Muriel Mines... meep!
Nov. 15th, 2003 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night was Lazar's Friday Shadake game, in which the party was sent into the Muriel Mines *again*. We decided that the name of this campaign, were it to be written up as a module, would be 'Mines of Midreign'. Lazar swore that he hadn't *intended* for us to be always going back to the same dungeon. It was supposed to be a City Adventure.
The day after the meeting with all the drakivolki attempting to apologize was Magic Class, at last, where the horribly burned Lord Mosher instructed the class in how to circumvent mana-dampeners, like Grrlok.
The direct approach (creating real effects -- like creating a real boulder over their head and dropping it into the field) was far beyond their skill, of course, but there were indirect ways to do what you want (use magic fire to blast a rock loose from the cliffside over them). And it was possible to use *some* magic even in a dampened area -- he had Lazarus and Sophie light a match by simply overpowering the effect. It was a struggle, but they managed it. Then he had Kiet put the match out.
After class, Lord Mosher called the trio -- and Lazarus -- to his chambers to speak with them. Apparently, he'd been watching the fortune telling session in which they'd decided to help him against the Argent Claw, because he didn't ask them to help, he just told them to go back into the Muriel Mines, find the Elysian Well (which absorbed magic to do... well, something, but this one wasn't working properly), and fly down *into* it to gather some crystals of pure mana.
Now, pure mana was normally useless, especially in crystal form -- mana had to be aspected before it could be shaped into spells. But he seemed to think that having a crystal 'as large as Tsuru's head' would allow it to act as a materia and do... something. But he wouldn't tell them what. Except that it would be key to curing their Life Teacher (who received a name: Mr. Montegue).
He also gave them 30 feet of weaver-silk rope and a HUMONGOUS set of Wyvern Wings for Tsuru, who'd volunteered to go into the shaft with Lazarus (Lazarus was ordered to go into the shaft to make sure that the three didn't try to take extra crystals). The giant wings would let him carry Lazarus if needed, since falling all the way down into the furnace (or whatever) at the bottom would be bad. The rope was to tie them together, since there was no way Tsuru's arms would carry a drakivolki twice his height and maybe twelve times his mass.
While shopping for some better armor for Tsuru (which wouldn't come in in time for this mission, but he ordered anyway), Asher approached Sophie to give her the reckoning from the last mission for the theives' guild. The green crystals (which she'd accidentally destroyed) were indeed valuable, and she owed them 5000qz as the guild's cut. "Okay. Apply the money from selling the sword to that, and I'll get the rest to you after I... sell the crystals."
So the untouchable trio (plus one) set out for the Muriel Mines, again. Sophie, eager to try out her new spiritual spells, learned from the fiery book, obscured their auras from divination with smoke magic. Except for Lazarus, who she tried to bind to her service (or, rather, to bind him so that he was unable to do anything intended to harm her). Tried and failed -- the spell wild-surged, and, in addition to some flashy side effects, targetted Kiet instead. Taking that as a sign, she went ahead and cast the actual obscurement spell on Lazarus.
They tested it by flying through restricted airspace on the way to the mine, and sure enough it let them slip past the Midreign militia's detection spells. Lazarus disabled the alarms around the entrance to the mine -- which were many and varied now -- and they went inside.
The mines seemed deserted -- and it looked like all the green crystals were gone! Sophie summoned a fire elemental inside a monkey skull that Kiet offered her, bound her spirit to it (temporarily) so that she could use its senses, and had it scout around, but it found nothing. No crystals, no miners...
When they reached the bottom, though, they found that the mines were not completely deserted. A fire demon, in cat form, waited there for them, and taunted them. Not really wanting to fight a demon, they explained that they weren't here to do anything that his master should care about, this time -- they just needed to get... something. To cure their friend.
The cat demon decided to follow them to make sure they didn't get up to any mischief, and they led it to the glowing shaft that Lord Mosher had called an Elysian Well. On the way, they saw many many more zombies than they'd seen before, and Lazarus wondered how so many disappearances had gone unnoticed. Maybe not as many people had died in the attacks as had been thought?
