickly. While we waited, the field struck at me again. A nice little five-minute timer, like I was hitting snooze on the worlds most dangerous alarm clock. I hoped that I wasn't pinging some alarm somewhere. That's a terrible thought right there. All of our secrecy tactics killed by me. I asked Faunra about this and she said that she didn't know, but that we shouldn't focus on it.

Jonathan rushed back to inform us that there was NOTHING in the bottom of the tower, just a flat two-hundred-foot diameter circle with sixteen columns around it. There was a staircase around them, and it led up to the central column where the rest of the building was. So, it was a massive silo with an apartment complex at the top. Not the most usual set up in the least.

Instead of walking up the whole thing, we decided that flight would be the best bet. While Dame Rebekah is MUCH stronger than me in most considerations, even in my armor, my armor's upgrades made it so that I could literally lift and carry over a ton without distress. I could easily hold everyone while flying up to the top. Which is what we did. I got everyone onboard, one way or another, and I activated my enchanted jump boots. I waited until after the next wave of the field hit me and then I made the jump.

We sailed upwards, at a whopping six miles an hour, up towards where we needed to go, a point just under my thirteen hundred and some odd feet maximum vertical range. It would get us a good distance towards the top without having to walk up the steps or use other methods. After two minutes of solid slow sailing through the air, we touched down on the stairs at the proper height. I set everyone down and asked how we wanted to proceed. Faunra reminded me that I can actually fly now, and I realized that I could just get that spell cast and then we could fly up the rest of the way.

I brought forth the spell, an undertaking of an amount of power the equivalent of raising one of the Walls of Stone that I have been putting into use so frequent as of late. Everyone jumped back up on me and I took off. It was actually a little faster than the boots, so we managed to reach the top without causing much in the way of issues. I'll have to get Faunra to reenchant the boots to be quicker. When we got to the top, Dame Rebekah whispered that she was going to put on the silencing amulet, and we could get a fair amount of surreptitiousness. We made our way to the top and landed with silence.

When we landed, we saw that there were four much more heavily armored cloud giants. There just felt like there was more to them than normal, after seeing the cloud giants in that cave with the frost giant. Jonathan silently launched four bearings at the different giants and immediately dropped one. Dame Rebekah rushed forward with the spell that increases her size and sliced into one of the remaining three giants. She wounded it greatly and Faunra followed her attack up with a bevy of five arrows.

Surprisingly, only three of the arrows struck true. Two of them struck the armor that the giants were all wearing. She still finished off the one that had been wounded by both Jonathan and then Dame Rebekah. That left the remaining two for me. I brought my rifle around and unloaded on the assembled larger than life humanoids. My rifle REALLY liked killing them. I had almost forgotten that it had been enchanted to be stronger against giants. The last one's head completely exploded from the round.

I was thankful that Faunra had cast the quieting weapons spell before we landed on that ledge. When the last giant had fallen, our pack of depraved scoundrels descended on them to roll them for useful items before depositing them over the edge of the two-thousand-foot fall. Apparently, the armor that they each wore, ornate full plate armor, was each highly enchanted, hence why they were hard for Faunra to get a good hit on. Also, each one had one of those rings that the rest of the group had. Faunra said that we could get it back to the plane and transfer it over or I would have to stop wearing one of my other rings.

I sighed and pulled off my Aegishalmr Ring. It would mean that I needed to sleep more after this, but maybe she could transfer than enchantment over. Immediately upon receiving the bracelet sized ring, it shrunk to fit my finger. I slid it on and the slight buzzing from the field vanished! Faunra told me that the enchantment of the ring also supplanted the enchantment of the shemagh that I wore around my shoulders under the armor. I carefully removed it without fully removing the armor, and we stored it away. Savah could have it if she would like it.

We went in through the smaller door, after Jonathan and I checked it for traps and dangers. There were none, and then went inside. This was a mistake. We saw Special K in all his profanity. Standing there, staring at us. At least, a slightly transparent version of him. Hologram style. He started up his evil monologue, noting that he'd be informing all of his minions that we were here. He pissed me off. Greatly.

With his monologuing completed, he pointed his outstretched hand at Dame Rebekah and launched forth an invective about how she looked much better as a statue. I broke my act and yelled out NO as I saw Dame Rebekah's body start to calcify. It stopped progressing and the image of Special K turned to look at me. He smiled and said a simple word, Shocking. Suddenly, the image started to dissipate as a lightning bolt came launching out of it towards me. Faunra quick-snapped her bow up and shot an arrow at him while the bolt was coming my way.

She wasn't fast enough to stop if, but the look on Special K's fading face showed that the shot hurt him somehow. He didn't get a chance to see that I dodged most of the bolt, the armor shunted a large part of what remained, shorting out that system, and I ended up escaping out of it with absolutely zero harm to myself. I used a prestidigitation to clean the scorch marks off of myself, knowing somehow that the image had gone away, and we were not being scried upon. Faunra cautioned everyone that we were likely running into a nest of attacks, so that we should probably prepare immediately.

