15/02/2022 - Adventuring in Auorundfell and Admiring Artefacts

## **Up to the city**

* We walk up and round the side of the volcano to the entrance into the city. There are some guards ahead, so Rocky casts major image to camouflage the tablet into a fancy chair.
* He and Leo then carry Lysandre to keep up the image.
* The guards question us. Rocky replies with largely unhelpful, somewhat distracted, answers. Not helped much by Blagden and the others throwing some light sass.
* Lysandre rescues the situation by remembering some local places – tells Rocky to say that we’re staying in the Cornerstone Inn.
* They ask us to pay an entry tax. We are unhappy about this. When we say we have come to see Elain Sylftail, they let us through. We explain our business with her is sensitive, so ask the guards to keep this quiet.

## **Into the city**

* Just over the lip of the caldera, there are three holes going down into the city, one in the centre with a large glass mirror, one to the left with a wooden hut and two guards, and one to the right with a doorway and no guards.
* Blagden leads the group to the doorway with no guards. There are stone steps going down.
* Belgear and Leo start carrying Lysandre down. Belgear starts dropping the tablet, and falls forward, the tablet landing on top of her, very painfully. The tablet starts to slide down the stairs, crushing Belgear more as it goes.  Thankfully Leo and Rocky manage to grab it just in time.
* As we get part way down, we see the city for the first time! It’s large and glowing because of the lava. From the hole we didn’t use we see an elevator shaft going down. In the centre is a large marble tower with a massive gemstone, the size of six Rocky’s! It is well hung.
* The light reflecting down on the well-hung diamond is bathing much of the city in a very yellowish light.
* Blagden runs ahead to scope the stairs and check for people. He sees no one until a guard who is sleeping at the bottom. Blagden picks his pocket to remind him not to sleep at his post.

## **In the city**

* Rocky’s major image runs out. So to hide the tablet, we consider covering it in Leo’s coat/blankets and putting a snake on top of it. But we realise this is a stupid idea and go back to major image instead.
* We walk past two towers guarding the road into the city. The guards give Lysandre a weird look for riding on a massive chair.
* We need to take the tablet to the kings Mage advisor, Hazeal Sylftail.
* We decide to go to the embassy, where hopefully we can find the ambassador (Ambassador Norde) who met us on Ilbidor. We arrive just before the major image ends.
* The receptionist sends a message to Norde for us. As this happens the major image ends, so Blagden tries to distract her as Lysandre jumps off and mimes pulling off the chair in a flamboyant way, saying something about needing to sort his chair. She doesn’t seem bothered by the crate that has just appeared. She offers us a seat to wait. Blagden is immediately bored.
* To pass the time, Rocky summons a still image of a rat holding some scissors to try and scare Lysandre. Lysandre is bemused.
* She receives a message, and says that Norde will see us in 5 minutes. She offers us refreshment, but has no cheese or whisky, much to Rocky and Blagden’s disappointment.
* She does give us a map though, which his very useful.  She shows us where a few pubs are.

## **The ambassador**

* Norde appears. He didn’t expect us for another week or so. He leads us to a meeting room. He is concerned that we were attacked by bandits. Says we will request the Lord Protector assigns more guards to the cable cars.
* He says he will send word to the palace to expect us. He has also arranged a house for us to stay in. Scribbulus is sad that the house doesn’t have much of a garden.
* Gives Blagden the keys to the house. Offers to escort us to the palace.
* He gets a message saying that the King is ready to see us and will send someone to meet us.
* He leads us to the Palace – where Hazeal meets us, wearing a very ornate red cloak, much jewellery, a book, and a wand.
* Hazeal welcomes us and invites us inside with the crate.

## **The palace**

* Walk past statues of past rulers.
* We go into the Hall of the King. The king is sat talking to some other people, who move aside when we arrive.
* The King is slightly taller than Lysandre, wears a crown, has a well-kept head of braided hair, a long neat beard, golden armour trimmed with light blue and a crest of hammer with a diamond centre, and a ruby/gold coloured amulet.
* About half of us bow to him.
* After welcoming us, he explains about the archaeology he wants us to investigate. Some statues have been found in the mines with the crest of the royal crest. As the royal crest is sensitive, we have been asked to investigate as an independent third party. Scribbulus wants assurances that the King will not hide any of the information we find from the people. The king assures him all will be made public.  We are being given a team of dwarves to help.
* He gives us some rings with his seal, to allow us to move freely through the city. We have a day off before we need to do this. He also recommends looking at the museum. Specifically, at 8pm on Sunday (6 days from now). Leo realises he is trying to arrange a sneaky rendezvous with us to avoid other hearing abbot the tablet.

