Legacy of Death Part II: Graves of Lesser Immortals

Reminders: around the elevated map room...

About 20 minutes earlier (so your charecters should still remember)

Ghen searching around the map room, was acting a bit odd...and a sudden moment of extreme perception (roll of 20) he say somewhere else.

Suddenly, you find yourself within a desolate wasteland. You are alone. Dust blows around your feet and swirls about a number of broken statues made of chipped and pitted marble. The sky above is black and empty of stars, and the air brushes your skin with a chill that is as much emotional as physical, bringing you a sense of unrelenting loss.

Even as you quickly take this scene in, it's gone, replaced by the familiar faces of your companions and the sounds of the Garden of Graves.

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Then in map room itself

The structure's eastern half is mostly empty. In its center stands a table with miniature terrain elements laid out upon it. You recognize the building you're in, which means that most of the map must show the top of the cliff. No buildings are depicted, only a complex system of pathways, which run between scores of stone “cairns” (grey stone piles that could, say, cover a corpse, or at least that is one guess from looking at the map).

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Then, the view from the room (you went north) and Nar's questions.

TerraDave said:

You make it up the stairs.



You see two additional exits. Each leads to a rope bridge. One goes north. The other goes back west, and hence probably by the sleepy obelisk (OoC: again, this is probably on the map attached above).

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TerraDave said:

Nar-Heru: you are confident that what is represented are many piles of stones (again, the cairns) that are used to cover graves. This one building (on the map) was used for planning or locating burials, and for ceromonial purposes. Of course, if you follow Buckthorn out the north, you may notice something else...about the map and hence the garden...

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And even earlier...

TerraDave said:

(See OoC at end of post!)

On the 7th day of the 3rd month of 545, they arrive in the forrest. It lives up to its name. Clear light and sharp contrast followed by eery mists. Deep woods and vegatation that can barely be seen through by meadows and widely spaced trees towering far into the sky. A sense of both age and youthful vigor somehow coexist.

They look for signs, and Ghen sees the first, out of place ribonlike cloth, one after another…



Lucian goes first.



They have passed deeper into the Aether.

......The maiden’s then rise up, and join the attack, their sudden great woody claws revealing a druidic nature. Still not exactly an expected enemy. ...

When they do die, the harpies and dryads somehow reanimate and become sickly grey mist oozing undead, fighting on for a bit longer. Of course, some don’t die, they just flee instead. ...
Forge—Forge?!—takes the initiative to capture one. She confirms she is of the forest, lies badly, finally reverts to druid form, and then says something about ivy…and that there is no hope. Even Ghen attacking a tree does not get more out of her. She is left tied to that rock.
....

That night, a head appears in the campfire of the party. It looks incredulously about, and begins an introduction in fits and starts, perhaps surprised by who he sees. Ghen and Lucian, and mostly Ghen, are having none of it, insisting the head get on with whatever it has to say. This not appreciated, and it vanishes.

....

The next day, Ghen feels like he is being followed…but he can’t really tell by what. Lucian hangs back. A big gnarly tree walks by him. ...


That night, the head reappears. The Gray Elf Paelias is more careful with his wording and gets right to the point, congratulating them in surviving the treant, noting he is from somewhere called the Quit Hall, and offering them a reward for cleaning the fey burial ground of its corruption.

Now they just need to get to it. Ghen calls forth a raven, a veritable paragon of its species, and as the bird appears, Ghen knows to say to it “Garden of Graves”. About 50 miles from the Faery crossing, they are led to it.

High on an enormous ridge dark stone, the path winds to a dark tunnel. The rush of running water can be heard.

As you approach the tunnel into the ridge, something is chiseled into the stone and bits of broken stone lying about. Nar translates from the Elven, revealing a poem in common…

Count you the shadows, watch the sun,
The wise know where they stand;
While knowing not the time to shun,
The fools must find themselves undone.

Like lusiful swain or panicked child
Who beg another's gentle hand,
The fool delves heedless through the wild.
The wise are not so soon beguiled.

When darkness falls and dreams portend
The rising of a fearsome foe,
The fool, swift-striking, meets his end,
The wise know foe from friend.

Let art and image point the way,
Abandon all you think you know,
For common sense leads fool astray.
The key is simply this: Obey.

The wise must ever strategize;
They never play, unless to win.
They see the harm in comfort's lies,
And seek to open weary eyes.

You've fought your way, you've risked demise,
To view the ivy heart within.
Now as the soul within you dies,
This knowledge is your only prize:
You'd never have come, were you truly wise.

.......



One path leads north, and one path east.

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Sorry, may not make a difference now, but to be clear on earlier post, Buckthorn was moving 4 squares total, 2 up, 2 left to stand to the right of Ghen and southeast of Forge in case that helps.

