Editing Solace: Ascension (section)

= Date: June 11th, 2006 =
Players Present: Dan Evan Nick
Characters Present: Karlth (dan) Gabriel [Tokrin] (nick) Askarius (joe) Vaenin (evan)
Game opens as the party nears the city of Solace. On their way as they pass through the plains between Solace and the golden city of elves, they spot one odd occurrence. It was a lone rock, about the size of two hunched over humans. There was no such rock in their previous travels, and they've walked this route many a time, so they are unsure how a rock of such a mass just appeared. The party brushes it off, as if to come to it later when there not such pressing matters at hand. They proceed to Solace
Though described in many tales and adventures, nothing quite satisfies the feeling of awe you get when you first set your eyes on the metropolis of Solace, and it was well justified by Gabriel's (Tokrin) gawking and Vaenin's gaze of awe. Karlth and Askarius frequenting this historical and monumental city know it well, and are not surprised, however it is a lot to take in for the newcomers. The city stands an expanse of over 5 miles in diameter and is in a nearly perfect circle shape. The main level is a perfectly content looking city, full of building towering higher than most buildings were structurally able to handle at that time. The main level describes the world at it's most current state more accurately than any book could. Inside is a market district, where there are the kindhearted and also the crooks. There are slums where such dark desires and ill-fated satisfactions are acquired, as well as an upper class neighborhood or two where people live lavishly and afford many luxuries to themselves. As i previously mentioned, this was on the main level. There were 8 levels above and what looked like 8 levels below. Above this level nearly 400 feet higher in the sky was another city, slightly smaller, but just as lively, and if it were possibly, even more lavish! Towers made of metal, gold lined entrances! What a grand place this must be. Beyond the third level, which seems to be made of higher up market districts, and some official looking buildings it is difficult to see what else is there. Luckily, the famous (or infamous) Karlth and Askarius have both taken self-administered tours around this entire city. They know that the fourth level is home to some political structures, the 5th level is where most of the "important" people live, as well as a few select VERY pricey shops for what seem like ordinary things, wrapped nicely. the 6th level is the largest church in this world, so large in fact that it takes up almost the entire level! The church is constantly being added to, reconstructed, fixed, repaired, renewed. So besides the church there is also a large dormitory housing complex which houses many of the lower ranking clergy, as well as the construction workers and curators. Within the church are the statues of 70 gods (out of a possible 71). there is a plaque describing every one's individual rise to ascension, there current status, last seen date/place, interests, typical worshippers, and everything else you can expect to learn about a deity. The 7th level are the larger, more important political structures, where the fate of Solace is decided every year. the 8th level is simply a solitary temple, and almost nobody is allowed inside except on special dates and occasions.
Karlth came here to look for information and wastes no time in doing so. Immediately he continues to the center of this enormous "city of god" as many call it, to the air channel. Quite like a wind tunnel, the air channel has a low humming about it that scares off most children. Karlth instead steps into the large 30 foot wide hole in the ground and instead of falling, simply by thinking of the 6th level he goes zooming upwards and lands gracefully on the ground again. Being inexperienced first timers, Gabriel and Vaenin try it hesitantly with a jump, rather than allowing themselves to fall in, they think they'll actually jump the height in case the air channel doesn't catch them. While their suspicions are wrong, they are still lucky enough to make it to the correct floor, right after Karlth and Askarius. They continue into the church that maintains devotion to the most amount of quires and gods than any other church in this world. As Gabriel and Vaenin are awed by everything they have seen thus far, they are too awed by this. Karlth makes conversation with the inquisitor that greets him, and requests a council with a historian. Unfortunately for this active moving party, the gentleman he wishes to see is currently busy, and so they have 4 hours to waste. Gabriel and Vaenin use this time to go shopping on the main level, buying rope and standard equipment.
After four miserably difficult hours of shopping and waiting, Karlth Askarius, Vaenin and Gabriel finally get to go back to the church. As they enter, this time the inquisitor is waiting for them and immediately takes them out of the main hall to the right into what look like monks' quarters and other such clergy. They go down to the first basement level and the inquisitor leads them to a door and leaves them alone. Karlth requests that the party stay outside, as he would prefer a private council. Askarius understands and sits on the stairs, Gabriel and Vaenin however are not so easily appeased. After a short argument, they settle and give in to Karlth's stolid personality. Outside the dormitory, Vaenin and Gabriel have a small conflict over eavesdropping, Vaenin wants to hear what's going on, and Gabriel refuses to let him. After another short argument, Vaenin unwillingly agrees, noting that this is a place of god, and perhaps this isn't a great time.
