Post by Bandgoat on Apr 8, 2015 23:18:00 GMT -6
Calistril 1, 4708 – Early Morning
--,
What a peculiar place this Runeforge is! A scholar could spend a lifetime in each of the seven areas, uncovering, deciphering, and interpreting the many historical and magical Thassilonian relics we have seen. Unfortunately, the return of Karzoug has left us with much less time than is required to understand all of these artifacts. No doubt his army will be ready to march on the peoples of Varisia in a matter of months...or days.
After our foray into the Halls of Wrath, we decided to return to Jordimandus in the Festering Maze, now that we completed his errand. Upon reentering the squalid halls, we were allowed safe passage to his throne room, without the interruption of putrescent elementals and demonic filth. We met with the odious, noisome, self-appointed ruler of Runeforge and, in his cheery and gracious manner, proffered the prearranged prizes for our compliance. For our effort we received several useful scrolls and a large tome for the betterment of one’s physical prowess. Having gained his trust, we asked him some questions regarding the teleportation devices we believed to be the exit to Runeforge. As I suspected, he was quite knowledgeable on the subject. He admitted to having a hand in its construction and that it was capable of performing two functions: it can summon a creature from an outer plane; or it can open a portal back to the material plane, returning those within the circle to the ring of standing stones by Lake Stormunder by casting any teleportation magic. This portal would be sufficient to return all of us to our native plane. Unfortunately, he was not so helpful in finding the whereabouts of Xin-Shalast. He knew about as much as we did, though he did say it used to be located at the headwaters of the mystical river of Ahh. Jordimandus said he would send his minions to establish control over the rest of Runeforge, but that he can never leave his wing – that is the limit and the price of his immortality. He invited us to stay for dinner. We declined.
We then returned to the circular center of Runeforge, since Jordimandus had confirmed our understanding of the rite to enchant a runeforged weapon. We decided now would be a good time to enchant our weapons against Transmutation, since we were next to delve that area of Runeforge. We gathered around the magical pool. I placed the mirror shards from the Illusory Veils and the succubus items from the Temple of Lust into the magical pool, which then began to glow with a golden color and bubble with some roiling vapor emanating into the air. We elected that Gorm should go first. He placed his axe into the pool. The pool bubbled and sizzled, but after a few moments the axe floated into the air in front of Gorm and he took back his weapon. As soon as he did, a beam of golden light from the pool gleamed upon the enormous statue of Karzoug in the chamber. The likeness animated and declared with the same voice as the slain Mokmurian, “You...Again. I cannot help but be inspired by your optimism; but, alas, your weapons will never reach Xin-Shalast. Your fate is death here in Runeforge!” A brief battle ensued, lasting mere seconds, and the creature spoke again, “This...this is not the last! Come then, Heroes. Seek me atop Mehr Massif, if you value your life so poorly. You should be honored to be the first fools executed under the banner of Shalast in ten thou-,” and broke off mid-sentence, while the statue reverted to its immobile form mid-swing. Though the skirmish was short, Gorm was hit several times and became petrified in place. Luckily, Soril cast a very useful spell from his dagger and freed Gorm from his rigid prison, after which Tolgun restored him to full health and hardiness. The dwarves then commenced with bashing the Karzoug statue to smithereens. After that moment of excitement, we returned to the task of enchanting our weapons. After dipping Blackthorn into the pool and watching her levitate, I could already tell she was beaming with joy, anticipating being driven into Karzoug’s millennia-old body. I was made aware that, in addition to being more harmful to transmuters and shape changers, the newly enchanted weapons conferred protection against the attacks of such creatures. Once each of us had enchanted our main weapons, the pool seemed to lose its magical power, ceasing to glow and bubble. We then decided to recover from our brief but costly fight and prepare to enter the Halls of Greed the next morning. Hoping to gain some insight into our future, we used the divination quill we “found” in the Lamashtan shrine beneath Sandpoint to find the directions to Xin-Shalast. It responded in rhyme, “If Xin-Shalast is what you seek, you will find directions later this week.” “Son of a biatch!” said Tolgun, verbalizing what we were all thinking.
