97mg
Explorer
The Carven Door
“Break the gemstone?” Magaw repeats Metea’s idea to himself. “Such a pity that might be, it is beautiful is it not?” He floats up then to view the massive jewel more closely. “Whatever remains in these twisting passages and caves, is through Immel’s choice. As much as I’d wish to destroy this… it might not be particularly wise.”
Noting that the warlock has sensed some trepidation in his earlier mannerisms, he returns to the four symbols, and places himself again at the far right. “This one I have found in old memories. Ironic perhaps that it's meaning is for one trapped between life and death, the darkness of earth and the world above. This marking means undead… I am sure of it.”
He turns to face Metea then, asking, “shall I?”
Rotating back to the symbol he moves forwards, as if about to touch it with a dry boney forehead.
With his ears full of the distant ringings of theories and hypothesis, testing and wonder, Carthum could be onto something. The demon gate is closed. Is that something to risk tampering with? But what of the carved door? The arts of healing and protection are the half-orc’s gift, and magic symbols are widely used in both. Maybe whatever is behind this door was so worthy of protection, that four separate spells were cast upon it… or four things must be done to prove worthiness? Even back in the Church of Suru, there are tomes and artifacts out of reach for frontline clerics and priests. With knowledge and progress, comes further knowledge...
“Hey ho, not judging friend, just saying is all,” the dwarf responds to Otiroth. “To be honest, I’m mo’ comfortable in the presence of folks like you, than the Dolstian fools above. Yea, you’re right, I’m no saint. But I am in debt to ya.”
A projectile of flame bursts upon the sorcerer’s favorite symbol then, another test, but as the heat subsides and the bolt dissipates into oblivion, nothing has changed.
“We got a symbol in the hills I seen once,” the dwarf mentions then. “Two sides of a triangle, with a circle in the middle, tis a racial thing. Hey, instead of cookin’ it, why don’t ya just finger it? And that gem, well hells! That be larger than Aunt Daint's left teat, or Baker Oddolf's apple pie! That my friends, has to come with us!”
Despite being devoid of fingers, Magaw is already on the same track. His noggin lightly bumps against his chosen glyph.
For a moment, the floating skull is suspended in a cone of ocean-blue light as the line and it's intersected dot glow.
“Oh, dazzling!”
Then, as the blue glow subsides a new illumination creeps in. The right edge of the carven door now leaks a shaft of pure, white light. Small particles of dust dance and weave within the beam, and cool air scented with salt begins to drift into the darkness.
The barbarian has been so patient letting all this unfold. Watching. Waiting. So far, nothing appears to threaten them, except the consequences of their own decisions and Magaw’s rub against the rock. So strange to be keeping company with a skull… then again, the gnolls would keep their hunting trophies on occasion too. A finger. A tooth. A head. So whose trophy was Magaw, she might wonder? And what might they do to get it back? Jeovanna would know that Magaw wasn’t skinned by some feral animal or pack of blood-hungry carnivores. No. The manner of this one’s death was less… natural, and complete.
Off in his own private patch of shadow, Dain is staring down a relatively straight section of tunnel as he meditates. So dark. So inhospitable. So infertile. Yet life abounds! Through the very stonework and it's airy gaps, below, above and on all sides, the ranger reaches out, an almost supernatural sense in search of sentience. The results are quite overwhelming.
The chaotic and mysterious signs of fey in abundance. Hints of fiendish folk both large and small. Natural creatures, such as the bats and spiders already witnessed, humans and other Kalarians among others as yet unseen. Undead, drifting throughout the space like souls lost in a midnight sky.
Four kinds of life.
Four symbols.
Four sides to a door.
Infinite ways to die.
“Break the gemstone?” Magaw repeats Metea’s idea to himself. “Such a pity that might be, it is beautiful is it not?” He floats up then to view the massive jewel more closely. “Whatever remains in these twisting passages and caves, is through Immel’s choice. As much as I’d wish to destroy this… it might not be particularly wise.”
Noting that the warlock has sensed some trepidation in his earlier mannerisms, he returns to the four symbols, and places himself again at the far right. “This one I have found in old memories. Ironic perhaps that it's meaning is for one trapped between life and death, the darkness of earth and the world above. This marking means undead… I am sure of it.”
He turns to face Metea then, asking, “shall I?”
Rotating back to the symbol he moves forwards, as if about to touch it with a dry boney forehead.
With his ears full of the distant ringings of theories and hypothesis, testing and wonder, Carthum could be onto something. The demon gate is closed. Is that something to risk tampering with? But what of the carved door? The arts of healing and protection are the half-orc’s gift, and magic symbols are widely used in both. Maybe whatever is behind this door was so worthy of protection, that four separate spells were cast upon it… or four things must be done to prove worthiness? Even back in the Church of Suru, there are tomes and artifacts out of reach for frontline clerics and priests. With knowledge and progress, comes further knowledge...
“Hey ho, not judging friend, just saying is all,” the dwarf responds to Otiroth. “To be honest, I’m mo’ comfortable in the presence of folks like you, than the Dolstian fools above. Yea, you’re right, I’m no saint. But I am in debt to ya.”
A projectile of flame bursts upon the sorcerer’s favorite symbol then, another test, but as the heat subsides and the bolt dissipates into oblivion, nothing has changed.
“We got a symbol in the hills I seen once,” the dwarf mentions then. “Two sides of a triangle, with a circle in the middle, tis a racial thing. Hey, instead of cookin’ it, why don’t ya just finger it? And that gem, well hells! That be larger than Aunt Daint's left teat, or Baker Oddolf's apple pie! That my friends, has to come with us!”
Despite being devoid of fingers, Magaw is already on the same track. His noggin lightly bumps against his chosen glyph.
For a moment, the floating skull is suspended in a cone of ocean-blue light as the line and it's intersected dot glow.
“Oh, dazzling!”
Then, as the blue glow subsides a new illumination creeps in. The right edge of the carven door now leaks a shaft of pure, white light. Small particles of dust dance and weave within the beam, and cool air scented with salt begins to drift into the darkness.
The barbarian has been so patient letting all this unfold. Watching. Waiting. So far, nothing appears to threaten them, except the consequences of their own decisions and Magaw’s rub against the rock. So strange to be keeping company with a skull… then again, the gnolls would keep their hunting trophies on occasion too. A finger. A tooth. A head. So whose trophy was Magaw, she might wonder? And what might they do to get it back? Jeovanna would know that Magaw wasn’t skinned by some feral animal or pack of blood-hungry carnivores. No. The manner of this one’s death was less… natural, and complete.
Off in his own private patch of shadow, Dain is staring down a relatively straight section of tunnel as he meditates. So dark. So inhospitable. So infertile. Yet life abounds! Through the very stonework and it's airy gaps, below, above and on all sides, the ranger reaches out, an almost supernatural sense in search of sentience. The results are quite overwhelming.
The chaotic and mysterious signs of fey in abundance. Hints of fiendish folk both large and small. Natural creatures, such as the bats and spiders already witnessed, humans and other Kalarians among others as yet unseen. Undead, drifting throughout the space like souls lost in a midnight sky.
Four kinds of life.
Four symbols.
Four sides to a door.
Infinite ways to die.
