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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 2319209" data-attributes="member: 11697">Man, I need to update more, can't let this slip down to page three <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />    It took them over two hours to make their way from the ruins of the keep and its petitioner king over to the edge of the frozen silver forest where it rose into hills and up towards the supposed lair of the great golden serpent. As they wrapped their cloaks tighter against the bitter chill, the gargoyles flew overhead, watching them out of curiosity rather than any malice.    “I’m not looking forward to this. Another group in here with us changes everything.” Velkyn said as he shivered in his cloak.    “I am.” Inva said as she tapped the edge of her sword against the sheen of ice on an adjacent tree and then skewering a fallen, tarnished husk of one of its silvery apples.     “Well, it might not come to that, and it might even help actually. Maybe they have the key from beyond the other door that we haven’t been through yet.” Victor mused.    “Or it might end up that we’re being pitted against one another for the amusement of someone.” Ankita muttered. The cold didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest and at times she was forgetting to pretend to shiver.    “I find that much more likely given what we’ve seen so far.” Marcus said as they continued walking.    Gradually the forest thinned, the path rose, and they stood before the approach to the mouth of the mines and the lair of the twin wyrms. The gargoyles no longer flew overhead. They were wary of the presence of the serpents that they had spoken of.    “Damn there’s been a fight here…” Victor said as they walked up into the carnage.    Around them, the evidence of a recent battle was obvious. The remnants of a fierce display of magic were visible; charred patches of terrain, melted silver that had cooled into misshapen puddles on the grown, the scent of cinders and ozone and the bitter smell of acid. And then there were the two corpses at the heart of it. Both of them lay in the open space that stood before the yawning entrance of the abandoned mine.    The so-called wyrm was massive; though rather than a giant snake or a true dragon, it had the head of a human woman. The ‘wyrm’ was a naga. The corpse was scaled from head to tail in a glittering patina of emerald and gold, though blue-black blood discolored it where it pooled according to the whim of gravity and where it gave way into the viscera in bloody gashes and angry bruises from physical blows. But though its hide was marked by the gashes of blades and spears and magic, it seemed to have been killed by whatever retributive spell seemed to have erupted before or upon the death of the second corpse that lay near it in a veritable smoking crater, seemingly a wizard.    That other corpse was little more than a charred husk, possibly from some final attack of the naga or perhaps from its own dying contingencies. The man, if it had been male, was dressed in the remains of a black robe, sullied with soot and bits of ice. Portions of the corpse were gone entirely as if they had been melted away by acid, but from what they saw, he had not been human. Bits of fur remained on the body and the blackened, fire seared skull was elongated and vaguely canine.    “A gnoll perhaps?” Victor said, looking for some sort of holy symbol and failing to find one. “They’ve got a known practice of being led by their shamans, so this might have been one of them.”    Inva stepped around it, tapping the burnt remains of its robes with the tip of her sword.    She frowned. “Whatever it was there’s not a bent copper left on the body. Either is wasn’t carrying anything or their companions stripped them clean after they died.”    “The wyrm though, it’s a guardian naga.” Velkyn said as he looked at the corpse.    “You say that like it’s strange. Why?” Marcus asked curiously.    “Well, they’re not evil as far as I know.” The wizard replied. “Lawful yes, but not necessarily good. And the petitioner king didn’t strike me as an evil type either. Probably a dispute over something that didn’t really amount to malice by either of them.”    “Kingdoms have been to war over less, believe me.” Marcus said with a sigh.    For a few more minutes they clustered around the body, giving it a more detailed examination and looking for track or other evidence on the ground that might tell them about the other group that was presumably already in the mines.    Ankita said nothing, but she knew how wrong they were. The body wasn’t damaged by anything the naga had done. Rather, the body was dissolving on its own, leaking back in pieces across the planes to its home, dissolving into a puddle of acid and manifest evil as it broke down into its metaphysical constituents. Far from being a gnoll or some other monstrous humanoid, the wizard had been an arcanaloth.    