Mike the geologist's page

Zendara, Yuarii and Dr Munroe volunteered to help Mike, while the others remained to guard the camp. Apparently there'd been an uptick in flying creatures of all kinds which was somewhat concerning, although nothing had attacked in the last day.

Mike leads you to the outcropping, it doesn't look like much to the untrained eye but Mike insisted it was the good stuff, "Look here, this is an intrusive vein surrounded by country rock. It's mostly quartz the red stain is iron but look at these silvery bands, lots of sulphides. And with the sulphides comes the gold."

He started drilling twenty holes with a great big adamantine hammer auger, he got you all to take turns hitting this with a sledge hammer - and and ingenious mechanism made the bit make a half turn on every hit. It was propper back breaking work but after an hour there was a series of holes and you could see he meant to pop a large section of the rock off.

Into each hole, he then put in funny things called feathering wedges, which consisted of a spike and two flat bits of metal. "The idea is we'll hit these in and that'll put great stress on the rock and with enough hammering we should be able to split this section off. This sort of rock is hard but brittle so I expect it'll break up into pieces easily afterwards."

Mike started hammering the feathering wedges in and as they sunk in they stared to make a musical tone when they were hit. After a bit all of them had sunk in deeply and with a loud crack the stone gave way and the rock popped off to reveal a fresh surface. Mike inspected the stone before crying, "Oh look here! See those tiny shiny bits? That's gold!"

The next stages involved smashing the rock up further and as he predicted it smacked easily enough. Then he fed it into his elemetal powered crushing machine which turned the rock into powder. After that he set up the classifier machine, which was a kind of vibrating table with water flowing over it. Mike explained, "The precious metals, gold and silver are heavier than the other stuff and will get concentrated down here to the left. We'll collect that stuff and smelt it later."

After half a hour of running the crushed material through this peculiar device there was perhaps a pound of material in which you could see a fair bit of gold dust. Mike seemed pleased "This is really rich stuff, if there's more nodules like this, then we'll likely have a gold rush on our hands!"

Shall we fast forward to tomorrow?

It's late afternoon by the time you arrive back at the camp. Mike tells you that "I'm itching to try some more prospecting. Yesterday I noticed a wide outcropping of quartz with lots of really great looking mineralization about half a mile north of here. I'm planning to drill some holes and use feathering wedges to pop a good yard or two off, and pass it through the crusher I brought with me. Then I have a classifier table which should help isolate the heavies which I'll smelt down into hopefully a decent sized button of gold. If any of you young ones want to help it would be appreciated!"

Or we can skip forward to tomorrow and the last stone circle.

By mutual consent everyone decides to rest for the night. Taking no chances, a double watch rota is drawn up and beyond the somewhat eerie night animal sounds and the occasional thunderstrike not much happens for the first few watches. During the darkest hours of the night a spectacular aurora develops, at first a hint of red in the sky developed into enormous ethereal curtains of shifting green with flashes of red. Several meteorites are spotted, one of which seemed to shoot right over your heads leaving a fiery trail. Some minutes after its passage the roll of distant thunder struck from the eastern horizon.

The remainder of the night passed without any further incident. In the morning there was a light frosting of snow but not enough to worry Mike, although he did give the dense steel grey clouds above several hard looks.

"It's going to be cold." he said, "Probably get some more snow, but it won't last round here, it never does. Still best wrap up warm."

Once you were ready to go he lead you towards the via ferrata trail. It was just as he described rather hard to spot until you were right up close. The woven steel wire rope was lightly rusted (it's fine Mike insisanted) which camouflaged it well against the rock. As before the first part of the climb was steep and it just kept on getting steeper. Fortunately you where clipped onto the wire rope by your harness so if you did fall you wouldn't go that far. You'd get some bruises yes, but you'd walk away.

Over the next twenty minutes the climb got steadily steadily harder and the weather got worse and worse, with the winds picking up and a mix of horizontal sleet and hail blasting into your faces. Then to make things worse as you neared the top, the temperature plunged and the water on the wet rocks stated to freeze.

