Orhan 4 Day 25 TE 6054

After sunset, Oathar teleports everyone back to Orian for some emergency curse removal. We bribe the guards to let us in at night. We head to the temple of Kour. Haeraan wants to talk to the higer priest, but no one is authorized to wake him up, so we go in and speak to one of the lesser priests. Sadly, he's quite lesser and appears to be second level or so. His name is Tim. He also is mostly not authorized to deal with waking people up.

Luckily, two of us have been cursed. So that's pretty important. He goes off to wake the priest. Father Nathaan comes back and is sort of sleepy looking. He goes off to prepare to remove the curse. We await his ministry. He has a golden orb. The cursed ones kneel in front of the alter while the orb glows a whole lot. Kyrik is uncursed! D. is uncursed! Yay! No curses for us!

We discuss our intelligence with the priest. There are three major cities on the sea of Votania, so it could be any of them sending boats there in any case. There are plenty of looters.

To an Inn!

Orhan 4 Day 26 TE 6054

In the morning we teleport back to the port town that we've cleane dout of undead. Now we start heading up the mountain side. It looks like this area was pretty well settled at one point. Ruins parallel the road all the way up. Mid-afternoon we begin to be able to see the capital city. It's a vast ruin cited on the side of the mountain. Lot's of multiple terraced levels. In the distance we hear booming sounds and crackling sounds and stuff like that. Hey wait! Wasn't there some dream about free range fireballs? Oh dear.

As we get closer we start to hear lot's of shouts and bolt sounds and clanging. It's a battle. Oathar's bird finds a clearing with a battle raging around the area. A bunch of humanoids fighting against large dogs.We head closer. Now it seems like they are all in a pit fighting each other. Gladatorial combat? The humans are speaking in a mixture of Erlin and Rhaya. As we get to the gate, we begin to see something scrabbling up the edge of the pit. Ack! It's a zephyr hound! We hate those.

We get to the pit just as they drive the last zephyr hounds away. Then they see us and arm themselves again. Kyrik talks to them and it turns out they seem to have some wounded. So, we go down and do some healing. They wounded gawk and Imre's holy symbol.

It appears they are excavating a library. They've been here a week or two and have a pile of artifacts over to the side. There are a bunch of academics and a couple mages, as well as their hired thugs. Several have a ring on them of the Brotherhood of the Holy Word. A cult that follows Valris and is based in Jaiman. Father Arthis, in charge, thanks us for our aid and is here to look for historical records. Their dig is going fairly well. They show us their tent full of artifacts. They have some miniature columns (paperweights?), some odd apparatus, looks like a grape press. A big old book with metal binding that's rusted.

What are we doing you ask? "We're following a few leads." The dangers around here are not mere superstitions we say. We det. enemies, evil, and curses, all around and don't really find anything of note. Some sort of smaller branch library. They got passage here from Sarnak to Dynax and got a boat there. They have supplies for a month. There were intense negotiations involved in their getting a ship. We get an invitation to the sanctuary in southeastern Rahkhan to see their results.

We depart the dig. We head towards the center of the city. There's this nagging feeling, but we don't remember anything. We get to the foot of a terrace. Lot's of leavings (and a little climbing) later, we arrive on the second terrace, Imre, Oathar, and Alynna experience de javu. "Oh look, that was a post office!" Everyone else see two rocks on top of each other. Hmmm...

We find a navigator obelisk. It's a little buried, but there's nothing particularly interesting about it. We teleport up another terrace. Kyrik also start remembering things. Haeraan is getting annoyed. So Imre helps him remember. Now we are all united. There's just one more tier above us. The fourth tier was, of course, Alderaan's palace. We recall something about places here on the third terrace that give us sort of homey feelings.

We wander around HAVING SPLIT THE PARTY SIX WAYS. Little journeys of psychic discovery. We each find our own personal ruin with a sense of familiarity. There's also voices and things.

