Location: Tyriex, Draconia
Date: 23 Thunsheer 840 PD (calendar of Exandria)
Occasion: The incipient party are in Tyriex, former capital of Draconia, enjoying the hospitality of a Ravinite called Emror.
Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Flora Zosna – loxodon paladin
- Jeremiah Callows – human cleric
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
- Tunk – bugbear monk
A New Day (But is it really?)
Mindful that the guest room reminds some of the group of a barely-rehabbed former dungeon, Tāmerai first ascertains that the room can be opened from the inside. Then the group set watch. Nothing happens during Stubby’s watch, nor Jeremiah’s. Tunk shares the last watch with Tāmerai. He hears some chittering and rustling from outside the bright window, someone muttering or whispering, “Ah, too close!” and sounding pained.
Tāmerai goes exploring. The upstairs contains a very fancy, well-appointed, well-stocked bathing chamber with a pool that is warm and gently steaming, grooming tools and products of all kinds (even hair care products, which Emror doesn’t even use because he has scales, not hair!). It’s like a home spa. The armory contains two large tables with maps all over, and shelves and racks filled with weapons and armor. The weapons all seem to be fairly standard fare, well made but non-magical, but most of them seem to have some little identifying marks. Initials scratched on a hilt; a love poem to a sweetheart plastered on the inside of a shield; name, rank, and nearest kin written in a little notebook stuffed between a helmet and the padded coif worn with it. All lovingly catalogued. Tāmerai makes mental notes, but focuses primarily on the maps. She also Detects Magic and finds that the pool, as well as two statues, are imbued with magic. The pool is Transmutation, and the statues are as well, but of a slightly different flavor. Surveillance? Creepy.
One map is an architect’s plan of a castle, showing both the interior details and the city outside the grounds. Beneath this are more drawings, though not as good as those of a cartographer or architect, with notes on the city. Some bits are crossed out. There’s a map of “Vorugal’s Lair,” “Kobolds,” “HIS LAIR” (no explanation!), and a map of Eiselcross with a note scribbled in the margin that reads Talk to Ferol.
At the very bottom of the stack is a smaller map of what, and where, everything is now as opposed to the others, which seem to show the city before its second fall. The northeastern area of this map shows a barren field where the castle used to be; now it’s just mud.
In the corner of the room is a hole, not big enough to jump down, but with a diagonal chute. It may be a trash chute. Tāmerai is well acquainted with the fact that well-made trash chutes don’t have much odor at all. She sniffs experimentally; there is no odor.
However, at the far side of the room, there is a huge pile of gold. This, also, Tāmerai notes. There may be a possibility of some form of loan, should the group need it for getting home.
Back in the guest room, things are happening, but each only happens to one person, and no one mentions it in the morning.
Flora
Flora has been feeling her connection to her Ancestors weaken since the group arrived in this place, but in her dream she feels the bond strengthen once more.
Flora dreams of home and family. The warmth of her sisters sitting with her, the sound of laughter as they tell and retell family stories. Flickering in and out of sight, memories of mothers, grandmothers, and grandmothers of grandmothers. A voice Flora has heard before: her grandmother’s mother, the most ancient loxodon Flora has ever seen. Too old to wander, but too stubborn not to, she taught Flora to read skies and speak to Ancestors and request their gifts. “Flora, you are not safe, granddaughter.” Behind her, more ghosts appear, some whom Flora knows; but also, her own sisters; then more and more loxodon that she’s never seen. They look familiar but she can’t remember them. “You exist within and without time, granddaughter (whispers echo: aunt… cousin…) We do not know if we can bring you home, Flora. You are far from our reach. We are with you, we stay with you, but you cannot trust this place, and you cannot trust that man. Emror exists out of time and has brought you to him. He is a danger.” She hugs Flora, then fades. Another hug, Flora’s own mother. “We will do what we can, daughter, I swear it by the stars in the sky: we will save you.” Flora starts to cry silently, missing her family and feeling gratitude to them and wanting to be home.
They approve of her. They worry for her. They feel she should leave, for her own safety, as soon as possible. She wakes feeling at peace inwardly at the return of their spiritual touch, but disturbed with her circumstances.
Jeremiah
Like Flora, Jeremiah felt his bond with the Lawmaker weaken, but this night his deity’s embrace returns fully, though He too expresses — wordlessly — concern for Jeremiah’s safety and the direction of his path, should the cleric remain in Tyriex.