"Ah this is getting unpleasant, and look there a huge boulder has taken out a section of the wire! We shall have to rope up, I'll take point. Step where I step and be very careful." cautioned Mike.

You don't have all that far to go really, but the last bit is by far the hardest - it's steep, it's slick and you're tired from the climb. Please each of you make a DC 18 dex, climb or str roll and one DC 20 reflex save.

Mike replied "There's something about this place that makes animals behave oddly. Maybe it's the sounds of thunder with no obvious origin, or the areas with static electricity that make you feel like you're standing in a storm. Or perhaps that weird pulse of light that rippled across everything a few hours ago. Come to think of it, that was shortly before the Wyverns attacked."

Mike nodded when Dr Munroe talked about the diamond, "Aye she was really lucky. We won't know till it's been cot on a lapidary machine but a gem of that size if the clarity is good and there's no inclusions is going to go for a thousand gold maybe two."

Sensing that you had other matters on your mind he said, "I'm guessing you'll be wanting a guide for the far coordinates. I had a look, it took longer expected to find the via ferrata. I didn't go up far because it looks like the upper part is damaged. I reckon can get you up there, but it won't be as easy as the others."

With a little assistance from Yukarii, Zendara selected a likely spot. The previous evening Mike explained that Cinder Crater was thought to be an asteroid impact on top of an extinct volcano. The asteroid had strange metals which faintly radiated magic and areas with a higher concentration of magic tended to have more gold.

The residual magic was very faint but together they found an area around a boulder that detected as slightly stronger than the surroundings. The ground itself didn't look like it was anything special, a mix of black volcanic ash and grey sand and gravel.

It was hard work digging it up and running it through the sluice. At first you didn't see much but when the sun came out from behind the clouds there were dozens of tiny specs of shiny gold caught on the sluice's riffles. An hour later and you'd had enough and needed a break. Mike was cleaning out the sluice and he called you over excitedly, "Look there were some nuggets in there!"

He showed you five small bits of gold, the smallest was the size of a couple of grains of rice and the largest the size of your thumbnail. "Not bad!" Enthused Mike, "If there's more hot spots like that then this area is commercially viable after all! I'm going to pan out the rest of the tailings, there's a bunch of heavy black sands but I know there's a good amount of fine flour gold in there too."

When Zendara asked about the standing stones, Mike replied, "Oh yeah there's a bunch of natural hazards to avoid, sulphurous fumerolles, raging torrents and what's rumored to be a blue dragon cave. As long as you don't get too close, Invorex will ignore you. She's very old and has arthritis and is usually sleeping. Anyway there's a Via Ferrata which you can use which will get you close to the southern stone. That's the easiest one to get to, I'll have to guide you to the others. Anyway I'm going to run some more samples through the sluice. Managed to enlist Dr Munroe and the Prof too!"

Ready to go?

Mike was keen to get started, he was already up before dawn setting up various pieces of equipment a short distance from the tent. There was still some snow left from the night although it started steaming when the sun rose above the crater walls which gave everything an otherworldly appearance.

Mike had this long u-shaped metal contraption he called a sluice set up on poles. Noting Zendara he told her, "So I want to see what's in the crater sands here. Basically we shovel as much dirt as we can into the sluice, the decanter of endless water will wash the grit down the sluice, washing all the light stuff away. The heavy stuff will get trapped and if there's any gold or tiny gemstones that's where it'll be in these little riffles here. Hopefully get a few pickers, maybe even a nugget if we're lucky. Could also get diamonds or tourmaline, they'll mostly look like small white stones but they're heavy enough not to get washed away."

If you want to work out exactly how to get to the three standing stones, you'll need to make a Kn: Geography roll and if possible a Survival roll. Note both Professor Dexter and Mike have decent survival skills if needed.

As you turned in Mike piped up, "I'm all for a look see at the coordinate, but hope there's time for a bit of prospecting tomorrow... I've got all sorts of kit, I know there's gems in ground - just need to sort through it!"

Soon the night is velvety dark with no moon beyond the aurora. The temperature which had bee warm in the crater fell precipitously in the cold dark freezing puddles and watchers alike. Zendara's watch passed without incident although she heard distant thunder several times and the hooting of exotic creatures somewhere out there in the darkness.

