Cora Returns

A year and a half. 

It may sound like a long time to some, but it's not. Not really. At least not for me, for whom time is essentially meaningless. What is an hour? A day? A week? A month?  

In comparison to the endless stretch of eternity, these things are merely mortal constructions and concepts created to fulfill their need to quantify the space of time that they exist in. Grains of sand in an endless sea of desert. 

.oOo..oOo..oOo.

We were defending a wall. A city under siege. There was a cacophany of chaos and sound, and then an impact. I found myself falling. The glimpse of Tobias' horrified face as I crashed into the rushing river below, one of the last things I recall seeing. I hit the water with enough force that I blacked out... 

Things were dark and cold, and it seemed only to be the blink of an eye. 

When I finally awoke, I found myself laying upon a bier of raised rock and moss. The echoes of a sonorous chanting still resonated in my ears and my bones. A muted, green-tinged shaft of sunlight shone through a small gap, and I slowly sat up and started taking measure of myself and my surroundings. 

I still had my beautifully carved maple and dragonbone bow, and my sword. These laid out beside me carefully, but in pristine condition and within easy reach. My armor was damaged, but still basically functional, and I wore the sheer gauzy green robes that I was fond of, somehow undamaged, like a shroud. I still had a pack, laying against the base of the stones, and it contained the druidic etched scroll tube, though it had obviously been water damaged. It also still contained the small bag of various gemstones that I had collected during previous travels. No food, but a full water skin, a small bottle of olive oil, a small jar of honey, and a bottle of the wine I had come to favor the most were set near the pack as well. 

I moved slowly at first, and discovered that, while stiff and sore from laying on stone for ...however long it has been, I was otherwise uninjured and unmarred. I put myself through a series of gentle stretches and movements to get blood properly flowing again, and then sat down and said a long prayer of thanks.

After a span of time in deep meditation, I looked and saw that the sunlight was coming through what appeared to be a bricked up doorway. I gathered what belongings I still had, worked to pull away the stones, and stepped out into... 

Green. 

So much green. 

I was on a small island, surrounded by murky brown waters. Everything here breathed with verdant, vibrant life and I could feel the ebb and flow of energies swirling around me like a gentle breeze. I looked back at the doorway I just walked through and realized that it was a cairn. I gently restacked the stones and started looking around for pathways that might lead out of the area. 

As I explored I discovered that the area I found myself in was nothing BUT small islands and islets, everything teeming with flora and fauna. I took some time and try to adjust my spells and the magic I pull from to be better suited to the area. It was almost cloying, and I found myself wanting to be away from the damp and the wet and the weight of it. 

A space of time (weeks maybe?) passed, but I eventually found an area where the water moved faster and seemed a bit clearer. I followed this out to a river, and guessed that this was how I got into the marshlands. Having nowhere else to begin, I moved upstream toward where I set about doing what I do best. Tracking. 

It took several more days of steady travel before I reached any signs of population. As much as I dislike going into towns and cities, I looked down at my broken armor and scant supplies, and realized that if I wanted to continue on, this time I would have to. I found a decent looking inn close to the edge of the area to use as a base and began some true reconaissance for the rest of my traveling companions. 

It was here that I learned of the time frame that I was actually missing, and was able to glean through rumors and various tales that the group I sought had understandably moved on, but could not gather enough information to tell me which direction to go next. This town did have a reputable armor shop, thankfully, so I was able to get a new set of fine black leather armor made for me. Supple and strong, it fit me well without encumberance, and I praised the maker on his craft. I was able to replace the torn pouches and bags as well, finding task of reprovisioning in a city to be just as frustrating as I remember it being. 

Once I had gathered what small belongings I had, I set off in search of notable places of power with the thought that the group might be drawn there considering some of the things I remember them having to do. Plus, how difficult should it be to locate a ship that sails on land? 

More difficult than I guessed it would be. 

I traveled again for a span of nameless time, listening to rumors and tales to guide my way. Eventually I came across an old grove in an even older enchanted forest, and remembered that it was once called Druidhome. I stopped here for a while to rest and revel in the peace of the green. Being surrounded by verdant life helps me to keep my memories firmly in the present. It's so easy for me to just let it all disappear into the background when I am on my own. 

While I was resting at Druidhome, I took the time to try to remember what tasks the group had been given before I got separated from them. My hope was that some memory might spark a sense of direction or a recollection of a place where we had been headed. 

I reflected on the wars currently raging, spurred on by the Spider queen and her drow minions, which were the primary focus for the group as a whole. The Spider queen cares not about anything except her endless goal to take over this plane of existence. She almost succeeded 2000 years ago, a memory that has grown dim with age. She was ultimately supplanted by the rise of the human gods and their devotional service to them rather than to the fear that she cultivated and relished in. Replaced and driven under ground to be banished to the dark. It fueled her anger and resentment even further when the elves of the surface worked in direct opposition to her own children, and she continued to lose power in both the Inner and Outer planes. 

This gave rise to a name that rang out like a bell. Trisonora. 

A half breed being from both the divine and material planes. Not wholly of one or the other, but belonging to neither as well. They have the desire to steal a realm for themselves, and the current chaos of the ongoing Dark War leaves the grounds ripe for theft. Their goal is not only the theft of a realm, but the linking of Outer, Inner, and Prime Material worlds. This makes them an immediate threat.

