Shattered Star

Anastasia pats Cade on the shoulder sympathetically. "Sorry buddy, I know it's hilarious but this has to suck for you. Look on the bright side though, at least you're hot now."

Cade, understandably upset, sulks in the dimly-lit marble room over his corpse. With a heavy heart, the wizard takes his now-cold body and lugs it over to the opposite wall near the sarcophagus, propping it up as if it was asleep. He then unceremoniously lifts his belongings from his old body and uncomfortably fastens them to his new body. Returning to the group with a frazzled expression and an awkward gait, Cade-within-the-body-of-Sorshen absently motions for the group to continue.

The party starts by heading down the left hallway. The hall opens here onto a balcony overlooking a subterranean river flowing to the east. The waters of the river are dark, while the walls and ceiling above are a breathtaking array of earth tones, the natural stone polished and smooth. Seeing this, they turn around.

The right hallway ends at an immense panel of reddish metal that is nearly twenty feet tall and ten feet wide. Dozens of scenes have been carved in to individual one-foot-square frames on the panel. These scenes chronicle a beautiful woman engaged in a magical incantation involving some sort of winged creatures. After taking time to thoroughly examine the panels, the party finds a hidden button which causes the metal panel to open into the cavern.

A sloping sandy beach extends down from the cave walls here to the edge of a slowly flowing underground river. Two wooden skiffs are moored to four-foot-tall stone posts protruding from the sand near the river's edge. Each boat is relatively narrow and has room to seat three, and each contains a long wooden pole.

Anastasia turns around and, with a few deft motions with her thieves' tools, completely disarms the opening mechanism for the door, preventing it from opening until she fixes it from this side.

The party then takes the boats from the beach and heads upstream. A churning cascade of water pours from a circular hole in the highest part of the wall here. A metal grate covers the hole, and glowing runes surround the hole's rim. Along the south face of the watery tunnel, an oval stone platform protrudes from the wall, forming a sort of balcony over the river. At the back of the platform's alcove stands a twelve-foot-tall stone statue of a beautiful woman, her arms raised up in the air. Cade identifies that two large water elementals are bound to the statue, and that something behind the grate is magical, but the party decides to head downstream to a different cavern.

This immense cavern is a breathtaking sight. Dozens of tiny colored motes of light flit and dance in the air, illuminating a vast, cathedral-like cavern. A forest of delicate stalactites hangs down from the ceiling 30 feet above a dark pool of water. To the east, the water foams as it cascades down into a lower cavern, while to the southwest, a low beach of white sand slopes up from the shore to a single stone door set in the wall. A seven-sided stone platform sits in the middle of the lake-an artificial island whose surface sits a mere six inches above the water level. A three-foot-tall stone mooring post protrudes from each of this island's seven points. A single glass statue of Sorshen stands atop this platform, one leg poised before the other as if she were preparing a running leap into the water.

As the party attempts to land on the platform, the statue moves into a battle stance.

As the statue begins to move, Cade immediately recognizes that it is a magical golem.  As he mentally recalls everything he knows about golems, the mage remembers that most golems are bound to follow their creator, treating their word as sacrosanct.  As the rest of the party likewise falls into combat stances, Cade hesitates, brow furrowed as if he were remembering a word on the tip of his tongue.  With trepidation, Cade blurts out "...Halt?" in a language he does not recognize.

The golem immediately stops moving.

Cade blinks in disbelief.  "...What in the name of the Divines," he reflects aloud, "did I just say?"

"Whatever it was, it wasn't any word in any language I know," Meliora says.

Glancing around in confusion, Cade wracks his brain in reflection, silently mouthing the sounds in repetition.  The words sound alien, but the feel... familiar?  Unsure, Cade looks up to golem and begins to test.  "...Over there?" he attempts to command, pointing to the far end of the artificial island.

The golem does not move.

Cade tries once more to recall the words he spoke.  With difficulty, he tries to twist his words into sounding more like his absent-minded utterance  "Move there?"

The golem does not move.

With a soft sigh, Cade wonders aloud "Why won't it move there--?" before snapping his mouth shut and sealing his lips with his fingertips.  The golem still does not respond.  Struggling to keep his tongue consistent, he attempts once more with a hesitant "...Move... there," accompanied by a finger pointing to the opposite end of the artificial island.

The statue follows the final command, moving to the pointed spot.

Cade's eyes go wide as the glass construct moves to the other end of the platform, a faint gasp audible below the heavy footfalls of glass hitting stone.  "--I can speak in Thassilonian!" he exclaims, completely oblivious to the fact that he commanded a massive golem with words alone.  "I've never met another being that could speak in the ancient tongue!  Fluent in the written word yes, but to hear it spoken by a native speaker!  Oh, this is fantastic--simply fantastic!"

"Nerd" Ali says simply, "As long as whatever-you're-speaking controls the golem, I'm good"

With the golem neutralized, the party push off of the artificial island to reach the sandy shore of the small beach. To everyone's surprise, the glass golem, its command completed, follows the boats across the body of water and begins to guard the awestruck wizard.  The sand of this beach slopes up toward a door in the cave wall. To the south, two seven-foot-long mounds of sand break the otherwise smooth contours of the beach. A long oval shield painted with a strange symbol sits atop each mound.

