Date:
Lunday, 21st of Basilembrios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Cool, cloudy
Player Characters:
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)Ashe "GOAT" Maykum, Goblin mercenary druid (ArchonShiva)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Ashe "GOAT" Maykum, Goblin mercenary druid (ArchonShiva)
Significant NPCs:
Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian
Wicktrimmer, Imperial Goblin banker and merchant
Barnaby Goodbarrel, Esq., Halfling lawyer
Craastonistorex, green dragon
Camilla, summoned bat
Summoned wild boar
Summoned cave bears
Summoned bat swarms
2 Imperial Stone Guardians
Akla-Chan, hologram of a Rudishva artificial intelligence psychologist
Summoned hammerhead sharks
Many crocodiles
Huge snapping turtle
The Plan:
- Leave tribute on the dam for Craastonistorex the green dragon
- Use Water Vision to see if there's anything interesting in the lake
- Put the ankh keys in the obelisks of the sun, moon, and stars before noon and see what happens
- Use Water Vision to see if there's anything interesting in the Great Cavern River
- Check out the salamander island in the Great Cavern
- Explore the southwestern ledge in the Great Cavern
- Go down the Settite stairs from the Great Cavern and explore/loot more of the Settite level
What Happened:
Michael and Vallium got matching letters from Wicktrimmer that the mule caravan from Narsileon with their items had arrived. Michael also got a letter from his mother that his father was sick and he should come home. They went to the Rarities Factor where Vallium picked up his new sword and Michael got his new scale armor, both already paid in advance.
Michael then made plans to leave. His plan was to travel down the Imperial road to Newmarket, then all the way to Narsileon on the sea, then catch a ship down to Sweetwater Hold in southeastern Irthuin, then walk to his family's home from there. He first settled up with the Right for Riches Company. They agreed to give him a magic shield, a few healing potions, and the Belt of Strength as his share of party items. Vael and Michael went to their lawyer's office and had him draw up a separation agreement to make it official; if Michael ever came back and rejoined the Right for Riches company it would be as a new member, with no claim to any pre-existing items.
Vael wanted to test the range of the Rugs of Instant Access, so he proposed that the group walk with Michael for a while, either until the Rugs stopped working or until they reached Narsileon. (If they made it all the way to Narsileon with the Rugs still working, they would rent a place there and leave a Rug then teleport back, losing the tactical use of the Rugs but gaining instant access to a real city.) It took a bit less than three days to hike the 60 miles to Newmarket. On the fourth day, a bit south of Newmarket, the Rug stopped working. They turned around and went back a bit and confirmed the Rug worked again; it appeared the range limit was about 60 miles. At that point the Right for Riches company said goodbye to Michael and headed back north, and he resumed hiking south alone, at a noticeably faster speed.
It took three days to hike back to Gosterwick. When they got there Uvash was still busy trying to convert Torunn the Smith to Zodarrim, but they'd just lost most of a week walking to Newmarket and back, so they went to the Grudge Brigade and hired Ashe the goblin. They got up early the next morning and walked to Arden Vul, wanting to be there well before noon because the obelisks of the sun and moon said something about "midday life" and they interpreted that as "put the ankhs in the obelisks before noon".
At the base of the Long Stair, Vallium and Ioannes stepped through the Rug back to Gosterwick, while Vael and Ashe Levitated up the Cliff Face,with several bats flying as escorts. They made it to the top safely, so Vael laid out the Rug and Vallium and Ioannes joined them. Levitating rather than climbing the Long Stair saved about an hour, so they had a couple of hours left before noon.
The group walked over to the dam to leave tribute for Craas. Vael noticed a scroll case on top of the dam. Inside was a note from Craas, saying that the silver chess pieces were "appropriate tribute" but then listing several complaints, like the missing chess board, the pieces being the wrong colors, and the archons being larger than the dragons. Everyone said some rude things about Craas, quietly, then Vael wrote a polite note back rather than risking dragon wrath. They left a magic amulet that only worked for Settites as additional tribute.
Vael pointed out the Obelisk of the Stars. The swamp between the dam and the obelisk looked wet and slow to traverse, so Vael cast Walk on Air on Vallium and Ioannes so they could get there faster. There were a few ruined buildings near the swamp that people wanted to investigate, but they didn't want to risk taking too long so they only poked around for a couple of minutes, and didn't find anything. When everyone reached the obelisk, they read the inscriptions and looked at the pictures of stars, then inserted one of the silver ankhs. Nothing seemed to happen.
