08/09/2020 - Arachnid Aggression, Forcefield Frustrations and Actual Archaeologising

## TL:DR

* Keen for a rest, Rocky temporarily retreated back to the Giant City.
* The others forwent a long-rest in favour of a short-rest, and then spent several hours trying and failing to explore the upper levels, notably being attacked by some angry spiders and a zombie fire-giant king. All of this made Azurial quite frustrated as he was super keen to go kill the dragon.
* Descending down some stairs, the group came across some humanoid-sized chambers, blocked with forcefields. Once the forcefields had been dealt with, these chambers provided an opportunity for some proper archaeologising, with the group finding more notes written by the same person as the diary, a strange stone tablet covered in infernal writing, and a chest of highly damaged (conjuration?) spell-scrolls and notes also written in infernal.
* Having carefully stored their finds in the bags of holding/colding, Ves and Breena scouted ahead and a few minutes down the tunnel found a large chamber that was likely where the dragon was.
* Satisfied that from the humanoid chambers they’d be able to hear if Fredericko appeared, the group took a much-need long rest.

## Rocky goes rogue

With the group hovering somewhere between a bit tired and extremely tired, it was decided after much debate that they should take a cheeky short-rest and push on further before committing to a full rest. Rocky was of the opinion that this wouldn’t go well for him, so, with a promise to catch up with the others later, he decided to temporarily pop back up to the Giant City.

## Arachnid aggression

After their rest, the group decided to investigate a small tunnel they had noticed previously when being attacked by the little icy monsters. Despite Narko’s incredible loudness, their journey back into the cavern didn’t provoke any more attacks. At the entrance to the tunnel, Breena noted that there appeared to be old metal tracks running within, suggesting it was an old mineshaft. She also heard some ominous scuttling noises, prompting Leo to question why skittery creatures were in the business of mining?

The tunnel was too large for the giants, and Narko and Leo were always loud, so Ves and Breena agreed to stealth in for a preliminary look. This was short lived, as Ves spotted a massive spider and immediately ran out terrified. Bemused by Ves’s fear, Narko and Leo brazenly stalked into the tunnel, determined to clear it of spiders and see what lay beyond. Ves, Azurial and the giants remained outside as they were not convinced it was a good idea, whilst Breena reluctantly followed on the assumption Narko and Leo would definitely get into trouble and need help…

This assumption proved correct, as having flown across a large ice-spiked hole, Narko and Leo were set upon by several angry spiders. The first spider did a surprising amount of damage to Narko, and also restrained him in its web. Leo’s hammer proved more than capable at squishing the spiders, but hearing more skittering noises ahead, they decided to beat a hasty retreat. Seeing Narko and Leo come galloping back down the tunnel, Breena sighed and sassily asked if there had been too many spiders? Narko replied in the affirmative and asked if she wouldn’t mind throwing some firebombs? Jumping onto Narko’s back, Breena waited until they were near the tunnel exit and let rip with her bomb. This seemed to do the trick, as the chasing spiders slunk back into the shadows.

## Angry giant, angry Azurial

Deciding that the spider-tunnels probably didn’t lead to the dragon, the group headed over to the old staircase they had seen on the other side of the cavern. Convinced that this was where they would find the dragon, Azurial proposed immediately going down. Leo questioned why Azurial was so obsessed with the dragon? Ves countered that Leo was equally as obsessed with Rilifane so this was somewhat hypocritical. To Azurial’s frustration, the others decided to take a quick look at the rest of the top level before going down the stairs. This led them to two further doors. One smaller ajar door with a strange hissing noise behind it, and a larger door that was shut and engraved with gold carvings of fire giants.

Knowing that spiders don’t hiss, Ves was happy to peer into the ajar door. As she opened it slightly the hissing got louder and, fearing a trap, they decided to not push any further. Intrigued by the larger door, Kayalith stomped over and opened them, revealing a huge dining room. Poking her head around the door, Ves noticed another ornate carved door at the back of the room, some rock windows to one side, and a massive red-eyed fire giant sitting upon an iron throne to the other side. Turning its head towards Ves and Kayalith, the zombie-giant king let out a monstrous roar and lurched towards them, its red-eyes glaring furiously. Kayalith and Ves pegged it for the stairs, yelling at the others to do the same. As everyone charged down the stairs, Kayalith, who was taking up the rear, took a boulder to the back, but managed to slip down the stairs before the fire giant rounded the corner.

