#37 - The Sixth Stone

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Yse6Pxrmo"

The game raged on, surprisingly long. Both opposing humans were eventually petrified by the basilisk's gaze. The older of the two Karrns, the one announced as Captain Arlen, resisted the longest. The monstrous crowds around the Arena cheered the "stoning" of the Five Nations humans.

Grapnel, the Karrnathi warforged—who seemed vaguely apologetic of his actions—persisted. Although he had begun to seize up under the stiffening glare of the magical lizard, he held very still—as still as only a construct can—and after a few moments, it seemed to fool the basilisk into thinking that he'd already turned to stone. It turned away from him, and soon he rose again, safe from its eyes.

The basilisk pursued Magnus next. Cypher, Xoma, and Magnus played in an ever-shifting dance against the increasingly aggressive Grapnel. The warforged was mighty—physically at least as strong as Magnus, and broader by far—and finally locked Cypher in a vicelike grip, forcing the other warforged to face the basilisk. Cypher tried to appeal to him, to establish a camaraderie, but Grapnel kept insisting, "I do not understand. I have orders." That Grapnel still obeyed commands from the two Karrns—even though they were stone—was remarkable.

Eventually, Cypher was beyond help, and a statue he became. The crowd roared approval, enjoying the warforged vs. warforged struggle. With a snarl of satisfaction, the basilisk turned away to pursue those that remained: drow, human, and warforged.

Xoma and Magnus struggled against one another convincingly, even as they evaded and tried to keep from allowing Grapnel to bind them. But the large wareforged was clearly a threat, and Magnus took him head-on. The two locked arms, twisted, broke apart, and engaged again, even as Xoma darted in, lashed with the rope he'd been carrying, and even attempted to leap upon the construct's back.

But despite his rage, even Magnus found himself clasped in the warforged's unyielding grip and turned to the basilisk, who dogged them repeatedly. The Seren barbarian, seized in its gaze, chanted something from his language, which Xoma understood to sound like death rites of his culture. But it wasn't death that claimed Magnus—simply stasis and stony oblivion.

Then Xoma remained. He was determined to draw out the fight, even though it seemed inevitable that Grapnel would overtake him. The crowd seemed pleased with the spectacle, and by the time Xoma was crouched, half folded up by the warforged's powerful arms, he saw a dark-skinned figure on the edge of the crowd, watching the final moments play out. The basilisk's blue-eyed and baleful glare coaxed him in to stone, but the Xen'drik dark elf resisted for half a minute before submitting to darkness and the end of the game of Six Stones. The last standing "man" was a warforged, but none of the PCs would hear the Arena's reaction.

Instead, they found themselves in what they later understood—and even then believed—to be a vision. Another vision under the auspices of the Shadow:

Only four of them—Rendar, Cypher, Xoma, and Magnus—trapped in a chamber. Dim, with sourceless light, in a subterranean space. Cracks in the floor disappeared into a mist-oozing chasm. In the center of the room was a twisted, obsidian pillar shaped much like the Shadow's own symbol. In a shelf within it, a glowing red orb.

A voice whispered in their minds:

The first to claim the orb will receive lasting power. The first to exit this chamber will claim power from a fallen enemy.

They experimented and debated and tried to explore the area, but eventually it as Xoma who claimed the orb—and it seemed to grant him the power of flight. When Rendar discovered a hidden door in one wall, they also spied the word SACRIFICE carved in Draconic upon it. After a bloody experiment in opening it, the seeming death of Rendar and/or Xoma led to the opening of the door. It was Cypher who exited first....

At which point the entire vision ended. Damnable Shadow visions.

The PCs found themselves reverting back to flesh inside the Temple of the Eye. Zerasha the oracle and priestess lay on the floor, shivering and covered in frost. Seeming exhausted from the ritual she'd performed on them while they were in stone form. She climbed to her feet and said, "My divination was somewhat successful, but I have been...noticed. There is a surviving member of the Winter Coalition. A male, I think."

Sa-Jira the young medusa ran forward to attend to Rendar and help him stand again. Drix, lounging in the form of a female drow, watched from a nearby sofa. Hajda, the maeder, watched impassively. Doongul was present now, and had obviously successfully overseen the safe transfer of their statue forms, but had not been present in the Shadow's "dream."

That's when the PCs noticed that a symbol had been etched, carved right through the skin (or metal, in the case of Cypher) of their left-hand palms: a symbol that sure looked like the Shadow's.