Game-Summaries:4/11/2020 Recollections

Recollections by Jeroy

Tallulah, Wethril, Ford, Dereth, Rezik, and I went on a journey to complete the weapon legacy of my Bloodcrier and Tallulah's Bloodscreamer. We started our journey by heading to the Temple of the Moon in the Great Waste. A massive temple buried upside down below the Great Waste. We arrive with little trouble thanks to Tallulah's deft navigation and cartography skills. We enter and immediately have to navigate down the ceiling of a staircase. Each of us manage to maneuver down the slope with ease except for Dereth. He is not the most nimble adventurer as he slips at some point and tumbles down to the bottom, arriving with a series of clangs and bangs. There is a pause as the sound of his armor rings down the hallways as we hear a groan and muffled "I'm fine" come from the heap of metal. He stands up to see us holding back laughter. "This armor has saved me more than it has hurt me, so go ahead and laugh now."

Rezik suggests "Perhaps you should take the armor off so we can move more quietly?"

Dereth doesn't even consider it "No. If we find it may be needed later, perhaps. But for now it stays on. Besides I'm not wearing anything underneath this."  

We begin to make our way down the narrow hallways of the Temple of the Moon with Tallulah and Wethril in front, me behind them, Rezik in the middle, then Dereth, and Ford in the rear. We are moving as quietly as possible to avoid alerting anyone or anything in the temple of our presence. On the 4th level Tallulah hears something up ahead and holds up her hand, we stop. She tells us she hears the sound of rocks being dragged or pushed around the corner. She casts pass without a trace on all of us as we make our way up to the corner to learn more of what lurks beyond the turn. As we cautiously move our way towards the source of the sound Dereth kicks a stone and the sound stops. Dereth sends his familiar around the corner and sees a stone-humanoid figure with metal plate bolted onto it standing motionless, in the hallway.  

"What now?" Tallulah asks.

"Tell it we mean it no harm." Recommends Rezik.

"Anyone know how to speak to a statue?" Asks Ford.

"I'll try in Old Tongue and common." Says Dereth.

"I can try dwarven." Says Jeroy

We call out but with no response, we are met by eerie silence. Slowly we approach and turn the corner to find the stone figure looking towards us. We approach slowly and pass by it without any activity. Rezik casts an alarm spell around the figure to know if it begins to move again as we press on further down into the Temple. While on the 6th level Rezik suddenly stops and turns to look back from where we came.

"Everything alright?" Asks Ford.

"My alarm just triggered, either that statue moved, or something moved past it."

"Cool moving statues, cool cool."

Again Tallulah holds up a hand and we stop.

"Do you hear something?" Asks Dereth.

"No, but I feel as though we are being watched."

Dereth casts true sight and is able to see the full depth of the hallways before and behind us.

"I do not see an invisible creature, traps, or something else that would not be plainly visible to us all. But I have the same sense that you do. We must proceed with caution."

Tallulah nods and continues to walk down the hallway but walks into an invisible wall.

"What the Avernus?" She exclaims.

Dereth sees golden bars in front and behind us. "It's a force cage!" He tells us.

Rezik jumps into action. "Get ready to run." As he blasts a disintegrate spell at the bars, but the bars are unfazed. "...Or not." He says with disappointment.

Tallulah notices an emerald gem in the wall but as she goes to touch the gem the stone wall surrounding it appears to "blink" to cover the emerald, so seamlessly it appears to have never been there. She looks to the rest of the wall to find it is covered with emeralds that "blink" in the same way.

The walls begin to close in around us. "Anyone else got any ideas?" Rezik asks the group?

"Stand aside, this temple housed my Bloodcrier, perhaps it is the key we need." And with a mighty blow I swing my maul onto the force bars. A mournful tone sounds throughout the hallway and echos out in all directions but the walls appear unchanged.  

"Hmph I really thought that would work." I say looking at Bloodcrier with confusion.

"You ALWAYS think that is going to work." Dereth says exasperated.

"50% of the time it works every time." I shoot back.

While these shenanigans are ongoing Ford is crawling along the floor, following the lines of the stone and glyphs that triggered this trap with intense focus.  

"Tallulah, step on that glyph over there." He points to one near her foot.

"Jeroy, stand on that one. Dereth, that one over there, and Rezik that one." He says to us.

"OK when I say go, step off the glyph. Everyone ready?" We nod.

"Ready, go!" We step off together as he pushed down on a glyph in front of him. The walls continue to close but the bars disappear.

