Echoes of past Destruction

[Mirage_GSM]

I’d met a few new faces in the square and was having a nice Chat with a girl named Lea, when Ben shouted for people interested in a nice story. We went to his office, but he wasn’t there, though we met a young girl named De there. It later turned out she was a niece of Archbishop Ka Aylomeingewhatever of Ra.
Anyway, we followed the shouts and finally found Ben in the tavern together with three others Skögul, Vicci and a drow whose name I will surely remember presently…
Ben told us about the Imperial invasion during the Unlife Wars and how he knew very little about how the goblins fared during that time and asked us to go to their valley and ask them some questions. He suggested to ask the King, an old Potionmaker, and One-Eye. He’d also heard about a monastery and a temple there.
We tried to think of some gifts to bring the goblins in return for their cooperation. Lea suggested bringing some herbs for the Potionmaker and I remembered from some old stories that he was very partial to good wines, so I bought a bottle at the inn, and we picked up some herbs at the herb shop.
We had decided to start at the monastery, as that seemed the easiest part, but nobody seemed to know exactly how to reach it and most of the goblins we encountered seemed quite hostile. After a few encounters we were quite beat up and decided to head to the King’s cave first to recover.
The king didn’t seem to like elves very much so I felt it would be better to leave the talking to the humans of our group: Lea and Vicci. De seemed more interested in the King’s trophies, so I kept her close the whole time.
The King charged us 1 copper for each answer he gave. He couldn’t tell us very much, but we learned that the goblins had hidden in their caves during most of the time and he pointed us to the shaman who resided in the back part of the cave. Finally we asked him about his plans for the future, and he said he was going to have breakfast. Sensibly plan if you ask me.
6 coppers poorer we went to the Shaman. There were two altars: One dedicated to Air and the other to the goblin god Glogugul. I’m glad paid attention in Mistress Shanon’s lessons. I think my knowledge of that god was the main reason the shaman was so friendly.
The shaman told us a lot, though he was a bit hard to understand. He said that the orcs had hunted the goblins in the valley, but had only killed the slowest of them. He said about a third of the valley’s population must have been killed in those years. He didn’t know much else, as he - with most other goblins - had spent most of the war in the caves. He also told us that there seemed to have been some kind of agreement between the empire and One-Eye as they seemed to have left each other in peace. What that agreement was about he couldn’t say.
He gave us descriptions to the Potionmaker’s cave and to the monastery, so we left.
We met the Potionmaker in front of his cave. He said it was a bit dangerous to go there at the moment as one of his experiments was in progress. Several explosions in the course of our talk convinced us of the wisdom of staying outside.
The Potionmaker confirmed much of what the shaman had told us. He said the Empire had decided to leave him alone after suffering severe losses to random explosions. He also remarked that One-Eye had been around (and very old) when he had been young. Considering that he was supposed to be the oldest goblin around (a miracle if you consider his profession) One-Eye must be ancient. He also said One-Eye would return every time he is killed and seems to have made an unholy pact of some kind. He is also supposed to be raving mad.
Finally we visited the monastery. We talked to the Abessina and learned about the history of the monastery: When Cerea had been invaded by the Empire and the Ra temple burned to the ground, the surviving monks had taken possession of this old building in the goblin valley to take refuge. Most of the paladins and clerics had gone to the mainland to fight in the wars there (and probably died in the Great Battle of the Plains).
They were not worshipping any god in particular but keeping the memory of Ra alive. During the war they hadn’t ventured out of the monastery and only watched the valley below. The Abessina could not add anything to the stories we already knew besides the fact that sometimes the empire had sent small companies through the valley, but they had never returned. I’m not sure what dangers they might have encountered there, but maybe that is a question for another day.
We didn’t get to visit One-Eye that day. I’m not sure he’d be willing to talk to us anyway… Well we can always ask him nicely and hope for the best.

[Tara]

It seems that some nice purple haired halfling, tried to explore Cerea http://www.cerea2.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=52&topic=347.0 and then she brought all her notes to Benjamin.

He now has a few blanks filled in, but still not any information on One Eye and how he survived the Wars.  He is old, he was old long before the period of destruction began.

So, we set out to talk to One Eye. Everyone seemed to think that I could 'Flatter' One Eye and get him to talk to us.  Personally, I can think of not much to compliment him on... but they told me to talk about how powerful he was and stuff like that.

