A Journeyman’s Tale,
Exploring Birch Vale
Part 3 – 7th October 2021
The journal of Bori Ironhelm, cleric of Moradin and master of the forge.
Journeyman in the Explorer’s Guild.
Where we are
Down beneath the temple, we had just destroyed a mummy and
its skeletal entourage. We had walked through a massive stone face, which had
opened as we approached, and found a large stone wheel standing upright on a dais
before us. It looked like it could be a doorway, though it didn’t seem to lead
anywhere… it was ruddy mysterious.
Day two – 17.30
The stone circle glowed faintly. As we approached, the glow intensified. Merla examined all around the dais and behind the stone circle but could find nothing of interest. I turned to walk back into the mummy’s lair, and as I did so the light emanating from the stone ring dimmed. Returning to the dais, I saw that it became brighter again. It seemed that I may have something on my person that was causing this – I reached into my pack and drew out the hieroglyphic amulet that I had taken from the fallen mummy. Holding it ahead of me, the glow got brighter and brighter. I ascended the few steps of the dais, the amulet held aloft, and the brightness intensified so much that a shimmering portal flickered into existence within the stone ring.
Such power. I could feel the bristles of my beard extending
towards the shining surface in front of me. There was nothing for it; by this
time the stone face behind us had closed, there was only one way forward, so I grabbed
my companions and we all stepped through the portal together.
Day two – time and location unknown
We stumbled out of the portal into a 15-foot square room. It
was hot and humid. Incredibly hot. Not unlike standing by my forge back in the
hold… oh, how I long to be back there one day. Unlike the dark slabs of granite
surrounding my functional forge, however, this chamber was immaculately adorned
with bright marble on the floor and walls. It was in excellent condition, though
a thick layer of dust had settled on the steps ahead of us and across the
floor. Ahead, a door was barred, with the hinges showing it would open in,
towards us.
There was no indication of where we were. We could have travelled
anywhere through the portal. We kept our guards up, but given the dust it was
fairly clear nobody had been in here for a significant period of time. We slowly
walked towards the door, setting small clouds of dust whirly into the air, then
carefully unbarred and opened the door.
Ahead was a temple, some 35 feet square and 10 feet high.
Again, it was made of lovely bright marble, but was not in such good condition.
Three of the six pillars had collapsed, leaving large holes in the ceiling and
a good deal of rubble on the floor. Some vegetation had begun to grow in here,
and there were dead bodies strewn about the place.
A hot breeze blew in through the holes in the ceiling, increasing
the humidity, and through the gaps I could see volcanic rock behind the fine
marble though there was some void space above us. Grimnir and Merla had begun
to search the corpses as I looked at our surroundings. There were five dead warriors
that we could see:
- One skeleton draped in old, decaying leather armour, clutching a fine great sword that my cousin immediately picked up and started chopping through the air, with a huge grin breaking up his red beard
- Another with old, rusted plate armour, a glaive and some gold coins that we picked up
- A third wearing rotten silk rags, with a knife and a broken scimitar
- One that was clearly non-human, though it was missing a head. This one was wearing robes and the bones looked significantly younger
- Another non-human, which looked like a lizard man, in leather battle armour and carrying a spiked shield, scimitar and broken spear
As we were searching the temple, we were suddenly disturbed
by a booming voice and a globular shape dropped through one of the holes in the
ceiling to hover before us!
Merla recognised the aberration, staring at it in disgust. It’s round, green body was dominated by a single huge, bloodshot eye that sat above an ugly maw full of needle-sharp fangs. The eye darted round the room with unnatural, jerky movements, seemingly paranoid and searching for something. Four tentacles extended from the body, each ending in a smaller eye. Merla’s quiet voice carried clearly in the quiet temple.
“Beholder…” she whispered, but then corrected herself. “Spectator.”
The Spectator slowly circled around us, muttering almost
incoherently. It seemed slightly unhinged, but at least wasn’t immediately attacking
us. I engaged the monster in conversation as well as I could, maintaining a
respectful tone so as to avoid it attacking us unnecessarily. Fortunately,
Grimnir kept his mouth shut, and we were all able to slowly make our way towards
the door on the opposite wall.
From what I could gather in between the incomprehensible
mumbling, the Spectator had been summoned to guard this temple some 3,000 years
previously by some ‘wise Master’. The crazed beast referred to itself as ‘The
Guardian’ and maintained that its master would return. It was concerned about
other guardians beyond the door in the rest of this complex, wherever we were.