As the group cowered a few feet down the staircase, they listened as the zombie giant stomped angrily above their heads. But, mercifully, after much furious roaring, they heard it stomp off again. Azurial, who seemed a bit angry, gave the others his best “I told you so you” look and asked if they were ready to stop pointlessly exploring random rooms and instead do the job in hand? i.e. find the dragon. Leo countered that for all they knew the dragon could have been behind those doors, so without the benefit of hindsight it was necessary.

## Staircase chatter

The group continued to descend the highly perilous stairs. Surprisingly, Narko dealt with them quite well, though the same couldn’t be said for Leo who fell several feet and got clattered by some debris. As the descended, they noticed ice crystals beginning to encase the stair walls. Breena suggested that this might mean they are getting close to the dragon, so perhaps they should consider stopping for a rest now? Azurial was keen to try and get close enough to the dragon so that they could hear if Fredericko arrived and thus be able to respond quickly if necessary. The group agreed this was a good idea, but as they were about to push forward several icy tendrils suddenly shot out of the ice and grabbed Ves. Thankfully Leo was on hand to smash the tendrils with his hammer and Ves was quickly freed.

## Forcefield frustrations

Continuing forward Leo noticed a humanoid-sized rectangular wooden doorway in the tunnel wall. This was clearly not a door designed by giants, so the group decided to take a look in case it offered a good place for resting. The door led into another chamber in which were several humanoid-sized tables in the middle, similar wooden doors to the left and right, and a final door straight ahead that shimmered with a strange energy. The doors to the left and right led to simple bedrooms. Narko investigated the forcefield and determined it wasn’t an illusion and was probably some sort of barrier spell. Crossing over to the door, Ves noticed that there was a gap at the bottom of the forcefield just about big enough for her and Breena to fit through.

Squeezing through, they found themselves in another chamber, with a mirror in the centre and another forcefield-blocked door beyond, this time with no gap in the bottom. Using an identify spell, Breena learnt that the mirror was illusion based and only worked when looked upon. Nervously, Ves took a look and saw her own reflection, but with her right hand held up and holding a shard of ice. She and Breena then spent many minutes trying to work out what this image meant, realising that if Ves stepped back and Breena stepped forward it showed Breena holding the ice. However, the ice didn’t seem to point to anything, and couldn’t be melted. Leo suggests that they should try and hold a piece of actual ice to copy the mirror. Ves tries this with some cheeky druid snow but it didn’t seem to do much. Thankfully Leo was on hand to retrieve some real ice from the tunnel and threw it under the gap to Breena.  The real ice did the trick, and as Breena looked into the mirror the forcefield dissipated, revealing another door beyond which was a fancy-looking bedroom.

Back in the first room, Azurial stepped forth to try and squeeze under the first forcefield too. However, frustratingly, as soon as he got close to the door, his weight caused the floor and forcefield to descend, blocking the gap. Stepping back, the floor rose again. Realising it was probably a weight issue, Azurial began the lengthy process of taking off his armour. Narko decided he had absolutely no chance of making himself small or light enough to squeeze through, so set about investigating the rest of the chambers. He noted that everything looked quite old, most stuff had probably been cleared out, and there was no obvious evidence of Iysgarth.

## Actual Archaeologising

Back in the bedroom, Breena and Ves observed a large four-poster bed, a mahogany desk with pages of notes on it, a chest and a large stone tablet. Casting detect magic, Breena noticed two main sources of magic: illusion magic on the apparently blank notes on the desk, and conjuration based magic emanating from inside the locked chest. Suspicious of the blank notes, Breena cast see invisibility and was excited to see words appear in the same handwriting as the Gilded diary. The read as follows:

*“The giants have been surprisingly amiable, for creatures of their arrogance and fiery disposition. Of course, they are greatly wroth at the idea of us leaving the beast here but I simply upped their payments and they willingly acquiesced. They will do anything for their precious ore. I do not fear their fury in any case; nothing we have tried has penetrated the stasis field to harm the beast and though the giants may have raw strength, their cunning is somewhat lacking. And as for the secrets remaining in these chambers, our defences should more than suffice - plus they would never be able to unpick the mysteries of the other items I have retrieved, that still elude even me.*