The noted a long intact building and discussed investigated it, but decided to do that later and finish with the obelisks. They went east toward a bridge, and spotted a large statue with the head missing. They thought it was probably Vul the Sorcerer based on the resemblance to the Colossus of Vul on the Cliff Face, but couldn't be completely sure without the head. They didn't see the head anywhere, and continued east across the bridge to the island in the middle of the Swift River, south of the Palace. They went north to the palace wall, beyond which they had found the bottom part of the Obelisk of the Moon. (The top part was nowhere to be seen.) Vael grabbed an ankh from Vallium, Levitated over the wall, and put the ankh in the obelisk. Again, nothing obvious happened.
They continued east over the other bridge and again saw the plinth with the feet and ankles of a large statue, but with the rest of the statue missing. They compared the scale and thought that might be the statue of Arden whose head was above the door of the Inn of the Broken Head, but could not be completely sure. (Vallium was keeping a list of large statue pieces and their locations in case they needed them in the future.) They continued east to the Forum, went nowhere near the tower full of wraiths, went south to the Obelisk of the Sun, and discussed whether to insert the third ankh immediately or wait for noon. They decided to insert it early then wait for noon, to avoid possibly inserting it too late.
Everyone watched the shadows to see when noon approached. Vael Levitated up a bit to get a better view. When the shadows disappeared, they heard a loud crashing sound to the northwest. Vael impatiently flew over and was the first to notice a new hole in the ground, on the southern part of the island with the palace. Looking into the hole, there were some stairs leading into the earth, ending at some large bronze doors. Camilla the bat flew ahead and checked out the doors, magically relaying a picture of them back to Ashe. The non-flying part of the party walked across a narrow iron footbridge to the island. It didn't collapse under them, but Ashe decided not to send any summoned bears across it, just in case they were too heavy.
Everyone investigated the doors at the bottom of the stairs. They were huge and bronze and sturdy looking and magical. There were carvings of Thoth and Set (who everyone recognized) and Anubis and Horus (who Ioannes identified), all holding up their right hands in the universal sign for stop. There was a big Mithric sign saying "Chamber of the Beacon. Enter only with Permission of the Archon. Speak the password to open.” There were no obvious keyholes. Vallium pushed on the door, but it was locked. Everyone started guessing passwords, but only a couple of the party members spoke Mithric (which they assumed the password would be in), so they had to translate the others' guesses. After a bunch of guesses that had no effect, Vael said "Open Sesame" in Mithric, and as soon as he said "open" in Mithric ("aperire") the door clicked unlocked. (Apparently the ancient Archonteans were terrible at passwords.)
Vallium pushed the door open. This revealed a large room, with a couple of statues in the back corners. Angry statues, charging at him. Vallium fought the two stone constructs, while two of Ashe's bat swarms and a summoned wild boar tried to help. (Ashe's cave bears were too big for him to maintain down here where Nature's Sanctity was weak.) The bats and boars didn't seem strong enough to penetrate the constructs' stone armor, and didn't even manage to distract them enough to soak any hits, but Vallium's enchanted broadsword worked fine. He blocked and parried many punches from the constructs, and two sword cuts to each construct put them down. Ioannes and Vael and Ashe stood in the back preparing to cast spells to help, but once Vallium downed the first construct they decided he had the fight under control and just watched from a few steps back.
The room had a bunch of frescoes on the walls in great condition, legionnaires and archons to the left, priests of Thoth and Set and Horus to the right. There were wooden doors left and right, and a passage to a stone door straight ahead. The group listened to the left door, heard nothing, and Vallium opened it. Beyond was a workshop, with many benches, covered with tools and some odd devices. The party spent a few minutes looking at the various devices, failed to really identify any of them, and started shoving them in their Bag of Holding. They searched for secret doors but didn't find any.
They went across the room to the other wooden door, listened again, and opened it. They found a rather luxurious reading room, full of nice furniture and bookshelves containing many books. Three walls were decorated with images of Thoth, Set, and Horus. Vael immediately started valuing the furniture and wondering which ones they could carry through the Rug, but they didn't actually bother taking any furniture yet. They did shove all the books in their Bag, though. While they were taking books, a thin flat oval disc fell out of one. It looked like the unexplained orange disc they had bought at the Goblin Market, but this one was pale green. Once again they searched for secret doors, and this time Vael spotted an ibis fresco on the north wall that looked suspicious, with a slot in its beak. He tried the small oval disc in the slot and it fit and the door opened. Inside were a bunch more odd devices, including some that looked somewhat recognizable like a helmet and a shield, and others that were just weird. Once again they put everything small enough to fit in their magic bag.
They searched for more secret doors, didn't find any, and went north to the stone door. This one had a keyhole, but none of Vallium's keys fit. Vael Lockmastered it open. Beyond was a room with three more exits, all of them strange round doors with no obvious handles or keyholes. Vallium remembered seeing one door like that before, behind the waterfall, but failing to open it. (They had not had a wizard with them at the time, though.) There was also a portable blackboard in the center of the room, covered with various writing in Mithric, some of it sensible, some of it just jumbled letters and numbers. Vael pulled out pen and paper and copied everything from the board.
