# (Eberron) Legacies - Updated 15 June



## Shieldhaven (Nov 21, 2004)

I'm entertained enough by some of the other Story Hours that I've read that I decided to post my character's journal entries from an Eberron campaign entitled _Legacies_.

I may also post some tangential commentary on what was going on outside of my character's perception.  Since this is not evident from the journal, my character is Teagen Allister d'Cannith, a transmuter.  The campaign started at third level, and we have yet to reach fourth.

Enjoy!

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So we’ve managed narrowly to escape death at the hands of Dhakaani extremists.  We were in the undercity of Sharn searching for a handaxe that is an important symbol for those lunatics.  It was a pretty standard sort of test, should have been easy.

We got down there and everything was dark.  We used sunrods to light the chamber up a bit – apparently a market square, however long ago.  I should check on more precise dating, though I rather doubt it will be useful in the strictest sense.
		(human ruins circa 1000 yrs ago	Dhakaani empire 17k-6k yrs ago)
We fought some things that the Tharashk man called horrid rats, and I suppose that name is valid.  It’s not every day that you run into rats with fangs that drip acid.  I got stupid and wasted my one prepared Scorching Ray on one of them.  Little did I know at the time that we would soon have much bigger problems.  Similarly, I wasted the Feline Grace – well, I suppose it was appreciated, but still we would have been better served to have had it later.  At least my Armor of the Eldritch Forge was still active later on.  I should learn a few more spells of longer duration, or I should study the ways of lengthening the duration of the spells I already have.

Once the horrid rats were hacked to bits – never overlook the utility of an axe – we searched through one of the buildings and found the handaxe we were seeking.  We were poking through other buildings when the Dhakaani arrived to claim the axe.  We considered handing it over, as that would have saved us a lot of pain, but the changeling got mouthy and we definitely reached a point of no return.  In the future, someone with less of a barbed tongue ought to do the talking.  Important lesson there.  We were doing reasonably well, even though we burned through much of one healing wand and a decent portion of my wand of arcane bolts, but eventually their remarkably superior numbers put us in a position such that we had to choose between the death of one of our number or keeping the axe.  We surrendered the axe.  I do not regret this decision in the least; while I was willing to fight and risk injury to keep the axe from falling into their hands, I was not willing to consign a comrade to death when there was not even a passing likelihood of returning him to life.  Our task now ought to be the recovery of this axe and the dissolution of any warbands of Dhakaani in Sharn.

Some questions that remain:
At what point did the Dhakaani scouts pick us up?  Is there a significant information leak within Morgrave University?  Where is their base within the city?  If we can figure out where the Dhakaani get their information, can we in turn feed them bad intelligence and lure them into a trap?  How much trouble will we be in with the University?  Why didn’t they get the axe the day before, instead of waiting for us to come along?

Dhakaani relics were fashionable in early Galifar era.
Upper nobility/upper dragonmarked were the only ones to possess relics on this level.
Dhakaani made heavy use of weaponry.  Bladed weapons were more used in religions-type ceremonies.  Hafted (axe, etc.) tended to be used in civic ceremonies.  Swords fell out of vogue in the later empire due to the rise of the orc druids.  This axes seems to have been used as a symbol of authority over an area.  Axe – scepter.


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## Shieldhaven (Nov 21, 2004)

Our escape from death was not this time quite so narrow, though we were still in remarkable danger.  We spoke with Dean Harrison about our failure in the Undercity and discussed the necessary political maneuvering that would give us another shot at recovering the axe.  He eventually mentioned that the son of the maid of a cousin of a relevant person had gone missing in the forest not far outside of Sharn, and rescuing this child might put the right people in our debt to have certain powerful divinations performed.  We got a description of the boy, which I included above.

Gerron – that’s the proper name of the d’Tharashk man I mentioned in the previous entry – found the boy’s tracks.  We followed them, noting that eventually a creature called an ettercap followed the boy, who did not seem alarmed by the prospect of an ettercap.  As I have encountered one of these creatures since then, I can say with confidence that such beasts are indeed highly alarming.

The tracks led us to a glade deep within the forest, where we saw several bodies wrapped in webs like burial shrouds.  Monstrously huge spiders emerged from hiding and attacked Fel when he attempted to free one of them.  We fought several of these spiders, some of which were nearly human-sized, as well as the ettercap.  I used several more charges from my wand; I need to either plan to buy a new wand, or expand my magical capacity remarkably.  Or both.

At least this time I did not waste my most powerful spells on insignificant targets.  I am still having major problems with the accuracy of my Scorching Ray.  Since I was busy attacking with my wand, I did not use many of my other prepared spells, except for my standard magical defenses.  We were eventually victorious, though not without difficulty, and discovered a few gems – including, fortuitously, a pearl of the necessary quality – among the ettercap’s gathered belongings.  Fel cut the people out of their webs.  They were all still alive, amazingly.  We got the three people back to the city, taking two to the House Jorasco healers and Kelvin directly to Dean Harrison.


Some questions that remain:
Why did Kelvin remain calm while the ettercap followed him?  Did this ettercap have a heretofore-unknown capacity for mind control?  Was the boy delirious?  Is the Dean being entirely honest?  What possible reason would he have not to be so?  Will the Dean’s intended chain of favors work out properly?


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## Shieldhaven (Nov 22, 2004)

I can hardly pretend that our most recent task represented any sort of brush with death, unlike the first and second incidents.  Dean Harrison informed us that there had been some very disturbing goings-on at the Lyrandar house in the two days following Kelvin’s return.  It had been reported as a haunting of some sort.  We went to the house to investigate and spoke at length with Kelvin’s mother.  She described two apparitions to us.  These descriptions are in my notes, above.

After speaking with her, we spent quite a great deal of time batting around theories and consulting with experts.  We had the better part of a day to do so, since we had promised to come back to the Lyrandar household later that night to observe.  One of the favored theories from our discussion was that the “apparitions” were indicative of awakening psychic talent in Kelvin.  Maeve has a friend in the University who specializes in psychic studies; he gave me a scroll of Sense Psychic Ties that would prove vital to our investigation.

So we went to the house late that night and prepared for a long night watch.  Mercifully, it was still early in the night when we saw the two apparitions manifest out of thin air.  Gerron and Fel immediately engaged them while Maeve and I stood back and used our spells of divination.  She cast Sense the Corrupted Heart.  It took some time for our perceptions of the apparitions to come into focus, but she immediately determined that they were not of an evil nature, but that something of evil was indeed nearby.  I determined just as quickly that they were without a doubt psychically inclined.  Gerron and Fel seemed to be in so very little danger that we stayed back and continued to focus our concentration.

Then a woman burst out of a room farther down the hall, screaming.  A creature that Gerron identified as a “fear” – though I think it’s spelled differently – emerged after her.  Once again we were engaged in combat, and once again we were easily victorious.  Undisturbed by this, I turned my attention to Kelvin’s room and ascertained that he does, indeed, have psychic ability.  I roused Kelvin’s mother from her bed and informed her of the situation.  Kelvin will be coming to the University for training in the mysteries of his own mind.

Some questions that remain:
Will Kelvin have difficulty adjusting to his life away from his mother?  Was his psychic awakening caused by his time in the clutches of the ettercap?  Will there be other barriers to our efforts to persuade the right people to perform a divination for us?  Does Dean Harrison really not have the resources to command another divination?  Or is it not as important to him as he pretends?  Or is he gaining other political benefits from our efforts and thus finding it profitable to stymie us?


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## dravot (Nov 24, 2004)

Nice start.  I'm looking through Eberron materials for a possible alternate campaign for nights when we can't play our main campaign, so any other materials and ideas are always useful.  

 The first posting was a bit confusing to me, though...at first I thought that youse guys had been hired by the Dhakaani, not by the university.


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## Shieldhaven (Nov 27, 2004)

Yeah, that's definitely the problem with the journal style.  The character's journal doesn't include things that he takes for granted... like being a TA at Morgrave University, or Maeve (the cleric) being a graduate student there.  I don't think he's yet mentioned that he's part of House Cannith, either - though you might have picked that up from his name in the Introduction.  And he doesn't know about some of the (vastly amusing) things the other PCs have done - like when the changeling was trying to stir up anti-goblin riots in bars in the Lower City.


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## Shieldhaven (Dec 16, 2004)

It's been a long while since I've posted.  This is actually two sessions rolled into one entry.  Also, I had to leave the last session a little early, so I missed the part in which we identified the sword.

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Our labors since my last entry have been… indirect.  The Dean informed us that all of the arrangements had been made for the divination we have endeavored to earn.  Fel went to receive it, and found himself in the shop of an old fortune-teller.  She told him that the axe is in the mountains of Droaam.  It is a key of some kind.  There is a woman of some sort watching us and taking no action.  The fortune-teller anticipated Fel’s arrival and recognized him as a changeling.

But when Fel returned to tell the Dean of this, he said that he had no idea who this old woman was, and we were supposed to have gone to speak with Brother Jared in Cogswatch.  I really wonder, in hindsight, where Fel got the bad information that led him to what may or may not have been an accurate divination.  Brother Jared told him that the axe has been taken to where it can be used as a symbol of authority.  If we chase after it, we will go one way and then the other.  It will pass through our hands & through our fingers.  If we do not seek it, it will be used to open a door that should be kept closed.  It is currently in the City.  There exists a prophecy of doing a great good that is turned into a great danger.

When we told him of this second divination, Dean Harrison told us of a tavern in Lower Dura called the One Way.  We took a skysled down there – the sled’s handler was sufficiently amused by us that he declined to charge us.  He dropped us off not too far from there, more or less in the thick of the goblinoid crowd.  None of us felt too great about that, but we were shy on options so we took a seat not far from the center of the room and ordered beer.  Maeve ordered some rather mysterious red-tinted beer – I think it had some kind of really godawful spice in it.  After a few moments of studiously avoiding our beer, Gerron used the power of his dragonmark to reach out for the axe.  We were all surprised when he said that it was in the next building over.

Fel examined the building.  It was inhabited by a family of goblins.  We were debating how to go about getting the axe from inside the house when a spell of Farspeaking brought words to our ears.  The voice offered to help us get inside the building, for a price, and instructed us to go back to the tavern.  A hobgoblin approached us inside.  He called himself “Dark” and offered to get the axe for us if we would do him a favor.  I insisted that the favor be named before we agreed to it, so he told us the story of his brother, who was ambushed and robbed by halflings.  Dark wanted to recover his brother’s greatsword, preferably by violence.  I pulled Gerron aside for a moment to debate this, but it soon became clear that I was the only one who felt exceptional qualms about acting quite so far outside the law.  We were without further recourse, however; robbing a house full of goblins in a goblin-choked section of the city is definitely not better.  So we got directions to the halflings’ warehouse.  Dark described the greatsword as being made of a purple-red metal.

We did initially try to negotiate.  On Maeve’s suggestion, we put ourselves forward as the relatives of an eccentric uncle who enjoyed collecting swords, and had heard of this one very impressive one.  Once we persuaded the halflings to let us see the greatsword that we purportedly wished to purchase, they brought us inside the building, into a small waiting-room.  It took four of them to bring the sword in, as it was apparently sized for an ogre.  An inscription on the blade was translated to read: “What is bound may sleep forever.”  They wanted more than twice as much money as we could possibly gather (at least, without going to ask the Baron d’Cannith for a massive loan).  So we jumped them.

It was not an easy fight.  I caused Gerron to grow large enough to wield the greatsword, then looked to my own defense.  Maeve was in trouble immediately, as she was surrounded by enemies.  Fel did what he could in the fight, but the halflings outnumbered us.  Eventually Gerron’s massive and improved strength cut them all down, save for the one that fled from the room to alert the rest of his comrades.  We beat a hasty retreat with sword in hand, though still more halflings attacked us on the way out.  I was badly wounded by time we made good our escape.  I did manage to snatch up a few of the leader’s belongings on my way out.

Questions that remain:
What is Dark’s real name and agenda?  What does the sword really do?  Will the halflings seek to retaliate against us?  Were they part of any sort of hierarchy?  Will Dark actually hold up his end of the bargain?  Will word of our actions get out and come back to haunt us?  What does the inscription on the blade mean?  Was there some other, better way in which we could have handled all of this?


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## Shieldhaven (Dec 29, 2004)

I only have time for a few notes, and writing here is difficult anyway.  We – Maeve, Gerron, and I – are on a skysled back up to the University.  We can only pray that that Fel will manage to meet us there.

