Mission: What's in the box?
GM: Aeggy
Date: 2018-03-23
Difficulty and circle rating: Circle 2 Medium
Player Rewards:
Fliver: 800 Legend 230 Silver 3 TIPs, -16 thread item points for crystal buckler thread item.
Jik'escala, 800 Legend 230 Silver 3 TIPs
Robert: 800 Legend 230sp 3 TIP
Whyr'wyndyl 800 legend, 230 sp 3 TIPs
Downtime Actions Available:
Robert: Item History 15 (Rank 4)
Robert: Research 19 (22 with library for 50 % of 20 silver)
Fliver: Mapmaking (Rank 1, Step 8 - spend downtime to possess charts of locations and routes)
Further Information:
The Kaer of Archmouth in an Arch of the Serpent has been opened.
AAR: What's in the box?
Moderator:etherial
Re: AAR: What's in the box?
The Journal of Jik'escala, T'Skrang Swordswoman Extraordinaire
15 Riag, 1422 T.H.
Having made my way to Throal, I must now seek out opportunities for adventure. Lobaeck Honorstone, a wizened Dwarf librarian, has informed us that he believes he has discovered a a Kaer in the mountains, hidden beneath a false ruined tower near the Serpent River. Accompanying him are Fliver, male Windling Illusionist, Robert, male Human Wizard, Whyr'wyndyl, male Windling Warrior.
20 Riag
After trekking over the mountains for several days and seeing nothing interesting, a pack of wolves happens upon us in the middle of the night. Fliver cast his "Nobody Here" spell, and the wolves came into our camp sniffing things. Eventually Whyr'wyndyl caught their attention and they attacked, so I responded by stabbing their leader in the belly and thumping him with my tail. A grand melee ensued, with Whyr'wyndyl getting knocked prone at one point. I bravely stood over him and sliced the Alpha Wolf from stem to stern. With its body still twitching on the ground, I gave its second a good thumping. At this point, the surviving wolves ran off. They acquitted themselves well, however, having wounded me in the process.
22 Riag
We arrive at the ruin, which has been repopulated with Cadaver Men. Robert develops a cunning plan to use layered Life Circles of One to defend himself and then manages to walk into a Bear Trap! The Cadaver Men seized that opportunity to attack him and though I tried to gather their attention with some well-placed Taunts, Whyr'wyndyl stayed outside the defensive radii, rendering them moot. They were no math for us, however, and though they got one good shot in, we took them out forthwith.
That left us with the Kaer Entrance, which had a large circle with five depressions in it, each one labeled with one of the elements. First we tried sticking a kernel of True Wood in the wood depression, but a poison gas cloud expelled itself at us and that was horrible. We tried using Robert's Levitate Spell to try to insert all five elements at the same time, but that just resulted in a large cataclysm of elemental reactions. We then managed to puzzle out which element was weak against which element and when we tried that combination, a staircase opened up allowing us to climb deeper into the Kaer.
Robert reported that Astral Space down here was Safe and a simple door was flanked by statues of Garlen and Floranuus. I knocked politely on the door and when nobody answered, I opened the door and found an armed group of Namegivers there to greet us. We talked and danced and stuff and brought back a few representatives from Kaer Archmouth with us back to Throal.
NPCs:
Lobaeck Honorstone
PCs:
Fliver, male Windling Illusionist
Jik'escala, female T'Skrang Swordmaster
Robert, male Human Wizard
Whyr'wyndyl, male Windling Warrior
15 Riag, 1422 T.H.
Having made my way to Throal, I must now seek out opportunities for adventure. Lobaeck Honorstone, a wizened Dwarf librarian, has informed us that he believes he has discovered a a Kaer in the mountains, hidden beneath a false ruined tower near the Serpent River. Accompanying him are Fliver, male Windling Illusionist, Robert, male Human Wizard, Whyr'wyndyl, male Windling Warrior.
