17th of Harvest
This morning the rope trick unceremoniously dumps us out onto the stairs, at which point Diethan and I take up guard duty while the rest try to get a little more sleep. As I head down the steps, suddenly a gout of flame jets up in front of me. It seems the dragon now knows we’re awake. Peeking in through the crevice again, he disturbs those sleeping atop the platform and fries poor Diethan and Barbatos with acid. I hear him whispering something about invisibility and I get off a shot, to no avail. The creature lands on the platform and breathes down on us; Archinemus stabs it. I guess all our battle plans are for naught—we wade into melee.
As we hurry down the stairs away from the chuckling dragon, we run smack into an invisible lobsterman, like the one that grabbed Tharn yesterday. We sustain more wounds before vanquishing the creature and sealing the lava pit shut again. We explore another empty gallery. Along the way, we argue about whose job it was to remember to buy the curative magic wand. We find what we hope is a safe alcove for the spellcasters to get another quick hour of sleep.
Thank Teun, nothing more disturbs us for that hour. When the spellcasters awaken, we pick our way up a new staircase that takes us to a water-filled passage with the square emblem for water. The recessed floor here is covered with munched-on animal bones. Then we spot the slinky dragon sliding through the water behind us! It breathes its terrible acid breath again, but Calista casts a spell against it that sends a gout of sonic energy right through its innards, and Tharn uses his Stoneblade to create a wall of stone right behind it so it can’t try any more of its hit-and-run tactics.
Tharn and I manage to flank the creature, while Archinemus stands bravely before it. Barbatos cleverly uses his chaos skull against this lawful beast and we others gang up on it in melee. We can see in the dragon’s eyes that he’s starting to worry and hunger for escape, but Tharn’s stone wall holds and Diethan gives it an arrow in the eye. With a final blow from Stoneblade, Tharn severs the dragon’s head, and it collapses heavily into the water.
We decide to take the dragon’s head as a trophy. After an hour’s recuperation, we press on toward the chamber beyond the water sanctuary where, according to Sha-Bonel, my mother awaits us. I’m so excited and nervous, I hardly even feel the wounds from our dragon battle.
Making our way down the hall, we find a door labeled “The Menagerie,” but we decide to avoid it till we know more. Instead, we go searching for the dragon’s hoard and a passage out of this sanctuary. We find our way into the heart of the sanctuary, where four magical buckets in all corners of the room continually pour out streams of water that flow down and out the door. Diving, Tharn and Diethan locate four drains in the floor, three of which are stopped up with debris. They also find what appears to be a sealed staircase down. There below the surface lies the dragon’s hoard as well: gold bars, jewels, a magic chest, and so on. Calista casts a water breathing spell on us so we can all go down to help transfer the hoard into Barbatos’ rope trick extradimensional area. While we do all this, the room continues to drain—hopefully, by the time we’re done assessing the haul, we will be able to access the sealed stairway.
We occupy our time by telling stories of the Hu-Charad. After a time, though, we see a flaw in our plan—with the drains unclogged, the room’s water merely fails to spill over into the passageway. So we haul up the hoard prior to attempting to open the sealed staircase (we don’t want the treasure to accidentally get washed down when we open it). Exhausted, we lay down to rest.
18th of Harvest
Today we embark upon a new search of the sanctuary. At last we find a concealed lever in the floor near the sealed stairway. Barbatos and Tharn discover an airlock of sorts. With the benefits of water breathing again, we all go down there with the dragon’s treasure and search until we locate the hidden switches that operate this sealed tube. When the lower door opens, it reveals a spiral staircase.
The stairs open up into a passageway decorated with reliefs of regal-looking humanoids. A female voice says, “You have heard the clarion. Welcome. All is well.” Could this be my mother’s voice? Before I can ponder that question any longer, two noble giant figures in beautiful armor approach. They don’t seem to be living people, though. When I introduce our group and request passage, they attack!
We make quick work of them and discover that they are nothing but empty suits of plate armor. We pass into a diamond-shaped chamber and see a stone table, on which rests an enormous axe. As I approach, a woman’s illusion appears on the other side of the table. She’s twelve feet tall, and my friends say she bears a strong resemblance to me. She speaks.
“Io-Regalas, welcome. I wish I could have prepared a different greeting for you. The four sanctuaries have been damaged by elementals but hopefully you have scoured yourself as Lanasal instructed. Clearly, you have already found Lanasal and the Chosen Dusk. That also means that Nicodemus has the Nemesis Stone. Take up the Di-Vissal and awake the sleeping Ossitorus. When you are done, return and we can speak in truth.”
I am stunned. What does she want of us? Nicodemus was the ally of the Perfect Ones we encountered during our climactic fight in Kaelist. We recall that the Nemesis Stone is another word for the big purple crystal in the middle of Castle Shard. Nilovas was the elf hermit, so who is Lanasal? Calista thinks the name Lanasal sounds human (Palastani). If we’re truly early, perhaps all this hasn’t even happened yet. And is my name really Io-Regalas?
Archinemus uses his magical helm to send a mental message to Zavere at Castle Shard to warn him that Nicodemus intends to obtain their shard. Then I approach the table again to pick up the axe.
The Di-Vissal is not made of normal metal. It’s far, far heavier than anything I’ve ever held before and doesn’t reflect light as metal would. The extreme weight is so surprisingly unnatural that I drop the weapon in shock. With a crash, the great axe embeds itself in the stone floor, cracking the floor tiles and causing a flash. Suddenly, we find ourselves back in a cave with circles drawn on the floor. Nilovas is there, looking uninterested. I’m in shock, not only from my failure but from the sudden separation from my heritage. I feel like weeping.
My friends have a lot of questions for Nilovas about the Hu-Charad and what we learned in Ar-Nampur. “Lanasal is their agent,” he tells us. “You’ll find him back where you come from.” The Chosen Dusk as well. Beyond that, he doesn’t say much, except to reiterate that we were too early. When will the time be right? I wonder. “Did you hear the clarion?” he asks by way of an answer. Ah.
We help out the old man, bringing in some more water and firewood, but all he does is complain and putter about with some vile stew. As we leave, Nilovas’ last words to us are: “When you come back, I’ll send you through the sanctuaries of energy.”
19th to 21st of Harvest
The return journey is a hard one. We decide to go via the Old Coast Road. Our carriage takes us up to three hours a day—the rest we walk. We stop in a number of elven towns along the way but it’s wonderful to see the gates of home again at last. We have to pay a toll of a silver shiny to enter the city, plus a tax on the goods we’re bringing in.
We return to our shop this evening, and all seems well. Business has been a little slow, but that should pick up when I start my series of dungeoneering lectures. Seanus and Taevel seem eager to hear our stories. The dragon head, when mounted, will look great in here. And luckily for Barbatos, Seanus says he can teach him how to play Dragonscales.
Our adventures beyond the city walls have been thrilling, and I feel closer than ever to my mysterious heritage. I know so much more now than when I first embarked upon my life of adventure. But the journey to Ar-Nampur has given me even more questions than I had when I started. If my people came back here twenty years ago to collect those who stayed behind, why did they leave me? Who is Lanasal, and when will I hear the clarion? And what do Nicodemus and the Perfect Ones have to do with anything?
All this will have to wait, I suppose—a lot’s been happening around here in our absence. For now, we’ve got vampires, crime lords, and evil skulks to deal with. Not to mention a crazy swordsmith, a high-stakes Dragonscales game, and some unscrupulous competitors in the business of magic item sales. But what do you expect? That’s life in Ptolus.
—Io-Regalas
