"We should get going. We probably need to make more tracks tonight," Gavril said encouraging the others to get moving.
"Do we know if this is the city?" Armania asked.
"We are not at Neruzavin yet. I seem to recall a medium size trading post here. It seems that the sands have recovered it," Kaklatath injected.
"Then let us be on our way," Erevel added while mounting her camel.
As the party stopped for the day Ciprian and Armania asked Hassad where they were on the map.
"We will reach the end of the indication on the map tomorrow. I do not know where to go after that," he replied.
"Should we ask Kaklatath where the city is from here?" Armania inquired of Ciprian.
"Sure, why not," he shot back.
Kaklatath reminded the two that it had been thousands of years since she had traveled the streets of Neruzavin. She indicated that it still stood some distance to the east but exactly how to get there she wasn't sure.
Gavril took the opportunity to pepper Pohup with questions.
"Do you know where the evil city is?" he began.
"No, not directly. But Mother Grim Moon has been there and she knows the secrets," he boasted.
"Would she help us?"
"I can take you to the Shatter Smile camp. You could talk with her there."
Gavril related this to the group and reluctantly Ciprian finally agreed with the rest of the party. They told Hassad to follow Pohup's directions at sunset.
At sunset the group headed out again and they soon were trekking across a salt plain marred and broken by countless generations of ash giant travelers. Two pairs of ash giants openly approach the PCs from the south, waving and gesturing to parley. The giants clubs were at their waist and they showed empty hands. Pohup tried to hide, unsuccessfully behind Hassad and a camel.
"Greetings. I am Oaag and this is Lurrohak. We are messengers from the Shatter Smile camp. We see you have Pohup captured but he is not even restrained."
Ciprian dismounted and approached and Gavril followed a few feet behind. "Yes, he submitted to us after Kal took a sand nap. The scorpion we butchered for food, although Pohup ate the most."
"What is your mission here in our desert?" Oaag inquired.
"We seek the lost abandoned city of the desert. There is an evil man headed there and we wish to stop him." Ciprian answered.
"Since Kal and Pohup did not return we were sent to look for the mighty group that had dispatched them. In the name of Mother Grim Moon we invite you to visit and talk with her in the Shatter Smile camp. She has entered the city and returned making her an expert!"
Ciprian agreed that the party would follow them to the Shatter Smile camp as the group had earlier decided to head in that direction. Perhaps this Mother Grim Moon could lead them to Neruzavin. As the party began heading south, the other two giants, Arafur and Clegir walked abreast of Pohup kicking and slapping him. They also derided his gianthood for being captured. The group spend the rest of the night headed to the camp but it took another day's rest and trekking south again for another night until they came to the camp.
Several dozen broad tents of hides stretched across bone and chitin supports sprawled out in the shadow of a steep-sided hill. Glassy rivulets of broken obsidian slithered down the dark slopes, and the entire peak was cleft in two as if split by some tremendous force.
The ash giants tentatively acknowledge the heroes strength for having fended off several of their warriors. The clan’s ghastly smiles soon gave way to worried glances as the giants realized that strange visitors like these should be brought before their leader and prophetess Mother Grim Moon.
Oaag walked over to the most ornate tent, stuck his head in and spoke to someone inside. He then returned to Ciprian and said that the most holy Mother Grim Moon would be out soon to talk with them.
Ciprian again stepped forward and explained the party's quest to find Count Lowls and stop him from the madness that seems to have infected his soul. The party did not want either Thrushmoor or Golarion as a whole to be subsumed into Carcosa which seemed to be Lowls goal at this point.
"If you will help us find Neruzavin we will try and stop Lowls before it is too late," Ciprian exclaimed as a final plea.
The giantess listened with great interest as the Ciprian explained their intentions, smiling knowingly any time they claimed to be averting a disaster. She acknowledged their pretty words but explained that speeches can’t fell all foes. Creakily she began walking toward the cleft in the hill and waved for the heroes to follow. On the way, she explained.
“The Shatter Smile is proud and strong and has always taken stone from this hill. This time its people found one of the beasts the girtablilus stole from us, and even the clan’s best claw-speakers cannot convince it to submit. This has made the Shatter Smile resent the beast, and had I not intervened, they would have thrown rocks until it crumbled—good, but not bold. The beast is too immense to risk getting closer, so they have trapped it in the hill. “You are the dream-walkers, the city-seekers, the endstoppers. You come to me seeking my counsel, yet you cannot command the true respect of this clan. Tame what they cannot—fight what gives them fear—and they shall honor you. The Shatter Smile is not strong enough to brave the holy city. If you cannot be stronger than them, why should I waste breath explaining that you are too weak to enter?”