I only had a few moments to psych myself up before we would be getting into this sordid affair, so I focused on getting my mirrors up, refocusing on ways to keep bringing the conflict to those who try to escape me, as those spellcasters are wont to do, and finally, I got our group haste effect going. During that time, Faunra enchanted her arrows and my bullets (Rifle) with both the fire damage that I am used to, and another effect of acid damage that was of a similar nature. That was a bit of a surprise. She also mirrored up and then started blinking in and out of existence.

Dame Rebekah, for her portion, gave us all a better understanding of who we would be facing a lot of, giants, and the terrain. She did something to enhance her lineage to be the best of both of her ancestries, gaining some further ability to strike just the right spot when she can't focus otherwise. She then prayed over all of us for her divine lady's blessing, and then kicked her sword's flame into high gear. Jonathan just disappeared while the wind, water and aether in the room started to collect in his general vicinity. After all of this, he apparently threw open the door.

We all rushed out of the room to see that coming into the landing from the other door was a trio of lightning arcing giants even larger than the cloud giants we had faced previously. Also, a woman in gleaming gold armor with a shield and a brilliantly gleaming scimitar of the same gold, with a damn near mono-molecular edge. I don't how I recognized that at the distance, maybe it is the enhanced eyesight from the goggles.

I reflexively raked the giants with the full capacity of my rifle, striking all three of them a total of five times. I kind of wished that at that point I had had my LMG enchanted against the massive humanoids instead. These giants were still standing after that barrage, but I get the feeling that I'd have dropped one of them if I had focused. Faunra followed up with a similar tactic, again, striking all of them, and even hitting the third one with a really good hit, but not felling any of them. I was starting to get a little worried.

Then Jonathan came through. He appeared out of nowhere and felled the three giants with a sling stone each. I guess he liked the irony. The woman warrior was also pegged right in the head. Instead of dropping, she looked at the reappearing Jonathan with hatred in her eyes as she charged towards him. Dame Rebekah intercepted her path with a vicious slash of her own sword, still being much larger than the scimitar that her chosen opponent was wielding, as she was still larger than normal.

The villainess tried to dodge out of the way, tried to deflect with her shield, tried to let her armor deflect the blow. Dame Rebekah's hit was too sure. It slashed into her neck and dropped her into unconsciousness. We took stock of our general area and decided to push our advantage. My rifle's crystal was spent, and it had an empty magazine, so I quickly ejected the first and popped in the second, with a different, weaker crystal attached to it.

We all lined up next to the giant door and busted in. There was another image of Special K in this room, staring in our direction. He screamed that we were insolent toads, and we would be squashed beneath his feet like such. I rushed forward and while I was running, I let my rifle slide down on the sling while I pulled out my bolter.

I shoved it into the hologram and before I could even pull the trigger the image started to dissolve. That was my big mistake. I got hit from behind by a a massive spear, hitting me hard in the right side. It was from a massive giant with skin that had glowing red runes and very fancy enchanted plate mail armor. It also had a very massive longsword in its right hand. I looked at it and said that it would die for that.

The giant apparently didn't have me in mind for a target, as I'm guessing that he realized it was just an incredibly lucky that he had actually managed to tag me with his spear. He charged fully at Jonathan, angry rage in the giant's eyes. The giant stopped a good fifteen feet away from Jonathan and swung his blade. He whiffed and struck a gold tile on the floor. I guess that this annoyed Jonathan more than anything else, because he focused up on the spear that had been impaled into my side and hurled it back at the giant who had thrown it.

The telekinetically launched spear stabbed the giant in the back as it tried in vain to hit Jonathan again for his momentary loss of focus. Jonathan must have been more distracted than I thought because he didn't do anything else at this moment. What the giant wasn't truly prepared for was the large sized almost paladin Dame Rebekah lining up to unleash holy fury upon him. Her first swing at the giant was parried readily enough, but her return slash was something the giant was completely not expecting. The Rune Giant was beheaded with her blackblade.

I saw the three cloud giants that had been following it into the room followed it towards the group, attacking Jonathan and Dame Rebekah, only for one of them to deliberately strike the one that had swung on Jonathan. The other cloud giant tried his hand at the form of our holy warrior, only to have the morning star clang off of her armor, almost rebounding and hitting itself in the head.

Faunra snapped off her volley that she had been waiting for, dropping the one that had attacked Jonathan, with the assist from the cloud giant that had turned. I swung my bolter around and unloaded fully into the back of the one that had charged to attack Dame Rebekah. I dropped him with four shots and lined up the bolter to remaining giant who had turned on his brethren. Jonathan looked at the remaining giant and told it to drop its weapon. It did so immediately and told us that it had been under the control of the rune giant that we had just slain.

