Blackblade 13.0 - The Forgotten Vault

A day was spent in Renick, collecting gear and preparing for the arduous trek over the Seldarin Mountains. On the next morning, the group set out: Raito, Caelan, Ragoom, Broken Tusk, Jack, Ridley, Yomiel, Vol, Shirley and their animals Kirsikka, Traveler and Morgan, Shirley's pack mule.
It took about a week of travel for the group to walk through the foothills and make it into the proper mountain pass. The walk was uninterrupted, food was easy to come by, and the pleasant midsummer weather held.
Eventually, the veritable caravan made their way into the heart of the mountains, following a mostly-forested path known only to Shirley. On their first day, Broken Tusk, while out foraging for the group, heard the agitated calls of a pack of dire wolves. Interpreting their howls to be that of indignation at the mass intrusion into their territory, he informed the party, and they carefully made their way forward, taking care to avoid the wolves. That night they heard the cries again, more calm this time, and decided that they must have exited their territory. Twice that night an owlbear trundled directly beside their camp looking for tubers, ignoring the people thanks to Broken Tusk's magic. Otherwise, their first night was uneventful.
Late the next morning, while Caelan was hunting a mile or two away from the rest of the group, he heard some heavy footfalls and a grunting, guttural voice. Taking cover behind a tree, he saw two hulking trolls come into view, conversing with each other in their foreign tongue. One of them picked up Caelan's scent, and the two began to investigate where he was hiding. Deciding he'd rather have the head start than gamble on not being discovered, Caelan bolted back towards the others, yelling at the top of his lungs. Kirsikka, hearing this, ran off towards him while the others took up combat or hiding positions; even Broken Tusk, miles away on the other side, heard and began to rush back. When his horse joined him, Caelan lept up into the saddle and urged her back towards the caravan, the trolls close behind. Running headlong into the camp, Caelan saw only Traveler, as well as Vol hiding poorly behind a tree. However, before he even had a chance to wheel Kirsikka around, the first troll stepped one foot into the party's range, and was instantaneously obliterated by the destructive prowess of the people lying in wait. The other troll, only a second or two behind his companion, met a similar, immediate demise. Setting the corpses on fire and dousing the ashes, the group congratulated themselves and moved on. 
The afternoon brought them into a clearing, where the soil was too shallow for trees and the mountains' rock was bare beneath the sun. As they walked along, the ground suddenly gave way beneath them, and some of the party tumbled down a convoluted yet steep series of rocky tunnels. When they finally stopped rolling and careening ever deeper, they found themselves in a pitch-black pit. A roll-call and a few castings of Light revealed that Raito, Caelan, Broken Tusk, Vol, Jack and Ridley had fallen, while the others were nowhere in sight. The discombobulated group tried to take stock of their situation. The tunnel they had fallen down was long and winding, with many twists and branches; it appeared to be some sort of nest long ago dug out by a burrowing creature, probably an insect or worm of prodigious size. They surmised that climbing up would probably be futile due to its steep and winding nature, and that it would be more effort than it was worth trying to get a message out to the others, so they decided to follow the tunnel in the other direction and hopefully find another way out. Heading down the burrow from where they fell led them along a short, slightly twisting path until they discovered something strange: the tunnel appeared to widen slightly into a rectangular shape. Investigating further, they found that the tunnel hadn't widened, rather, it had run directly parallel with some sort of carved hallway, collapsing one of its walls. A quick surmise of the hall suggested dwarven make and, unwilling to chance an encounter with the legendarily unfriendly people, they left and continued to follow the burrow path. Unfortunately for them, the tunnel did not progress much further: it twisted around in a circle and became a long-abandoned nest, filled with nothing but dust and the boney remains of what was likely an old meal. Left with no other options, they returned to the hallway.
Exploring the hall, which was carved to form perfectly even walls, floors and right angles, had no decoration or fanfare: one end was blocked off by what appeared to be a cave-in. Broken Tusk attempted to shift into the form of an earth elemental so that he might pass through the rock to see it there was a path on the other side, however, the benign influence of the fey thwarted his attempts, foiling his magic. Moving along in the other direction they found a door, carved neatly into the stone. It was neither locked nor trapped: the room on the other side was small, square, and empty, save for a large switch on the floor. In the far distance, Broken Tusk was sure he could hear a flowing current; pulling the switch seemed to do nothing, but with his keen hearing, the druid could swear he heard a shift in the current he noticed. Shrugging, they left and continued down the hall, which ended in another door.
The room that met them on the other side was a huge cavern, still perfectly square, filled with water. A small landing was all that was afforded, with metal rungs built into the wall beneath them leading into the pool. On the far side, they could see that the room was mirrored: a built-in metal ladder, leading to a tiny landing with a door. Peering through the darkness, they could see no hint of living creatures, but it was apparent that the water was choked with a dense thicket of seaweed. Despite only Broken Tusk having any knowledge of swimming, they decided that there was nothing for it but to attempt to cross. The kelp was thick and difficult to swim through, and as they attempted to cross Vol, Caelan and Raito all became tangled at some point. Ridley, despite his avoidance of the tangled plant life, was found to be rubbish at the act of swimming, and spent several minutes splashing about making no particular headway; Vol, who had made a strong start, got trapped in the weeds and faltered, requiring a lot of assistance to get back on track. Jack was the first to eventually make it across, mainly because Broken Tusk had to keep swimming back to help the others; he tied a rope to the ladder rung and tossed it those behind him, who used it to pull themselves in. 