They then went west. There was no obvious way to open the round door. Vael held the pale green oval disc to it, and it opened, in slices like an iris. Beyond was a small room, with a silver circle on the floor, and a gold square next to the circle on the wall. They tried various combinations of holding things up to the circle and pushing the square and standing on the square, but nothing happened. Nothing appeared magical either. It was odd.
They went back to the east and opened the other iris door with the green oval. It was the mirror image of the other room, with another silver disc and another gold square. They once again tried a lot of things, but nothing happened.
Giving up on those rooms, they went north. The green oval worked on that door too. They went back and also tried the orange oval on all three doors, and it also worked. To the north was a passage, with the east side collapsed, and the west side leading to another round door. Against one wall were some wooden benches, a sign reading “The Beacon – Source of the Old Ones’ Power", and an arrow pointing west.
The green disk opened the western door too, and beyond it was a very confusing room. It was all brilliantly lit with what appeared to be hidden Continual Light spells, but did not radiate magic. The room contained 6 oversized chairs in various colors, fixed to the floor. On the walls beyond some of the chairs were black mirrors, with odd switches and dials in front of them. There were a couple of podiums with more such controls. Finally there was an oval hole in the floor, with a little ridge around. It led down to another level beneath, but there was no ladder.
Ashe sent a bat down to scout the floor underneath, and didn't see anything that looked dangerous. Vael sat in the central chair, which was way too big for him, and smoothly swiveled side to side on a pin. It had cavities in both armrests, with a blinking red light in each, clearly magical but not detecting as such. They tried putting various things in the cavities, but nothing seemed to have any effect.
Vael Levitated down through the hole in the floor, but something else interfered with his Levitation and pushed him down, then stopped him at the floor below. Eventually the others followed him; there was some kind of levitation effect in the shaft that worked even without the spell, and was not detected as magic. A passage northwest led to a round door straight ahead, with other doors left and right. They chose left, for loot.
This door opened as they approached, without needing to hold up a disc. Beyond was a room with many chairs in different colors around a long oval table. On the table were three large sheets of parchment. All of them had maps. The first appeared to be a map of the two-level area they were in, with annotations by several rooms. The rooms they hadn't visited yet were "power" and "strange ghost". The second map was another two-level building, labeled "Barracks of the Old Ones" in Mithric. The third map appeared to lead to some tomb, somewhere in the Halls.
They went to the room labeled "power" on the map. It was full of a lot of odd machinery they did not recognize. Vael somehow avoided pushing any buttons. They went to the room labeled "strange ghost" on the map. It led to a room with many small round tables surrounded by chairs. There was also a bar along one wall with some kind of drink faucets. And there was also indeed a strange ghost.
The translucent form was about 7' tall, with two arms and two legs, wearing an unfamiliar outfit. It had brown skin, no hair, two small horns, and one less finger on each hand than expected. As they approached, it greeted them in Mithric. Vael and Ioannes, who spoke Mithric, engaged it in a long conversation, while Vallium and Ashe watched.
The ghostly creature was named Akla-Chah, and she was a Rudishva. Sort of. She was an illusion of a Rudishva. Kind of. She was a construct built by the Rudishva and appeared to them as an illusion of a Rudishva, because her job was talking to Rudishva and they were more comfortable talking to someone who looked like them. But she was actually not a biological rudishva, but a construct. But she considered herself a Rudishva anyway.
This did not really explain the situation, because they had no idea what a Rudishva was. But she had a lot of questions and they answered them. Their names, their species (she recognized Vallium and Ioannes as human but Vael looked somewhat different and Ashe looked very different), why not everyone spoke Mithric, what other languages they did speak, who they worked for, why no humans had come to visit in a long time, how they found the Beacon, their goals, who they worked for, etc. It went on for a long time. Akla-Chah was good at asking questions. They eventually figured out that was her job -- she was a psychologist and morale officer for the Rudishva, whoever they were. Her projection only worked in this room, so could not leave, but she said her actual form was somewhere else.
The short version was that the Beacon was a Rudishva vehicle that had crashed into Arden Vul many years ago and had been unable to leave. The surviving Rudishva (and their allies, the Varumani and Veruda) survived here, trying to find a way home. But then some horrible treason happened and most of them were killed and it was too painful to get into details. Later the ancient Archonteans had come to Arden Vul and discovered this piece of the Beacon and rudely interrogated Akla-Chah, but eventually they stopped coming and she didn't know why.
