Day 22 (S12-14)

Started with Gunther, Ended in Sanctum
Rina 17, 8

In the morning, they all woke up, including the Manticore.
"Hey there" said Rina, as she was the first one up, "I'm Rina, I'm a friend. You've been through a lot."
He opened his eyes to see an Elf for the first time, "Rina? You're... Rina Michaelis?"
"Yes... how did you know my last name?" she asked.
"You're Dari's mom!" he exclaimed as he sat up.
"You know Darien?"
"Hell yeah I know him, he's a good friend. He talks about you all the time - Rina the elf. He always talks about how awesome you are."
She smiled - this was the first shred of news she had gotten about her son. "I'm incredibly happy to hear that" she said, "What's your name?"
"I'm Gunther" he answered, "Darrian is the leader of another clan in Basta'Thrope' - the Cat Clan."
She smiled again, hearing he was a leader wasn't surprising, but it was news. "That's amazing" she said, "I'm incredibly proud of him."
The others then began to wake up.
"Oh, you're up!" said Alice, "We have some questions for you."
Kin looked Gunther over, then just exited the Tiny Hut without saying anything. The Tiny Hut then disappeared, and they all walked out of the abandoned house onto the snow-topped mountain.
"What do you all need to know?" Gunther asked.
"First we need to know the names of the rest of your party" Rina said, "We know of CheepCheep and Marie."
"Ah, Softfeather and Long Neck are the others." Gunther answered, "Do you know where they are?"
Rina and Alice looked at each other with sad eyes.
"I'm afraid... at least 2 of them are dead" Alice answered.
"...Dead? Who?" Gunther asked with a pained tone in his voice.
"We know for sure CheepCheep is dead" said Aurelius.
"No..." Gunther started, "Not CheepCheep. He was a good man. A good friend. And the others?"
"We don't know for sure" said Rina, "but one of the others had definitely passed away. I believe it was a bird person, about this tall" Rina put her hand up above her head roughly as tall as she remembered the first bodak to be.
"That... that must have been Softfeather" he said, "Longneck is much taller, and Marie is not a bird person."
"I'm so sorry, Gunther" said Alice.
Gunther cried a bit, but finally composed himself, "Is there anything else you need to know? Anything I need to know?"
"We need to know who sent you on this quest. Were there any notable things on the quest papers or anything?"
"There was a symbol on the bottom of the page" Gunther said, he then drew the symbol in the snow - it was a 9 Pointed Star.
"That's the star of Luminus" said Aurelius.
"Luminus must have posted that quest only in Basta'Thrope' to get Therianthropes to do it, specifically" Alice put together.
"Yeah..." started Aurelius, "People they saw as disposable..."
"What do you mean disposable?" Rina snapped.
"I mean that people working for Luminus... people like my dad... they would rather see the animal people gone" Aurelius answered.
"Something you need to share with the class, Aurelius?" Alice asked.
"My blending vision was about my dad" Aurelius said, "He... he killed a whole village of Therianthropes."
"Do you think it's Luminus who was Scrying on us in Castle Frey?" asked Kin.
"Honestly... probably" Aurelius answered, "which means they're probably on their way here."
"Anything else you wanna tell us, Luminus boy?" Alice snapped at Aurelius, "You seem to know a lot and don't really share much."
"He was a member of the army of Luminus before he met me" said Rina suspiciously.
"You see the pond?" said Aurelius, "You see how it's perfectly round and still liquid, even though it's on the top of a snow covered mountain?"
The girls looked it over, Rina dipped her finger in the water and tasted it, "It tastes like Withersalt!" she said.
"So, one of the Cardinals of Luminus approved and blessed the use of a Withersalt bomb here around 100 years ago."
"That's around the same time Drake told us that the village disappeared from here." said Rina.
"We should investigate the pond" said Alice, "The medallion is in the center of the mountain, right?"
"Yes," answered Gunther, "We were also given a key to get in down there. We didn't know if was Luminus, but we did have to meet a guy to get the key."
"Do you have it now?" Kin asked.
"No, it was left down there. I have no idea where it is now" Gunther answered.
Alice then turned herself into a salmon and swam down to the bottom of the pond. She found a grate that could be moved, and a normal-sized person could easily fit through if it was opened.
She continued down through the slits in the grate to find a flooded room with 2 doors - one was a stone door that was closed, the other was a wooden door that was partially rotted and off its hinges.
She swam through the wooden door's holes and got to a room with rows of closets. In the closets hung some cloaks, all looked the same. Attached to the top of each cloak's hanger was a long strip of cloth. She grabbed one of the cloth strips and swam back up to the surface with it.
"Look what I found down there" she said to the others.
"It looks like this cloth is cut out to cover eyes" Rina noted, "It looks like a blindfold. You said there were a lot of these?"
"Yes, there were also a lot of matching cloaks" Alice answered.
"Seems like cult shit to me" said Rina.
"That's exactly what I thought" Alice parroted.