We went back down to the One Way in Lower Dura to meet back up with Dark.  We drank – well, okay, we bought – more of that fire-beer.  Maeve nearly seems to have developed a taste for the stuff, which I rate several steps below “swill.”  We had a terribly interesting time getting a ten-foot-long sword in there; after a number of comically hare-brained schemes, we settled on wrapping it up in bed sheets and rope.  Dark showed up and we negotiated a private, non-ambush-laden meeting-place.  I named, at random, “three alleys down, on the other side of the street.”  Wrong bloody alley.  Fel bullied a couple of goblins into leaving that alley while we conducted business with Dark.  The sword vanished as soon as it was in his hand.  When the goblins showed back up with their hobgoblin and bugbear pals, Dark pulled a second vanishing act on himself.  He didn’t actually leave, though, as he put several of our enemies to sleep with a spell when the battle started to go badly for us.  I managed to make myself useful, between two Scorching Rays and a few arcane bolts.  At the same time that my spell capacity improved, I took a hard look at which spells I was using and which were wasted power.  I now have even more of my power invested in the magics of evocation – perhaps odd, given that I am a transmuter.  Maybe once we’re done with all of this I can look into researching some battle spells of transmutation that would actually be useful.

Anyway, once we defeated the goblinoid thugs, Fel requested the handaxe from me.  Not really thinking about it, I gave it to him.  He suddenly changed into a female dwarf and she ran out into the street.  Of Lower Dura.  With a reasonably recognizable ceremonial Dhakaani handaxe.  We could not follow Fel through the crowd – couldn’t even see her – so we hurried to find another skysled.  Gerron is furious, of course.  We’re almost there.  I just want to wash my hands of the axe.

Some questions that remain:
Is Fel trying to get himself killed, or is this pure serendipity?  What’s Dark’s real agenda?  What else will get in our way between here and the Dean’s office?


-----------------------------

The session actually continued beyond the end of this journal entry.  We arrived at Morgrave University, found Fel, and Gerron took a swing at him.  Then Gerron and I - mainly Gerron - castigated Fel for about half an hour.  The GM stopped the session before we could take the axe to the Dean.

Also, we determined that the glasses we got off the halfling were spectacles of arcane sight, valued at something like 10k gold pieces.  At the moment, we're working on how to unload them; having Teagen sell them to his family (who made them in the first place) is our best plan yet.


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## megamania (Dec 31, 2004)

Its a good start.  Keep it up.


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## Shieldhaven (Jan 12, 2005)

So we arrived safely in the Dean’s office, though not without some delay and more paranoia than I can shake a stick at.  I think Fel is starting to rub off on us – but really, it’s hard to overlook Dire Prophecy That Insists We’re Going to Muck This Up.  Our mood at the time was entirely based around getting the axe out of our hands and into the Dean’s; in hindsight I think this may have been something of an error.

Anyway, we waited for him to get out of a conversation with one of the professors, and then we went in.  He seemed reluctant to touch the axe, and we placed it in something that I would venture to guess is a Lirimund’s Secret Chest.  We then requested a new assignment, and after a moment’s thought he produced one for which all of the arrangements had – presumably – been previously made.  There is a rather rare eclipse coming up in the next few days, and he asked that we go to the Eldeen Reaches to observe it.  None of us are the least bit trained in astronomy or astrology, so Maeve and I did extensive historical research on the phenomenon and its possible sociomystical underpinnings.  We had only a few hours of work, and I was not able to pin down with any certainty the house with which this moon is aligned – either Phiarlan/Thuranni or Lyrandar.  Its last eclipse was two years ago.  Some think that this foretold the creation of the Mournland.  It went into eclipse rather often during the Last War.  Its last major eclipse was shortly after the start of the Last War.  The moon is connected to Mabar, the Endless Night – okay, the connection to Phiarlan/Thuranni is pretty hard to miss here.  It will be going into eclipse at 1 a.m.  Maeve did manage to find a skilled astronomer to advise us at some length.  She tried to get him added to our group, but she was unsuccessful.

Before we left, I sent a letter off to my cousing Manarix d'Cannith inquiring about the possibility of selling the spectacles.  I hope that a favorable reply will have come by the time we return, whenever that may be.

So we boarded the lightning rail.  At Passage, on the border between Aundair and the Eldeen Reaches, we met with Rae d’Orien who teleported us to our destination.  It is at this point that I became truly horrified by the kind of expense that the Dean must have incurred to get us here.  This also makes us suspicious – we four are the only people in Sharn other than the Dhakaani who know a damn thing about the axe, and the Dean just paid a whole hell of a lot of money to get us very far away, very fast, with no quick means of return.  We were told that our return will be with House Vadalis rather than Orien.  Darien d’Ghallanda, a fastieth rider, then met up with us and led us to the town of Greatwood.  He knows more about our itinerary than we do.  He also warned us about the Gloaming, apparently a very dangerous part of the forest.  He was surprised that we were in the area for serious and scholarly purposes rather than 

Our cabins were attacked in the night by troll zombies.  We awoke in time to fight them – in fact, I had only just gone to bed.  I had stayed up late working on some theory notes for new spell research possibilities.  As usual, Gerron was incredibly deadly with his greataxe, though he took a number of wounds as he had not had time to don his armor.  I did manage to burn the zombies reasonably well with my Scorching Rays.  One of the fastieths took care of a zombie all by itself.

*Some questions that remain*-
Okay, I’m now convinced that we’re being deceived in some manner – but is it the Dean, or someone else?  Will the sign of our betrayal come soon?  Is this whole trip really just a diversion?  What is the significance of the moon and its eclipse?


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## Cedious (Jan 12, 2005)

nice start, im looking forward to reading more 

i will be interested to see the other players perspectives of the Eberron world. 

looking forward to your next posts


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## Shieldhaven (Jan 12, 2005)

Tragically, none of the other players seem to be as called by the siren song of bonus xp as I am.  I can only guess at what they actually think about things based on their stated views.  Fel, for example, is one paranoid and psychopathic little changeling.  Gerron has not the least bit of respect for the law when it gets between him and his goals.  Maeve is scared of most of the things we've faced, and I think she'd rather be holed up drinking her family's money away than going on adventures.  She's awfully sensible.

Haven


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## Cedious (Jan 13, 2005)

Shieldhaven said:
			
		

> Fel, for example, is one paranoid and psychopathic little changeling.  Gerron has not the least bit of respect for the law when it gets between him and his goals.  Maeve is scared of most of the things we've faced





lol we have a little halfling (rogue) thats just a pain in the dm's ass *cough* (me)
2 warforged warriors (recently died) that was the we don't care about the law type....and they made two more warforged that seem to be the same way.
my bro just made a 1/2 giant (warrior) that im sure will go down that road
and then we have a gnome (artificer) that is just a pain in the ass when in comes to taking notes and designs of things....  

seems like our games have a couple things in common.... 

^_^ l8er gotta get back to work


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## Shieldhaven (Jan 24, 2005)

The Eldeen Reaches do not agree with me at all.  Druids are thick on the ground here, and some number of them – gods only know how many – believe that nondivine casters – arcane, such as myself, and psychics like Kelvin – are a blight upon the land and need to be eradicated.  There’s no solid way to tell them apart from any other druid, except by the ravening hatred that may or may not be obvious.  Another group of them encourages the death of nature so that it may be reborn.  This seems remarkably backward to me, much like slaughtering a herd of cattle so as to cause more cattle to be born by some means of spontaneous generation.  The Wardens of the Wood seem all right, as mankind and nature are indeed intrinsically dangerous to one another.  One group is identified by their connections to the fey, and a last group she called simply the “enforcers of nature.”

Our guide never came, long though we waited.  One of the d’Ghallandas gave us a map to the observatory, so we headed off on our own.  We found the body of Derwin the guide along the way, identified solely by his red hair and green cloak.  He was dead, and swarms of insects were slowly devouring him.  We were attacked not long thereafter by four skeletal wolves.  I missed badly with my first scorching ray, as the undergrowth obstructed my shot somewhat.  When we had finally engaged them in melee, Maeve managed to turn all of them.  We did not dare give chase, and continued on our way.  They attacked again just two minutes later.  Realizing that we could not hope to outrun them, we destroyed them.  We took a few minor wounds.  Fel stopped mocking my failure with the scorching ray once he became the beneficiary of my Feline Grace spell.  I think he had forgotten about the time before, when we first got the axe, that I cast the spell on him.  He had borrowed Maeve’s mace to fight the wolves.  I suspect that he will see such encounters as a good enough reason to invest in a pair of light maces.

We arrived not too much the worse for wear at the observatory.  The wolf that had been shadowing us for the last mile or so turned out – no great surprise – to be a druid.  She introduced herself as Kayleigh, and offered us some information on the observatory, the eclipse, and so forth.  The observatory is built according to the instructions and traditions of dragons.  The important things to look for during the eclipse are when and where the moon is eclipsed and which stones of the observatory it is between.  The moon is tied to neither Lyrandar nor Phiarlan/Thuranni, but a lost house, or possibly a house yet to come.  Quite a confusing situation, but there you have it.  It was Kayleigh who gave me a brief rundown of the druidic orders.

The eclipse drew near to the Ring of Siberys.  I might have made more observations, but we were attacked by enemies hidden in the forest.  One of the druids turned into a bear and went on a rampage through the woods.  The rest of the druids created walls of thorns and continued their observation unhindered by the battle.  The four of us did what we could to fight; Gerron and Fel squared off against a floating undead eyeball that was very difficult to bring down.  There was another caster out there, but I was unable to catch sight of him at any point.  I used several sunrods in this attempt.  He cast arcane bolts at Maeve and me, but my Shield of the Eldritch Forge was able to turn them aside easily.  I used several more charges off of my wand; it is now nearing its halfway mark, and I will need to make sure I have the money to replace it when the time comes.

Once the attack had subsided, we returned to observation.  At the totality, one of the druids keeled over and bled profusely from eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  His blood pooled on the stones and formed words in Draconic.  I used my scroll of Translation to read the words; I only managed to catch two lines of the six before the words faded back into a meaningless puddle.  Another of the druids copied down more of the words, but he would not tell me what he had read – I’m not entirely sure that he was able to read that dialect of Draconic.  

_The brazen ones shall approach from across the years
The labyrinthine key arises from the depths_

I talked to Kayleigh after the attack.  She admitted that they knew someone was likely to die, but didn’t see fit to tell any of us that because we didn’t ask.  I am very angry about this – we most certainly did ask her what else we might need to know.  I guess in the future I’ll have to ask people if they’re deliberately being evasive in the hopes that it will get us killed.  She indicated that the necromancer who attacked was probably part of a Cult of the Dragon Below.  Some things in the prophecy that we gained match up with the draconic Prophecy, though that needs a lot of clarification.  We wanted to stay the night at the circle and travel in the morning, but then all of the druids left and we thought better of it.  We headed back to the Ghallanda camp wounded, low on spells, and overwhelmed with new questions.

*Some questions that remain:*
Well, the obvious one – how does the prophecy relate to everything and everyone else?  Will the druid who got all of the other lines actually send me any of them?  Did we do something (aside from, obviously, helping to defend them from attack) that caused the druids to dislike or distrust us?  How does this relate to the axe, if at all?  Was Kayleigh hoping that one of us would be the one to die?  Who killed Derwin?  Is there any way to avenge that death now?  Why does the Cult of the Dragon below want to stop anyone else from learning about this prophecy?  Or is their hatred for druids general, and this incident simply an attack of opportunity?  Who are the brazen ones?  Could the axe be “the labyrinthine key” that has risen from the depths?  Both the old fortune-teller and Brother Jared called it a key, and it is hardly a stretch to say that it rose from the depths.  Across the years – actual time travel, which is not possible according to the magic theory lessons that I have had, or waking from a long slumber, or simply coming back into a coterminous position (as with the planes) after a long time of being in a remote position?


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## Shieldhaven (Feb 8, 2005)

We’re now on our way back to Sharn.  We slept late yesterday morning, then spent some time debating a course of action.  We eventually settled on going back to the observatory to speak with some of the druids.  The walk was uninterrupted, with Fel scouting ahead just a bit.  And to think that I had written that the Eldeen Reaches didn’t agree with me before this…

The horror was revealed as soon as Fel could see into the clearing.  An aberration of Khyber, kin to a beholder or perhaps one in truth, led a group of lesser aberrations that Gerron called dolgaunts and dolgrims – creatures made out of goblins and hobgoblins.  I wove a Cloak of Transparency around Fel so that he could get closer and examine the murdered druids that lay in the clearing.  Apparently something caused my spell to fail intermittently and reveal Fel’s presence.  I am uncertain whether it was a trait of the area that I had not previously noticed, or if it was some action on the part of the creatures.  He fled after pocketing what he could from one of the druids, leading the lesser creatures on a merry chase back to us.  We made good our escape once the Cloak became a little more reliable and the creatures could no longer find Fel.  The pouches he had taken off the druid contained magical and alchemical components of considerable value.

We fled back to the village and warned the residents.  We helped them pack up all of their possessions and leave for Greenheart, but we could not accompany them, as we had to meet up with our contact in House Vadalis if we ever wanted to get home.  It’s seriously inconvenient to have an itinerary one simply can’t break when one discovers that abominations from Khyber have taken up residence and caused property values to bottom out.  Darien d’Ghallanda indicated the road that the Vadalis would use, and we set off to meet him halfway.  We made camp a few paces off of the road so that I could sleep and prepare more spells – Maeve had used almost none, and was not so concerned with resting.  So Gerron, Maeve, and Fel kept the vigil for the rider from Vadalis.

