- Loot! Finally, Grant and Ethan have decided to return the Dragons’ Graveyard (first visited in Session 35 Part 3) and look for other powerful items there. After all, if Gorgorin the Shatterer (20 point item) and Ethan’s dragon shield (8 point item) are found there, what else could be there?
Major Characters
- Ethan, Grant, Abbie, Sophia, Macavity, Stolvir, Nibazizjawlei
Adversaries
- The Guardians of the Dragons’ Graveyard.
Adventure Summary
- Time moves on. Two months have passed. Ethan has been spending a lot of time with Abbie. The two of them have reached a new understanding - Abbie doesn’t want to be left behind, and Ethan has decided that he doesn’t want to leave her. They appear to have come full circle, with neither of them wanting to be too far away from the other. Abbie is older and bolder than when she first stepped onto the Stair long ago. Besides, she still has Stolvir and Macavity for protection. Ethan and Abbie go on shorter trips together. The two of them have had plenty of time to talk about the future. Ethan discusses what he has seen with Abbie, and he wonders whether they should take a more active role in dealing with problems on the Stair. He doesn’t expect to have to deal with these problems all by himself. There are others who will help.
- Grant pops in and out of their lives. He has returned to Marindar and his relationship with Sophia. He seems as relaxed as ever in accepting his place in the universe. He was always more comfortable dealing with the other Lords of Gossamer than Ethan and he interact with them on an infrequent basis. Occasionally there is a poker game and Grant encourages Ethan to help him find more interesting ‘knick-knacks’ to use for stakes in their intermittent games. It is this thought that reminds Ethan that he wanted to return to the Dragons’ Graveyard.
- Recalling Nibazizjawlei’s counsel that there is a device there that can reverse the flow of time in Abbie’s homeworld, and restore it to a pre-cataclysm state, Ethan begins to make plans to return to the Dragons’ Graveyard. He does not tell her that such an artefact exists, but presents it as an adventure to acquire powerful antiquities. Ethan wonders if a suit of armour to match his dragon shield lies within the domain.
- Grant is also keen to return and pick up additional items of power. Grant and Ethan prepare themselves well, and enlist the help of Abbie, Sophia, Stolvir and Macavity to help them to prepare. They have Icons ready to use, and Ethan plans to use his last Wish with Nibazizjawlei as a last resort if they are unable to return to the Door by any other means.
- Ethan casts a Divination spell and finds that there is considerable danger but also considerable reward. A Divination spell confirms that Icons will work, but he finds that Farseeing into the Dragons’ Graveyard doesn’t work as the entropic nature of the realm is too strong. Ethan prepares multiple spells and reinforces them with Eidolon so that they decay more slowing in the Dragons’ Graveyard.
- When they feel that their preparations are significantly advanced, Ethan summons Nibazizjawlei and makes his second Wish. He asks the genie to tell him the location of the ten most powerful items in the graveyard, figuring that the ‘time machine’ device will be one of them. Nibazizjawlei thinks for a while and then patiently gives Ethan ten locations in relation to the Door. He wishes Ethan luck, and vanishes in smoke.
- Grant maps out the various locations provided by Nibazizjawlei and they decide that they will try to acquire two, possibly three items on their first ‘raid’. They set up a base camp on a Door within three hundred metres of the Graveyard. The Door opens out from a men’s toilet. The building is a highway hotel with a petrol bowsers at the front. They are met at reception by a strange talking dog who wears a cowboy hat and has the name ‘Roof’ written on a plastic name tag attached to his shirt. Roof is surprised that they have just ‘walked into town without a ride’, but they are offered lodgings nonetheless.
- The Lords of Gossamer prepare Room 4 with food, drink, equipment and medical supplies. Grant makes sure that they have digging equipment. Ethan takes his Eidolon-enhanced axe, a number of other Eidolon-powered weapons and his invulnerable dragon shield. He is expecting a fight.
- Heading to the Graveyard, Grant and Ethan say their farewells and open the Door. The Door is hard to open because of a cave in on the other side. The Lords of Gossamer begin to dig whilst Abbie, Stolvir and Macavity stand guard on the Stair itself. Abbie uses a Warding spell to alert them if anything approaches them. In Marindar, Lady Sophia stands ready to assist in case they need urgent medical attention.
- Grant helps to dig out a small hole as far as he can. He inserts a tube into the hole and then he expands it and reinforces the tube. With only a small section of collapsed earth between them and the outside world, Grant digs the rest by hand. In the meantime, Ethan reaches out with his Psyche to see if there are threats nearby. He can sense something very large, and very close. There are other things out there which are moving, but there seems to be no pattern to their movement.
