Stopping a moment to rest, "You too, lad? And here I thought it was just me. Whew! Glad I'm not the only one! Just need a moment or two and I'll be fine. All that flyin' was a bit much. No worries though, I'm gettin' fairly use to it pretty good," he nods confidently.
The slope ends at the edge of a gaping chasm of darkness. Huge icicles hang from the ceiling and coils of mist rise up from below.
"Time for some lights," Lym says. Freeing up one hand, she launches four spheres of light.
Praxim auto makes the check.
”See the debris? The invisible ramp winds its way down. I don’t see any gaps, you know, in the invisible path.”
Whether or not Tomaru sees it, he'll air walk down, unless Lym wants to keep carrying him.
"I do not," Lym says, shrugging -- and gently releasing Tomaru once he starts to air walk. "Good that you do. If our mission successes depended on my acuity of vision, I fear we would have been dead several times over."
"Alright! A path! Don't worry, lass, we got this," he says, pointing to himself. He then starts down at his own leisurely pace.
The ramp - for that is what it is - spirals around and around the gulf, 300' down into the icy mists. Eventually, you arrive at the bottom.
The walls of this cavern 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.
”What do you all say we peruse this stash and repurpose some of this wealth to the fight against evil?” Praxim asks, his eyes bulging slightly at the sheer amount of gold.
"What say we check for traps first, and see whether any of this loot is immediately useful for our trip into Rimeskull?" Lym gently suggests.
”Naturally, but is there really anything stopping us from blamphing back to Magnimar with some loot and come back fresh tomorrow? We used up a lot of spells fighting that dragon and getting keys.”
"What say we check for traps first, and see whether any of this loot is immediately useful for our trip into Rimeskull?" Lym gently suggests.
"That was the plan. Collect the treasure. Get some rest." Tomaru casts Invisibility Purge and Truesight as he looks over the mad dragonhoard loot.
Aurora's eyes are wide as she surveys the hoard.
Well, it may take us some time, and a hefty dose of magic, to actually move all of this in a timely manner. Once we've checked that it's safe, perhaps open up a planar hole underneath it and drop it directly in to Castle Lym?
Aurora's eyes are wide as she surveys the hoard.
Well, it may take us some time, and a hefty dose of magic, to actually move all of this in a timely manner. Once we've checked that it's safe, perhaps open up a planar hole underneath it and drop it directly in to Castle Lym?
back at Castle Lym...
Laurent was a patient man, but even he had his idiosyncrasies. For one, he hated dust and grime. He hadn't had his job at Castle Lym for very long - two months in fact - but he had been hired to keep it clean. The wizardess Lym and her compatriots were generally not at the castle, and it was his job to keep things in order while they were away.
Today it was the treasure room's turn in the barrel. Laurent wasn't technically supposed to be in the room where they kept all of their adventuring spoils, but Lym did the leave the key on her desk, and it was his job...so in he went with the tools of his trade. Duster, bucket of hot water and mop, all the things he needed.
It was as he feared: dust everywhere, dirt and grime in the corners; in short, everything Laurent despised. He began in earnest, working the corners and scrubbing walls, dusting suits of armor and weapons, wiping down old scroll cases. It was several hours of hard work, but as he stood back to admire the results of his efforts, he smiled. Mistress Lym would be happy.
There was a sharp crack overhead, and the sudden smell of ozone. Laurent looked up at the ceiling where a huge black vortex had opened. Suddenly a veritable waterfall of coins, fine art, tapestries, and other sundry valuables fell upon him. It felt as if a dragon's hoard of treasure buried him where he stood.
'Oh bother,' he thought to himself, under a mountain of gold, 'I'm sure the dirty mop water is all over the floor now...'
5 minutes ago, in the depths of Rimeskull:
This massive pile of treasure consists of 39,500 cp, 9,410 sp, 3,500 gp, and 250 pp. Mixed in with the coins are tapestries, small items of furniture made of precious woods, delicate pieces of jewelry and fine works of art, silverware and candelabras, six everburning torches, and several decorative boxes spilling pieces of jewelry worth an additional 16,000 gp in all. Buried in the coins is a quiver of 14 masterwork arrows and two greater dragon slaying arrows, a belt of giant strength +4, a teak box holding a felt cushion 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 plate decorated with onyx ravens perched on the shoulders (each raven is worth 200 gp), a suit of +3 half-plate with a wolf motif, 6 vials of frozen holy water, a pearl of power (1st-level spell), 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.
