Location: Cembiten’s Lair
Date: 24 Thunsheer 840 PD… kinda. (calendar of Exandria)
Occasion: Nothing special
Party Members:
- Bob the Therapist – changeling warlock with a couch for a familiar
- Flora Zosna – loxodon paladin — Gone 🙁
- Jeremiah Callows – human cleric
- Stubby – half-elf artificer
- Tāmerai – gnome bard
- Tunk – bugbear monk
Lies And Truth
Flora’s gone. Cembiten is grinning. “She is the One.” (Bob doesn’t even notice the elephant not in the room. HOW.)
Cembiten also says that Emror was mostly right about what is needed, but on his own, Emror doesn’t have the power to make it happen. Cembiten says a name, Suthal, then spits off to the side. Suthal sacrificed for the greater good, or so he said, to cast the spell to make this island fly. Cembiten, however, says that Suthal murdered over a dozen of Cembiten’s siblings — the sacrifices he made — then looked for more. Emror took that example to heart, and is not to be trusted.
An alternative: Get that stone, the green gem, and sever its connection to Emror, both to keep Emror from using it for great evil, and because the party could use the gem to power the spell and go home. But it might consume the gem, and Emror would not be willing to do that, even to escape. Cembiten might be able to cast the spell to send us home, with the green gem. (Bob expresses willingness to sacrifice someone, but not someone within his circle. Someone else. Definitely not one of us.)
Cembiten feels their choice is to remain there with Emror to make sure he doesn’t leave; or make sure Emror is dead and not able to be resurrected. To the best of Cembithen’s knowledge, there are at least 2 remaining crests besides the one on the ground with us. The dragon had one more. Cembiten’s people placed this one in Vorugal’s lair, assuming no dragon would return. Gelidon had another crest that may still be here. The last one may be in the care of the kobolds. But Cembiten (and Bob) would not be welcome, at least appearing like a Ravinite. Bob changes back into his changeling form.
Cembiten should not go to the kobolds with us, but will remain at home, and we can venture to the kobold caves. Their leader has in a throne room, if Cembiten understood them correctly while they were shooting at him, a threshold crest. Cembiten doesn’t know where in the caverns the throne room is.
To sum up: The party needs two threshold crests, PLUS either a sacrificial victim or Emror’s gem.
Bob thinks we should kidnap a kobold as a sacrifice. Tamarai is very wary of Bob now. Kobolds are friends, not food!
Cembiten asks Jeremiah to remain with him to look in another location for another threshold crest. (We put ours back in the BoH.) They have a longsword (the one he placed at Flora’s feet) that looks for all the world like a movie hero’s sword. Cembiten hopes we can free ourselves and also them; they would like to see the rest of the world again. They give the party directions to the kobold caverns and describe how to find a bridge for fording the river.
Stubby takes Cembiten aside to ask when we might return to, when we return. Cembiten says it’s possible we’ll go back to when the crest was last used, which would be at most one year before we left. More likely, within 5 years after our initial crossing, if they are reading the magic correctly. Time magic is dangerous. One does not simply fuck with time magic. The party have a chance of getting back to Stubby’s family. If Cembiten is wrong, we might be sent back to whenever Now is, outside, but that wouldn’t help any of us. Emror’s allies still exist outside Ravinia, and to miss them by 10-20 years could be cataclysmic to Exandria. (Then Stubby tells them that it’s 80 years later back home, and Cembiten just about messes themselves.) They will try to get us back within our regular time.
Cembiten takes Jeremiah off to the Cat Butte to look up another crest. The rest of the group go to find the kobolds.
The kobold refugee camp looks like a refugee camp. Decomposing tents. A little stream. Two strawbale buildings, not all that well made, the ones Cembiten mentioned. They’re empty of anything useful, but the area towards the building looks weirdly well kept. The party cross the stream. The world stops abruptly; the stream becomes a waterfall, which falls into a pool. This whole area just looks CUT THE HELL OFF, like that poor wyrmling, half of which is still in Whitestone. This used to be a gentle slope, and then… this.
Tunk feels that the group are being watched. Stubby thinks they’re fine because the dragon-alert lantern’s doing naught. Stubby’s lantern is apparently mistaken, perhaps because kobolds aren’t close enough kin to dragons to cause it to light up. The group are surrounded by mostly-hidden kobolds, who shoot at them, yelling “GO AWAY!” “Not supposed to talk. Kill!”
A brief fight ensues. One kobold dies; Tamarai is wounded, but still tries shounting, “Stop, this is not what we came for! We came to negotiate!” Eventually the kobolds stop trying to kill the group and instead take them to their king (minus Stubby, who leaps off the cliff after the kobold who went to alert the others — she misses, though, and winds up in another place, where she’s put in a cell before being brought to the king, Turuk’Hal, along with the others.
Of note: At least one kobold very much distrusts the PCs. His name is Fallík, and he is a bit of a dick, and therefore it is not Tamarai’s player’s fault that he has a new nickname. The DM did this to herself.
King Turuk’Hal is a big, chonky kobold, middle aged, wearing robes cut down to size and a crown that’s smashed and stretched to fit, but is missing its gems. Above the throne is the rumored threshold crest, lime green, glowing.
The group are told, “Stand here.” Fallík leans over and talks to Turuk’Hal.
T’H: Who are you? Why are you here? [to Bob] Why did you kill my men?
Bob: Is this rhetorical?
T’H: No…? Did you hit them in the head, Fallík?
Bob: They shot, and I shot, and my shot hit.
T’H: Why are you here? How do you know Emror?
Tam: [Explains.]
T’H: [Believes, despite Fallík’s lies, because another kobold’s story aligned with the PCs’. Orders the group released from their bonds. Heals a bit of Tamarai’s wounds.]
They offer to let the group stay with them, having basically the run of the place. They even promise the party their threshold crest, if they can bring them proof that Emror won’t bother them anymore.
One kobold shares a book in Primordial with Bob, basically a cannabis-preparations book or something. Alchemical/druid book. No title on the cover, just The Benefits Of <some kind of stain covers the last word>. It’s been through a war.
The group Identify the kobolds’ crest. It has a different frequency to its magical sound/aura, compared with the crest they already have.
Take your meds.
Hydrate.
Don’t forget to love each other.
Is it Game Day yet?
Loot:
Promise of a crest.
Book for Bob.
Mundane weapons for most of us, and some ball bearings. So many ball bearings. Just nothing but ball bearings. Baaaaalls.
Wheelbarrow.
Lore:
1st crest from Vorugal: Purple, with Draconia carved in. Had no active spells cast into it.
2nd crest from kobolds: Lime green. Some kind of shielding spell, anti-scrying or psi-shield or something.
3rd crest: Still not found or known.
T’H has trouble attuning to the crest, so he’s not the one who cast that protective spell into it. They deffo have another caster, or at least had another caster.
Stubby tried to attune to #2 (Mozart) and it sort of chuckled at her.
Tam tried to attune to #1 (Jimi Hendrix) and it felt like she got very close, but it wasn’t quite willing yet.
Stubby casts Message to #2 and hums at it. It corrects her tune and replies back with its own.
Crest #3… Judith thinks that Gelidon stole the real one from the ziggurat and replaced it with a glassie, and how would they know? They can’t test it because the whole place is no-magic.
Look into those 10 books from Vorugal’s lair, too. PLEASE. There are Traveller pamphlets in there, not drawn by Jester.