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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lwaxy" data-source="post: 5838096" data-attributes="member: 53286">The Beggar's (Thieves) Pearl/Tower of the Last BaronBjön's Pathfinder Diary, 25th of NethIt seems that nothing is ever going according to plan, but that is what my elders in the order had warned me about all the time. We stepped into a bright, cold day in front of a sturdy hut with smoke rising from the chimney. Some winter birds were singing, and it really looked all peaceful. We walked on, talking about our plans and thought it would work all out now. That was until the dwarf lady came running from the hut, eyes going wide when she saw us. It was clear that we were not what she had been expecting to see. The dwarf was the mother of Torvic, the Pathfinder we came to see. As it turned out, he had been missing for some time now, and she had caught a thieving gnome trying to break into the hut. The gnome had thought it empty, because he had seen Torvic at a camp and stole a heirloom from him. The dwarf lady still had the gnome locked up in the basement. Never fool with a dwarven sorcerer, especially if she is worried about her son. The stolen heirloom was a gleaming pearl which was in the family for a long time, a key of sorts she said. She had also recovered a few scrolls from the thief which detailed a so-called Gallery of Wonders, something her son had been looking for. Related to their family history, of course. A dwarf always wants to know more about the family! I agreed to investigate Torvic's whereabouts without consulting my companion. Teltz seemed a bit annoyed, but didn't say anything as we left immediately to follow the woman's directions to the camp. She wanted to come along, but someone needed to watch the thief, and she was nursing a nasty cold and would probably have trouble with her spells. She gave us a few scrolls though. We found the empty encampment easily enough. It must have been empty for a few days. I was about to ask Teltz for a divination, when we heard the sounds of a fight coming from a nearby cave. There was a plume of smoke over the cave, too. We rushed over, as much as rushing worked in the deep snow, and found a group of mites fighting what looked to be Torvic. Large boughs blocked the entrance to the cave, but Teltz did some sort of shattering song that blasted them all apart. Once we dealt with the mites, we woke the by now unconscious Torvic. We had arrived just in tie, it seemed, to rescue him. He was confused, disoriented, and didn't remember much about anything, he didn't even know who his mother was or if he knew us or not. He was grateful though. He had also lost track of time, believing it was about a month ago when he first left to find his ancestral secrets. We brought him back to his mother, and tried to figure out the whole story. He was going on about how he had been to this Gallery of Wonders, and implied he had met someone dangerous there. He told us to never sleep if we were to go there, although he could not tell us why. His mother managed to calm him down, but despiute suffering from sleep deprivation, he wouldn't sleep. This was most curious. I knew I had to find out what was going on, and not only for knowledge's sake. If there was some evil in these mountains, so close to the next town, it had to be eradicated. Teltz kept pointing out how we were ill equipped to deal with anything, especially as the dwarf lady had to stay with her son. But it had to be done if there was any salvation for this family. We left to find this gallery the next day. The descriptions of the addled dwarf proved good enough. After some hours in light snow and cold wind – and a constantly complaining dwarf who already had expended some of his magic on a song to warm us up – we reached the well hidden entrance at the end of a long ledge of worked stone at the bottom of a pass that was way too treacherous for my liking. The art of my people was still visible on the ledge. The outlined secret door was opened with an easily deducted phrase from the reliefs on the ledge and the scrolls from Torvic.Someone had cultivated a strange sort of fungi in those caves the door led to, glowing in the approaching dark and not exactly smelling pleasant. We didn't want to press on, so we will spent the night here in the trap room obviously designed for the door in case someone wouldn't know the phrase. Teltz has set a ward, so we can both sleep. Bjön's Pathfinder Diary, 26th of NethThis has been a frustrating day. After finding nothing but a temple the recent inhabitants obviously fear, slippery mold and fungi, partly in cultivation rooms but also everywhere else, and a bunch of grotesquely fungizised ants we finally found the former forge and workroom. Teltz fell and knocked his head when a beam came down. This roused a few more mites we had to deal with. Then we found the prisoners. There were 3 of them, exploration mates of Torvic. They had been locked in the storeroom after being tortured, and the strange fungus was used to torment them further. All 3 are helpless and confused, much like Torvic has been. We now have an idea what happened to Torvic.  We could not go on with them, nor leave them, so we brought them to the temple. The place is still sacred and no one seems to dare to come in, so they should be safe while we went to find the lab the woman, Lyrehawk, talked of and the one who did those experiments on them. They weren't clear on the details, understandably. But we will soon saw.We found the lab in the former library. Beyond a curtain of sticky yellow filaments, the corridor opened to reveal a bizarre chamber. Glowing fungi bathed the chamber  in  dim  blue  light, revealing  dozens  of  incomprehensible devices and texts heaped atop tables and shelves. Half torture chamber,  half  alchemical laboratory, one table  held the  dissected remains of a mountain goat, surrounded by blood-spattered parchments covered in cryptic notes and drawings. Strange wires projected from the goat’s remains, connected to odd-looking metallic boxes. It was the weirdest and most revolting thing I had seen in my life – although I am sure there will be worse to come if I grow old in this calling. We met a blue skinned humanoid - and his orc and goblin assistants -  of distinct ugliness there; the twisted picture of a scientist appeared to be quite mad. I didn't know what he was, but the bard identified him as an underground race called derro. Before I could do anything, he had either charmed the