Inside the chamber Karlth meets a humble monk scribing something, and he stands to greet him. Karlth doesn't notice, but it seems as if the monk was expecting his arrival, as the notes on his desk discuss what Karlth is about to ask him about. However, Karlth is too blinded by what is happening now to care about the surroundings. He instantly shakes his hand and begins his questioning.
"What do you know about Talos?" Karlth bluntly asks, The monk quietly replied "Ah, Talos. The emperor of the Second Age. In this glorious age of human and elvish friendship Talos was the emperor of the city that is today called Solace." The monk continued on to describe the history briefly, Talos the emperor of the second age was faced with a great plague. It affected the entire town within a period of 36 hours, that is, it affected everyone but him. Obviously done on purpose, to make it look like he did it. Many townsfolk, mostly beggars and the homeless, complained to each other and eventually formed a resistance, a secret society that claimed the King himself released the plague on his own people! Quite incredulous, Talos tried to explain himself to his people, but the ones who were against him refused to budge from their positions and then only a week after the plague was conceived..they vanished, every last one of them. It was then that Talos was delivered a note by bird detailing the symptoms of the plague and the definite certainty of death in the very near future. It also said there was a cure, one that cost an immeasurable amount of money, though exactly how much is unknown. Money was not of importance, but the second part of the deal was. The soul of his own wife. This was one deal he simply could not make. So he sent a note back on the cloaked raven that said he agreed to lure him into a trap. Naturally, whoever this person was, he had fully expected said trap. He came alone, dressed in the Emperor's Royal Guard uniform. The armor was easily stolen, but every single one of these outfits had to be hand tailored by a special seamstress at the castle. Nobody else could adjust the intricate stitching she made. That meant he was a traitor. Not only that, but he was wearing a full plate mail fit for a true knight. This was clearly not somebody who was ill-prepared for this scenario.
Then the fight began. The king's royal guard, the watch guard, the soldiers of the city, the gate guards, mounted officials, nearly everyone with a sharp metal object was sent. These sickly men were all barely able to fight, and yet for the city they were willing to do more than die. Out of the ground and from the rocks and walls sprang to life horrible creatures. Skeletal creatures, unfinished meals of larger beasts began walking, ghosts of loved ones screaming, the shrieks of banshees were unmistakable. It was a war they were not expecting.
The one-man-army fought against Solace, and was winning for a near 11 months. It seemed this man's mana source was infinite! It wasn't until now did the Emperor have to enter battle himself. He realized he was about to lose everything and he wasn't going to let it happen without putting up a fight. Only minutes into the fight did he realize that he was seemingly unaffected by these weak creatures. He ran through them, like a battering ram, many of them dodged him, many of them went flying. He went straight to the source and with one swift piercing blow he struck his sword into and up the knight, separating his body in two from his nave up. the skeletons began to crumble, zombies began to melt, ghosts began to dissipate and banshees silenced. The knight himself instead of screaming or making any real noise at all instead just fell. The armor surrounding his body, the helmet atop his head, everything began to break as if there were a vacuum within the chest cavity, every piece of armor was sucked in, and crushed, like a piece of parchment until he was but a small ball...and then smaller, and smaller, and poof, there was nothing left. Except one thing, an oddly ornate looking dagger. It seemed it was quite powerful indeed, and the location of it is to this day unknown. After the knight was defeated, the plague instantly disappeared and everyone that was still alive was okay again. The city began to rebuild, but completely anew. The emperor decided to leave the castle be...and so for the first time a layer on solace was added. This one not quite magical, but because of it's physical attributes, it was truly a sight to behold. Held up by pure manpower, pillars at all of the four stress points making a large sparsely lined circle and an X in the middle, each one 6 feet in diameter held up an entirely new plane made of minerals. He called the city Solace, a place of comfort away from the ridicules of evil and dangers of the undead.
