Another day, another trip back to the Palace of Arekasadra. As the party trek back up the mountain to continue their string of plunders, they find their path obscured by an ever dense fog. Nobody likes fog. There's always something waiting to attack you, or you end up taking a crooked step and you're three miles off course from where you wanted to be; fog is just trouble waiting to happen. As the party carefully retrace their steps, they are surprised by a group of dog headed men who they see in the distance. Dog headed men have for the most part been civil so long as you have wine, and the party has plenty of wine to spare, so they figured they could probably have a decent talk with the men without them having to fight. Thankfully with the power off drinks and negotiation, they manage to get some useful information out of the group, with one of the dog headed men giving them a path from the entrance that leads directly to the fourth floor allowing them to continue their streak of immediately overextending themselves without the need to swan dive through trapped floors (not that that's going to stop them).
Wanting to test out the path they were given they continued trekking through the fog, almost got mauled by bares because they knew they weren't walking through this fog without something dangerous happening, and then made their way to the palace to immediately speedrun their way back to the lowest floor they've been. There was a bit of paranoia about this secretly being a spicy prank that would lead to them falling into a river and getting chomped by a crocodile, but nope; there's just a nearby stairway that skips two entire floors, which in retrospect could have been a really bad time if they had discovered this early.
Back to the fourth floor the party soon find an interesting sight in a nearby chamber. Covering two thirds of a nearby wall is a massive, glimmering statue of a coiled serpent, with the face of a woman. Now, the party have been warned before to beware statues, so there's always the back of the head thought that a statue may spring to live any minute to crush the party under their massive stoney weight, but so far that hasn't happened, so the party enter the chamber, and the statue immediately faces to the two people at the front of the party to enter first.
"I see you Halthor and Matthias"
Halthor immediately tenses up as he thinks to himself, "FUCK!...I don't recognize this lady." Thankfully she introduces herself immediately afterwards as Vishahara and with the two of them being disciples of law, she wanted to give them a mission. Apparently there are not only shrines, but even rulers dedicated to the dark arts that can be found in the greater depths of the palace. She wanted them to destroy these shrines, and kill the King of Kalakeya and the King of Rakshasa. Destroying the shrine would reward them with a a pearl of purity and wisdom (whatever that means), but if they could successfully commit regicide, they would be rewarded with something far greater than they could have possibly expected. She would grant them a wish. The extent of what this entails is hard to determine, but there have been rumors of men who gained riches beyond their wildest dreams, and even raised fallen companions from the dead by having their wishes granted, so this could be a wonderful opportunity. Of course, the party don't even know how to descend any deeper, and even if they did, they doubt the party would be able to kill two kings in a day, so Matthias and Halthor explained they would do what they can, but it would likely take a while before anything would happen. Thankfully, the women was understanding, and let the party continue.
Upon some of the more colorful figures entering however, such as their chaotic members Randon and Arti, they saw a brief vision of their deaths at the hands of snakes. So many snakes that one could fill several lakes with snakes. Hoping these visions do not foreshadow some form of terrible fate they may experience in the future, the party continue for their true mission and the REAL reason they came to the palace. To find a pair of unicorns and play a game of chess against them. Goldhorn and Ivoryhoof are actually on the third floor, meaning the party would have to find a way upstairs, but they thankfully find one soon after wards and their mission can continue. As they explore the third floor, they come across an eviscerated corpse with a lizard-like body and the head of a triceratops. An odd entity, but they'd need to find a living...whatever this is before they determine if these things are dangerous to the party or not. The need for speculation is unneeded however as they soon find a group of them exploring a nearby room. They could communicate, which is always a good sign, and they did not turn hostile upon the party hailing them. Based on their description, they identify as the heirs of Xenophanes, and the most dominant and ancient lifeforms. Man, between them and the unicorn, there sure are a lot of racial undertones in this place. At least they weren't going to kill the party for being untermensch. On the contrary, they made an offer to trade some gems they acquired in exchange to copy their map, which the party agreed to, and with the exchange going so well, Randon has the party's designated wine carrier Cork give them a wineskin on the house. Halthor quietly thinks to himself, "That doesn't grow on trees," but Cork has three extra wineskins, so giving away two in a day isn't too big of an issue.
After some furthur exploration, the party come across a strange cypress trees with several crystals embedded in a nearby wall, and while it would be extremely tempting to enter the room and take those crystals, Halthor, who is always slightly ahead as the team's trap monkey, could see a group of blithering, borderline brain dead men drooling in puddles of their own waste, and despite holding his breath, he could still get a faint, and awful stench that tried to creep into his face. The last thing he wanted to be was the Combative Companion who shit himself in front of his peers, so the party decide to leave it alone for now and check some of the rooms around them. Upon opening the door to a nearby room, the party discovers a unicorn that goes absolutely ballistic on the party for not having knocked prior. Halthor attempts apologize and close the door, but the unicorn in an enraged stupor charges Halthor melting and piercing his armor with its horn before kicking him in the face.
As Halthor's head rings and rattles at the impact he thinks to himself, "Wait, alicorn can melt armor? Weird, I thought it purifies water and heals wounds, but maybe unicorns are different in this region." The blow to the head definitely did more than just Addle Halthor, as he begins arguing with a disembodied voice creeping in the back of his mind over the history of unicorn horns. At least he's not dead though.
The party then manage to close the door on the unicorn with Randon holding it back, as Cork tries to sooth Halthor with some of the wine he's carrying, to which Halthor tells him, "Easy with the wine bro. *Cough Cough* That stuff was expensive."
With it getting late the party decide to leave while their ahead, only to have their original path blocked by a group of six Korybantes that will only grant them passage in exchange for one of their swords. The party of course declined, but figured, "Fuck you guys, we'll just find another way through." The lizard men did hint that there was a nearby exit, so how hard could it be.
As the party tried to forge an alternate path however, their path was blocked ONCE AGAIN by a group of dog headed men, and after further extortion they party ended up giving them all of the wine Cork was carrying.
"This is fucking bullshit!" says Halthor under his breath, as buying all of that wine was expensive.
With the party given a new path, they begin exploring, promptly get lost, and begin a desperate struggle to escape to the surface that leads to an ambush at the hooves of a wolf headed horse, and the death of Turni. They do however manage to escape.
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