Mike nodded, "This place has always been special. If you want to see why, look up friends and witness!"

In the sky above there where slowly shifting curtains of color, mostly greens and reds. An aurora! As you watched spellbound, a shooting star silently crossed the sky leaving a trail of sparks. Some of these fell down and illuminated ever so briefly what looked for the world like a vast floating castle in the sky, right above the very centre of the crater!

"Woah!" breathed Mike, "Did you see that?"

Sorry for the delay.

The drakes start circling up high above, so high they're little more than dots in the sky. One lets out a piercing cry and together they dive towards you. Remarkably Azarra was able to hit the lead drake while it was still hundreds of feet up in the air.

Her shot caused a raucous series of cries and after a tense moment all three banked sharply before flying off into the distance.

Mike was impressed, "Well I think you've scared them off for now, although I suppose it's always possible they'll be back later... I think we'd better put the tent up and set watches."

If you do, what is the order of watches. Mike has a large pavillion tent in his bag of holding, enough for everyone in comfort.

Mike nodded, "Aye freehand it would be but look just up here, past that boulder there's a Via Ferrata!"

Sure enough there was a stout steel rope sunk into the boulder which lead up the ridge. Mike opened his bag of holding and pulled out harnesses which he distributed. Each harness had a pair of special hooks (you'd recognize them as primitive carabiners but they weren't called that on Oberon) which meant you wouldn't fall if you slipped and you could go past the heavy iron rings sunk into the rock at intervals.

The passage up the ridge was a mixture of terror and exhilaration which turned to misery when it started snowing and the wind grew so strong you had to shout hard enough to hurt to be heard.

What seemed like hours later and you were walking on the relatively flat ground between two craters. The one on the left was filled with thick acrid yellow smoke which the wind cut like a knife, above the level of the rim the air was clear, below it was a sulphurous nightmare.

Late afternoon the weather cleared up affording an amazing view. You could see hundreds of miles off into the blue infinity of Oberon. Behind and far below was the postage stamp size Port William. In front was a great caldera a dozen miles across surrounded by numerous craters. Clearly this had its own micro climate with the lower levels full of thick jungle surrounding a wide turquoise blue lake.

Looking exhilarated, Mike said "Behold, cinder Crater! The sides are seriously steep so we'll have to use the Via Ferrata."

As you made your way down from the rim, the temperature rose steadily and soon you were stripping layers off. Down here there was no snow and soon you were among strange tropical plants many of which had peculiar luminous glows. The air buzzed with unfamiliar insects and there was a strange mix of tropical and sulphurous smells. Every so often you passed fumerolles and volcanic springs bubbling with hot or even boiling water.

Towards the flat bottom of the crater, the tropical foliage petered out and the ground was mostly ash with various hardy pioneer plants poking out, a stunning emerald green contrast to the crunchy blackness of the ash.

It was evening and Mike said, "I bought us some tents, let's get them put up. We'll need to set watches, there are strange creatures here and elementals sometimes too."

The Inn Keeper gave you strange looks when you asked for any buckets/bowls, in the end he leant you a pair of old fashioned bed pans. Don't forget you bought some balloons and a water pistol.

"Lights out is it?" asked Mike as he stifled a yawn, "Well I guess that makes sense. I won't be able to see anything if things go down, but I'm not much of a fighter anyway. I expect Xavier and Miriam will have a lantern handy in just case."

They nodded and everyone except Zendara turned in after all it had been a long day and everyone was tired.

Zendara's watch was tense yet boring, there were small sounds from the inn. She could hear the wind occasionally rattling the shutters outside and the inn keep and his wife cleaning downstairs before they eventually went to sleep. There was also occasional noise from the handful of other guests below as they talked before settling (the voices where too muffled to make anything out) but after a while that stopped and by then it was almost time for Edwin's watch.

Edwin perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (10) + 14 = 24

Like Zendara's watch, Edwin's watch was boring, and in the small hours of the night the only noises was muffled snoring from Dr Munroe and Prof Dexter's room and even that stopped after a while.

Map updated, the blue things are beds.