Something else showed up first, though.  I’m still not exactly sure what they were, but they were not unlike centipedes animated in the manner of zombies.  Two of these creatures attacked us, and were on top of me before I was even awake.  I was considerably wounded by their attacks.  I got enough breathing room to cast a few spells, and we eventually pounded them into dust.  I tried to sleep again, but the Vadalis rider showed up not long thereafter and we headed for Varna, where we boarded a skyship for Sharn.

*Some questions that remain:*
Now that we’ve seen another powerful agent in this mess, WHAT THE FLAMING HELL IS GOING ON?  Intelligent aberrations are most likely working to release their masters in Khyber.  Is that all part of the Dhakaani plan?  Or did we stumble onto a completely different evil plan that we can’t possibly do anything about because the conspirators are completely out of our league?  Did any druids survive?  Did they come up with any more useful information on that prophecy?  Were these same creatures behind the attack that came during the eclipse?  It’s awfully strange if the druids suffered two unrelated attacks, but why would this second group be so overwhelmingly successful while the first failed utterly?  We didn’t play that big a part.  Maybe the zombie eyes were just testing their defenses?


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## Shieldhaven (Mar 9, 2005)

Our journey home by skyship definitely qualifies as another significant brush with death.  It has been awhile since I’ve had one of those – a week or two at least – and I have to say that I am sorry to see such a thing again.  On the first day of the journey from Varna south to Sharn, lookouts spotted black dots in the distance.  As these dots drew closer, they proved to be raiders.  Some of them were men riding gryphons, while others rode a flying carpet.  We prepared ourselves for battle as best we could, and killed a few of the warriors with arrows and arcane bolts from my wand before they drew close enough to threaten us.  A number of the sailors stood with us, while others fought in the aft of the ship (at least, I think that’s what the back end of a ship is called – do the names change when the ship is fully capable of flight?).  My Scorching Rays were remarkably effective, more so than normal as our foes did not immediately engage Gerron and Fel in melee.  The arcane bolts that I cast were reasonably effective as well, and I depleted much of my wand’s capacity.

That is about the full extent of the good news from this battle.  A dozen or more sailors were killed.  The leaders, an arcane caster of some stripe and a priestly necromancer, ended the fight by sparing Gerron’s life.  The necromancer was devastatingly effective in the battle, though the gryphons were maddened by bloodlust and pain once their riders were killed and he had to defend himself against them just as we did.  We nearly lost Gerron again; I had flashbacks to our first venture, to the Undercity.  Their demands were rather confusing – I think they wanted us to come with them, but they gave up this demand when Gerron proved to be able to heal himself repeatedly.  I am also a bit confused as to the necromancer’s chosen faith; if I recall correctly, he expressed devotion to both the Keeper and the Dragon Below.  I suppose there is no practical reason that he should not look for offers of power from both sources, but I have not heard of such a thing before.  First time for everything.

The four of us survived, well-nigh-miraculously.  We were received as something like unto heroes in Sharn.  I drank more than my fill for several nights, and I have not one copper coin less now than I did when I began.  I also sold off the sword, buckler, chain shirt, and gems we found on the one gryphon-rider whose body we recovered.  I’m a little worried that the merchant knew something I didn’t, because he offered a price for the lot that was substantially more than fair.  Maybe I simply underestimated the value of the gems.  Unless it was truly egregious, I have a hard time worrying about it, as the sale of the spectacles of arcane sight finally went through.  

My dear cousin Manarix sent me a letter offering eight thousand, and I have accepted this offer.  It is, to be honest, more than I had expected, even calling in the favor or two that Manarix owed me.  I suspect that he’s also getting a decent cut that he’s not telling me about, but if so, more power to him.  Two thousand for each of us will really make a difference.  At the risk of counting my chickens before they have hatched, I hope to scribe several new spells into my grimoire with this money.  I am putting the finishing touches on my knowledge of Aiysha’s Fleetfoot; a number of the other spells I have been studying are – pardon the image – percolating rather nicely.  I cannot help but wonder how much of a difference it might have made if I had been able to cast Aiysha’s Fleetfoot before the battle against the raiders.

We also met with Dean Harrison, who has asked for a formal report of our observations.  He remains vague about what he hopes to learn from this.  He dodged a number of very pointed questions from Gerron as to the nature of our mission and the remarkable expenditure of resources that went into it.  Gerron did get him to say that the whole ordeal was a test of sorts, though he still wouldn’t say what his long-term expectation was.  He also avoided any discussion of recompense to us, as if the thirty charges I have spent from my wand of arcane bolts came without cost to me.  While the wand is hardly devastating, it is reliable, and I will have to replace it before too much longer.  I wish we had brought down the mage that fought with the raiders – he had a more powerful wand of arcane bolts that I coveted highly.  I wonder if we’ll see the two of them again.

Some questions that remain:
What is it going to take to get the Dean to realize that he needs to provide a budget for more than just traveling expenses?  What will the Dean be able to learn from my report, and will he tell us anything of the conclusions he draws?  Now that the druids are dead, is there any way to get the other four lines of that blood-scrawl?  Who were the raiders working for?  Why would they want to capture us?  Could they have just wanted a few more lives to sacrifice to the Keeper or Khyber?

----------------------

We finally had another session after missing two semi-weekly sessions.  It felt good to get back to this game, and we finally hit fifth level!  We'll be playing again tomorrow, making the first time we've played two weeks in a row.  The DM wants to get caught up a bit for the weeks we missed, then go back to our old schedule.  We'll see if that happens according to plan.

The encounter with the raiders was really super-heinous, by the way.  There were something like four griffons (please excuse Teagen's pretentious spelling!), each of which had a rider - probably a Ftr2 or War3 - and then the mage and cleric were high enough level to take a few hits of their own.  At the time I-as-player was very frustrated that most of the fighters were carried off by their griffons once they were slain, so we didn't get their masterwork gear, and the mage and cleric always had more tricks up their sleeve to let them get away.  Low treasure distribution has been a frequent gripe of mine in this campaign, as is probably clear from Teagen's journal entry.

Shieldhaven


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## Shieldhaven (Mar 23, 2005)

And once again, we’re off for a journey into gods-know-what.  Five days after we got back to Sharn, the Dean called us into his office to send us far, far away.  This time it’s Xen’drik.  If we are successful, his story will at least confirm its own veracity.

We had been in town for less than a day when I got in touch with Manarix to finish the deal.  He paid with a note for eight thousand, notarized by Sivis and drawn against Kundarak.  He stayed for a few minutes of banter.  “When are you giving up this gallivanting?” for example.  “Why don’t you join the family business full-time?”  To which I can’t say much more than, “Not yet.  Someday.”  He also gave a slightly-better-than-neutral response to the idea of selling such “recovered” goods again in the future.  In theory I’m learning magic that will make my service to House Cannith really worth something.  In practice I’m trying to keep my skin intact long enough for it to be cured, rather like a ham, until it is useful to House Cannith.  I settled on finishing up my research on Shockwave, figuring that it would be particularly useful while we were in Sharn.  Maeve and I wrote our report to the Dean in record time.

Then I started spending money at a prodigious rate.  I’ve learned to bind magic to weapons and armor, much the same way that ink binds magic to paper.  First one of Fel’s swords, then Gerron’s axe.  The first tier of enhancement isn’t really impressing anyone, but Xen’drik just might be the kind of place where we really need magic-touched weaponry.  I also bought some spell scrolls, Unweaving and Wind Dancing, to scribe into a dragonshard that I bought – not a cheap process, but also not vulnerable to fire or water.  Suffice to say, as soon as we got a serious influx of money, we began hemorrhaging it.  I’ve been trying to keep track of who owes what to whom, since I’m still holding onto the note and simply drawing money against it as necessary.  Maeve gave me a bit of her share so I could get a new wand of arcane bolts from House Cannith.

While I was working with the weapons, Maeve was socializing with scholars and lurking in the library.  She learned that modern scholarship does not accept the existence of a 14th moon, as our current theories would necessitate.  There may or may not be a Draconic Prophecy.  Fragments of this thing surface from time to time, and even those scholars who accept its existence do not know what it meant for Siberys, Eberron, and Khyber.

I do not know what Gerron and Fel were doing while I was enchanting their gear.  I assume it was productive at least in their own views, but I find imbuing magic into metal to be one of the most taxing things I have ever done, and I saw them only to pick up or drop off their weapons.  It is, on the other hand, intensely satisfying to think that I might be making something that will last for centuries, maintained by the magic I have woven into it, and something that might be improved as my own powers become more significant.

I was halfway through with Gerron’s axe when the Dean called us to his office and told us that he was sending us to Xen’drik in two days’ time.  An expedition team of students has gone missing down there, and he wants us to go find them.  It seems to me like a rescue team should at least outnumber the original team, but the Dean clearly does not see it that way.  On the good side, I will be able to take my horse Tiassa with me on the ship.  Dean Harrison gave us names and descriptions of the five research assistants.  A native guide named Xilonen will also be meeting us, with a glyphbook.  The students were following up research on a giant city in the desert.

Some questions that remain:
Well, we know basically nothing about the students or what kind of trouble they got into.  The question still remains, despite all of our asking: “What is the Dean really after?”  Is there any way at all for Xen’drik to shed light on the problems that actually seem to matter – the axe and the prophecy?  What is going on with the moons?

-----------------------

No combat this time.  The session was all about planning and gathering information.  Frustratingly, I know OOC a whole lot about what's going on, because it involves a lot of Eberron history.  I still have no idea what the Dean's really after, though.

I assume everyone can work out my "code" of spell names.  I just felt like giving some of the super-common low-level spells a more poetic name.

Shieldhaven


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## Shieldhaven (Apr 20, 2005)

Xen’drik is a lovely place, if you don’t mind rainstorms that you could set a water clock by, mosquitoes enough to choke a dragon, and ambushes from native tribes of lizardmen who hate anything not covered in scales.  At least the elves have been friendly thus far.

We arrived a few days ago in New Wroat and met Xilonen.  I confess to being a little scandalized by the various states of undress in which the natives carry out their daily labors.  That’s not to say that it doesn’t make good sense in this climate.  Apparently Xen’drik is the birthplace of the elves, and the dark elves (or “drow” as Xilonen calls them) were the ones who did not go to Aerenal.

It was Xilonen that informed the Dean of the students’ disappearance, as they failed to check in with him at the appointed time.  He traveled with the caravans of the giants in the deserts.  Yuan-ti and lizardfolk are great dangers in these jungles.  (How strange it is to write these things and have them be real.  It all sounds like a great fey-spun tale to a Brelander like me.)  Gerron and I made contact with our family members in New Wroat.  I’m not exactly sure how I am related to Joshua d’Cannith, but he has gone well-nigh native.  His house is packed with oddities that he has used for his crafting, for want of the normal components.  He asked that we find some broadleaf, an herb that grows in the wilds.  Gerron’s contact instructed him to keep an eye out for Siberys dragonshards.

We equipped ourselves with a great deal of mosquito netting and such, at Xilonen’s instruction.  He did not, on the other hand, bother to mention that we would need hammocks, even though we asked him directly what we would need.  I’m really quite amazed at how often that happens – we ask someone for information on a topic, and they overlook the most important aspect.  The druids of the Eldeen Reaches were the worst about this by far, but it’s a recurring pattern.  I suspect that it will only get worse as we go.

As we traveled, it rained.  We saw a curious bright light, possibly fire, on the side of a cliff in the distance.  I didn’t catch the name of the first drow village that we came to, but the chief’s name was Mixtli – just my best guess on spelling.  We had not been in the village for more than half an hour when the chief’s hut went up in flames.  Once the fire was extinguished, we asked them all the questions that we could think to ask.  They knew nothing of the fire’s cause and seemed ready to pretend nothing had happened, even though such burnings had been going on for some time.

Gerron, Maeve, and I supported the idea of going to the fire in the hills to see if it was the cause; Fel thought it a waste of time and an unnecessary risk.  He’s not exactly wrong, but it is a chance to help people and perhaps improve Morgrave University’s reputation in a small way.  Of course, with our luck, it will be an elaborate plot by another group of wicked Khyber cultists seeking to sacrifice all that lives and breathes to their dark god, or something.  I mean, we can’t even go to an observatory without getting jumped by hordes of undead and a beholder.  The family business would probably even find a way to be a constant threat to life and limb, at this point.

That night, we learned the use and necessity of hammocks.  The guide didn’t mention them because he can sleep up in a tree.  Lot of good that does me.  I should learn Rope Trick, but I didn’t have time to learn the spells that I could afford, much less those I couldn’t.  I hate the feeling of bumbling from one disaster to the next.

