Recollections by Kaylorr
It's been a busy few weeks working with the House of Yellow and the clinics. To take a break, I embarked on a last minute investigation with Sarya, Rezik, and Zanna. We headed towards an old and abandoned farmtown to check out the location of a portal. We started digging around the area of an old shrine and came across a magical barrier that glowed different colors. We decided to rest for the night and keep watch on the barrier to see if anyone came by. All of a sudden, 2 spectators came out of nowhere and descended on the pub we were camped in. They proceeded to wreck or faces and after a good blinding from Zanna and Rezik dispatching them with who knows what, we managed to make it through the night. We then noticed that a blinding light emanating from underground was growing stronger and we noticed not one portal, but three. All of them overlapped one another and it almost seemed like the were woven together. To test and make sure we were definitely looking at portals, I caught a rabbit and strapped a harness together and tossed it through...Bo-Bo the Rabbit never made it back.
Anyway, the portals looked to be spinning within one another like some type of gyroscope. I forgot to mention that we stumbled on two huge casks of bilge water. With no other use, we did what anyone else would do in our position and decided to fashion makeshift glasses with flasks and bilge water. After looking upon the portals, we found that the green portal led to some sort of lush, tropical region. the pink portal looked to lead to some sort of dark, dank cave and the final portal glowed orange and from it a feeling of hatred.
Somehow we noticed we a cavern underneath the portals. The cavern turned out to be an old, decayed home that was probably a few hundred years old. Carved into the floor we found what looked to be a huge pentagram, a source of old tribal magic I think (shown on right). We found a tunnel that led to another old house. Here I noticed that the wall was made from the same type of rock that was used in the kobold lair that I explored so many weeks ago. We decided to end our investigation head back to the Magistery where we met with the First Weaver. He informed us that what we found were indeed portals and the orange portal led to Surtur's realm. Wisakedjak is awfully cryptic and said the old pentagram we found originated from "outside of us". He also confirmed that the old houses we came across were from Old Solace.
Again, apologies for the scattered summary...
Recollections by Rezik
Thank you Jorg for lending me Franklin. His help has been immensely useful and a welcome distraction from the day to day goings on of the Magistery. That was until we got pulled into another mission. I didn’t mind this mission, since it lead us to answer a question I still had from our last adventure with Myra, Zalmann, and Sarya - what desecrated the shrine at the farmer’s enclave? Also, where did the portals that Myra sensed, come from? What’s causing them? We have so many questions we have to answer.
Sarya, Zanna, Kaylorr, and I headed out towards the farm town. Kaylorr was able to get us some horses, making the trip very fast.
I was surprised to see the farm town abandoned. I had thought that, while most of the farmers have died during the initial defense & cleansing of the shrine, that the families would have found a way to carry on - I was wrong.
We entered the abandoned enclave and began to explore the town. The shrine in the center, while not desecrated, still felt off. The area around it had dried as if something was pulling the water out of the ground.
After trying to see if we could find a simple way to get to the portal under the shrine, we realized that we’re going to have to start actually excavating. We began to start dig under the shrine when all of a sudden the dirt started to get pulled down, almost as if it were quick sand.
We got away from the hole and quickly ran for cover in the main town hall. We watched as dirt continued to flow down and our small hole widened.
Suddenly, the wall of the hall disappeared, and we saw two spectators. It was an unnerving sight, these mini-beholders are terrifying.
We fought them and were able to dispatch them. It wasn’t an easy fight - we were terrified, confused, and attacked continually by necrotic rays. Thankfully, in the end we were able to kill them with no casualties.
As we fought the spectators the hole seemed to settle and no more dirt flowed into it. The bright light was blinding and we couldn’t see into it. We tried to explore what was within the light by putting things into the light - but whatever passed through it was seared. Kaylorr tried to put his hand into the light and almost lost his entire arm.
We decided we needed to look into the light and better understand what was there. After trying MANY different ways, the group realized we needed to dampen the brightness.
Luckily, the town had casked of bilge water. We used that, along with one of my flasks, to create a glass we could see through that could damped the light. As we looked through, we saw three rings rotating around a light - almost connected by it.
We would later learn that the three rings are the portals, interwoven against each other to create an artificial ley line. We believe the portals take us to other dimensions - the red portal gave a sense of fire, hatred, and anger; the green portal gave a sense warmth and humidity as if it were in the middle of a forest; the pink portal gave a sense of cold, darkness, as if it were in a cave.
Once we had explored the portal as best we could, we decided we should try to understand how the portal came here to begin with. We were worried that the settling dirt may be covering an exit or tunnel.
As we began to excavate more, we were surprised to find an old abandoned house made of sandstone under the portal. We broke into the house through the roof and found a pentagram scratched into the floor below - directly under the portals. Xana made a copy of the pentagram for us to bring back to the Magistery.
We believe the pentagram is from an old tribal magic that may have been used to create the binding of three portals. When we told Wisakedjak, the First Weaver, he told us this originated from the “outside” while we’re the “inside”. It really didn’t make sense, but I guess we’ll have to learn more later.
We tried to explore more of the area around the building but as we continued through a tunnel we reached a dead end.
I was convinced there was more. I’ve heard rumors of The Great Awakening leaving vast cavities under Solace, and that urchins have been creating a “under-city” of criminals and the destitute. We decided to leave a psychically marked stone at the blocked tunnel and go back to town to find able & willing men to help us dig through.
It seems that Kaylorr forgot to feed our horses and by the time we returned to Solace they were in bad shape. The guard saw the horses, took them back and named Kaylorr enemy of the horses. When we finally found men and trekked back to the portal area (hoping to find my psychically marked stone), my mark had expired.
We decided it was probably best to head back to the Magistery and debrief - outlining everything we saw.
I’m still curious about the buildings under Solace. I’ll be spending some time reading the old maps as well as trying to better understand these portals. I guess I have more thing to on my things to do list - explore the under-city, track down Captain Garvyn, and...