The well was guarded by another demon, this one a mix between a man and a phoenix. It insisted that Flokin and the flaming skull stay outside the room, which was fine with the party, since they'd be in line of sight anyway, and only Tsuru and Lazarus were going down the shaft.
The cat demon insisted on following Tsuru and Lazar down the shaft, despite being warned about what would happen. As he chatted with the pair, constantly urging them to go lower and lower, it became apparent that he was not working of his own free will -- and that if he went *deep enough* into the shaft, which he could only do as part of his duty if the people he was guarding against did first -- the spell binding him would get sucked away.
Tsuru, suddently realizing as he looked at the patterns of crystals on the walls that this was the 'tall tower' that the tea leaves had warned him against entering, and that he was in grave danger, did not want to see what the demon would do if unbound, and stopped, clinging to the wall, and told him that he'd only go down any further if he swore not to harm him or his family. The demon indicated that he was not free to make such a deal, as it would be a betrayal of his master and set off alarms. He also mused that as long as ONE of them was a threat, he'd be forced to follow, and set Lazarus on fire, knocking him out of the air, and dragging Tsuru down with him.
Tsuru, with the giant wyvern wings, was able to keep control of the descent, but couldn't pull up before getting low enough that the demon was freed. It turned into a streak of light and fled.
Tsuru looked for somewhere to set Lazar down so that he could get to the mining tools and retrieve a crystal or two, but the only place was at the very bottom, just over the glowing glyphs that made up the 'furnace', where the crystals were as large as chairs. He set Lazarus down on one of them, then fell out of the sky onto another as his wings were disenchanted, the magic sucked out into the furnace. Checking revealed that Lazarus was still unconscious, but alive.
Meanwhile, at the top of the shaft, Sophie had set her flaming skull patrolling the corridor, and it found that the room where Wesley and the gray walkers had been previously was glowing bright green, and Tormierre was being tortured to death by a pair of white-robed figures! She considered rescuing him -- she could probably just walk away, and the phoenix-man wouldn't follow her, since it was set to guard the shaft -- but aside from fighting off god-only-knows-how-powerful magicians with only her and Kiet, in the process they'd see Tormierre's face, which could mean he'd have to kill them himself. Not a good situation.
Then her flaming skull was stolen, while too far from her to cast spells on it to prevent it, and flew directly to the Argent Claw's meeting room, where it waited to be processed. But the Argent Claw (or at least, the thing inhabiting Wesley's body, which claimed to be the Argent Claw) was involved in a meeting with some of his lieutenants, complaining about his 'visitors' (not actually the party, an actual diplomatic envoy) and the 'rebels' who'd been on his side before, but didn't believe he was really their master.
After listening for several minutes, Sophie cut the link between the skull and her, hoping that her aura obscurement would keep the spell from being marked as obviously hers, or used as a link back to her. She did not want to be the focus of the Argent Claw's attentions.
So then... Sophie and Kiet waited, until the freed demon streaked up and fought with the phoenix just long enough to cripple it and leave it lying on the floor, unable to pursue as the cat made its escape. Sophie and Kiet discussed what to do, while the Phoenix sounded an alarm (that the cat was escaping, not about the party, which as far as it knew were authorized to be there). Sophie finally decided to set the phoenix free as well, and used shadow fire to open a slide under it, dumping it into the well.
Then, seeing the white-robed mages flee past them without noticing, she and Kiet ran to the green room, where Tormierre was beyond saving... but his robe and staff (which were the only things most people knew him by) were not, and there were more green crystals and other items to loot. They proceeded to do so.
Down in the well, Tsuru finally managed to zap Lazarus awake just as the phoenix plummeted down the well and was sucked into the furnace -- apparently, it couldn't fly. Oops! Lazarus managed to climb up to where he could heal his own wings, then the two of them mined three Tsuru's-head-sized crystals (Lazarus wanted one of his own as well -- perhaps he was not the best chaperone Lord Mosher could have chosen), dumped the now useless wyvern wings (they couldn't be re-enchanted, since the enchantment required a living wyvern), and flew up and out of the shaft, where they met up with Sophie and Kiet.