"That," Lym says, "is a lot of loot. I'd definitely enjoy that scroll. Those potions look especially useful. Of course the wand of healing has to go to Tomaru. I already have wands of magic missile, so Aurora, would you please take this one?"
Praxim will take the giant-slaying arrows and the dark wood buckler for himself and the cloak for Rexil
Rexil is extremely unsure as Praxim confidently holds out a small mithral shirt. He takes it in his massive hands, quite at a loss on how he is to even put it on what is essentially a mithral link sports bra compared to himself.
He managed to get his hands into the shirt’s arm holes before the magic takes over and the shirt begins to expand with a shimmering clinking sound. He is unaccustomed to wearing armour, but it is so light, he doesn’t even notice it.
Aurora smiles and bows to Lym, receiving the offered wand with two hands
Thank you!
She smiles and carefully tucks the slender implement in to her belt.
So do we venture deeper or return to the statues? Perhaps we should take a chance to rest as suggested?
Praxim takes his new wand, opens his pack to put it in, and pauses, glaring at what he sees. He starts muttering angrily under his breath.
Holding up a different wand, he asks, ”Anybody cold? I went and bought this thing for coming here.”
He uses two charges of his wand of endure elements on himself and Rexil, then offers for anybody else.
As the group rests, Tomaru will make sure everyone is healed up to full.
Aurora raises an eyebrow at the string of elvish cursewords, before holding up a dainty hand in answer to Praxim's question.
Thank you but I will pass for now, at least until it gets prohibitively cold. At the moment it's rather bracing!
Yes. Rest then sally forth.
Back at Castle Lym...
Laurent comes up from the pile of coins and sundry he was buried under, coughing and spitting. "Indeed, Miss Lym, is there no better way to deliver your lot than dropping in? Perhaps some sort of warning next time?"
The next day, inside Rimeskull.
The walls of this cavern 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.
The seven pillars surrounding the central pillar are each marked with hundreds of Thassilonian runes—arcane formulae describing the basic tenets of one of the seven Thassilonian schools of magic. The seven pillars form the points of a huge Sihedron, and a small keyhole lies hidden four feet off the ground on each pillar, facing the central monolith.
Placing the proper key from the Sihedron Circle outside, you figure that it takes two complete revolutions of the key and the pillar begins to hum and glow softly. The key then disappears.
Once all seven pillars are active, the central pillar begins glowing and ripples 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 7-foot wide circular portal through which can be faintly seen a long tunnel.
”Do you suppose the keys have reappeared back outside?” Praxim muses as he scans through the portal for evil.
"You worried about the door still being open so we can get out or someone else coming in after us?" Praxim's musings has Tomaru trying to figure out the answer.
Aid Lym on Spellcraft or Take 10 (for 23) of she doesn't want to do it. Otherwise
”More like wondering how practical it is to create such a complex doorway that could only be opened once. I suspect that what’s waiting for us inside is far more dangerous than anything that could follow us in.”
Aurora eyes the glowing portal with a mix of curiosity and suspicion
Upon review I'd venture to suggest they would not go to so much trouble to create a pretty looking, guarded and difficult to open deathtrap. And after all, we should be able to planewalk away if things go awry. I suggest we sally forth!
We knock on the door then go in.
As you step through the portal, you are instantly whisked along the tunnel, arriving with a slight bump in a massive chamber.
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.
D1: A towering man with gems set in his forehead and hands, dressed in robes and wielding a burning glaive.
D2: A short smiling man with a hooked nose and beady eyes, wearing robes and wielding a spear.
D3: A heavyset woman with a sneering visage and an imperious stance, dressed in a flowing dress and wielding a halberd.
D4: A voluptuous woman with a seductive look, large eyes, and long f lowing hair; this statue is nude and wields a double-headed guisarme.
D5: A strikingly handsome man adorned with a close-cropped beard and a charming expression; his form is dressed in extravagant clothes and wields a lucerne hammer.