As the conversation continued, the Guardian’s grip on sanity
seemed to be slipping and it became more agitated. Although it seemed that it
had been charged with preventing anyone from entering the portal chamber (where
we had emerged from), I felt it could turn violent at any moment. Fortunately, we
had reached the door and we darted through before it could attack.
We found ourselves in a corridor. Ahead was a crossroads –
there seemed to be guard posts to either side, though they were abandoned.
Grimnir led the way forwards. I could tell he had been itching to kill the
Guardian and was angry that I had enabled our escape without violence… I’ve
followed my cousin from the ancestral hold, but I refuse to let his death wish
end me or our Halfling companion when other routes present themselves. Besides,
the summoning of a Spectator takes great magicks, and the opportunity to learn
about one doesn’t happen often.
I was suddenly drawn out of my contemplation by the sound of
Grimnir’s heavy boot crashing into the door in front of us. He nearly took the
wooden door off its hinges as it splintered inward, and he leapt forward into
the room beyond while Merla and I rushed behind to catch him. All I could hear
was his bellowed warcry.
“The big one’s mine!” yelled the barbarian slayer.
Within the room were a host of lizardfolk. I almost had my
head in my hands as I saw more of them running from side rooms, as Grimnir
pointed at a particularly big one holding an axe. Fortunately, the big lizard
man held the others back and talked to us in the Common tongue, with a dry, rasping
voice. I stayed my kinsman’s hand while we talked to the lizardfolk and
realised that they were no threat to us.
The big leader was known as Suryang, of the Basilisk Clan.
They had been hunting the evil serpent men of the Yuan-ti, but now they had
their sights set on the Spectator – they called him ‘One Eye’. The monster had
killed their Chief, Torsh; their Shaman Shosh; and a warrior, Thresh. That
solved the mystery of the non-human bodies in the ruined temple…
It seemed quite clear that these lizardfolk were a
superstitious bunch, and when I used my powers to magically mend a broken knife
that I had picked up in the temple, they were mightily impressed. This seemed
to ingratiate us to them enough that we were fully in their confidence, and
they told us that we were in a place called the ‘Big Crater’. It had been three
moons since they began their hunt for the serpent men, who now seemed to have made
their way towards the Black Pyramid. In response to my confused look, Suryang
took me to an adjoining room and pointed out the window – the sight in front of
me was astounding, clearly reinforcing the tremendous distance we must have
travelled through the portal. Jungle stretched out all the way to a large
mountain range that seemed to encompass the whole area. And, in the middle
distance, a huge and imposing black pyramid squatted malevolently.
Suryang and his people welcomed us to join them by the fire.
We felt comfortable in their presence and I entertained them with more minor
magical displays. They told us more of how Shosh had his head bitten off by One
Eye when the Spectator had suddenly gone crazy one day… apparently, the
lizardfolk had been travelling to this refuge for many years and had never had
a problem with the monster. In fact, Shosh had spent many hours talking with
it. Perhaps old age had addled the Spectator’s mind – they were never supposed
to stay in this plane of existence for as long as it had.
We rested in safety with the lizardfolk keeping guard. I could
not tell what time or day it was, but we needed some recuperation. Once we
awoke, we talked with the lizardfolk again and agreed that we would help them
to slay One Eye and achieve some sort of vengeance for their fallen comrades.
They offered us weapons from their stores, but we didn’t need them.
I spent some time performing the ritual of Identification on
the warhammer head that I had found in the centipede cave before descending to
the mummy’s tomb. It was a glorious piece. Elvish-made (well, you can’t have
everything), but constructed from star alloy. A dazzling material. The enchantments
on it were still strong. I worked to remove the head from my existing warhammer
and magically bonded the haft to this star metal head. As I did so, I ensured
all the enchantments remained in place. Once again, the lizardfolk were
enthralled by the magical display.
When I had finished, I hefted my creation. The dense alloy
should have made the warhammer more cumbersome, but the enchantments offset the
extra weight and allowed me to swing the weapon through the air with blistering
speed. This was truly a wondrous weapon. I named her The Sundering Star and
looked forward to the opportunity to crack some skulls with her. By Moradin’s
beard, I was starting to think like Grimnir…
But the opportunity for splitting one head in particular was
imminent. It was clear that the only way to return to Cydor and our allotted task
was to return through the portal that we had come through. According to
Suryang, no one had ever used that portal, before us, as far as the lizardfolk
were aware, and there were no other portals here. Wandering through an endless
jungle would be of no help, so the only way forward was to go back. And to do
that, we had to get past the mad Guardian. It only seemed right to put it out
of its misery anyway; its master was never coming back, it was performing a
pointless task and, like a rabid dog, it had attacked these lizardfolk. Killing
the Spectator was the only thing to do. Grimnir was more than pleased.