By this time, everyone seemed to be fleeing the mine -- the ranks of gray zombies were all filing out as quickly as they could manage -- so the party decided to follow suit. Sophie had a bit of a scare flying up the shaft -- it was a tight fit, and she managed to snap one of her wings and had to cling to a zombie the rest of the way -- but there was no real opposition to them leaving the mines.
last week
The day after the meeting with all the drakivolki attempting to apologize was Magic Class, at last, where the horribly burned Lord Mosher instructed the class in how to circumvent mana-dampeners, like Grrlok.
The direct approach (creating real effects -- like creating a real boulder over their head and dropping it into the field) was far beyond their skill, of course, but there were indirect ways to do what you want (use magic fire to blast a rock loose from the cliffside over them). And it was possible to use *some* magic even in a dampened area -- he had Lazarus and Sophie light a match by simply overpowering the effect. It was a struggle, but they managed it. Then he had Kiet put the match out.
After class, Lord Mosher called the trio -- and Lazarus -- to his chambers to speak with them. Apparently, he'd been watching the fortune telling session in which they'd decided to help him against the Argent Claw, because he didn't ask them to help, he just told them to go back into the Muriel Mines, find the Elysian Well (which absorbed magic to do... well, something, but this one wasn't working properly), and fly down *into* it to gather some crystals of pure mana.
Now, pure mana was normally useless, especially in crystal form -- mana had to be aspected before it could be shaped into spells. But he seemed to think that having a crystal 'as large as Tsuru's head' would allow it to act as a materia and do... something. But he wouldn't tell them what. Except that it would be key to curing their Life Teacher (who received a name: Mr. Montegue).
He also gave them 30 feet of weaver-silk rope and a HUMONGOUS set of Wyvern Wings for Tsuru, who'd volunteered to go into the shaft with Lazarus (Lazarus was ordered to go into the shaft to make sure that the three didn't try to take extra crystals). The giant wings would let him carry Lazarus if needed, since falling all the way down into the furnace (or whatever) at the bottom would be bad. The rope was to tie them together, since there was no way Tsuru's arms would carry a drakivolki twice his height and maybe twelve times his mass.
While shopping for some better armor for Tsuru (which wouldn't come in in time for this mission, but he ordered anyway), Asher approached Sophie to give her the reckoning from the last mission for the theives' guild. The green crystals (which she'd accidentally destroyed) were indeed valuable, and she owed them 5000qz as the guild's cut. "Okay. Apply the money from selling the sword to that, and I'll get the rest to you after I... sell the crystals."
So the untouchable trio (plus one) set out for the Muriel Mines, again. Sophie, eager to try out her new spiritual spells, learned from the fiery book, obscured their auras from divination with smoke magic. Except for Lazarus, who she tried to bind to her service (or, rather, to bind him so that he was unable to do anything intended to harm her). Tried and failed -- the spell wild-surged, and, in addition to some flashy side effects, targetted Kiet instead. Taking that as a sign, she went ahead and cast the actual obscurement spell on Lazarus.
They tested it by flying through restricted airspace on the way to the mine, and sure enough it let them slip past the Midreign militia's detection spells. Lazarus disabled the alarms around the entrance to the mine -- which were many and varied now -- and they went inside.
The mines seemed deserted -- and it looked like all the green crystals were gone! Sophie summoned a fire elemental inside a monkey skull that Kiet offered her, bound her spirit to it (temporarily) so that she could use its senses, and had it scout around, but it found nothing. No crystals, no miners...
When they reached the bottom, though, they found that the mines were not completely deserted. A fire demon, in cat form, waited there for them, and taunted them. Not really wanting to fight a demon, they explained that they weren't here to do anything that his master should care about, this time -- they just needed to get... something. To cure their friend.
The cat demon decided to follow them to make sure they didn't get up to any mischief, and they led it to the glowing shaft that Lord Mosher had called an Elysian Well. On the way, they saw many many more zombies than they'd seen before, and Lazarus wondered how so many disappearances had gone unnoticed. Maybe not as many people had died in the attacks as had been thought?
The well was guarded by another demon, this one a mix between a man and a phoenix. It insisted that Flokin and the flaming skull stay outside the room, which was fine with the party, since they'd be in line of sight anyway, and only Tsuru and Lazarus were going down the shaft.