I looked to Faunra, and she nodded her head. Dame Rebekah asked it what its plans were now. It told us that it only wanted to escape. We relaxed a bit and Dame Rebekah asked if it would be willing to give us some information about the rest of the inhabitants here. The giant started to tell us that there was another mage here beyond Kar-. He was silenced by the roar of flames. It didn't kill him, or any of us, but the roar of flames was enough to get our attention.

Jonathan, of course came out of the fireball smelling like a rose, with absolutely no damage to himself whatsoever. Those of us who wear my armor got the benefit of my newest upgrades that helped to offset the damage somewhat, but it shorted out that system for me and Dame Rebekah at least. Jonathan did get hit by the follow-up attack from the wizard, a series of five magic missiles that slammed into his forcefield. The missiles didn't even get through that. Out of nowhere, another damn Bone Devil appeared and tried to stab Dame Rebekah. It glanced off of her armor, like the morning star before.

I could just feel the holy rage coming off of Dame Rebekah, but first was Faunra, who launched a series of arrows and her trio of scorching rays into the wizard, who suffered a fatal allergy to a half dozen toxophiliac injections with the burning chasers. The cloud giant seemed amazed by that, and I just hung fast, waiting for Dame Rebekah to do her thing. Jonathan chose to walk over to the Cloud Giant and channeled energy into the giant, healing him of some of the damage. Dame Rebekah absolutely eviscerated the bone devil, causing it to dissolve into mist.

The giant indicated that the other wizard was the one who we had just slain. He added that there were more of his kind that were either willing or unwilling subordinates of the other Rune Giants, of which there was at least one more. There were other creatures here, like different types of Lamias, including a high priestess by the name of Ceoptra, and some of a different kind of entity, a dozen of some odd humanoids. Jonathan perked up at that. I thanked him for that and told him that he should try to make his way to the fen, as there was a person there who could help him, if he wants to wait for us there. The Cloud Giant finally gave us his name, Anaxagoras.

We wished him well and cautioned him to not interact with the odd new structure where the dragons' roosts were. Anaxagoras noted the caution and made his way past where we met him and down the stairway. I noticed that down the circular hallway to my right that there was a large door that was open. I point that way with my bolter and shrugged to everyone. Jonathan and the girls nodded, and we headed that way quickly.

We made our way to that door and were confronted with an opulent throne room, covered in gold and jewels, even more so than the rest of this place. Jonathan pointed out that there looks to be hallways at the end of the room. We made or way to the throne area, carefully being watchful for traps and ambushes. There were no traps or any ambushes. There was a doorway to the North and a hallway to the south. I told them that I needed to reload my rifle, if we were going to encounter any more giants or dragons, so Jonathan recommended the door to the North, so we walked that way and checked it out.

The door was safe, so we walked into the room. Suddenly, I was struck with a green light. I recognized it from when Faunra had been struck by it before and rolled out of the way as best I could. I managed to not get the brunt of the blast. It didn't travel farther than me, but it only grazed me, leaving a very minor scorch mark on my side.

My armor started to repair it immediately, and Faunra ran up to shove the bow into the image and dispel it. The feedback seemed to be amplified by some aura that she had because it seemed like Special K didn't suffer anything as the image dissolved, then he got hit with the feedback and cursed us. I knew that he might try to be sneakier, I thought that maybe he'd try to be invisible at the next time, so I resolved to keep my eyes open. We looked through this room and found that there was yet another door on the far side. I loaded up my rifle's spare magazine and noted that the spare magazine had a very minor crystal of cold damage added to it.

We all posted up on the double door to the North of the small room and Jonathan forced the doors opened. We were confronted by another Rune Giant. It unleashed a series of sparks and its runes flashed. We all took some damage, even Jonathan, whose forcefield went down due to the damage, and Dame Rebekah even got temporarily blinded. We were all on the back foot, but Faunra and I recovered the quickest.

Faunra followed the Rune Giant's assault on us with a series of six arrows, one a second, of which there were four hits, and a conjured arrow of acid struck it at the same time. I lifted my rifle and unloaded my magazine into it. The giant fell from that massive barrage of lead and steel. The rest of the room contained a pair of massive, forty foot long, beds, and a table. I was amazed but realized that unless they were hot racking, then we had dealt with the summation of the rune giant forces. I told this to the others, and Faunra asked me what hot racking was.

I told her that on some ships that there was a dearth of available bedding, for whatever reason, so those who were assigned on opposite shifts would have to share the bed, so that when one was asleep the other would have the bed and vice versa. Faunra just said, "Huh" and we quickly made sure that there were no further issues with the room before I reloaded another magazine and filled up the emptied magazine. Jonathan went over to Faunra and offered her some healing. She noted that we needed to be fully healed and that we could just use potions or wands at the moment, that his big healing would be better during the fights. He shrugged and we all got out some potions to take some swigs.