Bob
Someone, something, speaks to Bob. They refer to themselves as That Which Learns. They have been looking for someone like Bob, someone who seeks knowledge. This being gives their name as Sark (presumably no relation to the RL Scottish word for a shirt or chemise). They offer Bob powers beyond what he can imagine, if Bob will accept their oath: seek knowledge. Spread knowledge. Punish those who keep knowledge only for themselves. Bob accepts, conditionally. “Will you guarantee that I pass my dissertation this time?” Absolutely. “Deal. Wait — am I going to have to kill people?” Perhaps. If there is a choice between killing and dying, kill. “Deal. Uh. Can I get it in writing?” There is no direct reply, but Bob wakes up feeling fully recharged, and with a piece of paper in his hand. Actual, real paper. It says The Deal is made. You will pass. Bob wakes up to take the last watch, and spends it writing a letter to his father. He mentions that he has made a deal with someone named Sark, who guarantees he will pass his dissertation. He keeps the letter, waiting for a place from which to mail it.
24 Thunsheer 840 PD
Waking up, the group smell eggs and potatoes and all manner of other breakfast foods. Emror’s hospitality remains warm. The food is perhaps not as delicious as Jeremiah’s excellent food, but it’s more than acceptable, plentiful, and very welcome. More food than they could possibly eat, and it’s all lovely.
Tāmerai cleans the kitchen, stows away all food that could keep in the larder, and also finds there a box of mushrooms of types she does not recognize. Tunk does, though: if prepared properly, he knows they could heal a poisoned person.
As the group settle after their meal, Emror requests their help. He wants to leave this place, but is stuck. He thinks they are capable, and could help him get out. But there is danger, he says. “This city once flew, and my master, who taught me many things, wanted it to fly again. I think his spell wasn’t right. I believe that’s why we crashed again. I want to make the city fly again, but I can’t do it alone. We must break the spell that has us trapped here. I have been fomenting a theory.” He spreads out the map of Ravinia and puts his finger down where we are now. “This was once the house of a powerful mage — not my master, I moved here later — My master and I worked in the castle, here. We had imbued multiple crests with the power to make the city fly, and I believe they were destroyed or broken in the war. If I could find one, I could use its power to break my master’s spell, and perhaps our brethren outside could make the city fly again, or at least let us leave. I’ve been working every day for… Hm, you said it’s 840 PD? Apparently it’s only two years! But it feels like much, much longer… I’ve been working on it for all this time. I know where the threshold crests used to be, at least, but I can’t get there. I think with help, I could break the spells my master cast on them, and that would allow us all to leave. My master thought that if he cast a spell that kept the stones from further breaking, the cities would never fall. But they did fall.”
Bob asks for evidence of all this. Emror pulls out sheafs of notes, magical computations and proofs demonstrating the validity of his theories. Stubby remembers notes from her father concerning the Feywild, and time fluctuations dealing with these crests. (This is confirmed by Tāmerai’s memories of her own studies. If a person wanted to render time distorted, unreliable, and in a permanent state of flux, they could not have done a better job than Emror’s master did.) Tunk recalls sitting in a lecture once, being told of the dangers of imbuing strongly magical items with spells that prevent them from doing certain things. All together, they confirm the correctness of Emror’s calculations, each from their own angle of reasoning.
Bob (still wearing the form of a Ravinite) asks Emror if he’d be disappointed to find out that they aren’t brothers. Emror looks disappointed; Bob moves on.
Emror circles 3 places on one of his maps: Vorugal’s Lair; The Keep (west of castle); Refugee Camp (which is not labeled as such). The kobolds who live in that third location stole one of the threshold crests; one was in Vorugal’s lair; the third may be in the keep. Emror explains that he can’t make it past the zombies, skeletons, and kobolds. [Note: If he can’t make it past them, how is he keeping them all out of his castle? Where does he get the food he keeps, especially the kobold meat, if not by being perfectly capable of dealing with at least that small, chittering threat? This smacks of a lie, and later, more than one of the group mentions this when considering all the options before them.]
Flora asks how all these kobolds and undead came to be there. Emror explains, “Our leader was very old and went to be on the council of… ‘Whet Stone’? No, Whitestone. She was on the — what did she call it? — the Tal’Dorei Council! When we were able to make the city fly again, she elected to leave the council, and her successor decided that Ravinia would fly again, and be on its own, because outsiders are horrible to dragonborn. There was …argument. They fought, and it turned from argument to civil war. All died except myself, locked in and hiding in the basement of my master’s tower.”
Telepathic messages go back and forth between some, but not all, of this incipient party, regarding Emror’s trustworthiness. Bob queries about the basement, positing that if there is danger down there, perhaps they might investigate and deal with it, or at the very least, settle some of Emror’s barely-concealed fears of whatever may be there. After a moment’s hesitation, he tells the group they may go down there if they wish, and even offers them the key.