"How do we get down there?" Kin asked.
"We could mostly become animals to get down there" Alice said. "I can be a salmon again, and we can do two polymorphs. That leaves one of us swimming down there."
"I am not good with water" said Rina, "I will need to be polymorphed by Alice. Which means I need to use my polymorph first on either Kin or Aurelius."
"I'll be fine" Aurelius said, "My armor will sink me faster, anyway, so I won't have to hold my breath for long."
"But your breathing is bad after dying" said Kin.
"I want to do this" Aurelius said.

"Before we go down, I'm should use one of the charges on the Sending Stone to the Salt Slayers before we go" said Rina, "They should know what's going on with their friends."
Rina used sending to the Salt Slayers: "Found Gunther at Mount Ivatim. Others of the Fearsome Five are likely dead. Planning to head to Castle Frey, Then Vorovni. Hope to see you."
She got a response from Alejandro, "Noted. We are on our way."
"Gunther," Rina started, "I let the Salt Slayers know where we are. They plan to head toward Castle Frey. You should stay in one of these abandoned houses to keep cover. Is there anything else we need to know before we go down there?"
Gunther paused a moment, then spoke quietly, "That thing down there... it will take everything you have. Be prepared."

In the meantime, Kin and Aurelius swam down to the grate to clear off some debris from the opening.
"We were able to get everything off the grate and get it open" said Kin, "We should all be able to fit down there now."
"You good Aurelius?" Alice asked, "You think you will be good holding your breath longer than you just did?"
"I'll be fine, guys" Aurelius answered - the entire party looking at him with a worried look.
"We should get going," said Kin, "we only have so much time with this Hero's feast."
With that, Rina then Polymorphed Kin into an octopus, and Alice Polymorphed her into a seal.
Alice turned herself back into a salmon, and Aurelius jumped in.
Rina made sure Aurelius made it down there easily, Kin removed the grate from the hole in the bottom of the perfectly spherical pond.
Alice went in first and pointed the rest of the party to the stone door. Aruelius was able to get to his feet - his armor holding him down in a way he could stand normally at the door. He then twisted the knob and the door opened, sucking them all in.
Once they all crossed the threshold, the door behind them slammed shut. The room they were now in was dry, the only water in this room was the water that came with them. Alice dropped out of wildshape, and dispelled the polymorphs on Rina and Kin.
Aurelius was on his hands and knees coughing from being under water for too long.
"You sure you're ok, kid?" Rina asked him.
He remained on the floor, gasping, "I'll... be fine..." He eventually got up and they all began to look around.

The room they were in was a large rectangular entry way. The floors and walls were granite, the edges of the room were lined with opal with gold trim.
On the left there were two doors - one made of wood, and one made of stone. The entire space seemed to be untouched by time, not even dust covered the floor.
The opposite end of the room had a third door, it was also stone but had an imprint in the stone that looked like a round gem had been embedded there thousands of years ago.
Aurelius approached the third door, "What do you suppose this gem-looking hole does?"
Kin also looked it over, "It seems to affect the latch that keeps this door closed, maybe there is a gem that's a key or something?"

Rina looked around the long room. On the walls were 4 Murals.
The first was of an underwater library with a Blue Figure standing within, wearing odd clothing. The roof of the library was caved in, and water was pouring onto the blue-skinned man - his skin steaming as the water hit it.
The second mural was of 3 Dragons: Gold, Black, and Red - all within a desert. The Gold and Black Dragons were near the bottom of he mural, engaged in battle. The red dragon was above them, and all three had sand pouring from their eyes.
The third was of an erupting volcano, below the eruption were trees who were crying. On the edge of the volcano sat a burned woman in the fetal position with burns all over her skin, and her hair seemed to have been burned off.
The final mural had three parts. One was of a Drowning Woman in a river of glass with soldiers all around her. Another was of a Giant eye in a cave with glowing swords all around it. The last was a horned person - genderless with three legs and one missing horn that looked like it had been cut off. They were running away from the viewer into the sunset, and had blood running down their face.