I focused my attentions on these rumors specifically and learned that there is a large city somewhere in the mountains on this continent where humans do not go. I was able to gather enough information to tell me that I should head towards an old mage tower to the north east. 

I did find the tower, crumbling and abandoned, with no sign of any recent traveler near by. There was a large road, however, and so I followed that road through the winter and on into summer. Eventually I did see the city I guessed was Barth off in the distance, about two or three days journey away. Deciding to continue that direction the next morning, I foraged for a bit and then made a small camp for the night. A stranger approaced and asked if they could share my fire, and I welcomed them with the offer of a shared meal. During the conversations shared, the stranger told me of an odd meeting he had only two mountain ridges over from where we were, with a group of "those human types, plus two elves, all on a ship with wheels!"

So I turned my head toward the road behind me, and set off the next morning in search of the group I knew to be the traveling companions I searched for. The human natives of the area are kind, if extremely skittish and wary of me. They think I am some sort of spirit-made-flesh, and tend to be almost reverential when I come to them for trade or for news of the area. The land here never goes green, and is constantly wreathed in snow and ice, but they are a hearty folk and I enjoy spending time with them when we encounter one another. 

Recently, they have been speaking to me about a "dark one" off the road to the south, towards the cities. They say that he can be trusted, only in that what he says tends to be true. But they warn that he also talks with bones, which is something that one shouldn't do. They call him "Nanaquin" which I learned means only "not of the ice, not of the people."

It makes me wonder what they call me. 

Regardless though, this Nanaquin seems to be exactly the sort of person that the group I seek would try to find. So maybe I could speak with them to find out how close I am to finally locating the adventurers. 

I found my way to a house that matched the description that I was given, but there was something that put me ill at ease about it. It was well after nightfall, so I moved cautiously, keeping to the edge of the path, but staying in the shelter and cover of the trees and doing my best to stay silent and stay hidden until I could discover more. There was a clearing with a raging bonfire in the center, but the fire was .. there was a wrongness about it. The flames were not natural colors, and there was a figure moving in slow circles around it, voicing a deep low chanting sound that seemed oddly familiar. That same resonance I felt in my bones when I first woke up in the marshlands. 

It put me on edge and made me instinctively check my weapons and surroudings, which is when I heard something crashing along the road with enough noise that it could wake the dead. After a few more moments, I could hear a number of different voices that seemed to be arguing about who would go up the road and who would stay behind with the supplies. 

I had to smile to myself when I recognized Tobais' voice among them, realizing that I had indeed finally found the group I sought. I smiled too, at the familiarness of it all, to think that this was what they thought of as being stealthy and I moved more into the cover of the trees so that I could make my way closer to them. It was nice to know that some things didn't change. They kept arguing about what their next steps should be, when two of them pointed out that they thought that they noticed something else in the woods as well. Realizing that they meant me, and not wanting to risk being attacked, I stepped out of the shadows silently and told them that they really needed to work on being more quiet. 

The look of awed amazement and the immediate bombardment of questions that I got was almost enough to make me laugh aloud. Oh, how I have missed this ecclectic group of adventurers. 

I noticed there were a couple of new faces in the sea of familiar ones, but realized that the reunion would need to wait at least a little while longer. I told them quietly that I would answer their questions soon enough, but the person ahead of them demanded our immediate attention. I told them what I knew of him, and suggested a cautious approach.

So, as a group, we approached the chanting man to see him talking with a figure shrouded in the flames who spoke of wars and the goddess walking again. The figure was large, towering over 8 feet, and continued to tell Nanaquin about the "emmisary of the Dark One" that he was supposed to meet and deliver a message to. After the conversation completed, the figure vanished, and some of the party members strode into the clearing as bold as brass.

Nanaquin glared at them and accused them of coming to set his house on fire again. There's a story there that I am sure I will hear about later. They somehow bluffed their way past that part of the conversation and lead him to believe that THEY were the emmissaries that he had been instructed to find and that they would be the ones that delivered the message to where it needed to go. 

I am not sure how exactly they got him to believe it, but believe it he did. He handed over a scroll case that was clearly carved from the femur bone of a human. He told us of a rest stop where we would meet our contact, and that further instructions would follow there. 

The scroll tube was accepted, and we moved away back down the road to regroup and figure out next steps. 

.oOo..oOo..oOo.

Author's Note: 

5 years of real time have passed since the last update here. In that time frame, massive life changes happened to turn my world upside down. But I'm back to gaming again, and have been able to rejoin the previous gaming crew with an old familiar character. It's good to be back. ~ NKH

The Lost City - Temples, tunnels, and still more rats

It's too bad Amit isn't here with us now. For, what better way to deal with giant rats than to have at your side a giant cat?  - Cora 

.oOo..oOo..oOo..oOo.

Previously in our story...

The rats, thankfully, made no further appearance that evening, however their apparent disappearance made me extremely wary. According to what Jaeger had described, he and Scott had only taken out half of the beasts, but Lan had seen no trace of them in the tunnels. I pondered again, briefly, how expansive the tunnelworks under the ruined city might prove to be. As we made our preparations to go into the temples across the way, I noticed that the entire area behind the two chapels was entirely unharmed, as if the area had been protected somehow from the utter destruction of the city surrounding them. 

Tobias and KelLyn had spent several hours the night before telling us all that they knew from their previous encounters with the Paladin of Celestia. We decided that we would explore that temple first, and made our way carefully through the ruined street and up to the blue stone stairs.

