[ Chapter 15 ] [ Back ] [ Chapter 17 ]
The door to final room was sealed as if it had never been opened. After some inspection, Wrath declared that they needed to dump essence into it. They all spent a short time waiting to regain any essence lost before finally charging the door up, disrupting its essence flows, and kicking it open.
Inside the final room the group was greeted by Merela herself, preserved, encased in a floating crystal, a crown on her head, wearing a suit of orichalcum armor, and holding an orichalcum grand daiklave. Near her stood a giant crystal golem. And near him swirled two layers of circling razor-sharp glass shards.
This was the hearth room. And it contained a crystalline guardian and a tomb with loot. Immediately, Wrath mumbled something about the crown on Merela's head.
“First, the manse,” said Isha, motioning to Grantaire. Grant looked from the guardian to the swirling glass shards then back to Isha. After a long moment he stepped forward and began the ritual to redirect the manse's essence to power his hearthstones.
As he began, the guardian activated. With a quick nod to each other, Grant stopped the ritual and the battle was joined.
The creature began redirecting the flying glass and using it as a weapon. Az worked to mitigate that as much as possible with his air/shattering abilities. Isha jumped to engage combat with the creature and Grant sniped from afar.
In a mere few seconds, the golem was shattered into dust and the flying glass returned to its usual orbit. However, like everything else in this place, it began slowly reforming. Isha, Voltaz and Wrath ran interference while Grant began his ritual anew, both to redirect the essence to power his hearthstones, and to attune to the manse.
Once Grant was done some discussion was had about snagging the crown from inside the crystal. Everyone was pretty sure that if it could be broken and retrieved, then it would reform just like all else here. However, in the manse it would be too difficult. So the group drug the crystal all the way to the exit of the manse, through all the trapped rooms, and pulled it up the final shaft and outside the structure. Isha examined it for weak points, and with a few, well-placed hits, cracked the top of it off in a clean manner.
The crown was retrieved but the sword and armor were left. The group had gear already, they didn't need these. And Isha didn't really want to defile her body any more than necessary here. If they had need of another set of orichalcum armor and weapon, they knew were to find it and how to retrieve it.
The boys felt some ill omen on the wind and Az and Grant went up into the sky to take care of it. When they returned, it was apparent that it hadn't actually been taken care of. But at least it was gone. Some kind of ominous bird that shrugged off an attack by Grant. Must be some bird.
Regardless, they went about returning the crystalline coffin to the hearth room, and indeed it did begin reforming itself. They left the manse and headed down to the market to begin their search for Grant's ninja assassin lizards.
The boys kept mentioning seeing creatures of varying types following the group, all with the same fur pattern: black with white stripes. Voltaz disappeared a few times and came back muttering to himself about it. Eventually some guy came up to talk to Voltaz about meeting at a dive bar at sunset to discuss… something unspecified. The assumption was that this was the lackey of whoever had been tailing them.
May as well, as the general consensus. They weren't having any other luck finding Grant's ninja assassin lizards. Perhaps whoever this was could help them.
The same guy was there as they walked into the bar in a sunken district of the city. Water was everywhere, and the bar floated on a dock-like thing with water all around. Kind of grody.
Apparently this dude represented someone who fancied himself the guardian of the city, and knew they were Solars. Interesting, but okay. He wanted to know what they were doing here and what they wanted.
The Solars explained they were here seeking allies and Grant was specifically looking for some ninja assassin lizards. He mentioned the Hall of Midnight Mirror. That prompted our host to pause for a moment, and out of the water stepped a fish, transforming to a man. A very, very large man. A very, very large and attractive man. A Lunar, no doubt. His hair fit the description Voltaz had been talking about all afternoon.
Isha tried not to stare at him but it was hard keeping her eyes off of him. As she took in the being before her, for the first time since she'd re-exalted, she thought about her previous incarnation's Lunar mate. This wasn't him, of that she was sure. But would he be like this? Who was he? Maybe it was a she…
Well, her exaltation's memories on that matter were fuzzy. She just couldn't pull any details up from the depths. Unfortunate. But she was absolutely sure she would recognize him… or her… whenever she met them. And a heartbeat later she realized that it would most likely be in less than a month, at the gathering of the Lunars currently being set up by the Sidereals. Suddenly, a new feeling of trepidation came over her about that auspicious event….
A shiver shook her body and a moment later Isha was back in reality. She was amused to note that even the boys stared in silence at the newcomer for an absurdly long time while the large Lunar sat casually at their table with an air of authority. He introduced himself as Moon's First Shadow, breaking the spell over everyone finally. He was no doubt a Lunar in control of this city.
The group discussed the Solars' reasons for being in Rathess, how Hell had invaded, that there would be a summoning of the Lunars, and what the Solars' part in the grand story had been so far. Shadow indicated he knew where these ninja assassin lizards stayed, and wanted something in exchange.
The group talked of armies and negotiations, and in the end Isha wasn't sure what they'd promised they'd do for him. Voltaz had a way of negotiating like that.
Either way, both parties tentatively agreed to an alliance and he gave the Solars the location of the lair of the ninja assassin lizards.
The meeting was adjourned and Shadow left to verify the Solars's story while getting his army organized to join up with the rest of whomever else they were able to recruit. Once the story was verified, they would begin moving toward the citadel.
Meanwhile, the Solars headed off to infiltrate Grant's army's lair. Coming into the door, there was a lot of bumbling. Isha jumped down a shaft under a trap door that was an obvious trap. She failed to trigger any traps on the way down, though. Grant went next and activated some water trap thing that started filling the shaft with water. Grant swam back up to the top while Isha stayed on the bottom and battered the door open. Once the door splintered, the water flowed out and all the traps had been cleared out.
The boys jumped down and immediately the group was beset by shadow attacks.
The attacks were defended and Grant shouted a halt to the combat and a beginning to discussions. Wearing the crown of Queen Merela, the lizards obeyed.
After some discussion, the lizards were willing to throw their lot in but their ancestral home, the Radiant Obsidian Bascillica, had to be reclaimed from some plague lords first before they could fully function as the assassin ninja lizard unit that they were. The Solars agreed, and set out to do just that.