July 20th, 2024
Iustitia, Artis 5th, 1194 (Continued)
After killing the snake woman, she dissolves into the ground. One of the cultists has a scrap of paper with a Cabalis Nocturnum watermark on it. They are an ancient secret organization that collect and imprison powerful objects and creatures. There might be some hidden, coded messages on it, but we can’t make it out.
We talk to Ishtar a bit about his circumstances. The avian creatures that he encountered near his village were the same that we saw on the plane out of time, the Kaajh’gor. We then hunker down and build camp in this room, since it’s pretty fortified.
We identity the magical items that we found and after the delay poison spell wears off, poison wracks most of the party.
During the night, Ishtar does not wake up for his watch. This could be whatever was keeping him unconscious coming back.
Mors, Artis 6th, 1194
Ishtar wakes up in the morning. With this mask we found that allows us to see through fog, we will try the crypt portal again.
Back at the barrow ruins, the crypt room is once again sealed. We take a quick look around and notice that the library is missing books and there are more bodies in the central bone room. We then head through the portal.
There are no structures or anything, but Ty sees what could be a school of fish in the distance, so we head that direction. The ground begins to slope up, like we are entering a beach. Ishtar says it is reminiscent of the realm of Carcosa, which has a lake of fog. Ty heard that name while eavesdropping on the cultists that she was stalking. Once breaching the fog, everyone can see. There is a tower in the distance and we approach it.
The tower is not in great shape. Near the entrance is a stone inscribed with a message:
Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.
Sigmund looks for tracks around the area, but only finds small animal tracks. Ishtar communes with nature to learn about our environment in a nine mile radius. He finds that there are people nearby, there is the presence of powerful unnatural creatures, and nature is in a healthy and peaceful, but melancholy general state.
When we enter the tower, we constantly hear an overlapping din of many whispering voices; it’s hard to pick up any specific words. Ralzer figures the building to be several hundred years old, the battle wear is about that old as well.
By the third floor, Ralzer notices that the fire damage appears to be unnatural; it looks as if the stone burned as well. The damage gets worse as we go up and the 6th floor is completely sheered off. Maybe something blew up on this floor. Embedded in the stone are some blue crystal flakes. Ty manages to find a large piece and it has an overwhelming magical aura. Ralzer is able to identify it; it’s called a matrix and it enhances arcane power. While he was identifying it, he felt it encroach on his mind. He does not share this with the party. Ishtar can see a town several miles inland from up here and we find nothing else in the tower.
We spend some time discussing our options and decide to stay here and investigate the town. Ishtar will first scout it as a squirrel. It’s not a large town, humans and elves, mostly. He sees people armed with guns like Ralzer.
As we all approach, we are “greeted” by a human in a green tunic with a gun. His tunic has eagle heraldry very similar to the crypt we were in. He immediately asks us to halt (compellingly so) and asks which house we belong to. When we couldn’t answer that, he asks which domain we are from. When we can’t answer that, he tells us to wait. Graynor detects evil on him and he notices. He warns him not to do that around here.
When he returns, we try to truthfully explain where we are from and how we got here. They are unfamiliar with the portals and the city that we came from. They detect magic on us and notice that Ralzer has a Matrix. They ask him to hand it over as they are very dangerous—they can corrupt people. Ralzer admits that he felt a presence and hands the gem over. The men take us to their elder, Mikhail Lanart, whom he refers to as the Lanart. He welcomes us to Hali. The town was attacked about the same time as the tower. He is from the Lanart House, Alton Domain. The eagle heraldry is part of the Alton domain and the houses have variations of it.
Kaajh’Kaalbh’s brother, Thaluzoth, is imprisoned in Carcosa. There are 37 other cities, villages, and towers here; Thendara is the largest. He shows us some very detailed star maps he has and gives us a better sense of where we are in the multiverse. Carcosa looks “closer” to the Dark Tapestry.
We ask him about the stone epitaph near the tower. Lanart believes it is about how Carcosa was chosen to imprison Thaluzoth. He thinks the king refers to King Hastur, who may or may not be related to the Deity Hastur.
There is an ability present here called laran, which is related to the matrixes. It sounds similar to our mythic spark, but not completely. Their great kings of the past naturally had this ability and people can artificially enhance their weaker version of it now via matrixes. These matrixes also respond to people with laran and responded to Ralzer, suggesting the two could be the same.
While speaking of our journey to find the beacon calling Kaajh’Kaalbh, he suggests that so long as he is continued to be worshiped, that might be all that is now calling him. He requests that we take one of his men with when we return home to the prime material. We warn him that the portal we accessed Carcosa from is in a defiled crypt bearing eagle heraldry.
We show Lanart the strange coins we found in the illithid lair and on the gun wielder that fell out of the obelisk, but he is not familiar with them. Gold is not used as a coin here, but iron. Lanart is also completely unfamiliar with halflings; apparently such races do not exist here, so Ty will look pretty out of place. While there are humans and elves, there are no gnomes, halflings or dwarves. There are more races here that we haven’t heard of before as well that Lanart informs us of.