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<blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 5610580" data-attributes="member: 12460"><p><strong><span style="font-size: 15px">Chapter 1, Part 2</span></strong></p><p>Presented with a daunting challenge, a journey into Jzadirune to find the missing children, and perhaps others, our heroes set about planning for the excursion carefully. After all, as they had been warned by Keygan, and as the good cleric, Vislor knew all too well, the former gnomish enclave was said to be a cursed place. It had been 75 years since the place was abandoned after the Vanishing claimed the lives of a number of gnomes. Vislor's own parents, though not gnomes themselves, had been residents of the place at the time and witnessed firsthand the terrible malady that is the Vanishing. The very thought of even entering the place caused him no small amount of trepidation. So our heroes went about ensuring their trip to Jzadirune would be a quick and efficient one. The mission was to find the missing children, and that was what they would do.</p><p></p><p>Several members of the party went out into the streets of Cauldron to see what information they could drudge up on Jzadirune. Some consulted libraries, others asked the locals. Everything they learned brought them back to the same conclusion: entering Jzadirune was a fool's errand. Yet the very existence of the skulks and their smaller allies, whom the party had yet to encounter, begged the question, could it be possible that the Vanishing had somehow come to lay dormant? It was a question to which that the party would have to seek an answer.</p><p></p><p>As it turned out, our heroes were not the only ones looking for missing townspeople. When the half-elven fighter and scion of House Lyrandar, Mordecai went in search of a master to begin teaching him the ways of arcane magic, he came upon a traveler to Cauldron who had come from Stormreach. The traveler called himself Tyro Amberhelm, and in exchange for teaching the half-elf the art of wizardry, he requested that along with the missing children, the half-elf go in search of a half-elf wizard named Elethor Ashstaff who had gone missing three weeks ago. Clearly the matter of disappearing people was beginning to grab the attention of more than just the Church of the Silver Flame. And so it was that the following day, Keygan opened the door in his back room leading down into Jzadirune, and our brave heroes descended into its depths, not knowing what they would find, but hoping that the kidnapped townsfolk could be found and their kidnappers brought to justice.</p><p></p><p>Armed with a map given to them by Keygan and the information they had obtained around town, the heroes began their journey. The long stairs descended down several flights and landings before coming to rest in a strange room where the chirping of birds and singing of gnomes could be heard. Clearly the result of gnomish illusion, this large room bore a number of masks crafted in the visage of smiling gnomes spaced evenly around the room. When one of the heroes stepped to close to one at the far corner, it opened its mouth, looked down upon him, and spoke this greeting:</p><p></p><p><em>"Welcome to Jzadirune--behold the wonder!</em></p><p><em>But beware, ye who seek to plunder.</em></p><p><em>Traps abound and guardians peer,</em></p><p><em>Beyond every portal, behind ever gear."</em></p><p></p><p>A magical warning laid long ago by the gnomes themselves, this greeting did little to ease the tension among the group. As they looked around the room they saw a passage to the west and two perfectly round doors to the south. Upon each door was engraved a letter in the dwarven script. The door to the southwest was closed and bore the dwarven letter "J." The door to the southeast however lay open, partially moved inside the wall as if it had rolled back. It bore the dwarven letter "A" and around its circumference were the teeth making the door appear to be a giant gear. Even curiouser, a faint light was emanating from inside the room. The group gathered around the door to investigate.</p><p></p><p>As the dwarf fighter, Grim, the half-elf fighter, Mordecai and the human scout, Valen crept slowly into the room to investigate the light, they were suddenly beset upon by attackers in the darkness, skulks! How many of them they could not initially tell, for the creatures were masked in unnatural shadow and struck fiercely and quickly from dark corners of the room. After inflicting a few painful jabs upon the intruders, Grim finally struck one of them with his axe, felling his foe to the ground. The other, for as it turned out there were only two, hastened away after his companion had fallen, rushing out of the room via a tunnel that had been bored into the wall in the south. Although the group tried to pursue the skulk, they quickly became lost as the tunnel winded and forked in several directions. There was no trace of tracks and so the search was given up.</p><p></p><p>The dying skulk was given a clean death and the group proceeded to search the room. Of interest first was that a second tunnel had been bored into the east wall as well. But it was long and dark and the group hesitated to explore it. The room itself appeared to have been once a barracks of sorts. There were many empty cots with similarly empty chests at their feet. This room had been picked clean by the skulks. The light that the group had seen had been created by a sunrod which lay in the center of the room. The party decided to make use of it, for in this dark place extra light seemed to be useful.