little bastard or something else, because he seemed to talk to him quite normally, at least normal for talking with mad scientists. Teltz claimed to have found a dead Torvic and said he was very interested in the derro's attempts to remove sleep, even going as far to claim that was why we had come here. They all didn't know what a paladin was, it seemed, or they would have noticed Desna's symbol on me, and would have also known there was no way I would aid any such experiments. Turns out Tnarat – that was his name – serves someone called Lady Morilaeth. It is still unclear what exactly that woman is, besides evil. But she can control dreams, or bring them to life, I am not sure what exactly. This is the reason for the experiments. The derro, for all they supposedly revere her, are also scared of her and want to escape her nightmares. That, I can understand. I saw a side on Teltz which deeply astonished me. The plight of the derro as a whole – a race forced underground by their sensitivity to light, plagued by an inborn madness they can't shake and thus driven to evil – seemed to affect him beyond what I would expect of any man serving the light. I had the impression that, given there would be anything to redeem the race, he would not hesitate to do so. He tried hard enough to keep this hidden, but I could see it clearly. I know I would gladly help him achieve this goal, too. Whatever god created such a race should vanish from the worlds forever. Then we heard the music drifting down the stairs. We were told that's the lady, and the screams we heard were from the attendance of her ball. It was clear that the derro was not happy about the noise, as it confused him in his research. I was waiting for a while as Telz exchanged notes with the scientist. Some of them, I later learned, he had gathered a long time ago when he and his former party had killed another mad scientists doing drug research. Tnarat was very excited about this, and his assistants recovered some texts and information for the bard, too. Among those were, as I later learned, valuable ancient dwarf texts. We learned the lady partied a lot, and that not all the derro partaking survived those events thanks to a drug they were using to get high. Teltz said he would be back and disappeared upstairs, before I could argue about it. Now the derro asked about me and what I did with the "sage from above," meaning the bard of course. I didn't know what else to say, so I said I was his assistant and bodyguard. Every scientist, after all, needed an assistant. He understood that and went on about his research. I had to think of other things while claiming to listen as to not to retch right there and then. Derro might be victims of their own existence, but that does not make their deeds and views any less vile. Teltz returned after a short while, describing the lady and her ball as totally whack. Supposedly, the woman was in all white make up on the throne, slightly looking like an elf but also like some sort of monster. I do not really want to know what nightmarish union she has sprung from, or I will be forced to feel some sort of pity for her. Teltz described a pendant she had, and I recognized it as a holy symbol of the vile Lamashtu. We were then told that, usually, the party upstairs would last several hours, and at the end the thing calling itself a lady would return to the bedroom she had made for herself in the former attenndace room behind the throne. We offered to remove the lady one and for all, which would allow the derro and mites to return to their former home the lady had dragged them from. They agreed with almost childish glee. So, now we are waiting for the party to end and that woman to go to bed. A sleeping foe is an easier to kill foe, although this somewhat goes against my sense of honor. There is no honor in a cleric of Lamashtu, though, so I'm fine with the plan. Bjön's Pathfinder Diary, 26th of NethThis was almost too easy. Whatever dreams this vile woman had turned into nightmares as she slept – her specialty, we had been assured – we did not allow her to wake from it. She almost tricked us even sleeping though, as she appeared to be already dead. A trick, and a useful one, no doubt. If not for Teltz, I would have considered it to be a lucky day not to have to kill anything and left. Teltz,. To be on the sure side, set her on fire. He thinks this has trapped her spirit in the dream or nightmare realm, or as he calls it, the dreamscape. He mumbled something about having to go back there for her later. He didn't answer when I asked him what that was about. He sure has his secrets. Bjön's Pathfinder Diary, 5th of KuthonaIt was not easy to return with 3 confused, injured, traumatized strangers. We lost 4 days in the wintery mountains when we should have taken no longer than a full day. At one point, we got attacked by bears who thought we were easy prey, and they were almost right. It turned out that Jelja, Torvic's mother, had called in some priests of Iomedae to assist with her son. She agreed to have the others stay as well. The place sure is big enough. That leaves us taking the gnome with us, who does not want to stay. Well, there is safety in numbers, although 3 is still a pretty small number. I would have loved to stay a few more days to talk with the dwarf emissaries about reclaiming the mountains, but of course, my companion wants to press on. Yes, the gnome. Lerrim. I am not sure what to make of him. He might be a thief but he is not of the evil type, I checked that first. He hates devils with a passion, that is, at least, what we gathered on the road to Piren's Bluff. Something that happened in Cheliax and the reason he had been up in the mountains, trying to only survive, as he puts it. The closer we got to the small fortified town at the only pass through the mountain, the less tense he got. Now that we are here, he has decided to stick with us, probably due to the lack of accommodations. The whole area is snowed in, we barely made it here. We will not leave anytime soon and Teltz is in a bad mood about it. The only tavern in town was filled to the rim, so we and a few other more religious folk have been sent to camp in the old temple of Aroden, which is tended by a senile elf priest. A shame, really, he is fighting a lost war against time, with the temple and himself. But he is friendly enough to welcome us all. The mood in town is strange, somehow subdued, but this might be just because of the especially hard winter.</blockquote>

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