This morning, we were ambushed by a group of lizardmen.  They hurled down javelins from the treetops.  I sent Gerron into the trees after them, with the aid of a Wind Dancing spell.  A Shockwave took out one of them.  I’m kicking myself afterward, of course, as there were much more efficient ways to deal with that one, instead of wasting one of my most powerful spells for the day on it.  On the bright side, the spell knocked it unconscious rather than killing it, and it survived the fall to the ground.  I questioned it briefly in Draconic before ending its life.  It said, “The Burning Sun will seek its vengeance.”  This vengeance comes because we are not scaled.  Bleeding great.

I write this while sitting near a ravine, waiting for Gerron and Fel to finish examining the long-neglected rope bridge that spans it.  I plan to use my Feline Grace spell to make it a little easier for me to cross, but there’s nothing I can do to help the others.  There’s also my lone cantrip of repair, which will be better than nothing.  The limitations on our resources frustrate me once again – my instructors taught their classes on spellcasting and such with a base assumption of nigh-unlimited resources, which is even funnier when you consider that I was trained at Morgrave, home of one curiously tight-fisted dean.

Some questions that remain:
What else has Xilonen forgotten to mention?  What is the source of the fire on the hillside?  How many more things will try to kill us between here and there?  Is that fire the Burning Sun that the lizardman was talking about, or is there something more that will come out and eat us?

-------------------

This update comes after one session with no entry, as there was no combat and little in the way of conflict.  The events of that session were folded into this entry.  The most recent session ran past the end of this entry, but things began happening very quickly and there was no point at which Teagan might have sat down to write in his journal.

I hope other people are enjoying reading this.  The pageviews count creeps upward, so there's more than just me.


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## Pure Puppet (Apr 21, 2005)

I, for one, am loving this.  I do have a few questions, however.

What are the races/classes of your fellow party members?  The 'Floating undead eyeball', what was that?

The 'Shockwave' spell you mentioned, is that the one mentioned in the Sharn sourcebook?

And, finally, I think I recognize the 'Burning Sun' thing; if I'm not mistaken, I have that adventure saved on my hardrive.

I'm really looking forward to future installments.


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## Shieldhaven (Apr 21, 2005)

The party, as of current writing:

Teagen Allister d'Cannith, human male Wiz (Transmuter) 5
Gerron d'Tharashk, human male Brb3(?)/Rng2(?) or maybe 4/1, not sure
Maeve ir'Bacct, human female Cleric (Cloistered, from UA) 5, of the Sovereign Host
Fel, changeling 'male' (better than 50% of the time) Rog 5

The DM is not in the habit of telling us the stats of the creatures we're fighting.  There is a whole lot that we do not know about the world and the enemies we have killed, or not, along the way.  This is occasionally a source of frustration.  I don't know exactly what the floating undead eyeball was - as far as Teagen is concerned, it was a zombified beholder, not that he has a great grasp on what a beholder actually is.  He doesn't study necromancy (barred school), so he doesn't grasp the fact that zombification should probably cause it to lose all of its eye-rays.  It only ever used one or maybe two.

Shockwave is, in fact, the spell from Sharn: City of Handrails Mandated by OSHA.  It's one of the few spell names I didn't bother changing.

The Burning Sun thing... well, I _don't_ have the adventure saved on my hard drive, so I don't know if it's the same one, and don't really want to know.  The DM does use heavily modified modules from time to time, so I would not be surprised.  Earlier tonight (I usually post the afternoon of game night, because I procrastinate) we played through the latter half of it, I think.  We left before an encounter that we thought would probably (literally) eat us for lunch, on which more later.


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## Shieldhaven (Jun 1, 2005)

Ah, the joys of fleeing for one’s life from what is probably a dragon, size unknown.  Moreover, we’re likely to bring down a lot of wrath on the nice drow villagers we were trying to help, but any other course of action would have made our efforts for naught.

I should pick up where I left off.  We crossed the bridge, nearly losing everyone but me in the process.  Moments later we were beset by a pack (herd?) of monitor lizards.  It was not a hard fight, but I had to cast a few more arcane bolts out of my wand as well as Armor of the Eldritch Forge.  I had already turned Fel invisible, and he was making his way up the hill to a pair of pyramids as we fought.  There was a great golden device on top of one pyramid, with huge crystal lenses to direct and focus the light of the sun.  Fel apparently tried to stab one of the shaman-type lizardmen up there and killed another one.  Then all hell broke loose, as the first shaman escaped and alerted his horde of followers and their monitor lizards.  The four of us made haste to bail Fel out.  Gerron and Fel devastated the battlefield as they fought their way toward each other.  I mostly tried to keep the lizards off of Maeve and Xilonen with my wand and my rapidly-dwindling spells.  We ended the battle quickly.

Maeve magically searched the bases of the pyramids for secret doors while Fel and I argued about the dismantling of the device, which was marked “Eye of the Sun” in Giant.  Several Siberys dragonshards were built into it as well.  He apparently wanted to be able to rebuild in back in Sharn, while I had no higher ambitions than making sure it stayed inoperative – and maybe a few parts would remain saleable.  It was, in any case, not easy to take apart or carry away.

Maeve had by this time discovered a door in the side of the pyramid, and we managed to get it open.  We left it ajar as we passed into a downward-sloping corridor.  Bas-relief on the walls showed a meeting between a group of giants and a dragon that had descended from the sun.  The giants and their human-sized servants brought the dragon gifts, and in return it gave them a piece of the sun.  The giants put this eye on a low pyramid on a low hill.  Something came out of the eye to burn some sort of insect-like creature.  Fel discovered and (variously) dealt with a number of traps, all of which blur together in a general haze of danger in my mind.  As he pressed a little farther, he suddenly turned and ran all the way back to the main entrance without explaining anything.  We found this… not a little worrisome.  Then I did the same thing.  I usually have solid, comprehensible reasons when I flee in terror.  This was not one of those times.

By the time I had calmed down and rejoined Gerron and Maeve, neither of whom fled in unreasoning terror, I had come to the conclusion that a dragon was in the immediate vicinity.  This theory was well-supported when I began to hear a voice in Draconic questioning us.  We persuaded it to switch to Elven, and Fel conversed with it at some length, as he is the best at the art of deceit.  We eventually got the idea that it would be very cross upon discovering the destruction of the Eye of the Sun, so we made some polite excuses and departed.  Which brings me to the current moment: we’re running.

Some questions that remain:
How old is this dragon?  Is it the original inhabitant of the pyramid who gave the Eye of the Sun to the giants?  That seems unlikely, if only because such a massive and ancient dragon would probably have been mentioned in rumors before now – also, Gerron and Maeve did manage to resist its dragonfear.  If it’s not all that old, do we stand a chance of actually defeating it?  Will the drow villagers kill us for stirring up this trouble?

_______________________

First post after a very long hiatus of game.  Conflicting schedules, and all that.  Looking forward to playing tonight.


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## Pure Puppet (Jun 2, 2005)

Oh!  An update!

I really enjoy how the spells you use are renamed like they are.  Very flavorful.

'Eye of The Sun' clinched it.  I do have this adventure saved on my harddrive.  Of course, there's no dragon in it, so it sounds like it's been heavily modified.  That's actually kind of cool.

In response to your last post, about how if it was a zombie beholder?  It wouldn't necessarily lose all the eye rays.  There's an undead beholder in the Forgotten Realm Campaign Setting called a Death Tyrant that still retains some of the rays.  Maybe that's what you fought.

Um.  And as to why I didn't post that when you first replied to me?  I've been away, and I'm really something of a lurker.


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## Shieldhaven (Jun 2, 2005)

It was some species of zombified beholder.  Dunno if it was actually a Death Tyrant.

And I can hardly criticize other people for slowness in response.  I mean, it'd been over a month since I last updated this, just because we hadn't played in so long.  I probably won't update for two _more_ weeks, since I always write the entry the afternoon before the game.

Just as a teaser: in this session, Teagen was burned by rain, Fel was trampled by worms, and both Gerron and Fel were swallowed by a starfish in the middle of the desert.  WTF, mates?  I'm sure Teagen will have all sorts of snarky things to say about this in his journal.

Haven


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## Shieldhaven (Jun 15, 2005)

We did not return to the drow settlement as I had expected.  Hoping to avoid the wrath of the dragon, we went south.  We traveled for three days with only one sighting – through the canopy, we spotted a wing that was either brass or bronze.  It went by much too fast for any of us to be sure.  Brass and bronze are, according to what I have been told, among the weaker of the draconic breeds.  They are generally more selfish and concerned with shorter-term goals – decades rather than centuries or millennia.  Nevertheless the dragon remains our foremost concern.

Xilonen led us over the mountains and into the desert.  This only compounds our worries, now that we do not even have the benefit of tree cover.  I have a certain feeling of resignation; I do not think there is anything we can do to avoid this wrath, and so I feel as though we are traveling under a sentence of death.

Xilonen left us to return to the jungle when we got to a pair of stone pillars (inscribed with the words, “Curse those who enter unbidden”) that marked the head of a road in the desert.  He told us that this is where he had parted company with the students, and this is where he would meet us again in five days.  The road continues south to a fork.  The left fork leads to the tomb of a giant king from shortly after the coming of the desert.  That tomb was built by the king’s slaves.  According to legend, it was made small enough that other giant nobles could not raid his tomb without great difficulty.  The right fork leads to the giant city of Pazar.

With this in mind, we passed through the pillars.  The sand here is ashy, possibly the result of a magical backlash as giants fought off an invasion from another plane of existence.  That was just the start of the deeply strange things that occurred.  We fell afoul of a rainstorm; when a drop of rain hit my hand, my skin was burned as if by acid.  Not long after, we saw swarms of worms approaching us.  Fearing that they were driven forth by something much larger and more fearsome, I did not destroy them with a Shockwave as I ought to have done.  Fel was trampled by one of the three distinct swarms.  We eventually dealt them sufficient injury that they changed course, and we never did determine that there was anything pursuing them.

I think it was later that day that we were attacked by a giant starfish in the middle of the desert.  Gerron and Fel were both swallowed by this starfish and had to cut themselves out of its belly.  I felt that this really capped off the absurdity of the earlier incidents of the burning rain and the trampling worms.  My spells were only vaguely useful in this battle, though I did deal the final blow to it with the guttering remnants of a Scorching Ray.

We have turned toward the tomb first, after a great deal of discussion.  We reasoned that a group of students in trouble in a tomb might be in more pressing danger than a group of students in trouble in a sand giant city.  We still have no idea if we even ought to hope that they still live.

Some questions that remain:
Are the gods merely toying with us now?  Will we ever get a few shreds of information that will actually prove to be useful in unraveling… whatever it is that’s going on in the world with the Dhakaani and the Cults of the Dragon Below?


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## Shieldhaven (Jul 13, 2005)

We’re holed up in the temple that was built out in front of the pyramid.  We had at least two more close brushes with death getting here, but maybe we’ll have time to rest and prepare more spells for a foray into the pyramid proper.

We met a flight of pegasi-mounted elves en route to the tomb.  They landed and spoke with us, seeming impressed that such a small group was braving the desert.  The worms are apparently known to them as “thunder herders,” and the massive sand-dwelling starfish is a “dust digger.”  They also told us of the Thune dervishes, human nomads and cultists that worship the giants.  The black smoke that we had seen in the distance was a sign of their burnt offerings.  The land where they dwell is known as Terbekar, the Green Lands.

Once we parted ways with the elves, we saw a very tall figure moving across the sands, directly toward us.  As it drew closer, we recognized it as a floating mummified giant – it seemed to walk a few inches above the sands, and left no tracks.  I spoke to him in his own tongue, and he explained that he wished to be put to rest.  When he was alive, he swore by the symbols of his office that the stopping of his heart would also stop the flowing of the waters of Athis.  His subjects said that he was too harsh.  The gods cursed him for his pride, and he will remain cursed until the symbols of his office are removed from his tomb.

We pressed onward, and in the night we were attacked by a band of nomads.  A few of them were dervishes, but even so we defeated them handily.  I later found myself regretting the spells I had cast in fighting them – a worthier foe awaited.

In the morning we came to the tomb, a pyramid with a temple built out in front of it.  The nomads challenged us as we approached, but did not attack; we pretended to be merely interested in making a sacrifice to the “god” of the pyramid – having already concluded that the giant mummy was that god.  Inside the main room of the temple, we encountered five or so cultists, led by a priest.  He was “reading” from a white book with ornate fittings – holding the book upside down as he did so.  I don’t believe the man could read a single word on the page.  There was an altar by the back wall, and much like the passageway in the lizardmen’s pyramid, the walls of this room were covered with bas-relief depictions of the region’s history.