D6: A gothic beauty with wild hair and a somewhat insane expression, this woman wears a long f lowing dress and wields a thorny ranseur.
D7: An obese man, his flesh rotten in places so that the bones show through, wearing a ragged robe and wielding a scythe.
Lym taps her foot and crosses her arms while staring down Laurent.
"I seem to recall telling you not to come in here," she says in an even tone, "for exactly this reason. Planar transport is not always an exact science, you know. There are any number of factors that can throw it off."
"The Runelords," Lym sums up the statues with a sweep of her arm. "Given that we need to enchant our weapons with either Lust or Pride, Enchantment or Illusion ... I'd assume we need to investigate Sorshen and/or Xanderghul, there."
Lym jerks her thumb at the statues of the naked woman and the handsome fellow in the extravagant clothes.
”Do we want to guess that perhaps their wings of this place will be guarded by their preferred schools or magic?”
"I'd call that not so much a guess as a dead certainty," Lym says. "And I use that phrase on purpose. Besides what the Runelords themselves no doubt left behind, the researchers working here will have set up any number of spells in the name of security. All those able, please start casting Detect magic and keep 'em active. I have Arcane sight ongoing. Aurora, you're on See invisibility duty. Praxis, of your courtesy, keep using Detect evil.
It may be quiet now, but we are in the lion's den. Get your weapons ready and cast any preparatory spells you think will serve us."
”If we had to choose, which school of magic do we have the best defended against. As an elf, I’m naturally resistant to a lot of enchantment effects, but...others among us are not.”
Praxim very carefully avoids looking at Thordak.
Lym considers. "Hrm. We need one of those two to hurt Karzoug. Either can do horrible things to us. Still, I'm going with Illusion; Pride. At least in the case of Illusion, forewarned is forearmed, and it can't rob us of our will. Another benefit; I can actually use Illusion spells without any trouble, which might help. How say the rest of you?"
Praxim makes his bow a +5 seeking giant bane bow, and casts angelic aspect on himself (which includes protection from evil). He also puts greater magic weapon on Rexil’s great club.
”You’re the expert.”
"I'm with you my sweet. Wither you go, I go."
As Thordak catches sight of the naked statue, his eyes go wide and he snaps his attention quickly away and blurts out, "Pride! I'll be goin' with Pride! Yes indeed Pride will be the one for me, you know, the well dressed man. Goin' with the well dressed man I'm tellin' ya. PRIDE I SAID! And don't ya be judgin' me!" He points to no one in particular, a flustered look about him. Quickly grabbing his longaxe, "Okay I'm ready let's go. Not sure why we're all standin' around here for," he grumbles.
"Why Thordak," Lym says. "I wouldn't have thought human-sized women were your preference."
The walls, floors, and ceilings of Runeforge are made of stone. Those of a magical attunement (Lym, Aurora, Tomaru) can tell it has been magically treated. Obvious to all is the overwhelming feeling that while in Runeforge, you do not need to eat, drink, or sleep.
The hall from the domed chamber is approximately 150' long. A simple carving in Thassilonian reads: "The Shimmering Veils". For some of you, a strange feeling begins to build as you move deeper and deeper into the Veils.
This wing of Runeforge is a grand cathedral decorated with peacock motifs and massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling to brightly illuminate it with hundreds of continual flames. At the end of the entry hall lies a crossing hallway. This brightly lit corridor is lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The reflections give the dizzying impression that the corridor opens up to each side, extending infinitely into the distance.
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Lym halts and rolls her shoulders. She utters a little sigh - one of pleasure. Little gloamings and gleams of power trail her hands as she swings her arms to work the kinks out of her shoulders.
"This place feels ... good," she says. "It welcomes a Wizard, and of course I have delved into the subject of Thassilonian magic. Be wary. Arcane magic is full of temptations and dangers, and this whole place has been enchanted to be welcoming to those of my vocation."
The Wizard eyes the mirrors with distrust. "Be very careful," she warns again. "We are in the wing of illusion. Reflections and the like play upon Pride, which is strongest here. Now ... I recommend we turn left, the 'sinister' way, to find the place where we may empower our weapons."