I ended out downing three of the damn potions, while Faunra only took one. The rest of our wounds were dealt with by the least potions that we had. I guess that magic is just having less effect as a whole on me, or maybe I was hurt more than I had thought. I had been slammed pretty hard by that spear after all. When we were ready, Jonathan stopped to listen at the door.

Jonathan told us that he had heard Special K talking to someone and relaying information about our composition and our best attacks. When that was discussed, I asked if it would be a good idea to keep using these "best attacks" or if we should try to mix things up. Dame Rebekah, whose blindness had recovered, offered up that we shouldn't as any actions that we had not as yet used shouldn't be used as we needed to keep those for the final battle.

We all agreed and decided to tough it out with the rest of the encounters until we got to the big boss. I offered to open the door and we all got ready. On the signal, we rushed into the next room, where there was, nothing. Jonathan motioned towards the other door, so we did the same thing. He motioned that they were still talking.

I decided then and there that we should learn ASL if we are going to do this. Combat signaling just wouldn't cut it. We lined up again, and Dame Rebekah offered up the door opening this time. We got ready and busted through. The doors swung open to show us a huge group of two fleshy blobs and twenty-seven lamias.

Obviously the twenty-seven lamias were just a different amount utilizing the mirror image effect that both Faunra and I currently have running, but without something to detect which is which, we will need to slog through them. Faunra started it out with her bow and started to whittle away at the images of one of the priestesses. She didn't manage to hit the priestess in any of these, but she did manage to remove all of the images. Jonathan opened up on all of them with his telekinetically launched marbles.

Jonathan's barrage ended up hitting the two blobs, killing the priestess that Faunra had removed the images from, and dropped one image each from the other lamias. I decided to do the same thing as everyone else and unleashed into the crowd. I dropped one of the giant flesh blobs and really hurt the other one. I hit the other three's mirror images and popped one each. Not much effect from my bolter, but it did help somewhat. Dame Rebekah charged right into the remaining blob, seeing it as the most dangerous prey.

It tried to take a bite at her, but it glanced off of her armor, again. I'm beginning to feel a bit better about my contributions to the party. Dame Rebekah hacked into the thing and destroyed it with the first hit. This infuriated her and she threw her sword at one of the other lion centaurs and it actually hit the right monster, burying itself to the hilt. The lamia snarled at this and launched an unholy blight upon all of us.

It wasn't as bad as some of the other attacks that we could have had, but the lamias noticed that this had actually had an effect, even though it is not that much, so the other two did the same. This enraged all of us, so much that we just ripped into them. Faunra dropped the one that had come up with the spell to use, and then launched a series of shocking rays into another one, along with popping a few images. That left a total of eight lamias, of which only two should be real. She was utterly silent with that, other than the spellcasting.

Jonathan leapt forward and attacked the lamia with the most images with a flurry of his telekinetically enhanced blows. The first four attacks dissipated against images, until he got in a streak of three solid hits which destroyed the thing as a whole. This left one lamia for me and Dame Rebekah to deal with. I didn't want her to have to deal with it, so I dropped the magazine, slammed the fresh one home, and unloaded into the sole remaining lamia hitting with multiple hits and bursting the final mirror image and killing it. Dame Rebekah smiled and went to go retrieve her longsword.

We packed our gear up and I got both magazines reloaded while Faunra went sniffing around an area in the middle of the hallway. She found another one of those areas where Special K can pop up and cause us issues. She thrust her bow into the thing, and it dissolved away with a scream. I smiled, noting that it meant that the guy was weaker. We all gathered up in that area and went on into the next series of rooms. They looked to be the living quarters of whom we had just destroyed, so we kept carefully scanning the rooms.

We found a hallway off of the main lounge quarters which split off two ways. We decided to take the left path, as it should be a lesser number of rooms. What we found was a bunch of smaller chambers that looked to belong to a high priestess of some sort, just from the religious iconography and whatnot. We ultimately found a secret cache of a few spell scrolls and a platinum key. These were small enough to take with us, so we continued on.

We were going to have a LOT of other things to deal with when we were done. The biggest thing is, if we can, we need to push forward fast, as Special K has a limited number of spells and everyone that he has already used is one he can't bring to bear on us again. We went back to the hallway and took the other door and were confronted by a fish faced demon. It smiled as it saw us, and I felt a horrendous voice come into my head yelling that it would swallow our souls.

It tried to lash out at Jonathan as he rushed in, but it missed. He then proceeded to pummel the damn thing to death like it was some cut rate superhero being beat down by an evil super-alien that had been hiding among humanity. I definitely do not want to ever fight Jonathan. I think that he is the strongest person in this group, for all of his lack of being able to wear armor. The daemon dropped when he was done, and as it had been called to this world, it was fully dead. We looked into the prisoner rooms and found that they were empty. We left out of this area and decided to continue on to the next area in this wing of the tower.