The cobalt colored steps led up and into a main open-roofed worship area which boasted a large altar at the back of the space and a large blue velvet tapestry which hung above it. The tapestry was embroidered with an enormous silver eye - the symbol of Celestia - which was woven in such a way that it appeared to follow the party's movements around the room. From the entrance, the embroidered eye looked very realistic, but as we drew nearer to the altar, the intricate stitch-work became more visible. 

Scott made a motion to tear the tapestry down, but I sternly warned against defacing the temple. Tobias seconded my warning with the statement that, while he had a personal vendetta against the paladin of this order, he held nothing against the deity or the rest of the order, and we did not want to borrow trouble. There were doors to the left and right of the tapestry that lead into the temple proper, and I checked the door to the left first. I found no physical traps, but was still wary of potential magical traps, and told the party as much. Ignoring my warnings, Scott walked up and opened the door before anyone could say anything about the action. 

I stared after him in utter exasperation, again considering his apparent disregard for safety, but then followed the rest of the party through the door into a room with several desks arranged in an orderly fashion. Each of the desks held several religious texts which seemed centered on the day-to-day functions of running a temple of Celestia. It was odd to see such rituals and rites written out, but as the text were very specific, I considered that it may have been one of the requirements of their order. 

Taryn spoke up then, asking if we should take the books with us, but we had no use for them and Tobias reiterated that we should not destroy them. As they discussed the books, I examined the walls and discovered a small alcove off to one side. There was a hidden panel there which opened up a door to what appeared to be a small bathroom. The rest of the party was completely baffled by the thought of an indoor restroom, and stared at me uncomprehendingly when I told them what it was for. After a moment of trying to explain, I simply shook my head at them and said that there was nothing here in this space to worry about. 

We continued to follow the hallway a short distance to another door off to the right. This door was trapped, but the mechanism was a simple one, and I disarmed it easily. The door opened into a small room which had several robes hanging on wall pegs. The robes were simple dark blue silk, and Lan grabbed one of them to put on. She happily twirled the robe around with a giggle, and said that it reminded her of the water. This room also held a writing desk, a small table, and a bed. The bed was luxurious with a down filled mattress, and sheets that were made of deep blue silk. Tobias looked at the bed, and then took the sheets off of the mattress with a saucy wink towards me as he folded them carefully away in his pack. 

He debated for a moment on how to take the mattress, but it would have been too heavy and too bulky to transport, so he left it alone with a sigh. I raised an amused eyebrow at his obvious flirtation, but then turned to explore the writing desk. With great interest, I discovered several sheets of excellently preserved vellum, several long black quills, and a beautiful blue-black ink which had a mystical quality about it. I added these things carefully to my own pack, and continued to investigate the room. 

Underneath the bed, I discovered the carapace of a giant centipede which had died a long time ago of starvation. It crumbled to dust as I touched it, but there was nothing left in the room of interest. We continued our explorations, and the next room opened into a larger area which appeared to be the monk's quarters, with four cells that were sparsely equipped with simple, empty furniture. 

Another door on the left opened into a second partitioned room for young clerks. There were basic unadorned robes in a light blue silk hanging on the wall. The silk was good quality, and since they bore no markings of any order on them, I took one and Scott took the other. The cots here were of a much lower quality, and the mattresses were old and musty smelling. As I searched through the room I discovered, to my delight, an old canvas folding tub. The canvas was rotten, but the copper frame was still strong and sound. I gave it to Tobias to add to the cart, with the request to help me recanvas the tub at our earliest opportunity. 

There was a large carved doorway at one corner of the hallway, which lead into the high priest's room. The door was trapped, and as I worked to delicately disarm the trap, I revealed a set of explosive runes which instantly activated in my face. I managed to avoid most of the detonation, but took some injury from the explosion. Lan ran over to me after the smoke cleared and was able to quickly heal my wounds. The door swung harmlessly open, since the handle was blown clear in the blast, and it revealed an opulent room with an enormous four poster bed with carved posts, a foot locker made of the same wood, a large desk, and several heavily embroidered robes which hung from pegs on the wall. 

Tobias again began to strip the bed of the sheets, blankets, and the gauzy canopy; and then began to examine the bed to see if he could figure out how to dismantle it. KelLyn claimed the heavy robes for herself, and I examined the large desk. I found more vellum, and a larger portion of the mystical blue-black ink. Scott expressed some interest in the ink, so I gave him the smaller container I had found earlier, and added the larger container of ink to my pack with the additional vellum. I also discovered an odd rocker tool which was covered in heavy linen, which I gave to KelLyn, as well as a small box which contained several long flat quills and 6 gold nibs which I claimed. 

