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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GuardianLurker" data-source="post: 6909542" data-attributes="member: 786">5 + 1 Wizards[h1]The Wager's CorollaryIf the Gods are real, so are their Myths[/h1][h2]Ingredients:[/h2]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Doomsayer</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Starless Stream</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Hungry Darkness</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Forged Pardon</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Dry Water</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Arcane Gambler</li> </ul>[h2]Setup:[/h2]You and your friends are relaxing in the beergarden of the Red Dragon's Inn by the Ållmaiden River, watching and laughing as the group of five  *very* drunk wizards are trying to gamble at the nearby table, or at least who can cheat the most outrageously, when the world ... twitches beneath you, and you feel the sound of a very large snap, or is it a crunch. Everything pauses, and just as you look up an see a dark slit in the daytime sky, the seer of the game stumbles up and over to you.The Pardon is lost.The Hungry Darkness has opened, drinking the healing Tears.Death walks down the Starless Stream.As below, so above,the Starless Stream hides the Forge of Forgiveness in the Dry Waters.[h2]Investigation:[/h2]The Allmaiden is more formally, and mythically, known as the River of the Allmaiden's Tears.It flows past, or over, or by, a crystal prominence known as the Maiden's Regret, or the Maiden's Pardon.The resulting waterfall (the Hero's Fall) marks the dividing line between the Allmaiden and the Mirrorless River. The Mirrorless River is so named because, even though it is placid and smooth, it reflects nothing.[h2]The Dark Opening:[/h2]When the characters arrive at the  Hero's Fall, they notice three things - 1) the rip in the sky, that has been getting closer as they traveled, now begins directly overhead, 2) the Pardon has been destroyed, and 3) the river, instead of continuing on, now falls directly into a cave that looks like a fanged mouth.Examining the rip, the characters can barely see a black-on-dark shape of a three-headed dragon.Examining the remains of the Pardon reveals what looks to be a shattered jewelry box with veins of crystal emerging from its sides; the interior holds nothing, but the veins converge towards to a spot in the center, almost touching.Descending into this cave is difficult as most of the water fills the cave, and the tunnel is essentially vertical for the first several hundred feet. Falling is lethal.[h2]At the Bottom of the Falls:[/h2]The only light down here is what the characters bring with them. The river flows off and away. As the characters follow it, the air gets colder and colder, and they start seeing ice appear in the river. Eventually, the river becomes a solid stream of ice, though it doesn't appreciably slow, and the environment keeps getting colder. Not long after the river is solid ice, it starts fragmenting into chunks, though it still flows. At this point the characters can see a glittering in the distance. That is a large large of ice pebbles. Bright light will reveal something dark deep in the ice.The ice is supremely cold, and water is instantly frozen and absorbed by the pebbles. Bare flesh takes damage as if exposed to fire. The dark, buried object is the dried-out husk of a famous wizard and atheist known as Pazkwel the Gambler. He holds a ring made entirely of diamond and carved to look like a seed of the Worldtree. He is freshly dead.From his body, the characters can discern a large dark altar-like shape at the bottom of the lake.[h2]The Forge of Forgiveness:[/h2]The Forge has a slot for the ring. If they place the ring in the slot, it is destroyed and a portal opens into the sky, where the dark stream is. A drawer holding a book, and tongs also opens. The pebbles all start falling into the portal. The book describes how to reforge the Pardon's Seed - the characters must use the ice pebbles, melt them together with their own blood, pour the mixture into the slot/mold, and then once set, use the tongs to extract it. Once extracted, characters have a short period before the portal closes, which is the only way out at this point.When the portal opened Death's Guardian, a three-headed dragon spitting acid, exhaling poison gas, and spewing fire, came through and begins trying to kill the characters.[h2]Success:[/h2]The dragon is dead, the characters are top-side, and the reforged ring is back in the jewelry box. As soon as the latter happens, the Pardon regrows, the Hungry Darkness closes, and the river resumes its course.</blockquote>

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