## **The palace vaults**

* Before we leave, he offers to show us some of the artefacts they have. We follow. As we walk, Blagden confirms with the King that we are indeed getting paid for this job.
* He takes us towards the palace vault, where many artefacts are stored. Many guards are here.
* There is a room with a pedestal, on the centre is an engraved pattern. The king places his crown on the centre of this pedestal. This causes a rumbling, and the room begins to lower down. It goes down for three or four minutes, before stopping in the middle of several pillars surrounded by pink shimmering light.
* All around are artefacts. A mural showing the coronation stone, i.e., the tablet we have come to replace. This is where the tablet will be stored. The real one is currently kept on display somewhere upstairs. This is why new need to replace it, so the real one can live permanently down here. Some fancy robes, several intricate garbs (the coronation clothes). In another chamber is a pulsating amulet, it seems evil. There is also a singular card, laying face down. There is a room with a well decorated mannequin, with a slot for where a pendant and other items would hang. There is also a very nice-looking mask, in the shape of a horned dragon. There are many weapons, three gleaming swords, emanating power, a very nice hammer, and a large crystal-adorned staff. There is a room of armour, as well as a very nice ring, a carpet, and some nice artwork.
* We recognise some of the artefacts. A vorpal blade, a staff of the magi, armour of invulnerability, and the “red dragon mask” – which gives resistant, or immunity, to fire, can add charisma to AC when not wearing armour, gives you a dragon’s breath, and one legendary resistance per day. The hammer is a hammer of thunderbolts. Rocky is very excited by the hammer.
* Now we’re in the vault, the King openly explains that he will meet us on Sunday at the museum at 8pm to exchange the tablets.
* Leo asks if the dwarves have seen or heard of purple pirate… they haven’t.
* With that, we leave the vault via the way we came and are led out of the palace. Before we leave, we are told that we can go wherever we want, except the mines, which we need permission to go in.

## **Casino and sleep (or not, as the case may be)**

* We head to the house we’ve been given use of.
* Decide what to do today and tomorrow. Discuss whether Rillifane can help us win at the casino. He probably can’t.
* Rocky, Leo and Blagden go to the Casino whilst the others go to bed. Leo loses 10 GP, Blagden gains 10 GP, and Rocky gains 15 GP. Blagden also scopes the place out in preparation for more cheating tomorrow.
* Whilst Lysandre sleeps, he has horrible nightmarish visions of the purple pirate, and an intense feeling of hopelessness.
* Leo et al., arrive back later, but Leo also suffers horrible dreams. Neither Leo nor Lysandre got the benefits of a long rest. Sad times.
* In the middle of the night, Scribbulus thinks he sees someone hastily leave the room (he was sleeping downstairs).
* He finds a hastily painted purple eye drawn on the floor downstairs... Leo notices that he and Lysandre have fresh, very small, cuts running along their arms.

## **Morning shenanigans**

* Leo uses sending to message Hazeal and tell him what’s happened. He replies saying he will send guards to investigate, and that he has no idea who could have done this / who would have known we were here.
* After 10 mins or so Hazeal arrives with some guards. Asks how everyone is. Hazeal casts some spells and walks around the room. The eye isn’t magical, probably be a warning. Someone is obviously watching us.
* Leo can tell his injury is very bad. Probably needs some significant magical healing. Scribbulus tries to heal it with lesser restoration, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
* Leo, Lysandre and Scribs go to the hospital.
* Whilst they do this Rocky and Blagden go to do some investigating, to see if they can discover anything about who did this. Find that this was unlikely done by the local thieves’ guild, no other similar attacks seemed to happen. Do notice that we are being watched.
* We duck into a pub, and Rocky makes Blagden invisible. He then stumbles outside and starts playing some music. A passer-by asks Rocky if he is here for a battle of the band’s competition. He is now.
* Blagden sneaks over to where he saw the person watching him. He sees a rat – a find familiar rat. Blagden follows it. It is perched on a roof. Two other rats are also watching the pub we went into.
* The rat suddenly disappears. As Blagden goes back, he hears a whisper saying, “we’ve lost them”. Following the noise, Blagden sees someone disappear down a drain. He sends Ratty to follow. He sees two goblins having a chat in the sewers. They are chatting about having lost “him” and needing the “big one to go, to grab me”. Very suspicious by all of this, Blagden returns to Rocky.
* A the hospital, Lysandre explains what happened, and that lesser restoration didn’t work. The clerics look at them. Something has cursed them. Until the curse is removed they cannot rest properly. The hospital can remove one of the curses today, and the other tomorrow. Lysandre has the curse removed.