
Loudwater
Chronicles
Session 24:

Illi and the cat notices that Brinden dissipates in a puff of smoke. Artemis and Silas don’t know this. Illi doesn’t know what to do. Everyone hears Illi’s voice clamor from beyond this large, writhing bit of organic mass that Brinden has dissipated. Illi specifies that he is not under the vines. It did not fall on him. Illi sees what looks like a head, she sees these large teeth form in a big maw that has opened up and undulating, shaking roars out. She doesn’t know where to cut this thing, she’s never seen anything like this before, she doesn’t know where its vital organs are. So she kind of swings into it and her sword cleaves into it, almost cuts straight through it. Some small leaves and parts go scattering across the floor and it's completely uneffected. She tries to stab it again. This time after she had hacked away some of the mass from it, she sees the vines that make up its leg wiggle back a little bit and she sees a larger, denser club of more solid material behind that. She stabs forth into it and twists the blade as its legs buckles beneath it, just a little bit as she does so. It didn’t like that.
It’s kind of hard to tell with its legs on the ground right now, but it fell from the ceiling, and Silas determines it’s made up of a lot of the same plant like materials as the vines surrounding the area. Which was why they didn’t notice it when coming it, it was just a large mass of matter clung to the ceiling. Silas gets his shield out.
Silas: Elves are always trouble.
Illi’s in there, and the cat’s in there more importantly. Silas gets out his ax and strikes at it. He doesn’t see a head, he sees what looks like haunches and trunk-like legs supporting this large frame. He swings into it where he thinks a knee is or some load-bearing member. As his ax cleaves into it and finds purchase in the plant material, it finds purchase in spongy mass like moss and mushroom caps, and it absorbs the blow a little bit and cushions it, and bounces his ax back out without doing any damage.
The monster feels its back leg buckle a little, but as it does, its maw turns down to the elf in front of it that stabbed it in its front leg. It shifts its weight, almost raising up on two legs. It’s massive front forward legs come up in the air and they both come slamming down in Illi’s direction. Both legs come crashing down and slam into Illi. As they do so and pin her into the ground, she realizes as its lifting back up, the vines have all coalesced around her and she feels herself pulled into the mass. She is now swallowed inside this beast. The vines are all wrapped around her and crushing her. It’s filling her mouth, she can’t breathe and is suffocating and can’t speak. She’s grappled, blinded, restrained and unable to breathe. It shakes and quivers. William could see all this through the cat’s eyes.
William: The thing ate the pup!
Silas: What?
William: It ATE her.
Silas: ...well that’s not good.
William: Welp, I’m out.
William and Silas sees Artemis do some London parkour shit. She runs up the back of the creature. And as it rears back, Artemis sees its head spring back and its mouth open. She slides across its shoulder and grind down its arm, landing inside the room south of the creature. She holds up her shield and shouts for Illi. She was prepared for it, but feels kind of alone until she turns back and sees a little cat’s head poking out from behind the fountain. That’s a little reassurance, but the barbarian and the ranger are completely nowhere to be seen. There is no response.
Artemis: Is this some sort of elven trick…?
William’s looking like he’s not wanting to deal with this shit. The cat stealths over to right west of the creature. William flexes his fingers as he builds up some electric energy and shoots out lightning from his fingers at the creature. Artemis sees this blue coursing electrical energy pouring into the mass, and the vines actually reform around the large wound in its front leg, stitching it shut as if it was just healed. William quickly moves into the far northeastern corner, away from the creature.

As Illi tries to struggle and wiggle against it to break free, it actually constricts around her and she feels herself become a little more crushed by it. She’s still inside this thing.
Silas: (to William) Are you still going to help us?
William: Eh, sure. Why not?
