Terexaltherin again shares his findings with the others. So this Circle of Hands seems to be digging up lost secrets... which could definitely lead them to figure out something about the seals the other factions don't know, or possibly it's a sign that they're a front for the Dark Traders or someone else digging out secrets. We could maybe look into the house of the Colnalia family--they're rumored to be the founders, and I got the address. Who wants to infiltrate? I'll obviously be going, since infiltration is kind of my specialty. Those who don't come could maybe take a walk outside the walls--if we can pin down some locations of the destroyed seals, we might find some clues as to what's going on there.
::I'll be glad to patrol the walls::, Arlo said over the hivemind.
Gift and Chella easily make it back to the South Wing
While Arlo and other wait outside, Terex investigates the Colnalia family's small iron house. Taking proper precautions, the small dragon is able to enter and scan the area quite quickly. The house is split level. The parlor, dinning chamber
and a small tea room are the areas a guest would enter into. There's a kitchen/pantry from which servants would transport food to the dinning area. There are medium three bedchambers for the family with closet-sized areas for servants in each (Two of the bed chambers seem clean but likely usused, maybe for years while the third is empty but was recently slept-in with two servants now sleeping in the closet). On a lower level, Terex finds a smoking room with an older tiefling leaning back on pleated orange and brown settee, dressing noble Orguanion garb, sipping one of the finest vintages of Orguanion brandy, seemingly lost in thought and filled with melancholy.
"Tell me everything, and most of all about Peri, I know your there Peri, I can see your mind"
Chella's face is a mask with no reaction, but there is a sharp intake of breath from the direction of Chella's greatclub, that turns into a low chuckle. "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WOULD BE THE FIRST TO SEE ME," Peri's disembodied voice echoes in the hallway. "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? I'M JUST CHELLA'S GUARDIAN ANGEL." she says with an ironic twist to her voice, like a sepulchral wit.
"We've been together for a long while," Chella says. "We're like sisters, we know each other so well."
At the sound of the boom, you hear feet approaching from several directions and leave before they arrives.
Chella is torn, as she is sure she could lift the heavy chest (or block carved in the shape of a chest) and is very curious about it. She starts to set herself, intending to pick it up and carry it in the same direction the two figures were going, when the sound of approaching feet and Gift's warning causes them to flee.
The exhilarating feeling of almost being caught is infectious, and she giggles when they are out of sight, even though she doesn't believe they were doing anything wrong. "We should go back!" she laughs. "Maybe those phantoms were stealing that chest! Or maybe they found something interesting and were ferrying it to a central location to examine it?" Her beady eyes seem very wide with curiosity. "Hmm. I wonder what was in it? It looked very heavy, but I'm no slouch when it comes to lifting heavy things." She looks sideways at Gift. "We could run up like the others, because we heard a loud noise? Come on, let's go!"
While Terex was scouting, Azzim was strolling nearby along the top of the wall with a far away look. Unseen and warded by Azim's magics, Laurana flew out over the walls circling high to get a feel for the lay of the land outside. She then systematically searched for anything that might look like a seal, destroyed or otherwise while Azzim watched through her eyes.
Over the hive mind, Laurana said ::Azzim's let me out! He worries too much about me, says I could be swatted like a fly. Gotta spot me first, haha! Anyway if we see anything that could be a seal we'll let you know.::
Terexaltherin notes the different rooms of the house, wishing he could find a convenient stash of incriminating papers even though he knows it's hardly likely. When he finds the tiefling sitting alone, he settles into a hidden position to watch for a while and see if they do anything interesting.
Laurana flirts around the area outside the walls of Orguanion.
One thing she discovers is that there's an area several miles wide around the city where a series of ruins have been bricked-up, buried in dirt but are still sparsely inhabited (by scavengers and possibly commoners seeking cheap rent). This rough area extends about 3-5 miles past the current city walls (apparently the city was shrunk several hundred years ago - not an event recorded in the histories you've read but the knowledge was likely suppressed by the unwritten edict). Then going past the foundations of what she realizes were the old city walls, she is able to find a recent battlefield site that she and Azzim calculated might have it's own seal rather than being under the main seals. After nearly three hours of scanning the area, she finally enters a small mausoleum (identical to a hundred near it) whose insides immediately light-up and begin the playing a warning to not disturb the area. She can sense a forbiddance protects the area and beyond that a wall of force - but what appear to be a seal itself can be see intact in the very center of the small building. With dusk approaching, she flies back and reports.