As soon as we were rested, fed and prepared, we led the
lizardfolk to battle. They were all armed with throwing spears, so we suggested
that the three of us would enter the temple to distract the Spectator before
they rushed in and supported us with a volley of spears. If that didn’t stop
it, they could attack with their obsidian blades.
The plan worked like clockwork. The Spectator followed the
three of us round the temple, expecting us to make a dash for the portal room
and not noticing the lizardfolk running in with spears held aloft.
Grimnir was hit by a Confusion Ray from one of the Spectator’s
eyestalks, making him stagger around with a bemused look on his face, but he
soon shook it off. Merla remained hidden behind a pillar, taking pot shots at
the globular creature, while I charged in, eager to use my newly reforged
hammer.
It was Grimnir who landed the final blow, sweeping his great
axe in an immense arc that sliced the Beholderkin in half. I think we were all
just as surprised as the Spectator was when the two halves of its body landed
wetly on the floor and fluid from its split eye splashed all around. An enormous
cheer from the lizardfolk showed their pleasure at securing vengeance for their
fallen comrades.
We were now certainly on their good side! The lizardfolk
gathered what they needed and headed down some steps, where they showed us
their secret – a boat! They travelled on an underground waterway to and from
this place. But, it was no ordinary boat, as Suryang summoned it with three
blasts on a whistle. He gave me the pendant as a token of their thanks. It was
made from the hollowed tooth of a Yuan-ti and, he assured me, was a guard from
death.
We bid our new friends farewell and returned to the portal. There
was no trouble returning to the mummy’s tomb, and we found that the hieroglyphic
amulet also opened the way for us to get back out of the tomb. We took the
necromancer’s body from where we had safely stashed it and returned up and out
of the dungeon, through the gorse thicket, before meeting up with the foresters
who had accompanied us from the town and proceeding down the mountain towards
the original foresters’ camp by the waterfall.
By this time, it must have been well into the third day
since our initial excursion from Birch Vale, and the mysteries were only
deepening.
Day three – late morning, Spring Grove foresters’ camp
As we drew near to the camp in Spring Grove with our entourage of townsfolk, we saw a third tent had joined the previous two. We saw Cydor was there and, more importantly, something was roasting over the open fire. He was pleased that we had returned the necromancer’s corpse, so it could be displayed in Birch Vale to see if anyone recognised it.
After we retold of our adventures, Cydor said he would have
to ponder on what we had relayed but that, in the meantime, he would tell us of
what he had discovered while we were gone. He had examined the poison bottle we
found and concluded it was Heart’s Bane that had been used to kill the foresters
– a fast-acting poison that kills painlessly. This provided some small amount
of comfort to the townsfolk.
It was more confusing as to how the necromancer had come by
the fresh herbs to brew the potion, as they only grow in the west, far from Birch
Vale. Perhaps the necromancer had some means of travelling great distances,
while he was alive anyway… In terms of his movements leading up to the murder
of the foresters, Cydor’s trackers had managed to work out where he had gone
and had charted his course on a map. He had clearly put a lot of effort into
stalking the foresters and taking them by surprise.
Cydor had also received a message from the necromancer’s
elusive confederate, when the raven had returned with a note attached to its
leg:
Alert me immediately the tomb is found and that which we seek secured
F.
We still didn’t know who F was or what exactly the necromancer
was looking for – though, it seemed a safe bet that the hieroglyphic talisman
that allowed transit through the portal was, if not the whole objective, then
at least a significant part of it.
Everything we had described to Cydor indicated that the
Death Cult was involved – the graffiti, the skulls daubed on the temple
mosaics, the creation of a mummy under the tomb. The red ring I had recovered from
the mummy was actually a highly valuable talisman of the Death Cult, symbolising
the eternity of life in death generated by sacrificial blood.
Though Cydor felt an urge to send our findings back to
Island Town, he decided that we were better off looking after the items and
using them to help unlock the mystery of what was going on. He tasked us to
continue following the necromancer’s trail and to try and find whoever had been
in league with the evil mage – this was likely to involve travelling further
into the north, so we had better wrap up warm!
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