AAR: [10M] Buried Knowledge (2020-09-26 1800 GMT)

[Xzandrate]

From the writings of Moe'uhane, T'skrang Illusionist, 9th Circle, Boatman 5th Circle, Messenger Rank 6

As I push into the Warden tier of my discipline, I am approached for more unique and varied adventures. Having heard of my recent adventures upon the river, Jael approached me about assisting him to the Thunder Mountains to find the Sunken Archive of Aesar Delin. We were joined on this journey by other great adepts of Throal, some of whom I have never adventured with directly before. Dubhan the dwarven Wizard joined us, having not adventured together since the earlies days of my Novice tier this was a chance to compare how we had each grown. We also brought along a pair of humans I had not adventured with prior, but were well known for their individual companion animals. The man with the bear was Karl Tomsson the Archer. The infamous Scout with the huttawa was William Carver. Both were very interested in what I knew as an Illusionist and what I could teach them. We spent many a days trying to make them understand that revealing the truth was not merely about something being hidden, but sometimes it was about being unknown, or it changing it's path as the river does when it floods.

After weeks of travel, lots of research and puzzled clues, encounters with river pirates and huttawas in heat we arrived in front of a great stone building in the Thunder Mountains. We entered the Archive and marvelled at how well preserved everything was. We began to search the books, and while we were shocked at the obtuse organizational selections, we were quite encouraged by how efficiently we had performed our task. No sooner had it been thought, then disaster struck. The building shook, from the foundation up it felt like. The sunlight outside was blotted out by something, and we were tossed across the book repository like rag dolls. When everything finished moving, we took our bearings and examined the building. Everything seemed stable, so we ventured to the doors and windows. Outside was pitch black, the sun outside had disappeared, and as our eyes adjusted to the light we noticed that the surrounding area had changed drastically. Gone were the peaks and stone of the Thunder Mountains. Instead we could make out the silhouettes of buildings, some on their sides, some partially crumbling. Beyond the ruined buildings we could make out a smooth wall, almost like a cavern. Dubhan began a detailed analysis of the area and determined that the astral space had become safer. Meanwhile Karl and William attempted to determine the height and nature of the cavern we were in. After a few different objects into the sky, a flame arrow stuck into the top of the cavern . . the strangely soft and purplish cavern. After some conferring and examination of the evidence, we determined that we must be inside something, and whatever it was had to be colossal in size. We began to prepare an exploration of our new surroundings, as the first of the spells began to be woven into matrices large beasts began to float into view. We observed them for a while longer and noticed they were moving in and out of the other buildings. They seemed o be large orbous beasts with a single orifice, but the odd thing was they appeared to be covered in pages. A less desirable book was fetched from the Archive, and thrown towards one of these beasts. It sucked up the volume and began to grow additional pages. This drew their attention to the Sunken Archive and we quickly realized these beasts would mean the end of the Sunken Archive, we needed to intercede.

I wrapped myself, Jael, William, their companions in illusions and battle was joined. Jael and Selena lay into one of the beasts, then they respond by having a series of pages on their bodies flare with magic, the earth around us heave and shakes. The beasts wrapped Jael in a spell while William charges into another. Dubhan purges the spell on Jael and I attempt to inflict a spell on the enemy. Karl and Reuben finished off the two most wounded, and we turned and quickly finished the other two.

We took stock of our situation, we needed to save a number of the books and we needed to escape with both our lives and the requested treasure. I returned to the Archive and began cutting the large carpet into smaller sections and enchanted a number of them to work as floating porters. Dubhan lightened the load of the bookcases to maximize our potential cargo, and Jael led the difficult process of selecting the most important volumes to attempt to save. Workng under the assumption that we were inside a creature, we posited that the best chance of escape would be back the way we came. So we began to move our convoy towards the mouth of the beast. We were soon set upon by more defenders of this creature. Large tentacled pillars that erupted from the floor. The first one bound Reuben and began to drag him towards the maw this thing came from. Jael quickly jumped to Reubens defense and cut him loose. Unfortunately as Jael was focussed on freeing the bear, he did not see the one that appeared behind him. Jael was wrapped in tentacles and slammed to the ground dragging towards certain doom. He lay limp and we realized we must act with haste. Karl shot the tentacles freeing Jael, and quickly lodged a second into the beast. Reuben then charged the creature with a ferocious roar, defending his Beastmaster saviour. As the claw tore deep into the creature and William and I carefully avoided waking a third creature, a simple whisper from Dubhan felled the creature, 'Boom!'

