June 22nd, 2024
Bellum, Artis 4th, 1194 (Continued)
We take a closer look at the decagram and it looks as if some of the symbols have been repaired recently; after whatever caused this mass destruction, another person visited and repaired some of the things. Channeling mythic energy into this structure does nothing. We then leave the area and head back to the shimmering portal outside.
Channeling into this portal has an effect, but it doesn’t open the portal. The other side might be jammed physically, perhaps the fallen mountain? Since we have no other leads, we leave through the mechanical dais portal.
Once outside, there is a raven watching us again, from much farther away. We try to communicate with it and it caws something that sounds like “follow”, so we do. It leads us west, away from the city.
It leads us three hours to a big sink hold, then it says to enter. Climbing down isn’t too difficult and leads to a natural cavern, where a halfling is waiting for us. His name is Rowan and he knows we were looking for him. He tells us that the skum have a submerged temple deeper in the swamp and that he knows of other locations that may be of interest to us; one being an underground temple. This cult has been in the area for about 12 years, but they have become more bold as of late. There are also other cults in the swamp, but not the kind we are looking for. We stay the night as his place.
Iustitia, Artis 5th, 1194
It will take about half a day to get to this underground temple. Within this temple are several statues of remarkable quality; they could be petrified people, due to some kind of magic. They are sporting heraldry featuring an eagle.
While traversing a small pool, we are ambushed by a riptide horror; it’s weak to electricity and has a paralyzing venom. In another room, there is an ornate snake statue that has a moderate magical aura. Zandru is the only god associated with snakes. When Sigmund approaches it from the serpentine path before it, a green mist bellows out from the statue. We’ve been warded against poison, but it could be poison.
The next room is a narrow path above a deep pit– it is littered with traps. There is also what turns out to be a fake treasure chest. After that, we enter the room that we saw earlier through the wall. There is a very large snake molting and an ornate snake motif on the floor. As we enter, we hear spellcasting and a cloud of fog appears in the north, which is the only way forward out of this room.
We then head back to the entrance and take the other path. It’s just a small campsite with a manacled man. He has a strange collar inscribed with architect runes. Both the collar and the manacles are magical. Ty is able to pick the manacles lock, but the collar doesn’t have any such mechanism. Channeling mythic energy into the collar does remove it, but he remains unconscious. Casting delay poison wakes him up.
His name is Ishtar-Nam and he says he’s from Silverpine, which is a lost town. Based on his description, it sounds as if he was exploring the Cave of Unreasonable Ice. He’s unaware of the current year and thinks it is 4719. This would place him in either the distant past or the far future. He thinks he may have been here for several months.
He was exploring an ice cave hear his town where he found a rift. His description of the place inside the rift sounds a lot like the void realm that Graynor visited long ago. It was there that he may have gained his mythic spark. When he came out of the rift, people looking like Architects captured him. One of the people that captured him bears a striking resemblance to Tolm. Time may have passed at a very different rate when he was in that void realm. We invite Ishtar to travel with us as we explore the rest of the complex.
Past the wall of fog we find some stairs going down. The stairs have two moderate auras on them. Sigmund dispels one and we go down. Below is a door that has another magic aura; we trigger it and people are wracked with nasty pain. The next door puts people in a very deep sleep and we have to wait an hour for them to awaken.
We return and make it to the final room. A serpentine woman with snake hair and bird wings assaults us. She is joined by more cultists and we eliminate them.