Last Redoubt

[FirebirdFlying]

Mari jerks awake, and sits up, attention immediately settling on the professor. …Um…

She turns to see Niev, and tilts her head in question.

[Sallera]

Niev simply shrugs and tosses Mari the stoppered flask in response. Whatever was going on, better for both of them to be properly awake for it.

After a minute, she calls to the others. "Dreamcatcher, Reason, who's the new arrival?"

[appending_doom]

"This is Doctor Kollos!" Reason exclaims. "The whole band got split up along the way, but Doctor Kollos made it through safely. He actually knows more about these caverns than any of us; with him along, we should be able to get back safely."

She glances at Niev and gives Doctor Kollos a sly look. "He's the one who found the-"

"The prophecy, yes," Doctor Kollos agrees. "The turning slows by weight of nightmares, until all spirits are bound in webs of dream, 'les the shape of our dreams are forged into a new weapon." He grins at all of them. "I translated it myself."

[Fishy]

"Anxiety," Dreamcatcher intones. "A dire prophesy indeed, but a hopeful one as well- I would be eager to hear anything you've surmised about this 'weapon'."

When Niev wakes up, the warforged turns to give her a short, respectful bow. "Welcome back, Dreamer. Can you spare a while to tell me what you have seen?"

Spoiler

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In the event that Niev has dreamed anything significant, Dreamcatcher can use his Dreamtelling feat to get information vaguely equivalent to an Augury or Divination spell from it:

Knowledge: Psionics - (1d20+7)[13]

Edit: According to the handy chart, that's enough to get an Augury out of an obvious dream, ad peer a fairly useless 30 minutes into the future. Better than nothing. So: following our brand new Gnome friends, Weal or Woe?

[appending_doom]

@dream

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You see neon green tendrils tied about Doctor Kellos' fingers, and silver ties between him and Reason. Golden threads entwine the three of you and Reason.

Weal and woe.

[Sallera]

Niev frowns, turning over the words of the prophecy in her mind. A familiar cadence...

"That sounds very similar to the core of the Path of Light. Not exactly the same, of course, but... where did you come across it? And... translated from which language?"

[appending_doom]

Dr. Kellos sniffs. "I don't think deep in the heart of Khyber is the place to talk about the details. You said you wanted to head for the Talenta exits we found?"

[Sallera]

Niev raises an eyebrow. "Oh, right, I'd... forgotten." She had almost forgotten where they were, with the stone's song ensuring that the surroundings felt no different than any path around the city. It seemed that the Doctor was another who couldn't hear the song.

"That is where Reason said she was taking us. I don't really know enough geography to have an opinion on the matter, myself."

[appending_doom]

"Oh, believe me, we don't want to show up in the middle of Sharn with a warforged in tow," Dr. Kellos says.

Assuming no other conversation is immediately necessary, Kellos takes the lead, following a path only he seems to understand. The path is circuitous, and possibly truly so, but you never quite recognize the same place twice. At times, the caves are barely narrow enough to admit a single Medium creature, and at others, you walk through caverns so high and wide, you imagine you must be outside. Sometimes, lights glitter in the distance in what you imagine stars must look like.

As the living creatures begin to tire, and the sleeping ones begin to droop, Dr. Kellos calls for a rest. "I think that's far enough for today," he says cheerfully. "Shall we set up a watch?"

Spoiler

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You all may, if you choose, make a Sense Motive check to indicate your general hunch about Dr. Kellos over the course of a day.

@Fishy, if you like and Firebird agrees, you can again try to read her dreams after the night cycle.

[FirebirdFlying]

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Sense Motive:(1d20+5)[18]

And Dreamcatcher can go ahead and read Mari's dreams.

[appending_doom]

@firebird

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Nothing seems out of place. The guy's weird, but so is Reason, and you've heard gnomes are just weird.

[Fishy]

"I don't believe that will be necessary, Doctor, I am happy to keep watch for the length of the night."

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Sense Motive - (1d20+8)[21]
Knowledge: Psionics - (1d20+7)[24]

[Sallera]

Niev nods her thanks to Dreamcatcher, sitting back against the wall of the cave. This journey seemed to be imposing an odd sort of lethargy on her; perhaps it was the way that even walking miles through Khyber had thus far been no different from exploring the caverns near Rasht. At least, aside from the scale of things. Or perhaps it was the shard, its seemingly benign and minor mystery nonetheless sitting unexplored at the back of her mind, unforgettable and seemingly growing stranger as time passed. She doesn't feel quite up to an open conversation, but she mentally reaches out to Mari again, seeking... something; she's not quite sure what.

Not quite what I expected our trip through Khyber to be like. From what Reason said, what we thought we knew of it wasn't exactly exaggerated, but we've seen nothing, felt nothing... I know the shard appears to be responsible for the last, but I don't see how it could be keeping things this quiet. And I don't feel like I should tell the gnomes about it yet... there has to be some reason they can't hear it. I... I don't know, really. This just doesn't feel right, somehow.

[appending_doom]

@Dream

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Something about the professor seems odd. He obviously is leading your somewhere, but you're no longer certain his goal is the same as Reason's.

You know nothing about him, but he seems untowardly fascinated with Niev. You remember odd discussions about face-eating horrors.