Silas takes out his holy symbol and pushes it at the creature. Silas recalls when he was down in the other room, there was a large mass of black vines built up around the door of the grave. He had pushed his holy symbol into it and felt this resistance, like opposing magnets flinging him back. That same thing happens here. He gets close, but the force of the thing compels him back. He feels there was resistance but it doesn’t appear to have taken any damage. Silas puts his holy symbol away and attacks. This time, he goes in the other direction and swing around, cutting inside of it. His ax finds purchase into… almost like chopping into a tree. As he withdraws his ax, there is a sap that stretches out with it almost like mozzarella cheese. It did not like that.
As the monster begins to turn in response to this force that was compelling into it, its front left leg, something is pawing against it, buckling it a little bit and causing the ax to cleave into it. The monster looks down and sees this small cat the kind of gnawing into it and putting its claws into it to distract it. The creature rear up its two legs and brings it down on the cat. Both legs slam down on it. The cat’s a pancake. Artemis sees it hold there for a second, then it slowly raises its arms up and its large head lope underneath and look at the arms and look at the ground. She doesn’t see a cat anymore, there’s nothing remaining there. It appears confused.
William: Heeeey!!
Artemis: ...mother of pearl.
Artemis presses forward and casts Faerie Fire. Silas and William see violent light encompass around behind the creature. The light starts burning out, washing over all of them.
Artemis: (as she’s pushing forward violet light) SORRY! SORRY! SORRY! SORRY!
The creature is glowing, lit up like a Christmas tree, giving any attacks against it advantage and it can no longer hide. William sees it start glowing and casts Hex. He reaches into his pouch and takes out another item, crushes it and throws it at the creature, and follows it up with two quick eldritch blasts. Silas sees these large bolts of energy stream out from the boy and slam hard into the side of the beast. So hard, that Artemis see the large beast buckle as the horrific force tear into it. A lot of its vines are writhing and streaking and screaming around. As it does, its neck pops back a little bit, the vines part, and the body of Illi launches out of the beast and lands flat on the ground. She appears to be out. William quickly ducks behind the northern wall and takes cover.
As Illi’s body hits the ground and streaks across the flat surface, Artemis sees she’s bleeding profusely. Not like she’s been cut up, but she’s bleeding out of every orifice like she’s been crushed and constricted. Her eyes are bloodshot and rolled back into her head.

Silas puts a hunter’s mark on the creature. He points at it and concentrates, and a strange energy crackles and a nautical star appears over it. As William’s force energy washed over it, a lot of the greenery and vines were pushed away, compelled off of it, screeching forward. As they lost form, Silas sees a more core formation underneath it that reminds him of the wood he chopped into. This opening was all he needed and as he forms his hunter’s mark over it, he buries his ax into it, doing massive damage, almost cleaving clean through it. A humongous burst of horrific dark green sap just explodes from its back. It is not happy.
They see the creature buckle and almost go down on all fours. As the vines start pulling in, Artemis identifies a trunk-like head kind of pulled into the creature. Silas sees it pull together and reforming, looking back out at him. He sees it staring down at him. Two legs come stomping down. Silas was able to sidestep the first one completely. As he throws up his shield, the other one just bashes down into it and puts a tremendous bludgeoning force on it. It recoils a little bit and moves away instinctively and presses into the corner, almost shriveling up. Silas takes an opportunity attack, swinging his ax forward, cutting into its neck, slicing out more of the sticky, ichorous gore. It’s pressing into the fountain as its mass shrivel away.
Artemis runs up to Illi and everyone sees the violet light dimming as she stops concentrating and casts cure wounds. Illi comes to with Artemis crouched over her. Illi is covered in the sticky sap and it has a bitter, acrid taste. Illi puts her arms out to give her a hug, but realizes she’s gross and just thanks her.
William comes around the corner next to Silas and fires another eldritch blast. Another course of forceful energy flies out of William and slams into the beast as it presses itself against the fountain.