The hallway took three ninety degree turns before having a door at the end closest to us, and another image location at the far end. Jonathan told us that he smelled giant behind the door, and something quite different. The image looked a bit shocked and launched out a ray of black energy at Jonathan. Jonathan deftly dodged the deadly ray which splashed harmlessly against the door behind us. We all rushed forward, and I thrust my bolter into the image before it could dissolve.

Not wanting to deal with the "new smell" that Jonathan had described, before ensuring that we wouldn't be jumped from behind, we continued on in the hallway, just to check it out. We came to another door, which we opened to encounter a room with another set of double doors. Who the fuck designed this place? You don't have a single width door leading to a double width door. It doesn't work architecturally or aesthetically.

There was a whole bunch of scribbles on the door that I didn't know but Faunra did. She started to read them as Jonathan yelled out that it was a trap. We all ended up in some nightmare dimension where horrors were trying to kill us. None of us perished at their hands, luckily, and Faunra recognized the effect as a maze spell and immediately jumped us all out. We got back and Jonathan set me to disabling the trap on the door. I managed to do some tricky shit where I took a picture of it without reading the door itself and then we retreated to about thirty-five feet away.

I determined the runes to modify to make it so that it wouldn't affect any of us, and we went back. I modified the runes without actually reading them and made it so that the door could be opened and traversed safely by the four of us. We rushed in and Jonathan was almost berserk at the sight of what he saw. I almost shat myself as well. For two hugely different reasons. Jonathan had found what he thought was his former captors. I was viewing a fucking stargate. Or maybe a time gate. Whatever.

It was focused on the past of the region. I could tell this because of some buildings that were there were in previous condition, and oh yeah, the lava flow wasn't there. Then it wasn't there, only a swirling vortex of lights and energy. I must have been a bit distracted because Faunra was snapping me out of it asking me about the gate. I asked what was going on with the former captors of Jonathan. Faunra told me that they were all dead, and that Jonathan was using them to bash each other to pieces. Faunra asked me to give the device a look to see if I can make anything of it.

It took a little bit but once Faunra gave me an assist with the transitory nature of the ephemeral energies (she was big into time magic), we determined that if the gate had been finished correctly, it could have opened up a window to the past. Also, that it wasn't being finished correctly, as it was being EXPERTLY tampered with to actually be used to shunt the energy elsewhere. Faunra asked if I could change the focus of that. I thought for a minute and told her that I should be able to do so and asked her where she wanted it changed to, as I was definitely changing it from the new focal point that the denizens had modified it to be focused on.

Faunra told me that she wanted to try to bring her village forward in time. I said that we could try that, and that it would take some time, at least a few minutes since we couldn't rush because we didn't care about being caught changing it, and I would need her help to get the temporal location tied down. After about fifty seconds of dedicated work something disrupted us. A horror from beyond time and space came out of the vortex and attacked Faunra. It let loose with a gaze attack that we all avoided, luckily. Then it pounced on Faunra and tried to rake her. It didn't land on her, and only managed to draw blood once.

Faunra stepped back and unloaded a series of arrows and burning gouts of flame. The hideous thing was still standing, so I pulled up my bolter and dropped a series of four rounds into it. It collapsed and dissolved. I looked to Faunra and asked her if she was okay. She breathed heavy for a few seconds and asked for a few potions.

Dame Rebekah grabbed one for her and provided it to her. The wounding that we had all received from the spells of the Lamias didn't heal, but the gash from the thing that came out of the vortex did. Dame Rebekah shook her head and told us that the wounds from the spells that the Lamia priestesses had cast could only be healed after another spell was cast. I asked her what would be needed to be cast to get the wounds healed. Dame Rebekah told us that it would require a way to remove curses. I asked if we had any ability to cast such spells currently.

I sighed and asked if we would basically be at this reduced capacity until after we had some time to rest. Dame Rebekah nodded and noted that we should get moving to the last room down this corridor, if only to clear out the any possible dangers. And try to make the rooms secure enough to rest. The vortex had been shorted out by the thing that had come through it, so there wasn't much more we could do at the moment. We could always come back to try to go further. Faunra agreed and we headed out to the last room in this corridor.

As we walked back, we got into position at the end of the hallway and Jonathan telekinetically opened the door to the room. Inside the room was an Angel. An actual angel, with emerald green skin and two pairs of wings. It was in a fighting stance but seemed to be in a reluctant one. I don't know why but I fairly quickly realized that it was not wanting to fight us.

