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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lars Frehse" data-source="post: 900761" data-attributes="member: 1674">Plans- part 2Niklas remembered vividly how the fear had left him just enough for him to speak through clenched teeth:" Curiosity brought us here!"The dragon had nodded with it's gigantic head, and suddenly, the supernatural fear was gone, replaced by the natural awe and respect that a being like the ancient crystal dragon inspired in them."You must excuse me", the dragon had said by transporting his voice into the heads of the adventurers. "But I am one of the guardians of the halls of Dunai and I have to make sure that only those enter here, who are welcome and who know how to behave themselves properly.". When the monk told Donnangar about that a few days later, seeing how his friends were getting more and more lightheaded from the ale, Donnangar asked:" And what is proper behaviour, according to the dragon?"."When we asked him, he told us that we shouldn't take anything with us. Neither should we damage anything.", Niklas said."Anyway", Torn interrupted, his tongue getting heavy," again we made it because we were orcs. From what Trycs, that's how the dragon called himself,  said, he had been in this cave even when the ancients were still around! Unfortunately, he told us that whatever had wiped out the ancients had wiped out his memory of that race as well. It is as if whatever had destroyed them had also destroyed all memories of them as well, leaving behind only their monuments..."By now, Donnangar had ordered the waitress to leave them a keg of ale at the table and leave them alone. He refilled the tankards and announced:" What a shame. I would love to find out what their connection with my race had been... And who knows whether whatever had destroyed them may still turn out to be a danger for us as well... But please, don't let me interrupt you. Do continue.".Trepat took over: "Even though that had been disappointing, the dragon turned out to be quite a source for fascinating information. He told us about a kind of power that closely resembles magic. He called it Psionics, and he said that the ancients, and much later the Slarecians, had been masters of that supernatural art. Then, when the slarecians had been defeated, psionics had been gone from the world, as well, and Trycs was the only one left who mastered that strange art.""But that is not the end of it", Niklas said, getting excited now. "Apparently, Trycs sensed how psionics seemed to be returning all over Ghelspad for the last few decades, and we soon found out how as well. He offered us to check whether anyone of us had the talent to master the arts of PSI. Naturally, we accepted. "Nothing seemed to be happening, as the dragon probed our minds. Then, suddenly, I felt something give away in my head. It felt as if there had been a knot somewhere in my mind, and suddenly, the knot snapped and straightened out, if that makes any sense. So, I turned to my friends to ask them whether they had felt it as well..."Jan slammed his tankard to the table:" But all that came out was argle-bargle that made no sense whatsoever.".Niklas nodded:" That's right. For some reason, I wasn't able to speak properly anymore. Try as I might, all I said came out as meaningless and maddening nonsense."."What was worse was that his rambling was affecting us in a strange way as well", Trepat said, passing on the opportunity to comment on Niklas's last remark:" Personally, I only felt a short splitting headache, but Torn started babbling in those strange tongues as well!".Ben said:" The dragon explained to us that he had accidentally triggered some kind of psionic disease that had been dormant within Niklas for quite some while. I cured them, enabling them to speak  normally again, and after talking to the dragon for a while, we figured out that he had probably infected himself when we had contact with slarecian shadows and artifacts in the past. The disease must have survived the defeat of the slarecians and the titanswar this way." Trycs explained that there was a sideeffect to the disease. With a little guidance and dedication, Torn and Ben would now be able to develop their own psionic abilities, becoming psionicists themselves. That would also explain why the dragon sensed new psionicists in the lands as well. There must have been others who had gotten infected and have developed their abilities.""And what do you guys plan to do with that new potential now?", Donnangar asked.Torn said: "We will both probably return to the dragon at some point so that he can teach us how to use those newfound powers. So far, nothing has manifested- that is, I can't suddenly read minds or move objects by sheer force of will alone. And neither can Niklas, unless he is keeping it from us, that is."."And that is almost it", Trepat explained, "After that, we found the howling head in the kelders. Ben left through that exit, standing on a plateau in the northern mountains. This time it took us a little while to figure out how to pass it, until I carved him a hollow branch that would make a whistling sound in the wind. Once the wind had made some music on it, Ben was able to come back inside. After all:“ The howling head shall aid the one who brings the song of the winds and turns it's pain to joy.“.“"We returned to the drowned head then, surprising the scholars who were working at the dig in the morass. We went to Silian, who gave us some devices which will help Torn when examining and disabling magical traps as a reward, but when we asked for the meaning of the runes, he couldn't help us. But he told us that you were in town, so here we are!".Even though Donnangar, like his  friends, was pretty drunk, he was nonetheless eager to take a look at the runes. So Niklas pulled out the parchment on which they had copied the mosaic they had found in the three entrance halls.Donnangar straightened out the parchment, and after focusing for a little while, he explained:" Those are ancient runes, but I am familiar with them. They even predate the orcish culture we found at Hor' Kung! But, anyway: I think that this is some sort of a map to the Halls of Dunai. You see here, this tile means "lightning" and it is roughly where you would have entered the hall with the lightning towers. Here, where you met the ent, there is the symbol for wood. The same here, you see- this is where you met the crytal dragon, and the symbol means "gems"."The symbol in the middle, where you had seen those scrying-crystals, or whatever that was, means "Nexus". You know, I would love to take a look at that myself. So if you don't mind, I would like to go in there with you.", Donnangar said and after folding the parchment and handing it back to Niklas, he raised his tankard much too fast, spilling ale over the table and onto Jan's lap:" But now, let's celebrate our reunion!".</blockquote>

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