There was a small wardrobe which contained more silk clothes that Taryn and Lan began to go through, and I noticed that one of the pieces of vellum that I picked up had some writing on it. The note was written in common, which I could not read, and I handed it to Osman who said that it was a set of instructions for shipping and handling of merchandise. There was a small alcove in one wall with wooden panels that opened up to reveal a small gold picture frame with platinum filigree. There was no picture inside it though, and in the wall behind the wooden panels was a small slot which looked out into the alleyway behind the temple. Tobias took the picture frame, and I opened the footlocker to reveal an additional set of blankets and a masterwork set of steel manacles with an ornate key. Tobias pointed out that the manacles might be useful if we decided to take prisoners for some reason, and Taryn said something about the letter referring to slaves. I looked at him in confusion for a moment, before realizing that the "shipping and handling" instructions were what he had been talking about. I dropped the manacles and eyed them in distaste, and glared at Osman who had the grace to look abashed at the deception.  
Tobias, having given up on trying to dismantle the bed, put all of the blankets and sheets that he had gathered into the footlocker, and he and Scott picked it up to carry it back out to the cart. When they returned we continued to explore down the hallway over to the last room of the temple. This room was locked with mystical traps guarding the door, and I called KelLyn over to help disarm them. She looked at the door critically for a moment before stating that there was not one, but two spells on the door, a trigger and an effect. She drew a circle on the ground to help boost her power, however the first attempt failed. The trap, thankfully did not go off, and her second attempt was powered by two circles. The air sparked with static, and we all ducked around the corner for safety. She dispelled the effect spell with a gout of purple flame, and then said that it was safe to come back in. She said that the trigger spell was still there, but was essentially ineffective and would not cause any harm. The door was still locked, though it was simple enough to pick, and Scott pushed the door open as soon as he heard the locking mechanism click open, knocking me backward in the process. 

I glared at him again as I picked myself up off of the floor, and muttered to myself that I would let him unlock the doors on his own from then on. Inside the room there was an iron lockbox, and a single book. The book was a ledger which listed line after line after line of transactions. The high priest had been in the business of trafficking people, it seemed, and it made me feel ill to think of the lives that had been lost by such a despicable trade. I dropped the book back on it's stand with distaste, and turned my attention to the iron lockbox which contained three smaller boxes of separated coins. 
  10 copper
  30 silver
600 gold

We took the lock box and the coins back to the cart and made our camp for the evening with the decision to explore the second temple and surrounding area in the morning. Morning came sooner than expected though, and towards the end of second watch, the rest of the party was awoken by the sounds of commotion. Instantly on guard, I looked over to see Tobias' box on the ground, two apparently dead giant rats on the ground, and two more attacking Scott and KelLyn. Scott was yelling, which is what had finally made the party aware of the danger, and KelLyn was in the middle of casting a spell at the two rats who were attempting to flee.

Her spell went off with a whisper, and I saw one of the rats topple over asleep, just as Scott fell over beside it, snoring deeply. One of the two dead rats was actually still breathing shallowly, but I killed it quickly before it could regain strength and attack us again. I walked over to Lan and shook her awake to help tend to KelLyn and Scott, who had both been bitten by the diseased rodents. Tobias was grumbling darkly and opened his box up to make sure that nothing inside had been damaged before pulling it back up onto the cart. I noticed that two of the rats had run off into the dark, and I began to silently track them through the rubble to see if I could locate where they had come from. 

After a short while, however, their trail simply vanished; and I returned to camp annoyed. I told the party that i didn't think that the rats were really what they seemed, and KelLyn spoke up then to tell us that she had seen them turn into small humans. I glanced at her, my annoyance growing, and said archly that that information would have been useful BEFORE I started tracking the things. Tobias thought for a moment, and then said that he had heard of creatures like this in his class at the university, and that the description sounded like what he had learned about were-rats.

Lan agreed to continue working on healing Scott and KelLyn, and I took Tobias back out with me to continue to try to track and hunt the remaining two creatures. I noticed that there had been an odd pattern in the obscurity of their tracks, and the repetition bothered me for some reason that I could not yet fathom. We tracked them back to where I had lost the trail originally, and I spent some time searching around the rubble to see if I could pick up traces of where they had gone. I discovered a concealed door amid one of the piles of rubble, and I pointed it out quietly to Tobias. We agreed to return to camp and get the rest of the party, and I pondered how to mark the trail back to the hidden door. 

I remembered a pattern of rocks that Shalev and I had used when we were in the desert, and I used that pattern again to mark the path we would take. When we returned to camp, we saw the rest of the party members still fast asleep. We checked on Lan, who said that she had done what she could to heal Scott and KelLyn, and we pointed out that they might very well have also been infected by any number of diseases from the wererats. Lan quickly cast a cure spell on them both successfully, and the rest of the evening passed without further incident. 

When morning arrived a few hours later we told the others that we had tracked the wererats to their hole and we needed to get rid of them. Scott expressed disappointment at being cured, saying that he thought turning into a rat might have been fun. I stared at him for a moment, but then decided that it was not worth the argument. Jaeger agreed to stay with the cart, and we followed the trail of rocks back to the trail. 

I noticed several times that the rock pattern had been almost exactly duplicated in several attempts to throw us off the trail. Only someone who was intimately familiar with the exact pattern would have been able to tell the difference, and I commented at the intelligence and cunning that this showed. 

We made our way back to the concealed gap in the rubble and followed it down into a curving passageway that opened off to a large room on the right. We looked around the corner cautiously to see that the room was full of a seething swarm of smaller rats, and we quickly backed up a bit. I turned to KelLyn and told her to forget the warning about fire and enclosed spaces, and to light the room up. She grinned wide with a joy she only finds when she is destroying something and immediately began to chant in what I had come to recognize as Fyrewerian.

The rest of the party quickly backed out of the tunnel as a blanket of fire engulfed the room, killing all of the rats inside instantly and sucking all of the air out of the room. I had the breath knocked out of me as I was yanked back by Tobias, and we all waited for a handful of moments before venturing back into the tunnel. 