"Run!" He exclaims! As we dash out the walls close completely and then meld seamlessly together, as if there was never a room there before.

We continue on and enter a large chamber. On the ceiling relative to us, are two prison cages that appear to be broken out of long ago. Approximately 100 feet farther into the room, but on the "ceiling", is a large deius with a glowing portal above it. After inspecting the room full we seem to have no other options around us but to go into the portal.  

"So how do we get up there?" Dereth asks. I pull out my immovable rod and rope. I tie a clove hitch around the rod and hold it out to Rezik and Dereth.

"If any of you tossers can get up there you can activate the rod and then the rest can climb." I say to Dereth and Rezik.

Rezik rolls his eyes as he takes the rod. "...Tossers." He murmurs to himself as he casts the fly spell on himself. He floats up to the portal and activates the rod. "Come on up knuckle-dragger."

I climb up and enter the portal and as soon as I pass through I am overcome with a feeling of pressure, heat, and moisture. Around me is a series of caves and tunnels unlike anything I've seen before in all my years as a dwarf. The air itself has a crushing weight about it as I even struggle to stand up against it. The rest follow behind and feel the same oppressive weight.

"Where are we?" Tallulah asks.

I closely inspect the rock walls and find them to be a dense igneous rock. The type of rock, the crushing pressure, the stagnant air all points to one thing.

"We are at the center of Terra." I tell the group.

"That explains a lot and somehow also not enough." Ford says grinning through a headache.

We explore the pitch black cave around us and discover it is littered with glass orbs that appear to have etchings suspended in the middle of the interior of the glass in an unknown language.

"Can anyone read this?" I say to the group. Dereth peers into the orb and struggles to read and slowly shakes his head.

"It's in Old Tongue, but it makes no sense." He says with a look of confusion. "The sentences, the syntax...It's in gibberish. There are parts that reference something vaguely magical, but nothing complete."

Rezik's eyes light up. "Like a coded spell scroll or page of a spell book?"

Dereth nods his head. "Perhaps but I cannot even begin to tell what school of magic or spell they would be for."

Rezik turns to me. "Seems like your big muscles might come in handy for something during this mission after all. Once we are done here you will need to carry as many of these as I want."

"You mean as many as I can carry." I respond.

"No." He shakes his head and rests a hand on my shoulder. "As I want."

Tallulah feels a slight movement in the air further into the cave. "There is moving air ahead, but odd. The movement feels as though something is….breathing."

"How big does something need to be so that its breathing makes the maple syrup air at the center of the earth move?" Ford asks the group.

We begin to investigate the cave and come to find more of the same statue creature we saw on the 4th level of the temple. As we position ourselves we see come out of the darkness a far larger stone creature which shakes the cave with every step. Dereth calls out to it. "We mean you no harm, we are only here to explore."

It opens its mouth but all we hear is a series of rumbles and vibrations that reverberate through-out our bodies.

"Anyone catch that last part?" Ford adds in with a snicker. Dereth casts tongues on himself and tries again to speak with it.

"We mean you no harm, we are only here to explore." He repeats.

It speaks to him "You will not take Zeretan from me!"

Dereth looks to us with confusion and turns back to the creature. "Who is Zeretan? We mean you no harm."

"You ask too many questions!" As we see that the other statue creatures have flanked us. We are surrounded. The large creature turns to me and extends a hand and I feel the reverberating rumble through-out my body. Suddenly Bloodcrier is gone. Distraught I look around and see that it is in the hand of the creature. I turn to Dereth with a frantic look.

"He says ‘that's mine?'" Dereth says with a confused look.

What happens next I remember only in bits and pieces. The last thing I remember is entering a rage, but this was a white hot rage unlike those I have felt before. I draw my soulmate and with all the fury and power of my ancestors guiding my strikes I swing down crushing blow after crushing blow on this creature. After an unknown amount of time I feel one swing come down onto the creature so that it crumbles like a house of cards before my falling axe. It becomes nothing more than a pile of loose rocks and dust and I frantically search for Bloodcrier. But I do not find it.

Still in a rage unlike any I have known before I turn to see one more of the statue creatures standing. I raise my axe again and come down with all the force I can muster. "What did you do with my Bloodcrier!" I scream as the statue creature is crushed into dust. I take short and panicked breaths. I see no more of the creatures around me and still I do not see Bloodcrier. I look to my compatriots but no words come out to express my frustration. I see Rezik wave his hand across me and I am instantly overcome with complete exhaustion and I fall to my knees.

