Rissi looks curiously at the wand for a moment, uncertain of its reliability, and then tries again.
The fire flickers and dies again. She curses, briefly, in Tien.
Kufieno grins as the dragon is stunned, as his body becomes wreathed in fire. He begins swinging, a weapon in each hand.
Lucian shoots two series of fiery rays at the dragon.
Kufieno's attacks bounce off the dragon's hide but Miana hits the dragon several times, leaving it quite bloodied. Unfortunately neither Rissi nor Lucian has luck getting their magic to work against this ancient beast.
Seal blocks out the sun with a flight of arrows ... or tries too.
And Seal hits just hard enough to knock the dragon from the sky!
"Just call me Bard."
Seal stows his bow and proceeds to retrieve his weapons.
"And now to find its lair..."
"I have *squeak* never heard you sing, and I admit the thought lacks appeal."
Rissi tentatively tries some simple spells - an acid splash upon the conjuration stone, a silent image upon the illusory stone, a ray of enfeeblement upon the stone of death, and a magic missile upon the evocation stone.
"You want to hear me sing. Oh well I don't know ...
"Fear is the moon
Its ghostly light.
Gray scarred surface,
A spoiled gem.
Bring me a jewel from the night sky.
One that twinkles in the Watchman's light
As He walks behind the world
And set it upon my tomb."
Instead of of a rich, smooth baritone one would expect from a dwarf, Seal's singing voice is a screeching staccato. Thunderpuss places his paws over his head in a poor tigers attempt to save his hearing.
Rissi sits stunned for a moment. "The words are quite unique, and would do well in some queen's court, no *squeak* doubt."
Rissi begins casting spells at each of the heads. An absorbed spell does not create the desired effect—instead, the head that absorbed the spell glows with energy for a moment and the ground vibrates as a piercing trill emanates from the head. The glow and the sound fade completely after several seconds, at which point a gold key appears in its mouth.
Now with keys in hand, it seems there is no better thing than to head in the direction the dragon came from; surely he has been guarding something.
A massive stairway that looks like it must have been built by giants and taken years, if not decades, to complete is chiseled out of the side of the mountain. A twenty-foot-wide and thirty-foot-tall stone arch frames the first steps, while the final steps lead directly up to a carving of an ancient face, its open mouth a cave entrance. The familiar seven-pointed star is etched deeply into its surface, prominently positioned at the highest section of the arch. Bones lie in iced-over heaps along the visible areas of the stairway.
At the top, two twelve-foot-tall statues flank the large tunnel. Each holds a hand upraised as if to ward away intruders, and clutches a heavy sword with the other. The slope of the tunnel ends at the edge of a gaping chasm of darkness. Huge icicles hang from the ceiling and coils of mist rise up from below.
Rissi stares with her eyes, but rather sees the ebb and flow of magic.
"When in doubt assume everything here is *squeak* magic"
Sealman kneels down on the earth. He pull full strands of grass and tastes them. With a nod, he grabs a fist full of dirt and rubs them on his boot soles while humming dwarven. Sealman then rubs the dirt upon his exposed skin. The dirt hardens into scales of earth. He keeps his hands empty for the time being, unsure of those statues should be a cause for concern.
Indeed, Rissi discovers that the statues are permanent illusions hiding a much safer path than the icy slope to the pit. The path is invisible but upon closer inspection some small pebbles and dust have fallen on the path which make it easier to see.
At the bottom of the gulf the walls glitter and sparkle with sheets of ice. Seven twenty-foot-tall pillars, their sides encrusted with ice and engraved with ancient glyphs and runes, surround an eighth pillar twice the size. Tunnels exit the central cavern, winding deeper into the mountain. yet perhaps the most notable feature is the sparkling mound of coins, works of art, gemstones, jewelry, weapons, armor, and other things poking up from the pile that occupies the northwestern section of the cavern.
Each of the seven pillars is marked with hundreds of Thassilonian runes but hidden among them is a small keyhole hidden four feet off the ground.
The dragon's hoard consists of 39 500 cp, 9410 sp, 3500 gp, and 250 pp. Mixed in are many decorative pieces and artwork worth a total of 16 000 gp. There is also a quiver with 14 masterwork arrows and two greater dragon slayer arrows, a belt of giant strength +4, a teak box with six round depressions each containing a thunderstone, an ivory set of lesser bracers of archery, a +3 darkwood buckler carved with the symbol of Kyonin on its face, a chime of opening (5 charges), a cloak of resistance +3, a flametongue, a masterwork suit of full place decorated with onyx ravens perched on the shoulders, a suit of +3 half-plate with a wolf motif, 6 vials of frozen holy water, a pearl of power (1st level), 17 potions of cure light wounds, 6 potions of cure moderate wounds, 3 potions of cure serious wounds, 2 potions of resist energy 20 (cold), two Small +1 mithral shirts, a scroll of globe of invulnerability, a scroll of heal, a scroll of remove blindness/deafness, a wand of bear's endurance (38 charges), a wand of cure light wounds (46 charges), a wand of magic missile (CL 5th, 8 charges), and a +1 adamantine warhammer.