The large room had been charred from floor to ceiling, and was completely empty of anything but smoldering ashes. We continued to explore the tunnel that lead us to another large room that had three piles of rags on the floor. One of the piles was occupied by a small human, and I quietly moved ahead of the party and cut it's throat. As I made my way silently over, I felt a surge of approval that I knew came from my ancestors, and I smiled quietly in the knowledge that they still watched over me even though we could not communicate outright. 
One quick knife stroke killed the wererat before it could even wake, and I turned to see the rest of the part gaping at me in disbelief. 

I blinked at this reaction from them, as it was unexpected, nature is about life and death after all. Wererats were an unnatural scourge, and the elimination of the rodents was necessary to restore the balance of the area. I started to shrug off their amazed, horrified expressions, and turned to examine the body only to blink again at the arrow that lodged itself in my armor just above my heart. I looked down at the thing then looked up quickly to see a small wererat in a shadowed passageway staring at me with chagrin at his failure to kill me outright. 

I reacted quickly by throwing two of my daggers at it, and shouting alarm to the rest of the party. The first dagger struck true, wounding it, but my second throw glanced off of the wererat as he moved to draw his sword. Tobias ran at him with his maces drawn, and struck him squarely, wounding it a second time and silencing the area around them. The rat completely unsheathed his sword then and pointed it at Osman, who had taken aim at it with his bow. I watched as the arrow was deflected by a quick snap of the rat's flimsy sword, and then as another of my daggers wad deflected in the same fashion. 

The rat stood squarely and continued to defend himself with intricate sword work, knocking arrows, daggers, and mace strikes alike with an amazing skill. I saw Osman begin to cast a spell, and I drew my bow to continue to try to at least distract the rat. As Tobias moved to swing again with his maces, the rat threw a bag of something at his feet, and vines exploded out of the small pouch to entangle Tobias' arms and legs. Seeing the immediate threat removed, the rat then quickly threw a small stone at Osman which bounced off of Osman's chest with a small rumble of thunder. 

My arrows again struck the wererat, in the shoulder just as Osman's spell completed and a haunch of goat arced through the air toward the rat. Tobias was still struggling to free himself from the vines, and Osman and I both took aim again with our bows. Taryn threw a dagger, and Scott rushed in to brawl with the rat. The haunch of goat meat struck the dumbfounded wererat in the chest which distracted him enough to allow for my second arrow to hit him squarely, though Taryn's dagger and Osman's arrow were both deflected. 

Scott ran straight at the wererat, but then to his surprise was thrown clear when the wererat made some small motion. Everyone except KelLyn was surprised by the move, and the rat took out a potion to drink it. KelLy, paying no attention to the rats movements, walked over to him, stopped right in front of his face, and reached out to grab him. The rat, unaware that KelLyn had gotten so close to him, looked up just in time to have KelLyn's hand close around his throat as she was in the middle of casting a spell, and with a flex of her muscles, she tore his head clean off. 

She tossed the body out of the room, and we all spent a few moments recovering from the fight. We searched the room and discovered a small chest under one of the beds of rags which contained a pile of cheap silver plated flatware, a blue silk cape, a pair of gold bracelets shaped like intertwined snakes, and a box with a badly mangled lock.

Tobias examined the box for a moment, and then quickly knocked the hinges off of the back of the container to reveal a silver and platinum masterwork flute. Taryn gasped in wonder, and Tobias handed it over to him. The bracelets and the cape were taken for the party stash, and we discovered nothing else in this room of note. The shadowed passage that the wererat had been hiding in lead to another cavern like room with a table in the center. 

On the table was a map of the entire sewer system, which showed points of entry and exit clearly marked. The tunnelworks were indeed massive, as I had suspected, and I quickly rolled the map up to take with us as a guide. There was a locked iron box in this room as well as the headless body of the unfortunate wererat. Taryn also claimed the silver needle like sword, which he called a rapier, as it was a weapon that he was familiar with. 

Inside the lockbox we found a second tanglefoot bag which Tobias claimed, a short stick that Scott claimed, saying that it was a smoke stick, and a small silver box labeled with dwarven runes which contained a metal dwarven crossbow and 20 bolts which Osman claimed. There were several other treasures inside the larger lockbox as well: 
a small wooden box containing 125 gold
a travel pen and ink set which I claimed
a bag of signet rings
a bag containing 10 small sapphires which I claimed
a broken silver candelabra
and an unlabeled potion which Scott identified as a potion of Eagle's Splendor, which Taryn took. 

The main cavern here had several tunnels that lead into it, but was otherwise empty and unoccupied, and we decided to return to our camp on the surface, using the map to guide us out of the tunnels. Once back at camp, we added the new treasures to the party stash, and the gold was split between the party members. I declined the coins, as I had claimed the sapphires instead, and Taryn and Scott grew wide eyed with wonder at the pile of gold that they were each given. 

.oOo..oOo..oOo..oOo.

The second temple still needs to be explored before we can move on, and there is no telling what we might find inside. Having the map to the tunnels under the city will prove very useful, I think, and may give us away to move around to areas that we would not otherwise have been able to explore. 

The dragon still waits. 

After this is done, however it may end, it is my hope that we will have yet another piece of the puzzle for the larger picture. There is still so much to do. I honestly wonder if Scott will survive long. He seems to have a disregard for the dangers that we face that borders on outright stupidity. The party, with perhaps the exception of KelLyn, seem wary of me after my assassination of the sleeping wererat. It does not bother me overly, as I have never shied away from trying to maintain balance where I can. I think sometimes that they forget that balance can occasionally mean taking a life rather than saving it. 

