DFE 12 Notes (Laura)

Wow, we were just bookin' through the sets today!

Okay, my session recap:

1) First, tying up loose ends from last session, Kakra translated the second Hebrew notebook. It appeared to be the journal of an NCO bitching about his commanding officer, Captain Gaitan, who was making them stay behind while he did something illegible, but at least had kept them alive thus far. Also, I had made an error in the last session recap--it was Wakinyan from whom Dan had forcefully taken the first notebook, not Leonus. Wakinyan asked him to swear that there was nothing mission-relevant in there, and Dan responded with "Who the hell do you think you are?" Leonus, the actual mission commander, eventually took Dan and Rachel aside to talk to them about the notebooks privately, which everyone except Loic accepted as good enough. Loic remained rather cross and continued stubbornly (and unsuccessfully) demanding the Israelis reveal what is going on with the notebook and their missing friend.

2) The party discovered a small, intricate metal crest hidden under the maps on the table, looking somewhat like a coat of arms. The crest needed to be examined microscopically to make sense of it. The party later discovered multiple other such crests in the temple area.

3) Several large, intelligent ants who march in step began serving us dinner. When Jaicinteleq inquired about them, the Curator said they were friends of his family. Wakinyan told the Curator the story of our expedition to the Xen'drik.

4) Jaicinteleq engaged the teenage Curator in conversation. Apparently his parents had died suddenly 300-400 days ago, leaving him struggling to finish his training on his own, a task which occasionally seems to be overwhelming for him. Jaicinteleq asked if the party could help, and the Curator said he was unable to leave the library and had no way of finding a wife, and asked if the party had a woman they could sell him. The party said no, but that when we return to Stormreach we would inquire to see if we could find a girl interested in arranging a marriage.

5) We continued talking to the Curator for some time, learning some potentially plot-related information. He recognized Namanda's longer name, Ananda Na'ama, and identified her as a "goddess of the ancient pantheon." He said the next area beyond the library is a temple, which his family is devoted to studying. He identified the ancient language we found last session as "Primal," which he also described at "*His* language," and said that it was hard to translate because it contained so many concepts that don't exist in our languages which we could not get our minds around. He can read it, but cannot adequately explain most of it to us. When we showed him a picture of Namanda's key, he said he believed he had seen it before but did not know where. When we told him about the items Akhetenare was looking for, he said he had seen the crystal skull in the temple. When we asked if it was okay to take it, he said he thought so but he wasn't sure as his training was incomplete. The Curator had a chalice with a carving of a colossal humanoid with a tiny human standing on its foot.

6) Ademar showed the Curator his sword and asked if he could read the runes on them. The Curator corrected him that they are called "glyphs," not runes, and said they were instructions for use of the sword. He asked where we had found the sword and Wakinyan said "in the Fain of Night," which the Curator seemed to understand. He told Ademar "This sword is bigger than you."

7) Ademar then showed him his dagger, which the Curator appeared frightened of. He was unable to translate the glyphs on the dagger as they were too different from our languages. He performed a ritual on the dagger which he had learned from his father, causing the dagger to make an eerie ringing sound that temporarily deafened some PCs and caused others to involuntarily continue hearing the sound even after it had stopped. He couldn't explain what this had done, only that it was what he had been taught to do if he saw such a weapon.

8) After Loic used a magic item to confirm that there were still 12 Xen-river hours left before our boats leave (that corresponding to roughly 60 hours of our time,) the party set watches and slept for the night. The PCs keeping watch noticed that the Curator seemed to be up all night with the light on in the other room, making rustling and clinking sounds. Wakinyan sent his hawk to peek into the room, revealing him working away at his desk. The party did not interrupt him.

9) In the morning the party proceeded down the stairs into the temple area. The stairs led across a sparkling black void to another building made of marble. The door was locked, but Jaicinteleq tried the key she had found in the fountain and it opened. However, the key then would not come back out of the lock, and after we had all passed into the room, it closed behind us and couldn't be reopened.

10) This room had several features including a hold in the floor revealing a red glowing stela, piece of stone with shallow grooves on it, a candelabra that lit as we approached it, and two coffins with demon face carvings behind them. Merkha recognized the face as belonging to a specific demon he was aware of from mythology, and the swords carved on the coffins as being crude weapons made by the Xen Orcs.

11) A side door opened out onto the void we had seen earlier. Securing himself with a rope and leaning out, Wakinyan was able to see that a spiderweb bridge led from the opening to a hidden staircase up to the stairs we had entered by. The party decided this might be a second way out if the door we came in by was unopenable.