Just so you know

I'm not trying to be trite. I AM brain damaged. While the sunglasses aren't subtle, most of the rest of it is. I really do have issues with geospatial relation (among other things that are definitively right-brained functions), so I ask your indulgence with matters such as this. General stuff I can handle, but fine detail sometimes eludes me.

In spite of an appearance of the seventh swarm, Forge being knocked out, and Ghen tapping out his healing, the swarms are defeated, with some help from the freed Grey Elf. She is thankful, but skeptical of anyone who would subject themselves to all this. “This is all part of some great trap, to use greed and lure adventurers into their death, over and over again” (or at least that is what she meant to say). She then steps into the Aether, returning to her fey enclave.

The sundial is inspected. The dial is even stopped! At 2 pm. But then let go again.

A room of many tapestries is entered. One shows a key, a locked door, and a shocked tiefling rogue. Perhaps unable to resist the likeness, Lucian touches the key to the tapestry, first the cloth key, then the cloth lock. A great “click” sound is heard in the distance.




Behind another tapestry is a torch in the center of the room, and numbers, 1-12, on a curved wall. First in bronze, then in dark iron. Like possible a sundial…at least when Forge stands in between the wall and torch. The shadow is dark and clear. And fortunately, the elf calculates the correct time. This opened door happens to be nearer the party, and they proceed through it.


Just before they leave, Forge takes a tapestry, and stuffs into the bag of holding.

Murmuring voices draw the party to a richly appointed room, with no speakers. Instead there are game tables, and everyone but Lucian is sucked into games with unseen opponents. A coin to a few heads and some luck and skill bring them out. But not after paying for the play with psychic damage.

They finally rest in the tapestry room (after what may be record number of encounters). In the night, a banshee looking to share her pain appears. But the wizards barrier against fey keeps it at bay.

They enter a dimly lit and oddly shaped room. Then, after sudden darkness, deadly duplicates attack! One for each party member! Ally hits ally (well, at least a few times) and Ghen is worried about healing an enemy. Then all seems won with a simple dispel, and Buckthorn riddles the quickling that appeared as him with arrows even as Forge locks his giant-souled double into a futile slugfest. But the sprigan arcanists that appeared as Nar-Heru and Ghen strike back, joined by the other Lucian looking quickling. Even when killed, like the dryads and harpy’s before them, the fey leap back up, now undead, and continue the mayhem. Nar-Heru comes seconds within death. Eventually, the tied does turn, as two of the fey flee and the rest die at last.



A quickling

The room is searched and Forge then pulls a lever. With unknown results. They continue.

An underground network is found. It leads back to the opening (by the cave with the three statues), the game room, and a strange cluster of rooms. Here, they seem to leave the fey Aether and enter an old and abandoned part of dungeon.

First

You're standing in an uneven cave that has a broken stone floor. In the cave's center, a broken ring of stone surrounds a shallow pool of filthy, stagnant water.

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Then

A few bits of broken stone suggest that this wide hall was once divided into two parts. Around the corner, where a narrower hallway juts to a dead end, you can see a few bits of old mechanisms protruding from the wall

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Then

This room must once have been magnificent. The ceiling is coated in a thin layer of silver, but it has grown tarnished and chipped, and is now all but worthless. The floor is agate, but also worn down and chipped by time. Bits of broken stone that were once statues and sarcophagi litter the chamber; you can make out a tiny bit of a face and a few fingers of a hand in different sections, but there's not enough left to identify what they once symbolized.

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They come to exits that lead back to the Fey domain. The one they take returns them to the opening by the river with two dark obelisks. (See map, you are standing outside what looks like a large building, indicated by “wall” on the map).

Nar-Heru also has visions, as Ghen did before.

Suddenly, you find yourself within a desolate wasteland. Dust blows around your feet and swirls about a number of broken statues made of chipped and pitted marble. The sky above is black and empty of stars, and the air brushes your skin with a chill that is as much emotional as physical, bringing you a sense of unrelenting loss.

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You're no longer standing in the world-where you were. The passages around are now made of rough-hewn rock, apparently dug directly through the earth. The floor is worn smooth. Along the walls farther ahead of you, a series of images was once painted, but they have largely worn away; you can make out, at most, a few vaguely humanoid figures. There's a sense of emptiness around you-the peculiar feeling that whatever life and magic once flowed through this place are long gone.

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Examining the map, Forge suggests reentering the cave we just left and going out the door in room 21.

Any special precautions, does Lucian go first, etc?

I would assume so unless anyone else feels otherwise. Usual formation with Lucien ahead out of light source and us following (F,B,N,G).

Lovebirds...

We're fine with that order, right my love? Of course, never you mind up front what we're doing back here. A little smooching never hurt morale, right?

[While smooching the air next to him, a pair of wings seem to shoot out and crackle with energy.]