20 Riag
After trekking over the mountains for several days and seeing nothing interesting, a pack of wolves happens upon us in the middle of the night. Fliver cast his "Nobody Here" spell, and the wolves came into our camp sniffing things. Eventually Whyr'wyndyl caught their attention and they attacked, so I responded by stabbing their leader in the belly and thumping him with my tail. A grand melee ensued, with Whyr'wyndyl getting knocked prone at one point. I bravely stood over him and sliced the Alpha Wolf from stem to stern. With its body still twitching on the ground, I gave its second a good thumping. At this point, the surviving wolves ran off. They acquitted themselves well, however, having wounded me in the process.
22 Riag
We arrive at the ruin, which has been repopulated with Cadaver Men. Robert develops a cunning plan to use layered Life Circles of One to defend himself and then manages to walk into a Bear Trap! The Cadaver Men seized that opportunity to attack him and though I tried to gather their attention with some well-placed Taunts, Whyr'wyndyl stayed outside the defensive radii, rendering them moot. They were no math for us, however, and though they got one good shot in, we took them out forthwith.
That left us with the Kaer Entrance, which had a large circle with five depressions in it, each one labeled with one of the elements. First we tried sticking a kernel of True Wood in the wood depression, but a poison gas cloud expelled itself at us and that was horrible. We tried using Robert's Levitate Spell to try to insert all five elements at the same time, but that just resulted in a large cataclysm of elemental reactions. We then managed to puzzle out which element was weak against which element and when we tried that combination, a staircase opened up allowing us to climb deeper into the Kaer.
Robert reported that Astral Space down here was Safe and a simple door was flanked by statues of Garlen and Floranuus. I knocked politely on the door and when nobody answered, I opened the door and found an armed group of Namegivers there to greet us. We talked and danced and stuff and brought back a few representatives from Kaer Archmouth with us back to Throal.
NPCs:
Lobaeck Honorstone
PCs:
Fliver, male Windling Illusionist
Jik'escala, female T'Skrang Swordmaster
Robert, male Human Wizard
Whyr'wyndyl, male Windling Warrior
Re: AAR: What's in the box?
Opened a kaer, that was an interesting experience. Levitate probably saved lives too! Yay! Plus I got to meet someone who was alive before the scourge started!!!!!!1111!!
We were hired by Lobaeck Honorstone to investigate a "ruin" that some previous adventurers had found, including Fliver. He and I, along with Whyr'wyndyl and Jik'escala (who hibernated through the scourge, ooh!) went to find out if it was really a kaer entrance concealed by a planted ruined tower. It took us a bit of a while to find our way up the mountains, causing us to be attacked by wolves again. No chokepoints means that this could have been a problem. Fortunately, we had Fliver around to cast Nobody Here! and give us time to prepare before the fighting started. Whyr'wyndyl failed utterly to identify his target... again. But we made it through with minimal damage.
When we arrived at the kaer entrance our scouting windlings saw a pair of cadaver men in the tower. I quickly came up with a wonderful plan to cast a series of Life Circle of Ones in a column so that once they attacked we could avoid an actual engagement. Unfortunately Fliver forgot to mention (either here or in any of the logs about his previous trip) the bear trap which they had avoided but not disarmed on their previous trip. This caused the cadaver men to attack and fixed me in place. Fortunately I was able to raise a small circle around me before they attacked and was able to hold them off with my will. Whyr'wyndyl, ever loving to distract enemies, left the protection of the circles and so my plan was only really effective for the first few moments of the combat. Still, we overcame the enemy without major loss.
Then there was a puzzle. We had to put kernels of the elements into the proper order of bowls. The order was that of negating the contents of the bowl. It took a few tries but after the first attempt wounded all of us we finished trying using my Levitate spell for extra safety. One done, we went down a staircase to find a door. I looked astrally and found that the region was Open and that markings to Florannus and Garlen were present. Thus we knocked, exchanged art, and were welcomed into Kaer Archmouth with a feast, many questions, etc. A few of the Kaer joined us on the trip back to throal and the quest was declared a victory.
We were hired by Lobaeck Honorstone to investigate a "ruin" that some previous adventurers had found, including Fliver. He and I, along with Whyr'wyndyl and Jik'escala (who hibernated through the scourge, ooh!) went to find out if it was really a kaer entrance concealed by a planted ruined tower. It took us a bit of a while to find our way up the mountains, causing us to be attacked by wolves again. No chokepoints means that this could have been a problem. Fortunately, we had Fliver around to cast Nobody Here! and give us time to prepare before the fighting started. Whyr'wyndyl failed utterly to identify his target... again. But we made it through with minimal damage.