</p><p></p><p>The tunnels that had been bored into the walls of the barracks room were dark and mysterious. Exploring them seemed to be a dangerous option. So the party decided to proceed down the hallway to the west of the main landing at which they had arrived in Jzadirune. After following the passage for thirty feet they arrived at a T intersection, one hallway going south, the other turning north. All along the hallway were various round doors with dwarven letters upon them. Z, D, N, I, and E were clustered in the north hallway and seemed to hold some promise for investigation, so the group headed that way. But the hallway dead-ended and none of the doors were open. Having seen earlier that the two doors in the main landing had magical wards upon them likely triggered if the doors were opened without the right key, something they had no idea how to acquire, the party decided to search the hallway thoroughly and discovered a secret passage leading north. Depressing a hidden pedal along the north wall caused a section of the wall to pivot around a central axis granting egress into some sort of alchemical lab.</p><p></p><p>The lab was in disarray, as if it had been sacked long ago. But there were some promising pieces of equipment lying around. Unfortunately, before the party could closely examine any of it, a pile of rags in the corner animated into a raging whirlwind and flung itself at Grim the dwarf. Surrounded by choking rags, the dwarf gagged and tried to free himself while his friends and allies attempted to strip off the rags or destroy them somehow with their weapons. But soon the rags had wrapped Grim so completely that he could hardly be seen and his countenance changed. He suddenly saw his allies as enemies and began swinging his axe at them indiscriminately. He was under the effect of some powerful mind-affecting magic.</p><p></p><p>"Why it's nothing but a common raggamoffyn!" exclaimed the human wizard Diego, but his knowledge of such creatures was limited. He had heard tales of magical constructs that take the form of common objects like clothes that can take the control of the minds of those that wear them and it seemed this was just such a creature. It was a great and pitched battle as Grim's friends attempted to strike down the creature without hurting their ally, but Grim barely managed to escape with his life. Between the raggamoffyn's choking grasp and some poorly-aimed strikes at the creature covering him by his allies, Grim was gravely wounded by the time the creature was destroyed.</p><p></p><p>Thankfully the magics of the Silver Flame were plentiful that day. After a short trip back to the surface to request assistance from Jenya, who was only too willing to heal Grim's wounds, as well as some other minor scrapes the group had endured thus far, the party was ready to return to Jzadirune.</p><p></p><p>They had made a careful examination of the lab after defeating the raggamoffyn and had taken many alchemical supplies as their booty as well as their very first key. It was engraved with a dwarven letter "U" on one end and they surmised that should they come upon a door with such a rune they could open it without setting off the magical ward. They had also noted a large fan above the room, likely used at one point to circulate the air of the noxious chemicals used in alchemy. In addition, they detected a tunnel had been bored into the west wall of this room as well. Clearly Jzadirune had been tunneled through all over. It quickly became evident that Keygan's map left much out. He had hinted there were secret passages all over that the map did not show and that the creatures that had recently taken up residence might have made some modifications. It was now clear that this was indeed the case. A thorough search of the room revealed another secret passage on the north wall of the lab, and it was decided that this would be the group's next heading.</p><p></p><p>The secret passage led to a hallway heading east and west containing several gears that could be activated by levers along the walls. Activating the lever nearest the secret door they had entered by caused the fan in the alchemical lab to spin. Those with magical inclinations in the party surmised that bound elementals were likely the power source for these mighty fan contraptions, but the two westernmost contraptions had been scavenged for parts, and its elementals possibly let free. On the east end of the hallway was a sturdy wooden barricade that seemed to have been constructed from their side; the group thought it best to leave it be.</p><p></p><p>Rather than follow the hallway west, they followed yet another secret passage they discovered on the north side of the hall. It led to a secret library that had been infested with monstrous centipedes. The heroes made short work of the centipedes and investigated the room. It also held a fan and many shelves where one imagined books might once have stayed. But the books were now gone, and the tunnel on the west wall of this library hinted at the notion that the library had been long-since plundered. Still, the keen eyes of the human scout, Valen discovered yet another secret passage on the east wall, and it was there the party searched next.