15th of Rain
After some rest following our latest mission in the Halls of Cordaris, Diethan goes with me to inquire about getting our mobat head stuffed. What a trophy! Archinemus sells the other loot we brought up from the Halls.
At the Ghostly Minstrel over dinner tonight we meet a woman named Saedra, a member of the Order of the Legacy! She’s seen us down in Cordaris, and now she wants to know our intentions. She says that only a few members of the Order are left, holed up in a tower on the third level. Jastov, their reliquarian/priest, might help us free the rest of them from their crazy velator, Timerian, Saedra says. She tells us to beware of a member named Devar: She’s loyal to Timerian.
A group of ten orcs have the Order besieged in the tower, Saedra says. Their urloc leader wields a massive magic axe, and they have goblin slaves (oh yeah, we’ve fought some of them). She explains that we can get to the third level through the Doors of Purification in a round hallway. She also mentions a secret door to a Blood Pool with undead guardians. They were created when some other crazy velator tried to bring back old leaders of the order, but all he got was horrid monsters. But if we do manage to get through the undead, there’s treasure at the pool, leftovers from the monsters’ victims, I suppose.
When she departs, Saedra doesn’t wish us luck: I know she thinks we’re after their precious Legacy. Well, I don’t know that she’s wrong.
16th of Rain
Back to our hunt, this time via the sewer entrance (not the old man’s beat-up warehouse). We fight more midges — those little creeps dropped a brick on me — and orcs and goblins before sighting the urloc himself. What a big, nasty guy! Tough, too. Only thing that saved us was Calista and her song magic. Her singing distracts him enough that we can get in some good licks, and we manage to defeat them all! I’m feeling like a serious adventurer now, especially carrying the urloc’s magical great axe.
When we find the Doors of Purification, however, we can’t get through! So much for “serious adventurers.” Only Diethan can pass through these enruned bronze-and-glass portals — and even he made it through only the first pair of them. (There are three pairs.) I don’t know what we’re going to do now.
17th of Rain
Calista has other business today. Barbatos uses his magic to detect which items from our most recent loot are magical. If we want to know more about what they do, we’ll have to spend some money to get each one identified. At the Ghostly Minstrel this evening, Sheva Callister, veteran adventuress, offers us some advice on buying curative wands. I think she didn’t remember us at first. Strange: We’re two litorians, a sibeccai, and several humans — one of whom is a woman more than seven feet tall! I’d sure remember us!
18th of Rain
This morning we enter the Halls of Cordaris via the sewers again, looking for the door with the sword hanging above it. When we find it, we notice a fresco here showing knights looking down at a table. Beyond we see a room with Orcish symbols written on the walls. There’s a pit here, and a ladder leading down, and barrel of nails, too. (Archinemus doesn’t think they’re worth anything anymore.) We find a jeweled collar from a dead caged beast in the pit.
While we’re poking around, a couple orcs show up! Tharn and Charnoth, our litorian friends, say these are Ornu-Nom orcs from the plains, an honorable people. That’s the first time I ever heard anyone call an orc honorable! And I don’t think Barbatos or Diethan would call them too honorable — the orcs shot them before the rest of us could stop it! Anyway, they seem to recognize us. “You have killed the Dreadmaster!” their leader says, referring to the urloc, I guess, and his axe that I now carry. “Do you seek the Demon’s Soul?”
We come to find out that’s how they refer to the Legacy. (And here we’d read that it was bequeathed to mortals by angels!) These orcs follow the message of Urulu, an orc shaman who long ago wanted to destroy the Legacy. They call it an abomination. However, now the orcs don’t have the numbers to contain the members of the Order in their tower any more, much less destroy the Legacy (whatever it is), so they are leaving. (The urloc had brought the “spiremen” [local Ptolus orcs] and the Undying [a troll] down here to join forces with these Ornu-Nom guys, but the plains orcs have split from them following the Dreadmaster’s death.) They urge us to destroy the Legacy in their place.