Seal would like the cloak of resistance +3, the arrows and thinks the party should keep hold of the greater dragon slayer arrows (Hey, I could roll a 20 and he could roll a 1 ;v). He snickers that the scroll of remove blindness/deafness.
"This looks like a group of adventurers trying to make their mark with Arkryst."
Seal will try to see if the markings on the armor are of any significance.
After a loud enthusiastic clapping to honor Sealman's singing, Lucian pats the dwarf on the back.
"I wasn't aware you were so gifted in the art, friend! You definitely need to teach me some dwarven songs someday."
When faced with the dragon's hoard, Lucian's mouth opens wide and remains agape for a good minute or so. He then pockets the divine scrolls to be used later.
Seal does not recognize the artwork as particularly significant to any local culture.
"Eight pillars? But only seven recognized schools, at least in days of old. The scribbler said... although perhaps it is *chhh* wise to doubt his wisdom... "On frozen mountain Xin awaits, his regal voice the yawning gate. Keys turn twice in Sihedron - occulted Runeforge waits within""
Rissi pulls back her hood and idly traces a Sihedron in the snowy ground. "It would seem that if we believe our *squeak* source we might retrace the outlines of a Sihedron not once but twice. As where to start? The site is *squeak* supposedly neutral - I would not imagine one school would rule over another. Perhaps the eighth pillar represents the schools unified?" The ratfolk look at the stones with a mind towards the sihedron.
"If Xin built this place, he would have done so based upon the seven Thassilonian virtues: wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and rest, which in turn became greed, lust, pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth."
"But, if this is a place of balance, I would imagine that the pattern need pair in opposites in some manner. For instance, Sloth opposes Wrath, which opposes Envy, which opposes Gluttony, which opposes Lust, which opposes Greed, which opposes Pride... which opposes Sloth. Removed of metaphysical connotations - Conjuration, Evocation, Abjuration, Necromancy, Enchantment, Transmutation, Illusion. You can start at any point along this circle or move backwards along it as well."
Seal carves out 5 potions of CLW, 2 of CMW and 1 CSW. As he does so the dwarf thinks out loud.
"So do the schools of magic related to each of the virtues or sins? Was each Runelord a master in one art of magic? If so, what was Xin? Maybe that would be a starting or ending point."
Seal will then start to field dress the dragon.
"Rissi, you need the eyes or blood for anything?"
Rissi is distracted for a moment. "If do not mind the gore and have a way to store them for a time, Master Alerteyes: the liver, oil glands, stomach, and whatever dragon's blood you can collect; all are known to possess power to those knowledgeable in their refinement."
"As to the schools, yes they were once linked to metaphysical virtues in times of old, and each who took up the title of Runelord became master of a specific aspect. All that is, save that school which we call Divination. In recent time, the metaphysical aspects have *squeak* been abandon in favor of more practical application. We have discussed some of this *chitter* before." she notes, a bit exasperated.
"Xin was founder of Thassilon, leader of the all Thassilon before the other Runelords seized his power. I do not immediately recall any stories of him favoring any school - I think he studied all schools in equal measure, from what I recall. It might be that the eighth pillar is linked to divinatory magic, but we are well into the *squeak* realm of conjecture."
She will try the simplest divination, detect magic, on the largest stone just in case.
"If anything, we could start with the first virtue - wealth, or transmutation, proceed to fertility or enchantment, and so on along the *squeak* aforementioned heptagonal pattern. Pride is out of place in the pattern, if you compare the listed virtues to the opposing schools, else it would be a perfect match."
"We do have both the quill and Master Arvandru's and Lady Evanya's special connection to outsider elements, which we might use to help answer these questions. We are also in possession of a Sihedron amulet, which the servants of the runelords bore. It might also prove useful."
Lucian nods, agreeing with most of Rissi's ideas.
"I will gladly endeavor to confirm your theories. Evanya, could you contact the Desnan harbingers on our behalf so that they may answer our questions, please? We'd need to have the following answers asked. Everyone, please feel free to ask Evanya all your questions."
The Varisian oracle proceeds with his first question while Evanya casts commune.
"In our effort to open the path leading to the Runeforge, does the order of activation matter?"
Rissi detects no magic on the central pillar. . . yet.
