His hand still extended Salen offers a comforting smile.

"No, we are not going to eat you. We are here to save you - you and your queen.

Do you know how many of the evil ones there are?"

Taking the proffered hand the Harpy stands, barely coming unto Salen's chest.

"In all? I do not know. There have been many hatchings in the last few years."

"It does not matter," said Salen, matter of factly. "However many there are, they are just in the way. We will take them all.

We must go quickly. Anything you can tell us of what lies beyond? Traps? Obstacles? Are there more of your kind around here?"

"No, we do not live here anymore, not since our beloved found the path beyond the stars which brought us salvation and returned the lucky few to where we were meant to be.

Ahead lies the great shrine...They talk to Beaked one and summon her daughter from the pit. She feeds on the sacrifices once their essence has been removed. More eggs are made and more death and disease will follow. All of you here carry the taint already, the stink clouds your aura."

From outside Henal's familiar sends a message to his master via Haaro from Kobal

Tell the others it seems the cave where the ritual is taking place is between both our groups, away from the cave of echoes.  If we attack from two directions, hopefully we can stop the ritual and save the good harpies.

Ohanzee returns his helmet to his head and states "Come on then, let's finish them!" and stowing his axe he readies his bow.

Donning his own helmet once again, Salen nods at Ohanzee's words following Henal's relayed message. He has one last question for the little Harpy.

"It is time - taint or no, we have our task to complete, for we are the Wandering Rangers. Are you coming with us, or staying here?"

Henal readies his sword and shield.

"Lets get moving to stop the ceremony then. For the green".

Tarosh listens and watches the others with a bemused smile on his face, She is beautiful, some of the others obviously feel the same way, hopefully she'll choose me over them. When he hears Salens question, he takes a step towards Kaunis, "Of course she coming with us, we can't leave her alone."  Henal's words sink through the haze that is slowing his thoughts and he stops moving towards the harpy. "Your right Henal, lets finish this." He quickly looks around, checking the dead harpies for any weapons he can use.

The Harpy nods, but choses to go stand next to Amara, her small form hidden by the Vingan's shield.

Meanwhile Tarosh quickly finds a handy meat cleaver, several darts and his spear, and once ready joins his friends as they jog back the way he'd come, their feet smashing the tinder dry debris under foot as they run.

All too soon they near the dark opening into where the Blue Llama brave had been thrown previously, the ground above the lip of the drop still sticky with blood. No other sign of the captives or the Harpies remain..

The tunnel curves back on itself and beyond a further bend can be seen the flickering lights of the Harpy Temple.

Amara creeped forward javelin already in her hand ready to hurl it at the first harpy standing guard that she sees. "We must be cautious, but we have to interrupt this ceremony. It seems as though all guards are gone. They must be participating in it. If luck remains with us, we shall catch them off guard." she whispered, moving forward as silently as she could.

Henal looks to see the others are ready and then casts a spell of protection on himself.

Rikki let the others know we are ready to enter the harpy temple now.

Glad that he has found some more weapons, Tarosh follows the others. As he walks, he glances down and a smile crosses his face, "When we have to run away, the stuff on the floor should burn easily and cover our retreat, it's a pity we can't just burn them out."

The advancing Rangers come across no guards as they approach the Harpy Temple from two directions, the final bends bringing them in full view of what lies ahead...

A large almost circular cave some 60 metres in diameter, it's roof and floor hidden by stalagmites and stalactites. It's full of acrid, herbal smoke, hundreds of fat lamps and candles, the stench of disease, and the noise of screams and Harpy calls. It looks like some giant mouth about to come crashing down to eat those trapped inside.

One wall opens into a vast gloomy cave, where on it's edge a large carved boulder rests. leaning out in to the void. Atop it is a group of Harpies, a human prisoner in their arms who just as both groups of Rangers enter gets thrown screaming into the dark...

Deep within their midst stands a deformed Creature that must be their shaman for she is surrounded by a veil of spirits, magic and worse. At her feet sit two men whom Tarosh recognise as Wooly and Grouch.

Another dozen or so Harpies, either in mid air or standing upon stalagmites watch the proceedings, though they immediately turn to confront the interlopers to their holy place. These are not young bird women, but seasoned warriors, armoured and in some cases shimmering with magic. Armed with large bone clubs or wicked poisoned darts they fly to attack....

