The permanent teleport circles in the halls of wrath are kind of cool. The amount of resources put into magic devices and traps in Runeforge are pretty mind blowing.

Ten thousand years ago this must have been an amazing place for magic, although half-ocs would likely not be allowed into RuneForge. The Runelord’s were each trying to gain control of the entire empire so they would have only worked together if there was no other choice. The only options that I see are that they either had to work together to create this powerful RuneForge or that first king Xin actually created the RuneForge and this is beyond even the Runelord’s abilities. We know that the RuneLords would not corporate on something like this unless there was no other option. I really like the idea that maybe the RuneLords created there little realms attached to the RuneForge because it was magic that they did not even fully understand. It is also interesting that the RuneLords themselves put wards and protections to prevent Runelord’s or agents of the RuneLord’s from entering RuneForge. The fact that they place wards and protections to prevent each other from entering into RuneForge means that they must have had a way to get out.

We still don’t really understand what the RuneForge is capable of doing. We know from the journal that we can enchant weapons to help with Karzoug but what about armor?  Thus far we have not found any written instructions on how to use the RuneForge. The mysteries of how it works are also beyond our current understanding. It’s hard to believe that this information was not written down. We have almost been to all of the RuneLords private areas and we soon need to see if we can get out and what RuneForge actually does. Tomorrow we are going back into the halls of Wrath to finish the exploration and meet the head mistress. Everyone else here just wants to kill us so I expect that will be the same.

I had been wondered about using blur or displacement with mirror image and today I found out first hand that this is a very effective protection from targeted attacks. It does not provide protection from magic missile or spells like fireball but it is still a good combination. For fireball fire shield is a great secondary protection plus maybe shield for magic missile. The way Avia and Nolan normally take out people the battle could be over before I was finish casting all of these spells. The battle with the Eldritch knights, or what ever they called in the empire, really uncovered that I am missing area affect spells that could bypass these type of protections. I technically learned fireball but I just don’t like fire magic. For the dragon it just seemed like what was needed/expected from a wizard but it just feels wrong. Luckily my two fire spells burning hands and fireball are not in the blessed spellbook, fire shield is technically a fire and cold spell but I plan to normally use the cold shield, so I am calling the spell cold shield. I have decided to not copy the spells fireball and burning hands into the blessed spellbook. Once I get the other spells copied out I am going to leave my backup spellbook someplace; maybe the library, under Sabin’s first spellbook. Thousands of years from now some adventuring party will find the library and wonder why somebody named Sabin would leave a spellbook in the library.

As I started to write before we have cleared a portion of the hall of wrath, If this one is similar to the size of the other halls we may have cleared most of the hall of Wrath. The Eldritch knights prepared for us effectively used displacement or blur with mirror image plus they kept throwing fireballs at us, Very annoying. The blade barrier and the holy flame brought down on the Eldritch knights by Takkad was impressive. One of the stupid Eldritch knights actually thought that he could run throw the blade barrier. Too bad for them that conjuration spells such as dimension door are not allow to them, likewise the abjuration elemental protections spells are on there prohibited school list. That should make Trask happy. With the prohibited school of conjuration it is very clear that someone else helped them create the teleport circles given that Alaznist’s followers don’t use spells form the abjuration and conjuration schools. It seems very odd that her section of RuneForge utilizes something her followers shouldn’t be able to use.

Off to the teleport circle to the left was the fireball ambush. Although it did not seem to work as well as they would have preferred. The funny part was that today Avia showed that she can be a big time healer and Takkad showed off his combat skill. As we entered the room we found that Trask had walled 2 of the fighters behind a wall of force and Takkad had trapped one behind a wall of stone. The enforcer Kane had the fighters behind the wall of force cowering against the wall so I went over to frighten the a little more since it was obvious that Avia and Nolan would likely kill the main guard in front of the shadow curtain before I would be able to get there. With all three guards killed we waited a little while to open up the stone cage Takkad create to trap one of the fighters.

The main guard said that we were not worthy to meet or challenge the mistress, we never really figured out what that meant although I can’t help but think that we missed something in the fog of battle.