12) Wakinyan bet Jaicinteleq a copper piece that the glowing red stela was evil, and after Detect Evil was cast, lost the bet--it was not evil. Ademar's dagger had started glowing red when we entered this room too. Jaicinteleq bet Wakinyan a copper piece that the dagger is evil, and Detect Evil declared this one a push--the dagger itself is not evil, but the magic surrounding it is. Ademar didn't care.

13) The party dithered a long time over the grooved stone disk, gathering lots of information from our specialties and our NPCs to no avail. We looked at the grooves under the microscope and were all unable to make anything out. Eventually, when we continued on, we found five alcoves with five smaller pieces of the same kind of stone, still coming up blank. The DM eventually gave us a clue about the imprint looking like a pawprint, and the party realized that the temple had been built around a humungous footprint. We recalled the colossal giant from the Curator's chalice, and hypothesized it may have been the same creature.

14) Once we had all passed out of the first room, a new alcove appeared back there with a statue of a woman nursing an animal in it and a clear wall fountain. Identifying the animal as a na'ama, Jaicinteleq asked whether the woman resembled Namanda, and received the answer that she did although much younger. Recalling the alcove fountain she had found earlier, Jaicinteleq examined the fountain and found a key in the same place as the last key she found, which looks like Namanda's key. However as soon as she approached to try to take it, it disappeared. Wakinyan's spirit guide was able to approach the fountain without triggering that result, and Deucalion was able to move the key telekinetically without it disappearing.

15) Meanwhile, Loic had found the crystal skull the pharaoh was looking for and picked it up. It was full of liquid and sloshed around. We did not open the stopper (although in light of later events, we may want to consider checking its contents.) Picking it up caused a passageway to open in the floor.

16) Meanwhile Wakinyan, continuing on ahead, found a smooth wall which when he touched it, a wall behind him descended, trapping him inside. He then received a vision about the colossal giant, which he has not yet shared the details of with us.

17) The party decided to go through the passageway and look for the rest of the pharaoh's magic items first and retrieve Namanda's key second. After communicating with Wakinyan through his beastmastered hawk, Eekam was able to talk him through opening the wall and letting himself out. We put down pitons and rope to hopefully make it easier for the centaurs to climb back out, and descended.

18) The party emerged in what looked like a giant ant warren. Loic smelled formic acid. There were what appeared to be glowing roots in these tunnels despite being so far from the surface. Jaicinteleq used Friendly Forest on them and learned they were actually vines, of a species common throughout the Xen'drik. There were several pockets of insect eggs down here, which the party chose not to disturb.

19) As we made our way quickly through the warren, a giant insectoid emerged from a hole to attack Loic, but he nimbly dodged its attack and used a plot twist card to do 45 points of damage to it, at which point it retreated and we continued to the other end of the warren.

20) Finally, we emerged into a huge temple chamber filled with a throng of unmoving bronze warriors about 10-12 feet tall. We could see two of them holding the two staves desired by the Pharaoh, and on the altar was a crystal thing which was the fourth thing he wanted. Deucalion detected no animas in this room, but Merkha detected a lot of magic and Leonus believed the bronze warriors were technomantic constructs. Examining the one holding the bronze staff, the two mages determine that there is a spell on it that appears to be containing something within him. Eekam and Aegeia found a bronze funnel on the ground which fits into a hole in the side of the constructs, and Gwen analyzed the funnel, determining that it was not liquid mana that had been funneled through but rather a human soul.

21) Jaicinteleq objected to taking these items, arguing that since we had already acquired one magic item for the Pharaoh we should just deliver that to him rather than steal items whose powers we don't know from people we don't know for a guy whose intentions we don't know, and also that the tactical setup seemed rife for triggering an ambush by 40 armored constructs twice our size. She was outvoted, and the party moved to acquire the three items. The two staffs shrank to human size when we touched them and caused no repercussions when we took them. The crystal, however, remained huge and too heavy to move. Eventually the party replicated their success with the staves by physically moving one of the constructs' hands to the item and then taking it from him. However when they did this, it came to life and pursued them with uncanny speed. At least it was only one of them...

22) Wakinyan tried parlaying with it, telling it that we were not there to steal anything and were just trying to return the items to Akhetenare. Apparently Wakinyan didn't get the memo that we ARE stealing this stuff for Akhetenare, who never even claimed to be its rightful owner, so the construct became even more enraged. Merkha and Loic tried to fight it and were knocked down. Ademar charged, but was unwilling to use his magic sword against it. Wakinyan tried to defuse the situation by putting the bronze staff back into the hand of the unmoving construct he had taken it from, but the one we were fighting took it and activated it, causing stalagmites to spring up behind the centaurs, blocking their path.

And there we broke for the day. We will find out what happens to us next in 2020. ;-)

Onward!