"I'm glad I cast haste on you. Good work Jeroy. But don't get lazy on me, those orbs won't carry themselves." Rezik laughs to himself. "I'm surprised you didn't use Bloodcrier during the fight. You just left it on your belt the whole time?"

We continue into the cave and close to the breathing sound. We find a huge maw, almost as tall as the cave breathing in and out. When we try to communicate with it it breaths towards us and showers us with dirt. Dereth tries to telepathically link us to the maw and we instantly are overcome with a moment of endless knowledge but I fall unconscious. I awake sometime later to see Rezik and Dereth tending to Tallulah, Ford, and me.  

"You all fell unconscious. This thing is Zeretan, the older earth elemental. Rezik thinks if we excavate the rock around the mouth to expose the face we may be able to communicate with it." Dereth tells me. I shrug my shoulders and say that I can help dig.

Rezik tosses some spells and exposes the eyes of Zeretan. He stands back from the mouth and stares directly into its eyes. His face goes blank and his eyes widen but suddenly he falls to the ground. We rush over to check on him. "He's dead!" Tallulah says to us.

"Maybe someone more in tune with the earth needs to communicate with it." I say looking at Bloodcrier. "Dereth, please be ready with something from your Goddess." I turn to the eyes and instantly the world goes black.

I am bathed in a warm glow, the weight of the air is gone and my mind feels at ease. I look out to see all of my ancestors around a large banquet table overflowing with find dwarven food and ale. The sounds of minstrels echo through the mountain halls as laughter erupts over stories told over a thousand generations of dwarves. I am beckoned over to join as a seat is pulled out for me. As I step towards the table a blinding light washes out all I can see.

I awake back in the cave surrounded by Ford, Tallulah, and Dereth.

"You ok?" Tallulah asks me.

"I...yes...I saw my ancest….where….how long did it talk to me?" I saw with confusion.

"The moment you looked at it you died. Like not even a second." Ford lets out with a belly laugh.

"Died?" I say to Dereth.

"Yes, died. I had to revivify you." He says to me. He motions to Rezik's still unconscious body. "Same thing happened to him but I know he always has a backup plan. We can leave him. But we should grab those orbs and head back to the keep."

Recollections by Tallulah

The time had come for Jeroy and I to return to the Temple of the Moon to complete the next legacy weapon ritual for Jeroy’s Bloodcrier and my Blackbow.  Accompanying us was Ford, Dereth, Rezik and Wethril of course.  Wethril and I navigated the group North to The Great Waste—I’m sure appreciating picking up those cartography skills now.  We travelled easily and as the Temple came into view, buried upside down in the sand, it felt somehow more formidable than it had the last time we were here.

To enter the Temple we had to drop down to the ceiling with the staircase above our heads.  We all managed to get inside OK, Dereth was a bit clumsy but no harm done.  Dereth cast Telepathic Bond so we could communicate in silence and I continued to map our route along the way.  Wethril and I took the lead with Jeroy, Rezik, and Dereth in the middle and Ford bringing up the rear.  We wound our way along the ceiling of the temple going deeper and deeper underground.  With each level we descended, the air got darker and more damp and dank.

As we approached another turn, I heard a rock scraping and dragging against other rock and communicated to the group we’d need to pass slowly.  I cast Pass Without a Trace as we crept up to the corner.  Dereth’s toe met a rock as he moved which skittered ahead clacking along the ceiling—the rock scraping noise stopped.  I held my breath and listened…nothing.  Dereth decided to send his owl familiar Gaewynn around the corner which reported a large golem creature made of boulders and wearing armor still as a statue.  We called out to it that “we mean no harm” but it still did not respond or move at all.  Carefully we rounded the corner and crept passed the enormous stone statue/creature.  It was eerie and I think the whole group felt it; Rezik cast an Alarm to be triggered by any movement in this area after we’d left and we moved on into the dark.

Down, down, down we went.  About 8 hours after we’d encountered the stone golem Rezik’s alarm went off.  We were certainly on alert now so as we approached the stairwell to the 6^th level down, Gaewynn scouted ahead.  There was nothing visible to deter us moving forward but as I dropped down to the 6^th level and entered the hallway I got the feeling we were being watched and soon we all felt it.  Moving carefully and deliberately forward I walked right into an invisible wall!  With True Sight Dereth saw the Force Cage surrounding us.  Magical symbols appeared on the floor and as I examined the rock wall in front of me I noticed a tiny pock mark in the wall.  Next thing we knew the entire wall was covered in green gems that seem to blink back into stone when we interacted with them.  We didn’t have much time to marvel at these gem eyes as the walls on either side of us began to close in around us.  Ford, noticing a pattern in the symbols on the floor, was able to unlock the Force Cage and with moments to spare we bolted ahead as the walls closed in behind us.