Off to the right circles of teleport we found a group of them planned how to save there bloodlines. Without there protection spells they were no match for us and they were quickly dispatched. Rigal stepped into the portal without waiting for the agreed upon amount of time, Taking Rigal’s lead I also stepped into the circle and almost landed on Nolan. In the craziness of going through the portal the dimension door missed Avia, I really hoped that she would be within reach of Nolan but alas she was not. I was able to test out the swipe spell the final fighter. I gave him the option to surrender but he chose death. I guess he would rather die following what he believes in rather than betray his belief, we respected his choice. In here we found a bunch of paper work that mainly related to the fact that they were trying to revive there elders that they converted to sinspawn. Turns out they needed there elders to increase there breeding pool. I would have though that focusing on capturing us would have been a good way to solve that problem.

We decided to leave Wrath for the day to regain spells. It is early in the day so I have an opportunity to learn some spells today. Karzoug’s special spell Blood Money is a very power spell for any of my spells that require materials components greater than 1GB. If I didn’t have Eschew materials it would be useful for other spells, but I really like Eschew materials. If  I could get Kane or Takkad to provide a lesser restoration this would is a good way to cheaply cast true seeing, that is in the future when I am actually capable of casting the spell. This also opens up the option to learning and using stoneskin. Maybe when we get out of here I can see if Rarallo can create a special command word magic item that would allow me to use lesser restoration a couple times a day. While doing research on the different ways to create magic items I discovered that putting restrictions on such items reduces the material costs required to create such an item. Looking back through my notes I see that I can reduce the cost of a command work magic item by reducing the number of times that it can be used per day and aligning the item to a specific trait. I would just have to figure out which trait feels right, maybe fighter. I have always seen this used as a touch spell so the ideal items to place this on would be bracers or gloves.

For all of the wonder and power of the runelords and Rune magic you would think that they would have created a spell to help make life more comfortable. Something like create beer would be a wonderful spell for a wizard trapped in RuneForge for the rest of his or her life. I suspect during the height of the empire there must have been a way to get supplies into RuneForge without trapping more people inside. There also has to be a way for the RuneForge wizards to get objects out to the main world.

I have been watching and admiring the maps that Takkad puts in his journal. Every time he brings them out so that we can review where we have been it is impressive.   I have decided that today I would start recording maps into my journal as well. Takkad seems to really enjoy his time spent creating these maps and I have learned that a lot of parents try to teach there children to respect there elders. That is a little strange to me as I was taught to fear my elders. Someday I may need to rid the world of the clan that I was born into. I am sure the Shoanti people would benefit greatly from the extinction of the clan. The Shoanti have long been victimized by the clan and it is very likely that my father was of Shoanti blood.  Shoanti are wanders so maybe map making is a natural thing for them and maybe I can find it as fulfilling as Takkad. Ok here we go.

…

After many attempts to draw this map I have come to the conclusion to give up drawing maps. My maps suck, I suppose that with effort I would get better at drawing the maps but this is clearly not something I enjoy doing. I actually have decided that I really hate drawing maps. It is right up there with listening to Trask and Sedjwick talk on and on about some uninteresting detail. I was able to use erase to get rid of one of the attempted drawing and luckily I was smart enough use the back of the journal for most of the very bad attempts to draw a straight line. I will regain those other 15 pages at the back of the journal over time as I have available spell slots. What a waste of ink.

In frustration I made a few laps around the greed hall to work off the frustration of the failed map making attempts, luckily here in the hall of greed one can walk in a circle. On the third time around I stopped to talk with our watery friends. They told me an ancient story about one of there great hero’s. There were a lot of culture references to people, places and events that were unfamiliar to me. I could understand all of the word spoken in there language but with out the cultural references I couldn’t really understand the whole story. I am pretty sure the story relates to the discovery of the tasty food gold fish. GOLD FISH! All this time I was aware that the trap here at the entrance was a baleful phymorph that was transmuting the people into gold fish. We have been passing by these fountains for days and it never even occurred to me that we could break the phymorph enchantment to bring back people and question them. They might be grateful to us for freeing them and provide critical RuneForge details. Worse case is that we have to kill them and take all of there magic equipment. Although we either need to move the gold fish out of the fountains or break the enchantment soon before they are eaten.