After taking in all this history Karlth is quite mentally exhausted. He decides he wants to see some physical association, and he knows from this monk that there exists this castle on the -7th floor. So off they go, they thank the monk and they all exit the church and head back to the air channel as they drop 13 floors (and almost a mile in distance) to the lowest floor. as their ears pop from the sudden descent, and their lungs automatically acclimated to the new height (another one of the channel's fascinating effects) they all descend onto the grassy land of the -7th floor. There, dead ahead lies an enormous castle, large enough to fit a city as large as this one inside of! (the main layer at least). But the most startling thing of all is..it looks like a disheveled old beggar who hasn't bathed or cut his hair in three decades. Parts of the castle lie strewn about and every single crack and most every brick is covered with moss and mold. Many towers are completely crumbled, and the others look ready to break any second. The castle is in such bad shape, it brings to question how old is this place? It's hard to know for sure, but what the party does know is that Karlth is here on business. Rather than ponder the many thoughts that most folk do in this situation, they go right to the tour guides, and they all (except Askarius) buy tours inside. When inside, they The tour guide offers to allow them to walk around on their own, or if they'd like the whole tour. Naturally, Karlth the loner walks around on his own, and the party follows him. They head straight for the keep, which has obviously been catapulted inwards to a hardly walking-friendly area. Karlth makes his way around the keep finding that the Emperor's quarters are vacant, and the Ladies in Waiting kept nothing of interest. When he arrives however to the barracks however, for the emperor's royal guard, he finds the emperor Talos's full set of plate mail. Quite glorious it is in fact. A longsword and shield came with it to match and all were decorated in gold symbols and intricate designs that are unmatched in today's quality. The shield has three divine symbols on it, but unfortunately, the names Mithaniel Marr, Saerten, and Hecate don't bring much to memory, let alone their representative symbolic tributes.
Within the armor however, Karlth discovers a wonderful candy smelling flower. It is exactly like the pasque that Askarius found, only the colors and smell are different. The Red on the outside is vivid, like a bright volcano erupting, and the black in the middle is as dark as charcoal. The smell now much more poignant reminds Karlth of liquorish. Karlth understands the symbolism here, and knows that whoever his secret admirer is, he likes to contact him in his dreams. First things first, however. He wants to be ahead of the game. He wants to know what the flower means, and fortunately Askarius knows someone who can read them. So the party heads south towards the Golden City of Elves. The woman that Karlth meets with explains to him that the red is the crimson color, it means that whatever happened was something felt passionate about. The smell of liquorish, oddly enough was the smell of death. And the black center meant crime was involved. perhaps a Passion crime? Karlth is still quite baffled, there is only one thing he feels passionately about...and that situation can't get much worse.
The party rests in the golden city, hoping for some guidance in their dreams as they have previously (mysteriously) gotten. Alas, their wishes come true.
Karlth, Gabriel, and Vaenin 'awaken' in the southeast corner of this island. In a place called the Shrine of the Gods. This shrine was assembled many years ago, shortly after Talos's reign ended. Now it is all clear, where they've heard the name Talos. They must have been fools not to realize it before! The clarity in their eyes is impossible to hide as one by one they all approach the gigantic tribute to a fourth quire god, Talos. Not realizing that all of their dreams are intertwined, nobody says a word to each other, believing the others are but figments of their own imagination. Vaenin walks around and makes his way to the center blessing pool. Seeing his reflection in the water, he reaches in. While he disturbs his own mirrored face, he disturbs nothing else. He is disappointed that in such a glorious place nothing special has happened yet. Grudgingly, he removes himself and waits for dawn. Gabriel is especially astounded by this place, he goes and examines each statue one by one. Soon he gets bored however, and tries to look for things to steal. Realizing there is nothing here that is not physically part of the temple, there is also no purpose for his being here. He too retreats from this dream. Karlth instead of walking around, recognizes this place. He's met an important person here, and the memory is forever scarred in his mind. "This is the Shrine of the Gods" he tells himself as he proceeds to Talos's glorified stone version of himself. He attempts a divine communication with him. Luckily for him, Talos has some time to spare. Karlth soon discovers, a lot more time to spare than he would like. He asks Talos about the dagger, and Talos claims the one he holds is a fake. Taken aback, Karlth inquires further. He wants to know more about the history, more about what happened. Talos only tells him that he bores of this world, and that Karlth, like most everyone, is playing a part in a play to which Talos has already seen the conclusion. He rejects Karlth's questioning further and instructs him to visit the shrine when awake, and he may be rewarded.
The party awakens, slightly perturbed, but otherwise normal. After a short visit to the Fletcher so that Gabriel can purchase some high quality elvish arrows, they depart on Anar, the red dragon that has been in the Klaine family for years, for the Shrine they all dreamt about. Upon entrance, Vaenin soon notices that unlike his dream, the center pool is now filled with blood. intrigued, he decides to test it, but it proves uneventful. Karlth now talks to Talos again. Talos makes clearer the part where he calls Karlth an actor, meant simply to play the part and it is now understood he doesn't just mean figuratively. He tells Karlth he must visit someone he knows well, an old acquaintance, but doesn't tell him who. Naturally, Karlth thinks of the wisest man he knows...