The group collect the map and all Emror’s notes. Stubby shows off her Lantern of Tracking and Alchemy Jug. They go to the basement and open it, despite the lock being a little stiff from disuse. The basement smells musty and nasty, despite what must be fairly good air flow. There’s a crate with a butt-shape cut out (toilet), a nearly rotten sleeping mat, some food, and marks on the wall to indicate how many days have passed. Emror claimed he had been in the basement for several weeks, but there are at least 4-5 years of marks down here. Stubby counts the day-tally on the wall. She estimates 4 years, 7 months, 12 days. Bob opines that Emror is probably a necromancer, and probably is siphoning energy from somewhere, or more to the point, someone(s), to keep himself alive.
On one wall there are magic-related drawings and writings like the ones in Emror’s notes. This was probably written by the same hand. Evidence that someone managed to survive here. Notes/diary shoved under the bed. “I no longer know when I am. I’m running out of food. I can hear their screams.” Bob pockets those notes. They look waaaay older than 4-5 years’ worth of aging. They feel like 100 years or so.
There are almost-gone traces of magic, except 1 corner where a brick is missing in the wall, and that feels like necromancy. Bob sends his couch into the hole (it’s suddenly miniature). The couch sees darkness, but it looks like there’s a socket where something used to be at some point. About the size of half of a Snickers bar. Jeremiah casts Light into that hole to help the couch see better. Nothing weird about that sentence at all. The hole-within-hole was roughly carved, and it’s the shape of the green-glowy gemstone in Emror’s staff.
The panic-room of the last survivor of a zombie attack turns out to be surprisingly unpleasant to be in. It skeeves most of us out, and we want to leave.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K, Ted.
Bob wants to tell Emror what the group have found, and that he understands Emror’s trauma. Emror is meditating up in the highest floor of the tower, the room with the enormous pentagram on the floor, and appears to not hear anything even when Bob tries to nudge him telepathically. No reaction at all. Bob tries reaching out to Sark to find out what Emror is doing. Sark replies with just one word: Flee.
Bob tells the group in no uncertain terms that they must leave immediately. Tāmerai quickly grabs a map of Eiselcross and some maps of what Draconia and Ravinia used to be, jots a note for Emror (“I’ll return the maps, but we needed them quickly.”) Jeremiah grabs food from the larder; Tunk grabs the mushrooms box. We bust a collective move; Stubby’s the last one out. As she leaves the building, the 2 statues in the front hall (Tofor and Tiberius) turn and look at them, but only Stubby notices.
Bob asks Sark what is happening, what Emror is doing. Sark answers: As you can wield my abilities, so Emror wields another’s: my mortal enemy. We are rivals. We wish the same, through different means. You have seen the fruits of his efforts already. And you learn.
Flora, meanwhile, feels instantly better once outside. Her Ancestors breathe a sigh of relief.
A twig blight attempts to warn the group off the path towards Vorugal’s lair, which they’ve decided (after much discussion) will be their first stop; they feel sure it’s the same twig blight that was in the group that attacked them earlier. Twiggy doesn’t want them to go to Vorugal’s lair. They can’t speak, but they seem very adamant in their repeated “EeeeeEEEEEEEeeEE!” cries, and they can indicate ‘yes’ and ‘no’. As the group decide to take the warning but not the advice, Twiggy jumps down, looking sad for them, and disappears into the brush.
It takes… presumably an hour or two, but there’s no sun-movement to tell them… to get from outside Tyriex proper to where they can see a GIANT tree up the mountain. Huge. World-tree sized. Arbor Exemplar sized… not quite, but still extremely impressive, especially for being only about 30 years old. It is growing out of the corpse of a long-dead dragon. The group see it from the bottom of the last hill. Going up the hill, they begin finding little bits of this and that, the dragon’s hoard scattered across the landscape like spilled glitter from a child’s craft supply box. Broken bits of jewelry, mostly worthless; a coin here or there. Bodies, too, litter the trail, dragonborn both with and without tails. Some are bones, some long decayed. Some look recently dead, though, and there are some footprints that can only be fresh.
Flora: Divine Sense. No celestial, fiend, or undead within 60’.
Jeremiah hands Stubby some of the scraps.
Stubby hugs the tree so hard, like a long-lost family member.
Tamerai detects magic: tree, some of the bodies, and a strong sense of Abjuration magic towards the mouth of the cavern. The only really fresh dead are animals. The most recent dead non-animals are tailless dragonborn. The only bodies with necromantic magic are the freshest of the dead Ravinites.
By the time the group wend their way far enough up the trail to be looking directly at the entrance to the lair, they’ve collected 9gp, 16sp, 24cp, and a cheap, broken bracelet that says Darr–. This is all that remains of Vorugal’s victims.
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?
Loot
Papers from Emror, explaining what happened and why he/we are stuck.
Gunpowder, vial of gel, box labeled “Percy”