2025-06-21 - Session 3
Previous session: Session 2 Next session: Session 4
Where Were We?
Exploring a slightly giant-sized castle keep in a cavern we discovered beneath the sinkhole.
And Then What Happened?
Laurence is freaking out a little bit. Trying to hide it. Several of us notice. Thalador asks if he's okay and tries to steady his spirits.
We proceed clockwise around the central tower. We pass a set of double doors, 20 feet high, wood held together with iron. More glowing blue runes on the iron binding.
Around the back of the tower is a large, roofed, open chamber. Perhaps a garden under the stone at one point. The roof has sort of a floral pattern in tile. Beneath it is a structure of black stone and crystal, in a gazebo-like configuration. Vines -- both real (dried) and carved -- twist up the columns. Floral garlands hang from various posts. More runes on the insides of arches. Cracked benches circle it. Two stone thrones in the center, one cracked down the middle, has a piece of fabric on it. They're sized up to match the doors and other things we've seen. Something glistens on the altar in front of the thrones.
Clodagh is fascinated by the runes on the door. She performs a ritual of Comprehend Languages to try to decipher them.
Aoife studies the vines. They have sort of a "primordial" look to them. The leaves are larger, thorns thicker, than what she's seen before. She examines the garlands. Look like bridal wreathes but the flowers are "wrong". Seems like some kind of "life and death" binding. She moves on to examine the altar and confers with Cador. There's a shard of black crystal, looks like stained with something. Something is written in runes in the dust atop the altar.
Cador examines the fabric draped on the throne. Looks like it might have been white once but is gray now. Feels warm, like someone was just wearing it. It feels magical! A breeze stirs through the gazebo, and we all hear a whisper in a language we don't understand.
Laurence notices a texture in front of the altar -- the ash outline of a kneeling figure. Laurence advances to warn the others not to disturb the ashes, and while stepping through some flowers taps something with his boot. It's flat, eight sides, silver... it's a mirror. When he looks into it, it shows his reflection, but his eyes are missing.
Clodagh finishes her ritual. The runes on the door bindings don't spell anything linguistically, but appears to be some kind of permanent magical binding. They symbolize steadfastness, solidity.
She moves up to check out the gazebo and notices the crystal on the altar looks like half of a heart -- with half broken off. Examining the runes in the dust, one appears to be for "union" but is incomplete. The rest say "E L I E S" but trail off. The whispered sound rises again. A male voice. "She faltered, I reached, she ran..." Sounds like it's coming from up above. With a boost from Cador she reads the runes on the arches. "Together, or not at all. Soul without soul is shadow." Cador touches the cloth again, and again a voice, but a different one: "Please... finish what we began."
Thalador sees something glimmering on the ground between the two thrones. Cador sees a piece of gray crystal. He uses Thwack's handle to pull it out. Clodagh and Laurence examine it. Looks like it's diamond! And it looks like it's a match to the crystal on the altar. Clodagh thinks it was part of a binding ritual that went wrong. Aoife guesses it was a binding of souls rather than a marriage.
At the base of the altar, Cador sees something metallic. Looks like a metal mask, half-melted. The mouth is partially open, the eye wide, and half of an eight-pointed star on the forehead.
Clodagh begins a ritual of Detect Magic. Laurence occasionally thinks he hears a melody, in a scale he's not familiar with. Aoife checks Cathbad's Journal.
Thalador notices that it seems weird that this structure has windows. Why would there be windows, or roofs, underground? Perhaps this tower wasn't always in the cavern? The journal passage about "buried outposts swallowed when the mountains rose" sticks out as possibly relevant!
Her ritual complete, Clodagh sees the the gray half of the crystal heart, the altar, and thrones glowing faintly with residual magic. The half-heart glows iridescent silver-green -- not one of the eight colors she was expecting. The mirror is also magical -- abyssal black with starlight, a color so intense it has a feeling, drawing her to it as if by a deep gravity. Her pendant appears to glow with electric blue and copper. The pendant doesn't point anywhere now!
We leave the crystal and other artifacts back at the gazebo for the moment.
The air is still as we proceed around the tower. Tents have pots, old clothes. Laurence observes scorch marks on the stones and surmises the absence of bodies is because the fire horse thing ate them.
Laurence contemplates knocking at the doors... but can't reach. The door is locked. Clodagh tries to pick the lock, but doesn't succeed on the first try. She goes again and it works.
Cador pulls the door open. Large hallway, doors on the left an right, stairs leading up at the center of the tower. Door on the left is locked. Clodagh tries picking it, and succeeds.
We enter... it's an armory! Weapons on the wall, blades of various kinds. Crossbows on another. Cador takes one that would be "two-handed sword" sized and a heavy crossbow. Laurence takes a light crossbow. Clodagh finds a rapier-equivalent. Thalador picks up a pair -- one more like a scimitar, one more like a shortsword (like a wakizashi?).
Next door is unlocked. Some kind of laboratory. Medical? Magical? Medical implements on the desk. Bodies strapped down on tables -- all about halfling sized. Dried and mummified from the years. Long hair and beards. Both male and female specimens. Looks like vivisected. Some have burns on their skin. Others blinded, dissected.