I realized recently that, aside from my thoughts on Shalev, I have stopped thinking about the desert in terms of "home." I am beginning to wonder how long it will be before I do make it back to the shifting sands that I once considered my sanctuary, and when I do return, if it will still feel the same. 

The Lost City - Oh, rats.

As I sipped my tea by the fire, I continued to study the book of spells that Tobias had gifted me. There were several scribbles and notes in the margins of the book, which were obviously personal observations from the original owner. As I examined the words, I meditated on the last real conversation that I was able to have with my ancestors. The barrier here still prevents direct contact, and I feel their absence almost like a missing limb. I am looking forward to the time when we can be quit of this place, and I can once again converse with them. 

I still have so many questions. Looking back over the past few months, - No, years. Time really has no meaning for one such as I. - I contemplate again the larger picture. How does everything we have done, everything we are doing, tie together? I grow more and more certain that this will be just one more piece of the puzzle, but I cannot yet see what the finished result might be. 

If... when we bring the barrier down here, how will that affect the outside world? How will it affect this one? We still have to find the cup and the chalice, though KelLyn's friend is long-dead now. The winged man also mentioned several other artifacts that we would need in the coming battle against the dark elves. The talisman of Al Akbar, and one other artifact located in Kaibar. I wondered if Pyl - the author of the letter that Tobias gave me along with the book of spells - still lived there, and if they might be able to give us more information on what we sought. 

Then there's the elven city and the sylvan tree where we found the Maker. No. I have not forgotten that, and it still fills me with a seething fury that those who would call themselves my kin would so desecrate something that should be held sacred. I am determined to see this through to the end, and though I am prepared to fight them - or whatever has corrupted them - I am also aware of what the cost might be, and I wonder if I am strong enough to pay it. I ponder all of the knowledge I have gained here regarding the restoration and care of sylvan trees, and I know that I was given such a glimpse for a purpose. Perhaps what I have learned here, what I may yet learn here, will give me what I need to complete what lies ahead. 

and just maybe I can save two trees instead of just one. 

.oOo..oOo..oOo..oOo.

Previously in our story...

As I contemplated thoughts of what remained to be done, I glanced around at the campsite, noticing that Osman lay still and quiet, finally resting fully. KelLyn was drunk, again, but that seems to be her escape. She seems distant with her former lover, Taryn, and I am curious as to his reasoning behind disappearing so thoroughly. I have noticed that humans tend to see such things as a personal slight for some reason, though I imagine it also has a lot to do with how short their life spans can be. 

I sipped my tea and then noticed, with some interest that both Jaeger and Scott had vanished. I mentioned this to Tobias and KelLyn and was told that the two had wandered back into the academy to finish explorations on their own rather than wait for the rest of the party. I looked at them both, then looked toward the academy, and shook my head. Either Jaeger and Scott would return, or they would not. They had made their choice to explore the unknown unaided. 

Several hours later, they indeed did return, scratched and bruised and grinning like little children who had gotten away with mischief. Scott showed us the things that they had found inside: 
two potions, likely healing potions from Scott's description, a cloak that was still in good repair where he had found the potions, a ring which Jaeger warned needed to be identified before it was worn, a sling with a pouch of iron pellets, a few pieces of mismatched armor, and two clear potion bottles that contained very old holy water. 

As Scott had not yet equipped himself beyond the simple clothes that he wore, he took the cloak and the potions for himself, at the party's insistence. I pointed out that there was also a full suit of leather armor somewhere on the cart that would likely fit him, and Tobias went to help him find it. 

I put one of the bottles of holy water on my belt, and Jaeger took the other one. Once he had the bottle, he opened it and dumped the essence of the shade from the mirror into it. The black goop hit the water with an audible scream, and both the potion and essence exploded into vapor which shattered the bottle in his hands. As Jaeger stoically held the bottle during this process, I heard Taryn say, somewhat ironically, that he was glad that he had sided with us. His words cut short however, and I looked up to see him staring at Jaeger with a horrified expression on his face. During the concentration that Jaeger focused on the destruction of the shade essence, he had allowed the illusion that he wore on his face to slip, and he once again appeared as an orc. 

Taryn began to panic at this, as he had been unaware of Jaeger's true nature, and continued to get riled up about the presence of such a creature in the party until Scott grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved a large mug of good strong ale in his hands. Scott physically guided Taryn over by the fire, and quietly talked to the pale man while they drank the ale. Scott handed Taryn one of the healing potions that he had found in the academy, and then KelLyn sat up and slurred drunkenly that she could try to identify his ring now if he wanted. 

Scott started to say yes, but the rest of the party hurriedly assured her that it could wait until morning, and then breathed a collective sigh of relief when she fell back over and began to snore. I returned to my studies and, remembering the encounters from the previous day, I began to specifically look into spells that would allow me to clean myself and my belongings, as well as ways to potentially help bolster my power for more difficult spells. 

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and the next morning the party gathered our things and set out back into the academy, still resolute in the decision to leave no stone unturned. As we broke camp, the sun rose gracefully over the spires of the temples across the road, and I noticed again that the temple to Celestia on the left. The party agreed that we would examine them thoroughly once we were done with the academy, and once again, we made our way through the doors. KelLyn agreed to look at the ring that Scott had found, and she said that it had a modify images and mind spell on it, but it did not seem to be cursed as far as she could tell; and Scott put it on his finger.

