Tombs of Scoria: Episode 31

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== Synopsis ==
The brothers arrive at the Ascarian village and discover a cleric of Velthara, who identifies Anton as their prophesied leader. Despite Anton’s reluctance to lead them, they rest and prepare for their journey to Azoron's lair. With the cleric’s healing and Anton’s spells, they embark on a six-day trek through the desert, evading Azoron twice. Upon reaching their rendezvous point with Balurion, they discuss their quest to kill Scoria, which Balurion finds amusing but agrees to help them with Azoron instead. She provides a secret entrance to Azoron's lair, kills the spiders guarding it, and departs. Inside, the brothers navigate various traps and monsters, culminating in a battle with stone golems. The episode concludes with them facing a daunting cliff to reach Azoron, nearly out of stoneskin protection.
==Recap==
===The Ascarian Village===
=== 26th June, 1512 ===
The brothers have decided to rest in the Ascarian village and awaken the day after their arrival and see that the towns raiding party comes back with a cleric of Velthara in tow. The cleric meet up with the brothers and agrees to heal Anton, when she sees the Amulet of Velthara on Anton she proclaims that Anton is their prophecised leader. At this, the brothers interrogate the cleric for information, but in the end, Anton just promises them to come back and unify them and lead them to glory. Between the brothers though, Anton says that he doesn't have any plans for leading them against Drekis, into the 'golden age' of their people, but thinks that they can be convinced to work for Drekis instead.
The brothers rest in the village another day.
=== 27th June, 1512 ===
Imrik scries on the lair of Azoron, which works well, but when he tries to into the lair he notices that the lair is protected against that kind of spell somehow. Together with the Cleric of Velthara, the brothers get healed to full before they trek into the desert. Anton casts the spell to ask Velthara: "Will our journey through the desert be safe?" and the answer he gets back is "Dangers will appear on the horizon", which the brothers assume is Azoron.
Anton prepares them for journey by casting . The travel through the desert starts out the night of the second day in the Village.
=== 28th June, 1512 to 3rd July, 1512 ===
The trek is surprisingly uneventful, except for the fact that they see Azoron on the horizon and hide from him twice. The total time for the travel takes 6 days, and they arrive at the Apple Tree where they agreed to meet with Balurion.
=== The Apple Tree ===
When they arrive at the apple tree they notice that there's a handful of guards that are trying to understand what Balurion is doing so close to Yetel. Balurion eventually shoos away the guardsmen and invites the brothers to have a chat. Imrik presents his brothers to Balurion, and Anton gives the tributes they had decided on before:
*The axe of Angus the Minotaur
*curious trident from the merfolk
The brothers decide that it's safe to tell Balurion about their quest to kill Scoria, something that Balurion thinks is hilarious and a futile quest. But to prove their mettle, they want to kill Azoron, and Balurion does seem to think this is more likely to happen, and she tells them about a backdoor entrance which she can show them and warns them about monsters and traps inside. She promises the deal with the first layer of monsters in the secret layer and help them loot the dragons lair after the fact. 
Balurion tells the brothers that she is not long for this world, and is planning to return home because she is not interested age of war of Arcadia, just as the other non-evil dragons - the Gold, the Mist and the Silvers. Imrik asks if that she means Hydroxis, she confirms. Anton tries to convince her to stay if they kill Azoron, which she somewhat agrees to.
Through the discussion with Balurion, the brothers find out that the elves have been at war with Scoria for a very very long time, and that the brothers probably should discuss their quest with them. They decide to meet the day after, and the brothers retire to Yetel to sleep for the night, they buy climbing equipment just in case they need to climb. Imrik casts on the brothers, Anton casts in preparation. 
=== 4th July, 1512 ===
The day after, the brothers hide inside Balurion's saddlebags and she turns , flies them to the secret entrance to Azoron's lair. The flight goes without issue, and she shows them the secret entrance which is hidden by an illusory wall. She walks inside, breathes her breath-weapon to kill the spiders just inside the entrance, and then retreats from the brothers and leaves them to their quest inside the secret entrance.
=== The secret entrance ===
The first problem inside the entrance, the spiders, have been killed by Balurion, and the brothers make their way inside. The brothers try to gauge where Azoron is with Anton's gift from Velthara, and they find that Azoron is 20 miles ahead and 1 mile above. Using the useful 10-foot-pole, they find an illusory hole, Tyrael skillfully helps the brothers get around with his agileness and nimbleness (and his magical jumping boots) by putting them in a Bag of Holding. Trekking some more through the secret entrance, they get ambushed by 10 rust monsters, through which the only metal object they lose is a couple of pitons, a belt buckle. Anton lost 2 charges of the spear and Imrik cast . Before they dispatch of the monsters, Tyrael hits one with his Rose Blade, but during the attack Georg's cursed dagger replaces it and it gets rusted by the rust monster. 
They come across a finely crafted chamber, the floor is covered with tiles with dragon heads engraved into them. Tyrael throws a lightstone on a rope and drags them over the tiles. Imrik casts his wand but there is nothing magical. They secure Anton to the wall with a rope and he taps over the tile. Tyrael detects the traps between the dragon faces. Anton steps on one and huge blocks fall, making a lot of noise, Anton tumbles out of the way. The brothers climb over the rocks that fell.
Deeper in, there is another finely crafted room with floor tiles and 4 Stone Golems beyond them. Tyrael attaches pitons on the wall and tries to climb along it, golems come towards him and cast on him, unsuccessfully. They fight, golems take no damage from Imriks bow but he casts , Anton stuns one golem with the last charge of his spear, the brothers dispose of them without taking any damage except for a few stoneskin charges. 
The episode ends with them finding a 1-mile cliff to climb, and Azoron being pinged to be straight above them, the brothers almost out of stoneskin charges.
==Experience==
No experience was rewarded during this episode, though the following monsters were vanquished:
*10 x Rust Monsters
*4 x Stone Golems
Category:Tombs of Scoria Episodes