==== Summary 225: Mostali Secrets (2019-09-22) ====
[[Giraine]] [[summaries-2019|Summaries]]
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Hey,

You started dragging the paralyzed Bog back to the Spider Temple except that he recovered en route, and explained what had happened. He still was gravely wounded so you (Miguel) continued dragging, and rested there for 1 week. The spiders have been remarkably tolerant of your to-ings, fro-ings and hanging out. They mostly left you be.

(Note: everyone by now gets a chance to learn Language: Swampsider at their INT%--- if they make an Insight roll; and Miguel has now had time to be fully trained in Militia combat style by Fraud)

You then returned to the spiderkins' ruins. There was a small western walled alcove with two pits surrounded by bones and splotches of old blood. Boamund came close to investigate, with Fraud and Bog close behind while Miguel covered with his bow. Immediately a horrible giant spider-thing that was mostly dozens of clawed legs and a nasty set of central fangs in its disc-like body (superficially reminscient of a krarshtkid) leapt out onto Boamund and flattened him, then proceeded to Flurry away with frenzied claws and bites, envenoming and wounding him. He fought back with Fraud's aid, but a second one leapt by Bog and the fight looked bad, as these things had 6 actions/round(!). But, hard to kill as they were, they were mostly offense and not very skilled at that, even though one managed to cripple Bog's mace-arm and leave him to fight with his shield. Miguel soon joined into the melee and soon the battle turned, as Boamund's was killed (but remained atop him until he threw it off)- although then two more giant spiders jumped out of the pits!

Fraud saw the deadly threat to you all and called upon his Obsidian Velocirator to save you, and it did. With slashing kicks it helped Bog and Miguel slay one spider, then aided Boamund and Fraud against the other, while finally you finished the fourth off. Bog, however, was dreadfully wounded again, although like Boamund he'd fought off their poison. You did some rounds of first-aiding and managed to get mobile again. There was only one unexplored area left, so you went there.

A walled passage near the central lair building led to a long rectangular building with a doorway from which major cracks spread, as if a blast or something had happened long ago. There was no door but magical electrical energy hissed in the mist; dangerous sorcery afoot. Fraud sent his velociraptor inside because Bog's detect enemy spell pointed therein, and told it to kill everything and come out. After some delay, it returned but didn't show any signs of what had happened. The doorway did damage it a bit with its energy so Bog had been whacking away at a northwestern wall with his maul. With the velociraptor's help he soon cracked it open wide enough for you to enter, finding a first chamber that was clean and bare, with a bronze door that had been partly ripped off its hinges (by the velociraptor), leading into a second chamber that was identical (including another damaged door) except for a central silvery thing that was somewhat humanoid, gracefully curved and aesthetically designed, and gave off a faint breeze with an unfamiliar spicy aroma. You hurried past it into the third, final, larger chamber which was decorated in many Stasis and Magic runes (like the doors were), and had blueish-silver energy coursing like a web across all surfaces, seeming to centre on a small, ornate silver structure sitting on a stone bench across the room.

Bog charged and a panel popped open in the room's floor, releasing the enemy he'd sensed: a silvery skeletal form of a Mostali, wielding an old battle-wrench. It emitted a beam of silver magic from its forehead at the velociraptor but that didn't hurt. You all rushed to engage it, except Miguel who shot firearrows to good effect. It fought well though, first grabbing the velociraptor's right arm in its wrench, but it was disarmed momentarily, having to fight with a fist, until it grabbed the wrench again and twisted mightily. It was construct against construct: both took damage that would maim a human but kept fighting. With your collective force, including the effectiveness of Boamund's sword's cold-magic, you finally felled it, freezing its chest and then bashing it apart. Fraud had charged the silver structure and destroyed it with a couple of sword-swipes, and so the room's network of magic began to fade.  (side note: the doorway's magic did end, by the time you left the spiderkin ruins) Bog had figured by now that this place had Mostali magic, but was not a Mostali place- it was a Godlearner building (much like the others) and so those hoomanz had been stealing from and/or working with the Mostali, using their secrets. There were old ruined papers and stuff around but nothing left intact enough to be useful.

(hmmm, thinking back to long ago: the Mostali ship had brought the Monster-Spiders to Giraine in the Second Age as you saw on your Buquaim quest-was there a tie-in? Probably)

You explored, with Boamund finding a silver cylinder containing some nice coloured pebbles that felt prickly with magic when he touched them. He quietly put this away. In the second chamber with the silver structure, Miguel managed to find a hidden panel with switches (Mechanism skill, hurrah!) and turned the thing on-it started gesturing, leaving arcane sigils traced in the air with magic, and Bog didn't like that. Bog hit it, and so did the velociraptor, and it wheezed and emitted more air but fouler in odour. You left the velociraptor to finish it off, figuring that something bad might happen, especially as the machine started vanishing regularly, then reappearing only to gesticulate more intensely, then vanish again, all the while as the velociraptor slashed and bit it. And that was the last you saw of your obsidian pet; its time had passed. You waited around outside to ensure nothing more happened and then returned to the spider-temple.

There, Bog healed for 2 more weeks (Fire Season is nearly gone, and the swamp is sweltering), and the spiders seemed satisfied by your efforts at the ruin but didn't show a strong reaction. Evidently they had other things on their alien communal mind.

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