When we arrived at the kaer entrance our scouting windlings saw a pair of cadaver men in the tower. I quickly came up with a wonderful plan to cast a series of Life Circle of Ones in a column so that once they attacked we could avoid an actual engagement. Unfortunately Fliver forgot to mention (either here or in any of the logs about his previous trip) the bear trap which they had avoided but not disarmed on their previous trip. This caused the cadaver men to attack and fixed me in place. Fortunately I was able to raise a small circle around me before they attacked and was able to hold them off with my will. Whyr'wyndyl, ever loving to distract enemies, left the protection of the circles and so my plan was only really effective for the first few moments of the combat. Still, we overcame the enemy without major loss.
Then there was a puzzle. We had to put kernels of the elements into the proper order of bowls. The order was that of negating the contents of the bowl. It took a few tries but after the first attempt wounded all of us we finished trying using my Levitate spell for extra safety. One done, we went down a staircase to find a door. I looked astrally and found that the region was Open and that markings to Florannus and Garlen were present. Thus we knocked, exchanged art, and were welcomed into Kaer Archmouth with a feast, many questions, etc. A few of the Kaer joined us on the trip back to throal and the quest was declared a victory.
-
ChrisDDickey
- Posts:1011
- Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm
Re: AAR: What's in the box?
From the Journal of Fliver, Windling Illusionist.
Way back on one of my first adventures outside of Throal while looking for an alternate route to the Serpent river, we found what appeared to be a ruined tower, inside the tower were a few Cadaver Men, which we destroyed. However there was something funny about the construction, it looked almost as if it had been built to look ruined and half-destroyed. We speculated that it might be a fake ruin to disguise that there had been a kear underneath it. Somebody might have built a kear, then built the "ruined tower" to disguise the new construction. I included this strong suspicion in my journal entry which I copied to the great library of Throal.
Lobaeck Honorstone A scholar of ancient buildings read our entries, and attempted to correlate it with pre-scourge building records, but was unable to find a definitive match. He decided to investigate in person and hired Jik'escala, Robert, Whyr'wyndyl and myself to escort him. I had not yet taken up mapmaking when I had traveled this way before, so I did not possess a map of the trail we had blazed a few months earlier, and we quickly lost our way and ended up bushwhacking a new trail through the mountains, not nearly as good as the previous one. Eventually we realized we were too far to the south and adjusted our course.
About two days before finally arriving at the ruined tower we were attacked by wolves in the night. Jik'escala and I were on watch, and since I recently learned the "Nobody Here" spell, I generally like to think that we are almost immune to attack during my watch, However they happened to appear just as I was renewing the spell, and caught a glimpse of us in the few seconds between the old spell fading away and the new one taking effect. So they obviously detected something, only to arrive at the clearing and see Nobody Here. They would have only seen a small clearing, a campfire, and maybe some equipment such as backpacks etc. But they could nether see, hear, nor smell that anybody was there right now. They may have been starving, since they all came right up into camp and started sniffing around, trying to figure out where we had gone. I retuned on the fly to put "blindness" in a matrix, and struck one of the wolves blind, and Whyr'wyndyl, flew out of the area of effect and tried to get all wolves to follow him away from camp. The blind wolf smelling the location of Jik'escala attacked him and the melee became general. One wolf was killed and the others eventually ran away. I wonder about the bizzar behavior of the wolves in this area.
Two days later we arrived at the suspected kear location. I scouted it out, and determined that there were some more cadaver men sheltering inside the ruin. We made a plan to fight them, involving Robert casting multiple Life Circle of One spells. It was made plain that the plan was for us all to retreat through the various circles, causing the horror constructs to repeatedly take damage attempting to cross them. Unfortunately, Robert stepped in a bear trap, which immobilized him. Robert drew two more life circle of one spells around his exposed and stationary location. while Jik'escala and I tried to lure the horror constructs into coming in contact with the circles. Whyr'wyndyl however moved up outside of all the circles and distracted the cadaver men while Robert drew his new smaller circles. However when the rest of us withdrew into the circles, he declined, stating that he preferred to stay where he was to see what happened. What happened of course was that both the cadaver men attacked him, and he took some unnecessary damage and a wound or two. It just goes to show once again that it matters less what plan you follow, or if a plan is good or bad, so much as it matters that everybody follows the plan. If three people are following a plan, and one person ignores it, the plan is doomed to fail. Fortunately there were only the two cadaver men, and we had little difficulty destroying them. One of the cadaver men was wearing a fine necklace that I recognized as a thread item. We took that and are examining it.