Once we were prepared, we entered the Halls of Greed, feeling much more confident about our survival probability. Predictably, Nala’s key-shaped necklace began to glow warm while Tolgun’s and Lai’Ki became cold to the touch. The hallway continued until it reached a large, iron door to one side. The door looked out of place, studded with dozens of colorful gemstones, having no latch, and sporting a tiny keyhole. Failing to see any traps, Nala tried to insert his necklace key into the keyhole. When he did, the door, driven by a huge piston, smashed Nala against the wall to his back. As the door retracted, we saw that is was really a false door, hiding only machinery and no space beyond. We then searched and found a secret door hidden in the wall directly in front of us. We opened it and entered. A beautiful tunnel of polished wood inlaid with silver and gold runes stretched before us, ending at a wall of greenish mist sparkling with silver motes of light. Soril thought the mist was a transmutation effect, possibly able to metamorphose its unwitting target into a small, harmless animal. Soril placed a life bubble around each of us and we were able to pass through the mist with no problem. Reading the runes on the walls, it told the story of Karzoug’s coming to power and his abilities as a transmuter – what I took to be Thassilonian propaganda. The green mist finally ended at a chamber paved with ivory tiles, each one engraved with a silver rune depicting what appeared to be a claw gripping a gemstone: the Thassilonian symbol for Greed. The walls and ceiling were of stunning polished marble. A large silver basin in the center of the room contained an icy sculpture of a whale spraying crystal clear water from it blowhole. The water cascaded around to keep the basin full, but never quite overflowing. Additionally, a number of what appeared to be water mephits were playing in the fountain, taunting us and saying, “Oh look, another group of fleshies come to slobber in our pool.” Recognizing them as little more than pests, we ignored the mephits and continued on our way. We took a corridor to our right, which turned a couple of times before we came to another room. A fountain sprayed water toward the ceiling high above, the water cascading back into a pool into which colorful goldfish swam. The fountain featured a large stone statue of a human wizard holding a staff in one hand. The other hand was raised over its head and it was from this hand’s palm that the water issued. A door to the left led out. As we started to search the room and pool, the statue animated as a stone golem and attacked us. We quickly defeated it, and continued our search, but another statue soon arrived and we started fighting again. This pattern continued until we had defeated a total of four of those things. We healed our wounds and continued searching, finding nothing of interest. Down the hall, we found three wooden doors on the right and one wooden door to the left. In the room to the left, we found a small living quarters or den. It was empty except for a scattering of raw materials such as sheets of cloth, stacks of lumber, blocks of stone, metal bars, and bones. The other doors led to similar scenes. Nala quickly found out that his key-shaped medallion allowed him to manipulate these materials, enabling him to build any rudimentary object he wished. It was a special property of the strongly magical rooms, so anything he fabricated fell apart if it left those chambers. We continued down the hallway and it ended in another room very similar to the fountain room in which we fought the stone golems, except the stone statue was absent. On one wall stood a closed wooden door.
On the other side of the door, we found rows of thick, wooden work tables occupying the center of a long chamber. Book cases lining the walls held hundreds of books and scrolls. Crates next to or pushed under the work tables appeared to have been filled with an odd variety of mundane items such as rope, sticks, sacks, tools, and cookware. A dog on one of the tables looked dead, though its hind legs appeared to be made of some kind of metal. A few other animals paced back and forth in small metal cages: a house cat, a few rats, a snake, and a small white-faced monkey. There was also a strange-looking human in the room. He appeared to be a man made of metal. Later, Soril told us that in antiquity, there were stories of spell casters who were able to transform their skin from normal skin into metal flesh. This guy was rather silvery, probably made of mithral. He looked at us inquisitively, standing at one of the work tables, with several books splayed out in front of him. As we entered, Ryll greeted him. He greeted us back, saying his name was Ordikon, but we could call him the Mithral Mage. Ryll introduced us and told him the time of the runelords had passed. He seemed unable to process complex ideas and was rather distracted with his own thoughts. He said that he was one of the original acolytes of Karzoug, sent to the runeforge for research. He had made significant progress in his studies, but it came with a great cost: the sacrifices of other acolytes. We had a rather pleasant exchange until he mentioned he would like to use us as test subjects and began to attack. We took the initiative and soon surrounded him. After that, the fight went quickly, ending in the death of the Mithral Mage. We took from him a very nice staff and a few other items. Of great interest to Soril and me were his spellbooks and research books. They were a little peculiar in that most of the higher level spells were repeated several times and most of the formulaic entries were redundant, as if he had immediately forgotten what he had just written.
