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="seasong" data-source="post: 810358" data-attributes="member: 5137">KithiosGreppa was in the city proper, studying books. Responsibilities to Theralis had taken up most of his time, and so he'd not had the chance to really start looking for places to go, but he had to find something. There were scrolls, books, ancient magics, all hidden out there somewhere, in the fallen civilizations of the past. Weird coins, broken statuary, the faint scent of yellowed spell books...And it didn't help that Kyriotes and his cotery had been seen flying out of the city twice in the past month, then returning to his tower with a ton of... something piled on that magical carpet of his. Greppa frowned, refocusing his eyes on the tiny text, and allowed himself a bit of a pout. It just wasn't fair, that Kyriotes, so established already, was looting everything worth looting already."Ah, excuse... excuse me." The voice came from Irine, the library's guardian, of sorts. A tiny woman with a tiny voice, she was nonetheless known for her abilities as an esper, though she rarely used them. "But, the last few times you've been here... I noticed.. I noticed that you seem to be reading a lot of history?"Greppa nodded, standing and deferring his head in respect."Well, I... why don't you have a look... ah, look at the maps, then? I know most adventurers.. they think... think that, perhaps, the written literature shows everything. But maps.. maps sometimes show holes."Greppa was already following her, "Holes? You mean, holes in what's mapped?""Holes in the... in the stories."For just a moment, Greppa fell in love. He was just about to hug the old woman when he saw the map she was leading him to. Tucked into the back of the library, away from the damaging sun, it was thinly sliced hide parchment, cracked almost its entire length by the wearing of time and spackled with spots and worn patches.It was hideous. It was beautiful. He coveted it and, entranced, he drew across the floor until he was immediately in front of it. Symbols were marked across its length in a language he did not speak, lines of unknown meaning crossed patches of the landscape... he saw a shape he recognized. A faint squiggled lake in the upper right hand corner of the map, that he would recognize anywhere, the winding path of Tartwater and the river that passed through it. And a bit south of that Little Lake, and further from that, the canyons to Southpass.And then, like a radiating sun along the middle of the map, symbols that might mark cities he'd never known existed. He turned to Irine, "How... But don't adventurers look at this all the time?""Oh... yes... yes, I've shown it. But only... I only know of them going..." and she showed him. Prominent symbols. Landmarks and cities. "They... no one goes for the smaller stuff. It might be... be as important, but, ah, no one reads the language."Greppa smiled as an idea blossomed in his head. A beautiful idea. An idea that would only occur to a generalist arcanist, one who worked to slip across the boundaries of what magic was intended for.He thanked Irine and gave her a hug, then set to work. Casting summoning circle after summoning circle, he interrogated dozens of lantern archons, until he found one who had been around at the time of the older civilization. The poor dear knew almost nothing of that civilization (nor, he discovered, was any other likely to), but it could read the language.Greppa cracked his knuckles, and got the name of the puffball of light. He and it were going to be spending all night together, poring over the map.He didn't stop grinning all night.</blockquote>

Verification