"I wonder what these murals are" said Rina, "Doesn't the Blue guy remind you of what the Dhampir said about Therius? Do you suppose these all depict the gods?"
"There's 8 of them, who do you think they are? I don't know of many gods" said Alice.
"None of them remind of me Luminus" Aurelius mentioned.
"Didn't Sullivan Frey mention that his Golden Dragon hide came from the son of the Last Dragon?" Rina asked, "So this gold dragon could be that one. Maybe that dragon is considered a god."
Alice was looking over the other two doors, and Rina went to join her.
"Before we open either of them, I want to detect magic to see if there's anything magical in either of these rooms" Alice said to Rina. Rina nodded to her, so Alice begins detecting magic.
Within the room with the wooden room and felt a strong magical presence inside, and the stone door had a much smaller magical presence.
"I wanna go into the wood door first" she said as she pulled on its handle.
Immediately a trap was sprung, allowing a large spike to fall from the ceiling and hit both Alice and Rina on their way in.
"Ow!" yelled Rina, "You couldn't have checked for that before opening it?"
"Sorry!" Alice said as she got up from the floor, "It's not like I can see through walls! Detect Magic doesn't work like that!"
The two of them walked into the room to find a wooden, round table with 12 chairs, it looked to be a conference room or something of the like. Upon the table sat a crown made of vines and leaves.
Rina picked it up, "These leaves look like they were just picked" she said, "even though this has apparently been in here for hundreds of years."
She handed it to Alice to looked it over, "It has something written on the inside," she noted, "but I can't read it. Can you?"
"I have Comprehend Languages" said Rina, "It will take me a minute to read it but I will try."
After a minute, Rina read the inscription out loud, "To my love, bring this to the far east. Then, you will have my answer."
"The far east?" asked Alice, "Could that mean Cofamoso?"
"I'm not sure" Rina answered, "That is the country on the east coast, though. So maybe."
Rina then handed it to Alice, who put it in her pack for the time being.
Rina and Alice looked around the small room a bit more, then Rina spotted a writing etched into the table.
“Paulod was here, and one day will be again.”
"This looks like it's written in old Celestial" she said, "Same with the writing on that crown."
"Look over here!" Alice exclaimed as she saw writing on the far wall.
“Join the resistance," Rina starts reading, "Join the holy war. Gods walk among us. Set Free the shackles of domains.”
"The gods walk among us, huh?" said Alice, "I mean, I guess we knew that because of Therius, but I never would have thought that before we knew about him."
"It also seems this cult thought they were fighting a holy war. Is it a war against gods and devils? Maybe gods and mortals?"
Alice shrugged in response.
"I wonder if the Shepherd is a god of some kind" Rina said, "I wonder if its intelligent or just a creature."
Alice shrugged once again.

"Let's check out the other room," Alice said, "there's something else in there we should look at."
"Don't go in by yourselves again!" said Kin, "Last time you got yourselves hurt. Let's be careful this time."
Kin approached the door carefully with the girls, Rina standing back a bit this time. He opened it slowly - which did trip a trap, but their caution prevented them from being hurt by it.
This room had books from floor to ceiling, it looked like a small library.
"This room seems like it wasn't lucky enough to stay dry like the others" Kin said, "All the books look wet, and there's water all over the floor."
They took a few steps down the stairs into the main part of the room, Alice getting completely soaked.
"There's like a whole foot of water in here!" she exclaimed, "It's up above my waist! I hate having wet underwear!"
"Is that a common feeling for you, Alice?" Rina teased.
"Only when I'm in a water-filled room!" Alice retorted.
Rina looked over the books to try and find anything legible, but found that most of the pages in the books had been purposely shredded. "Looks like someone didn't want anyone to be able to read anything in here" She said, "I'm going back to the main room to sketch those murals. You guys are welcome to dig through here to find whatever magical thing you saw."
"Before you go" Kin said to Rina, "Can I see that Niktalia Eternal book for a minute?"
Rina handed it to him, then headed to the next room.
"What are you looking for in there?" Alice asked him.
"I wonder if Therius actually wrote anything in here, personally" he answered, "Since I have a connection to the goddess Oara, maybe I can find a way to speak to Therius."
Sure enough, Kin found a small bit of writing in the margins from Therius. It was in a language he did not understand, but Therius had signed it himself.
Using his connection to the gods as a Cleric, he mentally reached out the Therius. "I'm a cleric of Oara searching for answers on a Shepherd of Niktalia. It is near, here on this plane. What should be done?"
After a moment, Kin got a response: "A Shepherd... it is a creature... that belongs to... death. Send it... home."
"Send it home?" Alice asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I suppose it means we should kill it" Kin said, "When the gods use the word 'creature' they are not usually talking about an intelligent being."