Mari's dreams haunt you as she describes them, as the imagery of strings of fate seems to have grown stronger, tying you, Mari and Niev to Reason, who is herself tied to the professor.

You are bound to follow them, you think, even though the source of the lime-green strings of fate tied about his forehead worries you.

The journey begins slowly, and again, you walk for some time. Something is beginning to fray at the edges of your minds, and you realize that the calm projected by the little stone seems to be fading.

And then, after a short break, Mari turns up missing.

@all

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Roll Spot and Listen

[Sallera]

The sudden absence hits Niev as she pushes away from the wall, spinning her around as she searches for something to disprove it. "Mari?" She tries to focus, but the increasing pressure from the surroundings disrupts her concentration, hampering her attempts to keep her emotions under control. There's something here... pushing through. Remembered stories, most of them Mari's own, flicker through her mind at the reminder of where they stand, and she grits her teeth against the urge to panic as she forces herself to study the surroundings carefully.

Spoiler

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Spot: (1d20+2)[8]
Listen: (1d20+2)[6]

[appending_doom]

Only the flickering light of the torches they bear, and the dim silence of the caverns beyond their path, reach Niev's senses.

[Fishy]

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spot: - (1d20+10)[29]
Listen - (1d20+4)[7]

"... Mari?" Dreamcatcher turns around- and on finding her gone, flies into something resembling panic, searching the darkness in all direction. "Mari?!"

[Sallera]

"She was right beside me! Even if it's hard to see down here, we should have felt the presence of something! Even if..." Niev trails off as her thoughts flick once again to the shard. Even if the shard's been damping our presences and filtering out the feelings of this place?

"Agh!" She slams a palm into the wall in frustration, only barely keeping her roiling emotions from turning the gesture into a mental assault on the unyielding stone. A few moments pass before she stands straighter with a visible effort to keep herself in check. "Alright. Where do we start looking?" she asks, her voice softer but still determined.

[Fishy]

"Here," Dreamcatcher says darkly, turning to face the good doctor. Sister, please back away. Doctor Kellos, I apologize if this is disrespectful, but given the nature of our common enemy, I must check that you are who you say you are."

Spoiler

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Dreamcatcher moves in close to the gnome, waits for Niev to get out of the blast radius, and then fires off a Chastise Spirits. IIRC, Mind Blank and the like will foil Detect spells, but not getting blasted in the face.

[appending_doom]

@Dream

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Nothing happens to the doctor, but your attempts to remember what might have happened to Mari awakens a brief memory, something you had written off as your imagination:

A figure skulking in the shadows beyond your sight. You couldn't make out many details, only a trio of...tentacles?

[appending_doom]

"There are plenty of places to look," Dr Kellos says, apparently ignoring the attempt to reveal something untoward about his...internal monologue. "But we suffered the same sort of disappearances on our way down here. I assure you, looking for your friend is pointless."

[Sallera]

"Pointless? We're supposed to just give up on her?" Niev glares at the Doctor, the air around her threatening to turn the ice in her eyes into a reality. "From what Reason said, weren't you one of the ones that disappeared? You seem to still be alive. More or less."

[appending_doom]

"I, young lady, am the exception that, ah, proves the rule," the doctor insists hotly. "Every threat down here is inescapable, and I assure you, if you're lucky, they'll only want to kill your friend."

[Sallera]

"'Every threat down here is inescapable?' That can't be true if you escaped. And if it is true, and you didn't escape, then you're a thrall to someone or a face-eating demon or something and not to be trusted anyway! Either start making sense, or tell us how to find Mari."

[appending_doom]

"Face-eating demon?" the doctor asks with a laugh. "I can assure you, if there were any face-eating demons around, G'nfr-" He stops mid-word. "Anyway, I'm hardly the thrall of a face-eating demon. And I don't understand why you think I'd know where to find your friend. There are hundreds of threats down here, and any one of them could be responsible for her disappearance."

[appending_doom]

"That may be true," Reason says doubtfully. "But we only had trouble with those undead giants near the Labyrinth and those nasty things that cracked open Regis' skull."

[Sallera]

"G'nfrwhat?" Niev shakes her head, trying to make sense of the gnome's obfuscations. "If there are hundreds of different threats down here - and that much, I don't doubt, given where we are - then how could you possibly know about every one of them? Why are you so adamantly set against trying to help Mari if you don't know what happened to her?"

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Sense Motive, because it seems appropriate: (1d20+2)[3] ...and also apparently quite useless.

[appending_doom]

A flicker of something crosses the Professor's face. "Why can't you just take good advice?" he rages.

Without warning, an impossibly long, lime-green tentacle erupts out of the top of his skull.

OOC - Initiative.

[Sallera]

Niev's expression hardens as the air around her begins showing wisps of freezing fog. The absurdity of the situation would have caught her well off-guard yesterday, but between the shock of Mari's disappearance, the increasing pressure from the surroundings, and the doctor's seeming apathy, she had been barely restraining herself from attacking him anyway. Finding out that he apparently is some sort of face-eating demon is almost a relief.

"Reason! Get away from him!"

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Init: (1d20+2)[13]

[Fishy]

Dreamcatcher considers this development for a moment. "Smug satisfaction and visceral disgust," he decides.

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(1d20+1)[6]