</p><p></p><p>The secret passage led to an octagonal sort of classroom with a lectern, benches, and a chalkboard on the southern wall. Another hole was seen bored into the north wall, but little else of interest was discovered in the room besides a few pieces of chalk. A round doorway with the dwarven letter "I" stood on the east wall, but it was unopened.</p><p></p><p>The heroes backtracked to the hallway with the gears and decided to head west. At the end of the hall they found a room with smashed tables and chairs littering the floor. Two enormous inactive fans hung from the ceiling, but the most interesting object in the room was a massive thing, over five feet tall, covered in a large cloth in the center. Uncovering the cloth revealed an incredible masterwork of artifice. A quadrupedal machine with large drills for arms. It seemed the heroes had discovered the means of all this tunneling. The wizard, Diego, being obsessed with all things mechanical rushed over to examine the gnomish words upon the thing, and said aloud the first words he found written, "Thrymbryl," which of course is gnomish for "Activate." The machine roared to life and turned to Diego as if expecting instructions. The thing was an automaton, more specifically known as a pulverizer, an ancient creation forged using patterns discovered among the ruins of Xen'Drik. The originals had been creations of the giants, but here was one quite possibly crafted by the gnomes of Jzadirune using the giant patterns. It was damaged, and not quite up to its full potential, and it had a penchant for failing to follow instructions perfectly, but it would prove to be a useful tool in the coming trials.</p><p></p><p>Although there was a tunnel leading north out of this room, to the south was a passage with stairs leading up. Still feeling wary of the tunnels, the group proceeded up the stairs, which led to a winding hallway which eventually brought them to a round door with the dwarven letter "Z." Clearly though, someone had already encountered a similar difficulty, and a tunnel had been bored into the west wall of the hallway here, as if to go around the door through the rock. True to their theories, the tunnel did indeed wind back around and into the room beyond the Z door. Therein they found a tortuous thing. In a workshop with a partially constructed pulverizer a skulk which had been dominated by a raggamoffyn leaped from the shadows to attack. It fought fiercely and was a challenging foe to overcome. In inflicted great harm upon Grim and Mordecai before finally succumbing to their blades, but in the end, succumb it did. And what should they find in this room but a door with the dwarven letter "U" upon it. Finally a door they could open!</p><p></p><p>Beyond this door was a magnificent throne room upon which rested a slumbering gnome. When the heroes attempted to rouse the gnome, he only muttered in his sleep:</p><p></p><p><em>"Betrayed we are by our own magic,</em></p><p><em>One by one we fade away--</em></p><p><em>Jzadirune's lost! Oh, how tragic!</em></p><p><em>We curse the vanishing day."</em></p><p></p><p>Before the throne was a two-tiered stairway with a landing in the middle. At the bottom of the stairway along the east wall was a door with the dwarven letter "I" and to the south side of it another tunnel had been bored. Mordecai couldn't help but investigate the landing, as he noticed a gnome-face mask looking out towards the door to the east. When he stepped on the landing, the mask sprung to life saying, "If you wish an audience with the king, place your finest coin in my mouth."</p><p></p><p>He placed a gold coin in the mask's mouth and it vanished. Curious to his own detriment, he triggered the mouth again by walking up the stairs then back down. The mouth repeated its saying, but this time, Mordecai foolishly placed a copper coin in its mouth. "Miser!" the mouth cried, "What a paltry tribute! I curse you with clumsiness!"</p><p></p><p>Dark magic enveloped Mordecai, but the half-elf fighter was lucky that day and his will was strong this moment. He shook off the magic, but not without great strain. He hopped back up the stairs, content to trifle with the mask no more. As it turns out, a secret compartment in the throne was found to contain 75 gold coins of gnomish mint, as well as Mordecai's coins, plus two more keys, these engraved with the runes of the letters N and E. Now the party was getting somewhere.</p><p></p><p>Along the south wall of the throne room was a door with the dwarven letter "N" upon it. Having just discovered the key, the party used it to open the door without incident and proceeded into the chamber beyond. The next room was rather long and rather bare. Two short flights of stairs led up from the east to wide octagonal gallery. Although there were many pedestals about the room and indications there had once been tapestries upon the walls, these treasures had long since left the room, taken by the gnomes as they left, or perhaps plundered by the skulks. The south wall of the room had a door with the dwarven letter "J" upon it, so further progress in this direction seemed to be stymied. Still, Valen the scout nosed about and turned up a secret passageway along the southeast wall. It led to a secret vault that first appeared to be empty, but upon further inspection was discovered to merely be concealed by powerful illusory magic. Beneath the illusion was a great treasure trove of gnomish art!