We took a door from the research room. It opened to a wide hallway floored in polished wooden planks, its walls covered in colorful jade tiles. The ceiling was made of lustrous stone that reflected the light of three decorative lanterns that brightly illuminated ten gleaming golden statues of men and women in various poses of combat readiness along the walls. There was also a creature in the room: a nelfeshnee demon. He greeted us and told us his name was Zuvuzeg. He had been summoned and had been guarding the room beyond for thousands of years. We probed him for information before killing him. He said he had been summoned by Izomandakus, the first warden of the Halls of Greed. He did not put up much of a fight due to his long-lived ennui. Upon closer inspection, we found that the golden statues were in fact dead people dipped in gold and placed in various poses before cooling for decoration. We went into the chamber beyond and found a short hallway before opening into a large room. Silver beams supported a domed ceiling covered in polished dark wood panels inlaid with spiky glyphs. Most of the chamber’s floor rippled in an immense forty-foot diameter pool of deep blue liquid. Flashes of lightning and gouts of flame danced along the surface punctuated by thunder claps, hisses, and cacophonous shrieks. Vague shapes writhed in the currents below the pool’s surface. After some magical deduction, we determined it was a slightly less powerful version of the runeforge pool. It could probably be used to repair or recharge magical items. Gorm seemed mentally disturbed and disoriented, feeling like his entire essence was being sucked into the pool. Unfortunately, we had some bad experiences with the wildly unpredictable nature of the pool and we drained a few items, Soril hurt himself, and some items were unaffected. We only gained a few charges to a couple of our wands. Having given up on charging any more items, we continued to clear the Halls of Greed, finding that the rooms in the rest of this hall formed a mirror image of those we had already found. Finding nothing more of interest, we returned to the central hub of Runeforge to read, heal, and prepare spells for the next day.
The books we found gave great insight into the subjects of transmutation and constructs. Additionally, we found notes and description of the solution the wardens of greed had found to protect Karzoug from the fall of Thassilon. By building a Runewell larger than any before, Karzoug placed himself in stasis between realities: suspended between Golarion and a hostile plane called Ling. Once the dust settled, the plan was for one of Karzoug’s apprentices to release him in a rite not detailed in the books.
There is but one more place to look for clues to the whereabouts of Xin-Shalast and stopping Karzoug’s return: The Ravenous Crypts of Necromancy, our only remaining unexplored area of Runeforge. We are concluding our preparations for today’s tomb raid even now. I, for one, am not overfond of meeting reanimated flesh in battle. I wish I had a touch of the divine powers of our paladin.
- E
--,
What a peculiar place this Runeforge is! A scholar could spend a lifetime in each of the seven areas, uncovering, deciphering, and interpreting the many historical and magical Thassilonian relics we have seen. Unfortunately, the return of Karzoug has left us with much less time than is required to understand all of these artifacts. No doubt his army will be ready to march on the peoples of Varisia in a matter of months...or days.
After our foray into the Halls of Wrath, we decided to return to Jordimandus in the Festering Maze, now that we completed his errand. Upon reentering the squalid halls, we were allowed safe passage to his throne room, without the interruption of putrescent elementals and demonic filth. We met with the odious, noisome, self-appointed ruler of Runeforge and, in his cheery and gracious manner, proffered the prearranged prizes for our compliance. For our effort we received several useful scrolls and a large tome for the betterment of one’s physical prowess. Having gained his trust, we asked him some questions regarding the teleportation devices we believed to be the exit to Runeforge. As I suspected, he was quite knowledgeable on the subject. He admitted to having a hand in its construction and that it was capable of performing two functions: it can summon a creature from an outer plane; or it can open a portal back to the material plane, returning those within the circle to the ring of standing stones by Lake Stormunder by casting any teleportation magic. This portal would be sufficient to return all of us to our native plane. Unfortunately, he was not so helpful in finding the whereabouts of Xin-Shalast. He knew about as much as we did, though he did say it used to be located at the headwaters of the mystical river of Ahh. Jordimandus said he would send his minions to establish control over the rest of Runeforge, but that he can never leave his wing – that is the limit and the price of his immortality. He invited us to stay for dinner. We declined.