Though she said nothing, the metaphorical wheels in her head were spinning like those of a train gone off its track and hurtling down with the ragged flow of gravity over the edge of a cliff. Thoughts came unbidden to her, thoughts of family, the smiling jackal’s countenance of her father, the withering and snarling disdain of her grandfather; she saw all of that reflected back up to her in the eyes of the dead.    Looking past the corpse and into the yawning mouth of the cave, she worried what they would find past it, down into the darkness. How would those things react to her? And how would her current companions react to such?***    “Ankita, you ok?” Velkyn said, nudging the sorceress from her thoughts.    “Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” She said as she brushed it off and walked towards the cave entrance where the others were waiting.    The fighters went first with Marcus, Francesca, and Garibaldi heading into the darkness. Victor went next with a conjured globe of light fixed to the tip of his mace. Last were the two casters standing behind the more heavily armored members of the group, and finally Inva slunk behind them all, intentionally staying out of the fringes of their lights.    They descended down into the gloom of the mines, their light glinting off of the silver-veined rock walls. The passage was winding, highly irregular in its descent, and a coating of rock and silver dust coated the walls and the floor.    Ankita winced at the surroundings and began to hover slightly off of the ground, allowing gravity and a few nudges against the wall to propel her in line with the others. She was frightened just as much by the surroundings as she was by the possibility of full-blooded fiends waiting for them down below.    “There’s a light up ahead. Hold on.” Victor said as he held up a hand for the others to stop and cover their own light sources.    Though they worried about persons lurking in the mine, the source of light was anything but. Further down the passage the walls were covered with a sort of semi-organic, phosphorescent silvery moss that gave off a dim glow. It was fine, almost like metallic tinsel. They gawked at it for a moment before shrugging and continuing down, noticing the oddly shaped footprints that tracked through the moss. They didn’t look human. In fact, in places where the moss was trampled they saw the evidence of flecks of dried blood, and the air was despoiled with a growing stench of brimstone.    “Whoa! Stop!” Inva hissed suddenly from the rear of the group. “There’s something on the ground.”    The tiefling stepped out of the shadows like she stepped out of a thick layer of oil; it clung to her for a moment before letting go and giving her up to the light.    “Sh*t… you already stepped over it.” She said before she added a curse in an archaic tongue and slipped past Victor.Directly beneath Marcus was something that glowed with magic as she whispered a cantrip to make out its nature and patterns. Inva looked at a faint symbol there, a rune traced in the air and the silvery dust of the tunnel floor, holding the powdery metal like iron filings to the lines of force of a loadstone.    “What the hell is that?” Marcus asked as he looked down, finally seeing the outline of the symbol that lurked below his feet.    “It’s a variation on an explosive rune spell. It’s a poor-man’s symbol, but it doesn’t seem to be active for whatever reason. Normally you’d be missing your legs at this point. Bully you.” Inva tapped the blade on her tail against the stone and smirked. “I can’t really tell anything more about it though. It might be keyed to go off for something specific, but I can’t say for certain. Don’t directly touch it and everyone should be fine.”    Inva glanced up to Velkyn and the wizard nodded in agreement. While she had been talking he had whispered the same cantrip and reviewed the quiescent rune. He couldn’t tell anything more about it than her.    And they were fine as they gingerly stepped over the latent rune, all until Francesca crossed its border and it erupted in a discharge of heat and flames. Francesca had been the first of them to cross it who had been good.    “Sh*t!” The fighter said, as she winced against the burns across most of her lower body.    Velkyn was at her side and activating a wand to heal her wounds almost immediately.    “Knew this wand would come in handy.” He said as Francesca slowly recovered.    “Well, now they know that we’re coming. And if not that, then you berks in heavy armor who don’t know the meaning of the word quiet.” Inva smacked a hand against the wall and sighed.    Once they had recovered, bickered over fault, and made certain of no more traps waiting for them, they continued. Fifteen feet down and the passage opened up into a cavern, and ten feet into it the radius of their light was swallowed by darkness.    