Illi steps back next to Artemis and casts hail of thorns. She notches an arrow in her bow and pulls back. The wood that forms the shaft of the arrow almost springs to life, and Artemis can see it quivering in her hands as she puts energy into it. Large spines erupts onto it and she releases the arrow. It gets to about a foot from the beast and it explodes into hundreds of pointy thorns that tear into it.
Illi: (sitting back) Oooh…
She then scoots back and hides behind Artemis.

Silas steps forward and takes out his javelin. As Illi’s thorn tears into it, its head lopes down and its humongous maw opens up and quivers at its throat. The javelin tears into it, its head rearing back. It’s not having a good day.
The creature spits out the javelin and it lands on the floor. Its large trunk-like head rears around and sees Artemis and Illi south of it. It rears back and realizes it’s in a bad way. So it starts lumbering forward, running at Silas at William. Two arm lope down, one on each of them. One trunk-like arm slams into Silas, the other upon William, knocking him out. As it slams down, it tries to push by Silas. It doesn’t do any damage as it pushes, but Silas is compelled back slightly and goes around the fallen William. It reformed its mass on the other side of Silas, appearing like it's trying to move at great speed. As it steps over William, Silas noticed William’s covered in sap from this creature. Even as it brushes by Silas, it peels off a layer of this sticky ichor upon him as it’s trying to get away.
Artemis runs up to William, lifting him up and pushing her blanket underneath him. She sees that the boy, just like Illi, has taken a large amount of crushing damage. He’s not cut up, but there are these really horrible bruises forming, his whole body almost looks like a crushed pillow. He’s crumpled up and not moving. She remembered a long time ago in a dungeon in Loudwater, she was given a shiny stone. She was so distraught seeing him like this, she almost forgot about it. She pulls out the stone and grasps her hand around it, starting to cast cure wounds. As she does, the stone shatters and this yellow-orange energy gets absorbed inside of her. It’s like the best Monster energy drink ever. William all of a sudden snaps to awareness with Artemis above him, her eyes wide. He feels a soft, welcoming blanket underneath him and a sticky awfulness all over the front of him.
Artemis: ...I didn’t do that.
William: Ugh… what the… ugh!! (sees Artemis) ...oh.
William sits up and sees the creature running away, and lets loose one more eldritch blast. Another humongous hit pummels into the back of this thing. As he slams into it again, he sees bits of sediment, moss, tangles of vines are falling off of it as its running away.
As it runs away, Illi follows it because she’s mad and stabs at it twice. Her first swing cuts through, but her second hit jabs into it.
Silas swings his ax and cleaves into its back, almost compressing it into the ground as its hind legs give out from underneath it. It’s dragging itself desperately with its massive forelimbs. Illi looks up and notice the hunter’s mark and nods at the group, she’s not sure what it is but it seems cool.
The creature makes a run for it, and both Silas and Illi take opportunity attacks against it. Its whole backside is detached from it. As it turns the corner, it just goes out of sight. They can’t see it anymore. The whole time, it’s screaming.
Artemis goes after it. She turns the corner, ready to unleash the beast all over the back of the asshole’s head. As she turns and looks, she doesn’t see it. It appears to have disappeared. She sees the hallway full of sediment just like it was before. She turns back and looks at everybody, shakes her head and throws her arms up.
Artemis: I don’t know where it is.
Silas: It’s not there?
Artemis: I don’t see it. It sorta disappeared around the corner.
Silas: That’s not good…
William stands up and looks around in confusion.
Illi moves forward next to Artemis to take a look to see where its blood trail led to. She’s able to follow this streak of sap. As it comes around the corner, it seems to peter off and go towards the south-most wall of the room. She shoots an arrow into the wall where the trail ends. The entire chamber is filled with plants and overgrowth. As her arrow sinks in, a large section of plant-like mass falls off of the wall, the creature had kinda formed up against the wall and tried to blend into the plant mass. Illi goes up and kicks it.

Silas: (turns to William) Thank you.
