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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PHDungeon" data-source="post: 5406590" data-attributes="member: 86320">Melek's Journal- Answers to Questions.After getting onto the backs of the giant eagles we watched for awhile as the entire valley collapsed into earth, pulling with it the whole of the giant army. Oh, I'm sure that there will be a few survivors, but that particular threat is vanquished. One could almost feel a little bit of pity for them. Well, if they hadn't destroyed Thunderholme Abbey one could.We proceeded from the valley back to Saltmarsh where we told the populace the "good" news- the giant threat was no more and that, unfortunately, the Jarl’s son was almost certainly dead. At least we'd managed to find the lad’s ancestral sword and return that.There was a lot of muttering from the townspeople. Many of them don't really believe that we did what we said we did. It doesn't really help when your choice of spokesman is a Minotaur, a Tiefling or a Crime lord. And our coming back without even the body of the only person in our group that they probably trusted with an outlandish story didn’t make it any better. I'll give Jarl Bloodhair credit; at least he gave us a reasonable reward (albeit one far below the actual value, I'm sure) for the sword that we recovered.We warned them to be very careful in visiting the valley and advised the Jarl to post some sentries there. Who knows what may come out from the pit?We then returned to Grimmsburg with our news. I expressed to Canon Wulgrim my concern that the King that Crawls may now be in possession of Bjorn’s soul. He promised to see if he could find out if this was true, but he didn't seem particularly optimistic that he'd get a clear answer. In fact, he didn't really seem all that concerned either, although perhaps I do him an injustice by that. In Grimmsburg we found our numbers augmented by a Priest of Odin. One that I'd never met before. His name is Corvin, and he is an Androsax. He is the brother of Deryl, the girl consumed by Loki’s fire and Derren, the man in Grimsburg that Bella treated with such contempt. It’s far too soon to know much about him, but there seems to be a certain tension between him and Bella. I think that he might blame her for the loss of his sister, since she had been in Bella’s custody at the time of her demise.After a brief respite to recover from our injuries we decided that what we needed most was more information. We (including Wulgrim) traveled back to the chamber under Thunderholme where the relic had been held. There I cast a ritual called Whispers of the Edifice that allowed us to question the room itself. From the room we learned that the Abbey itself had been built over the secret room, a room holding one fifth of an ancient artifact known as The Divine Engine of Odin. At Canon Wulgrim’s request, we then proceeded to fly back to the remnants of the giant stronghold. We found a massive sinkhole where the valley had once been. It was very deep, and the bottom was covered by a thin, putrid mist. There were no signs of any portal to hell or strange creatures coming out of the ground, but I could feel the touch of a malignant god at work, and we could hear the keening calls of what may have been those suffering in his torture dens rising up out fissures at the bottom of the terrible pit.When we got back to Grimmsburg, we decided it was time to, basically, hit the books and see if we could determine what was going on. So we went to the Skaldsholme Library where we found Briannah, the head librarian and an old associate of our group and the sister in law to our newfound ally, to be in great, great distress. Driven nearly insane by the turmoil of past abuses inflicted on her by cultists, she was totally neglecting herself in the quest for knowledge about the Cult of Elemental Eye. She claimed to be researching the cult, so that she would better know her enemy. I hope that is true. It should also be noted that she is a younger sister of Vesna and daughter of Jarl Surtur. I wonder if the jarl is aware of how bad her condition has become.Spearheaded primarily by Corvin, we actually managed to get her into something approximating reasonable shape, while simultaneously using the library to research the Divine Engine and the tablets that had been stolen from Turak’s people. The process took many long weeks, and it reminded me of my days back at the Scarlet Stone Academy. Odin helped us with the Hand of Fate pointing to the more useful books.There was much to be learned about Odin’s Divine Engine. We discovered that it was a powerful artifact created by the gods during the Dawn War to imprison a mighty primordial known as Y’mir. Y’mir is said to be creator of the giants and was a terrible enemy of the Aesir. They used the device to imprison Y’mir in the Elemental Chaos, and after the deed was done, Thor shattered the engine with his hammer. It broke into five pieces, and the pieces were scattered to the five planes. The one that ended up on Midgard was hidden beneath Thuderholme abbey for safe keeping. The fragment that found its way to the Astral Sea was recovered by the Aesir, and is now said to be stored in Odin’s treasure vault. We could not discover the locations of the remaining three fragments. We believe one is somewhere in the Elemental Chaos, another in the Feywild, and the final shard is in the Shadowfell. Whether that is true to this day, and where exactly they are, we don’t know.We also learned that the King the Crawls was involved with the creation and use of the engine. In fact, during the Dawn War, he was known as the Savior, for he was a mighty god, and it was with his aid that the Aesir were able to push Y’mir’s horde of giants and titans back from the gates of Asgard and defeat Y’mir himself. According to the legends, there were several nights of great feasting after Y’mir’s defeat. During this time Odin grew jealous and angry towards the Savior, for he felt the god was flirting with his wife Friga. Odin summoned Loki the trickster, and together they concocted a plan to at the same time put the Savior to good use and rid themselves of his presence. Odin approached him with an offer. He told the Savior that he could join the ranks of the Aesir if he passed one final test. He would have to travel to the depths of Midgard and defeat the primordial known as Gargath. To aid him in this task the Odin gave him an enchanted sword that would give him the power to single handedly best this deadly foe. The Savior agreed, for he was a lonely god, his great beauty, perfect health and skill made the other gods jealous of him, and few wanted to be in his presence. He saw Odin’s offer, as a great opportunity to gain acceptance among his peers. Thus, he agreed to the quest. He confronted Gargash, and the pair battled their way through the depths of midgard. It was a long, arduous battle, and the Savior only barely bested his foe. When he drove his god forged blade into the primordial to land the killing blow, the curse Loki had hidden in the blade was triggered. It trapped the Savior in the depths of Midgard, preventing him from ever being able to return the Astral Sea. He would never have his place among the Aesir. Over the ages the Savior’s anger and bitterness at this treachery transformed him into the The King that Crawls. Clearly, he still harbors a grudge against the gods to this day.It seems quite possible that the King that Crawls is behind these events, though we saw clear evidence that the giants were also affiliated with the Cult of the Elemental Eye. Perhaps these enemies of the gods have made some kind of an alliance. Perhaps they seek to reforge the divine engine. Perhaps they believe that by freeing Y’mir they can have their revenge against the Aesir and/or free the Elemental Eye.We decided it would be prudent to seek out the stolen fragment. For a while the Hand of Fate told us that the piece of the artifact and the Golden Horn tablets were both somewhere north of here. But before we could organize an expedition to go north the Hand indicated that they were elsewhere. Where “elsewhere” is, we are not sure, but we suspect it is no longer on Midgard.We have decided that for now we will try find at least one of the remaining fragments. If the King that Crawls is in fact trying acquire them so that he can reforge the Divine Engine, than ensuring that they stay out of his hands can only be a good thing. Using the Hand of Fate, we were able to determine that going to the Fey Wild is at least an option with a possibility of success. There I may be able to make contact with my fey patron, and hopefully find a means of locating a fragment of the engine.</blockquote>

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