After freeing Robert from the trap, I again searched the tower, but it was much like I remembered it. I particularly examined a pillar that we had previously suspected reconciled something underneath it. Thsi time we noticed 5 bowl shaped depressions, and 5 glyph with the symbols for fire, water, earth, air, and wood. Fortunately our employer had read something that indicated that would be the case and had the foresight to bring one kernel of each of the five true elements. We first put the kernel of true wood in the bowl marked true wood, but that caused a choking cloud of spores to erupt from the pillar, which burned our lungs and made it hard to breath for the rest of the day. We discussed what went wrong. Some argued that maybe we ought to instead of putting the kernel in it's own labeled bowl, we ought to either put the kernel in the bowl labeled with the element that it is strong or weak against. Some had a theory that the problem was that all 5 bowls needed to be filled at the same time.
We used Roberts levitate spell so that we could lower the elements into the bowls without anybody being in the room. We lowered all 5 kernels into the bowls that bore there labels. 5 big noisy traps all went off at once, a fireball, a lightning bolt, a great slamming stone, some acid rain, and a choking cloud all at once. We decided to try putting each element into the bowl that was marked with the symbol of the element they were strong against. fire into wood, wood into earth, earth into air, air into water, and water into fire. Again we used the levitate spell to do it from a safe distance, but this time what happened is that the pillar opened up into a staircase going down.
We went down and opened the kaer, making contact with the people of Archmouth. There was much rejoicing.
Way back on one of my first adventures outside of Throal while looking for an alternate route to the Serpent river, we found what appeared to be a ruined tower, inside the tower were a few Cadaver Men, which we destroyed. However there was something funny about the construction, it looked almost as if it had been built to look ruined and half-destroyed. We speculated that it might be a fake ruin to disguise that there had been a kear underneath it. Somebody might have built a kear, then built the "ruined tower" to disguise the new construction. I included this strong suspicion in my journal entry which I copied to the great library of Throal.
Lobaeck Honorstone A scholar of ancient buildings read our entries, and attempted to correlate it with pre-scourge building records, but was unable to find a definitive match. He decided to investigate in person and hired Jik'escala, Robert, Whyr'wyndyl and myself to escort him. I had not yet taken up mapmaking when I had traveled this way before, so I did not possess a map of the trail we had blazed a few months earlier, and we quickly lost our way and ended up bushwhacking a new trail through the mountains, not nearly as good as the previous one. Eventually we realized we were too far to the south and adjusted our course.
About two days before finally arriving at the ruined tower we were attacked by wolves in the night. Jik'escala and I were on watch, and since I recently learned the "Nobody Here" spell, I generally like to think that we are almost immune to attack during my watch, However they happened to appear just as I was renewing the spell, and caught a glimpse of us in the few seconds between the old spell fading away and the new one taking effect. So they obviously detected something, only to arrive at the clearing and see Nobody Here. They would have only seen a small clearing, a campfire, and maybe some equipment such as backpacks etc. But they could nether see, hear, nor smell that anybody was there right now. They may have been starving, since they all came right up into camp and started sniffing around, trying to figure out where we had gone. I retuned on the fly to put "blindness" in a matrix, and struck one of the wolves blind, and Whyr'wyndyl, flew out of the area of effect and tried to get all wolves to follow him away from camp. The blind wolf smelling the location of Jik'escala attacked him and the melee became general. One wolf was killed and the others eventually ran away. I wonder about the bizzar behavior of the wolves in this area.
