5 Lamashan, Sunday

So at long last, we decided to forego further testing of our thermal fortitude and leave the higher latitudes behind. We teleported back to the library to “prepare”.

Really, all we needed to “prepare” was to get a good night’s sleep and remember some spells. Well, I think Takkad did want to go to Magnimar to buy some goggles of darkness, and Sedgewick picked up some special crossbow bolts. Myself, I felt pretty prepared. But then Avia decided she wanted to get one of the whirly stones, and Takkad also wanted to talk to the mayor. Nolin said he was interested in going too, so I agreed to teleport everybody there tomorrow.

6 Lamashan, Moonday

What a delightful day at Magnimar. We soooo yanked Takkad’s chain. I think to properly record this, I will need to write it as though it were written as a prophecy. Ahem …

And it shall come to pass in those days, that the Wandering Man, the Master of Fire, Her Lady of Holy Pain, He Who Shatters Doors, and the Illustrator shall come together in the City of Lesser Glamor. And while they shall arrive as one, they shall depart as many. For it is said that Her Lady and the Illustrator shall seek out the Stones of Whirliness, and though they be scarce, they shall find them with but a wee bit of searching. And yea, the Man of Wandering shall see through the Darkness, and both he and the Illustrator shall find cold iron to thwart their enemies.

And as a group they shall seek audience with the Leader of the City of Lesser Glamor, but lo, they shall desire two different Paths.

One Path, the path of Light, shall require camaraderie, bonding, and demonstrations among peers before finally consummating in arriving at a time with which to confer with the Leader. And much merriment shall be had before the Meeting.

But the other Path, the path of Dark and Haste and Avoidance of Camaraderie, shall also be proposed. And there will be those who strongly desire one Path over the other, and those who Could Care Less. Yet both Paths cannot be taken; one must must be taken while the other is discarded.

And only one among them can return all of them to their origins, and he shall favor one Path over another.

And it shall come to pass that after the moon has risen, a Message shall arrive on the wind to the Wandering Man, seeking his whereabouts. And he shall reiterate again, out loud this time to the Shunned Mage, that the Path they are taking is not one of his choosing, and shall wonder Out Loud if others have Lost Their Minds.

Upon receiving this communication, the Shunned Mage shall make himself present, thus choosing one Path but avoiding the Desirable One, and shall directly and summarily return himself, Her Ladyship, and the Aimless One to whence they’d come, leaving the rest to their Path. Using Foul Magic, the Leader shall be informed despite the possibility of Great Camaraderie.

And so a Meeting Time for the following day shall not be made, and the remainder of the group shall return very late in the Evening but full of mirth and song.

Thus endeth the prophecy.

7 Lamashan, Toilday

It turns out that while we were in Magnimar the previous day, Kane had asked some questions of Desna and one of them was to learn whether fasting was really necessary to discern the path to Xin Shalast. And the answer was, no, it wasn’t. Takkad was curious, though, as to whether it made a difference and decided to fast beforehand anyway as an experiment.

Having acquired, we thought, all we needed we teleported to the cabin in the morning, and then used windwalk to make our way upstream. The wind did increase, but although it slowed us we still made progress much faster than walking would be. We found what we believed to be the tributary Ava, and in short order we did indeed see a tall and beautiful waterfall. If we were walking or boating, it would present a formidable obstacle, but in gaseous form we traversed it easily.

Finally we came to what seemed to be a frozen lake which seemed to be the source of what seemed to be the river. If you’re detecting some skepticism, you’re very perceptive. Increasingly, it seems, things are not what they seem.

As we solidified at the short of the lake, two things quickly became apparent to us. It was indeed very cold, and the air was indeed very thin. Endure elements had been cast on all of us, so the cold was noticeable but not dangerous, but few of us had any means to breathe when air was scarce. I noticed that one got tired more easily, and seemed to have less endurance or stamina at this altitude, and I realized that it might be prudent to obtain some magical means to improve upon this.

The lake, it turns out, was actually a marsh (but still frozen). If one walked carefully out on the fairly clear ice, one could see that sometimes the bottom was mere inches away while other times it was measured in feet. At this altitude, there wasn’t the usual collection of marsh grass and plants, and certainly there didn’t seem to be any animals or life. Instead, I observed that there seemed to be some fungi and lichen growing here.