I told this to the rest of the group, and they tried to ask the angel if it would let us pass without fighting. The Angel sadly shook its head and tightened its grip on the blade. Dame Rebekah asked if it wanted to be sent back. The Angel seemed conflicted but nodded and shook its head at the same time. This was getting really annoying, so I doffed my gloves and attempted ASL to ask it why it did not want to leave.

The Angel stared at me for a second before it propped its sword against itself, and it signed back to me that it wanted revenge at the wizard who had summoned it here to attack those who might be good. I asked it what its name was, and it responded back via letters that its name was Ayruzi. I told the rest of the group this and they started asking the Angel if it knew the name of the Wizard who had summoned it. Ayruzi told us that the wizard was known as Khalib. I passed this along to the others and Dame Rebekah laughed.

Faunra told the Angel that that wizard had shuffled loose the mortal coil, in not so many words. The Angel seemed happy but noted that she was still stuck by the binding, that would only be done when she was slain. I passed this along and Dame Rebekah said that we might have a way to send it back. The Angel asked how, and Dame Rebekah said that we had a weapon that could send those conjured back, if she was successful with a vicious attack. The Angel noted that it needed to die to be sent back, but that it would still have to fight to the death.

I cursed that I didn't have any Iocane Powder, much less any increased immunity to it due to extended exposure. The Angel said that there wasn't much more to say, and that we should make ready, as she was going to have to cast an attack spell at us. Jonathan, who had not been saying anything this whole time, let loose with a massive telekinetically enhanced electrical blast. Faunra whipped four arrows at the Angel, and it dropped. Faunra indicated that the Angel wasn't truly dead, as we needed an evil weapon to destroy it.

The Angel collapsed to the floor but didn't dissolve like other conjured or summoned creatures. Dame Rebekah indicated that we should wait to see what happens next. I asked her why, and she noted that we didn't have any good way to put the Angel down for good and asked if I thought it would be good to kill an actual servant of good anyway. I sighed and noted that no, I didn't, and said that only one of us had to wait in the line of sight of the Angel to see if the binding was broken.

Naturally, I was the one who got volunteered. I could speak to it with my sign language, and it could respond back to me with it. I waited on guard, at least I had not attacked it during the previous fracas. After about thirty seconds, the Angel shakily stood back up, before shaking its head, verbally noting that this the hardest it had ever been hit. I verbally asked if it had any homicidal ideation towards us anymore.

The Angel looked up at me with a glint in its eye and suggested that I get closer to it, to find out. I was stupid and did it. When I got closer, it cast a spell and touched me with it before I could react. I resisted the spell immediately, without any effort, The Angel noted that they had just tried to remove the curse that was upon me. I told them that they probably should have started with that. I messaged the rest of the group and said that they can come back.

The rest of the group came back into view, and Ayruzi proceeded to heal us up. Dame Rebekah's sword was flaming a bit less, and Faunra was no longer hopping in and out of existence by the time that Ayruzi had removed all of our curses. Ayruzi then proceeded to remove all of our wounds. When we were all done, I asked Ayruzi what they wanted to do now. They indicated that they were stuck on this plane for a fortnight, so they would try to do good wherever they could. Dame Rebekah asked if the Angel would like to put down a Runelord.

Ayruzi looked confused and said that they were said to have been gone for over ten thousand years, when the Starstone landed and destroyed Thassilon. I looked to Faunra, and she indicated that she knew nothing of this. Ayruzi looked at Faunra and sighed, saying that it happened not long after Faunra was stuck in the loop. I told everyone that we needed to get going if we were going to take out Special K before he regains any spells. Ayruzi indicated that they didn't think it was an actual Runelord that we were dealing with. I asked them if they ever knew evil to truly die.

Ayruzi nodded slowly, and finally agreed, but cautioned us that we might not be in a position to have the spell slots still empty, but that we should still rush. Ayruzi then said that Runelords are very tricky to deal with without being another Runelord. I added that we knew, but that at least we would at least try to stop it. Ayruzi agreed to help us in this endeavor. We rushed back the way we came, to the main chamber, and then around the room to the door that the giants had come through. When we got in there, we found a LOT of stasis chambers.

Ones that would hold Rune Giants. Over thirty of them. I made sure that my phone was recording. If possible, I'd get this information out to the Pathfinder Society, so that we can get some kind of task force on this. While we were quickly searching the rooms, we found a portal down into Xin-Shalast proper. I noted it for later, but figured that it was probably one way, as there was no debris from the far side of the portal on this side of the portal.

When we looked past the portal room, Jonathan found another of the rifts. I walked up to the rift and was about to shove my bolter into it when Special K's sneering visage appeared when he tried to target me with a pair of spells, after shouting that we'd be destroyed by his renewed might. His spell failed when he targeted me. He cursed and targeted me with a second spell. A series of five glowing darts of energy flashed out of the image and into me. I cursed and slammed my bolter into the image, causing cursing from his end as it dissolved. I felt a bit vindictive about the profanity.

