Six From Gate Pass - Chapter 3: Shelter From The Storm

[digimattic]

Arnir smiles confidently as Calladan mouths his threat, and once the princess looks away he retorts silently:
[sblock="In Elven"]"Your mother will weep a second time."[/sblock]
Hearing Kirio's whispered words, he furrows his brow and venomously responds in a barely audible whisper"Why would I think of saying anything? Perhaps because I grew up in court and am familiar with the way these things are dealt with. Your blustering is getting us nowhere!" when Kirio makes his ultimatum he say struggles to whisper "Now is not the time! Another place."

Arnir bites his tongue until the group is alone with Kiernan and then says "It is my desire above all to deepen my command of the Weave, and the Lyceum seems the place to do it. I have never been a 'good student' however, so if we are offered assignments that serve this end, I would be well pleased."

 

[Gregor]

"Excellent!" says Kiernan who rubs his hands together eagerly. "There are two missions which I believe could use your various skills. As you heard at the council meeting, we need to begin forming and training our own army. Commander Foebane is ideally suited for this task. However, two key problems stand in the way of making that a reality. First, there is insufficient shelter and living space to house the refugees - our potential soldiers. We cannot house them and their families in damp tents in the rain. We also lack fortifications and other defensible structures that now need to consider not only a Ragesian advance, but perhaps an assault from the sea should the elves decide that they have tired of negotiating with us. Though we have plenty of construction materials at hand and can site a quarry and fell trees, we lack skilled labourers and more importantly, time."

He pauses for a second and then continues. "The second issue is related to the first. Given the size of the new population, we do not have enough sanitation and clean drinking water. We cannot expect to run a larger city and support an army without this basic utility. Our students here at the Lyceum are able to site and design a system but we need an actual source of clean water - the ocean is not ideal for obvious reasons."

He pauses once again to let you think on this. "There are two magical items that can greatly assist with these problems, and both of them are close at hand. As you may know, there is a female green dragon who lives here on the peninsula. Her name is Naizelasa and she makes her lair at a place called the Crystal Delve, a deep lake in the middle of the woods about 6 miles to the south-east of the North Harbour. Ringed around the lake are various buildings that the dragon constructs and destroys on a routine basis. Dragons of her age and variety rarely possess the innate magical abilities to conjure structures, so it is my belief that she has a Lyre of Building within her hoard. If you were able to obtain the Lyre, we could use it here to rapidly construct shelters, fortifications and more.

The second item is a Decanter of Endless Water. It will, upon command bring forth fresh water from the Elemental Plane of Water in a variety of ways. We foresaw the need for the item and asked a hermitic druid by the name of Dubovir Marshwalker to craft it for us. He makes his home in a small grove near the edge of the swamp on the south coast of the peninsula. The item should have made it here by now and we have not heard from him in over a week. If you could journey to his home, determine the delay and ideally return with the decanter, we would be in your debt."

If you accept these missions, I would be pleased to vacate a building for use as your home and will gladly offer monetary recompense. Arnir, I will also allow you the full use of our archives and libraries as well as access to our instructors and item crafters to pursue your own research or knowledge."

 

[funkmamagoat]

[sblock="if you speak elven"]Why would I think of saying anything? Perhaps because I grew up in court and am familiar with the way these things are dealt with. Your blustering is getting us nowhere!"[/sblock]

Kirio laughs softly in his face [sblock="if you speak elven"]"yes, obviously you are a paragon of diplomatic dealings and your years at court have provided you with numerous allies, wealth and the undying friendship of the crown and the powerful like our dandy flag bearer... let me know when you want to talk"[/sblock]

Kirio's eyebrows raise slightly as he listens to the missions... "A green Dragon eh? Well, we have heard things that may actually make that possible, but my history with dragons is less than..." he smiles crookedly "impressive."

"Your offer of lodging is generous, our inn is costing us 30 gold a night. Still, when you say monetary recompense, can you be more specific...?"

 

[Adjuntive]

Alric patiently and eagerly awaits Kiernan's response to Kirio's query of lodging and monetary recompense. Once the question is answered he asks others on his mind:

"Both these items sound as if they are extremely valuable to your cause, if not essential. Not speaking for all of us, I would be willing to fetch either or both. Though could you give us an indication if one was more urgently needed than the other? Perhaps clean water is needed more urgently?"