We then returned to the circular center of Runeforge, since Jordimandus had confirmed our understanding of the rite to enchant a runeforged weapon. We decided now would be a good time to enchant our weapons against Transmutation, since we were next to delve that area of Runeforge. We gathered around the magical pool. I placed the mirror shards from the Illusory Veils and the succubus items from the Temple of Lust into the magical pool, which then began to glow with a golden color and bubble with some roiling vapor emanating into the air. We elected that Gorm should go first. He placed his axe into the pool. The pool bubbled and sizzled, but after a few moments the axe floated into the air in front of Gorm and he took back his weapon. As soon as he did, a beam of golden light from the pool gleamed upon the enormous statue of Karzoug in the chamber. The likeness animated and declared with the same voice as the slain Mokmurian, “You...Again. I cannot help but be inspired by your optimism; but, alas, your weapons will never reach Xin-Shalast. Your fate is death here in Runeforge!” A brief battle ensued, lasting mere seconds, and the creature spoke again, “This...this is not the last! Come then, Heroes. Seek me atop Mehr Massif, if you value your life so poorly. You should be honored to be the first fools executed under the banner of Shalast in ten thou-,” and broke off mid-sentence, while the statue reverted to its immobile form mid-swing. Though the skirmish was short, Gorm was hit several times and became petrified in place. Luckily, Soril cast a very useful spell from his dagger and freed Gorm from his rigid prison, after which Tolgun restored him to full health and hardiness. The dwarves then commenced with bashing the Karzoug statue to smithereens. After that moment of excitement, we returned to the task of enchanting our weapons. After dipping Blackthorn into the pool and watching her levitate, I could already tell she was beaming with joy, anticipating being driven into Karzoug’s millennia-old body. I was made aware that, in addition to being more harmful to transmuters and shape changers, the newly enchanted weapons conferred protection against the attacks of such creatures. Once each of us had enchanted our main weapons, the pool seemed to lose its magical power, ceasing to glow and bubble. We then decided to recover from our brief but costly fight and prepare to enter the Halls of Greed the next morning. Hoping to gain some insight into our future, we used the divination quill we “found” in the Lamashtan shrine beneath Sandpoint to find the directions to Xin-Shalast. It responded in rhyme, “If Xin-Shalast is what you seek, you will find directions later this week.” “Son of a biatch!” said Tolgun, verbalizing what we were all thinking.
Once we were prepared, we entered the Halls of Greed, feeling much more confident about our survival probability. Predictably, Nala’s key-shaped necklace began to glow warm while Tolgun’s and Lai’Ki became cold to the touch. The hallway continued until it reached a large, iron door to one side. The door looked out of place, studded with dozens of colorful gemstones, having no latch, and sporting a tiny keyhole. Failing to see any traps, Nala tried to insert his necklace key into the keyhole. When he did, the door, driven by a huge piston, smashed Nala against the wall to his back. As the door retracted, we saw that is was really a false door, hiding only machinery and no space beyond. We then searched and found a secret door hidden in the wall directly in front of us. We opened it and entered. A beautiful tunnel of polished wood inlaid with silver and gold runes stretched before us, ending at a wall of greenish mist sparkling with silver motes of light. Soril thought the mist was a transmutation effect, possibly able to metamorphose its unwitting target into a small, harmless animal. Soril placed a life bubble around each of us and we were able to pass through the mist with no problem. Reading the runes on the walls, it told the story of Karzoug’s coming to power and his abilities as a transmuter – what I took to be Thassilonian propaganda. The green mist finally ended at a chamber paved with ivory tiles, each one engraved with a silver rune depicting what appeared to be a claw gripping a gemstone: the Thassilonian symbol for Greed. The walls and ceiling were of stunning polished marble. A large silver basin in the center of the room contained an icy sculpture of a whale spraying crystal clear water from it blowhole. The water cascaded around to keep the basin full, but never quite overflowing. Additionally, a number of what appeared to be water mephits were playing in the fountain, taunting us and saying, “Oh look, another group of fleshies come to slobber in our pool.” Recognizing them as little more than pests, we ignored the mephits and continued on our way. We took a corridor to our right, which turned a couple of times before we came to another room. A fountain sprayed water toward the ceiling high above, the water cascading back into a pool into which colorful goldfish swam. The fountain featured a large stone statue of a human wizard holding a staff in one hand. The other hand was raised over its head and it was from this hand’s palm that the water issued. A door to the left led out. As we started to search the room and pool, the statue animated as a stone golem and attacked us. We quickly defeated it, and continued our search, but another statue soon arrived and we started fighting again. This pattern continued until we had defeated a total of four of those things. We healed our wounds and continued searching, finding nothing of interest. Down the hall, we found three wooden doors on the right and one wooden door to the left. In the room to the left, we found a small living quarters or den. It was empty except for a scattering of raw materials such as sheets of cloth, stacks of lumber, blocks of stone, metal bars, and bones. The other doors led to similar scenes. Nala quickly found out that his key-shaped medallion allowed him to manipulate these materials, enabling him to build any rudimentary object he wished. It was a special property of the strongly magical rooms, so anything he fabricated fell apart if it left those chambers. We continued down the hallway and it ended in another room very similar to the fountain room in which we fought the stone golems, except the stone statue was absent. On one wall stood a closed wooden door.