Henal readies his sword and shield and has a charm of protection from injury cast on himself.

He looks to rush towards the shaman and free the captives as his javelins have been given to Amara.

Seeing the harpies have noticed them he yells "For the green! Storm Bull and Waha aid us against chaos."

The Harpy guards split into two groups, one of four Harpies heads towards Kobal and his companions, whilst the remainder head towards Henal and his.

The scene is horrific, even more so than what they have already passed through and it takes some control for Ohanzee to more forward. He looses the arrow he had readied at the grotesque shaman and then shoulders the bow as he reaches for the bull roarer around his neck mumbling "Time to see if this attracts or repels!"

He begins spinning the device his next action depending upon the outcome.

Salen readies his enchanted javelin and looks to make a deadly strike, just as soon as he sees what effect Ohanzee's bullroarer has.

As the Rangers head into the cave to meet the wave of defenders, intent on cleansing the place of chaos and preventing the culmination of whatever dread ritual was taking place, the shaman having ducked Ohanzee's clumsy arrow, holds forth an ancient skull, out of which pours an oily black smoke.

It quickly collects into the spectral form of a Harpy ancestor spirit which at the sound of the now spinning bull roarer dives for it's wielder.

As soon as the Rhino brave had begun to swing the odd instrument about his head it had begun to emit an eerie whistle. Those looking at their companion see that he is encased in a ball of protective, shimmering magic.

The spirits surrounding the shaman also leave, the ghostly cloud drawn by the roarer's summons, causing the shaman to shout out in rage, just as Amara as sales launch their javelins...

Harmony save us: what is that thing?

Fighting down a gag reflex, Hoskar aims his first stone at the foul shaman , his gaze darting around for the likeliest targets to follow or for incoming attacks then back to the stone's flight to see if it causes any hurt.

Though he is taken unawares by the sound of the bullroarer, its voice is grateful here: a reminder of Greeshar and of the Bull's effectiveness against chaos.

Henal seeing the spirits moving towards Ohanzee in the ball of magic rushes towards the Shaman intent on striking her down with his sword after the thrown javelins hit.

Slaying Chaos for The Green! he yells out in Earth Speech.

When he sees how many harpies are in the cavern and what they are doing, Tarosh balks at running in with the other rangers because of his lack of armour, instead he quickly casts a protective charm on himself and gets ready to defend Ohanzee if any of the harpies attack him.

Amara nodded grimly to the others as she whispered her charms to protect herself. She knew that this fight would be the toughest they'd ever faced. They were short on magic and had fought hard and faced injuries to get where they were. It almost seemed impossible that they were now setting out to defeat the chaos harpies on their home gorund. She whispered to the harpy near her "Whatever you can do to help us prevail in this fight, do. We're outnumbered and there is much fighting ahead."

Her eyes spotted the shaman and with few more words, Amara hefted Grandmothers tongue, the leafed blade of the javelin coated in the thick cloying goyo root extract in her hand. Closing her eyes for an instant she asked for grandmother thorntrees blessing and hurled it towards the shaman, hoping it would if nothing else distract the shaman from the ceremony and break it. Vinga's blessing carried the javelin high and far.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:42, Wed 28 Oct 2015.

With a shout of primal rage, Kobal hurls his javelin at the closest harpy before drawing his sword and charging at the shaman, hacking at any of the creatures who might come within range.

He sees spectral forms move straight for Ohanzee, and for a moment he wonders whether he should move to help the rhino brave.  But only for a moment.  With no weapons against spirits, he continues his charge.

As the just summoned ancestral spirit and then all the other many ghostly forms surrounding the shaman fix Ohanzee with their full attention and charge at him, the eerie whistle of the bull-roarer is joined by the short high pitched toot of gas escaping a tightly held sphincter!

He takes solace in the obvious effect this has on the shaman though and strengthens his resolve as he shouts "For the Wandering Rangers. For the Green. For Raven!" On the last shout there is another surge of magical energies and Ohanzee seems to sprout spectral feathers that ruffle briefly and then lay flat over his whole body looking almost like the scales of a fish.

With his magical protections in place he draws the spirit arrow ready to use it as a crude dagger, all the time the bull-roarer spinning, drawing the spirits to him, and he is determined to give his fellow Rangers as long as he can last to deal with the mundane forces in the cave.