Alice and Kin looked around, Alice nearly had to swim to get anywhere in the room.
Just then, Kin glanced up and saw something odd on the far wall. "Looks like that used to be a painting" he said, "but it's been ripped off the frame intentionally."
Alice looked at it as well, "Yeah, all I can see is what looks like a wing up at the top left."
Kin looked at the painting a bit longer before asking Alice, "You said there was a small magic presence in here, right?"
"Yeah, nothing like the magic of the crown in the other room, though."
Kin stared at the painting a bit longer, "I wonder..." he said as he gently pulled the frame of the painting off the wall.
There, behind the painting, was a hole in the stone wall with a large red gem inside of it. "Bingo" he said, "This looks like it will fit perfectly in the third door."
He reached in to grab it, but Alice grabbed his arm, "Wait... everything else has been trapped, let's not risk it."
The two of them backed out of the room, and Alice got out her Thorn whip.
"I'll handle this" Alice said as she used her whip to grab the gem and pull it out.
Sure enough, just after the gem was safely in their hands, the entire room collapsed - along with the conference room to its left.
"Hope you didn't want to try and read anything in there" Alice said to Rina.
Rina laughed, "I guess I didn't!"

"What else do you know about this place, Aurelius?" Rina asked, "You said you grew up in the Church of Luminus, right?"
"Yeah," Aurelius began, "I remember being told that one of the Cardinals of Luminus blessed the use of a Withersalt bomb at the top of the mountain. They used to say 'a dark figure cam from there, and a holy one followed,' but I don't know the details beyond that."
"A Dark Figure, then a Holy figure?" Kin said. "One of those things is sure to be the Shepherd, but Therius indicated that it was neither good or evil - just a creature trying to do its task."
"Luminus may not have differentiated the two," Aurelius said, "The church often just labels things as 'evil' without doing any further research."

"We going to put this gem in the hole or what?" said Alice as she handed the gem to Aurelius.
He gently placed the gem into the tall door, and it opened - raising from the floor.
The smell of salt rushed from the hallway beyond the door, and a cold air leached into the room they were in.
"I'm surprised this one wasn't trapped, too" Alice said.
"Before you speak too soon," Aurelius said as he looked things over. He then found a small plate on the floor, and gently pushed the edge with his finger. Spiked came up from the floor where the pressure plate was. "See? There's probably more" he said, "I will keep an eye out for these on the way."
As the party began to walk down, Kin could sense something behind them. Suddenly, a small swarm of shadows - the souls of the people overtaken by a Bodak, approached the gem door. "We need to close it!" Kin yelled.
Alice got out her Thorn whip again and was able to grab the gem out of the door, and it slammed shut before any of the shadows could make it through.
"At least solid objects stop them" said Alice, "I was afraid they'd just go through walls."
"They must have followed us down here" Kin said, "That also probably means that it's getting dark outside."

Rina found an old torch on the wall that still seemed dry enough to light. With the blue flame of her Prestidigitation, she lit it.
The hallway lit up with millions of reflecting patterns in the wall.
"Wait!" Alice said excitedly, "These little reflecting pieces look just like this thing!" She pulled out her Mirror Stone from her pocket, "I found this years ago when I was in the woods near my home" she said, "but, that was so far from here."
"The withersalt bomb probably sent shards of this place all over the continent" Aurelius said.
"It's like this place has been calling to me this whole time" Alice responded, "I even saw this shard in my blending vision."
She then looked at the wall at another of the reflective shards, and saw her friends. Rina, Kin, and Aurelius were all standing exactly as they were in her Blending vision within the reflection of one of these shards.
"The vision came true..." she said quietly.
This horrified Rina, but she didn't say anything back.