We maintained the façade of interest in the cult long enough to poke around a bit, but eventually we got bored of that game and Gerron jumped the priest, who turned out to be a tough customer indeed.  He cast a Vengeful Shield of Flame upon himself, a spell that is beyond my own ability at present.  Gerron was burned horribly during this battle; he only survived because Maeve hid under the altar with her hand resting on his ankle and chain-cast healing spells on him.  The priest barely bothered to attack Gerron or anyone else, satisfied to heal himself and let the Shield devastate Gerron.  We had a discussion of tactics afterward, and concluded that we went about things all wrong, but that is neither here nor there.  I escaped nearly unscathed, though desperately low on spells.  Strangely, no more cultists came pouring through the doors to support their allies – it turned out that the curtains pulled across a few of the doors acted as walls of perfect silence.

We explored the rest of the temple before engaging the sleeping junior priest and his band of cultists.  The head priest’s book, when read properly, was actually an account that Amun-Re (now a giant mummy) had written during his life.  We concluded, from references in the text, that the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six were simply known by slightly altered names.  The head priest had a pair of bracers, which I claimed without hesitation, and a wand of Heal Grievous Wounds, which naturally went to Maeve.  We don’t yet know the strength of the bracers or the number of charges remaining in the wand.

We found several statues with inset gems; these turned out to be magically trapped, and when Fel tried to pry out the jewel-eyes of one statue, he was paralyzed for a time.

Working our way around the temple, we came to the back door, which opens to a causeway into the pyramid.  There is also a back door from the junior priest’s quarters, and Fel waited by that door as the rest of us attacked through the curtain of silence.  It was not so dangerous a battle as the first, though Gerron was again in great danger – I need to improve his armor as soon as possible – and by the end I was well and truly drained of spells.  We captured a bit more treasure and another few pages of interest, and holed up in the recently-occupied beds to recuperate a bit.  It was a most taxing day, and I wonder what further surprises the pyramid itself may hold.  The pages raise certain questions.

Some questions that remain:
Is it a divine force or a mortal one that causes the sacrifices in this temple to disappear, rather than remaining for use by the priests?  How is Amun-Re’s actual tomb defended?  Did the students come here at all?  (This seems increasingly unlikely, unless they bypassed the temple and cultists entirely.)  Exactly how many more cultists are there in the tribe of the Thune dervishes?

-----------------

Didn't post last week on account of no time to write and no way to justify writing an entry at the moment of a cliffhanger.  This entry includes the last two sessions.  We've just leveled to 6th - maybe a few of my woes of an insufficient spell column will be behind me.  Most of us haven't bought our 6th level feats yet, as the DM has hinted that there may be Cool Lost Arts for us to learn in the pyramid.


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## Shieldhaven (Jul 27, 2005)

And now we’re holed up in the pyramid, poking around for a way out.  There is a small army of cultists outside – I suspect the ones we didn’t kill will go get the rest of the tribe and jump us when we emerge.  And won’t that be fun.

Once we rested and refreshed our spells in the outer temple, we read our documents in greater detail and tried to make sense of them.  There is definitely something that we are still missing about them, but it continues to elude me.  We more thoroughly examined the temple, starting with its three statues.  The first holds a serpent staff and a gem; it is probably a statue of Amun-Re himself.  The second is a particularly large statue of white marble with open hands.  Its eyes flashed blue when Fel was trying to remove them.  It represents Koris, who we now know as Kol Korran.  The third is female, holding a cup, with metal clothing laid onto the stone of the statue.  This seems to be Arwis, or Arawai.  The second book that we recovered has more things to say about the altars connected to these temples – that offerings always vanished from the Eastern Temple.  This leaves me to wonder if the Eastern Temple refers to the altar of Arwis, or to the easternmost altar within the pyramid.  We did not go into that room to examine it on our way in, so we don’t yet know which God that altar may be devoted to.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  I turned Fel invisible so that he could scout ahead a bit, and he made quick & silent work of the two posted guards.  We entered the pyramid as quietly as possible, coming to a four-way intersection.  All three choices led to chambers with altars.  Cultist-type activities were in progress in the left and right chambers, which we naturally did not wish to interrupt at the time (though in hindsight this may have been a tactical error), so we examined the central chamber and found therein a secret door leading deeper into the heart of the pyramid.

At about that moment, the cult-type activities of the other chambers came to an abrupt end, and we had a fight on our hands.  I made Gerron big enough to block the hallway – which their spellcaster immediately dispelled.  Probably a good idea for him, as Gerron was beginning to really tear apart their guys.  I tossed off a few arcane bolts, just for fun, and then their caster heated up Gerron’s armor and we realized that it was time for the exeunt omnes.  Gerron retreated through the secret door just before I did, and as he was pulling the door closed I rattled their cages with a Shockwave.  I’m pretty proud of that one, to be honest, because I hit every single one that I could see.  At the very least, it delayed them and made their caster burn a few more spells to get them on their feet.

There was another intersecting hallway, of roughly equal length with the earlier one.  At each end of this hallway was a small circular chamber with a hole in the floor; in the east, water flowed from a spout through the hole and into a chamber below, while in the west, the water seemed to have stopped.  Gerron explored the chamber below some time later and discovered that it was filled with water, with what might have been a sort of magical drain.  The water healed him when he drank it.

Continuing farther, we came to a second secret door, which hid a room with yet another altar.  Nine statues of Amun-Re were set into the walls, and the name was scrawled over every available surface of the room.  When Maeve placed her hands in the handprints and said the name, one statue slid away and revealed a passage to the “Treasure Room” and “The True Tomb of Amun-Re.”  Unsurprisingly, both had been picked clean long, long ago.  We found a grand total of three copper coins, so I left a fourth behind.

And that brings me to the current moment – Gerron is drying off, the cultists have slackened their pounding on the secret door, and we’re kind of stuck.

Some questions that remain:
Where the hell did Amun-Re keep his symbols of office that are so bleeding important?  How many other secret doors are scattered around this place that we have not yet found?  How many cultists does it take to find one secret door (in their own headquarters, no less)?

------------------------------

I felt very useful in this session - my new spell slots all went to utility spells that came in handy.  And now that Gerron has his second attack per round, he's dishing out more devastation than I can quite imagine.  We just desperately need to do something about his AC.  Maybe I'll find time for some serious item creation soon.  Maybe monkeys will fly off my hindquarters...


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## Shieldhaven (Aug 10, 2005)

This… may not be an improvement.

We searched every nook and cranny of the hallways behind the secret door and found little else of note.  We tried any number of different theories, only to determine with great certainty that we needed to go back out and fight the rest of the cultists.  They were waiting for us in some approximation of “ambush.”  Gerron led the way into the room, and the cultists stepped out from behind their pillars in preparation to charge.

It didn’t go quite like they’d hoped.  Because when you absolutely have to kill every cultist in a nice straight line, Accept No Substitutes.  Lightning Bolt.  It did not, in point of fact, kill any of them, but only one managed to avoid the full power of the blast.  Then they charged toward us, which rather mystified me, but I suppose the clerics here really have their ducks in a row and don’t accept any namby-pamby cultists that won’t keep attacking someone who has already proven his ability to throw lightning.  Suffice to say, Gerron and Fel made quick work of them all – though Maeve and I had some fun with melee combat.  I even got in one or two solid hits, mighty warrior that I am.

So we resumed our painstaking search, this time on the three temple chambers.  The east and west temples had large bowl-like depressions, about three feet across, in the floor with a magical everburning flame inside.  The west temple’s sacrificial “bowl” had a couple of coins in it, while the east temple’s was totally empty.  We found a second secret door with a hallway leading back to the same halls.  At long last, one of us (I think it was Maeve) had some actual inspiration and stepped completely into the east temple’s bowl.  She vanished, and we soon followed.

We found ourselves in a small octagonal room.  Four alternating walls – I’m inclined to think of them as the cardinal directions, even though I haven’t the vaguest idea if that’s correct, or even which one is north – have archways, filled with mist.  The other walls have levers, all of them in the up position.  There is a skeleton lying here, pointing with a sword toward one of the doorways.  We have been debating our course of action before actually experimenting with the levers, and so I took a few moments to write.  The mist in the archways is tied to Enchantment – a sort of Phrenic Effluvium, of the sort that the greatest of wizards can cast, perhaps?  Maeve and I have not been able to identify it with certainty as yet.

Some questions that remain:
Even if we could go back, how many cultists would we have to kill to get away?  Which of these levers will kill us instantly, and which will lead us to the Amun-Re’s symbols of office?  Is it a good sign or a bad one for a skeleton to be pointing to one particular doorway?  How many people have passed this way, and is it possible that the students are trapped back here somewhere?  The tome says that others have vanished from the temple, never to be seen again – does that mean that they all died, or that the exit is somewhere far from here?


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## Shieldhaven (Sep 8, 2005)

I can say without reservation that this is the strangest place I have ever been; it may even stretch my definition of the word “place” in new and eye-crossing sorts of ways.  We have just finished killing a creature that enfolded Fel in its flesh and injured him badly.  Unsurprisingly we are beginning to run low on prepared spells and time, as Xilonen will be expecting us.

To begin where I last left off: the fog is not the Phrenic Effluvium that I feared, but it is related somehow.  We experimented with the four levers, all of which had exactly the same effect – a force drew all metallic objects (including people encased in armor) to the ceiling at high speed.  Fel and Gerron were hurt a bit in learning this; strangely, they did not seem to note the comedic potential of the whole situation.  The levers had no other discernable effect.

After much discussion and planning, Maeve stepped into the fog.  A rope was tied around her waist, and Gerron held the other end.  We had chosen the passage that the skeleton pointed to, for want of a better reason to choose any given passage.  This is where things get really confusing, and our skills of nonlinear cartography were tested.  I’m reasonably sure there’s no way to describe this place succinctly with the written word.  Segments of clear hallway are broken up by this fog, which dampens sight, sound, and the wits.  Maeve is having a slightly better time than I am of keeping it together while in the fog, but I think even she finds it difficult.  Much as we were advised in the Wayfinder Foundation’s Guide to Illogical Structures, Maeve left chalk blazes on the walls.  My mockery of Fel’s nigh-limitless supply of chalk is definitely coming to a middle.

We eventually came to a doorway, which Fel opened.  The room had a broad, open floor, with a sort of ledge several feet up.  A man sat on the ledge – Yowen, one of the students we sought.  He told us of the splintering of his party, including the deaths of some.  They reached the temple and wandered into a large room.  One of the group was killed by a spear trap that filled the entire room.  He commented that the Dean went to some expense to get their team here.  Yowen has seen undead in the area, some cultists, and a sphinx – from his description, probably an androsphinx, the male of the species and the one best known for offering riddles to those it meets.  Supporting himself entirely with his spells, Yowen has been camped out on that ledge for several days now, I believe.  He is a cleric of some description – we didn’t ask too many questions on that account.

There seem to be a series of similar rooms along what I have arbitrarily designated as the eastern side of this complex – it’s on the right-hand side of my map, anyway.  The one “north” of Yowen’s room had the spear-trap; we cut down the student and checked him for identifying marks or usable goods.  No such luck.  I am reminded of how fortunate I am that, while we occasionally argue amongst ourselves, I can count on the loyalty of Gerron, Maeve, and Fel to watch my back and get some of my remains home to my family, if death should take me.  Also, we keep our heads in bad situations better than some do, apparently.

We were attacked by a pack of ghouls as we left this room.  Maeve annihilated them with a burst of holy energy.  How intensely satisfying that must be.

The room to the “south” held the cloak-like creature that attacked Fel.  We eventually killed it, though not without doing some harm to Fel.  I threw a few more arcane bolts from my wand – need to be careful, though, since this is the only wand I’ve got at the moment.  This room and the spear-room also had ledges running around them.

That brings me, I believe, to the present moment, in which time Maeve is healing Fel and we are getting a bite to eat.

Some questions that remain:
Will we really find Amun-Re’s symbols of office this way?  Will there be anything left of the other students once we’re out of here?  Does the sphinx guard the exit with a riddle, or is he just waiting for a snack?  And how does it happen that he gets enough to eat in here, anyway?  There can’t be that many lost adventurers.

----------------

Almost... seventh... level....

I could use some advice on 4th level spells for a transmuter - but I'm not willing to really ruthlessly powergame Polymorph, since I don't want the GM to kick me to death.


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## Shieldhaven (Sep 22, 2005)

The madness of this places increaseth geometrically.  If Gerron did not continually affirm that he also is seeing the same things I am, I would be convinced that the madness were my own.  I write this while sitting watch in a room that seems to be a manifest zone of Dal Quor.  This explains but does not relieve any of this wrongness.

We continued exploring the misty halls, finding another dead end, and more hallways that curved back on themselves.  We had begun to follow the internal logic of the maze, however, and were not especially surprised by these discoveries.  Then we came upon a room that was, rather improbably, inhabited by minotaurs.  I still wonder what in this place fed them.  My spells of Feline Grace and Aiysha's Fleetfoot made a significant difference in this battle, granting Fel in particular the speed to dance through our foes’ ranks devastate them.  Maeve searched a pile of straw in that room and found a remarkable amount of gold.