Takkad cast True Seeing and went looking around the lake in windwalk form to cover as much ground as possible, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

It occurred to me that one way around the thin air problem might be a rope trick. And it turned out that worked very well – we waited for Nolin and Takkad inside the rope trick, a bit cozy but at least comfortable.

I thought it was just myself, but in talking with the others I found that when outside, there was also this growing unease, like something was wrong or out of place. It wasn’t so strong as to be distracting, but was apparently real, nonetheless.

Takkad tried a number of other things, including using a rock to simulate a moon, and asking the peacock quill for clues (it basically said, “you’re in the right place; wait for the moon”). Having learned pretty much everything we could (or so we thought), we decided to teleport back to the library and come back the night of the full moon.

But, um, it failed. Something was resisting me, and a couple of attempts to teleport back to the library failed. We decided to make our way back to the place below the falls and try again from there. And when we’d made it below that big falls, we found the feeling of unease was no longer present.

Unfortunately, neither was Rigel nor Nolin. We weren’t quite sure when we’d lost them, but looking around, we realized they were not with us.

Since windwalk had expired, I cast Fly on myself and flew back to look for them. I was worried that something bad and evil had happened to them, and since Fly doesn’t last nearly as long as windwalk, I needed to recast it a few times. But it still took about 45 minutes, and when I found them they were right back at the lake, sitting around a fire they’d built. They insisted that they’d followed us faithfully, except for some reason they’d ended up right back where they’d started.

This feeling of unease appeared to be more than a feeling. Whatever blocked teleport also appeared to confuse direction. Another thing to make finding Xin Shalast a challenge!

The rest of the group arrived within an hour.

We decided to spend the night in a rope trick while recovering our various spells, then start anew in the morning. Just for grins, I kept trying to teleport out, and finally succeeded! That proved it was possible, if difficult. From the library, I then tried to teleport back in … and that used up all my fifth AND sixth level slots before succeeding. So again – it was possible to teleport in, but by no means a sure thing. Sabin determined that dimension door, which covers a lot less ground, seemed to work okay. Maybe because it stayed within the “field” we seemed to be in.

8 Lamashan, Wealday

Takkad windwalked us all again, and led us down the mountain. Or seemed to. He actually led us to another mountain nearby – quite certain the whole time that we were heading in the right direction. He tried again only to lead us north of the lake. The third time I tried to lead us, and it seemed to work. And once the unease was behind us, teleport worked reliably, and we all made it back to the library.

Kane and Takkad talked about intersecting planes being a reason for the disorientation, but I quickly lost track of the points they were making. It apparently was enlightening to the two of them and the rest of us just found other stuff to do. We have until 21 Lamashan before the full moon, so there’s plenty of time for discussion, or research or whatever. Or acquisition — I think a Necklace of Adapation might help considerably with the breathing issues.

Takkad seems less eager to teleport with me to Magnimar, but does also want to obtain some sort of breathing aid. Rigel and Nolin feel they’ll be okay.

20 Lamashan, Moonday

Since my last entry, Kane and Takkad obtained whirlistones that let them breath. Expensive buggers, but they were already wearing amulets or necklaces so they couldn’t use the cheaper alternatives. We also bought three rods of extension, which can make spells last longer.

Armed with portable air, we are ready to return. So we teleported to the five mile point, assumed windwalk form, and made our way back to the lake. I created another Rope Trick for us to wait in, and we wait. Every now and then a couple of us would go down and look around, but, well, nothing.

Finally the moon rose above the mountain peaks around us and shone on our area. And still nothing had changed … but wait. Takkad claimed he could see a trail – path, really. It looked like the river Ava had an old bed that was now clearly visible … to him and him alone. Maybe fasting wasn’t necessary, but clearly some sort of distress somehow aided this vision.

With Takkad as our guide, we proceeded ever higher and ever more north up the mountain.