- Ethan can’t sense another Door here. There is something that he can sense, but it is not a Door.
- He can also sense powerful items nearby which match what Nibazizjawlei told him. The nearest is a few miles away, two o’clock from the Door. Ethan takes out his Icon of Abbie and tests that it still works. There is some interference but it works.
- Reaching the world of dim starlight outside the collapsed mound, Grant goes out to explore in shadow form. He travels out to the rough location that Nibazizjawlei advised, and then contacts Ethan via Icon. Icon accepts the contact and goes through to his position. Ethan and Grant both feel that there is sickness and decay in this place. A wrongness. An incompleteness. Ethan is careful not to use Sorcery or Eidolon lest it attracts the guardians of this place.
* Image sourced from Google Images.
- They travel the last half mile on foot. There is something overhead - the skies are not completely clear. A dark brown cloud provides patchy cover, and Ethan senses something above malevolent above the cloud. He also senses something massive and powerful beneath the ground.
- At last they reach a strange spire which sticks out from the ground. It is only about two metres long, but it looks like a Christian crucifix. It hardly seems possible. Ethan feels the presence of strong Eidolon beneath the surface. Touching the spire, he uses Psychometry to sense what is below the ground that he cannot see. He finds that this is a tip of church, and below there are empty cavities - huge unfilled rooms. On the altar there is something powerful.
- After a brief conversation, Grant shifts into a mole form to dig into the cold, hard ground. Ethan waits patiently while Grant burrows into the chamber below. He uses Sorcery to put a marker on the surface, and then leaves when Grant contacts him via Icon.
- The chamber below is still in pristine condition. Grant finds it uncomfortable due to the strong presence of Eidolon, and he leaves as soon as Ethan arrives. Looking around, Ethan finds a powerful item hidden behind a side panel in the altar. He opens the panel and finds a silver crown. The silverwork is extraordinarily fine. There are tiny jewels worked into the patterns. Ethan can feel the power of this item without evening touching it. Ethan thinks for a moment, and then places another teleportation marker to return to this place. He decides to return to the surface without retrieving the crown, fearful that touching it will immediately cause the guardians to respond.
- Grant and Ethan walk to the next location. Grant can feel an Umbral power beneath the soil. It is not as far down as the previous item, but it is buried. Ethan shivers - he doesn’t want to collect an Umbral artefact at this point. They agree to move on.
- The next location is even further away. They walk on, still feeling strong but very wary. They reach a place which has an Eidolon source beneath the ground. It is a few metres down. Grant and Ethan decide to dig it up by hand, but they notice that using mundane tools still triggers a reaction in the distance. They dig faster and find two shoebox sized wooden boxes with lots of wards on them. Ethan feels that it will be difficult to teleport holding these boxes. Furthermore, they weigh a great deal - it is as if they don’t want to be taken. Grant tries to find the boxes’s weaknesses as they have Eidolon reinforcement on them. He deduces that they require a ‘sorcerous touch’ from an Eidolon user to calm the wards and Ethan does this. Immediately the wards are rendered inert and Grant loads the two boxes much more easily into a bag.
- They Lords of Gossamer decide to split up. Ethan goes to retrieve the crown whilst Grant goes back to the site of Umbral power to dig up that artefact. As soon as Ethan puts his hand on the crown, the ground starts shaking. Even when he teleports to the surface, he finds the ground being sucked away from him like quicksand. He engages a Flight spell and lifts off. Below him, the church seems to be rising, or rather something underneath the church is rising. An enormous serpent head can be seen emerging from the ashen plain - some sort of construct, it is not alive.
- Even as Ethan bolts, something unseen grazes his leg. Fumbling for an Icon, he contacts Sophia as his leg start burning.
- Ethan arrives in Marindar. Black veins are coursing up his leg. There is considerable pain, but he uses Eidolon to stop the spread of the infection. He asks Sophia to contact Grant, and she does so. Grant arrives suddenly via an Icon contact, covered in ash and dirt. He thanks Lady Sophia for the timely extraction - when he acquired the buried black orb, waves of earth rose on all sides and sought to bury him.
- Ethan continues to use Eidolon to purge the affliction which is threatening his leg. He contacts Abbie and tells her that all is well. He brings her through with Stolvir and Macavity to hear what they acquired.
- The first raid is a success.
Other Impacts
- Only one of Nibazizjawlei’s wishes is remaining.
- They have acquired three of the ten powerful items in the Dragons’ Graveyard.
- I’ll detail what is found in more detail in the next session writeup.
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