Then we climbed a shaft up to a trapdoor in the ceiling of that room.  My magic being long since exhausted (and I without any vertical-movement spells prepared in the first place), Gerron exhibited his remarkable skill at climbing, placing pitons and lowering a knotted rope so that the rest of us could ascend.

Above, we found a large room, lavishly decorated, with a massive statue of Amun-Re.  The statue held a massive gem; Gerron and Fel insisted on trying to take it.  This caused it to emit an unending, ear-splitting sound like unto a fog horn.  Gerron tucked it into the bag of holding, which merely muffled the noise somewhat.  Then the wraiths attacked, drifting through nearby doors.  They attacked me immediately, though I had scrambled halfway into the trapdoor and barely managed to toss off a Shield of the Eldritch Forge.  I tossed off arcane bolts from my wand as fast as possible, which left a lot to be desired.  Gerron landed a couple of blows as the wraiths fled from Maeve.  They did not return, possibly because we replaced the gem and it ceased its wailing.

We glanced into and readily dismissed the rooms the wraiths had inhabited, coming instead to the inside of a waterfall.  This is where everything remotely sane begins to really, truly crumble.  The large, domed stone room was home to two pomegranate trees.  Two identical altars, covered in hieroglyphs and with two outlines of hands on top, stood in the middle of the room.  I translated the hieroglyphs.  Then a ripe pomegranate fell to the ground and exploded, badly injuring Gerron.  When I said the first word, Turnin, with my hands in place, the handprints lit up.  Regra caused all gravity in the room to reverse abruptly – we all managed to avoid slamming into the ceiling along with a dozen or so more exploding pomegranates.  Logra caused all falling things to slow remarkable.  And Neg ended any active magic and reset the whole pattern, including causing the light in the handprints to go out.

We decided to sleep the night in this maddening room, as it seems more or less safe – certainly no other creatures are likely to come here on purpose.  The time I spent sleeping was no stranger than the time I’ve spent waking. 

Some questions that remain:
Why the hell is there a manifest zone of Dal Quor in this pyramid?  How big is this pyramid?  Where the hell are we really?  Will we ever be free of this hellish place and get home?

------------------

Seventh level: Attained.  I'm picking up Greater Invisibility to make the rogue happier than a pig in slop, and Polymorph because... well, just because.  I'm sure I'll find something useful but not abusively powergamey to polymorph Gerron into.  Or maybe Maeve... she could be our new combat brute. =)


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## Shieldhaven (Oct 3, 2005)

We manipulated the gravity-reversing magic just so – I had to pronounce the words very quickly, and in just the right order – to lift us slowly off the floor and grant us access to a door we found halfway up the wall.  We proceeded through this door and up a corridor, eventually coming to a massive door.  Then Maeve and I stopped to prepare the rest of our spells; at nearly the same time, additional spell energy (and spells of the Fourth Circle) became available to us.  I feel an enormous sense of accomplishment in this.  The Fourth Circle holds one of a transmuter’s most famed spells – Polymorph.  I have also learned how to cast a Greater Cloak of Transparency; I expect that Fel will be very pleased when first I cast this spell on him.

We inspected the door at great length.  Inscribed on it were the words: “Beyond these doors lie the Tests of the Pharaoh.  Turn now from the doom of power and evil from a heartless man.  Great and Awful is the horror beyond these doors – yet if You turn away, what lies beyond you shall never know.”  Gerron lifted me up so I could examine some artwork above the door, which depicted a man reading something, and small figures bringing him books.  Eventually we settled on opening the door.

Inside, a strange sight, difficult to describe.  A staircase rose throughout the center of the room, with many landings along its course.  At the top, one who we immediately guessed to be Munafik, and beyond him, a massive bronze fist, and a set of double doors.

Munafik greeted us and taunted us, asking if we came to die like all before us.  We accepted the test, and the doors slammed behind us as I cast a few divinations to help me figure out what we could expect.  Fel raced toward him, triggering the first landing.  It conjured mud men of some sort.  Gerron tried to fight them, only to find that they were too easy to cut in half – at which point they reformed as two full-strength mudmen.  We hurried past.

Fel also triggered the defenses of the second landing – illusory walls of fire and stone that entirely deceived him.  He was badly injured and jarred by his collision with the latter wall.  Gerron, thinking perhaps to simply wade through the wall of fire, instead saw through its deceit and continued on his way.  With his passage as our proof, we were all able to do the same.

At the third landing, a mirror spawned an image of Gerron that immediately attacked.  The same occurred when Fel passed by.  Unwilling to let loose two more images (and additional spellcasters, to boot), I transformed myself into a griffon and bore Maeve to the final landing, where we hurried past Munafik and the fist to the double doors.  Fel was struck down by the fist.  Gerron was embattled from several sides, but eventually he pushed his way past and reached the doors.  We were forced to temporarily abandon Fel.  Our weapons could not significantly injure Munafik, and the fist was a deadly foe that we did not expect to be able to kill.  He continued to attack us with spells once we were all inside, and I was nearly killed.  He is a stronger spellcaster than any we have yet seen, excepting only the beholder in the Eldeen Reaches.  He was definitely capable of casting spells of the Fifth Circle.

Beyond the doors, we found a strange column of water, with a question mark inscribed in the floor before it.  While Gerron ransacked Munafik’s sleeping chamber for clues, I stood on the mark and asked a question.  A voice within said, “What is your quest?”  I replied, “To restore the waters to the lands of Thune.”  Then, “Whose holy chamber is this?”  Noting the waters and the hand, I correctly guessed that these were the waters of Arwis, that we in the north call Arawai.  The flow of the waters reversed, now coming up from the ground.  Uncertain as to how to proceed, I delayed, and eventually they returned to their normal flow.

Gerron found a book, so evil in its nature that it harmed him.  He showed it to me, but I did not take the time to translate – that will wait until later.  Continuing our exploration, we found room filled with dangling chains.  In one wall, there was a rough passage into the earth.  Within, a clay golem attacked a changeling woman; we intervened moments too late to save her life.  She was indeed one of the students we had sought.  A jeweled canopic jar rested on a pedestal here, and Gerron quickly smashed it with his axe, drained of strength though he was by one of Munafik’s spells.  The destruction of the jar felled the golem and Munafik at the same moment.  We healed Fel, whom Munafik had paralyzed in anticipation of future torment.

We gathered together by the column of water to prepare for the next step.  The power of Gerron’s dragonmark informed him that Amun-Re’s symbols of office are nearby, and we expect that the column of water will take us to them.

Some questions that remain:
Most of the pressing questions have been answered.  But where are the rest of the students, and what condition are they now in?  If possible, I will have Maeve speak with the one we found by magic.  We may yet have to explore the rest of this damned pyramid – since we no longer know the way out at all.  We will have to retrieve Yowen in any case.

------------------

Amusingly, Polymorph (that I was picking up with some reluctance) was one of the single most fun spells I have cast.  And I'm looking forward to using it again in the future.  There aren't all that many spells that I could squeeze +10 Str, +2 Con, +6 natural armor, Large size, 3 attacks per round, pounce, rake, and an 80 ft Fly speed out of.  Voof.  Also, turning one of us (could be anyone) into a troll for the first time ought to be deeply satisfying.  Who wouldn't want natural reach, 23 Str, 23 Con, and +5 natural armor?  Dude.  What was I thinking?  Oh, right, didn't want to be a ridiculous powergamer.  Oh well.  I have no choice but to embrace the powergame.

Haven


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## Supaida (Oct 8, 2005)

I read this entire thing last night (well, early this morning, technically), and I loved it. It's got sort of a Douglas Adams feel to it: I can just see Arthur Dent trudging through Eberron as increasingly absurd and improbable things happen to him and mostly try to kill him. Write more!


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## Shieldhaven (Oct 10, 2005)

I post each entry shortly before the next session - I might be one of the only up-to-date Story Hours on this board!  We played this past week, so that entry will be posted sometime next week.

For some teasers:
Flying boats, a mummy, and the last of the students are discovered!

Haven


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## Shieldhaven (Nov 1, 2005)

We rode the column of water upward and came to yet another altar.  These people really are out of control.  The room also held a small sailing boat with several more canopic jars.  Possibly I will come to regret taking everything of value from these jars, but I’ll deal with that if it happens.  The other wall of the room appeared to be an elaborate mural, in remarkable detail, of the same boat, except floating on air, anchored to a cloud, and with a jewel set in the mast.  We experimented and examined the room at very great length, eventually discovering that the mural was not particularly real.  Maeve stuck her head through it and saw a third boat – this one actually doing what the mural depicted.

We continued through the next door and found a gold-leaf sarcophagus.  Fel was interested in scraping off some of the gold, but he also pierced the very thin sheet of lead under the gold and all hell broke loose.  The lid of the sarcophagus was pushed aside by the giant mummy (probably also Amun-Re) that rose out of the coffin and attacked us.  We were all paralyzed with dread and despair for a few moments, in which time Fel was sorely wounded.  As soon as I located my wits, I opened up with lightning.  The mummy didn’t like that so much, so I decided that my arcane bolt spells would help solve all of his problems.  Then he thought to put me out of commission – which is just another great time for a Greater Cloak of Transparency.  I kept on blasting with arcane bolts while invisible; he turned his attacks on Gerron, who had finally come to himself.  It was a damnably tough fight, but we came through.

We recovered the staff – one of the symbols of office – from the sarcophagus.  Searching the rest of the chamber, we found a secret door.  We suspect that the area behind this secret door is a teleportation circle much like the one that let us into the pyramid, but we weren’t inclined to try.

At something of a dead end, I decided we should go back down the column of water.  We were separated in the effort, and Gerron and I were slightly injured by the buffeting of the waters.  Once we met back up, we took one of the other exits from the pomegranate room and found the slave quarters – a supply room, a kitchen, and a sleeping area.  There was also a strange bird-headed statue, with a blue dragon coiled at its base – possibly a representation of Aureon?  Seemed to be for the slaves rather than for the giants.  Anyway, when we came to the sleeping quarters, we found several wraiths and commenced to fighting them.  My spells were desperately few at this point, and once again I relied on my wand of arcane bolts to see me through.  I’ll need yet another by the time we get home, I’m sure.  One of the wraiths was distinctly weaker than the others.  It was the dwarf that we had sought, who had been killed not long before by the wraiths.  His body was in the room, and we found his papers and his magical shortsword.  So I suppose this means (once we collect Yowen) that we’re done with this hellhole.  But I’m still not too sure if we have the gem we need.  Sigh.

Some questions that remain:
Well, obviously, have we or will we find the gem that is Amun-Re’s other symbol of office?  What will happen when we do?  How much time has passed?  Is Xilonen still awaiting us?  Could we have saved more of the students through quicker action?  (Not, mind you, that we could have possibly known this at the time – but one was killed in front of our eyes and another very shortly before we arrived.)  Will we find anything else that we can take back with us to Morgrave?  I feel like a right bastard for looting the place – that’s how Morgrave got its sullied reputation in the first place – but considering how badly we need to resupply and improve our armaments, we are short on alternatives.

----------------

So, we played this past Sunday (to make up for missing two Thursdays ago), and we'll be playing again this week.  Happy!  Also, we have finally escaped from the pyramid and returned to Sharn, considerably the worse for wear.

And I'm less than 200 xp from 8th level, but I'm about to enchant a boatload of magic items and get back down to somewhere near the rest of the PCs - presently a difference of slightly over 1000 xp.

Haven


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## Shieldhaven (May 10, 2006)

Reposting entries:

In the end, we failed to rescue anyone at all.  We went back to Yowen.  He had found a secret door in the wall behind him and, upon opening it, been killed.  We followed him and nearly met the same fate.  Gerron was paralyzed and slain before any of us could aid him.  We then had to drag his corpse – and this was exactly as nightmarish as it sounds – up to the skyship so that we could leave.  This meant hauling him back up that chimney from the lower labyrinth to the upper chambers.  Of course, losing Yowen wasn’t all that bad, as he had previously been killed and replaced by a doppelganger – no mere changeling he!  Also, the room in which Gerron was killed had a creation schema engraved in the wall.  It frustrates me deeply that I did not have the power to identify that schema.  Maeve and I were both almost completely drained, and given our capacity this is saying something.  But we had not rested since before we faced Munafik, I do not believe.

The skyship has an air elemental bound within.  After some discussion, Fel took the helm and snarled at the elemental for awhile.  He successfully cowed it and we were off.  Suddenly Amun-Re appeared in his ghostly form.  He observed that we had successfully removed both gem and staff from his tomb and offered us a boon.  There was only one real answer here, as I doubt we could have gotten Gerron resurrected back in Sharn.  So one Wish later, Amun-Re began to fade to whatever final reward awaits him, and Gerron was alive again.  Subdued, perhaps, and clearly drained by the harrowing experience, but alive.  Amun-Re thanked us and was gone.  Presumably the lands will be green again someday, but I’m not sure if I care.  The people who will benefit are all evil cultists, as far as I can tell.  Maybe the drow will be able to work out some kind of benefit from this.

