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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tor Bladebearer" data-source="post: 571045" data-attributes="member: 4939">Part 2March 22, 295 YF As dawn begins to break in the town, the storm has subsided and the previous evening’s dangers seem further away. The Aemon’s Forge is filled with the smells of eggs and bacon as Elda Taproot prepares a hearty breakfast. Milo discovers that the mysterious traveler has left sometime during the night, although no one noticed him leaving. Jakob and Mayor Netter come to the tavern just as Torix and Ug are arriving from the docks. The Mayor is somewhat flustered, and he tells that party that during the night, someone broke into his house and stole a very important item from him. While he is suspicious of both of the new arrivals to the island, he seems fairly convinced of Fargo’s innocence. He warns them that should they encounter the stranger, not to try and fight him, for he is very dangerous. The Mayor doesn’t offer any further details about how he knows these things. With the storm gone, and daylight shining brightly outside, the group heads out to the beach to see what they can find among any wreckage that might have washed ashore. At the Mayor’s request, Jakob joins the group to make sure they don’t get into too much trouble, and provide assistance on the remote chance that they find further survivors. Jakob is wearing very old and battered blue leather armor, and has a small shield with a cresting wave painted on it, the holy symbol of Neris. Jakob is a NPC, a 1st level Cleric of Neris, the Goddess of the Sea and Weather. He is well known for being gruff and somewhat unpleasant, and is constantly grumbling about the situations the party finds themselves in. Ug shoulders the boat again, and the party makes their way to the beach. In the clear morning light, the party can see some of the wreckage out among the Serpent’s Fangs. They cannot make out much detail from this distance, but at least one large piece of the ship still seems to be intact, stuck on a large rock spire. Many pieces of debris have washed up on the shore, and smashed bits of wood or ruined equipment are found every few hundred feet. Judging by the splintered pieces of ship on the beach, it appears as if the ship was mostly just smashed apart. However, there are also some charred pieces and large scorchmarks that indicate something stranger. Sifting through the debris, the party finds what was probably once part of the hull, with a piece of name painted across it… “cean’s Pri”. The party surmises that the Ocean’s Pride was likely the name of the ship. Further down the beach, the party finds a dead crewman, face down in the surf. He appears to have suffered many cuts and slashes, drowned, and most of his lower body is horribly burnt away. His only possession is an earring, made out of bone, carved in the shape of a small scorpion, which was somehow still on his ear. The party slowly makes their way down the beach, looking for further clues. They discuss some of what they found the previous day, and ask Jakob who Helias is (referenced in the mostly illegible letter). Jakob explains that Helias is the God of the Sun, but he doesn’t know too many more details than that. This prompts more religious discussion between Jakob and Torix. Torix: “In a fight between Neris and Helias, who would win?”Jakob: “Eh, it doesn’t quite work like that…” They only come across one other interesting item, a small black box. The box is battered, but still closed, and appears to have survived the trip relatively unharmed. Fargo casts Detect Magic and sees that strong magic is radiating from the inside of the box. After debating the possible traps on the box, the party decides to give it to Ug to try and open it, and he happily volunteers. However, Ug’s idea of cautiously opening the box is to smash it against a large rock on the ground as hard as he can! He gets in a few good whacks before the party stops him. Opening the box more normally, they discover inside two items, an aged scrollcase and a beautiful triangular milky crystal. The crystal is warm to the touch, and has fine silver lines etching curves within it. Picking up the crystal, Fargo discovers that it is actually a square-cut crystal… no wait, it has five sides. Puzzled, he discovers that it appears to have a different shape depending on how it is viewed, in a fashion that defies conventional logic. As he tries to figure it out, Fargo’s head starts hurting, and he stops. Ug makes a plea to be the holder of the “pretty rock”, but the rest of the party decides against it. Within the scrollcase is a very old piece of parchment with a picture of a hillside and cave entrance drawn on it. The entrance is framed with carved runes, and two large statues stand in front of it, swords crossed in the air. At the top of the drawing, the words “Vak Toran” are written, and near the cave, the word “Rakalith” with a small line pointing to the entrance. As the party puzzles over what the drawing means, Fargo confesses to the rest of the group that he may have further information about what is going on that he wants to share with everyone else. He reveals a scroll that he found among his washed-up belongings, and