</p><p></p><p>By this point our heroes were very tired. They had delved far and explored long. It was time for a trip back to the surface the way they had come to recover their strength and heal their wounds.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="airwalkrr, post: 5610580, member: 12460"] [B][SIZE="4"]Chapter 1, Part 2[/SIZE][/B] Presented with a daunting challenge, a journey into Jzadirune to find the missing children, and perhaps others, our heroes set about planning for the excursion carefully. After all, as they had been warned by Keygan, and as the good cleric, Vislor knew all too well, the former gnomish enclave was said to be a cursed place. It had been 75 years since the place was abandoned after the Vanishing claimed the lives of a number of gnomes. Vislor's own parents, though not gnomes themselves, had been residents of the place at the time and witnessed firsthand the terrible malady that is the Vanishing. The very thought of even entering the place caused him no small amount of trepidation. So our heroes went about ensuring their trip to Jzadirune would be a quick and efficient one. The mission was to find the missing children, and that was what they would do. Several members of the party went out into the streets of Cauldron to see what information they could drudge up on Jzadirune. Some consulted libraries, others asked the locals. Everything they learned brought them back to the same conclusion: entering Jzadirune was a fool's errand. Yet the very existence of the skulks and their smaller allies, whom the party had yet to encounter, begged the question, could it be possible that the Vanishing had somehow come to lay dormant? It was a question to which that the party would have to seek an answer. As it turned out, our heroes were not the only ones looking for missing townspeople. When the half-elven fighter and scion of House Lyrandar, Mordecai went in search of a master to begin teaching him the ways of arcane magic, he came upon a traveler to Cauldron who had come from Stormreach. The traveler called himself Tyro Amberhelm, and in exchange for teaching the half-elf the art of wizardry, he requested that along with the missing children, the half-elf go in search of a half-elf wizard named Elethor Ashstaff who had gone missing three weeks ago. Clearly the matter of disappearing people was beginning to grab the attention of more than just the Church of the Silver Flame. And so it was that the following day, Keygan opened the door in his back room leading down into Jzadirune, and our brave heroes descended into its depths, not knowing what they would find, but hoping that the kidnapped townsfolk could be found and their kidnappers brought to justice. Armed with a map given to them by Keygan and the information they had obtained around town, the heroes began their journey. The long stairs descended down several flights and landings before coming to rest in a strange room where the chirping of birds and singing of gnomes could be heard. Clearly the result of gnomish illusion, this large room bore a number of masks crafted in the visage of smiling gnomes spaced evenly around the room. When one of the heroes stepped to close to one at the far corner, it opened its mouth, looked down upon him, and spoke this greeting: [I]"Welcome to Jzadirune--behold the wonder! But beware, ye who seek to plunder. Traps abound and guardians peer, Beyond every portal, behind ever gear."[/I] A magical warning laid long ago by the gnomes themselves, this greeting did little to ease the tension among the group. As they looked around the room they saw a passage to the west and two perfectly round doors to the south. Upon each door was engraved a letter in the dwarven script. The door to the southwest was closed and bore the dwarven letter "J." The door to the southeast however lay open, partially moved inside the wall as if it had rolled back. It bore the dwarven letter "A" and around its circumference were the teeth making the door appear to be a giant gear. Even curiouser, a faint light was emanating from inside the room. The group gathered around the door to investigate. As the dwarf fighter, Grim, the half-elf fighter, Mordecai and the human scout, Valen crept slowly into the room to investigate the light, they were suddenly beset upon by attackers in the darkness, skulks! How many of them they could not initially tell, for the creatures were masked in unnatural shadow and struck fiercely and quickly from dark corners of the room. After inflicting a few painful jabs upon the intruders, Grim finally struck one of them with his axe, felling his foe to the ground. The other, for as it turned out there were only two, hastened away after his companion had fallen, rushing out of the room via a tunnel that had been bored into the wall in the south. Although the group tried to pursue the skulk, they quickly became lost as the tunnel winded and forked in several directions. There was no trace of tracks and so the search was given up. The dying skulk was given a clean death and the group proceeded to search the room. Of interest first was that a second tunnel had been bored into the east wall as well. But it was long and dark and the group hesitated to explore it. The room itself appeared to have been once a barracks of sorts. There were many empty cots with similarly empty chests at their feet. This room had been picked clean by the skulks. The light