Orhan 3 Day 17 TE 6062

Before heading to the dessert, while waiting for Oathar to heal, many party members scour the area looking for forgotten loot. Alynna finds a set of metal bracers with small hooks for training. They let you train an extra rank of MA Strikes and MA Sweeps each level. Haeraan finds a whole pile of junk, and then finds a large rusted plate of metal mostly buried. He excavates to find it is the top lid of a large box or passage or something. Kyrik identifies the runes on the lid as runes of protection and warning. Protecting the insides, rather than the outside from what's within. Whew.

Inside the outer box (8 by 10 feet), Oathar sees (using Ironsight), but this is a glowing box (6x6x6 ft.). Ah ha, Kyrik identifies it as a stasis cube. Oh dear, it could be anything.

Haeraan has a dream about the box. He's sitting amonst a crowd of oddly dressed people, who are all cheering at a guy on a stage. A voice rings outs saying, "Haeraan! Come on down!" He goes to the guy on the stage and there are three big doors. Do you choose Door 1, 2, or 3? Haeraan chooses Door #1. It opens up and inside is a bunch of women lying around on divans and things wearing odd shimmering clothes. Would he like to exchange what he's won for what's behind doors 2 or 3? Yes, He picks door number 3! It opens and inside is a gaping hole leading into blackness. Everything starts getting sucked in, and everything goes black and the dream ends.

Orhan 3 Day 18 TE 6062

Imre does a divination. Door 1 is good, door 3 is bad, and door 2 is unclear.

Orhan 3 Day 21 TE 6062

Finally, Oathar is back in fighting trim and the party is ready to open the box. Imre thinks there will be blood shed today. The lid is pretty stuck, but Haeraan, Alynna, and Kyrik manages to push the lid off. A blast of air comes out, and then all is quiet and inside is a glowing box.

The stasis box auto-opens. Inside the big stasis box are three identical smaller boxes. They don't show up on any sense modes.

Oathar prays and then chooses a box at random. We open it up and inside is a large book with a metal cover. Kyrik examines it. The author was an Althan named Viglin. It's from the first era over 100,000 years old. It's not keyed to anyone in particular, but it is warded or sealed. Imre thinks it's was Viglin's seminal work on its subject, and is one of the few surviving original pieces of his work. There are no other extant complete copies of this work. Kyrik remembers that Viglin is the head of the dustwalkers.

We read book 1 that evening. Except we don't because they are warded and don't open. Sigh, we put them back int eh bag of holding and take off.

Orhan 3 Day 22 TE 6062

To the desert!

Ride ride ride....

Orhan 3 Day 24 TE 6062

We find a rocky area with weird cacti. Over to the side the riding beetles suddenly stop, and look around and starch marching off towards the cacti. The beetles eat the glowing moss and start glowing themselves. We continue into the desert. The beetles seem fine.

The beetles stop again and start hoppng around invisible obsticles. Actually, it seems the beetles can dodge quicksand and predators in the glow of their light. Good thing they ate that moss. They cruise right along. This would take forever on foot. After a while, the beetles start getting a little tipsy, though they keep avoiding the obsticles.

Drunken Beetle Riding Through the Sands of Death!!

We make it through!