lets the group read it: Fargo – Just a gentle reminder to you, little sparrow. Our deal states that you will return to me the artifact known as the Web of Shadows by January 1st of next year, or else you will be considered in violation of the terms of the agreement. We both know how unpleasant that might become, especially considering what you have left with me as collateral. When you recover the item, you can find me in the usual places in Arunjar. My sources tell me that you’ve joined an expedition headed to Vak Toran already, which is good. As you know, we value and reward comptence as strongly as we punish incomptence. You already know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of that, no? -- Argo (sealed with the imprint of a black rose with prominent thorns) Milo and Tala both think that the statues in the drawning might be the same as some ruined statues over on the Eastern side the island, where sea caves run all through the island. Before going there, however, Torix and Fargo decide to row out to the edge of the Fangs in the rowboat, and see if they can reach the wreckage and investigate more closely. As they approach the wreckage, they can more clearly see what happened to the Ocean’s Pride. The ship appears to have been cut in two, almost as if chopped in half by a giant axe, as inconceivable as that is. The half that is still intact has been … impaled on a particularly large spike of rock, as if dropped on it from above. These details make Torix and Fargo nervous as they approach. As they begin to get close to the ship, the sea around the small boat starts getting very choppy and rough. Even just a few hundred feet away, the sea is calm, but the area right around the rowboat is churning and tossing violently. Torix manages to keep the boat from flipping over, but they decide to return to shore. Once they head away from the wreck, the sea immediately returns to normal. As they return to the shore, Fargo sees a glimpse of some sort of buildings or geometric shapes far below the waves, although Torix sees nothing. Back on land, the party heads up towards the hills of the Eastern part of the island. Sure enough, the collapsed statue that the halflings lead them to looks very similar to one of the two from the drawing, and other large piles of rubble could plausibly be the remains of the other. The clearest indicator that they have found the right place, however, is the very entrance from the drawing there in the side of the hill! Meters of rock appear to have been blasted away from the hillside, revealing the entrance. The party debates what to do next, and spends some time investigating the runes around the entranceway. Milo laboriously copies them down in his journal, and Fargo looks for signs of magic around the entrance, and discovers that the small crystal gets very warm as he gets close. After a little while, they decide to go into the cave and argue some about who should go first. Milo courageously volunteers to go in last. Torix walks into the entrance – and is immediately stopped by some sort of invisible resistance. Putting two and two together, Fargo takes out the triangular (?) crystal and reaches forward into the arch with it. There is an immediate reaction, as a field of energy becomes visible in the entrance, and then is sucked into the crystal. The small stone immediately becomes clear instead of milky, and the silver lines within begin to slowly move. On closer inspection, it is clear that there are fine cracks running all throughout the crystal. The entrance is no longer blocked, and the party heads into the tunnel beyond. Ug continues to ask to hold the crystal, which he now refers to as the “shiny rock”. Following the tunnel for several hundred feet, in a room off to the side, they see a very strange sight. The room is some kind of storeroom, with a number of crates stacked all around. Two strange serpent-like humanoids in ornate armor, with swords drawn, are standing over a third serpent-man in robes who lies in a pool of blood, apparently dead. One of the two still has blood all over his sword, and they are engaged in some kind of heated discussion. On the other half of the room, a very large spider, perhaps 10’ in diameter, is menacing a pair of young looking dwarves. Instead of having normal spider legs, the two front legs of the creature are large, curved blades. One of the dwarves has a greataxe drawn, while the other is in plain robes. The entire room is completely unmoving, a frozen snapshot in time. Even the torches on the wall are stopped, mid-flicker. A thick web of blue lines of energy crisscrosses throughout the entire room, a giant cat’s cradle. Fargo notices that the lines are less dense around the two warriors, and they appear to be bowing outwards from the wall, away from a small crystal vein in the cave wall. Seeing the serpent-men, Ug starts screaming and runs outside. The rest of the party debates what to do, whether they should return to the town and tell someone about their finding, go further down the tunnel, or try and figure out what is going on with the room and perhaps rescue the endangered dwarves. However, the question is soon rendered moot, as Torix kicks a small stone into the web of energy, and it begins to unravel! Instantly, the