Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The battle's end comes with shocking suddenness as Sirim whips the shadows into swirling, cloying motion and Avarice dives between the roots to spit from spectral depths a glob of all too real acid upon the grasping vines. There's no scream from them, of course, but the sound of popping sap filled stems is near as loud and they writhe in all too suggestive of a manner. For her part Mina spins sticky strands into the air hoping to capture as many of the foe, but the fey are far from any trunk or branch so all she manages to snare are a pair of monstrosities that look for all the world like the arms of a troll growing from a large eyeball enclosed in reptilian scales and another one that seems to be made of dozens of steel caltrops set and to end that manages to shred itself free.

It's only the whistle of the wind that draws your attention to the creature flying at you from behind, half-crab half-millipede, half-dragonfly, your mind insists in defiance defiance of fractions as you see it, though seeing as one of those pincers had been trying to snap around your neck and is only stopped by a combination of lurching back and the quality of your armor it seems a reasonable lapse in sense.


By the time you look back at the wider battle it's clear that with half their number blinded and the vines all but killed the Headsnappers no longer see sense in the battle. They flee still hurling curses of an entirely non-magical nature onto your heads, followed into the nooks and crannies of the gnarled woods by Gorok's arrows and the taunts of the sparrow 'errant'. Sir Relfar hadn't joined in the fight and he makes no motion to help Cob and Gorok deal with the last of the botanical horrors, as the monsters, crab and not, bound and not, pop out of existence. Yet neither had he fled the battle at the start, perhaps this is his way to live up to the letter of his task as guide.

He says something, that Mina's paying only half an ear to, most of her mind and magic set to the task of healing, but Anippe's willing to take up the slack. From her tone she has questions of her own, though not ones he can answer. It's not hard to imagine what they might be: 'What did he mean I'm one of the dead?'

You try to find words of reassurance, but somehow you doubt your first impulse would serve well: 'Alive or dead matter less than friend and foe'.

"He says the monster things can come back, falls them little gods," she frowns, arcane interests surging to the forefront of her mind. "Which is just strange, gods aren't little they're gods."

"What if they're baby gods?" Cob asks, clambering back over the lip o the stone from the ramp.

"Then they would just be big babies." She stops, assesses the quality of her argument, and reformulates. "Metaphysically big babies."

Cob shrugs with a clink of his elvish armor and changes the subject. "Smells like blood down there, and there's sparkle-stones hanging down from ropes..."

A quick jaunt down the ramp, slick with sap over the stains of old blood, shows what he means: a series of crude pulleys suspending dimly glowing orange crystal over the soil beds of the plants. At first you think they must have needed at least a little light, they have the green tinge of sun-loving plants, but then you realize the system is such that the crystal could be lowered until it touched their root bulbs, a sort of prod to get the vines away from their kills so the Headsnappers could recover them. Further in the tunnel opens into a trio of others, just high enough that you don't have to lower your head, though Gorok isn't so lucky.

Speaking of luck, you might just have caught a break. According to Relfar and his bird, which is apparently quite talkative if you have the means to converse, these tunnels should lead to the center of the Refuge since the magic that powers them has to come from there. Unfortunately that is not to say you have a clean shot to the center.

There are 'clankers' down here and rogue winds spun up to malice and madness as well as the sloppers, that in the Taldan tongue are called oozes, which feed on any interlopers that are neither metal nor air, either falling from the chambers above or clambering down of their own accord.

On the one hand you could stop to rest in the Headsnappers' nest since you had driven them off and continue on once you are rested, taking the time to learn more of their strange magics and rites, or you could press on down the tunnels. It's clear what Anippe would prefer, but you will do neither the girl nor her mother much good if you die down here.

What do you do?

[] Rest in the blood shrine

[] Continue down the service tunnels

[] Write in

OOC: The condition for flight was half of the fey killed or incapacitated along with half the plant. I took 'blinded' to be close enough to incapacitation, but that does mean they are all still out there plotting another ambush most likely.

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Much as you might prefer solid walls to lead your back on to sleep Gorok prefers the open 'sky', though at least the light of this place doesn't seem to ever rise above a clear twilight in Cassomir or Augustana, the light diffuse in silvery columns of steam that come from somewhere south of here. According to Sir Relfar there used to be a sun in the Refuge, but then the gear-mites broke the... mechanism. Even Mina struggles to translate that word, a composite of 'sun' and 'pendulum' or 'barge'. Over the next hour as the familiar routine of setting up camp takes place in this most unfamiliar of spaces the faerie 'knight' and his, you are now convinced, quite magical steed explain what they know of the rest of the plane, though it is couched too much as legend and tale for your liking.

The Hall of Broken Faces can be found to the east, an excellent source of precious metals and especially of glass as long as you propitiate its faceless guardians with gifts of flowers nuts and berries. Whether they are alive or simply some manifestation of the great statues that stand silent vigil in the hell the sprites know not, only that they are strong enough to crush interlopers in their fists and they cannot be bargained with once their ire is raised. If one has an interest in more lively treasures crawling though the hollow of the great brass drum at the far end of the Hall of Broken Faces or following the river to its source leads one to 'the Sweets' a wonderland of sugary confections that coat the walls and form into stalagmites and stalactites which occasionally burst into broiling steam that add the fluids of the unwary to the delicious deposits.

"Watch out for the color, if it's more red than brown you might want to keep a watch out... you might get haunted if you eat it," the fey says sagely, the tone somewhat undermined by the fact that he was hanging backwards off a branch from his knees.

Mina looks like she is about to object to the notion of fae ghosts, but she keeps quiet while your guide is feeling chatty.

"See those clouds there, the silver ones? Those are from the Bladed Lake where the water ain't water but quicksilver. They say there's an endless jug of quicksilver at the bottom, though what else you might find if you're able to swim in metal I can't say. A golden fish maybe," he giggles. "There are meant to be clankers on the other side of the lake, but I've never been nor has anyone I know."

"What about north, where we're heading?" Anippe asks. "What if we just walked over the roof of the tunnel?"

"Oh, you'd come to the Grumblin' Pile. We call it that because it grumbles sometimes, a big pile of broken rock and dirt and... other stuff all the way up to the sky. You could try to dig through that, I guess."

"All the way up to the sky?" Pepper's voice sounds almost yearning. "What if we just went over that?"

"Dunno, no one's come back from trying. Maybe you die, maybe you get lost."

"Has anyone been inside the tunnels, anyone you know?" you press.

"A few times, that's where the wild wind lives and the things the wild wind can't move. Lots of doo-daads gather down there in the dark, too tough to break, too odd to name."

He goes on to explain that when the garden folk recover something interesting, useful, or just pretty they give it a new name before putting it to use. Most named things come from the Hall of Broken Faces or the Crystal Hall, though some brave venturers did dare the tunnels and the Sweets.

When morning comes which direction do you go?

[] Through the tunnels, you did clear a way through after all

[] Up the Grumblin' Pile, your company's a good bit tougher than sprites and it has the advantage that you'll be able to see the danger coming

[] Maybe you should investigate another of the places abutting the garden first
-[] The Bladed Lake
-[] The Hall of Broken Faces

[] Write in

OOC: The tunnels and the Grumbling Pile are both in the direction you want to go, but the others sound like they might have stuff to loot or answers about how this place came to be in this state.