by: Keith "Saegan" Cronin
Out of Character:
I want to get this part out of the way, because I plan to keep the OOC short. What you missed of this event on an out of character level, was a showcase of what a good questing event can be. The event holders and team, through their passion for the game, were able to show off a wide range of talent in combat, craft, a development of deep lore, and rich story. So basically, you missed a great event. Nice work Chimeron.
In Character:
We began our adventure being informed by Professor Mia that her scouts had gone missing, and that we should probably go looking for them. We moved along in the direction of where she’d guided us, and honestly it didn’t take us too long to find them.
Well, I say “them”. We found people that were being held prisoner, and that were claiming to be the scouts. Pretty early on, I decided that they were not to be trusted. One of them had said that Mia was looking for some animals with crystals growing out of their heads which was, to me at least, suspiciously inaccurate.
I did seer magic about it. I’ve been into that recently. People say I’m talking to myself a lot more and seeing things, but I promise it’s not a problem.
So I did seer magic about it, and determined they were in fact part of Harden’s Torch, an organization we believe metaphorically descended from the Wellman. An organization that’s trying to destroy what’s left of the Dragon civilization. I tried to tell the questing party this, but honestly the “scouts” were being so friendly, in typical questing party fashion, we let them follow along with us anyway.
We marched deeper into tunnels, and eventually passed through a waterway that was both treacherous and filled with terrible monsters. I nearly drowned, don’t tell the Royal Guard. Somehow, all my Blackwood companions could simply breathe. Except for Liana, but she’d rather be dead than wet.
We made it through the treacherous wet! Omri using seer magic determined that the true scouts were further ahead. And I finally told Temorse what I knew, and between Omri’s information and my earlier information, he determined we could just kill them. What a breath of fresh air. That’s a drowning pun.
So, they offed the tall not-scout, and the questing party that had become attached to him decided to do seer magic about it, and determined that we were in fact right. We looked for the other scouts, but they’d disappeared. Which, honestly, good on them, probably got to live longer that way.
We moved ahead, and got ambushed by the rest of Harden’s Torch as we came upon a closed room. We got sandwiched between a rock and the hard place, as the Torch rolled a massive boulder at us. Nos saved my life! It took some fighting, but we eventually dispatched the villains.
We got into the room and discovered it was some sort of alchemy lab, filled with secret codes and tricks. People were confused and recklessly trying things, and blowing themselves up with fireballs. I nearly died, but I saved myself with my circle of protection. The trials of that room were challenging; there were so many codes, and ciphers, and solving them all within the time before the fireball fluid blew up in total was quite the feat. But we did manage to succeed.
Escaping the room, we found a winding path that led us to the Foundry.The Foundry, or Foundry 13, was a place where the draconians created gemtech. We found it, and that’s where we decided to rest for the night.
I started the next day off with a bang, well a ritual. I gathered my people to support me, and seanced Daedalus, the leader and founder of the culture we were investigating. I chose him because I’d been successful in seancing him before. While that was occurring, I called on the powers of my lands and people, as well as the magic of prophecy, to sort of recreate him in my mind. A shared passenger if you will. This felt dangerous, but I had the confidence of a hero, and the backing of a large group of fairly powerful people. And in short, it was successful. Daedalus joined my mind space.
I spent the rest of the day, and the next talking with him. So pardon me if I get confused about the rest of the happenings, but my memory was a tad occupied by an extra 400 something years.
While we were talking, he helped me adjust my notes, and explained a great many things about the sciences of his people. The true workings of their gemtech, and on a deeper level, I grew an understanding for his motivation in recreating the heartstones of his people. Powerful stones, part of their culture that connected them, empowered them. I don’t think I could put words to the depth of their meaning, but I could feel the loss. I could feel the rage inside myself toward the humans that destroyed them.
While I was sorting through my notes and feelings, I tried to follow along with the rest of the questing party as they played goblin games, struggled with crabs, and generally had a hard time.