William: (sighs) You’re welcome…
Illi is pulling at the form. When it had hit the ground, it was like a spilling of plant material. The moment it hits the floor, it was like a shattering of a jar of marbles, it’s just spread out everywhere. These are the vines and moss and ichor that made it up. It spreads out like a wave of organic material. Illi pulls at it, trying to find worthwhile matter, and takes a bit of moss.
Silas and William make their way into the room. Silas sees the fountain is still overtaken by the plant material. The vines haven’t seem to change at all despite the Shambler’s destruction. As he comes to the basin of the fountain, he sees just a little bit of water inside of it. He sees a large angelic figure of the statue, there’s no water pouring out anymore, just the vines and overgrowth that have overtaken and wrapped up around it. Illi joins into the room. Silas goes up to where the legs of the statue meets the base and reaches his two mitts in there and starts wrenching back the material, pulling at it. As he does, it’s resisting and the tendrils wrap around his arm a little bit. It seems like every bit that he pulls off, more instantaneously weasel up around it. This whole thing is a couple feet from the ground and forms the base for the statue to stand on. Silas takes his necklace off, kneels down and holds it at the base.
Silas: Move.
As he takes a knee and compel it with thought and prayer, the vines and overgrowth quivers, almost trembles at his forceful command. As it does so, it doesn’t completely release the statue, but it moves around serpentine-like. He doesn’t see any writing on the base, but he notices the large presence of this symbol on the object, the basin in front of him. It’s emblazoned on every of the faces. It looks like a kite shield with a sword on it that is wrapped in a sprig of belladonna. William watches all this. As Silas puts this prayer out, William is actually unsettled and uneasy at this compulsion that he recognizes as channeling of religious force. It’s has a tingly effervescence to it that he finds unappealing. He takes a step back.

Illi goes to the other side of the fountain and pulls out a torch, watching Silas curious to what he’s doing. Even Illi’s compelled slightly just by the power of his words.
William: Why don’t you just set the stuff on fire.
Silas: ...because there’s a lot of it all over the ground? And I don’t want to go up with it.
William: Details!
Illi jabs her torch into it.
William: Yeah, do it, pup!
They hear sizzling and the vines retract just a little bit and they all hear from the east echoing from somewhere far beyond this loud screeching.
Silas: Wonderful.
William: She’s got the right idea!
William takes his power stance and raises his hand up, clutching, almost tearing at the heavens and then forces it down to the ground. As he does, a large column of radiant light erupts down in a pillar and strikes down, slamming against the statue. It does radiant damage, and they see the vines on almost a whole half of the statue retract and recoil at once, writhing up before reforming up around it again. They once again hear the screeching.
William: (laughing) Take that!
Artemis: That’s for cat!
Silas: Where IS the cat?
William: Ehhhh… you don’t wanna know.
Silas: Okay.
William: She’s probably safe. Probably.
Illi starts making cat noises for some reason, trying to call out to the creature.
William: Hey, elf, wanna be my new pet?
Illi: (squints at him) Wolves are not pets.
William: Wolves don’t meow either.
Illi: Yeah! That’s true!
As this is going on, as the radiant blast from William slams into the ground, a familiar tingle starts running up Silas's spine. He knows he’s used his divine senses before, and he’s getting the familiar tingle at this reaction to the radiant energy. Something is not right about the surroundings here. Silas holds his holy symbol in his hands, bows his head and lets his senses go out. As he responds to that, he doesn’t sense anything other than William. But his divine sense picks up on a strong taint, a horrific sickness. This might have been a holy space, but he recognizes it as a desecrated altar of some kind. He wonders if that third wight was a cleric or paladin that was corrupted.
William plants himself down where he is and takes out his smelly stuff and starts setting shit on fire. Smoke! Incense! Nice! There’s all kinds of strange scents and auras. Over all this incense is a heavier smell of sulfur-ish ash that Artemis had smelled before after the fight with the wights, and it starts to emanate from William again. Illi’s following her nose and comes up next to William.