That was entirely too close and certainly enough excitement for one day.  We set up camp for the night and I fell fast asleep against Wethril’s shoulder but awoke suddenly a few hours later as walls were closing in around me.  It took me several seconds to get my bearings in the dark, musty chamber and realize it was naught but a bad dream.  I took a long stretch, gave Weth a couple scratches around his big ear and glanced around at my companions who I felt incredibly lucky to have to my back.  I fell back to sleep for a couple hours and when we were packing up to move on I decided to express my gratitude for the group with an inspiring speech to carry us forward for the day ahead.

Shortly after beginning our second day of adventure we came across a large antechamber.  On the floor above us was a circular portal glowing green and bathing the chamber in weird greenish light; on either side of the portal were 2 steel prisms attached to the ground that appeared to have been broken open, remnants of the cages lay around us on the celing.  We set about trying to determine how to proceed.  Rezik sent a rock with a string tied around it through the portal—it returned intact though warm.  With nowhere else to go but forward, Rezik and Jeroy used a rope attached to Jeroy’s immovable rod to allow us to climb up into the portal.

Once through the portal nothing but a stone wall lay behind us.  The air was dark and dense and the pressure caused an intense ache in my head.  Around us were glass orbs of various sizes.  Upon investigation it appeared that there were spells written on the inside of the orbs though much too long and complex to make sense of here, Ford carried about harvesting mushrooms and as I paid attention to our strange new environment I sensed air moving in and out of the chamber—seemed an awful lot like breathing.  I scouted ahead in the tunnel; the breathing stopped and I could have sworn I saw a rock move and disappear from sight.

We pressed forward and eventually came across a large rock creature resembling the statue we encountered the day before.  Rezik approached announcing that we had only come to explore.  The Earth Magus replied in a low, rumbling language none of us could understand.  Dereth cast tongues and repeated Rezik’s words.  The Earth Magus rumbled “you will not take Zaratan”.  Understandably puzzled, Dereth inquired further about Zaratan but to no avail.  As the Earth Magus became aware of Jeroy it exclaimed, “hey, that’s mine” and suddenly Jeroy’s Bloodcrier was in his hands!  As this was happening 4 smaller (though far from small) rock creatures flanked me and Wethril from behind.  The Earth Magus stomped its feet and the ground shook—the battle was on.

Wethril and I attacked the creatures in our immediate vicinity—it was clear these foes were going to be difficult to defeat with arrows and teeth though it didn’t slow us down.  Again, grateful for our friends: Rezik slowed the smaller creatures and attacked with a fireball, Dereth wielded Excaliber, Jeroy, enraged, went full barbarian with Soulmate and his shield and Ford sneak attacked as he does best.  Meanwhile, the Earth Magus created allies by tearing off pieces of rock from his shoulders which grew into other enemies for us to contend with.  With a shove from Jeroy’s shield all the crystals in the rock monsters began to glow and we were bathed in orange light.  The Earth Magus stomped its enormous stone foot knocking most of us to the ground and held Jeroy firmly in his grasp.  Rezik, still on his feet, cast Magic Missile and Jeroy was able to break free and give the giant another shove.  The large rock creature began to pick up rocks and hurtle them towards my companions—somehow, Ford managed to catch one saving Jeroy from its trajectory.  I cast Lighting Arrow at the Earth Magus with my friends far enough away from it to avoid getting caught in the friendly fire and Rezik cast Disintegrate which certainly seemed to have an impact on the creature but did not disintegrate it.  With one final enraged blow Jeroy swung his trusty ax and the Earth Magus turned to dust on the floor.  He sifted through the dust and, further incensed when he did not find Bloodcrier, took out his rage on the final rock creature destroying it leaving us to catch our breath.  In the moments after the battle Jeroy came to realize that Bloodcrier was, in fact, on his belt.  We had unlocked the Legacy of Bhazad Khrar.

In the silence that typically follows a battle, we could still hear and feel the breathing from deeper in the cavern.  We approached an enormous, gaping maw with dirt strewn and piled all around it.  Dereth inquired cautiously, “Zaratan?” and the being exhaled toward us—everything around me went hazy and I succumbed to the darkness.

