Toilday, Erastus 8

Since we still were concerned about the magic in what we’d come to call the Quill Room, I tried a dispel magic. It was a little odd, casting it on the whole room, but as near as I can tell, it did nothing anyway. I didn’t feel like I’d done my best, so I tried again and we discovered the evil aura of the room had disappeared. Did I dispel something, or did some spell just end of its own accord? You never know for sure with dispel, but having the evil gone made everyone feel better, and we felt like we could safely pick up the magical quill. To be on the safe side, Takkad did that but with an unseen servant rather than an actual hand.

Takkad noted that the image on the floor in the cathedral was both offensive and magical. He tried a dispel on it, but it was ineffective. He muttered something about Lamashtu and Father Xanthus and “not on my watch”. I suspect there is more he intends to do here.

But for now, we are down on spells, and we have a body of a Sandpoint guardsman to repatriate. We picked up some things Scribbler would no longer have a use for:

a cloak of +2 charisma [1012]
a +1 breastplate [1013]
a +1 returning dagger of cold iron [1014]
a peacock quill, radiating very strong divination magic [1016]
17 vials of ink (8 black, 2 blue, 2 red, 1 violet, 1 yellow, 1 green,
1 brown, 1 pink) [1015]
falchion (broken by Nolin)
bag of diamond dust (750gp)

Returning to the surface, we consulted with Father Xanthus and he agreed to help with the cleansing of the cathedrala We decided to make camp next to the pit to make certain nothing crawled out overnight (and that nobody tried to sneak in.).

Wealday, Erastus 9

Returning to the rooms below, we discovered that today, all the foggy rooms were gone. Apparently that was the result of a spell with a duration of 24 hours or less, probably maintained by Scribbler. Sabin used an erase spell to erase one writing of Scribbler, leaving only about five thousand more.

Nolin and Avia started smashing statues. Meanwhile others of us went back into the pool room. The pool is incredibly clean (and Xanthus comments upon this.) How clean? I decided to find out, ignoring the horrified looks of my companions. How bad could it be? Well, it did make me feel sick, despite its cleanliness, but I threw up back into the pool as that seemed most appropriate.

NOW someone tried a detect evil and found the water was evil. It was probably unholy water.

Kane tried consecrating the water; nothing.
Kane tried dispel evil on the water; nothing.
Takkad tried a greater dispel magic; nothing.

Takkad decided to vent his frustration on the jackal on the floor by using 4 stone shapes to significantly deface the image.

Kane deformed the pool, thinking it might disrupt whatever magic was there. And it seems it did. We concluded that it was the pool that was magical, not what was in it, and now the pool was ‘broken’.

Sabin kept erasing scribblings. Dogged, he was. But don’t say “dogged” around him; he might take it as an insult. Or worse, a compliment. In short order, all of the “important” (that is, ones that made a modicum of sense) were erased so that nobody else could read them in the future.

Takkad, meanwhile, was inspecting the hole that led to the surface and the cave-in beneath it. He concluded that with some skillful stone shaping, and judicious walls of stone, the structure underneath could again support the street above – possibly even better than the old street. He began the work here, but it would take another day’s worth of spells before he and Kane would finish. When they were done, the street above was solidly replaced and supported.

There aren’t a lot of clerical architects out there.

Starday, Erastus 12

When all of the scouring, erasing, shaping, and conjuring was done, the Square of the Four Watchers was christened. Four statues were placed above; one each for Desna, Sarenrae, Pharasma, and one guardsman from the garrison (fashioned after the one remaining corpse with recognizable features).

Meanwhile, below, our clerics and Father Xanthus’ army of sacred sandblasters turned what used to be a sacred area for Lamashtu into a harmless empty room that only held bad memories, and that only for us and the souls lost here. In time, it may be consecrated to some other deity, but for now, all are happy that it is NOT welcoming to Lamashtu.

A wall with a stoutly built and locked door was added to make the whole area nearly inaccessible except by force. (The locked door is only accessible from the garrison!)

And this too was the day when we helped bring to fruition an utterance of Rallo – a random statement we’d thought had been made in jest, or perhaps in frustration or even fear, but no. Rallo had seen Death close up and decided he was not willing to stare it down again. He will eventually, of course – we all do – but not in the wild, not in the battlefield.

