[Completed] The Naroesian Core

[Linwelin]

[info]Party consists of the following characters:
Annia
Wolfrin
Gandin
Callista

After the recent siege on the guild hall, members of the Guild of Galas'nor have been sent out to find better ways of defending. One group of members in particular are chasing a legend. The legend tells of a powerful crystal core that's been formed into one of the purest magical focuses imaginable. Such an item would be able to increase the defensive magics of the guild hall tenfold, plus multiple other uses.


Over months of research, after following multiple leads and stories to their ends, you found that they all led to one place. The snow-covered mountains Naroese, the icy lands North of Korinthia. After much preparation for the journey and border customs, you all find yourselves at the foot of the proposed mountain range. All you could glean from your information gathering after this point was one landmarking phrase.


"Ascend with the spear toward the hands of the gods. Pierce their heart to enter their realm."


This was the only clue you could find on locating and entering the ruins where your target is located. You've solved the first clue after Guild scholars delved into Naroese history, finding that the 'Spear' was in fact a geological growth from the land that was now known as Procan's Pike at the far eastern end of Naroese. It was a play on words, as the sudden river bend there, known as a pike, pointed directly toward the spearhead-like rock formation, which pointed into a mountain range almost immediately. From there it was all guesswork.


Goal: Find the entrance to the ruins, and the legendary core.
Secondary, obligatory objective: Regain funds for the guild to help with repairs/improvements

Reward experience for completion: 400 experience
No inherent gold reward, all wealth gain from loot.[/info]

The party found themselves in front of Procan's Pike after months of travel to the northern lands. They immediately set out in the direction that the Pike pointed, though even with and expert survivalist, the group lost their way slightly. Having taken most of the day wandering through the snowy mountains, the group decided to rest and continue in the morrow. Wolfrin, thinking ahead about the elements of the mountains, used a spell that gave them a warm sanctuary for the evening.

This forethought proved extremely helpful, as they found their dome-like santuary half-buried by snow. It seemed that a blizzard stirred up overnight, which would have spelt disaster for the guild members.

Wolfrin and the group reoriented themselves based on their travel yesterday, and managed to right their course. They managed to spot a quad of peaks they'd seen the day before, but due to their new perspective (looking at them from a different direction), they saw that they were shaped like two hands reaching up to the sky. After some debate, they translated the ancient verbiage from their research as meaning they should be able to find something of interest in the valley between these peaks.

In a few hours' time, the party made their way between the peaks and found a cavern  leading into the ground. Believing that this was their goal, the group entered within its depths. Though the opening had seemed natural and simple at first, they soon saw that the rock walls had become worked stone, which Gandin was able to determine had dwarven origin. They'd found ancient dwarven ruins!

Not long after this discovery, they wandered into a stone chamber. The floor of the room is a room filled with square tile plates that have depictions on them. There are four pictures total, from what you see: fire, waves, rock, and tree. The tiles are 5 foot squares, and the floor is 5 tiles across and 8 tiles toward the opposite doorway. The door, a single round slab made of stone, is closed.

Callista took the chance to attempt to detect magic, which revealed that there is magic throughout the room, leading the user to believe that the floor has a mechanism to it. Callista used her ability to fly to scout over the room. Originally she'd intended to aid the rest of the group in discovering the trick to the floor tiles, but could not focus well enough to note anything of interest, nor memorize anything of importance.

The group then looked around the room more earnestly, perceiving that there are odd metal rods with spheres at their ends on either side of the room. Between the rods on the walls and the floor on which the party and tiles were located, there was a 10 foot wide opening which dropped an indeterminable distance into the depths of the mountains.

After some debate, and trial and error which resulted in triggering the floor's mechanism and shocking Gandin and Wolfrin, the group determined that the pattern that could be safely followed was waves -> fire -> tree -> rock -> waves. The group made their way through the tiles following this method, though the there were multiple paths that ended up looping back or as dead ends. Wolfrin had ended up at a dead end only 10 feet from the other side of the tiled floor, and after testing the tiles around that dead end, leading to being shocked by lightning, decided to jump to make his way there. He reached the other side safely by doing so. However, upon reaching the other side, he noted that the door was locked, without any sign of a lock of door knob. This led him to believe that the tiles needed to be walked across correctly to unlock the door.

Wolfrin shouted back his insights to the remaining party members, Annia and Gandin, who then avoided the route that led to the dead end, correctly solving the floor puzzle. The door unlocked, as was hypothesized, and the group made their way to the next room.