"In our effort to open the path leading to the Runeforge, does the order of activation matter?"
You receive the answer that it matters not.
Given that it does not seem to matter the order, you place one of the keys in its aligned stone and, in coordination with the Scribbler's notes, turn it twice. The pillar begins to hum and glow softly; each pillar glows a different hue. Repeating this for all seven pillars causes the central pillar to begin glowing and rippling with a vortex of light that combines all seven of the surrounding colors. At the pillar's base, the vortex whirls in on itself like a vertically aligned whirlpool, opening into a seven-foot-wide circular portal through which can be faintly seen a long tunnel.
This domed chamber is nearly two hundred feet across. A large pool of bubbling prismatic liquid occupies the center of a raised dais in the middle of the chamber. The spiky flanges of the seven-pointed Sihedron are engraved into the marble floor. Each tip of the enormous rune points at a twenty-five-foot tall statue facing the pool with its back approximately ten feet from a partially concealed arched opening in the wall directly behind it. Each statue depicts a different figure, but all are imperious and finely detailed.
The statues are as follows, starting at the top and proceeding clockwise:
"Let's see what the dwarf woman with the halberd has behind her skirts."
"We need to find weapons of illusion and lust. We should perhaps start with those statues. I assume the unclothed human represents the *squeak* vice of lust; that would be my suggestion."
Kufieno shrugs and begins examining each statue. "You know best, Miss Rissi."
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Whispering to himself, "I think the dwarf woman isn't too hard on the eyes..."
Sealman, with spells recast, leads the party to the passage behind the nekkid woman.
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Lucian marvels at the ancient Thassilonian statues.
"Consider me in for Lust! Err... did that come out wrong?"
You venture down the passage behind the nekkid woman....
This grand cathedral can be called nothing less than opulent. The floor is covered in polished red and white tiles. Thick pillars carved into the likenesses of the same beautiful nude woman with long flowing hair circle the room and support a ninety-foot-high domed ceiling, where a gargantuan mural depicts men and women engaged in all manner of carnal acts. Numerous plain ten-foot-by-ten-foot cubes line the outer ring of the cathedral, while at its center stands a pavilion of opaque silk sheets. Near the walls of the cathedral stand several delicate-looking cages, their sides more decorative than practical. Some of them contain what appear to be long-dead bodies, although one body in a cage in the chamber’s northern corner seems to be clinging to life.
After a moment taking this scene in, four creatures start to fly from the other side of the room, holding ranseurs and circling about. They seem to be strikingly beautiful human women, save for the horns on their brows, their fangs, their taloned feet, and their batlike wings. Each wears little more than a few pieces of magical jewelry and flimsy garments. "Oh my, look at the beard on that one. I bet it would be make a nice handle to hold to..." Another says, "Oh, and I do love a suli when I see it but to have a pair at the same time would be a real treat!" The third comments, "Oh, but you are missing the real treat, sister! The ratfolk girl! You haven't felt anything until you felt that smooth coat against your skin." The final one says, "No, I'll take the boy in the back. I bet he's hairless. I do love that."
"I am sure our souls and bodies would provide hours of entertainment, ladies. However, we have pressing *squeak* business to attend to. Are you servants... or slaves... of the runelord of lust?"
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Kufieno stares at the women with a goofy, leering grin etched on his face. Anyone looking closely would notice his fangs and claws unconsciously growing longer.
Sealman's arms drop to his side and his chin juts out. He starts to shuffle toward the one that purty girl that said nice things about his beard. A small amount of drool begins to pool at the corner of his mouth.
Lucian blushes beyond anything you could have seen so far as he beholds the statues. "Is... is that even possible? I mean... Er... Those people are really nimble, I guess."
As the voluptuous women appear and taunt the shy boy and his companions, his mid races to find out what manner of creatures they are and why he has not sought them out before.
"Err, hello. Am I... I mean, I'm pleased to meet you. I'm L-L-Lucian."
Meanwhile, Evanya inspires the party with good hope, hidden behind Lucian's back.
Rissi and Lucian recognize them as alu-demons. . "The Runelord? Oh no, my dear, she has been gone for many years. Delvahine will be pleased to meet you though."
"My dears, you should really remove that silly armor. It is getting in the way."
Rissi hisses. "The distractions of interdimensional jìnǚ is not something we wish to deal with." She moves over and casts flight upon Miana.
Kufieno distractedly raises his eyes to the eyes of the woman and asks. "Who's Delvahine?"
"Why, Delvahine is our Mistress," one of them calls back to Kufieno. Rissi then uses magic to allow Miana to fly up to the nearest demon before the temptress can react, kicking her in the face!
blue: 16 dmg