Two days later we arrived at the suspected kear location. I scouted it out, and determined that there were some more cadaver men sheltering inside the ruin. We made a plan to fight them, involving Robert casting multiple Life Circle of One spells. It was made plain that the plan was for us all to retreat through the various circles, causing the horror constructs to repeatedly take damage attempting to cross them. Unfortunately, Robert stepped in a bear trap, which immobilized him. Robert drew two more life circle of one spells around his exposed and stationary location. while Jik'escala and I tried to lure the horror constructs into coming in contact with the circles. Whyr'wyndyl however moved up outside of all the circles and distracted the cadaver men while Robert drew his new smaller circles. However when the rest of us withdrew into the circles, he declined, stating that he preferred to stay where he was to see what happened. What happened of course was that both the cadaver men attacked him, and he took some unnecessary damage and a wound or two. It just goes to show once again that it matters less what plan you follow, or if a plan is good or bad, so much as it matters that everybody follows the plan. If three people are following a plan, and one person ignores it, the plan is doomed to fail. Fortunately there were only the two cadaver men, and we had little difficulty destroying them. One of the cadaver men was wearing a fine necklace that I recognized as a thread item. We took that and are examining it.
After freeing Robert from the trap, I again searched the tower, but it was much like I remembered it. I particularly examined a pillar that we had previously suspected reconciled something underneath it. Thsi time we noticed 5 bowl shaped depressions, and 5 glyph with the symbols for fire, water, earth, air, and wood. Fortunately our employer had read something that indicated that would be the case and had the foresight to bring one kernel of each of the five true elements. We first put the kernel of true wood in the bowl marked true wood, but that caused a choking cloud of spores to erupt from the pillar, which burned our lungs and made it hard to breath for the rest of the day. We discussed what went wrong. Some argued that maybe we ought to instead of putting the kernel in it's own labeled bowl, we ought to either put the kernel in the bowl labeled with the element that it is strong or weak against. Some had a theory that the problem was that all 5 bowls needed to be filled at the same time.
We used Roberts levitate spell so that we could lower the elements into the bowls without anybody being in the room. We lowered all 5 kernels into the bowls that bore there labels. 5 big noisy traps all went off at once, a fireball, a lightning bolt, a great slamming stone, some acid rain, and a choking cloud all at once. We decided to try putting each element into the bowl that was marked with the symbol of the element they were strong against. fire into wood, wood into earth, earth into air, air into water, and water into fire. Again we used the levitate spell to do it from a safe distance, but this time what happened is that the pillar opened up into a staircase going down.
We went down and opened the kaer, making contact with the people of Archmouth. There was much rejoicing.
Re: AAR: What's in the box?
Journal 3 - What’s in the Box?
My war with wine is ongoing. I have, yet, to win a battle, but refuse to admit defeat.
This time, though, my enemy had me so out of my wits, I had not realized I’d climbed into the backpack of some other adventurer. I awoke with a start along a high mountain road. It was my turn for night’s watch. Sure am glad the others were safe getting us through to this point.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I grabbed up my gear and started watching...the fire. Probably should have paid more attention to the wolves that were circling the camp. I’ll be sure to do that next time. Though, this time did give me a chance to look upon the adventurers who had come along this time.
Robert is here. I’m curious what he’d look like with a beard. Or bald. Fliver is here as well. I guess he’s not eaten by horrors like I had pondered before. And a new face, Jik’escala. What a welcome addition, especially once I realized her affinity for apostrophes. An old scholar named Lobaeck Honorstone was with us, too; not really a fighter, very much a thinker. You could tell he was old by the accent he had.
The wolves. Right. They were hungry. I suspect they wanted to eat us. Fliver cast a spell that made us invisible, unhearable, unsmellable and unlickable - I’m guessing at that last part. But our stuff was still there in the camp, as was our scent on that stuff. The spell only affects the people Fliver names and the gear on their immediate person. Eventually, the hungry wolves sacrificed caution for the chance we had food in our packs and bedrolls. They were right, too, to do this; I’m always finding crumbs in my bedroll.
I thought I’d leave the spell’s influence and try to lure the wolves away. Something about that plan backfired, though, causing the wolves to attack the party.
We fought. We won. It took Jik’escala more than fifteen minutes to wipe the wolf’s blood from her sword to the point of satisfaction.
