Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gina" data-source="post: 1497126" data-attributes="member: 10990">Session 26: We meet a new friend...June 29th  The Trials of Alder’s Look: After the Mystery of PurityWe had discovered the Mystery of Purity, studied the copper disc, and spent the night grieving our lost companion. Riva was our friend and his loss weighs heavy on our minds. We discussed whether it was better to leave or to stay and work our way through the mysteries. In the end, we decided to continue on and leave if we found that we were in over our heads. We discussed the disc at length, disagreeing about what some symbols might represent before coming to consensus. The wolf was recognized by Tieran after he had slept. He said that he recalled it being an ancient symbol for Canarak, an evil god of destruction. He had also identified the twisted dagger symbol as being of this god. We agreed that the tree symbol probably was of Asmodeus, since the more we looked at it, the tree did appear to be flaming. So, off we went to Slythia to ask what the next part of the test should be. Once we reached her, Mor’Elandi asked again about all the mysteries. We ended up realizing that each of the nine mysteries would be a pair of principles. So, in all, eighteen tests to pass before we were done. So, not only are there more tests than we had thought, Mor’Elandi was right which is even worse. We followed Slithia down the stairs to the next intersection. As we passed down the stair, Thaile noticed that there were some strange, pivoting stones near the top of the corridor. Tieran examined them and determined that there had once been a stone door here, long ago disintegrated. When Slythia stopped, we saw passages to the left and right. Our next set of challenges were to explore the Mystery of Patience to our left, and to the right, the Mystery of Endlessness. We decided that if we were going to go through endlessness, we would need some patience. We chose patience. And patience it did take, for the passage was blocked with large stones! Kytum-up said that this was one of the Kobold’s traps, and that it shouldn’t be too large a blockage, perhaps ten feet or so in the corridor should open up, he thought. Inside would be levers and mining equipment. So, we began to move rocks. I changed into a bear and we used a harness of rope to help me pull some rock out of the way. On a very large rock, I used Stone Shape to make it smaller. We worked for hours and then went back up to the maze to rest for a night. June 30thBack at working to clear the passage.Thaile cast clairvoyance to a point fifteen feet beyond the beginning of the blockage. She saw darkness. We wondered if there was an end to the rubble, but kept moving rock, using my bear-strength and stone shape spells. We worked for several hours until we were through to a short corridor which turned to the left about ten feet after the rubble ended. So, Thaile’s sensor had been viewing the inside of the stone wall. No wonder it had seen only darkness. I moved first into the corridor, still in bear form, and turned the corner. I smelled something alive in the room. I also saw the bodies of four dead kobolds, dead a month or so, Mor’Elandi told us later. After a moment of looking, I could hear the others moving into the corridor behind me. I moved closer, sniffing, and found the area where the creature was. Of course, I was still a bear and unable to speak, so I did what I could, sitting back on my haunches and using a paw to point in the direction of whatever was hiding in the rubble. They didn’t catch on. I moved forward and saw a small kobold, hiding in the rubble, clutching a rapier. He was wearing armor and I could see a metal band on his head. He looked pretty scared. I sat back and let the others in. Kytum-up moved forward, looking first at the dead, then the one alive. Kytum-up recognized the small kobold. He called him Kefk and embraced him, exclaiming that they had thought him dead. Maluki-kip will be happy to know that he is alive, it seems. Kefk’s explanation of how he had survived was that he had prayed to Kikuk and his answer seems to have been that he did not die. The others got sick and died, but he did not. He has had no food or water, yet he still lives. Strange. I changed back to myself and offered the little kobold some food. He seemed to find it all very strange as Kytum-up gave him a quick overview of what had happened to the tribe and his own association with us, the surface dwellers. Kefk had never left the lair before, so he seemed quite interested in all of this. He seems to be very inquisitive. I suspect that he is also very young. As Kytum-up explained, Thaile and I examined the bodies. Thaile was able to determine that they had died of some magical dust that had caused throat-rot. Not a pleasant way to die, but also strange that Kefk was still alive. While talking with Kefk and Kytum-up we also gleaned some more information about the kobolds and the white light. Kytum-up’s tribe only numbered a few hundred, a sub-group within the kobold kingdom. The majority of the kobolds worshipped Kurtlemac (Tieran informed us that this would be a racial manifestation of one of the evil gods, probably Kador). When the light came, there was blind panic as it touched and killed many kobolds, though Kytum-up’s tribe did not lose anyone to the light. Interesting. In the confusion and panic, Kefk was separated from the rest of his tribe and ran into this room with the other four kobolds. The passage collapsed behind them, though he did not know if it had been triggered by one of the others or not. Since then, he has been here, first with the others, then alone with only the dead for company. Mor’Elandi seems very suspicious of Kefk, and I understand his caution. It seems odd that he survived here for so long. Mor’Elandi took Kefk to see Slythia, and to ask more about the mystery of patience. She was able to tell us little more though. Mor’Elandi gets so frustrated talking to her. I find it quite amusing indeed. We began working on clearing the rubble where Kefk had been hiding. We worked for a few hours, then left the rest for the next day. July 1stWe have been away from Eaglesford for less than a month, yet it seems much longer. We worked for a while clearing more rubble. This rubble was different, the rocks tabular in shape, definitely worked stone. As we cleared the corridor, we found that it led into a lager room. The rubble seems to have once been shelves that were set into the walls of this room. Here, as with other areas, the walls and high ceiling have been defaced. The shelves have been shattered and broken pieces lay scattered on the floor. As I moved to the far end of the room, to see where the doorway at that end led to, the others looked around in the rubble, coming up with a few shards of old clay tablets, smashed along with the shelves. The next room was much the same, a little larger, ceiling about 25 feet up, shelves which had once been on the walls, now littering the floor smashed to bits. The ceiling and walls had been defaced here as well. At the opposite end of the room, there was another opening, a doorway. Beyond, I could hear someone speaking in Draconic.  