Also, this room was a cafeteria, and they were welcome to food and drink from the machines along one wall. Vael pushed the food button and got an Arden Vul cake (very filling and nutritious, but not that tasty) like the ones they had once seen in the market in Gosterwick. Ioannes pushed the drink button and got some very strong alcohol, stronger than any of them had tasted before. It was too strong for him, but some of the others liked it better, and Akla-Chah said they were free to take some to go, so they filled a canteen and a couple of wineskins.
Vael pulled out some of the artifacts they had found earlier, and Akla-Chah identified a few as possibly weapons but was not too sure, as she was a talker not a fighter, and had only seen pictures of such weapons in Rudishva entertainment media, er, moving books, that might not be accurate. She did identify the ovals as keycards that controlled access to doors, and said that the different colors of cards were for different people with different ranks and access levels, and that some of the cards were of colors she had not seen before and might be fakes. Vael asked what the best color was, and Akla-Chah said the captain's card was gold. They asked where the captain was, and Akla-Chah said that Captain Leil-Jor was killed in the treason, and she didn't know where her body was. Vael asked if there were any other constructs like her, and Akla-Chah said there was one other, but he went crazy and they should avoid him.
After they ran out of questions, the party left Akha-Chah, but said they'd be back soon. They tested that they could open the secret door from both sides, left one of the Rugs inside the secret door, then went outside. Vael flew to all three obelisks and pulled out the ankhs. This did not cause the steel doors over the stairwell to re-close. Much investigation of the steel doors did not reveal an easy way to close them. They were not directly magical, and it they appeared to weigh many tons, more than Vallium's strength or Vael's Apportation spell could lift. Maybe they could lift them with a large team of oxen or a dwarven engineering team or a dragon, but they wanted to cover the stairs quickly before anyone else spotted them. So they decided to instead build a cover over the stairwell.
Vael and Ashe cast Shape Earth many times (so each casting would use a manageable amount of mana) to create essentially a bridge of stone logs above the stairway. They then used more Shape Earth spells to close the gaps between the pieces, and finally Ashe threw a bunch of dirt and sticks on top of the stone to try to camouflage the cover. They completely sealed it up, leaving no hole to get in or out, so they'd need another Shape Earth (or stone-cutting tools and time) to get back in. But with the Rug inside, they could also just teleport in from Gosterwick.
With their tracks covered, they went over to the nearby lake to look for treasure. Ashe used Water Vision and reported a wrecked barge on the bottom about 50 feet down. Also a huge turtle and a bunch of big crocodiles. They formulated a plan to search the barge. Vallium, wearing the Ring of Free Action to let him move through water quickly, would get Breathe Water and Water Vision spells from Ashe and Flight and Mage Sight from Vael. He would then fly above the wreck, dive down into it, and look for treasure.
Unfortunately, the huge turtle was staying near the wreck, looking up at Vallium. Vallium wasn't in the mood to be eaten by the turtle, so he flew over and conferred with Ashe. Ashe summoned two hammerhead sharks, large but not as large as the turtle. They swam over toward the turtle, who saw interesting prey and gave chase. The sharks, who were faster than the turtle, led the turtle toward the northwest corner of the lake. This gave Vallium an opening, and he flew down through the water to the wreck. Inside were two fairly rotten wooden chests. He punched holes through the rotted wood of the first. It was full of small ancient silver pennies and the large ancient gold solidi. He grabbed all the gold he could, stuffing it quickly into his bag, then went over to the second chest, which was much larger. It had a mix of items: a few gold medallions, some more silver ankhs, a magic bastard sword, a magic wand, a huge magic gold key, and three regular-sized keys. Vallium got really excited about all the keys, but remembered to also take the other stuff. He decided he had enough time to go back to the first chest and grab the silver coins, then flew straight up out of the water. The turtle was still busy chasing sharks, so he went back toward shore, where Vael and Ashe were each focused on maintaining several spells while Iaonnes was checking for danger and asking to see if either needed more mana.
Once Vallium reached the shore, they dropped all the spells (to the disappointment of the hungry turtle who really wanted shark), rested a bit, then walked back to Gosterwick. They had a bag full of treasure and a story nobody would believe.
GM's Comments:
It took them 31 delves, but they finally found what appears to be definitive proof that extraterrestrials visited Magae. They also thought to look in the lake that they've walked next to dozens of times, so they've got that going for them too.
Achievements:
First Contact in a While: 1 XP for meeting Akla-Chah.
XP:
- Exploration: 18 new locations, good for 1 XP.
- Loot: They kept the books and Rudishva artifacts, but the treasure from the lake was worth 2 XP.
- Achievements: 1 XP
- Total: 4 XP
Next week:
They're currently planning to explore an unexplored bit of the Great Cavern, then go way down the stairs from the Set level to the Arden level behind the waterfall, and see if the keycards from the Beacon also work on the round door they found there.
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