Play by post anyone?


#405

The Timer drops to 2

In the cells of Durhadda Keep, Furlan and Drath-Y-Tch talk.

Through habit and ancient tradition, they both fall into the Uth Lareeyn – the way of coercion – a kind of formal Elven mind game used during negotiations and interrogations.

Standing, sitting, sometimes kneeling, sometimes walking around one another; the two elven nobles spar with words. Speaking first in common tongue, then Middle-Kingdom Elvish, and then High Elvish they duel with old sayings, Elvish poems, riddles, and recited passages from the Codex Durothrax.

The shards of Iron Heart cross through the night sky and a strong wind begins to gather around Durhadda, the cell grows cold but still they talk, long into the night.

At last, after many hours of questions, logic traps and outright lies Furlan and Drath both slump down exhausted.

“You’re good” Drath croaks through his parched mouth, “Your father must be very proud.”

During the Uth Lareeyn, Furlan has discovered the following:

  1. The terms of surrender were that the entire Keep and its contents were to be turned over, unspoiled, to Duke Greystone – in response the Castellan and all his blood relatives would be allowed to leave
  2. The Greystone forces include around two hundred snow orcs, a couple of dozen local scrub orcs, elven elite sword-dancers, a mammoth, snow wolves, and mercenary pit fighters from Grey (for reference the Keep has around thirty active Lightguard, and the villages about the same number in watchmen militia)
  3. The Duke will attack in the next couple of weeks - planning a small seige takes time
  4. There are no spies in Durhadda, but out in the wilderness is another matter
  5. The Duke has some skill in necromancy and has raised a wraith – a long dead Mage called Yag, for some dark purpose
  6. The Duke has also made contact with some evil of the Outer Dark, a shard of Azatoth and its cult will aid in the assault of the Keep in some unknown way
  7. When Durhadda is taken the Duke will signal that with the lighthouse secured the War-King’s grand fleet can land on the Duradin coast and begin the conquest of eastern Alfheim

Mehrfin and Quildrum return to the home of Amash. The two of them search the house for clues. It seems Amash dabbled in all manner of magic; his home is full of weird trinkets and shelves of esoteric books in various ancient languages.

Quildrum feels something under his boot. He bends down. It’s a scale of bronze armour, about an inch or so across, and it bears a strange marking.

The first clue.

Mehrfin gets the idea to see if anything amongst the wizard’s books will help. After going through several tomes they find a history of powerful mages who lived in the region, and drawings of their personal casting glyphs. And in this book they find a glyph that matches the armour scale. A warlock from a century ago called simply, Yag.

The second clue.

Hurrying across to the lighthouse Mehrfin and Quildrum are allowed into the library by Muel and the two of them pour over any old maps they can find of the region. At last, late into the evening, they find it.

The third clue.

A reference to the ‘Tower of Yag’ and its location, several miles west. Satisfied they know where to go next they retire to bed.

Hykon learns that in other villages along the coast people have gone missing. Some fishermen say the missing people are going willingly, other say the victims have been kidnapped by other villagers, specifically those in mourning for someone they lost. Some say the missing were not taken in boats they were taken to the island under the water by things… things that were once men.

Hykon travels a couple miles up the coast to one particular nameless village. A dreary, waterlogged place of windswept shacks, sad looking villagers and the smell of salty fish on the air. He sees no boats leave but as sunset approaches the fishermen come back and most people drift off home from the shore. Then, from one of the homes walks a young woman, dressed in a widow’s black clothes. She stands on the edge of the shore with her feet touching the seawater, her face bathed in Iron Heart’s light, and she begins to dance.

Off in the distance over the water, Hykon can eventually make out the sound of drums. He watches for a while the thinks he can see shapes moving rhythmically in the water. It gets dark and late. The shapes seem to fade away and the widow turns from the water, her face (quite beautiful for a human) wet with tears and she goes home.

Hykon, seeing nothing else of interest, heads back to Durhadda.

Muel visits the library in the Keep, its not a big room, but the walls are lined with shelves, themselves double stacked floor to ceiling with books. Muel begins going through the tomes. Most of the books are local histories, journals from past Castellans and record keeping.

Eventually he finds a book in red, the author is not given amd it has no title, but it tells of the origin and early days of the lighthouse and the Keep.

It seems the lens was a gift to the Duran dwarves, from an ancient race of travellers who passed through this land a millennium ago. These people were not seen again but they did leave to the dwarves three "Keys’ which could be used to restore the lens should its power ever fade.

Not knowing what else to do with them the dwarves hid these keys away in the vaults under the lighthouse.

Vaults? There are no vaults under the lighthouse! The lowest room is the storeroom cellar! What vaults!?

But it’s late and even with the excitement of this revelation Muel finds himself unable to keep his eyes open, and he too turns in for bed.

Target 9

What do you do?


#406

Muel wakes early to the bells of a tiny Dwarven alarm clock at his bedside, the sun is just rising.
He prepares himself for an underground exploration as best he knows how. He brings a lantern from the Nag’s Inn bedside table with whatever oil is inside, his climbing gear (the heavy canvas bag is almost an article of clothing at this point), and his trusty spear. He steals off from the Nag’s Head Inn to the Keep, and lets himself in to the Library. He grabs the book, and while he’s here he leaves his ruined armor at the armory with a note asking if anything can be done about his precious hand-me-downs. He doesn’t dare take any armor, but he liberates a common dagger and tucks it into his belt before stealing deeper into the Keep.
He consults the red bound book and begins the search, excited to be having an adventure in the most familiar of places!
WIS is +0, my 1d20 came up nat 20!