The hallway then turned into stairs, spiraling downward. The walls continually got more and more bright as different shades of opal and other reflective gems began to encrust the walls.
The shadows that had been at the door had begun to squeeze through the small crack at the bottom, "Look out!" Kin yelled as he took a stance to fight them.
They did not stop to fight, however. In fact, they flew by the party as if they weren't even there, and continued down the staircase in a hurry. One by one, they trickled in, and they all seemed to be fixated on getting to the bottom.

As they reached the bottom they entered another small room. There were stone benches along the edges, as if it was a waiting room. They could see what used to be a door to yet another room, but it had collapsed in and there was nothing but rubble.
"We should look for another way into that other room" Aurelius mentioned as he began to scope out the space.
"I found a small hole over here that the shadows are going into!" said Kin, "I can't see the bottom, though. We could slowly lower someone down there to check it out."
"I'll do it!" said Alice, "I'm the smallest so it'll be easier to lower me down - and pull me up faster if something scary is down there."
They slowly lowered Alice down into the hole, "The shadows are staying along the ceiling down here" she said just as she got to the bottom. "It's ok to come down!" she sad, "It's just all wet down here, there's even more salt water. But the jump isn't too far for you guys I don't think. Nothing seems to dangerous right now."
The rest of them jumped down into the empty space below the waiting room that was covered in about 2 inches of salt water. The area opened up into a simple cave, but above them looked like a wooden ceiling where the shadows flowed upward through the cracks between the boards.
"I bet up there is the room that door lead to" Rina said nervously, "Let's follow the shadows. They seem to know where to go."
They found some rubble that was easy to climb up onto the wood. The wood was not a ceiling, but the floor of another hallway. They entered just on the other side of where the original door would have been.
"Rina, hand me that torch," Alice said since she was leading the way through the small holes in the wood.
Rina handed her the torch as she climbed higher up. Alice took it and looked around.
"Oh gods, oh no!" Alice said in shock.
"What is it Alice?" Rina asked as she got onto the wood floor. "Holy Hell..." Rina said as she got to the top.
"What's wrong you two?" Asked Aurelius. As he, too, entered the hallway, he gasped. Then Kin followed, as well, and the sight was something he was barely able to process.
Along the walls of the wooden hallway, the cave opened up to a wider room than they expected. The floor was mostly the stone of the mountain on either side of the wooden walkway.
Along the walls, in nearly a perfect line on each side, the bodies of people long dead laid on the ground. Pickled by years of salt water, and each holding a simple cup in their hands.
"This... this is awful" said Rina, "All these people - it looks like they committed suicide here."
"We did say it seemed like some cut shit was happening here" Alice replied, "They're all wearing the same robes with blindfolds like the ones I saw in the first room, too."
"Could this be the Eyeless Cult that Pontain was complaining about?" Rina mentioned.
"Seems about right" Aurelius answered.
They continued walking down the wooden walkway, some boards breaking underneath them as they passed hundreds of bodies along the way. Kin felt very uneasy the entire time, and mostly stayed silent as the others spoke about the bodies and why all of these people chose to die here.

The room then opened up to a large sanctum: a huge, round room with opal and mirror stones all along the walls.
There were wooden spiral staircases on either side of the center, leading up to a wooden platform with a pulpit at the far end of the room. Though the room was in the center of the mountain, it was not dark.
"The torches in here are all already lit," said Rina, "the Fearsome 5 must have lit them when they got to this room."

"You guys..." Kin said, stopping in his tracks, "Are you not seeing that thing on the alter?"
The moved their attention to the stone alter in the center of the room. The wooden floor stopped, then the stone sloped up many feet upward to the alter itself.
There upon it was the monster they were after - a Shepherd of Niktalia.
It was large, possibly 15-20ft tall. It's skin was so black that it appeared to be a void in the room, and it looked like obsidian that was cracked and breaking. Its thin arms turned into shepherd’s hook weapon frozen in time, mid swing. Its body shape was similar to a horse, and it had a head like a human's with spiraling horns protruding from its head. Hanging on one of the horns was a small Cylinder of Liquid that they could barely see.

