November 30th, 2024

Vita, Artis 28th, 1194 (Continued)

We transport via plants to Silverdale, arrive without issue and head towards the obelisk. Sigmund channels mythic energy into it and sinks into it. The rest of us follow suit. Ralzer and Graynor feel as if someone is watching them; everyone else has a minor headache.

Inside, it looks like a strange garden, full of plants not native to our plane; Ralzer identifies some as veilshrubs and fractal bloomers. The terrain keeps shifting, making it hard to see far.

Past the garden is a chamber of obsidian full of floating shelves. Ishtar reads the Codex of Eternal Spirals, which alters it’s written language until Ishtar can read it. It’s about time manipulation, and while reading it, he doesn’t realize how long he spends on it.

Sigmund skims through a book of blank pages. While handling it, he sees a shadowy figure watching him in reflections of the glass in the room, but can’t see it anywhere else.

Ralzer opens a book with a cover of a broken mask. While looking through it he feels a surge of arcane energy and hears faint whispers, which sound like a bunch of names. Saying a name out loud makes him feel bad. The pages are just full of names and he takes it with him.

Sigmund examines another book, the Mournful Canticle. Picking it up fills the room with a strange choir noise. It’s cover looks like it’s made of skin, and flipping the pages generate a faint, mournful wail. It contains songs of mourning.

Ralzer looks at the Manual of Perfect Silence, which contains strategies on using silence as a weapon. He then finds one, Starbinders’ Ledger, about star maps and weaving star light into constructs.

Ty checks a book about using light and illusion, the Prismatic Codex, and then finds a more interesting book, the Infinite Descent. Picking it up reorients the room to a slight slant and it chronicles the adventure of a group of people exploring a dungeon that rearranges itself.

Sigmund looks in the Book of Dying Stars; picking it up suppresses magical effects. It touches on harnessing cosmic energy to create nasty stuff.

We leave the library and continue exploring.

The hallway leads to a seemingly void-like area and we hear a faint melody and see tiny pin pricks of light. Eventually we come to a large crystal, about 80ft. tall, and there is a rhythmic beating sound in the area. Ty touches the crystal and gets a strange sensation as if traveling through a kaleidoscope. Touching it creates a strange gravity effect in the room and Sigmund bull rushes Ty away from the crystal to end the effect.

We discuss our next moves and decided to leave after Ralzer casts identify on the crystal. When he does so, he hears a voice in his head.

“A seeker of power faces the abyss, how deep will you descend?”

“All the way,” he responds. He then gets a vision of himself standing on a battlefield, holding a staff. He feels a sense of dominance over the battle and victory. Then, the vision cracks and he’s alone and weary, pursued by the unseen.

He again hears a voice in his head, “Step forward seeker, the path to kingship lies before you. Grasp it and the stars will kneel. Will you dare to wield the unyielding, few can grasp the weight of eternity.”

Ralzer steps forward and Sigmund restrains him, breaking him from the trance. We then leave.

We use phantom chariot and then transport via plants to get to Ironwald Downs.

We arrive in Ironwald Downs and Graynor visits his temple and updates them on his business. He gets promoted to Guardian. Sigmund visits Mikhail, catches him up and gives him the Robes of the Architect to hide. Ishtar finds some immigration records related to his old hometown. About 300 years ago the entire village of Silverpine dispersed and the families settled in Aldtown Crossing, Brendencrest, Ironwald Downs, Westermoor, and possibly others.

We reconvene back at Ralzers and discuss our next steps. Sigmund does a sending to Queen Mozdrog about the Council of the Empyrean.

Mare, Artis 29th, 1194

We visit the Courts of Inequity; Sigmund will talk with the Kobolds and Ty will deliver an artifact. Ty schedules an appointment with Judge Balefrost in two days.

While we are being taken to a meeting room to see Queen Mozdrog, Ishtar notices an intricate flail on display that he remembers seeing depictions of at the Assembly of the Four Corners in Jasper. It’s called the Flail of Infinite Cycles and each head is a divine focus of Namas.

Queen Mozdrog is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the other dragons. Something has broken into the lower levels of the citadel; a powerful spirit, sort of like a shadow. Thauglorauthamiir joins us and describes this creature. It’s a Gilarabrywn, a kind of magical beast that resembles a dragon made of energy. They can be quite powerful and this could be a legit problem.

Later, we meet with Advocate Greatbear, who was Mozdrog’s liaison in the temple, to get a better feel about the situation. He confirms that several dragons have RSVP’d and they should arrive tomorrow in the western field.  Greatbear has spoken to a dragon named Codagh and the Council of the Empyrean is like a governing body among dragonkind.

We enter the Ironwald Downs obelisk again and find it to be the same inside and the blank bodies still remain. Sigmund uses one of the new star map books we found in the Silverdale obelisk to see if it has any bearing with the star maps here, and it does appear that way. He’s able to find a constellation called the Blade of Eternity from the Star Binders’ Ledger.

Ishtar visits the local Assembly of the Four Corners to inquire about the flail he saw earlier. They confirm that the flail is a relic of the church, but do not suggest any action be taken.

Terra, Artis 30th, 1194

We head to the western fields an wait for the dragon arrivals. They start to arrive after about two hours. They are big, and according to Ralzer, all evil, except for maybe the brown and orange.

The first one we see is a huge sized orange with a dagger-like tail end, a rare kind that has some psychic abilities. The rest arrive in the following order:

Brown, huge, dagger tail
Red, gargantuan, sword tail
Green, gargantuan, normal tail
Blue, colossal, dagger tail
Orange, gargantuan, scorpion tail
Brown, huge, club tail
Black, colossal plus, sword tail — largest of them all
Black, colossal, morning star tail — seems to be in charge

We watch the meeting from afar. The green dragon breathes fire at Thauglorauthamiir—green ones don’t usually breathe fire. At one point the morning star dragon looks in our direction for a while. A few minutes after that they begin to fly off, with the morning star being the last to leave, but not before slamming his tail into the ground.

Thauglorauthamiir then visits us and lets us know that we are to attend another meeting tonight. He says the council is angry.