Flamed Minced Chicken
In our previous session of Pathfinder Strange Aeons we had obtained a ‘quest’ from the ghost, who wanted us to retrieve her sword Teralindar’s Honour and bring it back to her in order to help her keep her sanity. Once she was sane, she would be able to aid us in exploring the city of Neruzavin.
We decide that a sensible sequence of events is to find the sword, heal the ghost and then deal with the Star Stelae. Having seen enough signs of avian terrors ripping things apart in the sky, we decide to head down the stairs and out through the doors at ground level, rather than trying to fly directly to where we need to go. The sword was last seen near a red ochre altar on the edge of the lake, so we headed in that direction, with Ray leading the way invisibly as usual, and Gregor tracking his footprints.
Whilst crossing a piece of desolate wasteland, there is a sudden fiery explosion up ahead and a screeching of birds. Afterwards we found out that Ray had encountered a swarm of birds picking at the dust on the ground, and concerned at the signs of fungal infection on them had decided to fireball them.
The swarm of birds rise up out of the fire, streaming through the air and descending on Ray. There are similar cries from elsewhere, and two more bird swarms take to the air. With thousands of birds descending on us I do the only thing I can think of – summoning a churning set of ethereal blades to cut them to pieces. I position the blades directly above us, and yell at everyone to keep their heads down and not to jump up.
Most people do their best to hide – Gregor’s arrows are useless against a flock of birds, as is Sheena’s rapier. Catiana cannot catch them, so since she is incorporeal she sinks into the ground and once my shards had gone up, I turned into a shadow and hid on the ground.
They pretty much left Erasmus and Ray to use flame strikes and fireballs against them. As they flocked over us, the shards tore them to pieces and we were left with a cloud of burnt feathers and mince. Fungal spores drifted down over us as they died, infecting several of the group.
Once we were clear of the birds, we managed to make our way to a rise above the Snarl. It was a wasteland of broken buildings which sunk into the lake to the north. The lake itself was crystal clear – obviously nothing natural could live in it, though we noted the odd swirl of movement along the bottom.
Erasmus is made invisible and flies out over the Snarl, using divination to try and locate the sword. Eventually he narrows the spot down to somewhere beneath a pile of rubble, though it isn’t clear how we’d get to it. After some discussion we decide that sorting out the Star Stelae first might be a better option. Or at least safer. Erasmus had spotted several odd and decidedly unfriendly looking creatures around the Snarl, and they had possibly spotted him as well.
So we headed back to the tower, and using Lowl’s notes managed to attune ourselves to the Stelae. The runes on its surface glowed with a bright yellow light, coalescing into several large eldritch runes. Going by the notes, not only were we tuned to the Stelae, and it to us, but possibly some other beings were now able to watch us do it. There are two more Stelae to attune, one of which is probably back in the Snarl, and once they are all done we should be able to follow Lowls to Carcosa and try to stop him.