A few days further along the road, we arrived at the ruins of our desire. “Why would we desire ruins?” you might ask. Well, there might be riches to be had beneath the tower. Or an evil dragon to slay. Or a windling princess to whoo. Or a piece of cake that will explode if it is not eaten soon.
None of those alternatives apply. Quite simply, this might be the site of another kaer that was sponsored by Throal. We won’t know unless we investigate the various clues of this ruined tower.
Cadaver men guard the ruins. Two of them. Which is exactly enough of them to make Robert so very nervous as to concoct his most elaborate battle plan yet. The plan was foiled by a bear trap.
The cadaver men attacked. We fought them. We won. Poor Robert had his leg caught in a rusted bear trap through it all. He must have forgotten the spell for that.
With the cadaver men dead - Dead again? Re-dead? Dispatched we shall say - there was nothing to prevent us from fully investigating the several layers of stone ruined tower that stand here. All we could find in the area was a round stone slab in the middle of the ground floor with five symbols etched into five depressions. The symbols represent the five elements: Wood, Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.
Wizards and scholars and Flivers alike, talk circles about how to approach this puzzle. Turns out, Lobaeck has brought with him some kernels of True Elements; a couple of each element. Enough to work the puzzle if we are not wasteful. I understand the need for caution, but the conversation became cyclical.
When, at last, we had a plan, we were all to take part in it. Put a kernel of wood in the depression marked Wood. See what happens. Then move on to match up the other four elements.
The kernel disappeared, and a moment later the room is filled with a noxious green cloud. We’ve all been poisoned.
More talking. More cyclical arguments.
We decided to deliver all the kernels to their respective depressions nearly simultaneously. To do this, we used Robert’s spell for levitation and a distance of some 40 yards. You should have seen the explosions! It was brilliant! Lightning and Fireballs, green clouds and driving ice, and a pair of stone hands rising up out of the stonework to slam the ground. The sight of this reminds me of what should have been from Robert’s distraction spell inside Bog gopolis.
New plan. We will put Fire in the wood depression; Wood in earth; Earth in air; Air in water; and Water in fire. At least, I think that’s the plan. My mind wandered off to the thoughts of our impending war against wine.
This time, there was nothing to see. Until we went back into the ruins after a cautious counting of time had passed.
The stone slab had been replaced by a descending spiral staircase of stone. It went deep under the ruins and into the darkness. It ended in a small chamber with a solid, metal-shod door that looked well-maintained.
Robert announced the Astral Plane was clean here. Quite an exciting moment, if he can be trusted… . Not to say he shouldn’t be trusted, just that I don’t know why he decided to look into the Astral Plane at that moment to begin with - a real “head-in-the-clouds” sort of situation, you know?
A polite knock and a guarded response. A few demonstrations of Artisan skills. Hencetoforth this shall be known as The Opening of Kaer Archmouth.
We spend a day or two establishing an exchange of ideals, and the kaer selects an envoy to travel back with us to Throal. Lobaeck Honorstone pays us at the Gates of Throal and I share my bottle of fine wine with my friends.
This battle, too, I lost. The wine took another half a day’s worth of memories.
- Whyr’wyndyl Evenflame, Warrior of the 2nd Circle.
My war with wine is ongoing. I have, yet, to win a battle, but refuse to admit defeat.
This time, though, my enemy had me so out of my wits, I had not realized I’d climbed into the backpack of some other adventurer. I awoke with a start along a high mountain road. It was my turn for night’s watch. Sure am glad the others were safe getting us through to this point.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I grabbed up my gear and started watching...the fire. Probably should have paid more attention to the wolves that were circling the camp. I’ll be sure to do that next time. Though, this time did give me a chance to look upon the adventurers who had come along this time.
Robert is here. I’m curious what he’d look like with a beard. Or bald. Fliver is here as well. I guess he’s not eaten by horrors like I had pondered before. And a new face, Jik’escala. What a welcome addition, especially once I realized her affinity for apostrophes. An old scholar named Lobaeck Honorstone was with us, too; not really a fighter, very much a thinker. You could tell he was old by the accent he had.