Upon entering this room, it became obvious that something was odd. The air was thin with oxygen, making it somewhat hard to breath. It seemed a major portion of the air had been replaced by another gas, which smelt of rotten eggs and was also making visibility difficult. After some thinking, the group determined that it was sulfur, likely caused by volcanic activity deeper within the earth. Gandin's ability to see better in the dark allowed him to note that the room had a wide pit continuing into the darkness. There was a rock bridge, supported but natural pillars, leading across. At the floor of the pit, after dropping a torch to see better, there was what looked to be tar of unknown depth. The bubbling of the tar explained where the sulfuric gas in the room was coming from. However, the dropped torch ended up catching the tar on fire.

Callista once again flew across as a scout, determining the relative distance across the pit, and confirming that the rock bridge made it all the way across. Following this information, Wolfrin and Gandin made their way across one at a time. About 10 feet into the crossing, there is a slanted portion of the rock, which causes Wolfrin to slip, but he catches himself and continues on. 15 feet after that, the ground gives way beneath Wolfrin, causing him to jump back to safety. With a 5 foot gap in the walkway, Wolfrin decides to jump over it, but ends up missing the jump, falling into the tar.

The tar is only knee deep, but is both acidic and paralytic. However, Wolfrin resists the paralytic effects and begins wading to the other side. Soon after falling in, he hears something else moving through the tar; it turns out to be an ooze that lived in the tar pools. The chase was on as Wolfrin tried to move through the tar and climb the wall before the ooze was on top of him. He managed to climb up successfully to the other side, with his only injuries being minor acid burns.

Gandin, with his pride leading the way, thought he could certainly outdo Wolfrin's jump and make his way across the 5 foot gap, but it proved to literally be his downfall as well. He plummeted into the tar, and succumbed to the paralytic effects it held. Though not complete paralysis, he was left immobile, with the oozes charging at him. The fire started by his torch was also making its way to him; at this point is was a fight with his own body as he tried to overcome the paralysis before every hazard overcame him. After being beset by two oozes, the acid, and the fire, Gandin finally regained use of his legs and made his way to the same wall as Wolfrin. During the struggle, Wolfrin, Annia and Callista were all sieging the oozes, but to little effect.

At last, with about half of his vitality remaining, Gandin made his way up to Wolfrin by climbing, obtaining some aid at the end from his allies. The group had not been prepared for such an event, and thus could not help him earlier than when he was on the wall. Determining that the pathway was too great a challenge, Wolfrin made a bridge of thorns leading back to the first landing for Annia to cross with her horse. The horse took some damage, but it was deemed worthwhile. Callista then took out a healing wand and brought the party back to full health.

The next room, or at least the hallway to it, was a much more pristine portion of the ruins, with crystal sconces on the walls that were magically lit. Gandin, intrigued by the glowing crystals, tore one off the wall, breaking it and the sconce that remained on the wall. As the magical influence was severed as well, the crystal did not continue glowing.

At the end of the hall was a square room that was about 30 feet by 30 feet, supported by 4 pillars near each corner. The entire room was made of a smooth, blue-gray stone, illuminated blue from crystal light of the sconces. In the center of the room is a 2-foot diameter, runed, gem-encrusted sphere on a stone pedestal. Callista once again detected magic in the room, showing that the sphere on the pedestal was the source of magic for the room, and possibly the ruins entirely. Gandin, wishing to touch it, steps forward, but immediately sets off a flash of light upon getting close, which envelops the whole room. Something seemed to be mentally forcing itself onto the party, which Annia and Gandin, along with the druid companion creatures, were unable to resist.

Annia and Gandin suddenly found themselves in a thick jungle, along with Wolfrin's wolf Buddy and Callista's pet Brat, which no recollection of how they got there, nor what they had been doing previously. Upon inspecting the area around them, they saw light coming through from some of the vines in one direction. Paranoid, Gandin shot through the vines a few times, but nothing happened. After a moment, the two of them decided to head through the vines to the light. When they stepped through, they came to an open area with a very shallow lake, surrounding an island with a large, old tree on it. The tree was welcoming, and unable to resist, the two of them made their way to the island. As they both got closer, they felt at peace, with warm and happy feelings enveloping them. Being so relaxed, the two of them sat down against the trunk, with Gandin pulling out his viewing crystal to watch his favored pony show and Annia breaking out her favorite Milliana Jones novel.