Artemis gathers up bits of sap and mossy flesh stuff. She gathers five cups of Shambler goo and flesh. As she’s making this collection, she’s able to ascertain the remnants of this beast’s form. As she’s following it along like a paleontologist following the bones of a dinosaur. She sees the inner structure of the beast, it appears to be a shambling mound with a central root stem buried deep within its form. The rest of its mass consisted of a rotting heap that it was drawing nourishment from, both naturally through photosynthesis and unnaturally by the collection and suction of living material inside of it. She could follow the massive root stem up until it reaches these spreading shoulder vines and open skull structure underneath another mound of vines. It probably brings up a lot of curiosity in her, she’s never seen this kind of living plant before that takes this kind of form. It’s fascinating to her. She starts doing doodles and sketches of the nervous system of the creature.
Silas returns to the tablet on the wall. The cat couldn’t read it. He inspects the symbols. The symbols themselves are strange, unlike any language he’s ever seen before. As he slowly traces alongside them with his hand, he notes that there are some rudimentary shapes going on in there in ??? form. As he piece that together, what he end up seeing looks like:

He sees a core formation in a pentagram roughly, a five sided polyhedral. Each point has a major shape to it with a circle etching. He’s able to make out five major symbols. Silas returns to the fountain area.
William notices Illi very keenly watching him. William ignores Illi, seeming really intent on his actions, focusing very hard.
William: I’m burning things here, pup. Go away.
Illi: I’m just curious.
William: (waves her off) Be curious elsewhere.
She starts following Silas around. Silas looks at her and tells her to go see what Artemis is doing. Illi goes down next to Artemis who gets all excited and explains to her what she just saw like the nerd she is. Artemis is sketching furiously and describing it all excited. Illi helps her.

Illi: Artemis, do you wanna see if these statues move like the other ones did?
Artemis turns around, still nerding out.
Artemis: Yeah, we can try to push them.
As Illi is putting the flame into the vines, Artemis is pushing herself against the wall, trying to pull the statue out. But there’s just so much growth and sediment that the statue does not want to move. Illi is able to move a little bit of the vines and sediment and she sees four women, they’re female forms clad in robes and vestments. She sees on one a little bit of what looks like a medallion, like the one Artemis currently has. The statues are carved in marble.
Illi: Those medallions look really similar.
They find the medallion only on one, but they notice all the statues are different forms, but similar stance. With concentrated effort, they find evidence that each has medallion on all the them. Artemis holds up her medallion, using the light to get a better look. The intense glowing helps her see. The vines don’t seem to like this energy coming off of it. The vines quiver and separate as she passes the light over them. They don’t completely withdraw or anything, but they become a lot more pliable and easy to move. Artemis does it again.
Illi: Maybe you can hold up the light and I’ll try to push it.
Artemis: Okay!
Artemis holds the light up. Illi rolled a one. Illi calls up to Silas, who ignores her.
While they’re doing all that, Silas crouches down. This place is pretty strange, kinda crazy, they just fought a giant plant. He crouches down and bows his head. He remembers the peace and the serenity and the happiness of the god, he knows exactly who it is, brought with him and try to pull that into himself. As he does this, he feels that comforting presence almost as if there’s a hand on his shoulder. As he focus on that divine serenity and pull it into himself, he feels his holy symbol almost reverberate with this growing pulse, this throbbing of will and ??? As he clutch it, he feels it’s warm, and focusing on this manifestation and this prayer, the vines actually recede from around the fountain. They wither and pull away from it and retreat from around the corners of the room, making an actual clear space inside of there. As he opens his eyes, he sees the water is flowing into the basin from the statue. It appears to be clean, fresh water.
Silas: Thank you.