Terex scans the iron house while keeping an eye on the figure. He finds three books - a history of the family list genealogy and honorifics, a manual of court protocol and a popular romance novel.
After an hour of slowly sipping his brandy, the figure sighs and says to himself "I must the loneliest man in Orguanion. It was a terrible bargain but all options were bad. How will it work out? Badly, no doubt but that is the way of this world." He corks his bottle, makes a small mage-light and heads to bed...
Meanwhile, Gift and Chella return the next to the area where the chest was dropped and discover it is still there. And a supreme effort, you able to move it to an unused area close to the South Wing but it is not clear how or even whether it can be opened.
"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WOULD BE THE FIRST TO SEE ME," Peri's disembodied voice echoes in the hallway. "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? I'M JUST CHELLA'S GUARDIAN ANGEL." she says with an ironic twist to her voice, like a sepulchral wit.
"We've been together for a long while," Chella says. "We're like sisters, we know each other so well."
::"Then let me introduce you to Soruss, he is like my Mind brother. He Never says much but he is part of me"::
She holds up her arm and you see blue glowing animated designs play over it.
A deep male voice comes over the the privet mind link.
::"Its nice to meet you Chella and Peri I am part of Gifts personal hive mind, I am the one who looks after the group hivemind, would you like me to link you to it Peri?"::
Nexqil cames back and states some locals showed up to take the odd chest away.
Terexaltherin skims the genealogy book briefly, just on the off chance he spots an interesting connection, then does one last circuit of the manor, just to make sure he didn't miss anything, before returning to the others. The tiefling's mention of a terrible bargain suggests a possible opening, but he's not ready to just act on his own.
The genealogy book seems to indicate that there are only four members of the family are currently alive but gives no information beyond names, birth and death dates and marriages.
Not seeing anything further to investigate in the manor, Terexaltherin carefully makes his way back to the rest of the group.
So there's apparently hardly any of the Colnalia left, he reports, And the one I saw seemed pretty depressed and was muttering about a bad deal. They may be desperate to survive so they took a bad deal with the Dark Traders? I could try to cautiously make contact as an enemy of them, see if they'd be willing to 'jump ship' so to speak if they had a way out of whatever deal it is.
When Gift and Chella report on the chest, the little dragon volunteers, [b][i]Well I am good at opening things! I could take a look at it and see if I can figure anything out?
When he can get to it, Terexaltherin examines the chest with both his physical and magical senses.
He applies his knowledge of locks, traps, and devices to looking for an opening mechanism.
So Chella and Gift direct Terex to the unused back broom closest where they stashed the dark wooden chest/slab. The small dragon circles the thing, inspecting it from several angles. Not finding any obvious traps, he begins to the typical subtle, focused exposure to mana typically used to disarm magical locks... However, he curses himself when realizes he missed the well-know over-under-sideway-down trap and winds-up drawn to a small compartment within the chest that then begins contracting. Fortunately, this effect is meant to trap and crush human or dwarf sized intruders and Terex is able to able to reverse the effect after a few minutes of careful and worrisome maneuvers...
However, the magical "lock" doesn't yield immediately to the obvious shortcuts. It seems it's going to many hours of exhaustive probing though Terex is confident it will eventually yield. And this all must be done between shifts...
Stands and watches Terex work, and is a little shocked to seem him vanish, when he comes back a little miffed at himself. She is relieved.
Arlo walks out of the city, keeping it as a dot in the distance, as the dwarf investigates any loose or broken seals.
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After Laurana's report and noting Arlo heading out, Azzim says over the hive mind ::I think we should try to map all the sigils in a large radius around the city, hopefully any weak spots will become apparent... If we do find a broken seal, I wonder if we can repair it? No doubt that will require research, Terex what do you think?::
Azzim decided the first task was to make a good map of the wider area, which was best done from the air. Fortunately he could become insubstantial and fly like the wind* and he had Laurana to help.
He had purchased several large sheets of the finest vellum paper onto which he'd drawn a careful grid. Traveling to each grid cell, he flew high up into the air and when he landed he carefully added what he'd seen to the map. With Laurana's help he carefully plotted the location of the seal she'd found and they set out to systematically find more as the map was filled in.
Later Azzim linked up with Arlo and asked him to add anything he'd found to the map.
Later Azzim suggested ::I think we should try to find that explorer and see if they'd be willing to talk. Hopefully we can compare what they say with the map to see if we've missed anything.::
So, Arlo heads out through a little known side-gate of the main city, then past the semi-inhabited ruins and finally past the old walls of Orguanion.
