Meanderings for Madron

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Meandering for Madron

Real dates

  • 26-11-06 1030 - 2230
  • 24-3-07 1030 - 2300

Party members

  • Ty Trident - male human Air mage - scribe
  • Callas - female human Earth mage - leader, mil sci
  • Tulip - female elf Earth mage
  • Turf - male elf Namer
  • Scab - male orc/sasquatch Wicca

Precis

Madron the Astrologer hires us to investigate the astrology reading. 5,000sp each, looting rights and more depending on results.

History is Madron borrowed a statue off-plane (Phaeros), has since tried to return it, but a evil religion had sprung up since and the last party couldn't. The statue may have kept a "god of darkness" in prison (Apep). The followers of Apep attacked the baronies to try to destroy the statue, but were thwarted. He keeps tabs on Pharos and things seem a "bit darker" now.

Has a new astrology reading:

Night consumes dawn and hungers for dusk Cross the hating sands Turn back the sands, To push back the sands Let the light burn away the night.

Eyes of Apep live on Drift, which is a city on a floating island which floats about a sea of iron sands (Iron Sea). There's other bad guys in the Castle of Ultimate Darkness, and control shadow elementals. Flotsam is a city on the edge of the iron sea and blue desert (ocean), and the Incarnates live there: The Widow (info gatherer), The Iron Maiden, Mr Stitch (psyciopath), Cloak (runs the Crows assassins) and Maelstrom.

Diary

We hire a ship to take us to a portal in the sea half a days sail from Seagate and open an hour each side of midday. Go down maelstrom to Blue Desert in Phaeros (the ocean). We go to a tavern, then to the library and talk to the guard captain and head librarian Metlath. He says he will look into the astrology reading and he can organise us to get the warrant to check out Ishtar's temple again (re: Raising Gods adventure). They think the first line might refer to Ishtar (Goddess of the dawn star) being attacked and her twin brother Hekmet who was the God of the setting Sun. The guard captain asks us about an attack on the library a year or more ago, in which Petak (the employer of the last mission to Pharos) was killed and a bunch of records destroyed. It seems they drove a Dark Sphere thru the wall, and then troops portalled out of it; Shadow demons, human troops and one Eye of Apep. We tried to use a Crystal of Vision to do a precog, but it got filled with darkness and turned into a shadow of itself and nuked. Get a guide called Tek.

We wait a day

Get attacked that night by three constructs. GTN = Stitcher, no college, sentient with four arms which can stitch up your limbs/eyes/etc together to impede you, also has a cloak-thing which absorbs damage. GTN = Blood Sac, non-sentient which could scream EN damage and sends equal damage back to what you do to it. GTN = Body Golem, multiple people stitch together into a big beast thing. Kill them, no loot. We Earth Door to another tavern and wait till morning.

Go to library and explain attack, wait till afternoon and get permission to unseal Istar's temple. We go there and inside is a weak sealing spell to stop "bad" things coming in, but its badly damaged (about 5% effective) and a Ritual of Eternal Dark (which has an effect of permanent darkness) and a stationary Dark Sphere. We muddle about and banish that, but when Turf and Scab go in to have a look two shadow demons attack and infect them with a draining darkness. Go to the temple of the sun god Karnat. Talked to the priests and they say they cant do much, but there is sunlight inside during the day and light all the time.

Next morning we semi-follow Scab's plan to Expel one person back (but me not him) to get some light investeds and other shopping. Morgan isnt there but get 2 rings of rank 20 Light. Turf summons me back. The guard finally gets back to us and says Petak took some time off 3-4 years ago and wasnt quite right after, but had worked there all his life and wasnt that odd before. Callas does an astrology reading about Petak, and if Stitch was his employer, and gets a vision of him kneeling over a box. The guard says all his possessions went to his mother. Callas does another reading, and asks why Stitch thinks she betrayed him, and gets a vision of the last party turning up and things going bad and we leaving. We ask Tek to get the box, but comes back with the mother. She says the box had a head in it, maybe similar to the one inside the Body Golem, but thru it in a fire.

Wait 9 days

Head back to Ishtar's temple, we rock in and kill two shadows (no loot), GTN = Shadow Demon, and find that the rear half has two fake partitions, and everything is covered in hieroglyphs. Get some scribes from the library to check it out, and a couple of Karnat priests.