As the creature fell, a dwarven head popped out of the ruined building ahead of us and scolded our actions, urging us to make haste inside the building he was in. The dwarf introduced himself as Arathinor den Sauris. The building seemed to be a small room, with a large cocoon like object in the corner. I watched Arathinor with some intrigue, I felt a kindred soul. He explained how the cocoon was his charge, and the two of them had been trapped her for fifty-three years. Dubhan was obviously assessing our host and the area, as he would, and then began acting in a strange manner. He seemed to indicate that this dwarf should be afforded more respect than his appearance would indicate. The ever logical Dubhan appeared to be afraid, not concerned or perplexed as you would expect, but afraid. Picking up the specific mannerisms of our host and paying close attention to the words chosen in addition to the meaning of what he was saying, I began to understand that Arathinor was something akin to the Messenger, but more prototypical. The last time I felt this sort of feeling from a person working on behalf of their master, I was awarded a coin. In an act of insight or uncontrolled impulse, I'm still unsure which, I retrieved the coin and slipped it to him. He assessed it with silence, slipped it into a pocket and returned a similar coin, this one bore the mark of a large mountainous peak.

Arathinor offered to house and feed us for the night, and provided more insight on how we might escape this place. The nodules along the tract seemed to be linked to the creatures consciousness, if we stimulated them in the proper fashion we may be able to elicit a convulsive response. We took the advise seriously and began to assess how to best be a poor meal. As this was a creature, I surmised that I may be able to hasten feelings of nausea with my Vertigo spell, and we may be able to just cause enough commotion to help eject us from the creature.

The next day we thanked Arathinor, leaving the books with him and enchanting the doorway we proceeded towards the gullet, on the watch for these sentience nodules. We found them, large crystalline outcroppings pulsing with energies. I prepared my spell and hit the crystal with waves of dizziness. The floor began to shift and ripple, a positive response, but we'd need more. Everyone began to test out what would garner responses from the beast and we prepared our assault. After the first wave of nausea overcame the wyrm defenses appeared. Large floating balloons, they quickly fell upon us and engulfed Selena, Reuben, and myself. Luckily, Karl loosed a pair of flaming arrows cutting Reuben and I out. Reuben then turned on his attacker and burst it's round body. As this was occuring one managed to slowly envelope Jael, however a flurry of claws freed him and Selena, and his attacker was down. Selena burst from the creature and fell upon my attacker finishing it off. Dubhan's one word of power, and Williams sling put the last of these creatures in a dangerous position. I kept my focus on our objective, not wanting the creature to recover and a second vertigo hit the wyrms body. The convulsing started to increase, the flow of debris began to change. A quick surveyance of the battlefield located a broken doorway in some nearby debris. As I prepared the second casting of Other Place, the building with the first casting crashed past us towards the mouth. Everyone dove through the doorway and ended up in a pile on the floor of Arathinor's simple room.

We apologized for the rude entrance, and he congratulated us on succeeding in our escape. We exited the building and the area was strewn in bile and debris. The sense of movement behind us was hard to miss, the great wyrm was already beginning to burrow into the stone again, happy to be free of such an obstinate meal. Arathinor declined any further assistance in leaving the Thunder Mountains, or in notifying anyone of his safe return. He simply asked that we return in the future to advise him of the state of the world and provide him company.

[Xzandrate]

**As the magic flows across the page the words come into view**

Scholars from Throal continue to seek lost knowledges in many legendary locations. Most recently research on the Sunken Archive of Aesar Delin uncovered it's possible location. High circle adepts were able to locate and retrieve a number of tomes in the book. See report TM142377 for full details on journey and location and fate of Archive.

