In which our heroes ...

Orhan 2 Day 70 TE 6064

At this point we hear the giant armies of darkness rising up from the depths. So we grab the dark book in a sack, grab some loot and flee! A horde of skeletal things starts pouring out of the back wall.

Oathar grabs 200 gold, Kyrik gets some magic weapons.

We run!

Wall of bones. Darn. We sprint for the entrance. Imre decides not to take chances; he channels a jello shot through a Tear of Eissa, which does an Ark-of-the-Covenant kind of light show on all of the skeletons, which crumble to bones. We get both the book and the mask, and then get out, and wrestle the stone back on to the entrance.

We notice that Kellyo is scrying us. Alynna clouds that up. Where to go? We consider going to the Dwarves, in case they have a Chasm of Fire or something like that. We decide to inventory the world’s volcanoes and throw the mask into one of them, and give the book to the Temple of Valris at Nomikos.

We decide to use a volcanic island in the far north. We get a map of the far north at Nomikos. It’s called Hynuria, and it’s about 5 degrees south of the northern citadel. About 50 miles across.

The crusty archivist takes the evil book and puts Kraegora book-clips on it. He’s translating the Prophecies of Lorgalis. They say we suck, and that it will be bad if he kills us before the Great Loop, but he’ll have his revenge upon us at Armageddon, when the Great Ball Of Eyes will betray us. He seems to see our plan to imprison him with the Narsiribaen coming, though it’s very general (he knows we’ll try to imprison him, but he doesn’t know how).

Imre reads the log and notices that Kyrik will visit the Master Archivist at the temple in seven days. Gotta run!

Dreams:

Haeraan: What guards Hynuria? Standing at a jungle clearing…sitting down…cute little bunnies hop by. Big, innocent eyes. A faun wanders by, with big cute eyes. Squirrels. Ducklings. So cute and defenseless. The flames and ash and lava destroy them all.

Alynna: Consequences of dropping the mask into the volcano of Hynuria. She gets the same exact dream.

Haeraan gets an attack of guilt, as he realizes that Luna would really not approve of killing all of the cute animals. We figure out that there’s a few day period coming up when the party will be at Nomikos, and we can “borrow” a portal from Santa Vallandra, and move it to Quellbourne, an Alynna can turn into a summoner, and summon as many cute animals as possible through the portal.

We scout the volcano. Alynna and Kyrik check out the crater while Haeraan and Imre check out the lowlands. In the lowlands, we find harmless, helpless people with big blue eyes. Haeraan slaps his forehead and demands the bitter cup so that he can drain it dry. Haeraan begins to think that perhaps we should just go back to the damn cave, open it up, and put the mask back in there, and then close it again. Imre goes to look for the village, where there are a couple hundred people in simple thatch huts. The only stone building in the village is a temple to Gamesh, the volcano. Imre talks to the locals. They came from the far-away place long ago, to escape the troubles. We are demoralized and almost retreat, but Imre tarries on the shore, waiting around in case Oathar can somehow convince us to destroy the idyllic paradise. Three days ‘til the Salufa tree.