Of course, still being a bear, I couldn’t really say much, though I tried to gesture to Tieran, who was with me, that I had heard something, he didn’t seem to catch on. I really must work on a set of gestures that I can use to communicate with the others while I am an animal. As I moved on to the next opening, the others looked in this room for more of the tiny shards of clay. The next room was very large, the ceiling higher than I could see as Thaile raised her torch to give some light. At the far end of the room was the base of what had once been a large statue. Only the base remains, the rest utterly destroyed. The shelves from the walls of this room lay scattered in tiny pieces all around the room as well. The source of the speech we had heard was in the center of the room. A human sized figure in a cloak huddled in the middle of the room, looking at something on the floor. “Oh, this will not do at all. This is not the way it should be...” the figure said, over and over, seemingly speaking to himself. He sounded upset about something.Kefk joined Thaile and I in the doorway and I turned back to my own form and moved slowly along the far wall toward the creature in the center of the room. Thaile, Kefk and Ktyum-up followed me into the room, staying at the wall near the door. I moved to where I was even with him and saw that he was indeed man sized, though his face was utterly featureless. No eyes, no mouth, only blank space where his face should be. He was also insubstantial, another ghost of this place, I guess. His hands pushed at a few of the clay shards, as if he kept trying to put them together, but his hands moved through the pieces, moving them almost imperceptibly. I thought that maybe he needed some help, so I moved toward him, reaching for the pieces, asking if I could help. This turned out to be the wrong course of action.The man (or ghost) moved toward me, shooing me away as he told me that the test was not ready for the initiate yet. I must leave, he said. I backed up, but one of his hands hit me, hurting a bit and leaving me feeling as if I had lost some part of myself. I left the room quickly. Thaile and Kefk moved into the room as the man shooed me out. Kytum-up tried to heal it (to harm it as we had undead before) but his hand and his magic passed through the creature, leaving it unharmed. As I left the room, Tieran moved closer and, using a mage hand spell, moved the piece of crockery tablet toward the ghost. As the piece floated before him, he followed it back to where he had left the others. The other pieces were gone though. Thaile had pocketed them. She and Kefk were on the way out of the room by this time. The ghost went toward Kefk, touching him and hurting him as well, as he demanded the pieces back, still insisting that the test was not ready. Tieran decided to try to reason with him, after his first idea, casting “control undead” had no effect. The agitated ghost did not hear him at first, but Thaile was able to put his pieces back in place. He seemed confused at the appearance of an extra piece along with his old ones. Pleased, but confused. Tieran moved toward him, telling him that he cannot move the pieces, but that we can and would be happy to help him prepare. Tieran, who had collected all of our pieces, put the ones we had found with his and tried to help him. “The mystery has been ruined, it is not ready.” The ghost said As Tieran and Thaile spoke with him, we learned that we must put together one of the tablets (he called them the sacred scrolls). This was the library, he was the librarian until someone, he remembers little about who they might have been, broke in and destroyed the place. We noted that symbols which had once been on his robes had been removed, some torn off. Tieran cast detect magic on the pieces and fell down, stunned. So, we began to meticulously search the rubble for pieces of the clay tablet, each taking an area and working systematically to ensure that we picked up enough pieces. It took us five days to complete the tablet, searching and sifting through tiny pieces of rubble. July 6thWe placed the final piece in the clay tablet and it glowed briefly as the whole thing fused together. We all looked at it and all, in unison, fell down, stunned as we read the words engraved upon it in Draconic. Mor’Elandi, who can not read Draconic (or speak it for that matter), was looking as well and fell stunned too. When we awakened, we realized that in learning the mystery of patience, we were now able to concentrate more intensely, more easily. As we left, I used a stone shape spell to make a shelf for the librarian to rest the reconstructed scroll upon. As we left, he seemed a little happier, but still was fretting about the state of his library. We moved back to our camp for the night. We talked of many things. Kytum-up told us more about finding the idol. He and Maluk-i-kip had found it in a part of the lair they had not been to before. The hand of the god had been protruding from a wall, holding it. Maluk-i-kip had taken it from the hand and the voice of the god (Kikuk/Korok) had told them of the faith and they had taken the message back to the kobolds. They had converted several hundred before the light came and chased them out. In the morning we will go to Slythia to begin the next test....The Mystery of Endlessness. It sounds like it might take a long time to complete.</blockquote>

Verification