This post is going to be fairly unusual, as it recounts the adventures of a group of PCs that have traveled to another plane, in search of a very specific object for a powerful Arcanist. She sent them there through a faulty device that used up the last of its power to send them across time and space.
They were informed that they MUST find the object (a magical crystal power source) if they wished to return, and the reward would be great.
The report is not as detailed as some have been.
22 Sept – 13 Oct Sessions, Team A in Agaboth
Session notes from 22 Sept:
Delve into the areas below the Tomb of God.
Kalder uses Warp Wood to turn the stakes in a pit barrier into a bridge. Upon crossing, a spectral figure appears, asking if you seek to serve Kydoth. Kalder bluffs regarding a key and the “blood of the 3”.
The spectre retreats and vanishes into the next chamber.
Where y’all awakened a mummy guardian, infested with Hell-worms! They manage to avoid these worms and burn the mummy.
After a very long deliberation they decide on placing two of the hourglasses upon two of the discs. This activates one of the bronze faces on the wall and the purple jade portal opens to a stairway leading down.
They go down into an anteroom, and open a tomb door. within: another mummy infested with Hell-worms and 2 skeletal warriors, armed and accoutered in an ancient style. Aziagos is attacked by one of the worms and it burrows into his flesh with amazing speed. Shavanoxil cuts it out with the Dream Knife, doing a good bit of damage.
The group decides discretion is the better part of valor and beats feet, sails back to the basalt statue. Here each of the wounded party members takes a turn in the magical healing chamber (Aziagos is badly injured! His leg was severely maimed.)
This takes about 30 hours, during which various party members keep watch, Kalder calls attention to the sight of the Giant Wasps flying across the sky from right to left, a series of small black dots, they seem to be headed toward the Oasis.
Katokas had previously seen them flying away from the Oasis, and rigged a device to determine their direction of travel, at least as far as he could see them.
The party has been in this desolate place of forever noon (well, 11:50) for six or seven days, at the best of their reckoning.
Katokas asks the Voice of the Tower if it knows Shleek.
“The entity Shleek is guardian in place of greater authority of the Realm of Agaboth. The entity assigned direct duties to Xalomey of the Dusk as Spear-Keeper and Despot. Both entities have been out of communication since The Interruption, when many systems went dark. The current status of Shleek is unknown.”
Return to the Oasis of Myrena
The party sailed the catamaran back to the Oasis, bypassing a titanic battle between a gargantuan beetle and gigantic ants. The beetle must have been 50 feet long!
On returning to the town of Myrena they sought out Kallisto (the Red Priestess) and found Iphigenia of the Dark Temple (so-called because all of the candles have been put out in the absence of water and of Shleek). The statue of Shleek in the Academy is pierced by three holes, and Iphegenia has matching impact wounds on her torso and thigh.
There is black ichor, with a strong aura of Chaos, spreading out on the floor around the statue of Shleek. Katokas puts his hand in it. There is a ‘crack’ sound and four Giant Crab Spiders appear. After a brief battle Shavanoxil takes out the magic clay bowl and makes Mother’s Milk for Iphigenia.
When Iphigenia recovers enough to speak, she tells of “A great battle all around, in a vast area of bright light and cold darkness. The goddess was leading a large army of brightly armored warriors against another army of terrible mien. Suddenly a bright streak of light appeared from nowhere, something struck the goddess, Iphigenia felt a mighty blow to her body, and all was blackness until now.”
Shavanoxil takes an hour or so to create more Mother’s Milk with the ichor recovered from the broken statue. (three doses)
Kalder performs an Augury with the magical jawbone. Was the vision of the priestess that Shleek is at war in the cosmos now, with consequences to Agaboth and Wierth true?
Kalder utters a reply in a deep, guttural voice,
“There is a great battle beyond the Veil,
The Powers contend for the Elder Sign,
The Heart of Crimson beats in time.
Along the world axis the Empress lay sleeping,
Sympathy to the rhyme of the star clock.
Three Sleepers and nine Sages,
Twelve keys of the sundered realms.
The fate of the Powers is bound to the guttering flame.”
There is some conversation, the gist of which is that Kallisto hopes that an artifact called the Silver Spear can be recovered from the ruins of the Temple of the Flame, high on the shoulder of the smoking volcano. She assigns a group of Lemurian warriors to accompany you (3 armed with Javelins and war clubs, 4 armed with bows and war clubs).
The Tomb of God
You sail to the Tomb of God with the warriors.
You make your way uneventfully down the stairs and passageways to the long, flooded chamber with the wooden catwalk on the left-hand side. (Where the water-demon attacked! )
About halfway along, sprawled on the platform, are three dead bodies: human-looking men with pale, almost translucent, pink skin, white hair, and pink eyes (they look like Saringa)
You perform the Lamentation.
You make your way down to the Pit Chamber, parley with the spectre, and finally down to the Archway Chamber.
Here you take a couple of hours trying different ways of arranging the hourglasses upon the silver discs, until you believe you have determined all of the combinations and possible “where” they open portals to.
You open the portal to the Flame Temple and go through, leaving an Oasis Warrior to guard the Archway.
Portal to the Temple of the Flame
You discover a courtyard dominated by a large tree, corrupted by Chaos. You fight some small creatures the Oasis Warriors call “goblins”. One of the warriors dies. Exploring the ruin you find a broken cage and summoning circle, an otyugh in a pile of refuse, and more goblins.
