Leyra and the Valtas' make this place very dangerous until the party sorts them out
After a nice rest and thinking about strategies including finally using some of the newer and more powerful spells acquired, the party approached the massive stone door of the tower, allowing TheGoliath to speak the words previously learned from the Leaden Key Acolyte and the tower door opened.
Upon entering they find a laboratory used for research and creation along with more Guls ready to fight them. "We can never have a lack of enemies these days, we are always fighting and it is great!" shouted Eder.
One of the new spells was used, Speaker to the Restless which causes frightened in enemies and is an area of effect that can get many enemies caught in it, like what happened this first use of it. This made it even quicker to defeat them but they quickly hurt TheGoliath after going into their frightened state for a short moment due to being mad creatures in general.
One of the more fun fights for everyone was against a Skeletal Wizard, Skeletal Fighter and Skeletal Rogue as it was more exciting and interesting to experience. It included the Skeletons using abilities that were not basic but they just didn't have enough strength to win in a fight against the party's current level.
Neither were the next lot of Guls or the Revenant and the only reason TheGoliath went down... was his fireball and being too close to the blast so he took damage before being hit by an enemy and needing the others to finish them off so they could head to the top of the tower.
It was now time to focus on this machine upon the top of the tower, one being worked on by Aldhelm for research purposes while his rotten flesh wasted away. So after a chat about the machine and how to deal with the runes inscribed on the pillar for operating it, the party gets ready to head out to find Icantha and learn the runes words and turn this dreadful machine off, or destroy it.
With that little bit of gained experience came level 6 for Sagani, Hiravias and Eder. Firstly Sagani decided to learn Vicious Companion to increase her companions damage and damage reduction penetration which would be handy. Hiravias went with Wildstrike Freeze to automatically grant freeze damage as another thing to increase the odds of damage elements doing more to any enemy hit with it and finally, Eder chose Wary Defender to increase the granted defence stat boosts while in Defender Mode, a nice addition which will help him tank the damage while the party does more damage for longer.
Icantha was difficult to deal with through her dialogue and unwillingness to help out, so it took a while and wearing her down but eventually she taught the runes words to TheGoliath and he had learned it in a few moments. With that they went back to the top of the tower, maximising the machine's throttle and overloading the device so this could be over and another successful quest completion gave nice experience.
Inside the Valtas Manor some shouting could be heard. "Saeda let us in!" shouted Lord Valtas before he turned his attention to the party entering the room, as did Lady Valtas and Emilo Valtas and a fight broke out.
Everything was cast, well a lot of spells and abilities which including healing because the fight was a tough one, it took a short while before the Valtas' could be killed and the party could look for Saeda.
Unlocking the door saw that she had escaped through a little hole so they went out to look for her.
A final place and fight was to take place... inside of the Mausoleum of Heritage Hill. Leyra was luring the Crucible Knights to their death which she turned them on the party after they accused her of it.
Both sides were fierce with the party getting close to having members getting knocked down as the damage from the enemies was great, but so was their damage and Kana's summoned skeletons would be strong in this fight, which eventually saw the Justicars falling and Leyra would go down after a tough bout, ensuring the safety of Heritage Hill and so she could not lure people to their death anymore.
"Well done all it was tough but we made it, we can stress no more and we will rest well at Caed Nua!" announced TheGoliath.
After everyone had a moment to recover the group went out and found Saeda safe and hiding, telling her the machine making those hungry people had been turned off and it was safe for her to leave. She thanked them and hugged them goodbye before heading out to the front gate to wait for the party to arrive.
Once they walked through the gate, Saeda said that it was the party who had saved her and they were thankful to everyone for doing their part and stopping the terrors that were happening in Heritage Hill.
This was part #18 for my Pillars of Eternity series.
Stay tuned for part #19 and see what happens next and what TheGoliath will get up to.
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