We got thru the goblin valley, killing alot of the little monsters along the way.  At the gate around One Eye's tent, I hollered out.  The first response was a few goblins to hit us.  But we perservered and Shouted about how 'great and wonderful' One Eye was, and we had come to 'seek his guidance and information'.

He finally shouted for us to come in.

We asked some questions about how he lived through the war.  He said he had a huge army of goblins, they were not powerful.  He showed his power to the black army and they decided not to tangle with him.  His power is coming back to life after he is killed.  I did ask, and he said it didn't hurt when that happened.  Drat, I was hoping it at least hurt him a bit.

He mentioned Ghret.  I remember hearing about an old powerful demon called Ghret.  After he realized what he said, he called for his army to kill us.  We killed him and his army.

Then we watched as his wounds began healing. I could feel an interplanar connection to something... I bet it was Ghret.

Someone chopped off his head and kicked it to the far side of the tent.. that might slow down his reviving a bit.

We went to report back to Benjamin. He had a few notes on Ghret in an old book, but not much.  Seems he is nasty business.  We need to find out about One Eye's connection to this demon.  Maybe a mage or the demon hunter.

The demonhunter knew of Ghret. Said he came to our land and caused havoc. That we need to sever his connection to One Eye.

Pauric in the mage tower was a bit more detailed. He said we would need to know the exact wording used in the pact between Ghret and One Eye so that he could 'counter' it.  We could find out by scrying or tricking One Eye into telling us.

Scrying... I have heard of that.. I would love to learn that skill.


*signed* Lea Tarascon

[Mirage_GSM]

When I entered the printshop to check on Ben there were already quite many people gathered, busily thinking about how to learn the wording of One-Eye's pact.
People seemed to be torn between the options of seeking the guidance of some demon-hunter, searchiing for the legendary Master Sage Dazzle Smallgrake and asking a diviner. As Lea said she had talked to the demon--hunter before and he hadn't been able to help, and nobody had the slightest idea where to start llooking for Master Smallgrake, we decided to stick to the diviner.
As there didn't seem to be any capable diviners in the mage school I suggested trying a temple. The temple of... Am seemed the best choice to me as the Storm clergy was a bit to... distraught to be helpful in this case.
When we got there Alindra couldn't help us directly, but she told us about some diviners she'd heard of:
- There were supposed to have been four witches skilled in the art before the Destruction. They had apparently lived scattered all over Cerea, but nobody knew any details about them. Mom never told me about them either, so I guess they can't have been any good.
- The oracle on Ch'Kar B'Kora... Fat chance she'd be any help... "Oh I've drawn a wolf, that must mean the subclause 112B of the contract goes like this:..."
- A gypsy woman living in the ruins of Cerea. Might be worth checking oout some time.
- The priests of Chondra.
- The Storm temple priestess. Heck, she can't even find her own potions. I wouldn't like to face a demon with a battle plan based on her predictions.
Anyway most of the group wanted to ask the Storm priestess. Personally I still think a wizard with a legend Lore spell or two would be perfect and of the choices we have, Chondra seemed most promising, but Vesper was our closest choice...
Turned out the Storm Priestess couldn't help us at all. She didn't know any of the necessary spells. The visit wasn't a total waste though, as she told us about some mystic who lived somewhere near the corner bar... She couldn't even give us exact directions.
Someone came up with the idea of simply charming One-Eye into telling us the secret, but none of us knew the spell. So we went next door to ask Master Pauric for a scroll.
Master Pauric said One-Eye's pact would probably protect him against such charms. He also said the mystic near hte corner bar was a fraud in his opinion. I do trust Master Pauric's judgement in these matters, but he might still be worth checking out before we run out of options completely...
Master Pauric suggested tricking One-Eye into telling us the wording of the pact... Something like telling him we were going to make a pact ourselves and wanted to compare notes...
Well... the idea had turned up time and again over the day, but De told us the last time the group had tried to "talk" to One-Eye had ended in his decapitation, so I don't think success is very likely...
Still we were getting desperate, so we decided it couldn't hurt to try. We were wrong.
As we made our way into goblin valley we were set upon by hordes of goblins. When the third group attacked us, I blacked out for a moment and De nearly died, so we decided it would be impossible to reach One-Eye today. We'd try again some other time.
After all we're in no hurry. One-Eye has been arounf for more than a century and hasn't been a threat to anyone but other goblins. I'm not even sure we should kill him permanently as he seems to keep their numbers low and their intent focused within the valley. I fear that with him gone they might set their sights on other areas of Derimir as well...