Velkyn blinked. The darkness wasn’t natural and his own heritage wasn’t piercing the gloom. The darkness was conjured by magic and something lurked behind it, waiting for them and watching.    “Guys, that darkness is magical. There’s something back there.” Velkyn said as he fingered a wand at his belt.    Ankita sighed and stepped forward to the dim strip of failing light, that no-man’s land between them and the fiends. She reached out with her mind, broadcasting to any who might listen. “Who are you?”    There was an insectile chatter in the conjured darkness and the rustle of wings high above them. Something reached out to answer the sorceress. The voice was septic, a smug snarl of something newly elevated to a position of power.    You’re an odd one… what’s wrong with you?    Absolutely nothing. She replied back to the mind of the other fiend. It felt like a greater ‘loth, but only barely. And if you ever wish to be more than you are now you’d know not to question your superiors in such a way. Am I clear on that?    The figure up in the darkness seemed surprised and momentarily cowed by her tone.    What are you doing here? The sorceress mentally demanded of the being up in the darkness, a Nycaloth she was certain. Show yourselves.    Back in the light, Ankita held up her hand to calm her companions as a trio of black-shelled mezzoloths, their eyes like smoldering coals, stepped out of the magical darkness and the dim figure of a bat-winged nycaloth, nearly seven feet tall, hung from the ceiling as it dispelled the darkness that had cloaked it as well. After a pause, and a glance behind itself, the nycaloth snarled softly up in the gloom as it looked down at the sorceress and her companions.    “We were summoned here under the immediate command of the Yagnaloth, Rezzivus.” The nycaloth said, addressing Ankita and ignoring the others entirely. “We are currently bound to this place till we can recover a series of items.”    “And where is the Yagnaloth?” She asked him skeptically.    “The room behind us.” He replied. “Rezzivus is bound to the chamber there and it is also warded against our kind. We cannot release him, nor gain the item we require. The arcanaloth who had been with us previously would have dispelled the wards, but the bloody b*tch naga outside the mine killed him.”    Victor and Velkyn both narrowed their eyes at the fiend, Inva was conveniently not visible as far as anyone could tell, and the fighters were nervously considering the odds of having to fight two mezzoloths in close combat. The fiends were unimaginative, dumb of rocks, the least manner of yugoloth there was, but they were brutally effective fighters as fodder for the Blood War. If they came to blows they would not be assured of victory.    “You however. You could break the warding I assume, yes?” The ‘loth said with a hungry look in its eyes.    “I don’t have the spell myself, but our wizard does.” Ankita stepped forward and glanced past the fiends and into the room beyond. There, sitting within a glittering circle of runes was a red skinned, massively muscled Yagnaloth, a petty baron as far as ‘loths went. “I think we can work out some manner of deal.”    The sorceress then paused suddenly and looked out across the room. Something wasn’t entirely right. There was one other mind out there in the darkness.    “How many of you are there?” She asked, narrowing her eyes.    The nycaloth raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You see us. Why do you ask?”“Don’t lie to me.” She said with a shake of her head. “There’s one more of you out there in. What was it I said before, do you remember that?”    What she had said to the fiend, about promotion, about how to address his superiors, that was something she hadn’t spoken out loud, and something she had no intention of getting into with her companions. They didn’t know what she was, and she wasn’t of the mind to tell them given the current situation.    Swathed in shadows, Inva was staring at the bound fiend in the chamber beyond them. The tiefling surreptitiously whispered a cantrip and took a close look at the yugoloth. It glowed with illusion magic and a fierce glow of abjuration. The ‘loths were indeed likely warded from entering the chamber, but there was no Yagnaloth therein.    Inva stepped out behind Ankita and whispered into her ear. “That Yagnaloth isn’t real. It’s an illusion.”    “The nycaloth.” Ankita said into the minds of the others. “He lied to us, probably wants us to walk in there and set off a trap, or whatever else is inside.”    “A Yagnaloth hmm?” Ankita said with a glare up at the nycaloth. “That’s twice now that you’d lied to me. What, you think I wouldn’t notice? Do you take me as stupid?”    “…my apologies. We could still come to some manner of bargain with regards to the wardings on that chamber however. Yes?”    Ankita frowned. “Let me discuss it with my fellows.    ”Now. If you’re going to make a move on them, do it now. We can’t trust them not to dick us over on this.” The sorceress’s mental voice echoed to her companions and they sprung into action.    Velkyn was first, gesturing with his fingers and whispering harshly in draconic. The spell leapt from his hands like an electric spark into the midst of the fiends. Nothing happened. Nothing at all happened as it was swallowed up by their innate resistance to magic.    “Damnit!” The half-drow shouted as he withdrew several more feet behind the fighters.    The fiends were next and two of them were suddenly surrounded by rapidly swelling clouds of sickly black vapor that caused the group of stumble and cough. But if the fiends had been hoping for it to incapacitate them, they had been far too hopeful as both Marcus and Francesca charged the closest of the three mezzoloths.    The fiend raised its trident to block the first blow from Francesca but it was stabbed twice by Marcus and given a shallow cut by a backhanded blow from his cohort. Still, much of the damage was healed immediately by the fiend’s supernatural flesh.    The third mezzoloth leaned backwards and hurled its trident at Victor. The black iron weapon whistled through the air and slammed into the cleric’s shoulder. He winced against the pain as he nocked an arrow and shot at the commanding nycaloth, putting off the wound in his shoulder. The arrow that impacted the fiend a moment later was ensorcelled with a magical sleep effect, but though it struck home, the fiend was either immune to it or its magical resistance had once again protected it from harm. Victor cursed.    “Lying son of a b*tch…” Ankita snarled as he pointed to the nycaloth and hurled a bolt of lightning at it with a sudden resounding clap of thunder. The greater yugoloth managed to evade a portion of the bolt and it seemed little more than singed as it glared back at the sorceress.    With a laugh at the sorceress’s ineffectual assault, the nycaloth launched off of the ceiling with a single flap of its wings to hurtle towards Victor. It caught him with one of its hind claws as the cleric tried to dodge and opened a foot long gash across his chest before flapping its wings again to carry it out of the range of attack.    Velkyn was chanting again, calling forth another spell from memory, and once again cursing the undead from earlier that had robbed him of his most potent spells. They would have been supremely useful in their current fight, but as it was he hurled a series of glowing missiles at the nearest mezzoloth, only to again watch them be swallowed up to no effect.    “F*ck this!” The wizard said as he backed up and hid himself as best he could in the darkness.    As Velkyn withdrew and Victor cursed against the pain that threatened to make him black out, Marcus and Francesca had both drawn pistols and taken aim at the mezzoloth in close combat with them. Their guns went off with sharp percussive snaps and the fiend’s chest was nearly ripped open clear to the other side by one of the shots. It staggered and collapsed in a twitching pool of blood, acid and chitin.    The other mezzoloth, seeing its fellow collapse, turned and charged the two fighters as they held empty pistols with no readily available weapon to block its attacks. The fiend jabbed its trident into Francesca’s chest in rapid succession. She screamed in pain as crimson blossomed across her clothing and she stumbled, woozy from the loss of blood.    Ankita was ready to hurl another spell when Velkyn harshly whispered to her out of the dark.    “You have telekinesis. The floor is covered in silver dust. Grab it and shove it down the damn nycaloth’s throat!”    She blinked and looked down at the floor as up above the nycaloth was preparing to swoop down again to rake its claws over another victim. The greater fiend had spread its wings and begun its descent when the dust twitched and stirred, began to eddy like a dustdevil, and then rose up in a funnel to meet and envelope the nycaloth in its burning embrace.    A scream rent the air as the fiend inhaled the cloud of silver and had the metal forced into its eyes, its pores, and the membrane of its wings; every fold and pocket of its flesh was coated in that cloud of agony. It broke off its dive and began to writhe and bat and claw at its own flesh, trying in vain to divest itself of the allergic agony that burned it like a hot brand, like cold iron to a pixie. Ankita laughed at him even as she concentrated on his death.    One of the two remaining mezzoloths brandished its trident and charged the sorceress. It caught her unaware as she continued surrounding the nycaloth with that burning cloud of silver dust. The trident sunk into her chest with a sickening crunch and the mezzoloth snarled in triumph for but a moment before the wounds sealed themselves without any lasting damage.    Stupid, stupid fool! You think you could attack me and accomplish something? Idiot!    