They visit Horrig. Horrig welcomes them into his home plane created after a few years of spell casting, and immediately smells the flower. He asks about the flower and Karlth reveals it. Horrig, the white cleric is astonished, and horrified. Karlth explains he already found out what it meant, and describes it, but Horrig seems to know differently. While it is true, that different colors and different smells mean different things, certain combinations can mean very explicit messages. This is why messenger flowers were so useful, they looked so innocent, and most people had no idea what was being conveyed even if they did intercept one. Nowadays it seems a bit old fashioned and very hard to come by these things. The cleric identifies the flower as the "Vixen of Vengeance." Somebody, or some thing is going to try to kill Karlth, and probably very soon. Karlth has a good feeling that gambling wasn't his strong suit, and it has finally come back to bite him. Playing with a deck of many things is a dangerous, dangerous game. Karlth then leaves the group to rest in one of Horrig's spare bedrooms. Gabriel asks further about the dagger and learns that is in fact a magical dagger, and quite a powerful one at that. Horrig appraises it to be worth approximately 12,000 GP. He won't tell Gabriel exactly what it does, but he does allow him a training session with a troll to try it out. As it turns out, he is faced with a Trollish Woodland Giant. Gabriel is far outmatched, but he gets to attack first, and that probably made all the difference. He punctures the front of the troll's knee and the Gothic dagger gets stuck inside, as immediately it begins to "activate." It reverberates within the beast and loosens itself from Gabriels grasp. The dagger continues to actually decay the body starting from the wound and eventually encompassing the entire body. Gabriel is grappled when the body is entirely decayed and falls about 12 feet. A slightly staggering fall, though only minor pain is endured on his part. Now, however, as he stands up a wave of nausea comes over him and he is barely able to move. As he gets the dagger and tries to move onto the rest of the forest, his feet feel heavier and heavier, until the nausea he feels becomes a sickening horror and he falls down. Writhing in pain, all he remembers is seeing the underside of the tree tops before he falls unconscious. Gabriel is unconscious, and has a dreamless sleep, if sleep is what you can call it. Karlth and Vaenin however rest healthfully, and dream of the same man. Neither of them have ever met him before.
Karlth is standing in the main keep of Talos's castle. It seems somebody is being accorded a great honor, as many maidens are strapping on armor that looks like the armor he had seen on Talos! It is in fact different though, and the boy is elvish, which rules out the next in line for ruling. Talos is still alive, too, sitting in his throne. Karlth approaches, trying to see who this man is, and when he finally gets to the side of him, he still doesn't recognize him. But he knows someone that looks a lot like him. It's Vaenin, this man has an uncanny resemblance to Vaenin. Could such traits be kept up over so many years? Or is it extremely odd coincidence. Horrig gave the suggestion that these dreams could all be artificial illusions, but still...Some of these things were entirely too close to home.
Vaenin remembers earlier events of the day, when they were in the castle. He remembers watching his childhood friend stealing from the dead emperor, watching him attempt to walk out with the glorious sword and shield that only the emperor himself bore. Suddenly a wave of patriotism takes over. He feels so passionately about the emperor, that he simply cannot contain himself. "You can't do that!" he finally exclaims to Gabriel "You can't steal his things." "And why not?" Gabriel, intrigued, replies. "Because it's just not right, i don't want you to." "Oh? Then stop me." Gabriel states proudly. Lo and Behold, Vaenin does indeed strike. He empties three mana points into a lightning spell that actually hurts the brute, Gabriel. Gabriel, now angered, strikes back with his sword. Realizing that this was a fight to be settled with brawn and not brains, Vaenin too draws his sword...only it's not his sword. It's a sword like the one that Gabriel stole, only slightly different. Different how? Vaenin's not sure, but he knows now that there are more of these swords around now. He immediately slashes Gabriel at the side and when doing so he notices in his outstretched hand, he doesn't see skin. He doesn't even see clothes, rather, he sees a golden lined full plate mail that is quite ornately dressing him. In one swift blow his sword lands halfway through Gabriel, and he pulls it up. Gabriel falls limp instantly and Vaenin's thirst for saving the honor of the emperor Talos is quenched.
When everyone awakes, Gabriel a tad more grumpy than everyone else, they decide to bid Horrig a fond farewell and try to venture for Felwithe, the man Karlth presumes he is to meet.