Session One Hundred and Forty-Three Summary (Graveyard of Empires: After the Fall)

Session 143, June 21 2023

Introduction

We continue at 4:30AM on the 1st of Anurilden (00.000.08.35 on the Apocalypse Clock) with the party having followed Ozymandius's hidden path to the Gray Wanderers' Mounds where ancient heroes who died fighting the dragons on behalf of the Matriarchs were buried. While there, the group experienced vivid dreams that seemed to be prophetic visions: Asmodeus in his fortress preparing something, what appeared to be the portal to the Elemental Plane of Stone somewhere in the Underdark, etc. The party also exhumed Fahmi, leader of the Gray Wanderers, and recovered a stone great sword with impossibly thin edges along with a matching bracer. Now the group prepares to depart the area -- hopefully without coming face-to-face with either harpies or DVLs ...

Larry's Summary

We estimate an hour walk back to the crevasse with the crashed ship/bit of space station.

Velkin listens, trying to hear the harpies moving around. With all the wind, it is hard to tell.

Velkin asks Ithirialma if this is a thinspot to the Astral plan? She says possibly. Is it something inherent to the place, or the association with the mothers, or are the places thin because of their association with the Mothers.

Renthark believes it is a thinspot. We moved, we were elsewhere. The things we saw, I believe are real, not just dreams.

We leave a coin (12) for each of us and a stop of Velkin's blood.

Ozymandius stays with us more or less, but flies to next offering totem if he gets tired of waiting. Velkin asks him to keep an eye our for the harpies. Of course, I guess they're not nocturnal.

c. 5:00 AM still dark out and looming up is the next offering totem, where Ozymandius is waiting for us. He reports that he hasn't seen anything to be concerned about.

He flew down to where the thing crashed. It seems all clear. Not saying your're slow or anything, but you might want to put a move on it. Velkin asks if he's worried about us or bored, oh, I'm bored.

Velkin asked if there was anything living on it. It looks the same, other than when it was on fire. It won't be too far after dawn, so maybe you'll be able to see it too.

It is possible the crevasse where the bridge used to be MIGHT be exposed to Old Greybeard, perhaps perpendicular to it.

5:30 AM and sky behind us is getting lighter. As we come to the offering totem, where the path splits and the post and remnants of the bridge.

Offerings again.

Thorfus gives the blood to have fly cast on him and transports all across as fast as possible.

Just as the sun crests behind us we are on the other side and give blood and gold again.

The weather is clear. It is brisk.

Still kind of shadowy below. Can make our some mass and contours below. It is big. It looks not quite circular. Parts are either sheared off or deformed. Pretty far down, perhaps 600 feet.

The remnants of the bridge don't come anywhere near it.

Thorfus asks Ithirialma to make him invisible, just in case.

Velkin asks if Thorfus wants some company, since he's also invisible.

Thorfus grabs Velkin by the scruff of the neck and zooms straight down.

The craft is large, several hundred feet in either direction, and parts sheared off. It probably started out as mostly circular.

It has a rounded roof with holes in it. Singed - signs it is unintentional that allow entry into it.

It is making noises that sound a bit like not on the most secure footing in the crevasse.

The grass Druul started growing has grown down about 40 feet.

Flying across, we couldn't make out the peak of Old Greybeard.

WE hover near one of the openings and Velkin listens. WE avoid landing on it, since it is creaking from being unstable.

We catch an echo bouncing off the walls of the crevasse not from this thing, but from the East.

Velkin hears some strange squawking to the East. Suspecting it to be the Harpies.

It is mostly dark and a pretty big empty space inside.

We lower into into an opening to see if it is a hollow area, or what.

It is a huge open area.

There is a jumble of stuff all fallen to the bottom. about 300 feet down.

We can see must closer at a 20 degree angle to the left, there is something different about the outer wall, it could be a door or opening, one that is puposeful, not damage.

We check out what might be a door.

As we get closer, It is a circular opening 30 feet across. It is open and beyond is remnants of a hallway for a few feet, then outside again.

We can see the curve of the outer wall. This chamber probably a perfect circle. We don't see any other open doorways.

We zip down to the bottom. It is a mess. We see huge rings of nanocarbon.

It looks if a giant took his fist and smashed a magnet with the different circles and axles, but disassembled.

Mixed in are all kinds of broken automata of various sorts.

Unmoving forms of various dwarven automata, mostly the more martial varieties.

Velkin uses his circlet to see if he can connect to anything.

As look down, there is a slight glow underneath a lot of this stuff.

We land and start picking our way through.

Druul is playing, and is hearing other noises off to the East. When he looks, he sees shapes in the sky coming in their direction.

Druul resumes playing, anti-charm, and tells them to look in the sky.

Druul thinks there are 7 of them on the way.

Two archers shoot, Lambertus casts Silence 15' Radius. The harpies hover where the bridge used to be. They start up a raucous squawking that may supposed to be singing. Those in the center are not making any noise. Druul's song weaves into their discordant music making it ineffective.

The three towards the center have realized they aren't making any noise.

Ithirialma casts magic missile on the lead one. One of them drops out of the sky and the squawking of the two either side picks up.

The harpies go after Druul, only 3 can get close enough to attack him, zipping by.

6 of them all zip by. 3 of them clip Druul but his song goes on.

Renthark hits one and Felix misses. Alisceon hits on with an arrow.

Druul is hit again by 3 of them.

Renthark slashes one. Felix hits.

3 more hit Druul and knock him down.