Ankita snarled at the insectoid fiend as it realized to an extent just how f*cked it was for attacking what it believed to be a higher caste fiend and thinking it could have gotten away with it. The mezzoloth lowered its trident, clacked its mandibles together in worry and fell back whimpering submissively.    Velkyn put off his shock at the effect of the mezzoloth’s attack on the sorceress as he glared at the cowed fiend from where he stood in the shadows. “Switch sides. NOW.”    The mezzoloth whimpered and glanced at the half-drow wizard, then to the snarling sorceress and finally back to his nominal commander. The nycaloth had stopped screaming in pain and seemed to momentarily phase out of existence, but all was for naught as he lost concentration and his attempt to teleport away to safety failed miserably. The mezzoloth’s morale was breaking.    The other mezzoloth was still blindly following orders and it was preparing to hurl its trident at Velkyn when Garibaldi charged it. He landed a blow that staggered it, disrupted its intended actions, but did little actual harm to the fiend. Still, its guard was down, its position compromised, and moments later Inva’s blade was buried in its back as she emerged out of the shadows.    The fiend winced and stumbled forwards, taking another series of blows to its body as Marcus and a terribly injured Francesca moved up on it as well. They were doing little damage versus the yugoloth’s innate resistance to weapons, but they were slowly wearing it down. However, in the meantime it was savaging them with one or two rapid jabs from its own polearm.    Marcus was caught under the ribs by the fiend and hurled backwards before it swiveled and jabbed the blunt end of the weapon into Garibaldi’s face. Given a momentary respite as Victor backed off to heal his brother and Inva had once more vanished, the fiend glared angrily at its fellow mezzoloth who had simply stood there and not given it aid.    Ankita snarled at the nycaloth as she continued to hold the burning, searing cloud of silver dust around it like a white-hot cloak. It was dying, and there was little it could do to escape the cause of its agony.    “Whose side are you on anyway?” The sorceress said to the whimpering turncoat mezzoloth. “Make a decision now.”     The answer was blunt and succinct, and it was entirely ‘loth: “The side that’s winning.”    There was no time to respond though as the other mezzoloth snarled at its former companion and turned on it. It jabbed at the traitor fiercely, and in turn the traitorous ‘loth leapt at it and slashed at its neck where the chitin plates joined at an exposed angle. The still loyal mezzoloth was doomed though, even if it could defeat the other fiend it was being assaulted by the three fighters at once as they surrounded it. Even though the fighters were all injured, some brutally injured, they had numbers of their side.    But while that fight was drawing to a quick and bloody end, the Nycaloth’s thoughts had turned from escape and self-preservation to revenge. Ankita had only a moment to look up into the flaming figure’s snarling face as it launched out of the darkness and sunk its claws deep into her flesh, grappled her in its embrace.    “Get the f*ck off m…” She screamed into its mind a second before it grabbed her head, breathed in a cloud of silver swirling around it, pressed its lips to hers and forcefully exhaled into her lungs.    Ankita gasped for breath and belched flame out of her mouth in ragged bursts of searing bloody mist as she collapsed onto the ground next to the corpse of the nycaloth as it shuddered and expired. It was dead but it had shared its pain with her in a vicious perversion of a lover’s embrace.    Victor had healed himself and then quickly approached her to offer the same to her, but he was stopped by the mezzoloth as it raised its trident and glanced down at her. It snarled at the cleric and interposed itself as he tried to reach the sorceress.    The yugoloth looked down at her as she struggled to get to her feet on slashed and bleeding limbs, and regain her breath through crippled lungs. It spoke to her obediently, like a puppy seeking the approval of its master. “Mistress… one of your servants wishes to reach you. Shall I allow him?”    “Yes,” she said to it through ragged speech that left spatters of blood and tissue on the ground. “Assume unless I tell you otherwise that they are acting with my approval. They know what they need to do, and they know their place. Be aware of yours.”    The fiend bowed its head nervously and slunk after her like a dog that had been smacked on the top of its muzzle. It did not speak without being asked a question after that point as the cleric chanted a prayer to his deity and began the process of healing the sorceress’s horrific burns and slashes. Still, the fiend exuded a deep disrespect for the cleric, but as the elf was useful, and helping his new mistress, he was to be tolerated.    