Chapter Five: Bapdis Orjo's Gift of Reconciliation

Domarc's common sense tells him the smoke door is probably a trap of some kind.

Last chance to take an action before the jinn and elemental collide! Who can say if either one of them will survive this clash!?

Somehow, Zangua manages to swing the bracelet onto the stump of the jinn's severed hand as she charges past, but with a quick flick, she flings it off, sending it rolling and bouncing down the hill.

Steam screeches and flames roar as the jinn and the fire creature collide, the jinn blocking the spinning wheel of conflagration with her spear and trying to twist the point into it, so that the fire creature's spinning momentum causes it to shred itself apart against the weapon, while the fire creature tries to bear its bulk down on the jinn, engulfing her arms and head in its flames, trying to consume her...

Edit: The spinning wheel of flame wobbles as the jinn stands her ground. Does anyone want to take an action or intervene at this point?

As Zangua unleashes his fury on the spinning wheel of flame, it begins to lose integrity, sending embers and fragments of flame flying into the air and skidding down the hillside, finally passing in a great belch of smoke over the jinn, fading and dissipating into nothingness, carried away by the breeze and mingling with the smoke still pouring steadily from the holes on top of the hill.

The jinn stands there for a moment, looking down at Zangua. "My cousin," she finally asks, "sent you back here?"

"He serves his own ends," the jinn says with a dismissive nod. She turns to stare at the archway and the smoke-choked passage it frames. "But I will reward the assistance you tried to give me. I will allow you to question Pafthinel before I kill him."

The jinn raises her hand and shoots a jet of water into the smoke, which disperses out into the air. Her concern for the bracelet appears to be nil. "Go on and enter," she says. "I will be close behind you." With a faint smile, she folds her arms over her chest, and in the blink of an eye dissolves into a fine mist that pools onto the hillside, swirling in eddies around the party's feet.

Is everybody going in?

The party squeezes through the narrow passage single-file. It opens to an irregularly-shaped vestibule about forty feet wide, with passages branching off to the southwest, the south, and the northeast. The southwest and northeast exits seem to lead to long, narrow corridors; the south passage leads up a curving inclined passage.

It's strangely warm in here, a marked contrast to the chill of the jinn in mist-form as she pools around your feet and ankles.

So the jinn is still hanging around, so to speak? If so, we should probably figure out a plan if we need to get Pafthinel off the island...

I'm inclined to start with the south passage, if it's all the same to everyone else.