Still The 27th Of Toil
We have beaten all our foes, and now we take a bit of a breather to regroup and write our true names on the red stone with the Hivemistress’ Quill. With Swordthrasher dead, the magical bridges have disappeared, so we rig a rope across the gaps in the glass bridge to the fortress’ great door. The last surviving thorn warns us that he hears a few bugbears inside the fortress here. Tharn and Diethan decide to go in through the roof. They stumble upon a horrid charnel room with dozens of bloated dark elf corpses, perhaps a week dead. The room is so hot and steamy, a sort of haze prevents them from seeing all the way across it.
Meanwhile, Archinemus and I bust through the front door and find the interior to be unseasonably hot. I start to seethe with anger at the thought of Faestra’s dryad sister burning in the furnace. We meet three more bugbears inside but make quick work of them. One of them does reveal that to find the dryad we must take an elevator down to the furnace. We find the elevator (a glass bubble suspended on a rope in a column of boiling water), but it’s guarded by some strange floating black pyramid etched with Draconic and Dark Elvish runes—it shoots blasts of magical cold and other effects. Calista manages to dispel it, thank Teun, and while its magic is suppressed we pound it to pieces.
We come upon a well-kept tower bedroom with some valuable silver and paintings, even some Elvish books. We presume the Perfect Ones have been staying here. Hidden in this chamber, Archinemus finds a box holding a golden idol in the shape of a ceremonial sibeccai. He is quite stunned by what has happened, as he has never before seen another of his kind. He and I have that in common.
After searching the rest of this level of the fortress to no avail, we decide that the only way down is, in fact, the elevator. I use the elevator’s control levers to ratchet Tharn and the thorn down the tube, which is surprisingly cool. At the bottom level of the fortress, they discover a large bronze boiler and hear crackling flames and a low moaning from that direction. An oversized, almost hairless bugbear is sleeping with his back propped up against the furnace. When Archinemus gets down there, he and Tharn and the thorn coup de grace the sleeping sentinel and open the furnace. Chained inside it is a woman who may once have looked like Faestra. Now she’s blackened and writhing in agony. She is the only fuel burning in the furnace.
Tharn takes a gold ring off the dead guard’s finger and discovers it protects him from the heat. He slices right through the red-hot chains as the woman notices him and stares at him with eyes that themselves seem to be afire. Just as I arrive, Tharn frees her and rushes her, still burning, to the elevator. Archinemus puts the magical ring on her, and she stops burning, looking like nothing more than a charred, vaguely woman-shaped piece of wood. We give her all our curative potions and she finally comes around. The thorn speaks soothingly to her in her own language. We send her and the thorn back up to the others, knowing that she will need far more healing than we have.
Meanwhile, we quickly search the furnace level for any more prisoners. Archinemus and Tharn find a chained-up creature that seems to be half misshapen elf and half spider—a drider, I recall—and a bound dark elf woman. We put the drider out of its misery and take the dark elf with us so we can hand her over to the elves of Faelasith.
When we’re all back on the main level, Calista speaks to the dark elf prisoner, who explains that she was from the vault, and that the bugbears brought her here against her will. She says the vault is accessible via the Master Circle—a teleportation circle—at the top of this tower. Calista thinks that if we break this circle we might be able to end the curse on this city. While Diethan and I and the thorn take the dryad in the boat back to shore, Barbatos falls under the spell of the dark elf prisoner and feels compelled to take her up to the roof to the Master Circle. Calista also feels that compulsion, and Archinemus and Tharn have to restrain them both. It all ends with Barbatos staggered by a few punches from Tharn (he very nearly sent the prisoner up in the elevator) and Calista tied up and out of spells.
This is the sight that greets those of us in the boat when we reach the shore and turn to look back. While I try to help with this crazy situation, Diethan and the thorn bathe the poor burned dryad in the lake, then take her to her tree, which catches her up in its embrace, and she’s gone. The thorn takes his leave then, thanking us for our aid and presenting to Diethan a carved wooden unicorn head. He points to the tower on a hill behind Faestra’s tree and warns, “Demon,” then runs off.
The Evening of The 27th Of Toil
We trudge back to camp, each of us carrying a companion or prisoner. The Lothian priest and paladin are still there, but the dwarves and barbarian are gone. The priest explains that the ones who remain still desperately want to get into the vault to find their relic. Our elf friend Eloias wants to kill the dark elf prisoner right now on general principle, but we urge him to allow the Lothianites to question her.
The cleric, Denaeroth Vess and paladin, Lynessa Koran, learn from the dark elf how to get to the Master Circle that will take them to the vault. She asks that they take her back with them, but before we can dissuade them, Diethan surprises us all by leaping in and killing the dark elf woman. Terse words lead Lynessa and Diethan to blows, and ultimately the two Lothianites depart. Their hard feelings seem to linger after them, however, and we quarrel over what is best to do: leave now for Faelasith to get the compulsions removed from our friends, or stay here so we can visit the Master Circle in the morning. The majority of the group decides to keep the afflicted group members confined and return in the morning to Faelasith. Diethan burns the corruptive books that Barbatos couldn’t resist taking from the city.
28th Of Toil
We make our way back to Faelasith today. When we arrive this evening, elf guards welcome us—quite a different story than the last time we were here. They seem impressed by the leafy circlets we’re wearing, which we got from the dryad Faestra. We again enter the tower of Iapheramon and Iokaelis Vaerimor and are the guests at an elven banquet. Faestra is here, too, and she thanks us for rescuing her sister dryad from that awful furnace.