He knows he can easily take a couple of days off before he's missed in the South Wing. To the party's higher-ups, he's mostly a body guard (something you've seen contractors often need).
Walking through the former battle grounds on the first day, the terrain is challenging. Arlo sometimes encounters leech filled pools of water bordered by dead, sandy areas where nothing grows. And this alternates with hillocks dense with reeds, thistles and strangle weed (a minor annoyance). Still, his nature craft serves Arlo well and he finds a comfortable and well protected rise to camp in that night maybe 20 miles from the city. Ghostly but harmless spirits of sorrow sing soft laments to wasted eons but nothing threaten the plucky dwarf. The second day things are more interesting. At 10 am he finds an undead soldier guarding the roof of an ancient guard house. After putting him to final rest, he scouts the area, finding scattered evidence of the unquiet dead. Searching the general area and dispatching maybe fifteen zombies, he maps the area of activity and finds an approximate five mile radius oval where effects are concentrated. This oval has a series of unique, turquoise roofed buildings but it isn't obvious which of the many buried structures might contain contain a seal. After a couple exploratory sallies, Arlo turns towards home and towards dusk, Laurana meets him and they fly to Orguanion proper. But now there are clues to return to...
In this time, Azzim and Laurana together sketch map a much wider area around Orguanion. Still as they make this map, it becomes obvious that understanding the various area will require careful, in-person investigation, even with the history of the area which Azzim is compiling.
Terexaltherin takes his initial failure with the chest as a personal challenge, and is soon found investigating it whenever he can get free from his shift of work.
Fortunately no one is ever prepared for a minidragon, he comments to Gift in response to her concern.
When he can be pulled away from trying to unravel the chest's secrets, Terexaltherin takes in the others' findings. Well, it definitely seems like we should check out this place Arlo found. What do we have for fast travel? If we can get there and back in a day we won't have to worry about how to cover our absence.
Terex felt the mental equivalent of a smile over the hive mind as Azzim replied ::I can make us all fly as fast as the wind! Or I could teleport us all, assuming Arlo can describe the place well enough.::
So Terex works on the chest whenever he can make time, though Aran and Dzitizim are as demanding of him and Azzim as they unconcerned with Arlo... (with Gift and Chella in the middle).
Meanwhile, Arlo brings his discovery and the party makes ready to use the next rest day to go to the site...
When you arrive, the general area is simple and desolate. A slow-growing sort of vegetation able to adapt to poison, magic curses, explosives and layers of corpses covers the infertile loam. The center of the oval Arlo sketches turns out to be an vast and ancient fort, covered by the dirt of ages and disfigured by the horrible spells cast against it. The turquoise roofed buildings are later additions possibly used by the occasional current patrols.
The day you spend here, you see no undead but find evidence of their presence and their movement away, to the North.
But where is the seal? You know the creators of the seals hid them where the incantation would be safe and where they hoped none would expect them. It could be anywhere from a closed latrine to a broom closet in an observation booth.
Care research allows you find, below a random barracks locker, a seal chamber similar to that found by Laurana but this one is indeed destroyed, through smashed with much material removed. But you able to find small remnants of what you guess was a mithral and orichalcum seal. Now begins the process of analysis.
Terexalthering uses his knowledge of where to hide things to make some guesses about where the seal might be. one of his guesses turns out to be correct.
Bad news, the undead were able to destroy this seal, he grimly reports. We'd better stop them from getting another one, and fast.
So you find the shards of the destroyed seal and take them home for analysis. The destruction would no doubt require a ritual from a high level caster and a powerful energy source...
Arlo will track the undead, using detect undead as needed.
We may need to split up for a bit here... some of us could keep our work going, while the rest track the undead. Azzim and I are probably good choices to stay behind... Azzim could help me and whoever else stays behind catch up to you quickly once you find where they're going, Terexaltherin suggests. Meanwhile I'll keep working on the chest, and maybe look more into the Colnalias if I have the time. Does that sound like a good plan?
The little dragon tries to sneak in some time to look up information on the Colnalias.
She goes with her dead.
Chella attempts to track the undead, assisting Arlo's efforts.
Arlo, intent on finding the zombie group, pushes ahead of the group for five minutes. So intent is he on finding the group that he winds-up following their tracks directly into sand-covered pit that opens onto one of the many buried ancient structures of area - and in this one has decayed wooden floors and walls that others have already fallen through. At the end, Arlo finds and dispatches the only two of the twelve zombies that fell in (he realizes now that the others probably doubled back after the two fell). He has the problem, however, that this part of this nameless complex is so rotten it's impossible to get a handhold without the wood, rusted metal or dirt collapsing around him.