that the group had seen had been created by a sunrod which lay in the center of the room. The party decided to make use of it, for in this dark place extra light seemed to be useful. The tunnels that had been bored into the walls of the barracks room were dark and mysterious. Exploring them seemed to be a dangerous option. So the party decided to proceed down the hallway to the west of the main landing at which they had arrived in Jzadirune. After following the passage for thirty feet they arrived at a T intersection, one hallway going south, the other turning north. All along the hallway were various round doors with dwarven letters upon them. Z, D, N, I, and E were clustered in the north hallway and seemed to hold some promise for investigation, so the group headed that way. But the hallway dead-ended and none of the doors were open. Having seen earlier that the two doors in the main landing had magical wards upon them likely triggered if the doors were opened without the right key, something they had no idea how to acquire, the party decided to search the hallway thoroughly and discovered a secret passage leading north. Depressing a hidden pedal along the north wall caused a section of the wall to pivot around a central axis granting egress into some sort of alchemical lab. The lab was in disarray, as if it had been sacked long ago. But there were some promising pieces of equipment lying around. Unfortunately, before the party could closely examine any of it, a pile of rags in the corner animated into a raging whirlwind and flung itself at Grim the dwarf. Surrounded by choking rags, the dwarf gagged and tried to free himself while his friends and allies attempted to strip off the rags or destroy them somehow with their weapons. But soon the rags had wrapped Grim so completely that he could hardly be seen and his countenance changed. He suddenly saw his allies as enemies and began swinging his axe at them indiscriminately. He was under the effect of some powerful mind-affecting magic. "Why it's nothing but a common raggamoffyn!" exclaimed the human wizard Diego, but his knowledge of such creatures was limited. He had heard tales of magical constructs that take the form of common objects like clothes that can take the control of the minds of those that wear them and it seemed this was just such a creature. It was a great and pitched battle as Grim's friends attempted to strike down the creature without hurting their ally, but Grim barely managed to escape with his life. Between the raggamoffyn's choking grasp and some poorly-aimed strikes at the creature covering him by his allies, Grim was gravely wounded by the time the creature was destroyed. Thankfully the magics of the Silver Flame were plentiful that day. After a short trip back to the surface to request assistance from Jenya, who was only too willing to heal Grim's wounds, as well as some other minor scrapes the group had endured thus far, the party was ready to return to Jzadirune. They had made a careful examination of the lab after defeating the raggamoffyn and had taken many alchemical supplies as their booty as well as their very first key. It was engraved with a dwarven letter "U" on one end and they surmised that should they come upon a door with such a rune they could open it without setting off the magical ward. They had also noted a large fan above the room, likely used at one point to circulate the air of the noxious chemicals used in alchemy. In addition, they detected a tunnel had been bored into the west wall of this room as well. Clearly Jzadirune had been tunneled through all over. It quickly became evident that Keygan's map left much out. He had hinted there were secret passages all over that the map did not show and that the creatures that had recently taken up residence might have made some modifications. It was now clear that this was indeed the case. A thorough search of the room revealed another secret passage on the north wall of the lab, and it was decided that this would be the group's next heading. The secret passage led to a hallway heading east and west containing several gears that could be activated by levers along the walls. Activating the lever nearest the secret door they had entered by caused the fan in the alchemical lab to spin. Those with magical inclinations in the party surmised that bound elementals were likely the power source for these mighty fan contraptions, but the two westernmost contraptions had been scavenged for parts, and its elementals possibly let free. On the east end of the hallway was a sturdy wooden barricade that seemed to have been constructed from their side; the group thought it best to leave it be. Rather than follow the hallway west, they followed yet another secret passage they discovered on the north side of the hall. It led to a secret library that had been infested with monstrous centipedes. The heroes made short work of the centipedes and investigated the room. It also held a fan and many shelves where one imagined books might once have stayed. But the books were now gone, and the tunnel on the west wall of this library hinted at the notion that the library had been long-since plundered. Still, the keen eyes of the human scout, Valen discovered yet another secret passage on the east wall, and it was there the party searched next. The secret passage led to an octagonal sort of classroom with a lectern, benches, and a chalkboard on the