Sputtering, wet and unfortunate, the group opened the door and flopped out into the next hallway. With judicious applications of Prestidigitation to dry them off, they picked themselves up and began to explore anew. There were two doors on either side of them: to their right, Raito could detect a strong source of magic, while to their left, they could hear the current that only Broken Tusk could hear earlier. The door leading to the magic was locked, and those with skills in the art of lockpicking declared that the lock was exceptionally convoluted and would take hours, if not days, to crack without the key. Raito, declaring that he had the solution, took his rod from Vol and began to swing it, hoping to trigger the effect that would shatter the door. After a few swings, Vol, in a panic, told him to stop: there were at least two spells it could cast that would create stone barriers, while only one would break them; statistically, it was likely to cause more problems than solve. With a "well, I guess that's that" attitude, the group moved down the hall towards the sound of rushing water.
Behind this new door was another small landing, where a recessed channel of water shot past at a frenzied rate down a tunnel. Assuming that the water had to be going somewhere, Broken Tusk secured himself to a rope and jumped in. The water rushed him down the channel, and he managed to prevent himself from being smashed against the wall as it turned a corner. Grabbing onto a ledge, he managed to pull himself out on another landing; the water continued down another tunnel, which appeared to be blocked by a thin grate. A door on the landing led to a small room that contained only a deep, clear well. There seemed to be a small object lying at its bottom. Deciding that he had best report back to the others, he pulled himself against the current using his guide rope with the help of the others. He told them what he had found; Raito and Ridley agreed to go with him to investigate while the others stayed behind. Returning to the well, they decided that the best thing to do was to weight down Broken Tusk, sending him to recover whatever was at the well's bottom. Using a large pile of gems tied up in a bag, Broken Tusk dove down to the bottom of the deep well, managing to withstand the pressure long enough to grab the small item. Returning to the surface, he showed them his discovery: a complex metal key. Pulling up the weights, they started back towards the others, fighting the current the whole way. As Raito and Broken Tusk were making headway, Ridley slipped and let go, getting washed away. They pressed forward and managed to get back to the rest of the group. As they pulled themselves up, the others asked what had happened to the elf. As if on cue, he blew past them, caught in the current, cussing between his gasps for air. He was carried past once more before Jack managed to grab him and pull him in, coughing and spluttering. Once he had composed himself, he explained that he had knocked the grate out, along with a second one, and that there were two more landings like the one they were on.
Deciding that the magic room was their priority, the group went to go test the key they had recovered. Indeed, it was the key for that lock, but the room behind it was less than inviting: a set of stairs leading to a room blocked by iron bars, all of which was under water. Getting enough power to break the bars seemed impossible with the water in the way, so they agreed to go investigate the other two landings. In an effort to speed their explorations along, Jack and Ridley offered to go explore one of the rooms while everyone else handled the other. Vol, unwilling to get back in the water after his last unpleasant experience, asked to wait there for them to return; Caelan was hesitant to let him stay by himself, but he was eventually convinced that he would be fine for a few minutes. Leaping back into the current, the men went to their designated landings. Raito, Caelan and Broken Tusk found themselves in a small room that contained nothing but a navel-high solid rectangular podium, atop of which was a series of coloured buttons and white panels. Hitting the buttons caused the panels to change colour; Raito quickly deduced the pattern, and solved the code. When the code was entered correctly, they could hear a series of gears and machines moving, though there was no visible effect in the room. Finding nothing else in the room to meddle with, they returned to the main hall where Vol was waiting. A few minutes later, the other two men joined them. They explained that they had found a room full of pointless switches, but managed to find a pressure plate on the wall that appeared to actually be rigged to something. Options exhausted, they went back to the stairs to see if their efforts had yielded any results.
Indeed they had: not only had the bars been raised, but the water had also been drained from the room, allowing them to both easily enter, and open a door that would have been sealed shut by the pressure. Beyond that door was a short staircase leading up into another room. This one had apparently housed nothing more than another podium, the top covered and locked, however, it appeared that the burrowing creature had broken into this room as well: the far wall had fallen in, and there was debris and detritus everywhere. Picking through the rubble, they found the bones and digestion-proof belongings of what appeared to have been dwarves, long ago consumed and expelled by the creature. Claiming the metal and magicked goods of the deceased, they turned their attention to the podium. Jack and Ridley unlocked the top in short order: what lay under the case was a deck of cards. When touched, the top card flipped over, revealing a vague limerick. Following its directions, everyone drew a blank card. When everyone had one, the cards all suddenly revealed a word, a symbol and a couplet, none of which had clear meanings. Vol found in his possession a large key, Ridley found a small amethyst in his pocket and Caelan suddenly remembered having always owned a mansion in Gaivoutna; the others did not see any immediate changes. The cards, when the bearer wasn't looking, disappeared, reappearing into the main deck as blank cards again. Raito pocketed the strange deck, and the group struck out into the tunnels to see if they could find an exit. 
After a few hours of dead ends and wrong turns, they finally found a tunnel that lead back to the outdoors. Using their wilderness knowledge, Caelan and Broken Tusk managed to track their way back towards where they had originally fallen in. As they went, they found Shirley, Ragoom, Yomiel and their animals, covered in blood and gore: while they had been wandering around in the vault, the others had been looking for an entrance. Unfortunately, they had found a more recently-used tunnel and had run afoul of a giant, armour-plated worm which had not taken kindly to their intrusion. Despite lacking most of their companions, they had emerged victorious, but as the worm's corpse now blocked the tunnel they had left it in, they had set out to hopefully find another. The group was reunited, more happily in some cases than others; they decided to pitch camp early, as they had all had enough exercise for the day.
Category:Banishment of the Blackblades