#407

Quildrum tells Mehrfin “if you don’t mind, I’ll take this bronze Armour to the smithy n knock out any dents.” " if you don’t mind I’ll keep the Armour unless you would line it and I’ll make sure it looks new."


#408

Then before he leaves for the smithy he asks Mehrfin “what shall we do about the this wizard Yag and his tower my friend?”


#409

On arriving at the cellar Muel begins looking around for clues to a vault. At first he finds nothing, no hidden catches or doors. Then he looks down at the floor, at the very old floorboards.

Suddenly he springs into action, moving furniture, shelving and barrels of ale and water back away until he’s cleared a space. Then he starts pulling up boards. Then ripping up the heavy tiles under the boards, and the stones under them!

At last he sees it. The edge of a round door set into the floor. He keeps at it, pulling and breaking his way in until the whole door, 10 feet across, is revealed.

It’s iron, covered in dwarven runes of warning and warding. With two massive hinges on one side. It must weigh a ton!

But how to open it?

Muel put his hand down on it to sit and rest, but the moment he does the runes for “Dwarf” “Duran” and “Blood/Family” glow with blue energy.

The entire door begins to lift open, forcing Muel to jump off.

Slowly the door silently swings open, there is a smell of stale air. Muel leans down with the lamp. Wide stairs lead down into a huge black four-walled chamber. Four passages lead off in different directions. This is no vault, it’s a whole dungeon.

Muel immediately realises this isn’t something he should attempt alone. Fortunately, the day had only just begun.

[OK guys it’s a choice of which adventure to do next:
The Durhadda Dungeon
The Tower of Yag
The Mysterious Island
The Ruins of Kiln]


#410

[@Condorthegreat, sorry dude, its a single scale of armour, only about an inch wide. You need a couple of hundred of them to make armour]


#411

[I think I understand now]
Muel is almost driven insane with adolescent excitement over the discovery of the dungeon under the Keep, but the looming threat in The Ruins of Kiln is too great, even in the face of this massive discovery.
His curiosity temporarily sated, he heads back to meet back up with the rest of the gang.
Muel would almost certainly want to go out to Ruins of Kiln and try to sabotage the orcs plans.
[OOC I’m tryna go to that Island. You can’t put an island in front of me and not expect me to want to go there immediately]


#412

All seems secure here at the moment. I vote for the Mysterious Island.
[on a side note, I’m still in possession of the spider egg. Hopefully all that close attention in my backpack has cause him/her to imprint on me]


#413

[Lmao, Furlan:
:horse::x:
:spider::black_heart:
Spider buddy!]


#414

[call me Hagrid, lol]


#415

[@Smittumi, in regards to your post from earlier, I rolled an INT 16 for the doorway spell. Looks like we were engaged in other activities, so maybe that could apply to some other areas.]

After hearing all the new information, Mehrfin is with Muel in that we should deal with the orc problem first. With the orcs out of the way, Duke Greystone would be hard pressed to take Durhadda.

That having been said, Mehrfin recognizes that Furlan has probably already made a huge dent in the orc problem. He is interested in discussion as to whether we should let that stew for a few days to see what happens, or if we need to press the advantage more proactively.

Regardless, the Tower of Yag could yield certain benefits, he mentions. Not just toward his own learning and progress, but also toward the battle for Durhadda if it comes to that (Magical artifacts come in handy). It might make sense for Mehrfin and possibly Quildrum to investigate the tower sooner rather than later.

Also, with Mehrfin getting better at the doorway spell, he strongly recommends using that wherever we choose to go to create a “fast travel” like experience between sites. This would allow us to come back periodically to check on Durhadda and any new news there without wasting the time for travel, as well as stock up on supplies, call on some of the Lightwatch as needed, etc, to overcome problems we might encounter.


#416

This make logical sense, I agree. I did not think about it from this point of view.


#417

Quildrum believes Mehrfin has a point but, couldn’t checkin out the dungeon also provide some insight and maybe a way to beat the orcs or maybe way to ambush them and fix the lense… maybe we split up… a few tonthe dungeon and the others go see about this tower?


#418

[For transparency, these four adventures or ‘Fronts’ are controlled by a shared timer. Each in-character day that passes I’ll roll 1d4, whichever Front I roll that situation will get closer to a bad resolution. If any Front is rolled 4 times it will resolve: the Duke attacks Durhadda, the lens shatters etc.

Only your actions can stop these events.

I’ll of course tell you, through in-character events, which one I’ve rolled.

Does that make sense? ]


#419

“Sounds like we better split up gents.”


#420

Mehrfin will go investigate the Tower of Yag. He’ll plan on doorwaying back to the inn where we are all staying in the evening to report and hear reports. He’s also very curious to see how Furlan’s imprinting experiment goes.


#421

Who ever needs a hand, I’ll go with that group.


#422

Quildrum will go with Mehrfin or muel which ever i could do the most good…


#423

[got it]
Muel will head out to the Ruin of Kiln to see what he can do to at least slow down the orcs, insurgent style. He knows they’ll be outnumbered, but he tries to recruit amongst his many cousins and welcomes any among his group of adventurers to come along and help.
“Today it’s their village, tomorrow it could be ours.”
Edit: meant to give a CHA roll also: oof, 3+2=5
Muel chokes on his cigar really, REALLY hard and almost pukes, then his voice is all wheezy for the next 5 minutes haha


#424

I’ll go along with Muel to the Ruin of Kiln. Also, I ask the sergeant if he or any volunteers wish to accompany us to deal with the Orc threat.
CHA 14+1