[Tara]

The Demonhunter wanted to know why there was no resolution on the 'One Eye and the Demon' situation.

Umm, well... I guess we had to go talk to One Eye.  We needed the exact wording of the pact he made with the demon in order to break it.

We set out for the goblin valley. Such a pretty valley.  Lots of tall grass and some trees, a few ponds.  Flowers and herbs growing all around. I do love to go there.  If it just weren't for those nasty goblins shooting arrows at us.

We had a large group. Several new friends that had never seen the valley before.  It was fun to show them around and tell them all about One Eye and such.

We approached One Eye, after getting through several hundred .. or so it seemed..  of his minions. One of the new girls, xanasia I think her name was... offered to try to talk to him.  We were afraid he would remember me, and he certainly won't talk to elves or halflings... so we told her to try.

I am afraid she is no bard.  She was a bit blunt.  Just flat out asking what the pact wording was.  It upset him a bit. Then Wulfgar who tried to calm One Eye down.  *rolls eyes* A halfling.  Needless to say, that didn't help.  And to top it off Skogul got sarcastic, saying things like 'One Eye was too old to remember'. 

Ahh well... so we fought off the armies One Eye called to kill us.  Then One Eye took down a few of our folk, so I killed him.

And believe it or not.. De later started giving me a hard time about it !!!  And she was one of the ones on the ground getting her pretty dress all dirty.  *mutter* maybe even torn.

We searched around, found nothing.  Some disturbed dirt but couldn't dig much in the rocks and the hoards of goblins kept attacking, so we left. 

We took the back way through the Marshlands to Vesper.

Now, we have to find someone who can scry.

Oh, I am excited !!  I have heard of scrying. A skill of seeing what isn't in front of you, be it ahead or behind in time. Some people call it malarky.  I think it sounds fascinating !!

I know there use to be 3 witches that lived in the woods, but no idea where. Skogul was convinced this church near Dyoa had some older members who might know where we could find one of the witches.

We made the trip safely and Leanna in the kitchen helped us with some information. And what a lovely kitchen, so big and bright and clean. And the smells !! Ohh it smelled so good. I was tempted to ask for something to eat, I am sure it would be good.  But I was quiet, and polite and didn't ask for food.

According to Leanna, we have a few sources. One was a magician, a charlatan some call him, that lives in Vesper near the Red Lady. Another is the healing priestess at the Storm Temple. The old woman in the ruins of Cerea. Celia, whom is not often around but Tara might be able to help us find her. Or Tara might know of other sources of people with the 'Eye'.

Well, the healing priestess had not been able to help us. She can find lost items sometimes, but cannot see into the past.

So we set out to find the magician in Vesper. We believe we found the right house. At least according to the barkeep in the Red Lady, a weird sage lived next door. 

But no one answered.

[Mirage_GSM]

Hi Lea!
Sorry I couldn't be around to help you, but it seems you were able to kick One-Eye just fine.
Bother that he wouldn't tell you about the pact, but the chances of that were slim from the beginning.
Just a small correction on the witches: Alindra said there were four of them One near the volcano, one in the Greengrove, one in the north of Derimir and the fourth... I might have to check my notes on that one. Anyway there were four.
I hope that helps, as I won't be able to join you next time either.
Yours Sheila

P.S.: Tell De to suck it up!

[kivinen]

Singing and dancing: I told you so, I told you so, I told you so....


De Aylomeignequewizlindonnerwasfin.

[Tara]

We got it !!  We got it !!

First we dealt with that charlatan. That mage that lives next door to the Red Lady. He was not much help.

We went to see him. He said he would help us, if we got a book for him. Seems he had scryed the location of a book he was seeking, and sent someone for it. But that person had gotten surprised by too many orcs and had dropped it and run. We knew he had come out by boat, so we knew where to look.

We went to Orc Valley and found the book fairly easily. Even made it back without too much trouble. But the magical ones among us didn't want to give the book to the mage without showing it to the mage school. De looked at it and said it was evil and she wouldn't read it. But, she told me I might recognize something about it from the stories I knew, so I looked at it.  It almost killed me. Pauric looked at the book and said it was some kind of diary or journal. He couldn't read it.