Rallo has retired (if you can call running a magic shop a form of retirement.) As a group, we decided to help fund his setup, and in return he has said he will make items for us for only 10% over cost. We also will give him first option on any of the magic items we eventually decide to sell. It is not an avocation without risk, but the risk lies in a business failing rather than his life being lost. Rallo was often the most impetuous among us, which makes this comparatively conservative move all the more surprising, but it’s a decision each must make for themselves.

It made me think of you, Father – why did you decide to settle down and stop living from the road and reaping the rewards of such a life? When should I? I’ve lived a much shorter life than you did before you stopped, but I feel the last year has been .. comparatively rich in experiences. I’m but 18, but am I already living on borrowed time? Perhaps sometime when there is more time, I will teleport home and have that talk with you.

But not now. Tomorrow we will head to the ancient library to research more about the Runeforge: its legend, its power, and its use. Karzoug seems to be intent on bending it to his use in this modern day and we must find out how to stop him.

Moonday, Erastus 14

Information of the Runeforge was sparse, even from the mechanized servant available to us. Runeforge was not an object, but a place, and it was created to be a neutral place where acolytes of all the Rune Lords could study and research magic. Because of the danger of any one Rune Lord gaining access to this kind of research, the exact location was intentionally vague and secretive, and although students of all the Lords would attend there, while there they were, in theory, without allegiance.

To insure this, they were enrolled in this magical university for life. Once you checked in, only death was your way out. Mistrusting each other, the Rune Lords themselves created wards and barriers to prevent them from entering, or having agents or minions enter. Presumably all that flowed from the studies was somehow made available to all simultaneously, or never. It is not clear to me how the establishment of this hall of knowledge would benefit them without some clear way of getting output from it, but perhaps we will learn more as we study.

We found vague references to one of the last projects being undertaken at Runeforge before the empire apparently fell. The Rune Lords were seeking some method of transcending and eluding Death itself. Even limited successes in this area of study might explain the apparent vitality of some portion of Karzoug (or perhaps we’ll find, other Rune Lords).

After days of research – and we’re talking everyone who could read ancient Thasselonian, which is most of the group – we were able to discern only that Runeforge was up in the mountains, perhaps the Kodar to the north. But there were tens of peaks there and we needed more information.

Takkad was able to uncover information about a commander named Xaliasa, who, it appears, commanded the ‘Hellfire Plume’ that seems to have been located just outside Sandpoint. Xaliasa may have been double dipping and trying to serve two Rune Lords, but ultimately proved loyal to Alasnist.

Upon saying this out loud, Takkad got a strange look on his face and immediately sought out the pieces of the broken falchion, and Scribbler’s dagger that I had claimed. There was inscribed ‘Xaliasa’. Scribbler and Xaliasa were one and the same. It appears at least one principal from the past had been able to either cheat or prolong death.

It also suggested his cryptic scribblings were credible (if we could but understand them properly.)

Giving those notes a bit more weight and with some help from our mechanical librarian, we were able to identfy a likely peak in the Kodar range as the ancient Mt Xin: Rimeskull. Armed with a modern name, Takkad thought we might find more information from travellers societies and churches than from ancient manuscripts, so we are planning a little trip to Magnimar tomorrow.

I saw Takkad playing with the magical quill, trying to figure out why it was magical. I don’t believe I’ve seen Takkad look frustrated very often, but clearly that quill vexes him.

Toilday, Erastus 15

So Sabin and I took Nolin and Takkad to Magnimar via teleport. We quickly went in four different directions, as Takkad wanted to find out more about that mountain peak, Nolin was off to visit his parents, and Sabin went to buy more spell components. I decided I wanted a good cloak of resistance, fearing that we would run into more magic users who would attempt more charm or other magic upon me.

I found a shop that had a rather poor looking one, and the shopkeep tried to overcharge me for a lesser powered cloak. I went looking elsewhere, but even in a city the size of Magnimar, the number of shops selling something like that are limited.

During this search, however, a man approached me quietly and suggested he might have access to the cloak I was looking for. I was naturally suspicious, since at the time I was near the Underbridge and many transactions there have … strings attached. The man told me some story about his uncle dying or somesuch and I was worried that a) I might be buying stolen goods, or b) I might be set up to just have my money stolen.