We took the boat down when night came, and met with Xilonen.  He had indeed waited for us.  We slept that night, and many nights thereafter, in the boat.  We covered the distance back to New Wroat in what must be record time, cleverly bringing the boat in on the water so as to disguise it as… a boat.  Specifically, a nice, boring, non-flying boat.  We parted ways with Xilonen there and gave him a minor healing potion to thank him for his trouble.  I also met up with Joshua d’Cannith again – I am becoming convinced that this man needs to be recalled to Sharn for a few months, just for his own health – and gave him the exploding-pomegranate seeds and the broadleaf fronds that we had collected.  The next day we headed home.

It still blows my mind to consider that we were gone for only a little over a month.  It feels like a year has passed, a year of confusion and terror.  I have gained a great deal of power since we departed; when we left I had only just learned to cast spells of the third circle, and now I am well into my study of the fourth.

When we arrived in Sharn, we did so in grand style, rapping on the Dean’s window.  He remains inscrutable, but told us a little of the jewel, which he called the Stargem of Mopilar.  It was a gift from the dragons to the giants, which has connections with certain elements of draconic culture – specifically, dragonmarks.  I have indeed manifested a House Cannith dragonmark, and I think that it will remain so long as I continue to bear the Stargem.  It is one of a matched set of three; we have theorized that Khyber and Eberron are tied to the other two.  Each had its purpose; this one’s real purpose is to help interpret portions of the Prophecy.  I wonder how it can help us interpret the fragment that we have.

I also identified the rest of our treasure using a bag of pearls that the Dean gave us.  Fel’s new blade, which is named “True Death,” is baneful to the undead.  Maeve’s mace is enchanted to the second tier.  The serpent staff has three powers, each of which requires one charge – it can turn into a cobra, create a ball of lightning that grows stronger as I spin the staff, and emit a thunderclap that will strike fear into our enemies.  As I have no connection to Necromancy, I have never before had a capacity for fear-based magic, and I am not entirely certain that I will be able to use this one.  The second of these is by far the most interesting to me.  My bracers are enchanted to the second tier of strength.  We have a wide variety of gems and other minor treasures to sell, which should provide us with the money we need to further enchant our gear.

Finally, the Dean was surprised to hear that there were so many changelings in the group that he sent, to say nothing of the doppelganger.  I wonder if something more sinister than mere murder was afoot there.  And only one question:  What comes next?


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## Shieldhaven (May 10, 2006)

Naturally, it didn’t take all that long for the Dean to answer the question of What Comes Next.  He sent us to talk to Associate Professor Bran on the third floor of the Dorthenon building – History department.  Turns out that Bran was ejected from Darguun for “inspecting” structures the locals regarded as holy.  He further discovered indications of similar structures in Droaam, all relating to the end of the Dhakaani Empire.  There was evidence of contact between the goblins and the dragons in those ruins, a dagger with a dragonscale set in its crossguard. He claims that he had official permission to be in Darguun, so he was ejected while the rest of his team was animated as undead and set to guard the same ruins he had been studying.  I find this to be abhorrent beyond words – to say nothing of Bran’s mostly-blithe recounting of these grim details.  He’s much more concerned with the delay to his studies than the loss of his entire team, which I find inexcusable considering how much I and my companions have suffered for one another.

They discovered also directions to a lair, possibly a dragon’s lair, in the Byeshk Mountains.  This is where it really gets tricky for us.  The lair was last known (with certainty) to be inhabited around 10 millenia ago.  But it’s the Byeshk Mountains that have everything to do with the prophecies surrounding the handaxe that started us off and sent us scrambling around Sharn.  I need to review my notes and get a clearer head about what we’re doing.  The Dean has returned the axe to me, and I am carrying it inside an enchanted glove.

Gerron has been sent alone to the Shadow Marches, carrying a message on the Dean’s behalf to House Tharashk.  Since this leaves us a man down, he has also assigned a new warrior to join us, a warforged who fights with a spiked chain & whose name I can’t seem to recall.  He’s (I take him to be an essentially male personality) painfully literal and entirely lacking a sense of irony or sarcasm that so defines my style of conversation.  He doesn’t seem to be one of the ones who tries to “fit in” with the humans or be like us all that much.  He can do what he likes, but I’m still trying to find a common ground on which to relate to him.  Also, he’s in many ways an outsider – he hasn’t had months in which to build up a nice healthy resentment of the Dean the way the rest of us have.  Nothing to do for it, though.

The Dean supplied us with two wands, the like of which I’ve not seen before.  One casts arcane bolts twice a day, but otherwise never runs out of charges; the other does the same for Maeve’s basic healing spell.  It was, I would say, an unexpected help.

I have also mastered four additional spells – Mnemonic Enhancer and Thousandfold Step by my own studies, and Diver’s Breath and Unweave Psionics from scrolls I purchased.  I enchanted the warforged’s spiked chain and Fel’s offhand blade, and scribed a few more spells as well.  It drained me, but not terribly.  I had planned on doing more, but Gerron’s departure changed things.  I hope that the warforged is half the tactican that Gerron is.

We are preparing for departure; Maeve is terribly interested in painting the bottom of the flying boat the color of the sky, ignoring the fact that the sky’s color is entirely unreliable.  Fel has developed more of a command over the air elemental in the boat and objected strongly.

Some questions that remain:
What will we face when we reach the lair?  What has all of this got to do with the handaxe?  Are we fulfilling prophecy, and if so, how disastrous will this really be?  Does any of this relate to the prophecy from the druids’ observatory in the Eldeen Reaches?  Will Maeve sober up in time for our departure… or arrival?


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## Shieldhaven (May 10, 2006)

Well.  This was not how I’d hoped things would go.  We found a clearing that was at least reasonably close to the place we believed to be our destination and took the ship down.  We met a local guide there, a shifter woman.  She’s the first shifter I’ve ever been around for any length of time, and I find her to be just as arrogant in her knowledge of the wilds as we are in our knowledge of the city.  I’m sure we’ll get along famously.  She didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t know where we were going  - aside from some confusing directions, anyway – it was a perfect match.  I don’t know how long we’ll be in-country, but I’m glad to have some more muscle along.

After maybe an hour of argument, we decide that we can best protect the boat by leaving it higher up in the air than anyone can go without the assistance of magic.  It would prove relatively easy to reach for anyone with a spell of levitation or Wind Dancing (which is what I used to get Fel up there in the first place), but there was nothing more to be done.  In the future, I’ll have to keep track of the components Maeve needs for her spells and provide her with them, and possibly learn some abjurations of my own for these (admittedly rare) occasions.  As long as I’m wishing, it’d be great to have a dozen other spells copied into my spellbook also.

With Jill’s help, we eventually hashed out the idea of going in one particular direction, and set off.  After some time of walking, we came to a sunny field of boulders.  It would have been quite appealing if it hadn’t been inhabited by basilisks.  The boulders, as we were to learn, were actually victims.  We were preparing to retreat and find another way to go, but we had wandered so close to the wretched beasts that they noticed us and… I don’t know, took offense, or something.  Matters degenerated from there.

Fel was turned to stone.  Page and Jill engaged the basilisks, and though I’d be hard-pressed to call that “wise,” it was at least successful in stopping their advance.  Maeve very cleverly raised a cloud of mist around the five of us, delaying and allowing us to maneuver a bit.  I had, fortunately, prepared many attack spells on this day.  Believing that their petrifying gaze had a relatively short range, I moved toward one edge of the field and opened up with everything I had – lightning, arcane bolts, and Scorching Rays.  They are tough, nonetheless, and it took much of my power to drop the one that had been attacking Page.  Jill left the protection of the mist, averting her gaze, and killed the other basilisk with a single devastating strike.

But Fel was still stone.  And while it’s possible that we could have continued on without him, we’ll never know, because we’ve returned to the boat.  I’ll attempt to bring the boat down, we’ll load Fel in, and we’ll try to force the air elemental to take us back to someplace where we could find a very powerful wizard or priest.

At least those particular basilisks are dead.  I don’t think there are any more in that field.  But I had had no idea they were a danger in this area.  It certainly made me feel small and helpless to have no spells that might help my companions resist petrification.  From what I understand, though, no amount of resistance really makes one immune.

First Gerron, now Fel.  Are we always going to be in over our heads so badly?

Some questions that remain:
Will we be able to find anyone to turn him back to flesh?  Will we then be able to make more progress without suffering such immediate failure?  How badly am I going to be in debt once I’ve paid for this?


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## Shieldhaven (May 10, 2006)

So, poorer by over a thousand gold, we return to our previous position, in the very same clearing.  The main difference this time, aside from my lighter purse, is that the shifter is already in the boat.  We’ve got a few new tricks up our sleeve now, in case there are more basilisks or other petrifying beasts.

This was the f irst time I’d had to take control of the air elemental in the boat.  Not easy – Fel handles it with much greater skill, and thus less balking by the air elemental, than I do.  Nevertheless I got the boat to the ground, where Page and Jill loaded our statuary in by main force.  Let this be a reminder that I need to scribe Tauric Might into my spellbook someday.  I mean, really, what kind of transmuter am I without this most classic of spells?  I suspect that it would be a great help to both Page and Jill.

We reached Graywall without incident, as much by luck as anything else – at least we knew enough to distinguish it from the Great Crag.  I took the boat down about a half-mile from the city, hoping that would be far enough to avoid notice.  I certainly don’t feel up to fighting the hordes of Droaam just now – maybe they’ll wait until we’re done with our current mission.  Maeve, Page, and I walked to the city, approaching from the east.  It is said in Breland that Graywall is divided into a human half, in the east, and a monstrous half in the west, and that we would find no welcome on the wrong side of that line.  The gate was guarded by a mixed force of humans and orcs, all bearing the insignia of House Deneith.  I spoke at length with one of the humans and received directions and advice – he mentioned a wizard named Reynard du Sable, who dwells and works in a tower near the Arena.  I think it takes remarkable chutzpah to name oneself “The Black Fox” and still expect people to trust you in any measure.  He also recommended accomodations within the city.

On our way there, we had an even more surprising encounter.  Maeve spotted a hand dipping into her purse – not, incidentally, the home of most of our coin – and turned to face the filcher.  She found herself staring into Dark’s face – the same hobgoblin who helped us recover the axe back in Sharn.  She didn’t take back the coin, but said, “You were offering to buy us a drink.”  So we stepped into the nearest bar (that’s Maeve for you) and had a little chat.  He seemed just as surprised to see us as we were to see him, which is remarkable.  Page was baffled by these proceedings, but it didn’t seem like the best of all possible times to explain.  So I found myself cutting a new deal with Dark – not the most reassuring of practices, but I think I’d rather have Fel back than worry about the basilisk skins that I promised him.  In exchange, Dark agreed to say two words to Reynard du Sable on our behalf and get us bumped up in his appointment book.  He further explained that Reynard tends to talk to guests as a member of the predominant race of that group; possibly he is a changeling, or just a really bored transmuter.  We made plans to meet Dark back at the same bar the next morning, with our strikingly realistic artwork in tow.  On our way back to the boat, we found a wheelbarrow for our use.  I also told Page the story of our earlier encounter with Dark.  I wonder what he thinks of this – I really don’t grasp his views of ethics, and his reactions are impossible for me to read.

Graywall is an interesting place, though I’ve no interest in sticking around a moment longer than we absolutely must.  The city is built almost entirely of stone.  Not, mind you, stone from a quarry, as such.  As far as I can tell, Graywall was literally built out of petrified bodies.  They are mortared together in a particularly cunning fashion, but one that is deeply disturbing to look upon.  I’m accustomed to seeing goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears roam freely in Sharn, kept out of only the more upscale establishments.  It unnerved me a bit to see the same applied to medusae, mind flayers, and other things in this city, not that I strayed far into the other half of the city.

The next morning, we met up with Dark and he led us to Reynard’s tower – Jill stayed behind to guard the boat.  Reynard’s servant brought us tea as we waited, and I had a little time to look around.  He eventually made his entrance, with a creature Maeve called an “alchemical golem” in tow.  It was as much like a walking sack of nonspecific alchemy as a creature could possibly be.  Reynard appeared to be human.  We negotiated for the spell he would use to fix Fel.  He offered both a transmutation of Stone to Flesh and a possibly chancier but less expensive Unweave Enchantment.  I opted for the former, reasoning that it would be better to pay more money and not risk having to pay a second time.  Fel was returned to us for about the price I had expected.  Reynard also offered to sell us fingers on leather thongs, which are exactly as disturbing to look at as my description makes them sound.  He explained that the fingers would suffer the effect of any one petrification that was used against the wearer.  The finger could then be returned to flesh and reused.  I think it says something about what I’ve seen and done in the past months that I merely balked at this, without refusing outright.  Maeve was the only one of us to flatly refuse.  Fel and I paid some of the cost in expended magic items, which are apparently of some use to him – I need to look into the idea – and I paid cash for the rest of the price.  I have to admit that two hundred gold per finger seems like too good of a deal to be real, but I find myself inclined to trust Reynard… there’s clearly something wrong with me.