On the other side of the door, we found rows of thick, wooden work tables occupying the center of a long chamber. Book cases lining the walls held hundreds of books and scrolls. Crates next to or pushed under the work tables appeared to have been filled with an odd variety of mundane items such as rope, sticks, sacks, tools, and cookware. A dog on one of the tables looked dead, though its hind legs appeared to be made of some kind of metal. A few other animals paced back and forth in small metal cages: a house cat, a few rats, a snake, and a small white-faced monkey. There was also a strange-looking human in the room. He appeared to be a man made of metal. Later, Soril told us that in antiquity, there were stories of spell casters who were able to transform their skin from normal skin into metal flesh. This guy was rather silvery, probably made of mithral. He looked at us inquisitively, standing at one of the work tables, with several books splayed out in front of him. As we entered, Ryll greeted him. He greeted us back, saying his name was Ordikon, but we could call him the Mithral Mage. Ryll introduced us and told him the time of the runelords had passed. He seemed unable to process complex ideas and was rather distracted with his own thoughts. He said that he was one of the original acolytes of Karzoug, sent to the runeforge for research. He had made significant progress in his studies, but it came with a great cost: the sacrifices of other acolytes. We had a rather pleasant exchange until he mentioned he would like to use us as test subjects and began to attack. We took the initiative and soon surrounded him. After that, the fight went quickly, ending in the death of the Mithral Mage. We took from him a very nice staff and a few other items. Of great interest to Soril and me were his spellbooks and research books. They were a little peculiar in that most of the higher level spells were repeated several times and most of the formulaic entries were redundant, as if he had immediately forgotten what he had just written.
We took a door from the research room. It opened to a wide hallway floored in polished wooden planks, its walls covered in colorful jade tiles. The ceiling was made of lustrous stone that reflected the light of three decorative lanterns that brightly illuminated ten gleaming golden statues of men and women in various poses of combat readiness along the walls. There was also a creature in the room: a nelfeshnee demon. He greeted us and told us his name was Zuvuzeg. He had been summoned and had been guarding the room beyond for thousands of years. We probed him for information before killing him. He said he had been summoned by Izomandakus, the first warden of the Halls of Greed. He did not put up much of a fight due to his long-lived ennui. Upon closer inspection, we found that the golden statues were in fact dead people dipped in gold and placed in various poses before cooling for decoration. We went into the chamber beyond and found a short hallway before opening into a large room. Silver beams supported a domed ceiling covered in polished dark wood panels inlaid with spiky glyphs. Most of the chamber’s floor rippled in an immense forty-foot diameter pool of deep blue liquid. Flashes of lightning and gouts of flame danced along the surface punctuated by thunder claps, hisses, and cacophonous shrieks. Vague shapes writhed in the currents below the pool’s surface. After some magical deduction, we determined it was a slightly less powerful version of the runeforge pool. It could probably be used to repair or recharge magical items. Gorm seemed mentally disturbed and disoriented, feeling like his entire essence was being sucked into the pool. Unfortunately, we had some bad experiences with the wildly unpredictable nature of the pool and we drained a few items, Soril hurt himself, and some items were unaffected. We only gained a few charges to a couple of our wands. Having given up on charging any more items, we continued to clear the Halls of Greed, finding that the rooms in the rest of this hall formed a mirror image of those we had already found. Finding nothing more of interest, we returned to the central hub of Runeforge to read, heal, and prepare spells for the next day.
The books we found gave great insight into the subjects of transmutation and constructs. Additionally, we found notes and description of the solution the wardens of greed had found to protect Karzoug from the fall of Thassilon. By building a Runewell larger than any before, Karzoug placed himself in stasis between realities: suspended between Golarion and a hostile plane called Ling. Once the dust settled, the plan was for one of Karzoug’s apprentices to release him in a rite not detailed in the books.
There is but one more place to look for clues to the whereabouts of Xin-Shalast and stopping Karzoug’s return: The Ravenous Crypts of Necromancy, our only remaining unexplored area of Runeforge. We are concluding our preparations for today’s tomb raid even now. I, for one, am not overfond of meeting reanimated flesh in battle. I wish I had a touch of the divine powers of our paladin.
- E