The elves are very grateful for our cleansing of Kaelist but seem dismayed to see that two of our companions, Barbatos and Calista, are restrained—tied up due to the enchantment that seized them in the ruined city. So as not to allow the corruption of Kaelist to spread, the elf rulers summon their priest to rid our friends of the taint. A shaft of silver light bathes them and the compulsion is lifted from Calista, but they have to take Barbatos to their temple overnight. (He doesn’t look too pleased, but we assure him it’s for the best.)
The elves bestow upon us many gifts in thanks for what we’ve done in Kaelist. My gift is a greatsword called the Starsword, which long ago was a gift to these elves from the Hu-Charad! I’m sure Barbatos was sad to miss the scrumptious elven banquet. From our reports, they believe the bugbear threat is now over—they will just have to keep the undead and the rest of the evil in Kaelist contained as before. Eloias agrees to take the magical strand and Quill back to the Hivemistress for us while we stock up on supplies here in Faelasith.
29th Of Toil
We visit the marketplace to sell some of our loot and restock our dwindling supplies. We send next month’s payment for Myraeth down to Ptolus with an elf messenger.
The Next Two Weeks
We spend the next week training with our new weapons and learning various elven skills.
The following week, Sael Wintersong arrives in Faelasith. We explain that Celdore sent us to him as someone knowledgeable about the Hu-Charad. He has made a study of it and is willing to teach us the language and history.
The Hu-Charad are also known as the Charad titans (by the elves) and the Elder Titans (by humans). They came to these shores in huge ships made of stone thousands of years ago, well after the terror of Eslathagos Malkith but before the blight of the Half-God Ghul. Before, in fact, the building of Dwarvenhearth, before the Dreaming City of Dreta Phantas was stolen away. They were a noble people, and solemn. They wielded both magic and craft beyond the skills of the Elder Elves then. They were powerful and different. They crafted the Starsword as a suitable gift for the local elves. It’s hard to identify an item of Hu-Charad make, Sael says; it takes a trained eye.
These titans said they came from “the North,” but the only place north across the sea now is the Endless Sea of Ice. They brought with them their companions, the sibeccai, who apparently were beholden to the Titans and stayed for centuries. A lot of the sibeccai even stayed after the Hu-Charad left; many went to the Plains of Rhoth. Sael knows only a little of the Perfect Ones, a pair of sibeccai rogues that works with low-lifes and bandits up and down the coast.
The Hu-Charad spent only a brief time here, just to explore. They had a real affinity with the land — they seemed to bear the responsibility of caretaking on their shoulders. Sadly, they were drawn to the Spire, at first because it was the result of such an abomination as the Dread One. As they studied it, a few of them were corrupted by it, and when the Titans finally left, the corrupted ones remained. They delved deep into the earth around the Spire, seeking knowledge of the ultimate power that lay beneath it. (According to the elves of Dreta Phantas, this power was the Galchutt.) From that point on, there are no further records. A few Titans surfaced again as allies of Ghul the Half-God, and there are story fragments of the dwarves encountering them later. Tales even tell of pacts between the Elder Titans and dark elves, which the Titans betrayed in favor of alliances with the zaug (hated enemies of the dark elves). Sael has heard there is still one Dark Titan left in Goth Gulgamel, undead.
As for Ar-Nampur, it is a citadel at the very tip of a peninsula to the north. It remains almost always hidden in the mist — very hard to find, even for sailors. It is the site of the original landing of the Hu-Charad, who built the fortress as their temporary home. Their talents were such that it still stands pristine today. It is difficult to enter, but perhaps I can do so in a way others cannot.
An elf named Nilovas Haetharys is the expert on Ar-Nampur. This strange hermit lives near the fortress in a crude home and calls himself the guardian of the place. (Sael thinks he’s a little mad.) The citadel is magical, and entering it is a magical process.
Sael has heard a rumor that the Hu-Charad returned twenty years ago to Ar-Nampur—the akashic also told me this was true. “If they did so, they moved in secret,” he said. “I would love to know more.” He points out that the Hu-Charad often knew of things before they happened. Their intuition or tie with the events of the world was very strong. If they returned twenty years ago, it might have had something to do with the removal of the dark powers of the Galchutt.
“So, how big is she going to get?” Diethan asks him. What a thought! I never imagined I might grow more. Sael said that there were some Charad titans much larger than me who were great people; others were my size. Sometimes height was an indicator of status. He thinks I couldn’t grow any larger without taking some purposeful act. I should hope not — I’m already more than eight feet tall!
Sael has studied texts that the Hu-Charad left behind and he tutors Calista and me in the language. At the end of the week, I craft him a gold magnifying reader for his studies as thanks for all he has shared with us. He wishes us good luck in our trip to Ar-Nampur, and asks that we visit him in Vioth sometime to tell us what we find. He thinks the fortress is three days’ travel from here.
Barbatos is fully recovered, thank goodness, although he’s still a little cranky about the whole bondage issue. Rathondhir the faerie dragon hangs around him a lot, peppering him with questions. He tries to pawn the little guy off on Calista, with only limited success.
An elf woman arrives this week to talk to Barbatos about Pythoness House. Helene Vaenaris is her name; Barbatos was seeking her grandsire, Naelyn. “He owns some property I’m interested in,” he explains. She tells Barbatos that he will sell the property for two hundred thousand silver pieces (payment must be in silver). Or he can choose to wager the amount of four hundred thousand silver pieces’ worth of goods in a match of Gold Dragonscales—an extremely complex game of wit—to be played at the night of Kayhocameus (the Festival of the Cold Moons, a little over a month away) at a location of his choosing. The elf won the property in this fashion. Barbatos agrees to the wager and sets the location as the common room of the Ghostly Minstrel in Delver’s Square. Helene looks disappointed at his choice. “I do not approve of my grandsire’s gambling,” she says, shaking her head.
I don’t think I approve of Barbatos’!