They approached the Shepherd slowly, "I can see marks on the ground here, they're recent" said Rina, "these look like a magic circle spell of some kind. Something the Fearsome 5 must have done, also."
"Look!" yelled Alice, "There's something stuck in its leg!"
Upon closer inspection, this was the End Medallion that the Fearsome 5 were sent to get.
"The shadows seem drawn to it" said Kin, "Look at what's happening to them."
As the shadows reached the Medallion, they looked to be pulling on it. Each one only able to pull for a moment or two before being destroyed and sucked into the medallion.
"It looks like the souls are trying to help it" said Rina, "you think we should try to pull it out?"
"If we do, we better be prepared to fight that thing" said Aurelius.
"I'll get ready up top with arrows in case magic doesn't work" Rina said.
"I'm going to stay as far back as possible and I will approach any of you who need healing as needed" said Kin.
"I'll try to pull it out" said Alice.
"I'll be here to help if you need it" said Aurelius.

As Alice approached the medallion, she could feel the bitter cold of death near it. It was gold with a red center - the red turning to an unnatural black whenever one of the souls was pulled into it.
She then grabbed on with both hands and tried to pull.
"Ugh, it's too stuck!" she said, "I can't move it!"
"Let me try" said Aurelius.
Alice tried to let go, "Oh, oh no!" she exclaimed, "My hands are stuck to it! It won't let go of me! I can feel it trying to drain me of energy!"
Aurelius then grabbed Alice around the waist and began to pull her.
The medallion broke free, and they both fell backward down the slope of the alter - just enough to not get hit by the swing of the Shepherd's hook that came barreling toward them the moment the medallion left the skin of the creature.
The fight was about to begin.

The Shepherd seemed confused for a moment, then set its sites on Alice - the one holding the medallion that held it in place for so long.
Alice quickly put the medallion in her pocket, and Aurelius swung at it with his sword and hit it. It then turned its sights to him.
Kin stayed farther away, and Alice came toward him to get healing from the Medallion's drain.
Rina threw two eldritch blasts at it, and it then turned to her to attack. Aurelius ran toward the stairs nearest Rina, realizing that Rina was in more danger than the rest of them now by being isolated.
Rina could see the same, and ran toward the stairs as well. A wooden board broke beneath her, and her foot got stuck in the floor.
The Shepherd got to her and swung its hook at her, hitting her hard. She used a Hellish Rebuke reaction to hurt it with her Frost-Flame, and she did a lot of damage. It now saw her as the main threat of the four of them.
Alice used her Thorn Whip to try and distract it and get a hit in, it looks back at her, but continues to focus on Rina.
"Rina, I can heal you if you get closer!" Kin yelled.
Rina nodded and used most of her time to get unstuck from the floor, and get to the stairs where Aurelius was climbing up.
The Shepherd followed Rina, but Aurelius stood in front of her just in time to turn into his Giant self to fight the creature.
Rina continued to move down the stairs while Aurelius fought it - his sword now almost as long as the Shepherd's hook. He swung at it with multiple attacks, and hurt it quite a bit.
The Shepherd now saw Aurelius as the biggest threat, and focused on him - using its hook to hit him with a hard blow, and knocking him out of his giant form.
Kin healed Rina once they got close enough to each other, and Rina headed up the opposite staircase once again.
Alice continued to thorn whip the creature, and it finally slowed down.
It paused a moment, in the center of the alter - seeming to be tired. Just then, however, the cracked obsidian skin began to fall off - like a lizard shedding its skin. Beneath was a smooth, void-black body that could move even faster than it could before.

S14

Rina hit it with an arrow, but it was now focused on Alice who was the one to cause its sloughing. Aurelius hit it two more times with his sword, and Kin worked on healing Alice after she was hit with the giant hook - which now looked more like a scythe.
Rina could see that the Shepherd had Alice and Kin cornered, so she used Cloud of daggers directly where the Shepherd stood. The daggers sliced into its smooth skin, sounding like swords hitting stone.
The Shepherd then turned its sights on Rina once again, and teleported behind her.
She turned to meet it, and dodged one of its attacks.
The others moved as quickly as possible to get to her, but did not have the speed of the Shepherd's teleporting abilities.
It was Rina and the Shepherd, one on one now.
With little else she could do, she aimed her eldritch blasts at the creature sending two giant icicles directly at its head.
The first missed, but the second hit it directly between the eyes, sending it to the floor and killing it.