The others periodically stared at Ankita’s ‘pet mezzoloth’, but so long as it didn’t harm them, they didn’t press the issue. Questions were left lingering in their mind though, even if they didn’t ask them.    In the aftermath of the conflict Inva had walked up to the edge of the chamber the ‘loths had been trying to get them to enter. Past the doorway, the illusory Yagnaloth still strained against the nonexistent wardings that bound it.    “I’ll be right back.” The rogue said as she nodded at Ankita.    The tiefling ducked her head into the chamber and immediately back out.    “No Yagnaloth, but there definitely is something bound in there.” Inva said with a wary chuckle. “They’ve got a very angry looking bone naga coiled in front of the back wall, right in front of a small chest you can see in there.”    “Ankita?” Velkyn asked the sorceress. “Can you snag that chest in there without actually walking in? If we can avoid having to actually fight that thing…”    She nodded. “I’ll try, but it depends on how far away and how heavy it is. But given that I used half my decent spells just now, I’m not in the mood for another immediate fight.”    A minute or so later, the illusion faded to reveal a coiled mass of serpentine ribs and vertebrae topped with a humanoid skull, greenish light leaking from the eye sockets. Ankita didn’t look at it as she reached out a hand and delicately tried to grab hold of the chest behind it. The distance was longer than she was used to, and the box was heavy. She managed to make it rattle, but she couldn’t fully lift it up. And even if she could, she might not be able to lift it up high enough to avoid the naga simply snatching it away.    Victor looked at the bone naga. The wyrm was very obviously undead, though he wasn’t entirely sure how powerful it might be and how resistant to his deity granted powers over such creatures it was. Still, it was worth a try.    “I can’t turn undead many more times while we’re here, but I’m going to try and hold this thing at bay. I really don’t think I can destroy it, but if I can manage to hold it back, do you think you can run inside and grab the chest near it Inva?”    The tiefling looked at the cleric askance. “You turn it first. And if you manage it, then I’ll run.”    Victor nodded and held out his holy symbol towards the undead naga. He shouted an invocation to his deity and the room was brilliantly lit by a rush of sunlight that streamed forth and pinned the serpent against the back wall of its chamber. The wyrm screamed and hissed as it tried to edge away from the light. It seemed incapable of taking any other action at all as Inva dashed into the room, snatched the box, and then bolted out as fast as she could.    ‘And I won’t even get into a discussion with you about which god is or isn’t the ‘right’ one. Another time.’ Inva thought as she exited the room and held up the chest once Victor stopped channeling the power of his deity.“Another one down.” Inva said as she popped the lock on the chest and held up a slim metallic tile.Behind them, the bone naga raged impotently as its prize was snatched from it without it having so much as a chance to fight them.    “Not bad.” Victor said with a grin. “One more and we can finally get out of this happy little place.”***    Back in the central chamber they looked at the final door and hesitantly approached it. The mezzoloth was still behaving like a fearful, loyal pet to Ankita, still treating her companions wordlessly like they were chattel and nothing more. It was protective of the sorceress even as it seemed to be in awe and fear of her.    “Alright… I’ll go first.” Victor said as he glanced at the fiend that had stepped between the door and Ankita, visually prompting the others to enter first and expose themselves to any danger that might lurk within.    Ankita shrugged and gave an apologetic look to the others as they stepped into the passage beyond. Eventually the fiend would become a liability, and before that happened she would need to find some way to be rid of it. Besides, she had no special loyalty to it other than it was currently useful to her, a mentality that probably came right from the same source of her heritage that had also birthed the ‘loth. For the moment the other half of that lineage was being quiet except for a disdain for the fiend that would eventually cause it’s death most likely. In that final respect, both halves of her essence were in agreement on what would happen.    The passage opened into a small room with three iron doors, each with a still, silent figure standing before them. The figures were golems, one before each door, guarding them presumably and currently inactive as they gathered into the cloistered confines of the room. The first golem was an awkward, lopsided aggregate of the stitched and sutured flesh of a dozen races, many of them only vaguely compatible. The second was a convoluted mass of dangling chains, some of which seemed to be taught and rigid, allowing the thing to stand and keep its mass at shoulder height. Finally, the third golem was a rough humanoid carved of stone, male, but with vague serpentine features.    “I hate golems. Please don’t tell me I have to fight them.” Velkyn said.    “Second that opinion.” Ankita muttered. “Bloody magic immune wastes of jink.”    “Consider that opinion shared.” Inva added as she glanced at the lack of handles or locks on the doors.    “So…” Victor said. “Three doors, three golems. Flesh, chain, and stone.”    “The stone one.” Ankita pointed at it. “What sort of thing is it carved to be? Yuan’ti?”    “No, I don’t think so.” Velkyn said. “Look at the hair, there’re snakes carved in there. Some Yuan’ti have that, but if you ask me, it looks like a male medusa, a meadar.”    “Male medusa? Aren’t they all female?” Ankita asked.    “Then you wouldn’t have a species if they were, unless you’re a Night Hag, and then nobody knows how it works.” Velkyn replied.    “And nobody wants to find out either.” Victor said with a shudder.    “And then there’s the joy of yugoloth gender distinction.” Inva said with a glance at the mezzoloth.    “Please, let’s not discuss that.” Ankita said wearily.    The mezzoloth snarled and drooled a thick stream of mildly acid mucus onto the ground. It was loyal but it was dumb; tact and subtlety was lost on the fiend.    Marcus approached one of the doors, the one in front of which stood the flesh golem. He’d meant to examine the door itself, but as he approached, the golem suddenly animated with a crackle of electrical discharge.    “I do not have what you want.” The patchwork golem said in a slow, warped and stilted voice.    It held out its hand and the door behind it opened into a small room. Nothing was visible inside.    Marcus stepped back abruptly, and as he did, the golem fell silent and inanimate once more, and the door closed again.    “Well, at least one of them won’t kill us for looking.” Marcus said with relief.    “Doesn’t mean that the rooms are safe. Or that they won’t make a move after we walk inside.” Inva remarked.    “True.” The fighter said as he backed up.    Victor approached the stone golem. It animated and the door behind it opened.    “I know who has what you seek.” It said with a smile. Beyond it was not a room but something else, though they couldn’t easily tell just what immediately.    “I’m up for at least looking. We can always come back if we don’t find it.” Victor said.    They stepped warily through the door, half expecting the golem to suddenly attack them, but it didn’t. Still, despite that, the mezzoloth was turned towards the construct with its trident held to strike out at it even after they had all passed into the chamber beyond.    Rather than a passage or a small room, they had emerged into a cavern once more, though it was nowhere near the size of some others that they had seen during the last few hours. The terrain was a study in sloping hills, each covered by a carpet of thick, dense lichen or a similar plant that sprouted up from the metallic surface. Further ahead, crowning some of the hills were actual trees, themselves seeming to sport a carpet of lichen, possibly surviving in symbiosis with the smaller plants. But there were also other figures that dotted the landscape other than the trees. Statues, or the crumbled remains of statues; they dotted the hills in small clusters. They were carved into various creatures of a dozen different races, mostly humanoids, but some more exotic types, all mortal and all strikingly lifelike. All of them were either smiling and looking forward or half averting their gaze from something or shielding their eyes with limbs or shields.    “The meadar.” Inva said. “Sh*t, those aren’t statues. There’s probably a medusa here.”    They exchanged wary glances as they slowly crept up the hill and peered over the lip and into the vale beyond. In the bowl of the valley, nestled between a series of rolling hills they saw a small clearing strewn with statues and the bits of refuse that were the telltale signs of occupation. At the far side of the clearing was a darkened cave mouth out of which the soft, eerily pleasing sounds of music or humming seemed to emanate from, beguiling almost as it carried softly across the valley to their ears.Two men, naked but for loincloths, and armed with spears, stood within the clearing, one of them sitting and smiling as he watched two young children play. Both of the men had snakes entwined with their long dark hair, and their skin had an odd, silvery-green tone to it, almost like a sheen of scales. Of the children, there was a young boy who was strikingly similar to the two adult men, and a young girl had her back turned as she played with a tiny rag doll and hummed in a singsong fashion like the same sounds coming from the cave. The young girl’s hair was a mass of tiny wriggling serpents.***</blockquote>

Verification