NOTE: This addendum report is restricted to senior agents

Faction:Book Wyrm
Brief: Legendary creature, appears as colossal size subterannean worm that devours libraries and book repositories.
Status: Active, last seen in Thunder Mountains.
Notable Actors:

Faction: Mountainshadow
Brief: Great Dragon
Status: Incomplete - active agent in Thunder Mountains
Notable Actors:
Arathinor den Sauris, dwarven Elementalist

After Action Report: After the Archive was swallowed by a mythic creature, the adept party encountered what appears to have been a drake, in the employ of Mountainshadow, guarding a possible dragon egg. This agent indicated that he had been within the wyrm for fifty-three years, this indicates that the great dragons have already been working to shape the world for the past half century.

The location of the drake and it's charge shall remain unrecorded. While he is agreeable and eager to have visitors, this shall only be a small collection of diplomatic envoys from within the group.


Reporting Senior Agent: Bearded Dragon

**The words vanish as the magic dissipates**

[Montaugh]

My name is William Carver, I am a circle 9 Scout, Circle 5 Thief, Circle 6 Cavalryman and 3 rank on the Journeyman Path.

Moe'uhane, Karl, Dubhan and I joined Jael as he was looking to explore a library and find a book within it. This is my first time adventuring with the T'srang Moe'uhane.

The travel to the Kaer was ultimately uneventuful, a few things side tracked us like Charlie wanting to mate with a pride of Huttawas. Rueben wanted to go and play with something, but Karl thought it would not be a good idea. A group of river pirates got more than they bargained for, and things of that nature.

The Library itself was swallowed by a book wyrm... while we were inside of it. We were attacked by strange creatures inside of the beast's belly. We knew that they were creatures but they were unlike anything that we had ever seen before.

We encountered a dwarf guarding a cocoon that was waiting to be hatched. I left a small toy for the creature inside that would come out, a small human riding a huttawa. Dubhan had inspected the dwarf astrally, as well as the egg. He was stunned but he said nothing of them being horror related.

We came up with a plan to get out of the creature, originally we were going to go through the mouth of the creature, but we decided to give the creature a stomachache and have it throw us all up, and the building that were inside.

We had to stimulate some crystal nodes to get it to expel its stomach. I trusted in the very useful gloves and they did not let me down as they gave me a tuning fork. Jael tried to dominate the creature. Moe did some illusion things, and Karl and Ruben attacked it I believe, and finally Dubhan cast a spell of some kind.

The creature expelled us and we watched as it moved from one tunnel into another that it made.. for fifteen minutes. This creature was massive and I bet it would rival the great wyrms that I have heard about in stories, if it was not larger than them.

William Carver

[ottdmk]

From the Journal of Dubhan Goronich:

Well, this one was different. Jael recruited myself and a few of the regulars (Karl, William) and Moe'uhane the Illusionist to assist him in retrieving some books from a newly located archive. Everything seemed to go smoothly until... the ground fell out from under us.

We eventually worked out that we'd been swallowed by something huge. The creature was so big, it was inhabited. First, there were weird creatures that were covered in grimoire pages and could cast spells. One even cast Hypervelocity! Not very well, thankfully.

After that, we were almost killed by gaping maws with tentacles. Thankfully, we pulled through, and were given shelter by a very odd "dwarf". Said dwarf, one Arathinor den Sauris, had been guarding a cocoon of some kind when his library was swallowed. Rather than risk moving the cocoon, he instead has survived in the beast for over fifty years.

My astral sight revealed the truth. Arathinor is no Dwarf... he is, instead, some kind of Dragon. I'm not familiar enough with Dragons to speculate on the exact type. The cocoon actually blinded my astral sight. Which, since it's not actually sight, and has nothing to do with light, is remarkable!

We managed to come up with a plan to get the beast to expel us. It all hinged on Moe'uhane and his Vertigo spell. To help him out I gifted him with Astral Sense and Astral Targetting to improve his odds. Despite being attacked by swallowing puffballs we were eventually successful and escaped. I had used Juggler's Touch to add to the beast's discomfort. Alas, none of the puffballs wandered into the cyclone radius.