March 13th, 2009
2nd of Wanetide, 1981 FG
We seem to attract a lot of attention wherever we go. Yesterday, we took care of the rat problem. Today, we were hired to find a man's missing son who was exploring an old tomb of a magistrate who died several generations back. His son and some friends left about a week or so ago but they haven't come back. He's especially worried because another team of excavators, who he believes are more like bandit looters, decided to head out there a day or so ago.
The father offered us 20 silver to find his son with the promise of getting us more. 20 silver didn't matter that much to me. It didn't mean much to Talon, either. Without even consulting the party, he announced we'd help his son as a favor.
I see no harm in helping this man. If we're to receive pay for resolving the rat mess, we'll need to stick around, anyway. We might as well go check out the tomb and find this man's son, Bartholomew. The man's providing us horses so we should be able to arrive at the site early this evening.
2nd of Wanetide, 1981 FG
We found a dug up entrance to the tomb pretty early last night. We started exploring it this morning.
Mort used his magic to grant me the ability to see perfectly in the dark, and I descended into the tomb. I found some footprints in the dust and decided to take a look around. At first, I didn't find a whole lot. There were several rooms with bodies lining the walls, one of which had been recently pulled out for close examanation, but no recent signs of Bart and his friends.
I found a door with a warning written in several languages. It said to not open it so as to avoid releasing a great disease. It also had some magical writing on it. I peeked in through the keyhole and saw a sarcophagus. Rather than investigate further, I decided I'd better return to the party and let them know what I had found. On the way back, I couldn't help but wonder why the footprints were limited to certain areas. They weren't anywhere close to the magic door I found. There were also two other doors in the entrance, one on the ground with footprints all around it, and another on the opposite side of the room with no footprints. It was awfully strange that those exploring it went to some areas and not others. I couldn't help but wonder if there were a secret passage that they had found and decided to explore.
After relating to the party what I had discovered, I decided to start checking the area with the footprints for secret passages. As suspected, there was one in the middle of the hallway. All of us proceeded through the passage, still following the footprints, found a passage sealed with bricks, and found another secret passage. Behind that secret passage was a small room with a trap door. The door was wedged open with a stick.
By this point, I think Talon was getting a little anxious to contribute. Most of the party had been doing nothing while I was exploring the tomb, so I really don't blame him. In fact, I'm glad he decided to be the next one to do some exploring. He found a trap. He managed to avoid it, but I might not have been able to. Who knows what effect the sword's curse might have had on me if I were the one to find it.
Anyway, the trap door was a small chute that led to a wall with a few sharp poles. The poles had fresh blood on them and below them a small drop to another room. One by one, we climbed down Mort's rope into the room below. In it, we found yet another secret passage, this one opening into a crawlspace leading to a bedroom.
The bedroom, unlike anything we had found yet, was obviously inhabited. Among the stuff we found inside the room was an ancient book in a language with some similarities to Celan. There was also another book that appeared to be a translation into Celan. From it we learned that there was a prison in this tomb that contained a great beast. We also learned that the tomb could be about 2000 years-old. If that's true, this tomb was build about the time that Ellana was defeated. Now, I can't help but wonder what secrets this place holds. Even after we find Bart, I think I'd like to explore the entire remainder of the place.
In a nearby room, we could hear some talking going on. It sounded like an interrogation. We were able to peek our heads into that room and witness the interrogation of one of Bart's friends by the current residents.
We eventually revealed ourselves and put an end to the interrogation. At that time, it was just one of the residents, Ian, and one of Bart's friends, Carl. Ian was extremely confused. He, the other resident, and his master had been living here for five years and never encountered anyone else. Now, they had caught two kids and then, immediately after, been approached by our party.
As we were talking to Ian, we heard a loud noise coming from the next room where Lenny, Bart's other friend, was being interrogated. We followed Ian to the room and found twelve bandits demanding we turn the place over to them. The other resident was on the ground unconcscious with a couple arrows in his body. Mort burst out laughing and, after a short exchange, charged forward to disarm the leader. That's precisely what he did, too. He chopped off the arm of the leader.
The rest of us engaged the bandits at about the same time. In the matter of maybe three seconds, those who were still standing had surrendered. Their leader had been killed, and five others had been knocked unconscious, one of them "disarmed" like the leader by Mort. Nim, of all the people in our group, skewered the leader with his spear as he was running away. I don't think he intended to kill the leader. Rather, I just think he's accustomed to fighting more powerful foes like the Varu and demons.
We had reason to believe that Bart went down to the prison so, after the short skirmish, we convinced Ian to take us to its door. It was like the door I had found earlier with the magical writing, only this one had messages warning people to not release the demon. The door also had a stick smashed underneath it, an obvious sign of Bart coming this way.
After a short debate, we decided to follow, and had Ian open the door. We descended down a long staircase until we came to another door. At this point, we decided to leave Wallace at this one and send Al to the other, just in case we can't open them from inside. After all, this is a prison. If it's an issue, hopefully Ian will be able to open the door for Al.