A short bit later I awoke to find that Rezik and Jeroy had also fallen unconscious as a result of our encounter with Zaratan and though Ford and Dereth had not collapsed, they seemed somehow different.  Once we’d all come to, Rezik decided to try to learn more from this being and moved the loose earth around its head in order to reveal its eyes.  Rezik locked eyes with Zaratan and entered a trance briefly until he collapsed, lifeless on the floor.  Rushing to his side we discovered he was in fact dead until Dereth could revive him.  Despite this severe consequence and much to our disbelief, Jeroy decided he might be better suited to the job of communicating with Zaratan and also locked eyes with it.  Sadly for Jeroy, he fell victim to the elemental’s stare immediately and also needed to be revived by Dereth.

As satisfied as we could be that we had learned all there was to learn here, we collected a few of the glass orbs in the hopes of deciphering the spell scrolls inscribed on them and returned to the Magistery.

Recollections by Rezik

Jeroy and Tallulah had come to find out that to further unlock their artifacts that they would need to travel to the center of the world. It's interesting journey and I was very excited to join. Dereth and Ford seemed to be intrigued too, and came with us.

We had been told that the entrance would start at the Temple of the Moon. We entered quickly, knowing that the journey would take many days, and began our descent (or ascent, since the Temple of the Moon has been inverted into the ground).

Once we entered, we found our way through a number of tunnels. We got deeper and deeper, reaching about 150 feet down before the air started to feel dank. At this point we had reached the fourth level and happened to come across some kind of statue. It almost looked like a golem (but not a golem), covered in metal armor. It was definitely making noise previously, but seemed to have stopped now.

We were able to get past the earth elemental without any incident, so we continued on our journey. (I cast alarm around the elemental, so we would know if it moved).

Now we were passing the 5th level and preparing to descend to the 6th level (about 8 hour of walking). At this point my alarm spell was triggered. It looks like the elemental must have moved or someone have moved near it - at this point we were too far for me to investigate further.

We continued to the 6th level and saw nothing. Then, as we entered the tunnel - Tallulah felt as if something was watching us. She relayed that to us and Dereth cast True Sight to see if something was actually watching, but he saw nothing.

As we made our next step, Tallulah ran into what felt like an invisible wall. Dereth saw what it actually was though - a series of Force Cages trapping us. Suddenly, the walls started to close and we knew we were going to be crushed soon.

Just as I was preparing to cast Antimagic Field, Ford was able to figured out the safety the creator had left behind and disabled the trap. We were really lucky for that one.

Now that we knew what we were looking for, we slowly made our way through the rest of the tunnels, looking for glyphs and traps. We were able to make it through without triggering anymore.

We suddenly entered an antechamber (from the ceiling). In the distance we saw a circular portal above the dais. The portal was glowing green, about fifty feet above us. (Note: This room feels oddly familiar, almost as if I saw it in another life).

We strung up some rope and quickly climbed through the portal. As we appeared on the other side, we suddenly felt an intense pressure. It was pitch black and the pressure was oppressive, it was difficult to concentrate.

As we surveyed the area, we saw spheres of glass strewn across the ground. They reassembled scrying stones, but inside of the spheres were floating inscriptions. It seems almost as if the stone is a scroll. Jeroy starts adding them to his backpack for us to investigate later.

We continue to explore and we realize, we're in the core of the world.

Tallulah feels the air and it felt like the air was pulsing - as if someone is breathing. As we explore, suddenly the air became still. We continue exploring and come across an Earth Magus. We attempt to speak to the Magus and suddenly Jeroy loses Bloodcrier as it appears in the Magus' hands. He yells "You will not take Zaratan from me".

We tried to reason with the Magus, but there was no persuading him. Battle commenced.

It was a difficult fight and finally, in the end, Jeroy's axe cuts through the Magus. As we look the dust for Bloodcrier, it's no where to be found. We all look at Jeroy and see it back on his side, as if it never left - as if it were an illusion.

As we continue to explore we come across a gaping maw. It's a pungent breath coming from it. We realize that this is Zaratan, one of the elder earth elementals, the source of earth.  

I begin to excavate more of the face and suddenly find myself gazing into the eyes of Zaratan. Knowledge floods into my mind and suddenly I know everything at all once. Just as quickly as it started everything goes black.

(Note: Make another clone)