Callista and Wolfrin, however, were having a much different experience. The light faded, showing that the stone sphere in the center was aglow with magical energy, and all of their companions were in a trance-like stupor. Their friends were trapped by an enchantment of some form! They tried multiple methods to awaken them, including drenching Gandin in water and using a sleep-breaking spell, but nothing had an effect outwardly. However, the water caused Annia and Gandin to experience a light shower in their world.

While Wolfrin and Callista were trying to figure out what to do, Gandin was suddenly overcome by darkness in the illusionary world, with all his surroundings becoming shadowy in nature. Stalking out of the darkness toward him was a large beast of shadows, its red eyes glowing murderously, piercingly gazing at the dwarf. Though the beast was certainly frightening, Gandin was truly horrified when he saw what it had donned upon its body. Torn apart and worn over its limbs, body and visage were the bodies of the ponies he adored so much. It became obvious that the creature attempted to make Gandin join his friends. The horror was too much to handle for the dwarf, so shocked by what he saw that he couldn't disbelieve it. It reached out toward him, grasping toward him in such a manner that he couldn't steady himself.

With no warning to any of his companions, Gandin ceased to be. He disappeared from beside Annia in the illusionary world, causing her alarm. But in the room with Wolfrin and Callista, the turn of events was much more unsettling. Gandin spat up blood and collapsed with no warning, his face eternally stricken with horror. He was dead.

This set the entire party into a hurried panic. Wolfrin stabbed Annia's foot in a brute-force attempt to wake her, but it did not work. however, in the illusion, Annia's foot was painfully pierced by a root, which she immediately cut and stepped off of.

Wolfrin, using all his strength against the half-ton stone, pushed the sphere off its pedestal, resisting another mental assault as he touched it. The orb fell to the ground, but due to its mass and structure, did not get overly damaged. This action caused a light earthquake in the dream world for Annia.

Callista began to examine the stone sphere, and recognized that it might be a form of puzzle lock. She began pressing the many gems on its face, but was unable to resist the second mental assault and fell to the ground in the same trance as Annia and Gandin. However, her first reaction to the new surroundings was to go invisible and seek shelter.

With this, Wolfrin was the final member not ensorcelled by the stone. he tried to move Buddy and Callista outside the room, but was cut off by a magical barrier. In desperation, he began attacking and launching lightning at the stone, further damaging it. In the illusion, Callista made her way to the tree and saw Annia. After hearing the current events around the tree, Callista detected magic, only to find out that their surroundings were not natural in the least. The entire jungle was magical, and the big tree beside them was the source. immediately they began attacking the tree, which slowly began to shake the illusion's stability. Wolfrin saw that the stone began breaking on its own, which unbeknownst to him was from Annia and Callista's efforts.

Suddenly, Annia also fell victim to the same spell as Gandin. The world turned dark, and figures began appearing face-first from the tree and falling limply to the ground. They were all faces she recognized, and as soon as they began to speak, she realized from where. They were members from her paladin order, all blaming her for their deaths. That all her choices thus far had caused their terrible fate. At the height of emotional turmoil, a demon launched itself from the tree and attempted to clutch Annia's head in its grasp. However, Annia shook herself from this image before it completed, knowing it to be completely false. By disbelieving the new illusion, the shadowy world around her broke, and she returned before the tree, commencing her attack.

The barrage of the party finally proved too great, and the sphere crumbled before Wolfrin. As soon as it broke, the rest of the party was released from the illusion. The sphere had crumbled into dust and small rubble, leaving the gems behind as well as its core, a pure, smooth, crystal sphere about 6 inches in diameter. Callista appraised the gems to be around 2000 gold's worth.

The party gathered around Gandin's corpse, confirming his death. The party took a moment to investigate the rest of the ruins, finding one last adjacent room full of treasure. Luckily, this treasure included an exceptional diamond, which would be needed for the Raise Dead spell. At this find, the party was relieved. They gathered up their loot, and cautiously made their way back through the ruins, which were now disabled due to the loss of magical power.

While Wolfrin and Callista made their way back with the cart of loot and travel goods, Annia rode on ahead with Gandin's body to the nearest town that had an established clerical presence and had Gandin revived.

The group safely arrived back at the guild months later, presenting the core as well as the funds necessary to restore the guild. And of course have a celebration on the mission success!

[info]Mission completion!
All party members receive 1100 gold (500 gold from the gems, and 600 gold as a share from the treasure room)

On top of individual experience rewards from the mission, 200 experience will be rewarded for mission completion.[/info]