The next room was unlike any of the others. It was enormous and the walls almost seemed to emanate an orange light. I caught sight of what we believed to be Bart's footprints, and we followed. Eventually, his prints completely stopped. Also in that same area were three and four-pronged footprints. Believing this was the prison, I immediately thought that he must have been snatched up by the demon.
At about that time, Mort pointed out to me that there was a small creature watching us. He spoke to it, first in Celan, and then in goblin. It was surprised when Mort spoke to it in goblin. It responded and eventually said we would likely get eaten but 10,000 creatures larger than us. Then, after feeling threatened by Mort, ran away and began shrieking. Shortly after, we saw what snatched up Bart; a bunch of grey-skinned goblins even smaller than the snow goblins.
The goblins were marching in some sort of formation with Bart in a chair lifted above them. He was decorated with baubles and looked very uncomfortable. We spoke with the goblins and learned that Bart likely used magic, which greatly impressed them. Now they expected him to lead them to war against other goblins as their king.
Mort seized control of the situation by using his magic to create light on a stone. They dropped Bart and attempted to lift him up as their new king. Needless to say, they weren't successful.
Bart, after learning who we were and realizing we now had the goblins under control, wanted us to help him find a treasure under the demon's prison. He said there were six sentinels and there would be some sort of key to using them to get to the treasure without facing the demon. After some consistent prodding, we decided to follow along. The goblins also joined us. Of course, it helped that Mort designated to one of them the responsiblity of carrying his "magic stone".
It wasn't long before we found the actual prison that held the demon. As we got close to it, I could feel the power of the void emanating from within. I also began to wonder if this was one of the demons that fought against Ellana. It's hard to say. I don't think the Celestine had much, or any, power in this area at that time. Still, if the king had summoned several demons to destroy Ellana's army, it's quite possible that some of them stuck around even after the war was over. That king may have been very important in starting the Celestine Kingdom, but he was a fool for utilizing demons to do his work.
The six sentinels were statues. Each one of them represented a different element written in a magical language that I couldn't read. Fortunately, Mort could read them. They were also each labeled with a number. Light was labeled with the number 3, earth with 7, water with 13, fire with 19, shadow with 26, and air with 42.
After some experimentation and after Bart consulted his notes, we learned that the sentinels needed to be activated in a certain order to open the door to the treasure. They could be activated by simply reading the magical writing on each sentinel. When activated, a gate with a color appropriate to its element would appear in the room. After a few minutes, they'd disappear.
As we were doing this, Bart continued to study his notes. Just before we made a big mistake, he told us that we weren't supposed to use all six sentinels. If we did, that would open the gate to the demon. Instead, we only needed to activate those with even numbers.
Mort activated the shadow sentinel and then the air one. The portals appeared and Bart, not wanting to waste any time, hopped into the shadow portal and disappeared. I decided to follow. It didn't actually take me anywhere. It just changed the lighting in the room to have a dark haze. I looked around and saw Bart move through the air portal. Again, I followed. This time, the room had a haze of blue. There was also a new portal that had dark and blue energies swirling about it.
Bart was waiting for me. We looked at each other and jumped in. Immediately, I felt my armor become extremely heavy. I also could no longer feel the influence of the heart. We were in a no mana zone. We were also in a room filled with a variety of contents, some of it junk, some of it not so much.
A moment later, Mort appeared. The three of us went through the treasure and found a few potentially valuable items. I found a symbol of Danica and grabbed it for Nim. I also grabbed a few well-made swords that might be worth keeping. After collecting a few items, Mort and I decided we'd better go back and tell the others. We stepped back through the portal, which immediately shrank a bit, and appeared in the room with the sentinels.
We learned that each item we brought out made the portal smaller. We also learned that it could only be opened and maintained from outside. The situation suddenly got a bit trickier. We could keep Mort out here to maintain the portals but what were we going to do about the treasure?
I grabbed one of the swords I brought, which had turned out to not be magical, and decided to head back in. I was hoping it would make the portal larger. It didn't. I would have liked to conduct more experiments but the portal was already half the size it was to begin with. We couldn't afford to make any big mistakes.
I made sure Bart understood the situation and began to search through the treasures. I managed to find a trap door with lots of jewelry inside it, and I set aside a nice sword for Talon, a spear for Nim, a sword for Wallace, and a staff for Al. I also looked through the books to see if I could find anything that jumped out at me. Unfortunately, I learned I'd have to look through them more carefully to determine which ones would be worth taking.
In the end, the situation turned out to be extremely stressful. We didn't understand the rules and we were relying on guessing to have the best result. Instead, I decided to leave everything I had set aside inside the room. I also managed to convince Bart to bring only one thing with him. The idea was to leave the portal open so that people could at least bring books in and transcribe what's already there. Or maybe by leaving the portal open, we'd be able to get the help of Ian and his master to understand and perhaps control the portal.
Bart brought out an amulet that turned out to be extremely magical. It also reduced the size of the portal considerably. The plan now is to head upstairs and see if we can get some help.