The wolves. Right. They were hungry. I suspect they wanted to eat us. Fliver cast a spell that made us invisible, unhearable, unsmellable and unlickable - I’m guessing at that last part. But our stuff was still there in the camp, as was our scent on that stuff. The spell only affects the people Fliver names and the gear on their immediate person. Eventually, the hungry wolves sacrificed caution for the chance we had food in our packs and bedrolls. They were right, too, to do this; I’m always finding crumbs in my bedroll.
I thought I’d leave the spell’s influence and try to lure the wolves away. Something about that plan backfired, though, causing the wolves to attack the party.
We fought. We won. It took Jik’escala more than fifteen minutes to wipe the wolf’s blood from her sword to the point of satisfaction.
A few days further along the road, we arrived at the ruins of our desire. “Why would we desire ruins?” you might ask. Well, there might be riches to be had beneath the tower. Or an evil dragon to slay. Or a windling princess to whoo. Or a piece of cake that will explode if it is not eaten soon.
None of those alternatives apply. Quite simply, this might be the site of another kaer that was sponsored by Throal. We won’t know unless we investigate the various clues of this ruined tower.
Cadaver men guard the ruins. Two of them. Which is exactly enough of them to make Robert so very nervous as to concoct his most elaborate battle plan yet. The plan was foiled by a bear trap.
The cadaver men attacked. We fought them. We won. Poor Robert had his leg caught in a rusted bear trap through it all. He must have forgotten the spell for that.
With the cadaver men dead - Dead again? Re-dead? Dispatched we shall say - there was nothing to prevent us from fully investigating the several layers of stone ruined tower that stand here. All we could find in the area was a round stone slab in the middle of the ground floor with five symbols etched into five depressions. The symbols represent the five elements: Wood, Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.
Wizards and scholars and Flivers alike, talk circles about how to approach this puzzle. Turns out, Lobaeck has brought with him some kernels of True Elements; a couple of each element. Enough to work the puzzle if we are not wasteful. I understand the need for caution, but the conversation became cyclical.
When, at last, we had a plan, we were all to take part in it. Put a kernel of wood in the depression marked Wood. See what happens. Then move on to match up the other four elements.
The kernel disappeared, and a moment later the room is filled with a noxious green cloud. We’ve all been poisoned.
More talking. More cyclical arguments.
We decided to deliver all the kernels to their respective depressions nearly simultaneously. To do this, we used Robert’s spell for levitation and a distance of some 40 yards. You should have seen the explosions! It was brilliant! Lightning and Fireballs, green clouds and driving ice, and a pair of stone hands rising up out of the stonework to slam the ground. The sight of this reminds me of what should have been from Robert’s distraction spell inside Bog gopolis.
New plan. We will put Fire in the wood depression; Wood in earth; Earth in air; Air in water; and Water in fire. At least, I think that’s the plan. My mind wandered off to the thoughts of our impending war against wine.
This time, there was nothing to see. Until we went back into the ruins after a cautious counting of time had passed.
The stone slab had been replaced by a descending spiral staircase of stone. It went deep under the ruins and into the darkness. It ended in a small chamber with a solid, metal-shod door that looked well-maintained.
Robert announced the Astral Plane was clean here. Quite an exciting moment, if he can be trusted… . Not to say he shouldn’t be trusted, just that I don’t know why he decided to look into the Astral Plane at that moment to begin with - a real “head-in-the-clouds” sort of situation, you know?
A polite knock and a guarded response. A few demonstrations of Artisan skills. Hencetoforth this shall be known as The Opening of Kaer Archmouth.
We spend a day or two establishing an exchange of ideals, and the kaer selects an envoy to travel back with us to Throal. Lobaeck Honorstone pays us at the Gates of Throal and I share my bottle of fine wine with my friends.
This battle, too, I lost. The wine took another half a day’s worth of memories.
- Whyr’wyndyl Evenflame, Warrior of the 2nd Circle.
-
BattleChad
- Posts:422
- Joined:Sat Sep 23, 2017 7:43 pm
Re: AAR: What's in the box?
The Great Library of Throal thanks Jik'escala, Fliver, Robert and Whyr'wyndyl for their contributions.
Journal Rewards: 40 Legend Points and 57 Silver
Journal Rewards: 40 Legend Points and 57 Silver