The water in the basin looks cool and refreshing. It almost seems to glisten and sparkle. The vines are still around the walls and surrounding space and ceiling, but the room is clear. Silas takes a drink of the water. As he does so, his hit points are all immediately restored. He feels very invigorated and it feels a powerful energy has been poured into him and he feels refreshed.
Meanwhile, Illi stabs her torch into the ground again. The screeching comes again. It is a loud echoing and coming from beyond. It appears hundreds of feet away in some unknown cavern.
Silas walks over and pats William on the head.
Silas: When you’re done with whatever you’re doing, go take a drink of water.
He then goes to join Illi and Artemis. As he comes over, he sees Illi finish stabbing the thing and look up at him.
Illi: ???
Artemis is slung over the statue after exerting all her strength trying to push it.
Silas: ...what are you two doing?
Artemis: Nothing…
Illi: Just trying to move the statues.
Silas: Would you like some help…? Should we move these? Are these priestesses?
Artemis: They have medallions… We can’t really tell…
The statues are all kind of standing with their hands crossed in front of them, their heads bowed.
Silas: How about we leave the priestesses alone?
Illi: Okay!
Silas: Let’s not desecrate their graves.
Artemis: We didn’t know what they were.
Illi: It’s just a statue.
Silas: There’s fresh water flowing in the other room if you want to go.
Illi: Fresh water? I thought the water was all gross.
Silas: It’s not anymore.
Illi: ...how is it not gross? Did you clean it?
Silas: Sort of.
Illi: Okay…
Illi and Artemis goes back to the fountain. The room is strangely pristine. They see the water flowing out from the statue to the basin. They don’t know what the fuck Silas did in here.
Illi: Are you suffering from OCD…?
Illi washes her face and body with the water as she’s still covered in goo. Silas can’t quite see what she’s doing, but all of a sudden, the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up.
Silas: (yelling) DRINK IT, DON’T WASH IN IT.
Illi takes out her flask and fills it and drinks from it. It’s cool refreshing water. Nothing else happens. Artemis walks up and peers into the basin and inspects it to make sure it seems okay, cause all she remembers is grossness before. She dips her hand in the water and brings it up to her lips. It’s cool and refreshing and her hit points are restored. They both notice William is still sitting and there’s a familiar presence in William’s lap. William takes out a bit of salt and soot again and does the comprehend languages ritual, chomping on salt as he pets the kitty. Illi goes over and pets the kitty. William dumps the kitty out of his lap and gets up. He looks up at Artemis, looks down at the water. He remembers something Silas said about drinking it, and he really wants to wash that taste of salt and soot from his mouth.
Artemis: Go for it, it’s delicious.
William scoops up some water to his mouth. It’s cool and refreshing and his hit points are restored. He takes another handful scoop and very subtly washes his face cause it’s still sappy and nasty. Aaron’s never taking us to midnight mass.
Silas once again returns to the tablet. He’s obsessed. He tries to see if it moves or if there’s any way to get through it. Aside from the carvings and emblems he already noted, he’s tracing around the tablet and it appears to be flush in with the wall. It is a little on top of, but there’s no seams or handles that he can decipher. It appears to be part of the wall structure, whether the wall was built around it, it’s impossible to say. It’s the size of a door, but there’s no hinges or handles or clean edges that he can decipher. Silas returns to the others in the fountain room.
Silas: Are we all good?
The cat meows up at him. He looks at the cat, then at William. The cat looks at Silas. William’s not looking any where. Silas nudges the cat with his toe. The cat pounces on his foot. Silas puts his foot down, that’s definitely a cat.
Silas: Can we go?
William: ‘kay…
Illi: I’m still a little sore, but sure.
Silas: Did you drink the water?
Illi: Yeah! That’s what I have in here.
Silas: Try drinking it directly from the basin.
Illi: ...why?
Silas: Just do it.
Illi looks at him questioningly and slowly takes a step back and drinks from the basin. This time the water tastes cool and refreshing and clean. But this time there’s also an innervation to it, and she feels her hit points get restored. Her eyes go wide.