• Kyrik: inscribed on floor is flaming sword.
• Alanna: inscribed on floor is mural of four faces and blowing clouds.
• Imre: inscribed on floor is a flowing redish cloak
• Haeraan: inscribed on floor is an eye
• Oathar: inscribed on floor is grey ring.
• D.: inscribed on floor is a hand, but when she wanders off to the side and looks at it, it changes to a mask.

We hang out at our various headquarters with our voices from the past and then start hearing a stirring sound around us. Then the voices grow more distinct and louder. Then we feel like yes, there's definitely something here. Then the rumbling begins. Oh dear. Suddenly, we're catapulted back in time seeing everything glittering as it used to be. Turning around, we see people dressed in these sort of funny uniforms.

• Kyrik: red armor and helms
• Alanna: short monkish runners garb
• Imre: guys in long red cloaks
• Haeraas: robes
• Oathar: yup, we're mages
• D.: something or other

We each go around ascending various steps to the roof level of the mansions and looking up we see Alderaan standing there at the edge of the fourth terrace. It's all made clear to us that we are seeing this through the eyes of our ancestors.

"My people, it has come time for our destiny. Let there be an empire!" Lot's of roaring and cheering. The vision fades. Before it all ends a little voice says, "But there is more to see..."

There a sense of more of the story is waiting, but we need to go find it. We regroup at the base of the fourth tier. D. realized that the order of the mask has a little special hideaway, a secret chamber. She thinks she can still find it. It's behind the fourth terrace! We go!

Ruin of the palace. Yup, that sure is a palace. Haeraan detects many many undead. Oh dear. First, some skeletons. Then some ghouls. Then, we get couple ghosts. Finally we get, a skeletal dragon. Oh. They make those? Well, not with breath weapons. D. thinks her hidey hole is indeed through the castle. We head in and down. Oh dear.

Imre's foot goes through the stair. We save him. There is now a whole bunch of mazes and twisty passages down here. D. says, "hmmm........This way!" We iterate this process. We tread over the same ground again and again. We find a room filled with scrolls and books in cubby-holes and stuff behind an open door. It's filled with lots of spell books and stuff that are fragile and hard to take with us.

D. finds a secret passage. It has a book. "The Prophesies of Luarto Shang" We flee. Then we stop fleeing and save the book. It's a scroll. Oathar says it's the read at double speed scroll. Lot's of low level bard scrolls. Kyrik and Oathar go through the book of prophesy. First, lot's of foolish prophesies, then lot's of depressing propehsies of doom and gloom. At the end it says,

Echos of laughter beneath the rivers end,
Earths bosom has nurtured a fell child,
The stones are silent in pain.

The Guardians have become the gates betrayers,
The Nameless One will forewarn,
Heed the call of doom.

His was the name they learned to fear,
Darkness turns darker still,
His was the name they held most dear,

He is son of the Void.

Scribbled in the margin is: "Schreck?" Beneath that is says, "Lorgalis?"

There's one final notable prophesy:

An age ago there were many fair lords

They crossed the stars like stepping stones

Their thoughts stronger than the sea.

When they fell the heavens went dark

The earth was rent and almost died
At the end stood five and three.

Six mighty Titans took the great land.
And made it their own realm
But they were at last defied.

There are now three missing verses, then:

Shun the isle in the sea of mists
For the masters sleep there still
And beneath a light has died.

Of course, we are already on the island in the middle of the sea of mists. Sigh...

We keep the book and move on. D. leads us to metal doors. There are large demon claw marks cutting it open. There are three sets of blasted open doors, and finally a set the thing couldn't get through with a crown on the door. (D. tries her little brass key. It doesn't work.) It's a royal vault says D. Hmmm. We fuss over it a bunch. Kyrik tries to portal through it. It zaps him. We can't seem to find other ways in. Perhaps we'll come back later.

We head back the other way and come to a barracks. Bunch of bones get up off the floor and attack us. Oathar fireballs them. It doesn't stop them so combat begins. We fight. It's sort of slow as there are unbalancing crits flying everywhere and we fall down a lot. We finally get the upper hand though and deal with them.Lot's of CON is drained in the process though. Ick!