Chella appears 30 second too late, sees only a sandy cone-like hole in the group but guess the entire sequence of event in detail as Gift arrives. The only problem is finding a way to get Arlo out in without the spending so much time you lose the trail of the undead.
And as Arlo looks for a way up to the surface, he discovers a solid, locked Mithral door among the decaying timbers of the complex. Possibly a command post - in this vast area, it's hard to know what's worth investigating.
"I'M ALRIGHT! I'm alright!" Arlo shouts up to Chella and GIFT. "I found a mithril door. Looks locked."
Azzim agreed to stay behind with Terex, he carefully examined the fragments of the mithral and orichalcum seal, softly he said to Terex, "Watch over me for a second, I'm going to use these as a focus to try and see what the undead did to break the seal. This spell is taxing, but if it works I believe it will be enlightening."
Steeling himself, Azzim cradled the fragments in his hand as he whispered a powerful spell which would hopefully show him the seal's destruction. Knowing what is needed to destroy a thing reveals much about the thing itself.
Arlo can discover that door leads to something like an inner complex, sealed from the rest of the area with pylons going down through the earth 50' to stabilize it ... but he still can't open the door.
And no sound carries to outside (though you've already guessed he's down the hole).
Azzim sees a dark figure accompanied by a group of what appears to be Orguanion nobles around the barracks locker. The figures place a series of carved and ornamented gems on each of the "critical points" of the seal and with a simple "you are done" gesture at which point it burns to mostly dust. Azzim also learns that these are "structure gems" - created with the seal and stored in hidden places around Orguanion. The gems were no destroyed because the nefarious lords of Orguanion foolishly imagined having the option of raising a dead legion themselves but the gem's existence and location seems to have vanished from living memory. But if Azzim's spell can discover the situation, other spell may be able to do so - still, Azzim can guess an intact seal would likely resist his spell.
"You coming Chella?"
Then she nomad steps down to her father.
"Interesting, Ill check it for anything odd"
Gifted with her innate psychic abilities, a female presenting Elan psion stood poised and radiant, her presence a testament to the unfathomable depths of her powers. As she harnesses the raw energy of her mind, an aura of ethereal blue light surrounds her, casting a soft glow that illuminates the space around her.
Her amethyst eyes flicker with an otherworldly intelligence as they survey the door. With each breath, she draws in waves of psychic energy that swirl and dance around her like ribbons in a cosmic breeze. Her delicate features are imbued with an air of quiet strength and grace, reflecting both wisdom beyond her years and an unwavering resolve.
From within the depths of formed from the same powerthreads, the female Elan psion produces a small crystal orb - a gift intended for another who seeks to traverse the realms of consciousness alongside her. As she gently places it into their hands, warmth spreads throughout their body as if touched by a divine force.
The crystal orb emanates soothing vibrations that resonate deep within one's soul. It is infused with fragments of starlight captured during ancient rituals performed under moonlit skies – remnants from distant galaxies that bring forth ancient knowledge and untapped potential.
When held close or focused upon during meditation, this precious artifact heightens one's connection to universal energies while amplifying mental fortitude and spiritual clarity. It serves as both conduit and catalyst for unlocking hidden depths within oneself – empowering its holder to explore uncharted territories within their own psyche.
As gratitude radiates from their eyes toward this gifted psionic marveler before them, they find solace in knowing they now possess a tool capable of awakening dormant faculties within their mind - unveiling untold possibilities where boundaries previously existed.
She looked at the door and saw it on all its planes.
Arlo just stands and wait for his daughter to get the information from the Planes themselves.
She's come a long way from little android girl, the dwarf paladin thought.
Azzim shared his findings over the hive mind, finishing with the observation, ::Seems it's an inside job, the traders presumably got their hooks into some of the nobles. I'd recognize the ones I saw in the vision, we should try to find these nobles and learn what we can about how they were suborned, I guess that means going to more noble galas, either as help or guests.::
Gift's scan of the door and the complex within is exhaustive and exhausting... But even scanning on multiple/every planes, the inner lining of the complex resists incursion - Gift is able to see in - only some 25 feet but this still shows critical features. It seems the area wasn't a military installation but some sort of planar/temporal control center. There's only figure visible in the scannable area - and it seems to a petrified individual fitting your understanding of Ancients #17.
