Expedition 26: Shriekcliff 2: Electric Boogaloo

### Summary

We return to the Shriekcliff and free one of Ova's Sphinxes, ceasing the shrieking and earning boons for the party.

### Detailed Writeup

We head up the steep cliffs, with more difficulty than imagined. First, Clarity climbs up what looks to be a rock, but it's actually a giant snapping turtle. It almost kills her in one blow. We fight it, Clarity gets in one good attack of opportunity with her dagger, bloodying it, and Arha kills it. We also run into some small spherical modrons, which the party takes care of with ease.

At the entrance to the cliff from whence the shrieking emanates, Tolyr takes time to ritual cast comprehend languages and then the party hurries in. They hurry down the rope, Clarity with some difficulty, and rush forward into the chambers. One modron is there (has reanimated?), and Jamie rushes in (to the disappointment of the rest of the party) and kills it with two hefts of his new sword. The gate into the puzzle room has reappeared, and Jamie heaves it off.

In the puzzle room, things are not as they left it last session, but rather as they found it. First, Tolyr places a blue heron feather atop the sand in the bowl which says "*From dawn to dusk I teach you*," and Clarity burns it. The bowl glows a faint blue, but then dims. Luckily, we brought along more feathers.

The party dumps the sand from the smaller bowls into the central bowl, and then places the three feathers in each of the empty bowls:

* Blue heron feather in *From dawn to dusk I teach you*
* Black raven feather in *From dusk to night I guide you*
* White stork feather in *From night to dawn I protect you*

They then burn all three feathers simultaneously. The three bowls glow blue, black, and white respectively, and their colors begin to shift to a brassy, orange hue. Then the floor of the room collapses, sending us 40 feet down a vertical shaft, slowed by Tolyr's featherfall spell.

In the middle of the room is a massive stone archway, within which is a massive mechanical brass sphinx. Each of its wings is pinned with a massive silvery metallic rod to the archway, and another dark brass rod is through its throat. This creature is screaming. Around the edges of the room are four of the spherical modrons in cages, each with a bow and arrows.

Clarity shouts out that it might be one of Ova's great sphinxes. We start attacking it, and the modrons around it. Arha sends Tofree to ask it to stop shrieking. Tofree replies, "*It cannot*." Next round, Arha asks Tofree to ask it why it cannot stop shrieking. Tofree replies, "*You misunderstand, it cannot speak or think. It is cursed.*"

With difficulty, Arha tries to pull the pin from the creature's throat. As the creature begins to heal, the screeching stops. The sphinx speaks out, "*Thank you, but it is not finished.*" It heals all of us with a mass cure wounds. Its limbs, however, keep attacking the party, doing massive damage. The party tries to remove the pins from the sphinx, as well as kill the modrons which keep regenerating. The sphinx recasts mass cure wounds, as it says, "*I will reward you for my freedom.*" Finally, with help from the sphinx casting enhance ability on Jamie and Arha, the pair manage to wrench the two remaining pins from the sphinx's wings.

The sphinx finally rips free as the stone archway falls apart and the modrons stop reforming.

"*I apologize for the position in which you found me. Thank you for my freedom. I will grant to each of you one boon and one question.*"

Arha asks it, "Is Allocer a god of peace and justice?" It replies, "*They could be. It is not known yet.*"

Tolyr asks it, "Is the former emperor of The East, Torreson, alive?" It replies, "*No.*"

Clarity asks it where she can find the Codex of Arcanostasis. It responds by putting a claw to her forehead, and puts an image into her mind. "*Your map, when you are ready to read it.*"

Jamie asks, "What happened to the ancient residents of The East?" It replies, "*Many things, but largely they died.*"

"*Of the boons? What do you request? Servant of Allocer?*"

Arha says, "Your freedom is a self-serving good. I will gratefully accept whatever boon you feel appropriate to grant me." It replies, "*You work alongside one of my former servants. I release them to you for as long as you need.*" Tofree lands on her shoulder.

"*Son of the North, Jamie Fraser, what boon do you request?*" Jamie, a simple man, asks for a sum of money. The sphinx replies by opening its jaw and pouring out 300 copper coins.

"*Son of the South?*" "I would like to request to be better able to protect others, whether it be by magical means or physical." "*To protect in the future, or to protect from past harms?*" "In the future." It responds by places a claw against his chest, giving Tolyr two spells - shield of faith and freedom of movement.

"*Daughter of the stone lands, what do you request?*" Clarity is confused, because she does not consider herself from the stone lands, and points to herself. It nods. "I really like adventuring with my friends, but as you can see, I'm not very good at it. I can't hold a shield, I can't wear heavy armor. So I was wondering if you could give me some kind of armor that would protect me that I can wear." She gestures to herself. The sphinx gives her directions to a location on the mountain, and instructions to dig six feet down.

The sphinx begins to flaps its wings, as Jamie says, "Can we get a ride out of here?" It replies "*You already have requested all of your boons*" and flies away.

The party inspects the coins as well as the metal rods, but the metal rods each weigh 600-700 pounds and as such are impossible to remove from the location. With a great deal of struggle, trying to climb up and fall down many times, our adventurers finally manage to climb out of the pit.

We exit the cave, and make it to the location that the sphinx indicated, where lies a smooth stone, inscribed (in an unknown language) with the words

*Rest in Peace, my brother Aurumil 120-772*

Digging six feet down, they find a wooden coffin with a long-dead elven corpse inside, wearing two runed arm bracers, which Clarity takes.

On the way back to town, we stop by the Cartwrite's farm and ask for our reward. He gives it to us, stating, "Now we are even," presumably meaning that he doesn't want to be in our debt.