Once inside, we immediately went over to the area that the ghasts had previously been guarding. The floor was still littered with piles of various gnawed upon body parts, and Jaeger pointed out several small diseased rats crawling among the carnage. We avoided the rats carefully, and opened the doors to reveal a library. I could feel Jaeger, KelLyn, and Osman all instantly perk up, and I shared their excitement over the potential knowledge here. As I examined the room further, however, my excitement turned to disappointment, as I realized that all of the books here were more for show. The tomes were all very lightly used, common books that were evidently only meant to create the appearance of being well-read. The shelves were very dusty, and as we examined the shelves on the off chance that there might be something of use, Jaeger pointed out one book that was less filthy than the others. He cast a quick ward over himself before taking the book from the shelf, and showed it to KelLyn. 

The book turned out to be the traveling book for a mage named Arcus, and KelLyn and Jaeger broke out into a small discussion regarding the ownership of the book. She had also realized that Jaeger's sword, for whatever reason, consumed half of anything he claimed for himself, and so KelLyn looked at him critically for a moment before declaring that he was to study the book as her student, therefore voiding the sword's claim to half of the book and potential destruction of any knowledge therein. 

Jaeger looked surprised that he had not thought of this before, and opened the book carefully to see that it was, in fact, a traveling spell book. There was nothing else of note in this room, so we proceeded to the next door which opened up into a sitting room with several crystal decanters of sour wine and some moldy chairs. The ceiling and walls here were thick with webbing, and before we could warn him to take care, Osman strode into the room. He made it three steps into the room before an enormous spider dropped from the top of the room onto his back. Osman shrieked and flailed, and Tobias managed to quickly swat it off of his back with one of his maces, smashing it against the wall with a liquid sound of pulping arachnid.

Osman, who had leaned over to regain his composure, straightened up in time to see another large spider drop down over Tobias' head, and he shrieked again before firing wildly with his bow. Scott stepped into the room then to see what all the fuss was about, with Taryn close on his heels. Tobias eyed the descending spider warily, and prepared to give it the same treatment that he had the first one. 

Osman's first shot flew wild, but his second shot struck home which knocked the spider down into the range of Tobias' mace. This spider flew to meet the messy remains of it's kin against the far wall, again with an audible splatter, and Scott turned ghost-pale before retreating hastily from the room. No other spiders appeared, however, and Jaeger began to eagerly gather up the spider webs to use as spell components. I took the time to examine the room, and discovered several crystal decanters, with a gold colored wine inside them, along with a set of 10 cut crystal goblets. I carefully gathered up everything and wrapped the decanters to prevent them from breaking. 

One of the decanters had a small crack in it, and so I took some of the glasses and poured a small measure of the sunshine colored liquor into each glass to share with the party before it spoiled. I told them that this was a rare vintage that needed to be savored and that taking a little bit of down time before continuing was not a detriment.  Jaeger and Scott refused, but Tobias, Osman, Taryn, Lan,and KelLyn all agreed to share it with me, and soon we had cleared a space out on the porch of the academy to sit and enjoy the wine while we kept watch on the cart. Once he had seated himself beside me, Tobias launched into a descriptive tale of our past adventures, and I saw Taryn's eyes go wide with awe as he realized that the stories he had been raised up on were ones that we had lived. 

I noticed quietly that both Scott and Jaeger had wandered off into the depths of the academy again, and I shook my head to myself at their stubborn and foolhardy actions. The wine would wait for no one, not even me, however, and I settled in with a small smile to enjoy the memories that Tobias recounted. About an hour or so into the recollections, KelLyn suddenly sat up straight to say that she had felt a massive pull of energy from somewhere inside, and that we should do something about it. The statement made her pause and think for a moment before she declared "and speaking of.. let me tell you about the time that we DID the thing..." and she lapsed into a continuation of the story that Tobias had started telling, recounting our journey through the pyramid with her own embellishments for flair. 

It was not long after that, maybe another half an hour or so, when we heard one of the windows near by smash outward, and we saw Jaeger tossing Scott through the shattered window to fall to the ground by the cart. They were both wounded, winded, and frightened, and I ran over to see what I could do to help with their injuries. Jaeger's injuries were minor, and he seemed to be relatively unharmed, but Scott was uncooperative and swinging his fists deliriously. I dodged several swings and glanced at Lan who nodded and tried to cast a spell to knock him out so we could work on bandaging his wounds. He threw off the attempt though, and continued to fight us until both Lan and I gave up in frustration. I muttered darkly to Tobias that Scott was too stubborn or too stupid to live, and if he wanted to fight our help so much, he could just sit there, and I stalked back over to where Jaeger had flopped to the ground with an enormous sigh to ask him what had happened. 

Jaeger grabbed a drink to help with the aches and pains that he was dealing with, and he began to explain - via KelLyn who was acting as a translator - what they had discovered. 

.oOo..oOo..oOo..oOo.

Scott and Jaeger, having seen that the rest of the party was occupied with enjoying the wine, used the opportunity to sneak away and re-enter the academy to explore the one remaining hallway, search bodies, and see what they could discover. They came across a tunnel which lead to a cave entrance where there were a number of bodies tossed haphazardly. The bodies were all nude and drained of blood, likely the discarded empty husks from the vampire's previous feasts. The corpses had all been gnawed on by rats and other vermin, and Scott and Jaeger decided to drag them up the stairs to burn them. The effort of moving the bodies attracted the attentions of 15 giant rats. 

