As you make your way through the swampy land, S’olahr takes the time to pick up any large or sharp stones he comes across using his conjury. While in his possession they slowly levitate around the hook of his cane, ebbing and flowing as they do so. Phekda affixes her magical focus to the base of her sword, creating a make-shift staff.
Brick valiantly scouts ahead, bathing himself in mud so as to not give away your position with his incandescence. It’s only slightly past noon, so you do not expect it to do much in the way of camouflage, but every little bit counts. The walls of Amdapor stand tall and proud, and while you examine it Phekda takes out a strange set of goggles. Once on, she examines the walls and informs you that the magical seals once present on them have been obstructed, just as Kan-E-Senna was worried about.
The wall of Amdapor in question is on the southeastern side of the city, built between two hills. A long ladder was firmly planted into the ground using ice magic, and served as a means to bridge the moat and scale the wall in one go. Along the wall stood four archers, carefully overlooking the area in anticipation of trouble.
Phekda aims her staff toward one of the archers and quietly charges a spell aimed at one of the archers. While doing so, her magical focus shines a brilliant green which occasionally shifts into a blue instead. A few moments after she begins to cast, S’olahr similarly channels into his cane, causing the stones revolving around it to accelerate rapidly.
At the end of her cast, she unleashes a powerful sphere of wind which cuts through the shrubbery and lands a direct hit! The blast of wind knocks the cultist backward into a protective forcefield still around the city of Amdapor, before he falls limp to the ground. In the same instant, S’olahr launches all of the rocks he has collected into the second archer, piercing their light armor and killing them instantly.
Before you have time to register all that has happened, Phekda follows up by immediately unleashing a stream of lightning on the third archer, who shakes wildly and falls off the wall into the moat. Only just now realizing the intention to deal with them all at once, you quickly unleash a cast of Ruin against the fourth archer, who staggers as they reach for a battlehorn. Just as they regain their senses and put their mouth on the horn, a follow-up attack from Phekda is enough to get the job done.
Brick runs up and along the ladder until he is on the wall, and Erden follows quickly behind him. Once everyone finishes climbing, you assess your surroundings. At the East and West ends of the wall stand two small towers, with the west unoccupied and the east being meticulously studied by a mage. Fortunately, they were either ignorant of their attack or unphased by it. The two gladiator guards that accompanied them were not quite as calm.
Erden pushes forward with his axe ready, seeking to intercept the gladiators before they could bring a blade against the squishy magic users of the group. You flip through the first few pages of the book and cast Rejuvenate on Erden before steel can meet his body, as he is not very well-armored for the mission.
Initially he is able to keep both of their attention, but the one on his left realizes that the casters of our group are the real threat thanks to getting rocks chucked at his face by S’olahr. He attempts to rush you three, but receives a devastating kick to his side from Erden, knocking him straight off the wall and into the moat. Erden lets out a gasp of pain as steel pierces through his abdomen.
“ERDEN!” You yell out, channeling as much energy as possible into a Ruin cast that knocks the gladiator off his feet. Phekda follows this up by incinerating him, and as his body reaches the ground she rushes ahead to apprehend the studious mage.
You spend a bit of time anxiously patching up Erden with S’olahr, who tells you that he’s fine. (At least, now that you’ve gone and healed him.) You angrily insist that if Erden is going to go on missions such as this and fight so close to their foes that he had better get some proper armor for it, which he nods to with a smile.
The mage seemed startled by Phekda’s sudden approach, fearfully raising their hands up in defeat. Phekda slows down and simply holds them at blade-point. S’olahr binds the mage’s wrists with Fluid Aura, and you snatch their tome away.
Phekda lowers the hood of the cultist to reveal a young hyur woman with long white hair. She babbles on about how ‘you won’t be able to stop His resurrection,’ and such, and Phekda begins to escort her from the wall.
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“This was a bit too easy.” Phekda remarks.
“The Lambs of Dalamud have far more members than what we encountered here-- it’s likely that the rest are secreted away wherever their base is.” S’olahr said, looking around cautiously.