We continued on and found what looked like a study with a dozen books. Jonathan telekinetically shoves everything into an extradimensional bag, and we rushed onwards. Towards the end of the stasis chambers, there was a large open area that was a 20-foot-tall golden statue of Special K in the southern portion of this area. A brazier was in front of the statue, with some smokeless fire. In the North, there was a stone pagoda, with a single opening with two smaller statues, with a twenty-foot sarcophagus with Special K as a relief. In the west of the room was a huge pair of golden doors that shimmered with a layer of golden energy.

Also, we found what I referred to as Man-Bear-Nid. Half Bear, Half Man, Half Mantid. It laughed and noted that it would savor our flesh as it ate us. Faunra took offense to that, enhanced her bow with Holy Energy and launched a bevy of arrows into it and a glob of mud into its eyes. Jonathan flippantly launched a marble into its brainpan, and it dropped. It dropped without much fanfare and Ayruzi looked at us with a bit of amazement. They indicated that this was a fairly powerful demon.

Dame Rebekah said that we were benefited by the aid of the gods. Ayruzi looked us over and nodded slowly. We briefly looked around the room and determined that only way forward was the doors with the glowing golden energy. I went to investigate it with Faunra, and we determined that damaging it with the Dominant weapons would be the best way to bring the force field down. So that's what we decided to do.

While Dame Rebekah, Jonathan, and Ayruzi were discussing what was going on and we were utilizing the time to have some brief discussions about what they had all dealt with. We spent eighteen seconds just firing away with arrows and rounds until the field dissolved. We looked at the others and decided to get ready and post up at the door. When everyone was ready, we made sure that everyone was in a proper ready condition, we lined up as best we could, based on the unknown threat. We busted open the doors and got a face full of spell.

Well, multiple spells. We rushed through a blade barrier as we ran through, causing most of us minor damage, and then into a flame strike spell that wounded us only slightly. Except for Jonathan. Always except for Jonathan. Ayruzi took some damage from the blades and the holy aspect of the fire, but nothing else. That was when we were jumped by more giants.

Well, Jonathan was. Three massive morningstars came crashing down. Jonathan deftly was missed by all of them, leaping around each with some ease. There was some profanity being shouted in Thassilonian from the landing in the center of the room next to the big thirty-foot sphere of gold. It was coming from a group of nine lamia. I instantly recognized the Mirror Image Spell, again.

Faunra unleashed her arrows and a telekinetically launched one in addition. She knocked out five of the images and wounded the priestess twice. In response, the Lamia launched a sound burst spell at all of us, damaging us slightly, and then hitting me with a spell of destruction. I didn't get destroyed but it sure as fuck hurt. I pulled up my Rifle as I let the bolter gently drop, trusting in the enchantment to have the bolter to drop safely to the ground.

I managed to get rid of the rest of her images and pump another two rounds into her. She wasn't anywhere close to dropping. Never thought I'd be shooting a cat-centaur with a semi-automatic rifle. Yeah, no one ever needs an automatic weapon. No reason ever.

Jonathan roared as his field focused briefly before launching marbles at the four different enemies in the room. None of them dropped from his telekinetic barrage, but the priestess looked to be on the ropes. The giants kept whiffing when attempting to hit Jonathan. I think they caught on and would be attempting something different next time. Dame Rebekah and Ayruzi doubled up on one of the giants and brought it low.

Time was running out before the Lamia would finish her next spell, I knew that she would bringing up another Mirror Image spell. Faunra saved the day, by pumping two arrows into her before dropping another giant with the rest of her arrows. That left one remaining giant. I dropped the magazine from my rifle and replaced it with another one. I sighted in the last giant and focused up everything I could and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet sailed through the air and through the giant's eye and into the giant's brain. Its remaining eye went wide, and its head jerked up. The giant stopped moving and it dropped backwards to its demise. The room was now clear of obvious dangers, so we calmed down a bit and took stock of our situation. Faunra would need to thoroughly investigate the giant thirty-foot sphere, so we decided to take stock of our current resources.

We were a few spells and abilities down, but that we could guess that Special K was severely depleted. Ayruzi cleared their throat and indicated that a wizard of their capability would quite possibly have the means to recover their spells and abilities, if at the very least, through a wish spell, or by bargaining with some eldritch entity to gain his spells back, especially if his attitude from the most recent dismissal is any evidence. I asked if it was likely that we could have gotten enough of his underlings cleared to the extent that we could still get the drop on him.

Ayruzi went to shrug, but Faunra spoke up and indicated that the Lamia was under the effects of a sending spell, and that we had two guesses who she had been talking to before we busted in. I sighed and added that the enemy wizard would have been on high alert now and known that we were coming soon. Ayruzi nodded, adding that we had more to gain from recovering and being ready, as we had control of this room. Faunra nodded and went and activated the giant orb, to recreate the force field around this room. Ayruzi noted that we had total control over this room, so we should utilize it to our advantage.