The cat demon insisted on following Tsuru and Lazar down the shaft, despite being warned about what would happen. As he chatted with the pair, constantly urging them to go lower and lower, it became apparent that he was not working of his own free will -- and that if he went *deep enough* into the shaft, which he could only do as part of his duty if the people he was guarding against did first -- the spell binding him would get sucked away.
Tsuru, suddently realizing as he looked at the patterns of crystals on the walls that this was the 'tall tower' that the tea leaves had warned him against entering, and that he was in grave danger, did not want to see what the demon would do if unbound, and stopped, clinging to the wall, and told him that he'd only go down any further if he swore not to harm him or his family. The demon indicated that he was not free to make such a deal, as it would be a betrayal of his master and set off alarms. He also mused that as long as ONE of them was a threat, he'd be forced to follow, and set Lazarus on fire, knocking him out of the air, and dragging Tsuru down with him.
Tsuru, with the giant wyvern wings, was able to keep control of the descent, but couldn't pull up before getting low enough that the demon was freed. It turned into a streak of light and fled.
Tsuru looked for somewhere to set Lazar down so that he could get to the mining tools and retrieve a crystal or two, but the only place was at the very bottom, just over the glowing glyphs that made up the 'furnace', where the crystals were as large as chairs. He set Lazarus down on one of them, then fell out of the sky onto another as his wings were disenchanted, the magic sucked out into the furnace. Checking revealed that Lazarus was still unconscious, but alive.
Meanwhile, at the top of the shaft, Sophie had set her flaming skull patrolling the corridor, and it found that the room where Wesley and the gray walkers had been previously was glowing bright green, and Tormierre was being tortured to death by a pair of white-robed figures! She considered rescuing him -- she could probably just walk away, and the phoenix-man wouldn't follow her, since it was set to guard the shaft -- but aside from fighting off god-only-knows-how-powerful magicians with only her and Kiet, in the process they'd see Tormierre's face, which could mean he'd have to kill them himself. Not a good situation.
Then her flaming skull was stolen, while too far from her to cast spells on it to prevent it, and flew directly to the Argent Claw's meeting room, where it waited to be processed. But the Argent Claw (or at least, the thing inhabiting Wesley's body, which claimed to be the Argent Claw) was involved in a meeting with some of his lieutenants, complaining about his 'visitors' (not actually the party, an actual diplomatic envoy) and the 'rebels' who'd been on his side before, but didn't believe he was really their master.
After listening for several minutes, Sophie cut the link between the skull and her, hoping that her aura obscurement would keep the spell from being marked as obviously hers, or used as a link back to her. She did not want to be the focus of the Argent Claw's attentions.
So then... Sophie and Kiet waited, until the freed demon streaked up and fought with the phoenix just long enough to cripple it and leave it lying on the floor, unable to pursue as the cat made its escape. Sophie and Kiet discussed what to do, while the Phoenix sounded an alarm (that the cat was escaping, not about the party, which as far as it knew were authorized to be there). Sophie finally decided to set the phoenix free as well, and used shadow fire to open a slide under it, dumping it into the well.
Then, seeing the white-robed mages flee past them without noticing, she and Kiet ran to the green room, where Tormierre was beyond saving... but his robe and staff (which were the only things most people knew him by) were not, and there were more green crystals and other items to loot. They proceeded to do so.
Down in the well, Tsuru finally managed to zap Lazarus awake just as the phoenix plummeted down the well and was sucked into the furnace -- apparently, it couldn't fly. Oops! Lazarus managed to climb up to where he could heal his own wings, then the two of them mined three Tsuru's-head-sized crystals (Lazarus wanted one of his own as well -- perhaps he was not the best chaperone Lord Mosher could have chosen), dumped the now useless wyvern wings (they couldn't be re-enchanted, since the enchantment required a living wyvern), and flew up and out of the shaft, where they met up with Sophie and Kiet.
By this time, everyone seemed to be fleeing the mine -- the ranks of gray zombies were all filing out as quickly as they could manage -- so the party decided to follow suit. Sophie had a bit of a scare flying up the shaft -- it was a tight fit, and she managed to snap one of her wings and had to cling to a zombie the rest of the way -- but there was no real opposition to them leaving the mines.
last week