We decided to honor our agreement and took the book to the mage. He did a scrying to get the wording of the pact between One Eye and the demon, but it almost killed him, knocked him down with a big explosion. He said if he had something from One Eye it would help.

So, we went to goblin valley and retrieved One Eye's jacket. It was a hard trip in and out.

When we took the jacket back, the mage was being all snippy and refused to help us again. He said we were rude. We were all talking and a couple of his questions went unanswered, so he got insulted. Then Wulfgar tried to make him do it, by saying the mage didn't know how to do it. *sigh*

So we went to find Celia. Unfortunately Tara said she had just visited, so she was not expected anytime soon. No idea when Celia would be back. We left a message for her, if Tara saw Celia. Then Tara commented that it would be easier to locate a 'written copy' of the pact.

A written copy? I had never heard mention of such. The Storm Temple healer, Felicia, can locate missing items. We went to see if she could help us find it. She tried but couldn't locate it.  If there was such a thing, it was not within her range. 

I asked her to come closer to goblin valley, but she said she could not leave the temple. But if she had some Ugies weed, she could expand her distance of finding items.

The herbal lady had none, but told us it could be found near the Dyoa River. We went and found some.

Felicia ate some of the weed, and it made her feel funny.  Then she caste a spell and concentrated on what we were looking for.... and saw it. It was in a cave protected by a water elemental.

We had heard rumors of bandits who kept water elementals captive.  That must be why. To protect something.

So we went looking for the cave, and the elemental. We found it.

And the Scroll !!!  It looks like a contract. Signatures at the bottom. I cannot read the language, but it looks like big words and dry long sentences, so it must be something legal.

Though, I do wonder what connection One Eye has with the bandits...

[Tara]

Well, we have done what we can.

We took the scroll to Benjamin. It was the contract, and he could read it. It seemed to be iron clad, no way to break it.

But, a possible way to stop the demon from having an access to our island, our world, our plane.

There was one paragraph in the contract that talked about a gem, that belonged to the demon that One Eye would have. It would be within sight of One Eye. Either at his camp or nearby.

We could not remember seeing any gem. I am sure if we did, it would have been stolen by one of our party long before.

Off we went to goblin valley. I feel like I know that place well now. We fought our way to One Eye's camp, searching along the way. At the camp we examined each tent, the fence on both sides, the ruins, every tree, eyes scanning the surrounding hills. And found nothing. Til I found an herb behind some trees and climbed back to get it. When I stood up, I looked around. And from the hillside far off, I saw the moon reflect in a twinkle of something. Not the near hills, but the far hills to the east.

No one else could see it, I couldn't even see it again. But they believed me, so we headed off to climb some hills.

And high up on a hill top, in the side of an eagles nest, we found the gem.

But when I tried to get it.. demonspawn attacked. I tried twice before I wised up.  Well, OK, so the others stopped me from trying again. I was sure I could be quicker.

We headed back to town and told Benjamin what we found. He recommended Protection from Evil spell. The demon hunter said the same thing, even stressing that demons were 'allergic' to that spell.

So we visited Pauric, and he cast the spell on Wulfgar and I.  And we ran, thru the marshes, back to the valley.  We had only a couple of hours til the spell ran out.

And we got the gem.

We took it back to Benjamin. He had figured out that the demon was of Air, that must have been why the gem was so high up and exposed. So, if we buried it deep in the earth, it should break the link. Or at least make it too hard for the demon to follow.

We debated only a bit. And went down to the old ruins of Vesper under the town. And moved a rock. And dug a hole. Burying the gem about a foot down. Rolling the rock back on top. And marking the rock with a small "L" at the base where it meets the ground. Thus we will know which one, and if anyone moves it.

But I am worried. One of the latecomers to our party talked about her 'price' for the gem. And how if someone offered her 2 mithral, she would dig it up and sell it.

It made me angry. That she would sell the lives of so many innocent people, the peace of our land, the safety of ourselves and our future... for mere money.

[Mirage_GSM]

Hi Lea!
Good Job!
So does that mean One Eye can now be killed permanently?
And concerning the safekeeping of the gem - I've heard dumping stuff into lava at the volcano tends to get rid of dangerous stuff 9 times out of 10. And Lava is molten rock anyway...
Yours
Sheila

[Tara]

It does not break the pact. It should just 'disrupt' the demon's link to our world.