I told him I would like to see it but if it was all he said it was I’d be interested. We haggled about a price and ultimately settled on something between 6000 and 7000gp, the exact amount to be determined after inspecting it. We agreed to meet again in an hour.

I’m no Rigel, but I followed him after our meeting and he seemed to head to a brothel and disappear within. How would I know if I was being cheated? I could tell magically if the cloak was not what I expected but would I be able to tell if he were lying about any part of his story? It occurred to me that Rigel might be able to help, and come to think of it so might Kane. I teleported back to the library and brought not just Rigel and Kane, but Avia back with me.

And that turned out to be of very little help at all. Avia and Kane found it humorous that we went and staked out a brothel, while Rigel didn’t understand at all my concern about whether the man had legitimate ownership of the cloak. In fact, she suggested we could improve the price considerably, given that we were now four versus one. I was against that, and I did see Avia knit her eyebrows a bit, but Kane was all for it.

Anyway, the man came out, we met at the agreed upon place, and Rigel, Kane, and Avia surreptitiously came along to make sure he did not bring friends. He did not, but when I started questioning more about the origins, the price started coming down. Sigh. My guess was the cloak was not his, but I had no actual proof of that, nor could I possibly discern who it had come from. We eventually settled on 5300gp, and I had a smart looking cloak with a little silver (thread) trim. And I had Rigel, Kane, and even Avia who found my negotiating tactics and priorities to be odd. And all they could talk about was how did I find a man in a brothel with a cloak, completely ignoring the earlier part of my story where I mentioned how I’d actually met him.

We met up with Takkad and the others, and it turns out everybody had a good trip to Magnimar. I got my cloak, Sabin got his components, and perhaps most importantly, Takkad got his information from the Pathfinder Society. Apparently Rimeskull had not been visited in dozens of years, but there were rumors of a white dragon, and although people (including soldiers) had gone to check it out, nobody had ever returned. Yup, that sounds like where we need to go. We won’t be able to teleport (initially) but once Sabin and I have visited it once, we won’t need to trek. The first time, however …

Seems like we will be starting a trip soon..

Fireday, Erastus 25

It seems there was more research to do before leaving, so my prediction of a trip was not inaccurate but definitely in the wrong timeframe. It looks like we’ll be leaving tomorrow, and Takkad has a spell called Wind Walk which means the journey need not be arduous and lengthy at all.

One of the things we were waiting for was for Kane to finish creating his set of wands: a wand of erase, a wand of lesser restoration, a wand of knock, and a wand of protection from evil.

Starday, Erastus 26

Wind Walk meant we could travel at the speed of the wind, which was much much faster than even horses. It only took about 4 hours. I may look into this spell but I fear it might be clerical only.

When we got there, we knew we were at the right place. There was a huge head carved into the side of the mountain, and even more telling, there was a plateau below that had seven other huge heads. Seven Rune Lords? There was no sign of a white dragon.

We did detect magic on the heads, and they were indeed magical .. but interestingly each emanated magic from a different school. As an experiment, I used Mage Hand to put a rock in the mouth of the figure representing Karzoug. There was a loud thrum and a key appeared in the mouth .. even before I could put the rock in it. I claimed the key.

Takkad suggested maybe a spell from each school cast at or near the appropriate statue might yield similar results. The mages and clerics stepped up and did that, and as we pulled the last key from the last mouth, Rigel yelled, “Dragon!”.

And indeed there was. White dragon. Likes cold. Should hate fire! I fireballed it … but it seemed to have little effect. Then it returned the favor with an icy cold blast which brought several of us far closer to death than we cared.

Kane set about healing us, while I tried another fireball. Surprise (or maybe not) – the dragon appeared to have magic resistance too, and the fireball had zero effect on it. Rigel fired an arrow at it which, by rights, sure should have hit it but it seemed to pass through it. Instead of flying by again, the dragon dropped down and grabbed Rigel in its mouth! Avia, Nolin and Sabin did the dimension door trick to get right next to it, but were having an uncanny problem just laying a weapon to it.

Suspicious, Takkad cast greater dispel at it and suddenly it seemed mildly startled and it seemed to snap into place. Displacement! And I’ll bet fire protection too. Takkad did another dispel and suddenly the fireballs started to hurt it, and the swords started to draw blood. The dragon had long ago spit out Rigel to deal with the fighters and it roared angrily now. Abruptly it pulled back, seemed to say something, and it disappeared. Perhaps it too knew dimension door.