Upon further inspection, the group recognize the symbols as belonging to the Gray Maidens, and they choose to not disturb the graves given recent events both in Varisia and their previous encounter with the resting place of the dead.   Continuing on, the party opens the door leading back into the rock and are met with another room.  The walls of this room are covered by detailed murals depicting wanton acts involving otherworldly beings of every description. The murals cover every vertical surface, but stop abruptly after turning down the hallway to the south, as though abandoned by the artist.

Cade, although initially excited to find more relics, quickly blushes in embarrasment as he realizes that the events depicted in this artwork depict... rather explicit acts of depravity.  He spends a few minutes hastily inspecting the murals, face burning red the entire time.  Upon reaching the end, he quickly urges the party to move along after detailing what he found beyond the... lurid depictions

Anastasia just chuckles at the range of uncomfortable emotions from the others, heading down the hallway to a locked gate. She fiddles with the lock, the others catching up to her as she pops it open. Just as the gate opens, two brilliant flashes of red fly out of the room interior, catching her in the hip and shoulder. With the room now visible, she spots a dhampir with their arm outstretched, smoke still rising from their fingers, and a rapier in their other hand. Her face contorts into something between a snarl and a smirk. 'Guy thinks he can get the drop on me? Let's dance.' She darts into the room well ahead of her compatriots, landing a nasty blow on the dhampir. 'Gotcha,' is the second to last thing she thinks, before his rapier flashes out and skewers her straight through the lung. The last thing she thinks is 'Oh. Fuck.' The dhampir's sword suddenly crackles with electricity that courses through Anastasia's body, killing her instantly.

Dislodging the enchanted rapier from Anastasia's corpse, the dhampir hears arcane chanting coming from the far hallway followed by three bolts of compacted force crashing into his chest.  As he regains his footing from the impacts, a loud scraping and smashing echoes from the hallway as a massive, feminine golem made of glass emerges into the room, charges at the magus and clenches him in its unflinching grasp.  Struggling against the solid glass hands, the dhampir is powerless to stop the rest of the party from entering the room... and finding his handiwork.  Immediately, Ali and Meliora leap into action, with Meliora doing her best to keep the group's focus while Ali viciously slashes at the man's legs, cleaving off his legs from the knees down.  A roar of pain fills the room, which is quickly smothered by the crackle of fire, the man's body engulfed in arcane flame as Cade staggers forward with unsteady steps.

The cries end as soon as the fire sputters out, leaving nothing but the charred remains of the dhampir.  The monster, still held in the golem's tight grip, is released, falling to the floor and landing with the sickening crunch of burnt skin and the wet impact of bloody flesh.

Cade, breathing heavily, staggers to Anastasia's still form.  A faint sizzle can still be heard from the puncture wound in her chest, along with a wisp of smoke tumbling into the stale air.  Her face is frozen in an expression mixed with dull surprise and calm relief, and it is upon seeing her face that Cade recoils in shock.

Ali feels the rage leave them soon after the body impacts the floor. They don't even realize they're crying until the tears impact Ana's body. They close her eyes softly, making Ana look...more serene. Ali doesn't even know what to say. They hug her tightly. "I'm sorry" Eventually tumbles from their mouth, "I couldn't save you"

As Asami gradually climbs back to the here and now after the second trip to her traumatic past this day, Eiko slowly approaches the gnoll and body. After a moment she looks around the room, as if looking for something, before making her way back to her mother's side. "Mommy, I don't see any boxes anywhere this time. How is Miss Anastasia going to come back like Mr. Cade did without a box?" She asks her mother, snapping the older woman out of her shock. "Oh Eiko, I... I don't think Miss Anastasia is coming back," She says, haltingly.

The shock of Anastasia's death washes over the group, the sting of loss hitting especially hard as her death happened mere hours after Cade's rebirth.  Cade himself, however, does his best to remain stoic.  After some time passes and the group begins to grieve, he speaks up in a shaking tone.  "...We have work to do," he states simply, his feminine voice cracking.  "Anas... A-Anastasia told us what to do when she... she passed."  Taking a moment to order the golem, Cade commands his new follower to retrieve both of the fallen bodies.  "...The sun shall be rising soon. We...we should take th-this outside."

Meliora looks up through teary eyes from where she knelt beside Anastasia, after her second futile attempts to heal someone already dead of the day. She draws in a deep breath, racked with shudders from held back sobs. "R-right," she says with a nod. "We need to do what she wanted. For Ana."

"I'll do it. I was closest to her, it should be me who takes care of it," Ali insists.

With Ali carrying Anastasia's body and the glass golem of Sorshen clenching the nameless dhampir, the party maneuvers their way back upstream and somberly exits the Lady's Light.  Setting the dead aside, Cade clumsily orders the golem to dig two fire pits while the party sets about finding firewood for the pyre.  After an hour of preparation, the party has constructed a pair of meager pyres, and with a flick of her wrist Meliora sets them both aflame.  The group then unceremoniously chucks the body of the dhampir into the fire, letting it burn as they collect themselves for Anastasia.

"...Would anyone like to speak?" Cade prompts the rest of the party as they gather around Anastasia's body.

Asami shakes her head, holding Eiko tight against her side. "We didn't know her nearly as well as the rest of you did."

Meliora shakes her head. "I think it should be you, Cade," Meliora says. "I wasn't there from the beginning,"