Fel was surprised to awaken in an unfamiliar setting, but we explained as much as we could on the way back to the boat.  He took the helm again and we returned to the clearing that I mentioned earlier.  So here we are, a few days later and much poorer.

Some questions that remain:
Dark’s appearance here is too much of a coincidence for me to believe.  Is he following us?  Yet his surprise seemed genuine – unless he was just surprised to get caught, and has been following us some time now.  How could I unearth more information on him without being painfully obvious?  Will the fingers that Reynard sent us actually protect us?  Will the basilisk corpses still be there, or have I signed us up to go basilisk hunting?

-------------------

I've now reposted all previous entries.  There will be a new one sometime around Thursday of next week.  I am told that Jill's player is dropping out of the campaign for bellydancing lessons; this makes me sad, because Jill seemed like a cool character (and the player is fun to have around as well).  I _hope_ that yet another new player may join us, but this remains to be seen.

As a teaser for the next entry, I'll just say three words: flying ice baboons.  Oh, the mayhem.

Haven


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## Shieldhaven (May 18, 2006)

Another victory like this one, and all is lost.

We took the ship back to where we had first set down and left it in the air, as before.  Hiking through the countryside, we came to a pass between two boulders.  Fel scouted ahead and spotted two winged white baboon-like creatures chasing a feathered humanoid, with hands at the ends of his wings.  Uncertain of who was an enemy and who was an ally, I decided to shut the fight down, dropping a Shockwave on the three of them.  The apparent victim, the humanoid, was knocked unconscious, but the two winged baboons (I should track down a proper name for them) suddenly acquired new targets.  Their bellows paralyzed some of us with fear, but I soon learned that these creatures have a remarkable weakness against fire – my Scorching Rays were devastating, and I would have done better to split the rays between the two of them.  Ah well.  

We awakened the humanoid, who explained that he was an aarakocra named Cho-ah of Tigetijara.  After lengthy discussion, we learned that his people are under attack from the winged baboons that come from the Storm Castle, a fortress that floats in the clouds.  The giant that controls it has apparently turned to evil; he and his minions have wiped out three aarakocra nests so far.  A shaman named Karaka told Cho-ah that he could find help in the outside world – us, apparently.  I feel a bit better knowing that we’re facing an enemy I can do something about, but now I even more bitterly miss the fire spells I haven’t had a chance to scribe into my grimoire.

In any case, Cho-ah returned with us to the boat and guided us to his village, little more than large and barely-covered nests on a cliff face.  Fortunately none of us particularly suffer from acrophobia – though with the boat that would have been a problem long before now.  We spoke with Karaka, who repeated most of what Cho-ah had told us.  Maeve was fascinated to note that the aarakocra worship the Sky Goddess Wai, taking this name to be remarkably close to Arwis and Arawai.  The village’s temple is by far its most remarkable structure, a massive stone edifice with hundreds of holes worked into its walls that allow air to flow freely.  Fel spoke constantly of filching the gem that hung from the ceiling of the temple, but the aarakocra didn’t notice until he had to wipe his chin.

Our conversation was soon interrupted by the appearance of the Storm Castle, maybe a hundred feet from the cliff’s edge.  Sixty more winged baboons attacked the village in several flights, and we faced off against the eight or ten that approached the temple.  The giant too made an appearance, casting a druidic spell to summon lightning against the aarakocra.  I had few fire spells prepared, however, and found it difficult to get close enough to them to cast that spell.  I increased Jill’s and Page’s stature, and they were devastating colossi against which our enemies hurled themselves.  The winged baboons have some sort of connection to the plane of Risia, and hurled javelins of ice back at us.  Page was held fast, and several of us were badly injured by the cold.  Arcane bolts and lightning of my own finished off a few more of them.  The giant called back his surviving minions and withdrew.

Though we were victorious in our tiny theater of the battle, the rest of the settlement suffered terribly.  Over a hundred aarakocra were slain, leaving barely a score of them.  They were entirely unprepared for the attack, and it is a grim consolation to realize that the few who remain owe their lives to us.

I am torn – well, not torn so much as scared.  I want to help these aarakocra, who seem to be a gentle people faced by a clearly superior foe.  But I worry all the same, for the Storm Castle is almost certainly the very dragon’s lair that we seek and its tenants seem exceptionally dangerous.  It has been my habit to fear that our resources are insufficient, but in this case it is clear that I need to diversify the types of energy damage I can deal – electricity and force damage are the only sorts that seem sufficiently represented.

Some questions that remain:
Actually, things seem pretty clear-cut at the moment, so the only question right now is – are we or are we not strong enough to face these foes?  And one other – will the boat be sufficient to get us to the castle to begin an assault?

-----------------------

Is the Witch's theme from _Wizard of Oz_ playing in your head yet?  Because it sure was in ours.  The GM sure is a weird guy sometimes.  Nemo, if you're reading this, I mean that in the nicest way possible.


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## Shieldhaven (Jun 1, 2006)

The plan, I am relieved to say, has changed.  The morning after the battle, Karaka ate some seeds and reported this vision to us: as he was flying, burning snow fell from the sky.  There was a creature of blackness overhead that shut out all light.  The wind pierced his wings and he fell.  He was caught by talons.  He saw a bright tower of ice thrust up from a frozen lake.  Then the eagle released him and his wings worked again.  The eagle flew into the tower.  The lake cracked, and a silver fish flew out of the lake, banishing the darkness.  As light returned, so did hope, and the vision passed.

Maeve mentioned that a lone tower frequently represents Aureon.  Karaka told us also of a flock of giant eagles that dwell nearby, and suggested that we go to them to seek aid or direction.  In the meantime, the aarakocra of Tigetijara will move to the village of Xixikoaca; if we are victorious over their enemies, we will light signal fires at Tigetijara so they will know to return home.  Maybe this way there will still be some aarakocra left to save by the time we’re done.

Storms were brewing as we sailed out to where the giant eagles nested.  I saw – felt – recognized, anyway – in this storm the signs of Kythri, the Churning Chaos.  I am not certain, but it would certainly stand to reason that it was connected in some fashion to the Storm Castle.  A quasi-elemental of lightning attacked us as we sailed near the stormcloud.  I saw ball lightning swarming around it, and mistook it at first for lesser elementals of the same kind.  Unsure of how to proceed, I cast a Scorching Ray, which proved to have been wasted as Maeve dismissed it back to Kythri with a single spell.  The battle abruptly concluded, we sailed onward.

It turns out that giant eagles are telepathic.  Who knew?  It’s a good thing, too, because none of us could possibly speak with animals by magic.  I don’t believe that the eagle that “spoke” to us gave me a name for itself.  It was, suffice to say, magnificent to behold.  I read my transcription of Karaka’s dream.  It knew of the Tower of Ice, built by a mage who lived there long ago.  It is now empty, in the mountains called the Peaks of Light that are only a few days of sailing from the eagles’ eyrie.

As we approached, we saw a glow coming from the saddle between two peaks.  The Tower of Ice is appropriately named, a huge spike of ice jutting out of green mist.  I have, as yet, no idea what the mist is or how we will enter the Tower.  The mist suggests to me the devastation of the Mournland, though I’ve never seen it for comparison.  It also twists the visual imagery of Karaka’s dream in a confusing way.  But then, there’s a lot that I don’t understand about divine insight and mysticism, though I’m passably comfortable with accepting that rigid arcane logic patterns ought not be applied to such matters.  We have spent no small amount of time wondering if the five of us, in our skyboat, are the eagle in the vision.  This would make sense, except that the eagle was also literal, guiding us to the tower.  Unless it is concealed by the green mist, the lake of ice is not literal, but it certainly makes sense as a symbol of imprisonment.  The tower can reasonably be both a symbol of Aureon – knowledge and magic – and place to which we must go to find those things.

Or maybe we’re way off.  Who knows?

Some questions that remain:
How will we get inside the Tower of Ice, and what will we find there?  What do all these symbols represent?  How will any of this lead us to a victory over the Storm Castle and its inhabitants?

-----------------------------

So it turns out that Jill isn't leaving the party.  This makes me happy.  But I might be.  This makes me sad.  But I might be leaving to get a really good job.  This makes me happy.  But this job is far away from most-but-not-all of my friends.  This makes me sad.  So I'm not sure what my emotional state should be.

In more game-related foo, Maeve did indeed solve the encounter with the lightning elemental in a single spell.  I'm not sure how badly the elemental had to roll to get banished, but it was cool - she doesn't personally throw down against the bad guys often.  I'm don't know what stats the GM was using for the elemental, but he mentioned afterward that all of our nice metal weapons would have really made that fight suck for us.


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## Shieldhaven (Jun 15, 2006)

Interpreting Karaka’s dream has grown even more challenging with what we’ve learned in the past few hours, and I now fear that we are going far astray.  We approached the tower of ice and saw that there was a small patch of snow-covered ground near its base, free from the sinister green fog.  Fel went down first as the rest of us studied the tower from the boat.  I determined that the powerful magic in its creation was almost certainly a summoning from Risia followed by magic to keep it frozen.  Fel fought off some sort of creature, formed of the fog, that attacked him; possibly one of the living spells that I have heard about in the Mournland, but it didn’t last long enough for any sort of examination.

We had begun a lengthier examination, myself alone remaining in the boat, when a corridor opened in the fog.  A gnome was there, apparently desperate to escape the area.  He said that his name was Fritz, and he had accompanied a group of dwarves into the area so that he could report to the Korranberg Chronicle.  His companions had all been slain by icy lizards and insects days earlier.  We were suspicious of him, but he led us through the way he had cleared to a well-preserved ghost town.  A fountain in the middle of town showed a time before the Tower and the land were frozen.  “Devral” was inscribed on a plaque on the fountain.  That is, or was, the name of a powerful and reclusive transmuter, back before the Last War.  Much like Reynard, she was either a changeling or very much enjoyed changing her appearance.  Fritz pointed out a door marked at the base of the miniature tower, where it would now be hidden by snow.

Back at the tower, Fritz got us to let him stay up in the boat while we examined the tower further.  He wanted us to take him back to Korranberg, but we flatly refused until we were done with our work.  Once we were all inside the tower, he stole everything edible out of the boat and ran off.  I doubt he’ll last long, though some part of me still wonders if he lied to us in any particular regard.

The tower door was sealed in a manner I didn’t study long enough to understand.  It was clear that it required some kind of small, round key; on a hunch or some sort of intuition, I pulled out one of my Siberys shards and found that the door opened to its touch.  Inside, a floating orb welcomed us to the Citadel of Devral.  Unseen servants took our cloaks and wine appeared in a pitcher made of the same ice-crystal as the rest of the place.  We drank the wine and waited for an hour or so before assuming that Devral was truly not home and not coming to speak with us.  Fel approached the icy staircase, only to discover that it was entirely illusory, and a platform under his feet was lifting him to the second floor.

On the second floor, there were lots of nondescript small chambers, their walls made out of ice just like everything else, even though it wasn’t the least bit cold inside).  There was another orb, this one silver with a black spot.  When Jill touched it, it pursued Page, then exploded in black energy.  He was, fortunately, not hurt.  We left its replacement, which appeared immediately, well enough alone.

Third floor.  A glass gryphon stood in the center of the clear-walled room.  The orb here was red and yellow; when we touched it, a doorway opened in the wall, letting cold air in from outside.  I wonder what it would take to animate this gryphon. 

Fourth floor.  The library, where I now sit and write this entry.  The orb here is red.  When touched, it showed an image of the unoccupied first floor.  The books in here are focused on the creation of new creatures.  Bookworms had been hard at work here, and I mended one book with repeated castings.  

“…demonic white-winged creatures led by a black creature able to possess others.  In an attempt to mitigate the evil she could do, I have trapped her soul and given it to Argentalikus for safekeeping.”  Then, later: “Dargent swims through the sky like a silver fish.  Although I hate to lose her, I must leave my darling daughter sleeping in a white column under the dome of power.”

Fifth floor.  A large white column stands in the middle of the floor, radiating cold, encircled by gold.  The circle is strong abjuration and the pillar is strong conjuration.  

Some questions that remain:
What do we need to do?  It seems clear, but for a doubt in my mind.  What must be freed, and what must remain bound?

----------------------------

The session actually ended with Teagen breaking the circle of power, an icy creature appearing and addressing us in a language we don't speak, and attacking.  I had to end the journal entry here, though, just because it doesn't make sense for me to have been writing as I started the fight...

I'm pretty worried that I've screwed up royally.  I am, at this point, pretty much totally confused.  I'm sure the GM has given us clues that none of us picked up on, or that we failed to go in the right directions to get the clues, but there you go.  We have approximately !clue at the moment, and we might wind up killing the thing we're supposed to free.  Feh.

It'd make me happy if some of you lurkers would de-lurk briefly. =)

Haven


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