The creature began to sink into the floor as if it were water, the look in its eyes was of relief and gratitude.
Just before it disappeared completely, Rina grabbed the Cylinder of Liquid from its horn. The Shepherd of Niktalia Eternal had been sent back to death, just as Therius said it should.
As the final shred of the Shepherd's body disappeared, something else was left in its place - a woman. She was dressed in iron armor with gold trim, she seemed unconscious. Rina ran up to her and picked her head up gently to remove her helmet, "Are you ok? Who are you?" she asked.
The woman didn't answer, only weakly whispered, "Oh... I'm back" just before passing out.
"Her armor looks like it matches a lot of symbols in this place" said Kin, "The sun on her breastplate matches the sun on all of the capes and blindfolds of the people back there. She must be a member of the Eyeless Cult."
"The armor doesn't look all that nice, though" said Aurelius, "it looks almost cheaply made. It also looks like its in a different style from some of the symbols here, like this is an older version of the symbol."
"Either way," Kin started, "we need to look around to try to find a way out of this place. We can't open the door at the top of the stairs from the inside I don't think. The Hero's feast's effects are done now, and I want to get her and Gunther to safety."
They all agreed and began looking around the room for a way out.
Rina and Aurelius passed a statue that was standing within the wall on the top level. It looked like there were spaces for other statues along the rest of the wall, too, but there was only one statue in tact. It looked much like the Blue Figure on the 4 Murals in the other room.
"Doesn't this statue remind you of Therius?" Rina said to Aurelius.
"It kind of does" he said as le looked around. "I wonder if the statues in the other holes were also of the other gods."
Rina looked it over and noticed something in the hand of the statue, it looked gold and round.
"Help me get this thing out of his hand" she said to Aurelius.
They both fiddled with it gently, but could not get it out without force.
"I'll handle this" Aurelius said as he smashed the hand with the hilt of his sword.
"Aurelius!" Rina reprimanded, "This is an ancient artifact! What are you doing?!"
"You said you wanted the thing, so now you have it" he said as he walked away.
Rina looked at the small circular item, it had a small clasp on the side. She opened the clasp and the top opened to reveal a compass on the inside. "Huh," she said to herself, "This doesn't seem to point north." She paced back and forth with it to see which direction it pointed, it seemed to be pointing nearly straight west.
"Aurelius, I think you should take this" she said, "You're the ranger among us. You'd know best how to use a weird compass like this."
So he took it from her and put it away for the time being.

Alice and Kin decided to spend this time looking for a way out. Behind the pulpit there was a small air shaft, just big enough for a person to fit through if they tried hard enough.
"Hey guys!" Alice yelled for Aurelius and Rina, "We can fit through here I think!"
They looked it over and Kin remembered the Shepherd Woman they also needed to haul out of the room, "There's no way we are getting her through there in that armor" he said.
"Then we will take her armor off" said Rina.
They all looked at her strangely, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" she said, "I'm not suggesting we completely strip her - just the armor."
"Then you do it" said Alice, "I don't want any part of that."
Rina rolled her eyes and walked down to where the woman was laying. Rina gently took off the simple armor to find clothes underneath that were very much like that the dead people in the hallway were wearing.
"Ok," Rina said, "She's ready to haul of the shaft."
Rina looked over the armor briefly and saw a word written in Celestial on the inside. Using Comprehend Languages she read it, "Gabrielle."
"Her name must be Gabrielle" she said to them, "It's etched inside the armor."
Aurelius then put one of his pouches with the Sprite's Lights logo on it in her pocket.
"Why are you doing that?" Alice asked.
"I want to make sure she knows who rescued her when she wakes up" he said, "who knows how long she will be out."
"What do we do with the armor?" Kin.
"Hey!" announced Alice, "I wonder if it will fit in my bag of Colding."
Sure enough, even the breastplate of the armor was able to fit.
Alice yawned, "What time do you suppose it is right now?"
"The Hero’s Feast boost ended a little while ago" said Kin, "I'm betting it's about midnight now."

Next: Day 23 (S14)