You find 12 Old Jamul GP (240 SP value)
465 Old Jamul SP
3 gold candlesticks (Consecrated to Law), (about 4 pounds in weight, each) approx 1200-1500 SP value each
(Quick notes here)
Investigate the Cage and summoning circle, Fire Elemental
Determine there is a Curse on the cage, rather than a Ward
Search the 2nd floor of the ruined temple area
Katokas performs a Detect Magic ritual, determining there is a powerful force deep below, other, less powerful sources between it and the surface.
Go down under the temple itself, into a large, partially collapsed chamber, follow the source of magic through some doors, into a storage room that Kossas and Shavanoxil recognize from visions while holding and using the magic clay bowl. They find an iron bowl of similar shape that appears to fit directly inside the clay bowl.
“Of course it does”
In the third chamber, a large worship area of some kind, you find a 16 foot tall golden lantern, with a small, guttering blue and red double flame.
There is a gigantic hole in the floor, and down below you can hear water splashing…
12 Jan Session
There are two statues in the room, one of Shleek and another of a woman without a sculpted head. In its place an actual human skull, quite old and aged to a caramel brown color. Lieres checks for traps, removes the skull. There is a hex inside, it radiates an enchantment of the Divination school.
This statue also holds a metal platform in a shallow “v”, as if to support an open book. A puzzle.
Lieres rappels down into the hole, discovering a flooded chamber. There is a small “island” under the hole, the rubble of the floor/ceiling. A single exit leads out, also flooded. Water pours in from a bronze faced gargoyle on the wall, opposite the exit.
The group descends, makes their way cautiously down the passage, stopping to raid teh four small crypt openings in the wall. They find a silver ring, 5 silver Quill tips.
At the end of the passage it opens into another large chamber, with 8 exits around the perimeter.
In the center of the flooded room, a stone lectern with a large book (!). Above teh book the roots of a great tree hang from the ceiling, and a bit of grey light filters in from above. Lieres uses his pole to push the book off the lectern into the water. A voice speaks from a previously unseen occupant of the room, making a vague threat in Stygian. Katokas runs up to get the book and sees a skeletal man covered with mold siting in an elaborate, gilded chair. He rings a gong, and the corpses from the crypts behind the party arise!
Splashing can be heard from all of the openings in the chamber walls. There is a brief battle while the shuffling dead attempt to attack the party and their native allies. Suddenly, however, teh attack breaks off when two of the Myreni have been killed by the skeletal creatures.
The roots of the tree are reaching, stretching toward the blood in the water.
The mold-infested man in the chair laughs, mutters something semi-coherent about the Iron Well.
The party flees back through the passage to the room under the Lantern-hall. They clamber up the rope, barely able to get all topside, with the great book, before a handful of shuffling skeletal monsters enter the chamber below.
Choosing the better part of valor, they decide to make their way back to Myrena overland, as it could be seen from the courtyard above. They were decidedly against traveling through the Tomb of God again.
It took the better part of the day to return, losing one more Myreni warrior to the carnivorous flower bushes in the ravine below the Temple.
During the hike they saw a group of Giant Wasps fly over, but were unable to tell if any other creatures were riding them. They also bypassed a small clearing where four gargantuan caterpillars were munching on bamboo.
Upon returning to the House of Respite in Myrena, the warriors went to mourn their lost companions, and the party sought rest and recuperation. Kalder spent three “days” studying the book recovered from beneath the Temple of the Flame.
Downtime notes
(Here are the actual Downtime conversations in the Discord, about the aftermath. Names have been deleted)
During your downtime in the village of Myrena, the spell casters in the group have a nagging feeling in the back of their mind, and they just can’t seem to shake it
The cup wants to be quaffed.
Sh****t! Or the book of death wants to be read.
Lieres will offer to drink wine from the fancy cup “for the good of the team.”
But he insists on an amulet that protects against possession and really good wine.
“If I’m to go mad, I will not do it drinking swill.”
Lieres will offer to drink wine from the fancy cup “for the good of the team.” But he insists on an amulet that protects against possession and really good wine. “If I’m to go mad, I will not do it drinking swill.”
Lieres takes a look at the recipe on the shivertree scroll. He recognizes it as an enchanted potion similar to an antivenin, but instead of drawing out poison, it draws out…something else. Something related to the “ashes of a precious writing” component.
Interesting component. Is it something I can mix?
There was a “small silver dish with a spoonful of ashes” next to the goblet…
the herbs & stuff in the recipe are known to Lieres, he thinks he can find what he needs with some help from the villagers. Let me know what Lieres does for the next step.
The ashes of a precious writing are a problem. I think Lieres will attempt a solo stealth run into the dungeon just to acquire the ashes. No exploration, no extra turns, just in and out for one item.
Lieres would like the ashes Shavanoxil took.
I give it over
Treasure and Experience for Team A – Agaboth – thru 12 Jan
Loot
Team A – Agaboth – thru 12 Jan
Silver Ring ~40 SP
5 Silver Quill Tips ~50 SP total
Codex of Monastic Discipline (Cult of the Flame Elementalist) ~2,000 – 4,000 SP
Great Iron Book unknown
Silver Dish ~ 75 SP
(Enchanted) Chalice of Memory ~3,000 SP
(Enchanted) Painted ceramic death mask, very lifelike image of a woman’s face ~200 – 300 SP
Total LOOT 5,365 SP
Experience
Kalder A
Katokas A
Shavanoxil A
Kossas A
Lieres A
Aziagos A
Shaganikor (Apprentice)
Shamoruval (Apprentice)
Total LOOT XP 12,665 (this differs from LOOT SP value due to XP of enchanted items =/= SP value)
Combat XP 1,387 XP
14,052 XP / 2,342 XP each