We gathered up what we could, and Ayruzi offered to summon up a Hound Archon when the time came. I thanked them and Faunra told them that they would have to wear one of these rings. Ayruzi blanched, saying that it was not good to mark oneself like this, as this symbol, Faunra interrupted the Angel and noted that we had figured out that those who die while marked with the sigil end up getting stuck in Special K's ritual, but that we needed them to not get hit with the occlusion field. Ayruzi sagely nodded.

We got together what we could of the bedding from the rest of the pinnacle. We went through several iterations of cleaning effects including flash freezing them to try to sanitize them. Ultimately, after several prestidigitations, a neutralize poison and a remove disease from Ayruzi, and the energy based decon, we felt everything was at least remotely safe enough to use, we got a bedding situation squared away for all five of us. Well, we were all sleeping a LOT less, and Ayruzi didn't sleep at all, so it was basically a bodged together mess that would serve.

That left us several hours of nothing to do. It seemed like there was not any real food here. I don't know how any of these MASSIVE humanoids and creatures got their sustenance when there wasn't so much as a larder anywhere. Ayruzi offered up that they would pray to receive a hero's feast for us in the morning. Just a few hours of not much to do.

We each took up our own tasks. I summoned up four sets of unseen craftsmen and set them to recover and catalogue all of the other goods in the facility. I reserved one group to work on stripping down, repairing, rebuilding, and noting any deficiencies in the armors and weapons of the group. I worked on repairing the deficiencies found. Some of the compound mixture in the oldest pieces of armor are beginning to separate and will need to be reworked when we get back to Sandpoint. The later pieces show no sign of this degradation, so it must have been that I had not just gotten the mixture exactly correct. I'll still double check everyone's armor and gear when we get back.

Dame Rebekah started having discussions with Ayruzi, which eventually led way to a sparring match. Not that it was violent or aggressive, but that they both wanted to hone each other's abilities for the next conflict. Jonathan was utilizing his telekinetic abilities working with Faunra to deal with all of the various items that we had collected from this location, to see if there was anything that would assist us in our final conflict with Special K and whomever he had at his disposal. I really dislike the thought that we are leaving him for another day, when he will be at his peak, but if Ayruzi is right, we'll need every advantage that we can get.

After a few hours, we got back together to discuss anything that had come up. I had all of the armors back up to full optimization, and Jonathan had spent some time meditating on his revenge. Apparently, he recognized some of his abductors in the Denizens of Leng that he had destroyed in that portal room. This is good in my mind, as at least he got some measure of vengeance against them, Jonathan told me that he was certain that there were more than just this batch that had been involved in his confinement, and that he'd be off to seek the rest after the portal to their realm here was closed.

Faunra, on the other hand, had decided that something needed to be done to shore up the fragility that was becoming apparent in my armor. She pulled out the special scroll tube that we had found underneath Jorgenfist and concentrated on something. She smiled as she read from the tube and a spell took form, which further hardened my armor, beyond the point of even adamantium's ability to easily damage. I thanked her, and she told me that we could do this for all of the armor and gear when we got back. I nodded and noted that we'd have to ensure that everything was in good order for everyone, especially the elves in Crying Leaf.

Dame Rebekah spoke up and noted that if all goes well with this, that she was going to take a trip with Chelger and Ayruzi to the Worldwound to check in on her family. Apparently, Ayruzi had about a week and a half left on their binding, so they didn't mind the trip, and felt like they could maybe help a bit. Dame Rebekah indicated that she had already discussed this with Chelger and that they'd hope that I could get a good service in on his armor before they left. I told her that I would be glad to, especially with the spell that Faunra had discovered. Dame Rebekah smiled and Ayruzi noted that they'd like to see if it were possible to get a set of this armor for themselves. I replied to the literal Angel that I'd definitely consider it, but that they'd have to check with the boss, Savah.

The group looked to me expectantly, as if to silently say, what are you going to be doing. I choked a bit and told them that I definitely wasn't retiring or giving up the adventuring life. They looked at me even more oddly. I told them that telling people that you were retiring or stopping something was a surefire way to get yourself offed during the last battle. The Planetar looked at me very oddly and asked what I was planning to do next then. I told them that I had mostly just hung on to what the rest of the group needed, but that I had plans on making sure that none of the other Runelords were tromping about, causing problems, and fulfilling the contracts that I had already set up.

The group laughed and the Angel joined in, a bit hesitantly, finally. We took up shifts where only one person would be resting at any one time. That left our plans going. The person who was going to sleep would be having the amulet of silence next to them in the converted boudoir, while the rest of us were heavily working on whatever we could. It was a very taxing day to say the least.