Silas: That’s what happens when you listen.
Illi: I listen!
Silas moves to the opening on the eastern side of the room and the cat follows. There is a lot of rubble.
Silas: You said he didn’t go this way? Which other way could he have gone?
Illi: I don’t know…
The last Illi remembers, Nesbith was coming down there and going in the direction towards the southeast end of the room before she lost him. She points the area out to Silas.
Illi: That’s all I remember of the tracks, I don’t know which way he went after.
Silas: Well. This is the only way I can see to get through here. So might as well try it.
Illi peers down and sees a ladder that’s anchored into a hewn out wall structure. The rubble is from this large blast through the ground. A lot of the roots and stuff are pouring and emanating down below, flow down below into the walls and surfaces. The ladder appears to go down into the darkness. As she’s looking down, she thinks she can make out a platform or a floor-like structure maybe 20-30 feet down. She relays the information to Silas.
Silas: (calls to William and Artemis) Are you two coming? Are you two ready?
Artemis runs back and grabs her rope. She unties it from the ladder she used it on before, rolls it up and brings it to the other one. Silas takes the ladder down and the cat hops on top of his shoulder. Illi follows. As Silas climbs down the ladder, he’s going down into perfect darkness. As he descends away from Illi, he’s going into darkness. Silas comes down to a platform. It’s a large, flat structure of rock with clean edges around it. If he peers over, it seems to go down to the edge of his vision, about 60 feet down. He can’t quite tell what’s at the bottom. He sees on the platform there appears to be a rope attached down to a second platform that is 10 feet down from the first platform. There’s another rope that’s connected again downwards to another column. That one is about 40 feet down from where he is, 30 feet down from the second pillar. As he make his way down the ladder and start moving into the space, it feels kind of weird and he realizes that there are all kinds of hanging vines and overgrowth pouring down from the ceiling and draping over the pedestal, almost like walking through bead curtains. Silas quietly calls up to the others and tells them what he sees. Illi follows him onto the platform.

Back in the other room, William casts detect magic. He puts a pulse around the room. Aside from the usual, he notices the energy from the fountain, but doesn’t recognize it as arcane. But he does get a powerful magic coming from the tablet on the wall.
William: (to Artemis) That thing on the wall is magic.
Artemis: How do you know?
William: I… I saw it!
William is able to determine that there is indeed a powerful magic on it, and recognizes it as abjuration magic.
Artemis: Let’s take a look.
Artemis walks over to the tablet and holds up the medallion for light. She scans over it to see if she sees anything. As she holds the medallion up and wave the medallion over it, the symbols etched into it begin to glow with a blue energy. William joins her and looks as well.
Artemis: Can you read this at all…?
William looks at it. He can’t read it. He doesn’t know the specific nature of this magic, but he feel each of these symbols has a significance. He’s not quite sure, but he feels like they almost appear to be magical runes that have been scribed on to this surface for some purpose. There’s something functional about these runes, but he’s not able to piece it together. There’s some significance to the basic shapes. William relays all this information to Artemis.
Silas: (looks at Illi) Where the heck are they?
Illi: I thought they were coming down. I hope they’re not in trouble.
Illi’s aware of the same things as Silas saw. Illi waves her fire around at the vines. Silas tells her to stop that. As Illi is waving her torch, she sears into one of them that writhes and wiggles and wraps around her arm and pulls her up. They hear the screeching again coming from the east and both Silas and Illi are aware of the vines that are forming into something. They follow the vines and see against the wall up in the corner a giant the bulb the size of a large truck. All of a sudden the petals open up, there are teeth and a green glow that reveals a giant eye. And it’s staring at them.
They can see the rest of the platform, and as Illi is slowly lifted towards the ceiling, she sees there’s another platform that’s about 10 feet down from the third platform, making it about 50 feet down from the platform Silas is on. There was a rope, but it appears to be broken between the two.