The door itself is both locked and trapped with an area effect disintegrate sphere...
Meanwhile, Terex feels sure he's seen one of the figures Azzim sketches but all he can remember is the area of the noble district where he caught the glimpse. He returns to the area to jog his memory .
Yeah, I suspected it was, Terexaltherin agrees with Azzim. The questions are, who, and how can we prove it enough for the rest of the Orguanions to do something about it? I do think I saw one of those people, let me see if I can find them...
The little dragon flits out to one of the parts of the noble district he'd been observing earlier. Staying out of sight, he moves from cover to cover, trying to get a look at as many of the nobles' faces as he can.
Chella also steps into the hole, recognizing the signs that Arlo has preceded them there. She watches carefully as Gift examines the door, and whistles softly when she describes its defenses. "That's a dangerous trap to accidentally spring," she says. "How bad do you think the disintegration damage is? We could try to weather it if we can't get past any other way. I do think it is important, based on what you've told me about these creatures." She shrugs as if to say But what do I know?
Gift shows over the hivemind what she detects.
::"Its magic, not a lot I can do other than pulverise the door out of existence, but that would reck the place beyond. We really need Terexaltherin and Azzim here, you two free to come? We have a magic door to get past."::
Azzim glances at Terex and asks, "Shall we?" If the little dragon agrees, Azzim will cast a spell that makes them move as fast as the wind as they travel rapidly towards Gift and Chella.
Terex isn't able to find the noble he vaguely recalled again. But he's able to find a strange metal tower that he's now certain the noble vanished into...
However, before he's able to investigate Azzim whisks him away to the door Arlo found in the ancient and unstable cavern.
And boy, what a door! Just Terex' preliminary analysis shows it's a thing that's survived the terrifying waves of deadly spells that left the rest of this area the wasteland that it. Both the trap and the lock are of the highest order
Terexaltherin isn't particularly enthused about abandoning his current investigation, but if the others are actually having trouble he's not going to ignore it.
Of course, as soon as he sees the door his reluctance disappears. Look at the craftsmanship on this, he murmurs, seemingly not even aware he's broadcasting his thoughts. It's survived so much, it's almost a pity to break in... though actually...
His horns shimmer slightly as he telekinetically opens his pack and withdraws his trap-stealer's rod from it. With a quick manipulation he breaks it apart into its toolset configuration and gets to work on the disintegration trap. He throws all his skill into carefully disabling the trap without harming it.
With the trap disabled, he continues on to the lock, though he doesn't throw quite as much of his full ability at it.
She stands next to Chella and checks at the leans Pseudodragon fasination and say to her.
"See to mee magic is just odd, if its not mind based I have problems. but most of the multivers seems have a form of it at one level or another. Me and Terexaltherin here are what you may call outliners. Im at the far end of person pionic, mind-mage stuff, while his is at the far end of personal magic. He is just about made of the stuff like I'm made form psionic power. So when it comes to the magic door here, I have problems but Terexaltherin sees something like this and he just can't help himself."
"Fascinating," Chella says, while Peri studiously takes mental notes. "I wonder what would happen if Peri were to inhabit the door instead of my weapon? She explains it better than I can, but I would think she could prevent it from triggering its trap the same way we can hold our breath. Would that be worth attempting, Terexaltherin?"
Terex carefully collects the disintegrate trap and manages to open the door after a couple tries...
The door open and a slightly acrid but harmless scent wafts to party. Slowly you enter the chamber and investigate... At first you imagine the area is covered in dust but gradually you realize everything in the area is petrified, transformed into different types of slate...
All of the magic and machine are essentially destroyed. Several frozen specimens of "Ancients #17" are at frozen control panels. And again you struck by this as not a military installation but a device for manipulating planes and probability. And one centuries or millennia old. Were these creatures manipulating the odds of the battlefields above them? Supporting one side or the other?
"At least some of us should continue to track the creatures," suggests Chella. "Before we lose the trail."
Once the group has decided who is going where, Chella tries to pick up the signs of the zombies' passing again.
Azzim watched Terex work on the disintegration trap and he was suitably impressed, "Remarkable craftsmanship and I'm not just talking about the trap. You know that could could be handy, if er we ever need to disintegrate something..."
Inside the complex, Azzim broadcast a thought over the hive mind, ::My windwalk spell lasts for many hours, so why don't some of you track the undead and Terex and I will catch up?::
Azzim then cautiously examined the control panels and further into the complex, trying to get a sense of what exactly the Ancients #17 had been up to.