Of course, we’ll do no such thing if we can’t even get to the tower. The Ornu-Nom tell us to drink from fonts in the hall leading to the Doors of Purification in order to gain the insight needed to get through the doors. They tell us the tower lies past the round doors and beyond some staircases, but they warn us to beware the creatures of the Garden. They also warn us of cave morays and other perils in various unexplored areas of these Halls. It’s a relief to me to watch them finally leave.
We leave this room and, while waiting for our wounded to heal a bit, we set up a winch and pulley to pull the sword out of the doorway. It’s very exciting: This weapon could be Zelambrast, guardian of the Legacy! Well, actually, it turns out to be just some pitted and crappy old sword. Still, perhaps it’s the artifact in disguise…!
Rather than return to the doors, we decide to go looking for the madman, Velator Timerian, and his magical pipe organ. We pass through a hall with water rushing in and dead orcs lying in sprung traps. We spot another relief of knights with crossed swords in a chamber that houses recessed iron cabinets. They hold components for creating magic items, and a secret compartment has three potions.
Beyond is the organ room. A stone catwalk spans a watery surface, and at the end of it we see Timerian. The madman doesn’t give us a chance to explain ourselves, but plays a chord and summons fiery elementals. We dispatch them pretty easily, but not before he zaps me with a wand of pain-in-the-gut. (I identified that one the hard way!) Still we advance upon him. As we slay this evildoer, he cries, “The Legacy dies with me! I changed the combina—” then expires. We’re not sure we understand, but those poor members of the Order are certainly better off without this lunatic directing their actions.
After experimenting with the organ (which lands us in the water—thanks, Barbatos), we find Timerian’s study. Its walls are covered in papers with mad scrawls. We also locate nine magical scrolls, good news for Barbatos and Calista! Tired, we head back up to the city.
19th of Rain
We take a day of rest, trading our loot — er, goods — for cash. We learn that my new axe (mine thanks to the urloc’s demise) is a magical weapon, which inflicts extra damage to humans. I’d better be careful never to cut myself with it! Unfortunately, the crappy and pittedlooking sword proved to be nothing more than a crappy and pitted-looking sword. If we want to find Zelambrast, we’ll have to keep looking.
20th of Rain
My new brigandine armor is ready today! A great fit, now that it’s been altered from urloc size.
21st of Rain
The stuffed mobat head is ready today! Barbatos agrees to keep it for me for a couple days, till I find a place of my own. I don’t want Dad to see it and worry about me tackling monsters like that. Speaking of worrying, Archinemus received a note today from a lawyer offering us five hundred gold to forget all about buying Myraeth’s Oddities! Who else could know of our secret plans?
22nd of Rain
Today I use some of my earnings to buy a dungeoneer’s outfit—a really warm one with lots of pockets (even secret ones) and boots and gloves good for climbing. Now I’m really set. I’m also really broke. I keep forgetting that I joined this venture to raise enough money to ask the akashic about my brooch, and maybe learn something about my birth family. But these trappings for my new adventuring life are hard to resist!
23rd of Rain
Found a place of my own in Midtown today. I can’t hide my new adventuring life from Dad forever, so I thought it was time to move out. I spend some time boning up on my dangerous beasts knowledge, too. I want to be more informed next time we venture underground.
24th of Rain
We discover that the lawyer who tried to buy us off is actually pretty big-time, with many large-scale criminal types for clients. What an insult to offer us only a measly 500 gold! Of course, we wouldn’t take it even if it were more, but he must really think we’re small potatoes. We’ll show him! Barbatos drafted a nice letter politely declining the offer. The wizard’s got quite a way with words.
26th of Rain
Weird thing happened yesterday — I slept all the way through it! I didn’t realize I was so tired, but I must have been. When I woke up today, I was surprised to discover I was about three inches taller than when I went to bed! This sort of thing hasn’t happened to me in years (Dad always called them my “growth spurts”). I went to see him to ask him if it was really noticeable, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Cripes, now I have to go have my armor refitted! I’m even taller than those litorians…