“We should probably report back to the Seedseer and she can give us an idea of what to do next.” You tell the others. They nod in agreement and you all return to the carriage. On the ride back, you spend some time combing through the tome the cultist had. Luckily for you, this woman was very thorough in her note-taking.
The first few pages are arcane geometries identical to the ones you started out with-- the ones available to basically anyone who walks into the Arcanist’s guild. Later spell pages crudely mix and mash what she had available to her in an attempt to make more powerful spells.
Even amateur arcanists would be able to tell at a glance that the pages inscribed are far too dangerous-- by drawing on this much aether to cast, the caster risks killing themselves, or at least severely damaging the environment around them. It’s no wonder that the conjurer’s guild was getting involved.
Rather abhorrently, the spells which push aetheric use to the brink are also stained with blood, clear evidence she was using blood sacrifices to unleash them without risking her own life. To your frustration, it doesn’t look like any of her spells will be of any practical use to you or to the Grand Companies. Only the most desperate and morally bankrupt of casters would use things like these.
The later half of the book includes interesting research on voidsent, as well as written notes on the seals placed both on the outer walls of Amdapor and the inner ones that they were working on removing. The barrier consists of hexagonal surfaces and individual runes carved onto each face, which you take the time to copy down. With any luck, they will make for a valuable component.
This woman seemed to have had her wits about her while writing, as the book lacks any mentioning of where their base of operations is as well as not including any other members by name. You pray that the Twin Adders will be able to pry some information out of her.
She is taken into custody once you bring her into the city, and you are each compensated well for your help. Erden mentions that he needs to return to Limsa as soon as possible, as his parents are the type to get worried when he’s late on deliveries, so he departs.
Kan-E-Senna thanks you, Phekda, and S’olahr in person, and S’olahr especially seems very reverent in her presence. Ever a woman of her word, she presents a complete arcane geometry index for fluid aura. To your surprise, its core design does not use simple circles, but instead is based heavily on an eight-sided star-shaped pattern which lies at the page’s center.
You carefully copy down a version of it into your own tome and with a flick of the wrist manage to manifest chains of water on a striking dummy, which makes you leap with joy. Upon professionally thanking the Elder Seedseer, she mentions she has one more request for you, Phekda, and S’olahr to handle-- a very simple one, at that.
The conjurers of Gridania have noticed a growing uptick in umbral aether within the area, and have pinpointed the source just outside of the city to the southwest. She offhandedly remarks that this would be a great opportunity for S’olahr to prove his capabilities as a conjurer, which gets him and even Phekda fired up for the job. Since you have no other way to compensate them for helping you, you agree to help them on this final mission.
The Sorrel Haven, through the White Wolf Gate, feels lifeless and dull, with plants wilting away even in spots with ample sun and water. Phekda pulls out a large, clunky set of goggles and puts them on before surveying the area, and remarks that the aether is noticeably thin here.
S’olahr takes a moment to close his eyes and focus on the land around him before pointing a bit further south.
“I can sense the aether collecting this way.” He explains, before beginning to lead the charge. “It’s pooling together and condensing, draining the life from the land. No wonder she wanted us to investigate it!”
The area is densely populated by morbols, which you are all careful to avoid. Luckily, the drain of aether has left most of them in a sluggish, sleepy state, which makes navigating past them easier than normal.
Eventually you reach a small pool which S’olahr cautiously reaches out toward. After a moment of channeling aether, a tainted air sprite manifests and unleashes wave after wave of stored magic. The three of you are pushed back by the intense winds, but in a moment of quick thinking you cast fluid aura on yourself, binding you in place.
You firmly hold the book and the page down with your right hand while casting with your left, and manage to successfully land a cast of Ruin off on the sprite. While it doesn’t do much in terms of killing the creature, it does stop the winds just long enough for Phekda to close the gap between her and it. With a violent series of thrashes from her enchanted blade, the sprite’s form deteriorates into nothing.
Phekda seems impressed with your ability to act but does not comment, merely saying a collective ‘good work’ before heading back to Gridania. S’olahr channels a bit more aether into the pool to safely and gradually release it back into the surroundings, and then returns with you to the city before the morbols begin to wake up.