Kauri does Magic Missile on 2 of the most injured and dropped one.

Lambertus casts cure light wounds restoring Druul.

Druul resumes playing.

Felix cure light on Druul.

The harpies circle in the air and see Druul get up and head in other direction.

Whatever is making the light is way down, we have to work our way past the rings and many automatons, many are huge.

There are a couple of surprising things. A lot of bones in piles, a skull like a dragon.

the entire body is not hear.

All these shards of crystal are scattered. There is a curve to them.

They give the slightest light blue glow, maybe they have something on them.

We look at pieces of the glowing crystals.

They have a faint glow and it is like an afterimage of something burned into them. IF turn it there is an image we can occasionally see. Like a sequence of numbers or equations. It doesn't look like the equation from the dream, it could be from the nanocarbon book. Each piece of each shard has a bit of it. Impossible to retrieve all the pieces. The orb was probably a foot or so in diameter.

Velkin picks up a handful of the pieces of the glowing crystal.

The dragon is a partial skeleton. Skull is partly shattered. Velkin grabbed a piece of the dragon's bones, maybe the other dragons can figure out how it is.

Some of the bones have trauma to them like impact wounds like being hit with something. It appears to be riddled with projectiles of some sort.

With nothing else of interest or signs of doors or passageways, Thorfus prepares to leave.

We fly back to the path. There is a web.

We fill each other in.

Kauri and Lamberus ask for more descriptions and say it sounds like the command module from Xenotel where we defeated the artificial intelligence and set Azmodeus free.

That's Prixithalma, she was the first one down when we entered the chamber.

Ithirialma looks at the crystal and says this isn't what you saw in your vision, not that formula.

Maybe the essence of his name got written on the orb.

Kauri finds a distinctive bit and can check to see if it matches up to the book.

Bavmorda shoved the sword with Azmodeus into the orb and Azmodeus shattered the orb, freeing all the DVLs.

One equation to rule them all. Ithirialma gets excited. One equation to rule them all, is that what you're saying. But you don't remember seeing these symbols on the orb when they were there. These look like it's seared into the inside.

Maybe this is Xenotel the intelligence, or something Azmodeus did, but was it on purpose.

Lambertus said, there was electricity involved, right? I thought that was important too.

Asmodeus showed himself to us after he did what he did. He was gloating. He referenced something about the devil fish. Thorfus, you mean the electricity to get the DVL from the idol into the skullcap.

It wasn't the shoving the sword in, it was the electricity on the sword to use a charge is what transferred.

Thorfus asks for a piece of the shard and holds it close and asks, "OK Xenteller, you bastard, are you in there."

Ithirialma mentions someone others mentioned who might be able to help us find the city of the Silence. The drider (Jharlixus) who we last knew was going to the Necropolis.

Ithirialma advocates for refining the mercury and building a detector and finding this drider.

Druul advocates for going to meet the travelers from the South, followers of the Matriarchs.

Ithirialma concedes that the stones are important, so if they have one it might be worth it, or they might know where another one is.

Kauri is pretty sure the glow is from the symbols, not the crystal. The symbols are on what would be the inside of the sphere. It is DVL magic, but residual.

Kauri traces the symbols along the crystal itself. Nothing seems to happen.

The formula on the Probability Sword seemed to match the formula in the nanocarbon book, which seems to match inside the sphere.

• Images of City of Brass diving down through window of onion tower, hallways, to vault with Asmodeus, sarcophagi of matriarchs, crushing bones with mortar & pestle, and mixing it with a liquid.
• Then the sound of waves and images of numbers, still very much seared into our minds, and look different than what is on the crystals Thorfus and Velkin found in the ruins of Xenotel.
• Pillar of bones and vault with insets for 3 stones. (Vault at Hrasta)
• Deep underground crack seismic activity, two dwarven mine tunnels, huge worm bore tunnel, sphere at the intersection of all four with tunnels going down into it.

We discuss our options of what to do next.

Do we go to Hdrasta to get orcs to revive Prixithalma and other dragons.

Velkin asks about Hdrasta. There used to be some nice things living there, but not anymore. They used to fight the harpies. Ozymandias has only seen orcs and the like. Can we get there without the DVL on Greybeard seeing us. We'd be passing through the territory of Mytellus the other owl.

Ozymandius detected something.

Something big is coming we gotta go, I'll meet you in the jungle.

We don't quite make it to the end of the cut through and there is a noise back tot he east. It is a rumble with a shake to the ground. Stones knocked loose to either side.

We hurry along at 9 am we are at the end of the cut through and looking down the slope, we see where our animated dead are. There is another rumble from somewhere behind us.

We're pretty sure we could get down a lot faster is we were a bit more reckless.

Velkin says, Phil & Ithirialma, if it's that thing be ready.

Ithirialma says changing now and getting away NOW.

They can each carry 4 of us. Thorfus straps Caspar to his back.

Dragons leap up and out and coast down side of mountain towards the trees.

Velkin shadow steps to the trees.

Behind us Velkin sees a dark cloud and clouds gathering, spilling out above the cut through.

Kauri casts Haste on the dragons to help us get away.

The dragons come zooming in very fast.

It takes about 15 minutes to reach the treeline. At the tope of the mountainside a giant winged creature comes following the line of the cut through and looking around, seeing nothing since we are in the trees.

He sees the undead, and destroys them, then back up on top looking around, then retreating back the way he came.

The Travois is smashed, so the gold and platinum is scattered all over the side of the mountain.

Inside the treeline, in sight of the Mikel Peaks.