Alric thumbs the pommel of his sword thoughtfully for a moment, "I know next to nothing of dragon lore, but I feel I can safely wager that a green dragon is no meager beast to best. If it came down to slaying it, could you offer assistance or advice?"

 

[Gregor]

Kiernan mentally calculates and says: "I will offer your party 2,000 pieces of gold for the successful completion of each mission. When added to the value of the house we will be providing you, as well as access to our sources of lore and instructors here at the Lyceum, I believe that to be a fair price.

With respect to Naizelasa, I would suggest you make use of our archives and libraries if you wish to learn more about Dragons. We should have quality tomes on various species. However, my overall advice would be to seek an agreement with the Dragon before you bare your steel. They are highly intelligent and cunning creatures and Naizelasa may be open to some kind of arrangement. I'm afraid that if things turn violent, you will be on your own. I cannot risk Lyceum mages in this operation."

 

[The Bashar]

Hrimr ponders the two missions before the party.

"I believe we should go see the Druid and secure the Decanter. Fresh water is important to everyone. Also, this druid may have some insight concerning this Dragon we must speak with. Don't I remember one of you mentioning something about a Dragon Egg?"

 

[funkmamagoat]

"Yes indeed, I think we have an avenue to begin looking into the dragon issue. I am under no circumstance attacking a full grown dragon, but Alric learned of a refugee called Nathan Lowduke who is apparently looking for a buyer for a dragon egg he recently stole..., and our green beauty Naizelasa is not surprisingly anxious to see it returned. Regardless I think we can start making progress on both of these missions. I think your offer is reasonable Kiernan, and I am certainly inclined to accept it..."

 

[Gregor]

The intelligence partially revealed!

"I'll let you all mull it over. Torrent can let us know where you're staying and I will pay you a visit in the morning. You can inform me then as to your intentions and we'll move forward from there." Kiernan looks over at the door as Simeon returns. "Ah, here comes the headmaster."

"My apologies for keeping you waiting," says Simeon as he takes a seat and places the copied pages and maps down in front of him, "but I wanted to take all precautions with my spells and I needed speak with the court mage in Shahalesti. He was initially reluctant to respond to my sending, which I suppose is symptomatic of the political situation going on between his kingdom and us. But I digress and you are interested in learning what these documents contain." He spreads the information out in front of him and begins to speak. "As you may know, these are written in Infernal, in an incredibly difficult cipher which I have not yet broken. I will in time however. Anyway, my divinations revealed much and when I compared notes with Clathan, who holds the originals, I can confidently report the following. These documents and maps were originally written by the Ragesian Inquisitor Kreven, who we know to be second in command to Empress Leska. It was read and approved of by someone who is immune to divinations, most likely Leska herself. This information is somehow tied to the Scourge, which is Leska’s military order to capture hundreds, if not thousands of “disloyal” mages. There is another meaning to this word as well, but it was unclear in my divinations. I will have to revisit in time. Finally, both Kreven and the unknown person who approved of the book were concerned with legends surrounding something called “Trillith.” I have never heard of the name before now. I would like to hold onto this information if you don't mind. I need to focus on breaking the cipher and sorting out what exactly is being discussed within the pages and how they relate to these associated maps and architectural drawings."

"Please do," says Torrent, "we brought it here so that it might help the war effort. We all look forward to you decrypting the cipher and gleaning additional secrets."

 

[funkmamagoat]

Kirio listens avidly to Simeon as he relays what he knows...

			"my curiosity will be my downfall one of these days..., but then knowledge is power and all that. Trilith again... the entity in the woods referred to itself as a "child of trila"... I know I've heard that somewhere"

OOC: Knowledge check arcana on child of Trilla and Trillith, taking 20 on Lore master feat for a total of 28.

 

[Gregor]

[sblock="for Kirio"]The word Trillith means nothing to you, but from what you learned in Innenotdar, you know it had something to do with the entity called Indomitability who was imprisoned in the dead body of the stag.

'Trilla' however rings a bell for you. You remember it as the name of a very young gold dragon who was held hostage by Drakus Coaltongue many years ago, long before he became emperor. The half-orc warlord used the child as leverage to force its mother to serve him in his wars.[/sblock]