They were rebuilding the forge, finding pieces for it that were missing. Or replenishing its resources which had run dry over the years of disuse. We needed hammers, and schematics, and freakin’ lava. And please don’t let me repeat the horrors of the acid, and the reckless endangerment of children as they ran with jelly orbs that could easily end their lives. Or the lives of the people around them. Separately from that I also heard stories of raunchy crab love, which I think I must’ve been distracted by Daedalus for, because I did not witness.
But anyway, after rerouting lava, avoiding the acid baths, reclaiming golem gem schematics, and making sure we had enough materials, we managed to get the Foundry working again.
Well almost. We were missing the power source. With guidance, we realized there was a power source over yonder, and just needed the means to get there. After careful investigation, we realized we had to recover 4 topaz key cards to get to the source. We discovered the various keycards in various locations, one under a rock, in a room that appeared destroyed by a malfunctioning golem. One we gained by allowing a golem to complete its scans of certain gem creatures. One was in a room similar to the alchemy lab with ciphers the night before. And one within an area guarded by golem enemies. Once we recovered the cards we were able to open the area we needed to to get to the power source.
It was being protected by golems of various types, each with unique powers. We pushed them back through tunnels, until breaking into an open space. But in finality, there were opal golems, to our knowledge the mightiest of the golem kind. They put up a good fight, combining the powers of their brethren with some of their own, but the Realms’ Heroes were successful.
We brought the power source, a massive ruby, back to the Foundry. It was easy enough to hook up, and its power seemed enough to radiate through the entire place. With the forge going we began to make the items we needed: some swords, some shields, and some wands. Before we could complete them however, we triggered something within the forge, and nearly died as everything seemed to go upside down. We found ourselves in a massive cavern, and face to face with a gem encrusted dragon.
If you don’t know, that’s bad.
Many of the other heroes of the Realms fought it. I honestly kind of sat back and asked Daedalus questions. Which might seem out of place, and out of character for me. But knowledge is powerful. And I wanted to know if that dragon was Quig, one of the dragons from the Logs, the partner of Palamos, the dragon we fought the year before.. I didn’t get the answer to that question.
We were then able to return to the foundry, and pick up where we left off, though with many people tired from the day, we also sought rest.
Sunday, we fought. My understanding of Sunday was even more bogged down with thought and mystery. I maintained my connection with Daedalus, which was costly, but not terribly so. But honestly, what confused me more was poor Spencer.
I’m going to sound crazy, if spending my weekend speaking with 400 year old dead dragons isn’t crazy enough, Spencer was talking to mushrooms. The party was fighting. They were fighting a lot. People were dying around us. Spencer had managed to start speaking with intelligent spores that wanted him to convert part of his brain to a crystal form.
Trent would say I got into something. I’m not sure how I would know that I didn’t get into something by accident. Spencer was calling for me because he assumed I’d answer eventually, and everyone looked like mushrooms. Reading that back, you’re not going to believe me that I was fine.
The rest of that conversation doesn’t get much safer for me. So I’m going to skip over it. It was wild.
But as it turned out, the questing party did need to fight some mushroom people. So maybe it was fated.
We ended on a good note though. I sort of glanced over this, for this moment, but as we were traveling through the various locations, we were finding logs from the dragon civilization. We learned many things, it’s how we knew how to use the Foundry. It explained various technologies, like the goblin throne. We learned things. But the last log was of Phina, Daedalus’ daughter, along with some other scientists. Doing a final experiment to recreate a heartstone. And they were successful.
Daedalus got to hear that.
The trials over the weekend were overall successful. My research into the dragons' culture revealed a lot. I learned a lot about the gems. I’m fairly confident I can create my own things with those magics, now. Perhaps with some trial and error. But I have questions. What happened to the scouts? Both the real ones, and the fake ones that escaped? Can we stop Harden’s Torch? Can we cure the crystallization? What the heck happened to Spencer? I can’t wait to return, and find out more!
-Saegan of Blackwood
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Crystal Golem
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| Crystal Golem by Kieran/Kyra "Omri" Barry |