The cleft was partly blocked by a jumble of boulders nearly 10 feet tall, so Agna had Barnabas fly over the cleft. He returned indicating there was a scorpion even larger than the one the party defeated with Kal. Ciprian shuddered and cast enlarge person on himself and then multiple images.
Mother Grim Moon paused in sight of the ridge, called out to the other giants, and challenged the PCs to prove their might. The trial excited the clan, and the ash giant adults used their bodies to form a roughly 100-foot diameter ring around the cleft’s entrance, with the party inside. Chanting and stomping the ground rhythmically to goad the scorpion to emerge and fight. Mother Grim Moon cautions the heroes to wait until the scorpion has emerged entirely before they strike; the giants value cunning, but they respect only strength.
The creature now grabbed Erevel and continued its hold on Ciprian constricting both for even more damage. Then it attacked Gavril with it tail and stung twice. Gavril felt his strength, dexterity and constitution decrease. The parties attacks began anew Ciprian and Erevel struggled with being grappled while Gavril was frustrated by the lack of precision damage. This creature was difficult to hit as Agna's arrows mostly flew to the wind. Armania let loose a lightning Bolt while Ciprian restarted the Inspire Greatness and Ursina attacked with her book.
As the great battle continued the giants were still chanting and full of excitement at seeing the heroes both attacking with strength even though they were also being squeezed by the monster. They referred to the creature as Old Obsidian. Erevel and Ciprian continued to take damage from the constriction and now the creature stung Ursina also lowering her abilities. The party attacked back in full and Armania began to cast Summon Monster. As Old Obsidian took more damage from the party it was weakening and the party redoubled its efforts even while Ciprian and Erevel continued being constricted. Finally with a mighty blow Erevel downed the colossal creature. The giants erupted in cheers for the party and began dismembering the beast to harvest its meat and chitin. Mother Grim Moon soon quieted the giants and faced the party.
"Excellent display with an exciting kill at the end. Come gather round and I will provide healing for all of you," she said beckoning the crew.
She then Channeled Positive Energy and bade the crew follow her. Content with the heroes' prowess, Mother Grim Moon led them up the igneous hill and sat herself at its weathered summit. There she said she would answer their questions.
"What did you see in Neruzavin?" Ciprian began.
“It is a dead city, abandoned by all but those who can gaze into the apocalypse and survive. Only the seeded—the worldeater’s children—stir the dust with their feet. Stone buildings loom and twist, rising too high and at strange angles without windows. Three pillars stranger than all others are not half so tall. Instead they bear the language of other realms, inscribed with rituals and promises to bind this world to another. I slept beneath each pillar once, each night awakening with overwhelming urges to consume, doubt, or revel. Last, beware the sleepers below. They sing. They whistle. They whisper, promising to consume all that live. They can taste your very breath. One lies near the city’s western edge.”
"Did you see Lowls or his expedition?"
“The Shatter Smile saw him travel to the evil city from the west, but he had entered its unhallowed ground before our people could catch him. He was not alone. Many small folk kowtowed in his wake. He is a fool, yet even a fool can awaken the world-eater, and he has its taint upon him.”
"How do you know about our dreams?" Gavril interjected.
“Some dreams are shared. Some dreams are spread. You carry one of the darkest dreams: dreams that would infect—perhaps already have infected—countless souls and condemn the world. How could I not hear your dreams?”
"What did our dreams represent?" Ursina continued this line of questioning.
“Many dreams reflect the waking world. You fought the madness that lives below ground and so too does madness sleep under the sand here. You awakened the madness that slumbers beneath the water, and so too is the water here home to the greatest fiend. You walked among the towering trees, and so too do buildings tower in the evil city. You seek the oasis from which oblivion is born? It lies within the evil city.”
"Will you help us?" Ciprian asked hopefully.
“I shall not help that puny man condemn this world. I shall not stand alongside those who would prevent it. If the world ends, that is Groetus’s will. I shall only offer you my blessing and my wisdom,
that you might be heralds of this realm’s salvation—or its damnation. I shall lead you to the city and shall remain there for many days more before traveling again. If my magic would delay your own deaths before then, seek me out once more.”
"What is the world-eater?" Armania wondered.
“It slumbers within the oasis, trading dreams for souls. Those who lack the spirit to understand its call are immune. Those of fecund mind become host to its evil and spread its seed across the world. If you seek it out, you will surely awaken it. You might have already.”
With that Mother Grim Moon stood and led the group down the escarpment. She headed to her tent and suggested all get a good rest before the night. After a rest the party left with Mother Grim Moon and two Ash Giants to head toward Neruzavin. Another day was spent resting, after which Paullus awoke and was informed of the parties circumstance. The night was again spent traveling and as the sun rose the whole group stood before a very alien city, Neruzavin.
DM's Notes: The party earned 14,934 XP for the session.
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