Jaeger attempted to get Scott to leave at that point, but Scott was supremely skeptical, saying "what? They're just rats." Jaeger threw one of the corpses at the rodents in an attempt to distract them, but it didn't work and all of the rats swarmed toward them. Jaeger backed up to a narrow bottleneck in the hallway and began to actively dodge the rats attacks. Scott followed him, and the rats continued to swarm out of the cave entrance until their number had almost doubled. Knowing that they were outnumbered, Jaeger tried again to get Scott to run, but Scott would have none of it, and stepped in front of Jaeger to protect him. Jaeger began to cast a spell then, drawing an enormous amount of power - which is the surge that KelLyn had felt.

The rats swarmed both Jaeger and Scott, attacking en masse, but both Scott and Jaeger were able to brush off the first wave of bites and scratches with only minor damage. Jaeger's spell completed and as he shouted the last words of the spell, stone spikes shot up from the ground to smash the rats up into the ceiling, killing the first wave of them instantly. Scott was unable to get out of the way of the spell in time, and he also was slammed into the roof of the cavern, gravely injuring him and smashing the potions that he carried on him. The rest of the rats had backed up warily, having also taken some wounds from the rapidly emerging spikes. 

Jaeger tried then to intimidate the rats outright, and forced Scott to choke down the potion that Jaeger had snatched off of his own belt. The rats continued to back up cautiously at his screaming, and that was enough time to let the potion go to work on Scott, healing he worst of his wounds and allowing him to get back to his feet just as the rats decided to charge at them again. 

Jaeger picked Scott up and threw him over his shoulder then, in order to run out of the cave, back through the tunnel, and toss him out the window where we had found them. 

After telling his side of the story, Jaeger downed the rest of his drink and promptly fell into a deep sleep. The rest of us watched warily for the emergence of any other rats, but none appeared and the night passed without encounter. 

The next morning, we gathered up our belongings and set about examining the windows where Scott and Jaeger had come the night before. Osman was still set on seeing what was in the room with the rock slide, though none of the windows showed us anything new. As we explored the outside of the building, we came across four dead trees, completely blackened, and in one corner of the little courtyard we saw that one entire side of the building had collapsed, filling the room with impassable rubble. Finally satisfied that there was no way through the debris, Osman gave up the search and Jaeger looked at the dead trees saying something about charcoal.  I remembered Ishmael saying something about such a thing, and said that there would be no harm in removing the trees, as they had been dead a long time. Jaeger and Tobias worked to bring the trees down, and I commented that perhaps we should bring some of this stuff back to Ishmael, seeing as he had been so interested in it before. 

The rest of the party wanted to explore elsewhere then, but I argued fiercely that I did not want to leave who knows how many giant rats behind us. We argued for a while about, before everyone finally agreed that it was a bad idea, and we cautiously made our way inside and back down the stairs to deal with them. 

We came across the room with the hoard of dead rats, and KelLyn eyed Jaeger with appreciation at his skill. Aside from the mass of rodent corpses, however, it was eerily quiet. The footfalls of the party were the only sound, and even that echoed off of the walls. The entire place felt, at last, deserted, and we continued to pick our way through the tunnels until we came to a single large room where we saw several different holes and tunnel entrances. Realizing that this was a crossroads of sorts in this maze, we took our bearings and chose the largest of the tunnels. 

We followed the winding passage until it came to a smaller intersection, but stopped there because none of us could fit through the remaining tunnels without crawling, and we all agreed that crawling single file down a narrow tunnel was not the best idea. We made our way back up to the main room where the pentagram shaped pool had been, and then back over to the wine cellar. Scott and Taryn showed some interest in the wines that were shelved there, but Tobias informed them that we carried better vintages just on general principle. As I examined the shelves, however, there were two that caught my eye. I picked them up and noticed the intricate label on each one. I could pick out enough lettering to spell the word "Aving" and Taryn recognized that as the premier winery from the other continent, which had stopped producing wines some 750 years prior. They had been known for a golden wine of mystical properties, and I put the two bottles carefully in my pack for my own personal stash. 

Lan spoke up then and asked us if we wanted her to use her shiny ball to explore the tunnels that we couldn't fit through, and we agreed that this was likely the only way we would be able to discover what was beyond them. We escorted her up to the cart, where she grabbed her orb, and I deposited the wine and crystal carefully. We made our way back down into the darkness, and the light from Lan's orb was enough that we did not need to light a torch. We made it down to the first crossroads area where she sat on the ground and stared into her ball. She told us that one tunnel went back for some distance, but she saw nothing living or dead within the maze. 

We made our way back up to the surface, and after thinking for a moment, KelLyn began to close and lock doors behind us as we went. When I looked at her appraisingly, she simply commented that we didn't want the rats to come up behind us, and this was one way to prevent that from happening. Once we reached the cart, we sat down to discuss our next moves. 

We decided that the temples would also need to be explored, but the trek into the tunnels had taken up the majority of the day, and we did not want to go exploring at night. We decided that we would begin that leg of our journey in the morning, but that tonight we all needed rest. Scott still looked pale, and I was not sure how long Jaeger would take to recover he energy he spent with the spike spell. 

We set out camp again, keeping a wary eye across the way, and while we rested, I asked Tobias to tell us everything he knew about the Celestine paladin that they had encountered before.   
        
.oOo..oOo..oOo..oOo.