*Pages 2-3: Key experimental results: In planning for our final test, I have calculated that the ritual of activation for a beast of such power demands a minimum sacrifice of life force by no less than 5 creatures over the duration (though conveniently they needn’t be willing).*

*The artefact appears resilient but not indestructible! It of course shatters any ordinary implement like a delicate ceramic, but magically imbued tools can make their mark. Further, though no ordinary repairs may impact the damage, a sufficient sacrifice of life force appears to restore it fully. Note: Interestingly, I noted that sustaining damage made the artefact’s magic to become more powerful, yet also more chaotic and violent. The results of performing a ritual of activation under such conditions may surely be highly effective if successful and even speed up the process greatly, but the success itself is far from guaranteed.”*

Breena and Ves then turned their attentions to the chest and tablet. The tablet was cracked and broken along two sides, and appeared to be a single part of a once larger piece. The tablet had a strange scaled quarter-circle running through its centre, around which were many lines of glyphs and symbols. Ves investigated these glyphs, but soon realised they weren’t in a language she was familiar with. Excited to be doing some proper hard-core archaeologising, Ves took out her notebook and began to make detailed rubbings of the entire tablet for later analysis.

Back in the first chamber, Azurial had finally stripped off and, with his mighty abs exposed, made his way under the first forcefield and into the bedroom with Ves and Breena. Entering the room, Azurial asked if they’d tried to lift the tablet so they could show the others. Ves and Breena reckoned it was too heavy, but Azurial was keen to show off his massive exposed guns. Sadly though, even Azurial’s mighty muscles proved insufficient for the dense stone tablet.

Moving on from the tablet, the trio investigated the chest, finding it to be locked. However, after searching the room Breena found a crude-looking key that fitted. Inside the chest were two separate piles of loose papers, all of which looked very old and, in some cases, damaged. Lifting out the first stack, Azurial was at first disappointed to realise he couldn’t read the writing. However, glancing at the tablet, he noticed that the writings on the parchments were the same as those on the tablet, and that they were in a script not too dissimilar to Celestial. Thinking hard, it occurred to him that all of the writings on the tablets and papers were probably in infernal. Turning back to the papers, the trio observed that the first pile of papers appeared to be made of very high-quality spell-scroll level paper, that was clearly heavily damaged by magical forces. The second pile appeared to be made of more basic paper, and whilst not damaged by magic, showed very significant levels of decay and disintegration. Realising that they could gain little more information from these scrolls until they found someone who spoke infernal, Ves carefully wrapped all of these papers in a velvet cloth and placed them in the bag of colding.

It was at this point that a very impatient sounding Narko and Leo shouted through asking if there was any way of letting them in. After a bit of investigation, Breena found a cheeky lever under the bed that deactivated the sinking floor and forcefields. Narko and Leo were also unable to read the infernal script on the tablet, but were at least strong enough to lift it into the bag of holding (very much filling it to full capacity). Narko and Leo also noticed that there was a faint magical aura around the tablet, which, like the notes in the chest, were from the conjuration school.

## Scouting and resting

With the bed chambers now fully investigated, the group decided that they would make a good place to rest, but that they should take a cheeky look ahead first to see how close they might be to the dragon.

The job of scouting was given to Breena and Ves (the heavy armour bois had no chance of stealthing), and after 10 minutes of further descent down the main tunnel came to a plateau of debris, on which was a door emitting some blueish light. Creeping forward, Breena looked through the door and saw a massive cavern, in which was a large mechanical wheel suspended 10 ft or so above the ground and a single zombie orc. Keen to remain undetected, Breena crept silently back to Ves, and the two decided to return to the others.

Having described what they saw, the group decided that this large cavern was probably where the dragon was, and that as the bedchambers were close enough to hear any loud noises it was probably a good place to rest. Kayalith then volunteered to forgo sleep in order to keep an ear out, though did request some cheeky healing in return. Breena also decided to forgo sleep in favour of brewing some potions.

With the plan agreed, Ves quickly shot-gunned the four-poster bed, whilst Azurial fed Artax and dispelled him before joining the others in sleepy times.

The next day there was still no sign of Rocky, so the group set-off towards the large cavern, with Azurial telling the others of Bahamut and Tiamat as they walked.