We were only a mile or so north of the lake when we came upon a fallen tree, and a young lady, naked, sitting on the fallen tree. Sedgewick tried to address her in Thassalonian, but she looked at him strangely. Her ears suggested she might be elven, but Avia thought they were the wrong shape. I stepped up and asked her, “Do you live here?” (yes) and “Do you like visitors?” (ok).

Turns out she understands common fine, but not Thassilonian. She is an ice nymph, and a druid. She knows of us from our experiences with her cousin in Turtleback Ferry. She’s willing to help us but only in a guiding sense. Her name is Svenka. She led us a ways further until we reached a 100-ft wide paved road. The bricks were golden, but a close inspection showed them only gilded, not solid gold bricks. Still, pretty ostentatious.

She pointed out the sentries, at the top of some high cliffs, and said she could go no further. Sabin used arcane eye to spy upon them and found that the sentries were cloud giants. Sending it further into the city, we discovered the ancient city had a population of hundreds, maybe thousands. So far as we knew, this could represent a substantial defending force. This was not going to be as simple as Runeforge; a little more subtlety was going to be needed.

But first, Rigel and Nolin were admitting that with 20/20 hindsight, perhaps some sort of breathing apparatus would be helpful. Since we’d pretty much exhausted the market in Magnimar, I offered to take them to Korvosa. Assuming, of course, that I could get teleport to work.

We decided to Rope Trick overnight, and with a fresh batch of spells, attempt to teleport Rigel, Nolin, and myself to Korvosa.

21 Lamashan, Toilday

It took many attempts, but I did finally get us to Korvosa. Fortunately, we could find two more Necklaces of Adaptation. Unfortunately, my spells ran out before successfully teleporting back. With a disproportionate amount of glee, Nolin suggested we stay at my parents’ overnight and try again in the morning.

It wasn’t all that long since I’d last visited, and I didn’t want to surprise them. Yet, here we were and I had to admit it made more sense to stay with them than to use money for rooms in town.

So with a heavy heart, we arrived at my parent’s door. It was easy to see that Mother was surprised at our arrival but she smiled at Nolin’s visage. How much DID they talk about last time?

My father wasn’t home at the time, but Mother hastily prepared the rooms we’d used a month or two earlier. Rigel made me nervous by repeatedly eyeing the furnishings and utensils as if she was doing some sort of mental audit. Nolin found himself a comfortable place on the patio.

It wasn’t too long before Father returned, and he was pleased to see us again so soon. For someone who essentially shoved me politely towards the door just a couple of years ago, he certainly seemed happy to see me and my friends.

“Trask!” he exclaimed. “Back again so soon? I see you brought Nolin again, and Rachel!”

“Rigel,” I said, hanging my head. “It’s Rigel.”

“Right!” he said. “So ..” and his voice dropped to a stage whisper, “you two have resolved your issues?”

“Father, there were, and are, no issues. She just couldn’t come last time. No, we’re here because I need to rest and regain some spells. The rest of our group is ..” I hesitated, “… in an area partially shielded from magic, and teleport is not always successful.”

He frowned. “Perhaps if a more experienced sorceror were to try. Where is this place? Perhaps I’m familiar with it.”

“No, Father. It’s no place you’ve ever been. It’s in the mountains in the far north.”

“Is this still chasing that Runelord thing?”

“Yes, Father, it’s related to that. But the air is very thin in the mountains, and we returned to get some necklaces of adaptation to improve our breathing.”

“So, there’s nothing I can do to help? Say, what if I came along?”

“What if you just worry about the shop?” my mother called from the next room. “You’re done adventuring; quit trying to come up with a reason to pick it up again.”

“Yes, dear,” lamented my father. “Although, I -”

“No ‘although’ about it. We have a deal, remember?”

Father gave me a look and a shrug. “Let me know how this all works out. I’ll drop you a sending from time to time.” He retired to his den, and I was left looking at my friends.

Nolin grinned and said, “I love your family!”

Rigel said carefully, “It’s never boring here.”

I rolled my eyes at them both and went to get ready for lunch. Tomorrow morning I can try teleporting us back again.

(Later)

Received a sending from Sabin. Told him I’d have to sleep and we’d try again tomorrow. Maybe they can arrange to kill the guards before we get back.