Wait 2 more days

The acolytes say there isnt much specific, but are translating it. Decide to go to Flotsam.

3 days via boat =

Not much wind so lots of Mage Winds required. Turf recalls that the custom is to throw a couple of coins overboard when traveling thru the waters near the city, as he does so he sees a large (like kraken sized) shadow swim down from the ship... Flotsam is sort of a city that's slide half into the water or something, and has about 5000 people total. It's normal mana despite the size and it's on the edge of the Iron Sea. We buy 3 Darkstone necklaces, sort of condensed mana mined from an outpost of the Castle of Ultimate Darkness. Prolonged exposure to the stuff can make you mad.

Go visit The Widow. She says Mr Stitch lives in the Mausoleum, but really tries to avoid him. She says the Hating Sands are to the NE of here, around the ancient city called Ikara in the Iron Sea - gives us that "for free" because "it wont do us any good" because its buried by the Hating Sands. Hekmet was the main diety in Ikara. Library of K'noth in the City of Effigies, also in the Hating Sands, NW of Ikara. High-priest Tutmok rules there with the remnants of Ikara (ages ago) when a big curse came down on Ikara. He has a priest for Karnat, the sun god, and father of Ishtar and Hekmet. The Widow "gives" me a spider which "will help us". Back to the boat about 1400.

= 3 days via boat

We do some more ranking, 2 weeks ranking time to-date from the downtime.

Big stone tower by the coast where we are heading by the river entrance. On top is a brass brazier. Looks like an outpost or old coastal city now buried. A crystal shows a big escarpment/cliff about 100 miles NE? I go to cast flying but the spider keeps biting me, so i guess flying is bad. We chat about options as Turf keeps bleating about walking. Decide to Earthdoor, but i dont travel when its cast; apparently a 30' stone statue with a vulture-head attacks them, lots of armour and needs an once AG check to not get hit, party Windwalks away. Then a bird appears and seems to say thing about flying(? Karnat demands you desist what you're doing) and starts casting the Burning Gaze of Karnat (sort of Whitefire but celestial/solar) until the windwalks wear off. Crystaling about finds a corridor/cleft cut into a hill with two huge statues at the entrance, both humanoid sitting in thrones. The cleft is covered in hyroglyphics, then turns into a tunnel for another 100' a! nd opens into a worked natural cavern 300' across. There's people wandering about, some Mummy guards and some stone statues which might be "alive". There's a quarry at the back.

3 days via boat back to City of Gods.

Talk to Highprest of Karnat in CoG. He says he's heard of some of this stuff, like the curse called the Vengeance of karnat inflicted because they did something to displease the sun god, but the records are vague. When we say we need to find and uncover a buried city, Scab chips in "i guess we need some shovels then". He says he can arrange some robes to help us against the heat. Callas and I go back to Seagate, me to make some investeds, while Callas has sex with Uzi Urksome to get a discount on some more crystals of vision. The others do a few precogs to test the options. When trying to precog a corridor under the altar in the temple, the crystal bursts into fire and a voice calls us heretics. The Widow tells us an agent of the Priests of Apep knows we are about in Flotsam.

Spend 7 days ranking, checking at the library, more precogs etc, then 3 days to the coast by the tower again. We decide to summon a statue-thing to test combat; Sentient Construct, GTN = Cursed Effigy, Combined FT/EN = 500, TMR10, Cannot be Banished, No Deathcurse, cant be spec grev'd, WWV only does damage, EarthTremor makes it sink halfway into sand, 20 magic resistance, can move thru sand. Crystal about along the river, and think Ikara might be 40 miles east-ish. Heal up. Head to the City of Effigies for a day, but Scab gets a feeling something is following us. We camp up for the night. We keep going and get attacked by another Effigy. Kill that with a combo of Paralysis and beatings. Discover the curse causes you to age 1% / day, so decide to head back to the boat. On the way we find tracks and eventually hunt down a GTN = Bloodhound (presumably one of Mr Stitch's things), there's another Effigy, but run about on camels (TMR = 12) grab the Bloodhound body an! d go back to boat, finally.

3 days back to City of Gods =

Finish ranking for Turf to get Fire Special to 6, 5 weeks ranking time to-date. Buy more camels, with a plan to giantgrowth them to get to/from the coast and library in a day. Send Callas back to the Guild to get armour repaired, talk to Madron, and get some Fire Armour potions.