Thalador gets the heebie-jeebies and says a prayer to Elven gods, for protection of the party in this unholy place and for the damned souls who perished on the tables. He feels a wave of intense love and protection -- and concern.
Clodagh goes to check out the circle inscribed on the floor.
On the desk, folks find:
- Bottles with fluid in them
- Ten thumbnail-sized diamonds
- Two books
- Two potion bottles with something in them
- An inky black fluid that absorbs surrounding light
- A swirling mixture of silver and violet, with faint whispers when uncorked
Laurence smells the potions. They smell different from each other.
Aoife finds something that smells like incense and takes it.
Clodagh takes the diamonds, and the books.
One book is embossed with three interlocking spirals. She opens it with Mage Hand. Pale leaf pages with writing in this ancient language. The title page says The Primer of Beginnings. The ink shimmers and shifts as she reads it, and it says the words -- in the ancient language -- in her mind. Turning the page, it introduces her to Vanha glyphs and their names. It's a book for teaching children the concepts of the Vanha language. Even Clodagh's name appears -- it's teaching her, personally. The second book is similarly bound.
By the furthest body is a bag next to a bone saw and other implements. Inside the bag... it's a Bag of Holding! Thalador pulls out four amulets. The bear images of hammer and anvil, rising sun behind them. Also one warhammer. Thalador takes the bag and returns the amulets and warhammer to the bag.
We proceed to the next room. Looks like crates of supplies. Wood, paper, other things... and a tub of squids (old and dried). Some are broken into. We suspect the squids were used for ink. Cracked open ones have old dry goods. One crate has stacked wood. Another crate is full of leather hides, in decent shape. The other crate is full of reams of paper. We take a sample of paper and hides in the bag of holding.
The next room looks like an office -- desk with books, nice chairs (albeit rotted), tile floor, old rug. Very tidy. The big, purple book is "tome sized", the little brown one is "novel sized". Clodagh examines the smaller book and finds it to be well-scribed. They appear to be textbooks. The eight-pointed star appears on the cover of the purple book -- maybe it's about magic?
Bottles on the table contain colors -- sealed test tubes with:
- Radiant gold shot through with pearl
- Opal black with violet streaks
- Iridescent silvery-green
- Electric-blue and copper
- Crimson & deep indigo
- Abyssal black & starlight
- Silver & pale violet
- Aquamarine & moonlit white
Clodagh thinks that the colors align to the kinds of magic down here. We stuff the bottles into the bag of holding. Clodagh takes the books.
We move on, and go upstairs to a round chamber. Floor is a highly polished silver mirror. 60 feet across? Dais in the center, which holds a pool or font, about four feet tall. Above it floats a violet mist that rises from the pool. The whole room feels electrically charged. Red lines have been traced within the mirror, and they glow brightly. The longer we look at it, the weirder it looks -- sometimes looks like a cube, but looks different from different angles. There's also a ladder up to a third level.
Clodagh begins a ritual of Detect Magic. Laurence does a ritual of Unseen Servant.
The floor is not magical. Only the liquid in the font is magical. Iridescent silver-green.
We go upstairs to make the most of the Detect Magic. This is the highest level. It's a five-sided chamber. Tile floor. In the center is a table with an eight-spoked wheel. At each point of the star is a bar of metal, 1.5" x 1.5" by 12", some kind of silvery-pewter colored metal. Look like they've been placed there. All eight glow magically, with a gold-amber of transmutation, and also iridescent silver-green. Magic seems to be working together. Runes appear on one and shift into Clodagh's name. As each of us look at them, it shifts to our names, in our native languages.
Clodagh and Cador touch the ones with their names, and it feels right. It belongs to them.
Clodagh's becomes a longbow in the color of the metal, and purple runes. Cador's becomes a fancy greataxe. Thalador grasps one and it becomes a beautiful scimitar. Laurence's becomes a lute. Aiofe's becomes a sickle. They remain in their shapes if set down. And we know where they are, directionally. We can't pick up any others -- they won't budge.
We go down to the second floor. We very, very carefully approach the dais. The vapor rising from the font smells of ozone. Nothing interacts with the mirror Laurence picked up earlier. Cador pokes the end of a torch into the mist. Laurence commands his Invisible Servant to touch the fluid -- and with a pop, it's gone. Clodagh uses Mage Hand to drop a copper into the liquid... and it just floats on top. As we get closer we see the liquid like staring into a starry night sky.
We descend to return to the office to think about things.
Clodagh does another Comprehend Languages ritual and consults the big tome to see if it's relevant to what's on this floor. It seems to be about the nature of the Weave and its different aspects. She checks the other book. It's a journal or confessional.
Examining the other book (from the laboratory), it sounds like it describes the creatures that had been dissected. Dwarves??
Clodagh starts in on reading the books, re-casting Comprehend Languages as needed. The large tome is The Eightfold Path of the Weave and the smaller book from the desk is The Soulkeeper's Memoirs. The other book, Of Ash and Stone, indeed seems to describe dwarves. Thalador starts in on the Primer of Beginnings. We also attune to our new items.