southern wall. Another hole was seen bored into the north wall, but little else of interest was discovered in the room besides a few pieces of chalk. A round doorway with the dwarven letter "I" stood on the east wall, but it was unopened. The heroes backtracked to the hallway with the gears and decided to head west. At the end of the hall they found a room with smashed tables and chairs littering the floor. Two enormous inactive fans hung from the ceiling, but the most interesting object in the room was a massive thing, over five feet tall, covered in a large cloth in the center. Uncovering the cloth revealed an incredible masterwork of artifice. A quadrupedal machine with large drills for arms. It seemed the heroes had discovered the means of all this tunneling. The wizard, Diego, being obsessed with all things mechanical rushed over to examine the gnomish words upon the thing, and said aloud the first words he found written, "Thrymbryl," which of course is gnomish for "Activate." The machine roared to life and turned to Diego as if expecting instructions. The thing was an automaton, more specifically known as a pulverizer, an ancient creation forged using patterns discovered among the ruins of Xen'Drik. The originals had been creations of the giants, but here was one quite possibly crafted by the gnomes of Jzadirune using the giant patterns. It was damaged, and not quite up to its full potential, and it had a penchant for failing to follow instructions perfectly, but it would prove to be a useful tool in the coming trials. Although there was a tunnel leading north out of this room, to the south was a passage with stairs leading up. Still feeling wary of the tunnels, the group proceeded up the stairs, which led to a winding hallway which eventually brought them to a round door with the dwarven letter "Z." Clearly though, someone had already encountered a similar difficulty, and a tunnel had been bored into the west wall of the hallway here, as if to go around the door through the rock. True to their theories, the tunnel did indeed wind back around and into the room beyond the Z door. Therein they found a tortuous thing. In a workshop with a partially constructed pulverizer a skulk which had been dominated by a raggamoffyn leaped from the shadows to attack. It fought fiercely and was a challenging foe to overcome. In inflicted great harm upon Grim and Mordecai before finally succumbing to their blades, but in the end, succumb it did. And what should they find in this room but a door with the dwarven letter "U" upon it. Finally a door they could open! Beyond this door was a magnificent throne room upon which rested a slumbering gnome. When the heroes attempted to rouse the gnome, he only muttered in his sleep: [I]"Betrayed we are by our own magic, One by one we fade away-- Jzadirune's lost! Oh, how tragic! We curse the vanishing day."[/I] Before the throne was a two-tiered stairway with a landing in the middle. At the bottom of the stairway along the east wall was a door with the dwarven letter "I" and to the south side of it another tunnel had been bored. Mordecai couldn't help but investigate the landing, as he noticed a gnome-face mask looking out towards the door to the east. When he stepped on the landing, the mask sprung to life saying, "If you wish an audience with the king, place your finest coin in my mouth." He placed a gold coin in the mask's mouth and it vanished. Curious to his own detriment, he triggered the mouth again by walking up the stairs then back down. The mouth repeated its saying, but this time, Mordecai foolishly placed a copper coin in its mouth. "Miser!" the mouth cried, "What a paltry tribute! I curse you with clumsiness!" Dark magic enveloped Mordecai, but the half-elf fighter was lucky that day and his will was strong this moment. He shook off the magic, but not without great strain. He hopped back up the stairs, content to trifle with the mask no more. As it turns out, a secret compartment in the throne was found to contain 75 gold coins of gnomish mint, as well as Mordecai's coins, plus two more keys, these engraved with the runes of the letters N and E. Now the party was getting somewhere. Along the south wall of the throne room was a door with the dwarven letter "N" upon it. Having just discovered the key, the party used it to open the door without incident and proceeded into the chamber beyond. The next room was rather long and rather bare. Two short flights of stairs led up from the east to wide octagonal gallery. Although there were many pedestals about the room and indications there had once been tapestries upon the walls, these treasures had long since left the room, taken by the gnomes as they left, or perhaps plundered by the skulks. The south wall of the room had a door with the dwarven letter "J" upon it, so further progress in this direction seemed to be stymied. Still, Valen the scout nosed about and turned up a secret passageway along the southeast wall. It led to a secret vault that first appeared to be empty, but upon further inspection was discovered to merely be concealed by powerful illusory magic. Beneath the illusion was a great treasure trove of gnomish art! By this point our heroes were very tired. They had delved far and explored long. It was time for a trip back to the surface the way they had come to recover their strength and heal their wounds. [/QUOTE]
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