We decided that although we could fully heal ourselves, we would probably want to have more of our spells available before confronting the dragon. So we teleported back to Sandpoint, but then we reconsidered. We needed more information about the cavern into which we expected we’d need to enter.

Quickly Sabin and I returned (I was protection, just in case something went amiss) and Sabin deployed an arcane eye. Using the eye and Sabin’s night vision, he was able to scout the way into the cavern. There were some statues about 40 or 50 feet in, and of course there was a protective barrier of what looked like freezing fog in the outer part of the cavern. About a hundred feet past the statues, a great hole gaped. Apparently at that point, we needed to go down — maybe feather fall or fly or something. The cavern was huge here; easily a hundred feet wide.

As the arcane eye went 300 ft down, Sabin found that there was a floor and the floor had (surprise) seven statues. More interesting was the dragon had its lair down there, and was resting upon it, searching for potions among its treasures and gulping them. No doubt healing itself.

We returned to Sandpoint and Sabin relayed what he had seen. Yes, we definitely wanted to rest and buff up, but we could also now lay in a bit of a strategy. But we realized there was a tremendous advantage if we could simply teleport to the point of battle. One problem: I hadn’t seen any of what Sabin had seen, so I had no point of reference.

So we returned once more, and Takkad cast True Seeing on me so I could see through the dark. We all became wisps of wind again (wind walk had not worn off) andin this semi-invisible state, Sabin and I went off to explore.

The nice thing was that with True Seeing I not only got darkness, I got to see through illusions too. And so I was able to discern that the statues were just that — nothing to be concerned about. I was also able to discern a hidden but tiny path leading around the edge of the great pit, so that dropping in wasn’t the only option.

The dragon wasn’t there now. so we spent some time trying to look over the hoard. It was tempting to take some things now but the dragon would undoubtedly note that things were missing, and we might even get caught, and we felt the element of surprise would still be very handy.

We returned to Takkad and all teleported back to Sandpoint. We came up with a plan knowing, this time, that the dragon would likely have enchantments we’d need to dispel before our fighters (or spells, for that matter) could be effective. We also split the group into two groups, each with a person capable of teleport, as our escape plan if things did not go well. We agreed to collect some cold weather gear, and rested. This would not be Longtooth. This dragon was bigger.

Sunday, Erastus 27

We awoke, had a good breakfast, and went off to kill the dragon. Funny how there was no talk of discussing anything with it this time. I think people grew tired of Longtooth’s conversations pretty fast last time. We cast our protections and enhancements that were not of short duration and teleported directly to the hoard.

The dragon was not there.

Sabin used a Locate Creature scroll to monitor for the approach of the dragon. The rest of us started to pull magic things out of the treasure, possibly for immediate use.

We got to do a good minute or two of ransacking before Sabin announced, “Dragon coming, that way.” And he pointed at a corridor.

I decided it would be amusing to see the dragon get frustrated very quickly. So I threw a wall of force over the entrance to that corridor. And only moments later, a small blizzard occurred in that corridor that was, yet, contained within that corridor. As our party gaped, I said, “wall of force. He’ll have to dimension do–“.

And he dimension doored.

Takkad had to take a dragon bite before casting his greater dispel, but just like before, the dragon snapped into position a few feet from where he’d appeared just moments ago. No more displacement! And he seemed really annoyed by the fire. And the fighters really beat him up. And he was really bleeding. And he was really dying. Amazing what you can kill if you have time to prepare.

So he left us again, but this time Sabin (through locate creature) was able to tell us immediately, “He’s down that corridor,” meaning the one he’d appeared from. I dropped the wall of force and we all ran after him.

And although he was able to give Avia a good bite, and to get one more good icy breath on us, by having gotten to him when he was badly wounded, it took only a few well-aimed swings from our fighters to take him out. Wiping the dragon spit off her body, Avia seemed quite pleased to slice off its head (which seems to be our calling card these days.)

And that was that. One dead, ancient white dragon. What do you think about THAT, Father? WOW.

There was, of course, a LOT of treasure he had collected over the years, but I will detail that some more tomorrow. We spent a lot of time poring over and collecting it. I’m feeling a little giddy; there’s not just money but some pretty interesting magic stuff too.