Orhan 3 Day 57 TE 6064

We search for Niko Rakanna and Vana Nastrath, local loremasters.

Oathar makes contact with someone who can lead us to them. We should go to Lagaran Varsenne who runs a small gem shop on Vine street above the Cozy Gloves and Scarves.

We head on over. It's a tiny little shop above the glove shop. There's a tall elf with black hair and gold highlights and eyes. There's a young man inside who's fussing with one of the shelves. Oathar fusses a bit and then buys a 975g diamond necklace.

We talk to the proprietor who tells us that we'll need an escort outside of town to see "her".

The young man leads us to the east out of town. But we're being followed by four humanoids dressed in dark clothing with dark hoods. Of course there is only the one road.

About half a mile before the supposed objective we leave the road at a road marker. 600 Miles to Soralis/Zor border. The path we go on isn't so obvious. We lose them. They look around for us and then decide that we probably doubled back.

We fly up the path. There seem to be six tracks of human footprints that go down an animal trail and only four return. There are some rose petals scattered around. We contiue up the main trail and notice four pairs of footprints join onto the trail and head up towards the house.

We get to the house and find that it has been sacked. There are black and cracked crystals surrouned the place. A broken protection circle thinks Oathar. Lot's of papers everywhere. It's bad. A black bird flies into the kitchen. The bird's note says "I was forced to flee, please feed the ferret." We find a pot of ferret food. We follow the ferret. It's digging in the garden. He unearths a tube of smooth metal. Inside is a scroll with an unusual shaped bronze key and a treasure map, with a Salufa tree on it.

We teleport down and attack the group of four followers. The two larger ones reaches out and touch the smallers ones and all four go poof.

Oathar's bird goes to talk to Vana's bird. He says that she flew away and left the message for the next good person to arrive. Her friend hasn't been seen in a while either.

Going back and following the animal trail and rose petals leads to ruins in a clearing. The clearing is a perfect circle. 90 degress around the circle are two small burial mounds and a large amount of petals. Teh bodies have clothing that has been torn open at the chest, with an emblem in gold thread on their undergarments. Marks were cut into their foreheads after death with a flower shaped design. They have several minor woulds and chemical burns, as well as stab wounds. The have gold bracelets with the same inverted sunrise emblem as on their tunic, and purses. The guy has a map leading to the house.

Meanwhile Oathar searches the house some more and finds a decent assortment of healing herbs, but nothing else "incriminating".

The dead guy has a letter on him:

"Esteemed loremaster, We gratefully accept your offer of aid especially in regard to certain particulars involving the isles of blue light. I hope that you will accept our invitation to meet with us here at the House of the Winter Light to discuss how we can work together to fight the ongoing threat of Ulor to us and indeed all of Jaiman.. With deepest regards Eldaris Kethren for the council of the nine lights."

The circular clearing is enchanted to maintain the grass and the clearing. It acts as a warding circle again evil incursions. Anyone who enters gets Blessed, but there's something odd about it. It's unclear which god is involved. In the ruins are two pillars. One intact, one fallen over. There's also a triangular central building wth curved walls. The runes on the pillar were written in SE 1600, but a tribe of elves known as the Mah Elari. The runes claim this to be a sanctuary. All who need protection may rest here. The altar is holy to Iloura.

We head back to town. The gem merchant tells us the inverted sunrise is that of the Winter Light. They are an Ulor resistance group. Their main HQ is a well kept secret. Rumor has it their bracelets can be used to identify each other.

We prepare to go do the thing.

When Alynna switches the moons, the orrey starts to glow. There is a click below, and the orrey starts to move. Up above, Orhan is brightest. Charon is angry and red. Kulthea glows with the actual continents raised in them, including both hemispheres. Down below, Haeraan finds a secret door with a 5x3 foot panel. Inside the base is a 3x8 chamber. On the floor is a sack. Haeraan grabs the sack, but then he closes the door and teleports away.

Inside the sack are a bracer and two amulets (all with acorn symbols), a wooden tube with a blank sheet of bluewhite paper 1 foot wide and 16 inches tall ragged along one side as if ripped, and a flute. He's also trapped on top of a far away pyramid. Haeraan realizes he's about 450 miles away from us on an island. Directly to his west is a lighthouse.

Imre decodes the dots realizing that they are music. Of course they are in a different temperment than all current instruments, so we'd need a weird ancient flute to play it. Too bad we don't have one.

Haeraan attunes to one of the amulets, but it disses him. So he goes into the pyramid.

Alynna teleports back to Selkai to try making those sounds on the Windflute, since it's pretty old. It's really hard though as the scale is wrong and the wind flute isn't supposed to be played.

Haeraan explores and finds a crystal control panel with a little rectangular hole in it. But he doesn't seem to have the magic key. So, he long doors over to the lighthouse. Walking up to it he finds a wooden door, knocks, and receives is no response.

Alynna comes back in a few hours and plays the flute. She almost gets it. She tries again and the door opens. We all head over there.

The bracer is one of the Bracers of Uniting: Trump bracers 1/day. One amulet is for arms users: pure arms only (+30 DB), one amulet is for chanelling users: x2 PPM. The paper is arcane. "Attunement not possible at this time, try again later."

We pick the lock and head into the lighthouse. Up top is a giant lighthouse machine. It's a huge glowing crystal with a reflector behind it and rotates.

Oathar remembers that this thing looks a lot like Vag Muir. With a giant stone statue in the center. The Eog Golem.

Haeraan manages to get a clairvoy point into the secret base. They are all wondering where the kid was and how to find him. They assume he took the stuff.

Alynna suggests we examine the amulets. They are hierlums of the Mah Elari. We have 2 of the 16 amulets. They were made in the early second era (600-700 SE). They were made by the Katavari. The flute was made 50,000 years ago by Lords of Essense. It's a key created by the earth wardens, requiring some finese to use. The blue paper is part of something larger. The Earthwardens were Althans.