Runelords 45.0 - Exploring the Runeforge

Eamon stepped into the hall of Abjuration, where he was led to a room of ruin: something had destroyed everything, including the furniture and even most of the walls. There were no signs of any people, though a few scraps of fabric and a shoe or two stuck out of the debris; it seemed everything of value was gone. However, jutting up from the rubble in the centre of the room was a rod-shaped device that seemed to be connected by wires to something deeper in the wing. As he edged along the periphery of the empty room, the rod flashed and sent out some sort of energy wave that struck Eamon and depowered some of his magical items. Unwilling to linger and be struck a second time, he hurried around a corner and into a second room, the only other one left standing. Inside this second room was a complicated device that seemed to be distilling a black liquid and transmitting it somewhere else as it flowed up against gravity through a series of tubes that eventually narrowed to nothingness, disappearing. Eamon fiddled with the device warily and without any sense of purpose, though he recognized the liquid as ithilium, the core material of abjuration. He had no bottles or anything to collect it in. The only thing he had on him was a tea biscuit which he shoved into the machine in an attempt to clog the flow. It proved ineffective.
 Leaving the baked good in the machine, Eamon turned to leave. He nearly walked out into the main room and smack into the white drake, but he caught himself and hid before he could make himself known. The drake, quite upset, was nonetheless deterred by the sparking, energy-producing rod in the room and turned away in a huff. Eamon gave him a few minutes to leave before exiting himself, hurrying so as to not get caught in another blast of anti-magic. Finding the main hall empty, Eamon decided to try another path. He took a few steps down Evocation, before deciding that nothing good would come from going down Alaznist's hall alone. Instead, he considered what he had learned of Karzoug while in the library recently, and strode down Transmutation. At first he found what superficially seemed to be a nicely-decorated hall that ended at a door. Trying to open it triggered a trap that sent a wall careening into him unpleasantly, after which he noticed a secret entrance that he tried instead. Passing through it seemed to trigger another trap, this one a magical effect that would have turned him into a goldfish. He was deeply glad that this one did not take effect. Beyond the door was a lavish hall with a fountain and a series of passages leading away. Wandering about, Eamon decided not to open any doors. Eventually, he paused outside of one: he could hear voices beyond.
 Meanwhile, Khyrralien had taken the pathway of Enchantment. He quickly found himself in the presence of a doorman, who wondered if he was there for the party being held by the Lady Devine. Khyr excitedly agreed that he was. He was directed to a changing room where he was given the means to freshen up. After donning a fancy outfit and a masquerade mask of a deer, he had himself introduced to the party beyond. A large group of people were staggered about a tiered room, each level looking down over the last. A lavish chair, barely visible at this angle, seemed to loom over the whole affair. The doorman introduced him to the uncaring crowd and Khyr happily joined in. It became quickly apparent that the goal was to climb the tiers of the room by impressing the people above you; Khyr grabbed a partner, a man in a hawk mask, and managed to get most of the way to the top by using his fine dancing skills. 
Luna had strode down the Necromancy hall with determination, with Virgil following after her with a visible level of nervousness. They found a huge, towering chasm that seemed to be a giant sepulcher with a series of bridges that let them move across the gap towards doors engraved with overwrought imagery of angels and devils. One door led them to a room with a strange sort of portal in it; Virgil could not even approach for the negative energy emanating from it, but Luna found its presence quite invigorating. Further in, they found room after room designed for study, and possibly surgery, but no trace of any person or, strangely when considering the sheer number of places seemed designed for the task, any bodies. Catching sight of a hidden passageway, Luna crawled boldly in with Virgil closely behind her. Inside, they found another study room, occupied by a lich. He introduced himself as Avazeen, seeming thrilled that Luna was there and that she had brought 'fresh material', as he eyed Virgil hungrily. Luna seemed completely unconcerned and barely even corrected him in that matter, instead asking questions about the undying bones and explaining what she needed them for. Virgil's discomfort was entirely ignored as the two undead spoke academically to each other, Avazeen obviously anxious to kill Virgil and use him in experiments. He explained that undying bones needed to be harvested from a fresh corpse, one that had been made from a living body being passed through the 'veil': the portal of negative energy that they had seen earlier. When Luna, without a second's pause, exclaimed that that was lovely as there was someone just outside that needed to die anyways, Virgil couldn't take anymore and excused himself, using Dimension Door to return to the empty central hallway. Avazeen tutted with disappointment but Luna shrugged away his concern: she would bring back subjects. The lich was pleased and moved to begin preparations for new subject matter; he mused that it had been so long since he had had anything to work with, not since the outside had ceased sending them bodies and he had run out of both stored corpses and those of his followers. Even the bodies of the traitorous abjurers, who had tried to claim the central pool a few short decades ago, had run out. Luna nodded politely, unfazed, and made to return to the central room.
 Virgil, frustrated and pushed to action by the now-extremely apparent control that Zara exerted over Luna's mind and will, hustled quickly down the Conjuration hallway to find Quint: he would need the assistance of a greater wizard than himself to magically break the control of the book, seeing as how it was certainly unlikely at this point that Luna would choose to sever the tie willingly. So entirely riled by his lack of control and the sight of his friend so corrupted that she would carelessly murder without a second thought, he tried to return to smoking, though his untrained lungs just meant that he gave himself a coughing fit. He made his way down an increasingly-filthy hallway, covered in slime. It connected to a large tiled room with passageways and a convoluted mechanism in the centre. Quint poured over the device, and Virgil joined him. After spitting out in a jumbled mess his issue with Zara, he agreed to help Quint navigate the forge to find any sort of lost arcane knowledge that the wizard sought. Similarly, Quint agreed to help sever the bond that Zara had grown to Luna, and mused that they would likely need powerful Abjurant and Enchantment energy to do so; Virgil passed over his vial of ithilium that he had been carrying since the incident at the lake and the wizard, impressed, slid it into his pocket.Category:Rise of the Runelords