room snaps into motion. The two serpent-man soldiers immediately age, their scales rotting away before being reduced to skeletons, and then dust, their now-rusty and useless equipment clattering to the floor. The giant spider continues to bear down on the two dwarves, and the party leaps into the fray! Enter now our final two PCs. Tardok is a 1st level Fighter, and Anathor is a 1st level Wizard. There is a clear family resemblance between the two of them, and more of their unusal background will be revealed shortly. Judging that he doesn’t know enough about the situation, Fargo unleashes a Color Spray on the large bladed spider AND the two dwarves! However, they all resist. A stray crossbow bolt fired ostensibly at the party almost winds up hitting one of the dwarves! Things get tense for a few moments between the dwarves and the rest of the party, but they quickly put aside their hostilities to focus on the the spiders. Torix and Tardok engage the spider in melee combat, while Anathor spends most of the combat trying to hide behind his brother. Baby spiders, also with the strange bladed front legs, drop down from the ceiling all around the rest of the party. Tala and Jakob do their best to try and fight them off, and do miserably, Jakob spending as much time fallen over on the ground as fighting baby spiders. The battle is practically won in one tremendous blow, as Tardok cleaves the large spider in two with a mighty swing. Green ichor drips across the floor, and three more baby spiders climb out of the corpse much to the disgust of the party. However, with the adult spider defeated, the baby spiders don’t pose too much threat. Torix spears one, and Anathor finishes off another with a Magic Missile. Having heard combat, Ug runs back into the room, just in time to see the combat end. Tardok’s amazing hit was almost beyond belief. Rolling maximum damage of 12 with his greataxe, with a +4 STR modifier, and then doing triple damage for a whopping total of 48 points! That must be near the maximum theoretical possible damage for a first level character to do without magic items. Milo searches the robed serpent-man, and finds a few coins, a wavy black dagger, and a thick tome. Torix searches some of the crates, while the rest of the party begins to talk with the very confused dwarves. My players, all being computer game developers in real life, could not avoid a barrage of egregious first-person-shooter “crate” jokes. The piggy claimed a very good haul for our first run. The dwarves try and be about their way, unbelieving that anything has changed. They maintain that surely the party must be confused. Deciding to “humor” the strange party that has wandered into the mines, they laboriously explain what is the most basic of common knowledge as far as they are concerned. They were in the Rakalith mines on an errand for their master, and don’t know why the party have never seen Ophidians, the ruling masters of the Ophidian Empire, before. The dwarves seem to think the party must be somewhat touched in the head. They aren’t sure why one of the Ophidians had brought in a docile spider, but Anathor is pretty sure from rumors he’s heard that the Ophidians do some sort of magical research into bizarre monsters deep in the mines. They answer a few more simple questions, explaining that the Ophidians rule among all the above-ground nations, and they keep lesser races as slaves and servants. Neither dwarf would really classify the Empire as evil, but they clearly rule with an iron hand. The dwarves had come to the city of Rak Shaol in order to study under the legendary Magesmith, Aemon Hammerfist. Milo practically goes berserk when he realizes the connection to his parents' tavern. Some of the party are not convinced of the dwarves’ story either. Anathor: Oh, like we were on a spider-menacing retreat holiday!? Still somewhat disbelieving of the party’s story, the dwarves agree to lead them deeper into the mines, where surely they can find someone of authority to explain why these new strangers are so deluded. Their faith is shaken somewhat as they see tunnels long abandonded, dug much further than they had been just hours before. Eventually, they are convinced that something is definitely not right, and want to head to the city to try and find their master before going too much deeper into the tunnels. The party asks about what was being mined here, and Anathor explains that this is the only known source of Rakalith, a very powerful magical substance. While he is unclear on any of the specifics, he knows that the more advanced mages use it for Planar Magic. None of the party is really certain what that means, but Fargo recognizes it as having something to do with travel or going to other planes of reality. The small crystal they found before is clearly Rakalith. The party finally gives in to Ug’s requests for the “shiny rock” and lets him carry it. Eventually, the party retraces their steps and heads back out into the sunlight. The dwarves are shocked to see the ruins, and begin to accept that the city they knew is gone. The party begins to head through the forest back towards Gray Cliffs, with more questions than answers… (Run 1 ends)</blockquote>

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